Legendary Sea Creature

Recklessly I outpace the party. I stab the naga clean through its torso but the monster still moves slamming its tail into my left side. I get flung out of the action and my blade pulls from the wound still holding on tightly.

Maybe that wasn’t the best idea.

Brutus moves in right after me and finishes the naga with a clean stroke lopping off its head. It rolls into view of the naga leader. The monster's face contorts in anger and it hisses loudly.

The other naga moves quickly towards Silence but Momo stops it dead in its tracks. She slams her foot on the large snake tail.

“HISSSSSS!”

Momo quickly follows up with a shield bash stunning the naga. She finishes it off with one slam of her club. There is very little left of the monster that is recognizable.

“HISSSSSS!”

Something is not right. Blue light fills the room. The clam shell begins to glow. The stones in the walls vibrate and a terrifying sound rings in my ear.

Silence blasts the monster with a fireball. It burns in agony hissing to its very last breath. I don’t think we stopped it in time. My mind feels hazy. The mist is making everything unclear.

I lift my goggles off and rub my eyes. I feel like I can hear something crawling at the back of my mind but nothing is making any sense.

I look at the others and they are all equally in different states of confusion. Something is telling me I need to be afraid. My gut is churning in fear.

Brutus looks absolutely terrified it is not an expression I thought the orc could make. Is he shaking? I look to Silence only to see them clutching their staff.

Momo has her helmet faceplate down but from her body language I can tell it is affecting her too. No one has spoken a word. Are we just all too afraid to speak? What is going on?

Something is gnawing at the back of my mind but I can’t place it. I turn hoping to–

What is that…

A large pair of tentacles is reaching out through the mist slowly inching towards us. The color is a pale greenish hue with suction cups along the arm. They are massive and they take up much of the maze’s corridor.

Whatever these tentacle arms belong to must be huge.

“AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!”

A high pitched scream pierces through the mist and it snaps me to my senses. I turn to see Brutus fleeing quickly down an opposite corridor. Was that his scream?

No time to think. We need to run fast.

I grab Silence who is frozen in fear by the collar and drag the elf with me.

“Momo we have to run!”

“R…r…right…”

We take off together while I still drag Silence. Even with the extra weight I am able to catch up to the terrified orc. Coming from the left another tentacle.

“Brutus go right!”

The orc follows my direction without hesitation. I have run in these halls. I may not know exactly where we are but I have a good understanding of how the maze works. Since I was trapped down here for hours last time I think I might know how to navigate us to the boss door.

“Go left!”

We move in unison. Dodging more tentacles.

“How many arms does this thing have?”

Clack. Clack. Clack.

Good to know Silence is still with us–

Nope they are passed out from fear and their staff is dragging along. Momo realizes and hoists the elf on her shoulder.

“Right!”

Again more and more tentacles this thing has to be massive. How are we supposed to escape it?

My head is hurting. The feeling turns to a voice and is calling out to me but in a language I don’t understand. It might not even be words at all. I can feel my mental stability start to drift. This is bad. Whatever it is, the monster is overwhelming us physically and mentally.

How are we supposed to defeat it? Can we ever do that?

NO.

What was that?

YOU.

It is my own voice but it isn’t my thought. It feels like it is outside of me.

STOP.

We can’t stop. If we stop we die.

“To the right!”

LEFT.

Shut up!

NO.

The others look like they are grappling with the same problem. The mist is getting thicker. The walls, ceiling, and floor of stone are all starting to meld together. I can’t tell what direction is up anymore.

GIVE UP.

No! I am going to get them to safety. They saved me so I will get them away from whatever this thing is.

DIE.

I have already done that once before. It’s not happening for a very long time!

FUTILE.

“Tai, I don’t know how much more I can take of this…”

“Hang in there Momo it isn’t far! Take a right!”

There in front of us is the boss door. The mist looks to be dissipating as it enters the room. It might be a huge risk to charge into the boss room but maybe we can use this to our advantage. Brutus dives in first sliding across the stone floor.

As the rest of us enter the room it is clear. The mist is gone. There is one problem though.

The room is empty.

Where is the boss?

We can worry about that later.

“Guys turn around and get ready! Whatever was chasing us is going to be coming through that archway!”

Silence has regained consciousness, staff in hand pointing prepping a spell. Their knees are restless. Momo’s faceplate is down, shield at the ready, and club shaking in her grip. Brutus has his blades drawn trembling.

We all stand tense and ready for the horrors that await us. Who am I kidding? We are all terrified. I already dropped my sword twice since drawing it.

Gurgling sopping wet noises echo from the mist in the maze. Something screams out. The noise causes us all to take a step back in fear.

EAT.

“HERE IT COMES!”

Wet noises of some monster sliding on the stone comes from the mist. A monster with greenish flesh with 8 tentacle arms emerges from the haze. I have seen this monster before but not in this world. In video games it always attacks vessels at sea and sinks them to the bottom of the ocean.

Is it a kraken? It must be.

There is one tiny problem about this “legendary” monster

It is no bigger than your average squid.

The small creature continues to move closer to us with a palpable sense of bloodlust.

DIE.

Silence fires a tiny fireball. The monster ignites and burns quickly. They walk forward and poke it a few times with their staff.

What is going on? My mind is more clear and there are no more voices eating away at my sanity. We all look at each other dumbfounded.

We laugh. It was either tears of joy or cathartic release.

We all laugh and take a moment to breathe easy again.

Brutus inspects the monster's remains. He takes something from the ashes.

“Take a look at this, it's small but there is no doubt about it. This is a kraken’s pearl.”

That thing was really a kraken. Are they all that small in this world?

Momo snatches the pearl from Brutus, she inspects the treasure closely with her eye. She looks enchanted by the prize.

“I heard kraken can only be found in deep water. The naga must have done something. This has never happened before so we will need to inform the Guild about this.”

I look around. There definitely is not a boss in this room. Whatever the naga did must have disrupted the natural order of the dungeon. That's a bummer. I was looking forward to seeing the third boss.

Once again a noise stirs deeper in the dungeon. The others look unbothered by it. Am I the only one that hears that? I want to ask but probably shouldn’t. At least not yet.