Balrim slowed a bit to let Kaldalis take the lead when the first pale tentacle came into view. It seemed the beast couldn’t set such a fast pace for very long, if they were catching up. Kaldalis saw that the ends of the tentacles that flipped through his field of view appeared to be gripping figures in them - the other adventurers. He led the way towards the nearest tentacle, kicking himself towards it spear-first.

Dylan struck the tentacle head-on, as he had the last time. His damage felt paltry, but it was progress just the same. Every tentacle he got to release its captive was another person to join in in freeing the rest.

In defiance of all physical logic, an arrow sailed over his shoulder and sank into the tentacle. Kaldalis looked over his shoulder in time to see Balrim nocking and firing another with his bow. The arrow sailed through the water as if it was air, sinking in again. Kaldalis knew that wasn’t how arrows should work underwater. But it was working to his advantage, so he wasn’t going to question it too much.

The tentacle he attacked whipped out of his reach, taking with it whoever was in its clutches out of reach. Another tentacle whipped in from the left, lashing out at him. It connected solidly with Kaldalis’s side, dealing a massive sixty-five physical damage and sixteen water damage. Seventy-one total damage was a huge chunk of his hit points, and for a moment he was afraid that the beast was more than he could chew. There was an impact across his back, and he thought he was in real trouble, but it wasn’t another attack. It was Balrim hitting him with a potion, and his health recovered about half of the damage taken. Considering he knew Balrim had a cooldown to work with, he had to try and avoid the damage where he could.

He lashed out at the tentacle, slashing it with the blade of his glaive. It recoiled from the strike, and started to sweep in at him. Kaldalis took advantage of the unrealistic mobility the water gave him and swam upwards, dodging the swing. The end of the tentacle flew through his vision radius, and he saw for a brief moment who was wrapped up at the end of it. It was a tiny suyon with a giant sword.

The tentacle almost swept out of his reach, appearing ready to move out of his range to let the next one swing in, but he wasn’t going to let it go that easily. He thrust his spear after it, hoping to hook onto this tentacle just like when he’d freed Balrim.

The head of the glaive sank in and he felt himself yanked through the water behind it. The ocean rumbled around him as the enormous monster bellowed at the pain caused by his weight dangling from the weapon.

As before, Kaldalis swarmed up the shaft of his weapon to the tentacle proper, looking to get a grip on it, but another tentacle swept in far too fast, blindsiding him. It struck him for another seventy-one total damage, but he still had hit points to spare - not many, but enough. The blow rattled his equilibrium, but he felt a tentacle in the water nearby and latched on with his legs. When his senses returned, he realized he was gripping the wrong tentacle. The spear in his hands was stabbed into one while he was gripping the one that had swept in to smack him. The tentacles started to separate, and for a moment he was torn between the two appendages, about to be either ripped in half or separated from his weapon. He wasn’t too keen on either option.

He twisted the glaive in his grip, wrenching the blade inside the wound, and a cloud of dark blue spread into the water around the tentacle. Instead of a little rumble, this drew a full-fledged roar. The tentacles whipped apart, ripping the spearhead free and getting another tick of Kaldalis’s damage in on the way out. The wounded tentacle whipped away into the darkness, and Myrin tumbled through the water, freed from its grip.

Kaldalis got her attention and gestured for her to come to him as he released the tentacle he was gripping before he could get dragged away. She paddled weakly at first, but seemed to be recovering strength as time passed. He wondered how long she had been flailing around in the monster’s grip.

After another moment, Balrim swam up, catching up to Myrin easily and grabbing her by the shoulder. He spiked a healing potion into her and she shook herself. On the quest UI, Myrin’s displayed health bar - dangerously low already - jumped up to safety. With that, the bar vanished, and reappeared on the upper left of his vision, joining Balrim’s as she joined the party. Kaldalis was about to gesture towards the direction the tentacles vanished - the beast was still holding the rest of the group that had been on the ship, when the ocean went suddenly still. He looked around, trying to figure out what was going on.

The globe of his vision range expanded for no apparent reason besides game drama. He wasn’t usually one to complain about an annoying lack of visibility being remedied, but once the reason came into view, he wished he still couldn’t see more than fifteen feet past his nose.

