The tentacle struck like a whip, smashing across the deck and ripping away one of the railings. Riv roared and charged, swinging an axe into the rubbery flesh. The impact was less than it would have been with his club since his class was called Sturdy Clubber, but where the club would have likely bounced off, the axe cut in. Marco took a shot at the kraken's eye, then rushed in to stab the same tentacle before it found a grip on anything.

"NO!" Aethe yelled. "Marco, the wheel. Get on the wheel!"

It killed him to do it, but he ran back to steering the ship as soon as she told him to. He was used to abandoning the maneuvering of the ship as soon as they made contact with enemies, but that was in a situation where they were boarding or being boarded. Here, they'd take every hit the Kraken threw if he didn't keep them moving.

Aethe loosed arrow after arrow, aiming for the suckers. Her judgement there seemed perfect. Each shot that struck home erupted in a spray of blue blood, the monster shrieking and thrashing in pain. Trying to stop the onslaught, the kraken swept a tentacle across the deck, sending splinters flying until Riv planted his feet and met it head-on, swinging the axe underhanded into the sucker-lined tentacle with enough force to split wood. Faced with an unending stream of sharp, vicious pain on its single tentacle, the kraken withdrew two more tentacles it was about to attack with, as if afraid of what might happen if it left them out in the open for the pair to work on.

Marco wheeled the ship hard away from the kraken as the tentacle moved, getting the appendage mostly off the ship and opening up a few dozen yards of space between the ship and the monster. Better, he managed to turn the ship just enough to fix a problem with their angle that was keeping them from doing the only thing that would give them a chance.

“Hold!” Marco yelled. He spun the wheel again, the sails straining as he tried to keep up with the kraken's counter-maneuvers. "Elisa, now! Riv, hold it down!"

Riv obeyed without question, dropping the axe and grabbing hold of the tip of the kraken's tentacle. Bracing his legs against the rail, he held it as still as he could, though Marco would not have been surprised if Riv went overboard any moment. The ship lurched towards the kraken again as the monster desperately pulled.

And then, like magic, Elisa finally managed to steady herself enough to fire the cannon. Aethe, their actual gunner, couldn't help her aim, since she was too busy keeping the kraken in pain to notice what was happening. Not all monsters were smart enough to have tactics, but some of them were. Marco heard enough stories to know that assuming one was dumb just because of how it looked was bad news. Whether Aethe’s actions had paid off or not became moot when the cannon fired, sending a fire-laced cannonball straight at the monster's eyes.

Marco questioned Elisa’s judgment in switching away from her normal electric shocks to fire for just long enough to hear the cannonball thud into the kraken and hiss. It was clear as soon as that happened that it was the right choice. Riv let go of the tentacle as the the monster suddenly jerked away at full force, freeing it up to roar in pain and terror. It let loose five of those bellows before rising high in the water, stilling itself, and preparing all its tentacles for another smash.

The kraken would have split the ship apart with just a few of those strikes if any of them were ever thrown. They weren't. In the time it took to gather itself for that assault, Elisa had managed to charge up another cannon shot, loaded by the now freed-up Riv. Aethe shot another arrow with her bow, punching a hole in the squid's face. Elisa's hit nearby, filling the air with the smell of hot sea as it cooked the monster’s flesh.

The kraken had finally had enough. Thrashing a few more times, it began to sink below the water.

"Elisa! Stop it!" Marco yelled. "Get me a few seconds!"

"On it!" Elisa's hands glowed with lightning as Riv reloaded the cannon. "Here it comes!"

The kraken had managed to sink almost below the waterline when the ball caught on what amounted to its squid-like forehead. The shock held it in place just long enough for Marco to wheel the ship around. The wind was in his favor, and he put every bit of his skill he could into overdriving the speed as he raced to catch the monster before it got too deep.

The kraken was underwater when Marco got his wish, but that was even better. His ship was not a normal one. That had been true since the first time his class took in a monster-based Conquest, adding an oddly effective ramming enhancement taken from a beast called a Bladefish. The ship had then been built up using a ship upgrade focused on making ramming work even better, refining all the angles of the ship to be sharper, sleeker, and more blade-like from its pointed prow all the way to its stern.

The ship shuddered violently and bucked nearly out of the water as it ramped over the submerged squid. The water turned even more blue from blood as everyone in the crew watched for activity. There was really no telling how much damage this thing could take. Size was often power, but not always. The kraken had taken repeated cannon shots in addition to tons of nicks and scratches from the crew, which had to have done something to it. The question was just if it was enough.

