At his indirect command, the sailors of Cotanaku had prepared a number of unusual devices to serve as underwater defenses. Heluna and the others distributed them and explained their function to the assembled adventurers, and Garyung coordinated them, making sure they were spread out over the field.

“Remember to hurry,” Kaldalis added his voice to the chorus as he approached. “We don’t know how long we have before the third wave comes!”

“Don’t worry,” Garyung said, pausing as he sent Balrim and Myrin to the west to add their armful of devices to the far edge of the coast. “That’s the first thing I said once this wave broke and ran.”

Kaldalis joined the brief line to the nearly-empty cart of devices. As they were handed out, Heluna explained to the group what they were.

The first device was a standard naval mine. They only had a few of them, because they didn’t have the materials to reproduce the explosives out here on the frontier.

It looked like something out of a videogame or a cartoon; just a big spikey ball on a chain attached to a small anchor. Kaldalis wasn’t sure if it would actually work against the Infernal Horde, but perhaps they were also governed by videogame logic instead of normal physics. Either way, Heluna directed that they should be placed as far from the town as possible, so that they were far enough under the surface that they wouldn’t be a threat to above water traffic around the town after the siege was over.

The other two devices were much more primitive, and had clearly been made in a hurry.

Kadalis was pretty impressed by the ingenuity.

The first could be roughly described as a bear trap on a rope with a crude stone anchor. Heluna warned that the trigger was a bit sensitive, but the thicker rope and larger stone anchor should mean that it will slow down anything it catches hold of. Not permanently, but enough to stagger the wave to make it easier to handle as it arrived.

Last was a cross between the other two devices: a shoddy wooden shell attached to a thinner rope and stone anchor. The wooden canister contained a potent poison, and on impact it would release a giant cloud of it into the water, afflicting anything nearby with the Poison debuff, softening them up before they surfaced.

When Kaldalis got to the front of the line, Heluna stepped in and directed the sailor passing out the devices to give him all the remaining naval mines, which fit neatly into his inventory so that he didn’t have to carry around a bunch of loose explosives in his arms.

“Trust me,” she said, shooting Kaldalis a smile. “This one can hold his fuckin’ breath long enough to get all this shit set in one go.”

Despite taking on a leadership role as the siege started, Kaldalis didn’t hesitate to do the mature thing and fall in line now. He’d assigned Heluna this task, and it would have been rude to try and pull rank on her during her moment of authority. It also set a good example that even if this was a dangerous chore, the big hero idiot that everyone recognized was calmly and efficiently following orders now. And as he moved on with his payload of mines, it was good to see Garyung flexing his leadership muscles and commanding the situation.

“I’ve got people setting the big mines up on the far left and the far right, away from the docks,” Garyung said when Kaldalis stepped up. “So I want you to go right out the middle. But go out as far as you can handle. I want them so deep that they won’t cause a war crime if the Zarans send a boat.”

“Good thinking,” Kaldalis said, giving a quick salute with his fishing rod.

“And go fast,” Garyung warned as Kaldalis headed towards the water. “You should be the farthest one out, so if they come from this side again, you’ll see them first.” Garyung reached out and grabbed Kaldalis by the shoulder, stopping him. “When you see them, I want you back here, alright? No daring heroics until after they get to the beach!”

“You’re the boss,” Kaldalis said with a nod.

If Garyung had another trick up his sleeve, Kaldalis didn’t want to be the one to mess it up.

Without further instruction, Kaldalis dove into the water again and swam out to sea at speed. It looked like most of the others had been sent out in small squads. He saw one of the other tanks gathering up the local marine life and holding it at bay while a group planted their traps, and he swam past Courbois and Reno killing a trio of shark-like selachnaiads while Ess swam around distributing a large number of anchored bear traps, carefully setting each one once its anchor was secure on the sea bed. Just past them, another group was swimming to the surface for air before coming back down to finish their task - a limitation Kaldalis didn’t share.

They were the last ones he saw before he got out to where the water grew much darker. He kept going until he saw the first glimpse of the giant sireneliana lounging on the deeper part of the ocean floor.

The monster had not been idle since he last saw it.