Tentacles boxed them in. Hundreds of tentacles wove together, blotting out the ocean and eliminating any hope of escape. The walls of tentacles wriggled and writhed, and among them were more struggling adventurers - and more than a few that now laid still. Dozens more tentacles floated freely in the space, poised like aggressive snakes ready to strike the trio of adventurers trapped in the enormous globe it had created. Against one wall was an enormous beak the size of a car, and as Kaldalis stared in terror at it, it snapped aggressively.

It turned out there were boss fights in this game. And they had a flair for dramatic reveals.

The tentacles lashed out, every one of them aimed for Kaldalis. A couple of them had puncture wounds, leaving trails of blue blood through the water. It seemed his earlier efforts had built up enough aggro that Balrim and Myrin were left alone. But he was at only a little above half health, and so he focused on evading the attacks rather than trying to tank them.

He felt like a superhero in the water. The mobility here felt like flying as he darted back and forth and up and down and every which way he had to move to avoid the lashing tentacles. If it weren’t for the half-empty breath bar at the top of his vision, he’d never leave the ocean again. A few arrows sailed past him and into the tentacles as they attacked, and after a few seconds, Balrim had another healing potion he hurled to Kaldalis, undoing a bit of the damage he’d taken earlier.

Meanwhile, Myrin did what she apparently did best. She kicked her way to the wall of tentacles and started hacking away. At first it looked like she was moving to random spots on the wall, but Kaldalis soon realized she was finding the adventurers who were still awake and cutting them loose.

For his part, he started weaving his attacks in with the dodges. He knew that he had to apply some damage in order to keep the beast from turning its attacks on Balrim and Myrin, and so whenever he had a spare moment while kicking through the water to stay ahead of the dozens of lashing tentacles, he whipped his spear out blindly. Most of the blind blows either didn’t connect or bounced off without dealing damage, but occasionally he managed to tag it with a hit. He hoped it was enough. He would have made a more concentrated effort, but there were so many tentacles that he was nearly overwhelmed. If they went for his companions, they didn’t have the forgiving health pool of a tank.

After a few moments, Myrin had cut away about a half-dozen adventurers, and they were joining her in freeing the rest. The finnian healer swam up next to Balrim and added their potions to the talsar’s, topping Kaldalis off easily. Kaldalis also picked out the bhogad tank with the fancy sword and shield as he went around to the unconscious adventurers, cutting them free and gathering them up in his enormous arms, leaving none behind.

When the last adventurer was cut loose, the dozens of people along the walls reoriented, directing their attention at the beast itself instead of the walls. Kaldalis watched as Myrin sailed through the water with her blade swept back, throwing all her momentum into a swing of the oversized greatsword that landed just to the right of the giant beak that snapped in the darkness. She carved a rent into the beast that was larger than she was, and a fountain of blue blood sprayed out of it.

The giant beast’s roar of pain shook the ocean so hard everyone flinched, momentarily stunned. The wall of tentacles unwound itself in an instant, and the beast jettisoned itself away, vanishing into the dark depths beyond even the expanded ring of vision. Distantly, Kaldalis could feel the rumble of its pained keening rolling through the water.

The whole group of adventurers started kicking for the surface. Many of them had been down here for longer than Kaldalis, and his bar was more than half empty now. Some of them had to be getting close to their limit.

Finally breaching the surface of the water, Kaldalis took a huge gulp of air. It felt unnatural that he hadn’t even noticed he was holding his breath, but honestly that being the one unnatural thing in all this was miraculous in itself. The blue breath bar at the top of his vision slowly refilled and he took the opportunity to measure his surroundings. The storm was dying out - or moving on - and all that remained was a drizzle. He could hear the rumble of thunder, but the skies were an overcast grey now, no longer pitch black.

“The ship!” he yelled, drawing the attention of the gasping adventurers around him. “It was badly damaged, we have to-”

The word “help” died in his throat as he caught sight of the remains of the Persimmon. The ship was entirely cracked in two. The front half was sinking, and the back half had been dragged away by the wind filling the sails still on the mast.