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Marco wheeled the ship around again as the water roiled and broke, one huge tentacle breaching the water and stretching far up into the air above the ship.

"HOLD ON!" he screamed, trying to get the ship out of the way.

Riv grabbed Elisa and the cannon mount nearest him as Aethe sought cover behind the mast. None of these spots would be safe enough if it came down with all that force. The earlier tentacle attacks had smashed through wood where it was thin enough and warped other planks where it wasn't. If this hit came down, there was no telling if the ship would survive, let alone them.

The tentacle hovered in the air for a few seconds, then went limp.

"Uhh…" Riv scowled, then turned to Marco. "That was different."

+

Gluttonous Marauder reaches level 27!

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"Different in a good way. The system says it's dead," Marco said. "Whew."

"Whew indeed." Aethe walked up to Marco and laid her head on his shoulder. "I thought we might not get away this time. That was a close one."

"Close indeed. That was a hard fight," Marco said. "Although I'm a bit more worried about the ship right now."

"Most of the rail ended up on the deck." Riv picked up a piece about the length of his arm and tried to fit it against the broken boards. "I can get most of this back in place, but we are going to need repair materials. It would be nice if we found an island sooner than later. We won't survive another fight like that."

"Well, don't try right now." Marco waved towards the entrance to their sleeping quarters. "Hit the bunks. I'll hurry things up as much as I can tonight. In the morning, if we haven't found anything, we can talk about options."

—

Marco didn’t see anything until almost dawn.

The night had been long and choppy; the kraken fight left the deck messy and his nerves frayed. He kept his promise to the crew, though. As long and tense as the night had felt, he had kept himself awake and watched like a hawk for anything that could help them.

He’d kept his eyes open until the eastern sky started to turn pink in the east. There had been nothing. Then, just as the light crested enough to see more than silhouettes, an island finally appeared.

Marco blinked. Then again. It was definitely there, despite not having been there a moment ago. It wasn't even far. It was so close, in fact, that he was in immediate danger of hitting it if nothing changed. He wheeled the ship to the side hard, managing to burn off enough speed to bring the ship to a near-stop before bashing into any shorelines.

The same sense of direction that had been guiding them since the temple twitched hard in his gut. This was the place.

Marco roused the others as fast as he could. Aethe was first on deck, bleary-eyed but alert the second he pointed. Elisa followed with her journal already in hand, scribbling notes on position and time. Riv groaned as he stumbled out of the quarters, dragging his tool bucket behind him like a sleepy bear.

"It's definitely the one, right?" Marco looked to the crew. "It feels like it."

"If it's not, then nothing is." Riv rubbed his eyes. "Even if it wasn't, it's good news. It has trees."

They approached slowly. The water around the island was surprisingly calm, and as they got closer, they saw that the entire northeastern cove of the island was ringed by floating logs. The wood was pale, stripped of bark, and oddly uniform. Lumber, Marco realized. Tons of it.

"Those aren’t natural," Elisa said. “Someone’s been working out here.”

"No kidding. But who cuts logs? Then leaves them in the ocean? Are we dealing with a shipwreck?"

Riv shook his head.

"I have a bit of an eye for quality, and there's nothing special about these logs. It's better than firewood, but not by much. Nobody would bother to drag this stuff,” Riv said.

“Looks recent.” Aethe added to the confusion. “None of this wood has barnacles. It's not even that rotted."

Riv leaned over the side and tapped a bobbing log with a pole. “Still rotted, though. We can do better ourselves with the stuff that's on land."

The ship nudged its way through the floating logs and found a patch of shoreline clear enough to anchor near. Aethe was first off the ship, boots silent as she landed lightly on the stone. Riv followed a good deal more clunkily, and Elisa followed last. Her eyes swept the tree line, her fingers flexing like she expected something to pop out any moment.

Nothing did. The island was quiet.

They stood there, taking it in. The forest was thick, but not impenetrable. A path—not a natural trail, but something intentional—ran up into the green from where they landed, wide enough for a cart.

Marco’s gut twisted again. It was stronger than before.

“That way,” he said. “It’s definitely that way.”

“Another temple?” Aethe asked.

“Could be,” Elisa replied, already flipping through notes. “Or it could be the thing the last one was pointing toward.”

Riv stretched, rolled his shoulders, and picked up his club and axe. “Only one way to find out. We can cut wood as we go.”

They started walking.