Chapter 8: Storm of Tentacles

Note: Thanks to WRC264 for beta reading this. Leywife Monica – The Mermaid’s Tickler

The ship rocked furiously.

I gripped Alloria in the cabin as my stomach heaved with its motion. A helpless terror gripped me. I couldn’t do anything but cling to Alloria. And she clung to me. We shifted on the bed. The entire ship groaned. It shuddered hard, pressing us against the wall. The wind howled outside, screaming at the ship.

Vedr’s fury roared around us.

All I could do was cling to Alloria. Hold her tight as the tempest gripped the ship and shook it with the rage of a child’s tantrum. The ship rolled. It pitched up and then dived down. The waves slapped into the hull. The water spilled over the circular porthole, covering it in angry, gray foam before retreating.

“We’re going to die!” Alloria gasped. “We’re going to die.”

“I know!” I gasped, fear for my baby growing in me. Not even my powers would save us now. “He’s out there. Why is he out there?”

“Fool, idiot man!” gasped Alloria.

The ship pitched violently down again. We shifted on the bed, the sheets spilling around us. Then we were tilting sideways. My feet planted on the decking to keep from spilling off of it. This was torture. When would it end? How long would the weather abuse us?

The door to the cabin burst open.

Bryce appeared, soaked to the skin. His clothing clung to him. A look of fury brimmed in his eyes, a violent rage. He shifted his balance and grabbed one of the low rafters to keep from crashing to the floor as the ship heaved.

“Is it bad?” gasped Alloria. “Are we going to die?”

Bryce shot her a withering look. His face was taut. It brimmed with so much emotion. It was worse than I thought. I threw my head and stared up at the ceiling. There was only one thing I could do. One being I could call upon.

“Pater,” I cried out to the father of my child, “watch over us in this deadly peril. Shed your countenance upon your—”

“Praying to the damned Gods is useless!” roared Bryce. He stared at me with black rage in his eyes. An intensity that slammed into me. “They don’t give a single damned iota about any of us. They spit on us. They laugh at us. Make sport of us! Do not waste your breath!”

“S-sorry.” I flinched beneath his gaze. My shoulders shook. “I-I-I just w-wanted...” The tears flowed. The sobs choked off my words. I buried my face into Alloria’s neck as all the fear and dread burst out of me.

Alloria wrapped her arms around me and pulled me to her breast. She held me as the storm tossed the boat. I just wanted to help us. To keep us all safe. I didn’t want us to die. Any of us. What was so wrong with that?

Bryce let out a frustrated growl. “Sorry.”

I didn’t respond. Couldn’t. My emotions were pouring out of me. Alloria stroked me as she held me. The ship rolled and tossed. The storm battered us. I just wanted it to end. I sobbed myself into exhaustion. Into this numb, helpless dread.

All we could do was ride it out.

Bryce stood over us, gripping the rafters. Not even he could protect us. The ship pitched and rolled and rocked. The storm screamed its fury. I could almost hear Vedr in the wind mixed with the cackling snarls of her wife, Throwia.

The Goddess of Weather and the Goddess of Strife battering our ship with glee.

At some point, Alloria and I lay down on the bed, just holding each other as we whimpered and moaned through the pitching. It lasted for an eternity. Hours of enduring the fear. The groaning. Fearing that with each shuddering impact or moaning of wood that the ship would not survive. Every time it pitched too far right or left, forward or back, that this would be the time we capsized.

But we didn’t.

The storm calmed.

The fury abated.

After an eternity, the ride grew softer. The wind died down. My stomach eased. I felt drained. Emptied of all my strength. Outside the dark porthole, light blossomed again. I blinked at that. The sun was coming out.

Hadn’t it been dawn when the storm started? Had an entire day passed?

Bryce relaxed then he marched out of the cabin. I shuddered and sat up with Alloria. Together, we followed him out. My legs shook, feeling as weak as if they were made of rotting lumber. If I wasn’t leaning against Alloria, I would have collapsed.

The crew moved about the deck. There was damage everywhere. Broken railing. One of the spars had snapped. The rigging had become a tangled snarl. The sailors were working everywhere to fix the damage while the first officer bellowed orders.

“Captain,” growled Bryce, spotting the man. He headed towards Captain Artix.

