Page 49 of Elemental Hall: Nautica
Beside me, Orion and Darius fight for their lives. Orion fights with his trident, jabbing at any kraken that gets too close. Darius is using his control over lightning, crackling with power, sending any kraken that touches him falling back stunned. The two cut and kill, bringing down kraken after kraken.
Still, it isn’t enough. Our efforts don’t seem to matter in the face of so many enemies. The water is dark with their blood and with ink they’ve expelled to try to blind us. I can feel my way through the water, but that darkness forces Orion and Darius on the defensive, holding position near me, not daring to move away. I think they’ve both realized that I’m the one with the power to kill the kraken, that here, my water magic is what can make the difference.
Yet the kraken have power of their own. I can feel jets of water buffeting me, trying to push me into the waiting clutches of the creatures. I can feel them cutting through the spells that the others have put in place, and I know that we might not have much more time.
I focus on clearing the water, transmuting it the way I learned for the poison challenge, turning it into something clear and pure. It means that I can see, butwhatI see is horrifying.
There are kraken everywhere I look. There are too many of them to kill, too many to possibly fight. I lash out with the water again, killing another few, but there are instantly more kraken there to take their place.
I can see that the fight at the surface is still going, the sight of it refracted through the water. I see flashes of light up there, see harpoons lancing down into the water, see kraken falling from above as they die.
But there are still more up there, and they are causing damage. I see Finder Davan dragged into the water, blood streaming from him as barbs rip into his flesh. Worse, I see kraken latching onto the hull of the boat from which Darius, Orion, and I dove. I see them tearing at it, ripping apart the planks forming it, turning it into so much driftwood.
I see figures tumbling from it, diving from the sinking boat into the water. Aria darts down into the sea, moving too quickly for the tentacles that quest for her. Elemental Mistress Halan is at the heart of a group of the others, and I see her concentrating, throwing a protective bubble around them even as kraken lunge in. They cover the bubble, tentacles questing, trying to crush it.
For now, the bubble holds, but I have felt the way that the kraken can wear down magic. I know that, with so many of them, it is only a matter of time before they get through that shield and start to devour my friends.
I start to swim toward them, but the kraken seem to know that I want to save my friends. They come at me in huge numbers, seeking to overwhelm me in numbers that I can’t hope to destroy.
I’m forced to throw up a bubble of my own, holding them at bay, for now. Already, though, I can feel them pushing at the magic, trying to find a way through. Orion and Darius are there, jabbing at them, but there are far too many of them.
I realize in that moment that we’re going to die. We might be able to kill some of them, but there are simply too many. No matter how many we slay, it seems that there are always going to be more.
I turn to Darius, wanting to tell him that I love him, wanting to saysomethingif these are going to be our last moments. But there is no way to say anything here, under the water. All I can do is hold onto him, hoping that he willknowwhat I feel.
Over his shoulder, I suddenly see the seraphin, swimming fast, cutting through the ocean like a knife. The kraken grab for it, but it dodges past them, the water pushing them back from it as it approaches. It reaches our bubble and the kraken attacking fall back from it, at least for a moment.
I reach out for it, feeling its presence beneath my hand, feeling the connection there. I feel my strength growing, giving me more precious energy that I need to reinforce the shield holding the kraken at bay.
Yet I know that it will only hold for so long. There are still too many kraken, and they are slowly leaching away the strength that I’m pouring into the shield. Orion and Darius move to try to reinforce it, but their strength will have limits too. We’ll be able to hold for a while, but is that going to be enough to do anything useful, or are we simply waiting for the end to come to us in the form of tearing barbs and crushing tentacles?
Then I feel something pulsing along the connection between the seraphin and me. It is trying to show me something.
I see it then: a glimpse of the leviathan, the creature that rose from the seabed, causing the seaquake, causing the kraken to swarm. I see its vastness down in the depths, its hide crusted with barnacles, its eyes huge and filled with the knowledge of the oceans.
It takes me a moment to understand, but when I do, hope rises in me.
I want to tell Darius and Orion to hold the kraken off, but there’s no way to do it. All I can do is pull back from holding up the shield, drawing my power back in. I feel the bubble starting to collapse, but I can’t focus on it.
Instead, I close my eyes and reach out through the ocean, feeling for the leviathan, trying to sense its presence. I feel it there in the depths of the ocean, feel its strength, feel its size. I reach for it, sending power into it,callingto it.
It is vast, and it is powerful. I can feel its will, its urge to simply head out further into the open ocean. I can’t let that happen. If it goes, we’re doomed. I call to it again, pouring everything I have into that call, every scrap of power I can summon.
I feel it turn.
I open my eyes and see both Orion and Darius fighting kraken, struggling to keep them off. The creatures are pressing in, and I know that we have mere moments before we are overwhelmed.
Then I hear a powerful, sonorous call coming through the water. The kraken seem to freeze in the face of that call, and a second later, I see a vast shape moving through the water.
The leviathan is… astonishing. Seeing it through my connection to the seraphin is one thing, but this is something else entirely. The leviathan is huge in a way that nothing living should be huge. It is gray on top, lighter underneath, whale-like, but much bigger than a whale, its mouth open already as it sweeps forward.
The kraken try to flee as it approaches, but it is already on them, swallowing them whole, devouring whole clusters of the creatures at once. I can feel its hunger for them through the connection I’ve forged with it, and I plunge into that connection, so that in that moment, the leviathan and I are one.
Its thoughts are as vast and slow as the rest of it, but I ride those thoughts, guiding the leviathan, feeling its body as if it is my own. I flick my tail and send myself forward again, mouth crunching down on more of the kraken. I see humans in my path and I have a moment to realize that I’m looking at myself,then manage to steer the leviathan clear of us, only targeting the kraken around us.
I dive and swoop through the water with more agility than anything that huge should have. The kraken try to escape me, but I follow them, snapping and crunching them in my jaws, killing more and more of them. I see humans darting out of my way and it’s getting harder to remember that I am really like them, that we are the same.
I keep chasing the kraken, keep gorging on them. Some are escaping, but I catch far more. I want to eat and eat, not stopping, not until…