The whale-sized beast was surrounded by carnage. The brown-gold clamshell at the rear of its body was scratched and dented, and its thick gray hide was scuffed and scratched, but the water here was tinged with multicolored hues of red, blue, and purple that Kaldalis knew were the varied blood colorations of the organic monsters of the Infernal Horde. Scraps of flesh and bone were scattered about, and the bearlike muzzle of the beast was rhythmically grinding as it chewed. Kaldalis watched in a mixture of awe and horror as it swallowed, snuffled around on the sea floor before finding the better half of a Syncoresi carcass and energetically began to devour it.

Carefully - very carefully - Kaldalis swam past the giant monster. He was originally going to place the mines on the near side of it, so that they could serve as a layer of protection in case the beast decided to attack Cotanaku. But he changed his mind after seeing what it had done. Kalalis didn’t expect it to be a trustworthy protector in the long term. But if it was on their side against the Infernal Horde, he thought he owed it to the beast to repay its protection by building his extra layer of defenses where it could benefit from them as well.

After giving the behemoth a wide berth, Kaldalis realized that the nearby area must have been its hunting grounds, as he didn’t have to tangle with any other underwater foes. He did what he could to set up the mines as fast and as safely as possible. They’d been rigged with short chains, so when he placed them this far down on the ocean floor, there wasn’t any risk of any normal ship hitting them.

He only had a dozen mines, and he was forced to spread them out as wide as he could. It wasn’t perfect - he couldn’t make an impenetrable arrangement of them - but if monsters came through this deep, they might get unlucky. And if the carnage surrounding the sireneliana was any indication, it seemed likely that they would come through here in numbers.

Instead of swimming back past the giant monster, Kaldalis swam straight up to the surface. He didn’t need the air, but he didn’t want to be the next morsel that the whale-sized monster wanted to snatch up. As he rose through the water, the darkness started to give way. The water outside of his little bubble of darkvision went from black to a deep dark blue, and gradually grew brighter and brighter by shades. After a surprisingly long time, he could see the sun through the water above, and then the surface.

Even though his lungs were already full of fresh, clean air, Kaldalis still gasped for breath as his head broke through. He was surprised for a moment at how far from shore he was. It was still visible on his minimap, but from out here, bobbing with the waves, the whole island looked so far away. He suspected there were some shenanigans going on with the way the minimap measured distance. Perhaps it expanded as he went out to make sure he could find his way to shore, because he certainly felt like he was farther from Cotanaku now than he had been during any of his jungle excursions.

Regardless, it was time to swim back. Here on the surface he was really aware of his swim speed as his chest cut through the water like the prow of a boat. It took surprisingly long to swim back. As expected, he was the last one back, since he was going from so far away, and Heluna was out on the beach waiting for him, watching expectantly for his return. Everyone else was up on the walls, ready and waiting for the next wave of foes.

“I didn’t see anything yet,” Kaldalis said as he slogged his way out of the ocean. “But the mines are out. I didn’t want to linger in case they don’t come from this side again at all.”

“How far the fuck out there did you go, hun?” Heluna asked, falling in beside him as he moved towards the town walls.

The walls had seen better days, and it looked like the gate had been damaged. Kaldalis could see through a few of the great rents torn through it that it was barricaded from the other side.

“As far as I needed,” Kaldalis answered her question as they crossed the beach. “The mines are out as far as I could get them, by the sireneliana.”

“Fuck,” Heluna cursed. “You didn’t get too close to that fuckin’ thing, did you?”

“I gave it its space, don’t worry,” Kaldalis reassured her. “It’s on our side today, so I didn’t want to piss it off.”

He held out his arms and she stepped into his embrace, putting her arms around his neck. It was a little thing, but the simple wordless expression of intent being silently reciprocated gave Kaldalis a little thrill. He activated his Jump ability and effortlessly launched them both up onto the wall without having to mess with the damaged gate.

“What’s the plan, then?” Kaldalis asked Garyung as soon as they landed.

“We wait,” Garyung said, staring out dramatically at the ocean. “And we endure whatever comes.”

“Just like always, then?” Kaldalis asked with a smirk.

Garyung gave a nod, but it was a little bit grimmer than Kaldalis had expected.