I looked out at the ocean. It was blue and rippling with normal waves. I couldn’t see land in any direction. Was that right? We should be in Misria Channel. We’d always been sailing in the sight of land.

“Captain, what’s the situation?” Bryce asked. I followed after.

Captain Artix turned. “We’ve been blown out into the North Gunval Ocean.”

My mind struggled with my memory of geography.

“How far south are we?” Bryce asked, standing stiff.

“Not sure,” the captain said. “The storm grabbed us and threw us where it wanted. We’ll fix her up and get sailing north and find Althis.” He didn’t sound wholly confident. “We’ll find land and figure out where we are exactly then. Might take us a few days longer to get you to the Dead Isle.” He glanced to Alloria. “But we’ll do it, M’Lady. Don’t you worry? Mermaid’s Tickler won’t let you down.”

“I know,” she said softly.

Bryce sighed and nodded. “A few days.” Then he turned and stared at me. He studied me. I flinched with embarrassment from his outburst. “Monica, I shouldn’t have yelled at you for praying. I was just ... stressed. Scared for you. For all of us.”

I smiled at him. “It was a trying time.” I broke from Alloria. “But the Gods do care for us, Bryce. Lagu has armed you with the power to stop the Lawbreaker. She wouldn’t have done that if she didn’t care.”

He snorted.

I hugged him, pressing my face into his bare chest. “You’re forgiven. The sun’s out. We survived. That’s what’s important.”

His arms went around me. “Yes, it is. Just a few more days longer. We’ll make it and stop him.”

“We won’t be late now?” Alloria asked.

“Hopefully not,” Bryce said. “No helping that, is there?”

Illina – The River Whisper

I dreamed of Barg.

They weren’t terrible at all. They were happy dreams. Comforting. A blur of situations that made no sense to me. They moved from one thing to another. As I came awake, they already started to fade. But they left me feeling good. Barg had cared for me. He had wanted me to be happy.

He was an amazing man.

No one would ever replace him. But I had those experiences with him. They were stored in the matrix of my memory banks. I could feel the world returning to me as I left him behind for wakefulness.

“Yes, yes, yes!” a woman moaned. “That angel pussy! Matar’s cock!”

I woke to the sounds of fucking.

“Take it! Take my big cock! Oh, Gods, your pussy is heavenly, Ahlona!”

I blinked and shifted on a bed. Memories of where I was flooded back to me. The River Whisper. We were traveling beneath the waters of Misria Channel, sailing in the current that wrapped around the large Althis Island. I sat up and glanced over to see Ahlona on her hands and knees, her angelic wings spread wide. Her halo pulsed as she moaned her pleasure. Her round breasts swayed. Captain Azure knelt behind her, the blue-skinned nixie pounding the angel hard with her hermaphrodite-dick. Azure’s big breasts heaved. She looked wet.

Nixie’s always did.

“Welcome back,” Stefan said. He sat naked beside me watching his angel and the captain fucking. His cock thrust hard from his crotch. His smiled spread, surrounded by the brown whiskers of his goatee. “You’ve been asleep for a day.”

“A day?” I croaked. “No wonder my stomach feels like it’s emptier than a wineskin on Winter’s End.”

“We’ve been sailing in the current the entire time,” he said then chuckled. “Azure’s been fucking my angel almost the entire time, too.”

“And you,” I asked, sitting up.

“I’ve been slipping my dick in there, too,” he said. “When I’m not watching the mermaids frolicking. They sometimes like to swim past the porthole. One pair managed to do that while eating each other’s pussies.”

“Impressive,” I said. I stretched. “So, is there anything to eat?”

“The crew brings in pickled fish wrapped in seaweed and rice. It’s not bad.” He nodded to a covered plate on an end table. “There’s some for you.”

“Gods, yes,” I moaned and grabbed the plate. I uncovered it while Azure and Ahlona moaned their passion.

That had my pussy getting juicy and my nipples throbbing hard. My nervous system conducted the tingles of arousal through my body. Some of the cogs in my head clicked a little faster. I grabbed a strip of pickled fish wrapped in seaweed and rice. I popped it in my mouth. The vinegar almost overwhelmed the taste of fish, but the sweeter seaweed wrap mellowed it. I chewed on it, the seaweed tough.

