The quest text on the right side of Kaldalis’s vision updated as he watched the front half of the ship descending beneath the waves.

Recovery:

The Persimmon is lost, but its contents are not.

Recover Food 0/10

Recover Supplies 0/10

Recover Medicine 0/10

He grimaced as he looked at the list, and then over at the sinking ship. He took a deep breath and started paddling towards the wreckage. Myrin and Balrim swam up next to him, staying close as the rest of the adventurers fanned out. The ones carrying the wounded and unconscious made for the shore, others milled around looking to find their friends to make sure nobody was still missing, but the bulk of the group paddled for the sinking ship in order to secure their survival when they arrived on the island.

Kaldalis, Balrim, and Myrin split up when they got to the sinking wreckage of the front half of the ship. Looking over at the back half still being dragged away by the wind, he realized that it must have been by design rather than chance. There were still people aboard, somehow controlling the tipped-back half of the ship as the wind carried it towards the island. Good for them. But it made it all the more important that they recover as much of this stuff as possible. The survivors would need everything they could grab.

Kaldalis dove down into the water, kicking his way deep into the sinking half of the ship. There were crates, chests, and barrels everywhere, but he wanted to try and raid the ones deepest in the belly of the ship, leaving those closer to the giant opening for those who would come after - likely those recovering from their injuries at the tentacles of the elder nautilobster, and the others who had sidetracked themselves to get those folks to safety. They needed whatever breaks they could catch after being so unlucky.

As the first on the scene, Kaldalis found the hull filled with crates. He moved to the ones farthest back against the interior wall of the stern of the ship. He was glad that swimming was such a breeze, because he had to pull the crates out of the floor-to-ceiling stack in order to open them. The first crate contained a handful of wrapped bundles, and as he picked them up, his quest advanced. Each bundle was basically a smaller box wrapped in oilcloth, about two feet on a side. They weren’t clearly labelled, but that might have been because he was underwater, because his quest seemed to know which was which. Each one vanished after he pulled it out of the larger crate, and he checked his inventory to confirm that the boxes were being added. They appeared in the quest items tab, and this box contained four of the food items, two of the supply items, and two of the medicine items he needed to retrieve.

Removing the next crate revealed that more damage had been done to the ship than he’d thought. There was an enormous gash in the hull behind the crates, and the crate he had pulled out was damaged because of it. He reached into the opening to use it as leverage for prying the crate open, but no sooner had his hand closed around the wood, something brushed against his fingers.

He wasn’t quite fast enough to whip his hand out before it got a hold of him. Milky-white tentacles lashed out and wrapped around his arm. It was another of the smaller nautilobsters, only this one was the size of a terrier. Half of its tentacles were wrapped around its arm, and the other half were busily stuffing salted meat into the tiny beak that was its mouth.

Kaldalis would have screamed and panicked, but he was underwater. So he only panicked. He flailed his arm for a while, slapping the tiny beast ineffectually against the surrounding walls and crates. The flailing didn’t do any damage, and didn’t seem to affect it at all as it feasted on the food it still had in its grasp. The insect like legs scrabbled and clawed at the water for a moment before reorienting and clinging to his arm for stability even as he flailed.

Thrown into even more of a panic by the terrifying crustacean clinging to him, he grabbed his spear and jammed it into the beast’s side. This small creature died almost immediately from the blow, its thin shell cracking apart and blue blood filling the water in the enclosed space. Just the same, Kaldalis kept flailing, flinging the thing away from himself. The physics of the water meant that it just floated there a bit, and as the blinding cloud of blood engulfed the space, he felt it brush against himself again and he flailed with renewed panic, fleeing a good fifteen feet away from the corpse.

Kaldalis glared at the inert body for a moment, and then angrily pulled down a crate that was in front of his new position. He checked over it a little more carefully before opening this one and recovering the parcels within. This one had three food parcels, two medicine parcels, and three supply parcels. He wondered why things weren’t better sorted, but honestly, this was the most videogame-y the place had been since his arrival, so he wasn’t about to complain. He felt like if he did, he was going to have to sit through another two weeks of waiting that would have been a loading screen in any other game.

You just freaked out over a creature the size of a small dog, Kaldalis thought to himself, after fighting an identical creature that was the size of a skyscraper. And after fighting a bunch that were the size of wolves and horses.

He tried not to break anything as he tore open the next crate angrily. It was different. Somehow. The thing clinging to him was different from facing down something huge like that.

No, he could not elaborate.

I mean, people are afraid of spiders and freak out after walking through a spiderweb, he reasoned, when half of the birds and mammals in the forest have knives for hands, but are considered cool and awesome.

It didn’t make him feel any better. He still thought he should have handled it with a little more courage. Just the same, when he found another gash in the wall, behind this new spot, he picked though the crates more carefully, looking for the ones with holes in them. He wanted to avoid them entirely, but he reminded himself that there were more people who would be coming in behind him to recover things. And those people were likely to be recovering from injuries, and having to swim so much farther to get here in the first place. He didn’t want to be a total ass and leave the infested crates for them.

He pulled the crate with the hole in it out and peered into the darkness within. He didn’t see anything. But he sure as fuck wasn’t going to reach in with his hand and find out. Not again. He found himself wiping his hand off on his shirt at just the thought of it. He grimaced, raised his spear, and poked the glaive head inside. He wasn’t aware of any damage dealt, but as he was about to withdraw the weapon, he felt something move against it and he had the sudden vision of a creature skittering up the haft of his weapon and leaping onto his face somehow. As such, he took the only logical response and started flailing the weapon around in the crate. He managed not to scream all the air out of his lungs, at least.

When he was satisfied that the thing inside was dead, he opened the crate, releasing another cloud of blue blood. He used his spear to push the corpse out of the box, and tried to ignore how badly damaged the smaller boxes within were. That was the damage caused by the tiny nautilobster. He ignored that the cuts were large and clean, rather than the little tears the critter could have caused with its beaklike mouth.

Kaldalis had to stop after that crate and swim back up to the surface to refill his breath bar. When he got there, he found that Myrin and Balrim were already done.

“What do you mean you need to go back down?” Myrin asked, incredulous.

“I went for the ones that were the farthest back,” Dylan explained. “I had to swim farther to get to them.”

“Why would you do that?” Myrin waved her arms above her head. “Just grab what’s closest and we can get moving much faster!”

“Just trying not to be an ass about getting here first,” he muttered, “other people have to do this quest, too.” He didn’t wait for a response, instead diving back in and going back to the back of the ship, stubbornly adhering to his system.

He only had to check two more crates to finish off his requirements, and neither had a critter inside. He was glad to be underwater for this. It meant he didn’t have the chance to grumble at Myrin’s comment. It also meant he didn’t have to make small talk with the others who were scattered through the remains of the ship, looting their own quest items. On the way back up, he reminded himself that Myrin was a DPS. She probably just wasn’t used to considering the needs of others.

That put a smile on his face when he surfaced again, and he didn’t comment when Myrin gave an aggravated huff as the trio finally started to swim their way to shore.