NOVEL NEXT Chapter 19: Kraken
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Vincent: I came all the way to Mars, and I've spent thousands of hours in bizarre VR worlds with fantastical creatures. But the weirdest thing in the whole world is a toddler.
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Sol 489 FY 26, 15:35 Mars Time, Ghostlands, World's End Server, Sharcliffe (12,127 viewing)
The fortress stood in silhouette against the roiling gray sky, the wind coming in sharp, biting gusts that stung Marie's cheeks as she stood with the others, watching the horizon. The sea had turned restless long before the clouds arrived, its surface rippling and shifting like the muscles of some great beast beneath the waves.
Mars was the first to spot it.
"There," he said, his voice low, almost reverent. His broad hand pointed toward the cliffs, where the water churned violently, boiling white against the jagged stone. At first, Marie didn't see anything—just the spray of the waves against the cliffside, the occasional glint of lightning far in the distance.
And then, she saw it.
A single, massive tentacle, as wide around as a tree trunk and armored in interlocking plates, rose from the water. Its surface glistened, rain-slicked and bristling with backwards-facing spines that dripped seawater. It gripped the cliffside with monstrous strength, the spines sinking deep into the stone and holding fast as the kraken began its ascent.
"Holy…" one of the geomancers whispered, dropping their chalk.
The kraken moved with a terrifying, deliberate grace. The other three towing feeders emerged next, each one gripping the rock and pulling with impossible strength. The kraken hauled its bulk out of the water, its smaller tentacles writhing and curling like a living forest of snakes, probing and stabilizing as it climbed.
Finally, its main body came into view, a house-sized mass of muscle and slick, mottled skin, its bony subcutaneous plates faintly visible beneath the surface. Its eyes, each the size of a dinner plate, reflected the storm like black mirrors, unreadable and ancient.
"By the gods…" Artemis breathed, gripping his earthenware teacup so tightly it cracked in his hands. "It's real."
For a long moment, no one moved. The kraken paused near the top of the cliff, its body pressed against the stone as though surveying the strange, half-finished fortress rising from the sea. Then, with a deep, resonant groan that seemed to echo in Marie's very bones, the kraken shifted.
It extended one of its towing feeders outward, gripping the edge of the cliff, and began to push itself back. It visibly passed the halfway point and slid ponderously, with less grace than before, into free-fall. Its monstrous feeder limbs took up its weight just before it struck the cliff, turning what was a vertical fall into a pendulous arc directly into the cliff face.
"CRACK!" echoed the impact. Debris rained down from the cliffside. Marie thought she saw small runnels of blue blood trickling down the cliff face. She turned to Artemis. "What is it doing?" she asked.
"Breaking its own armor," he told her, his eyes locked on the horror before them. "To molt. It's outgrown what it has, you see, and it's too strong to break naturally."
The kraken was halfway back up to the cliff's edge already, having apparently not gotten what it was looking for from the impact. Marie imagined how tough the beast had to be to withstand impact after impact in an effort to crack its own armor, just to strip it off and regrow it. She loved it.
"Should we attack?" one of the guards asked, gripping his bow.
"With what?" Artemis snorted. "You think it's going to care?"
"It's not even paying us any mind," Mars muttered. "Big bastard probably doesn't even care we're here."
"Think the newly shed pieces are the only weak points?" mused Jaz.
"Don't think we've anythin' big enough to test that theory of yourn," Mars said. "Could be, though."
"Molting's a very long process," advised Artemis. "We may as well all call it a night—we won't be getting anything done with him here."
"Him?"
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
"Oh, if it was a girl, he'd have these whitish fins—it's really not important. What matters is that we need to pack it in for the night."
"On what authority?" Rhea demanded, her voice sharp enough to cut through the howling wind. She adjusted her furs, standing tall despite the cold and the chaos.
Artemis hesitated, his usual confidence shaken as his gaze flicked to the kraken still battering itself against the cliffside. "It's all there is to be done," he muttered, but the words lacked conviction.
Marie stepped in before the argument could escalate. "Rhea, if we keep working, the kraken might see it as a challenge. Do you want to add /us/ to its list of problems?"
The wind picked up, howling now as it whipped through the partially finished fortress. Rain began to fall in fat, heavy drops, soaking through Marie's clothes in moments. The geomancers were scrambling to cover their ritual circles, their chalk lines already smudging as the storm intensified.
