I stumbled into the bridge and gripped the helm. The enemy ships had just caught up to us, but it seemed like nobody else was aware. I needed to alert the rebels, but how? I cursed myself for not thinking ahead and installing some kind of alarm bell or something.

They would find out soon enough.

From the vantage point of the bridge, I could see the ships all around us, small wooden things that held maybe a dozen old cannons each. As soon as they reached our flanks, they started to fire broadsides into us.

Metal thumped against metal, and while I wasn't tethered to the ship, I didn't need to feel the skin of the hull to know that the cannonballs didn't penetrate. There was no way an old-world cannon could punch through armor this thick. All they accomplished was sending bell-ringing echoes through the halls of the ship, and from the shouting and stomping below, I knew the rebels would start to mount a defense.

It was embarrassing how ill-prepared I was. We only had a single turret in the bow of the ship and no one to man it. Where the hell was Jessie? She should've been doing this.

The bridge door clacked open. Some of the rebel officers had joined me. "What's the situation?" one rushed out. I didn't need to reply. He spotted the black flags all around us, then ran back to his men.

The pirates fired again. Metal thumped and pounded against the hull.

I swung over the helm to try and ram them, but they were too small and agile.

"Redrim," Vil said behind me. "what the hell are you doing? The ship is noisy, and we could use some peace and--" He spotted the pirates and took a deep, annoyed breath.

"Do me a favor," I said. "Man that turret up front."

He pulled himself away and started off. The only turret we had was the 85mm cannon, which was basically the same thing on the tank, just sort of welded to the front of the ship.

Another soldier ran in. "Sir! We can't find the armory. None of us have any weapons to fight back with."

Goddamnit. "It's, uh--"

The pirates fired again. The ship rattled.

"I'll just make you new weapons. Head to the crafting station."

The rebel saluted and ran back out.

This entire situation was a clusterfuck. Nothing was going right.

Work Order

+50 Rifles

+5000 Rifle Ammunition

+200 Grenades

+20 85mm HEAT

It would take a while for the rebels to pass around the weapons, but I hoped we could have an actual fighting force before too long. Now, only a handful of rebels had made it to the top deck, some looking across the passing waves and at the enemy ships. If the pirates tried to board us, we would have to fight them in melee combat.

And right as that thought came and went, hooks were thrown over and latched onto the deck. I turned hard against them, felt a small pirate ship bump away, but it failed to work. Several pirates--who looked like pirates--jumped onto the deck with daggers in their mouths and guns in their hands.

What the hell was Vil doing? Why was he not shooting?

I looked. Vil tried to aim, but the turret couldn't depress low enough to hit the ships.

For fuck's sake.

Dungeon Mode activated.

The top deck shimmered with a faint darkness just as more pirates hopped over. Beneath the bridge, a mob spawner clicked into existence, and from it, recycler-based mobs appeared.

I hadn't much time to go over my Dungeon skills, so I just spawned in as many recyclers as I could.

Dungeon Configuration

Resource Limit: 50,000

Spawners: 2

Dimensional Floors: 1

Mob Tier 1: Recycler (5,000 each)

Current Mobs: 10

The little knock-off recyclers hopped over to the pirates. The enemy shook back for a moment, then braced themselves for a fight. The first recycler dashed in. The pirate--parried!

These weren't amateur fighters. The pirates had done this before.

Vil finally noticed the pirates boarding us and turned the turret to aim, and he fired the light machine gun. One of the pirates met the attack with a manashield, and the bullets plinked and sparked away, damaging literally nothing.

The bridge overlooked the deck and the nearby seas, and I watched the battle unfold from above. My trash can mobs clashed against the dozen or so pirates--growing in number by the second--and soon, my little recycler friends were being cut down.

Incredible.

Jessie stumbled onto the bridge. "Redrim! Sorry, I'm late." She stood by me to watch the battle. It was a mess down there, as the pirate numbers grew even larger, and even with a steady stream of trash can bodies to throw at them, they weren't slowing down.

Luckily, the rebels were finally arriving, and the melee battle was starting to turn into a ranged shootout. Some of the pirates hid behind small manawall shields; others hid behind the mounds of trash can corpses that were piling up.

Jessie chuckled at the sight of it all. "You really fucked this up, didn't you?"

"An unfortunate series of mistakes happened," I said. "I have this under control. I never not have things under control."

"So you only had one cannon and one light machine gun." She shook her head with pity. "Just make some LMGs to stick around the deck. It'll save you a lot of trouble."

"That would help, yes," I said, "but we also need a way to kill the ships. At least the ones too small to hit with the main guns."

A flash of light came from below, along with a pop. It was a grenade, but since it hit the middle of the deck, I couldn't tell who threw it. The situation hadn't got any better. The two sides had put more distance between each other, now firing from behind crates and pieces of twisted hull and recycler bodies, and one of their captains stood at the bow in close combat with--Vil. The turret must've run out of ammo, and now Vil was stranded behind their lines.

Where they fought, sparks of light flashed this way and that, single colors, mixes, flares and sparks, and the captain's magic scimitar dug through the hull of my ship.

I had just fuckin' fixed this ship.

"Alright," Jessie said. "I have an idea for a new weapon, but I'll need supplies."

"Hurry up," I said. "We might not have all day with this."

She told me what she needed, and I put in the order. As she left, the rebel leaders finally arrived. "Admiral Redrim," said the Card King. "What's the situation?"

"Pirates," I said. I stepped to the side door and clicked it open. The wind howled out here, and the sky darkened. It smelled like seawater and rain. "Take the helm," I ordered. "I need to wrap this up before it gets too late."

The old dudes took the wheel, and the Card King barked some orders about our heading.

I climbed up the ladder to the bridge's roof. Below me, a cacophony of shouts and blades clashing and gunfire rattling and bombs going off, and the air was thick with smoke and blood and ash, and as I hopped over onto the roof, I stuck out a few tentacle arms to anchor me into the ship.

Turret Mode (Left) activated

Turret Mode (Right) activated

My arms clacked and reformed into cannon arrays, and I took aim at the poor sons of bitches on the decks below. This would end the battle, here and now.

The skies turned inky black. Rain drizzled. It thundered in the distance, and the seas roughened as the ship pulled out of the channel and into the open waters.

I was no hero. At this moment, I would be the villain. Admiral Redrim, the Manslayer they would call me. Admiral Redrim, pirate eater, Admiral Redrim, person destroyer.

I eased my guns over to the mass of the pirates.

And just when I pulled the trigger--

--massive, fleshy tentacles slammed across the decks.

A low rumble bubbled from the waters beneath us and--how did I not see it--a shadow surrounded us. A shadow that was vaguely octopus-shaped. Something known and talked about only in legend.

The Kraken.