"The reagents won't last much longer," warned one of them, shouting to be heard over the wind. "If we don't act soon, the whole ritual will be ruined!"
Artemis took up the call. "If we don't pack up, we'll lose the reagents."
"If you act now, we'll lose no regents and keep with the schedule!" insisted Rhea. Her eyes were glassy with fever, and Marie realized she was likely not thinking clearly.
"Jaz, we've got to go," said Jillian urgently. "I can mute the air enough for takeoff now, but not for long."
"Sorry, Marie," Jaz said regretfully. "Without my ship, I'm not a lot of use, though. Tell me when you need air support."
The two hurried off, and their jewel-toned mini-blimp was airborne a moment later. None too soon: the storm wind picked up, slamming against the tents and pulling at the tarps. The Kraken continued to break itself against the rock. The crew was paralyzed at the sight, and for a long moment, no one spoke. Finally, Mars broke the silence.
"On a schedule, are we?" he drawled. His eyes shifted to the kraken, then to the spires. "Well, I reckon the kraken hasn't read your timetable, Lady Rhea. Maybe you'd like to go explain it to him?"
She ignored him, turning to Artemis. "Conjure the bridge."
Artemis hesitated, his timidity forgotten. "But, my lady, if we conjure the bridge now, the noise—"
"Will be loud," Rhea interrupted sharply. "Yes, I'm aware. But the kraken doesn't care about noise, does it? We won't go anywhere near it, and it can bang its head on the cliff to its heart's content."
"By the authority vested in me by His Majesty, I abjure you to complete your assigned tasks!"
"Hells," cursed Mars as the geomancy circles began to glow with werelight. Marie tended to agree. If this were a simpler game she'd be half tempted to trip the crown representative off the fort's side, just to keep her from making anything worse—but it would feel too real, here.
Her chats had been flashing for a few minutes, unchecked: Marie girded her metaphorical loins and allowed the overlay to display.
> Neopets30: That's a big beastie,
> Stormbringer777: Why is it humping the cliff?
> Randoon_the_wizard: Don't be dense, it's a kraken. It's CRACK-ing its armor.
> xX_snakes_Xx: FFS
> xX_snakes_Xx: BAN HIM FOR THE PUN
She smirked. She couldn't help it.
> Randoon_the_wizard: GOT 'EM!
The geomancers exchanged uneasy glances, but Rhea's tone left no room for argument. With visible reluctance, they returned to their circles, brushing away rainwater and making hurried adjustments to the smudged chalk lines.
Marie watched with growing dread as the ritual began.
The first note of the spell was low, a rumbling hum that seemed to resonate deep in her chest. It grew louder, layered with discordant harmonies that clashed and swirled like the storm itself. The chalk lines began to glow, pulsing with an eerie, bluish light.
The kraken paused.
Mid-swing, it froze, one massive tentacle still pressed against the cliff, its reflective eyes swiveling toward the fortress. For the first time, it seemed to notice them.
"Stop," Marie whispered, though her voice was lost in the rising cacophony of the spell.
The conjuring reached its crescendo with a sound like thunder, and the bridge began to form—a massive structure of shimmering, translucent stone, extending outward from the fortress toward the cliffside. The geomancers gritted their teeth as the magic drained their strength, but the bridge took shape quickly, piece by piece.
The kraken roared.
It was a sound like nothing Marie had ever heard before—a deep, resonant bellow that made her knees buckle and her vision swim. The kraken reared back, its towing feeders flailing, the great armored tentacles drumming against the walltop with brutal power.
"I wonder if it thinks the whole cliff is its territory?" Marie mused aloud. Lady Rhea turned a belligerent face towards her, but she had already turned back to watch the completing bridge. A single span, solid magical stone, the thing seemed glossimer despite being broad enough for three abreast.
The kraken's giant tentacles were deceptively small from the distance: about four hundred feet down from their platform, and their platform was a similar distance offshore. The new bridge was almost a thousand feet, striking the top of the top layer of cliffs, which were themselves about four hundred feet up and thus level on both sides. The kraken's towing feeders, the four longest tentacles it used for hunting and navigation, were a thousand feet long. With that in mind, it being a maximum of six hundred feet away, and a hundred feet different in verticality—they were within range. Easily. Assuming it could support the whole length of its largest tentacles outside of the water.
Marie backed away from the edge.