“I’m going to cum in that pussy. I’m going to—”

The entire ship lurched. The force threw me into the back wall. I hit it. Pickled fish wrapped in seaweed splashed all over my body. Then the ship pitched downward. The coral hull groaning. Azure picked herself off the floor, a look of panic crossing the captain’s face.

“Cernere’s Black cunt,” I groaned, the back of my head throbbing.

“Stefan!” Ahlona gasped. She rose to her feet, her halo pulsing with her fear.

“Gods, what was that?” Stefan gasped.

Something slid over the porthole. Something dark and fleshy. I gaped at the purple mass. There were massive suction cups that reminded me of nothing else than the tentacle of a large octopus that gripped the window.

“Kraken!” spat Captain Azure. “The Illth-spawned beasts got us. Matar’s cock!” She bolted to the door and wrenched it open to leave the cabin.

“Stefan,” Ahlona groaned, “why did you say you wanted to see one?”

“I didn’t think they were this big,” the mage said and then he grabbed at his robes. He fished around in its pocket.

My stomach sank. Dread pulsed through my nervous system.

Stefan Halian

“What do we do?” Ahlona asked.

“We have to fight it,” I said, my heart pumping fear through my system. “If it crushes the hold, we’ll drown.” I pulled out one of the vials of nixie pussy cream that Ahlona had gathered for me in the last day while we had passed the time in the cabin. I broke the sealing spell keeping the juices fresh and downed them.

The sweet cream poured hot down my throat and into my stomach. A reserve of power blossomed inside of me. A source that I could use to funnel my magic. Especially water magic. I seized that source and wove air magic, forcing it into me. I supercharged myself with air. I could pull more out of the water.

I charged after the captain while downing a second vial to give myself a large pool of magic. I feared we’d need it.

“Captain!” I called as she stepped into the water lock. “Wait up.”

She shook her head. “You’ll drown.”

“I won’t,” I said, giving her a look of flat confidence.”

“Fine.”

The ship lurched again. I stumbled, catching myself on the wall. The ship pitched upward. I climbed to her standing inside the water lock. The ship groaned louder. The mighty tentacles squeezed around the hull, threatening to break the ship apart.

I wasn’t about to let my angle die.

I climbed into the water lock. Azure closed the door. It sucked shut with a hiss of air. Then she began turning a circular valve on the side.

Water gushed into the dark enclosure. It spilled cold around my feet. I gasped at the shock of it. I seized some fire magic and warmed my body, holding back the icy touch of the water rising up to my knees and then my crotch.

Flashbacks of Cernere’s Black Vault seized me. The terror of being crowded into the water lock with Illina, Barg, and that Gods-damn, shit-cursed bastard gibbered in the back of my mind. I sucked in my last breaths. The water rose around me, plunging me into an icy tomb.

But I brimmed with air. I didn’t feel any panic from that. Just the fear of being in the dark. Unable to see anything. The current rippled. Then a low suck gurgled. The door opened onto a twilight world of the deck.

The crew of nixies swam in the water. Many held harpoons that they stabbed at the tentacles. They waved through the water, swinging at the hermaphrodites. They swam down or up, dodging them. The sweep of the tentacles’ near-misses tumbled their bodies. They somersaulted in the waters and straightened themselves.

The kraken’s main body gripped the starboard side of the ship, a bulbous mass of flesh that thrust out into the dark waters. It had the shape of a massive octopus. A monster that had risen out of the hoary depths. It was half the size of the ship, and had dozens of tentacles as thick as I was, many wrapped around the hold. A pair of black eyes, beads the size of my chest, peered at us from the mass of its lumpy body.

The ship drifted away from me as I swam out to join the others. I realized that it was pulling us lower and lower. The world was getting darker by the moment. A great blackness surrounded us, up only a fainter blue than any other direction.

It was terrifying. Like swimming out into night itself.

I swallowed down my fear. We had to get this damned monster off the ship. I channeled my magic and formed blades out of the water itself. I focused down at the nearest tentacle wrapped around the hold.

The water rippled from my attack. The blade struck the thick tentacle, cutting deep into the flesh. Inky blood rose from it, staining the waters even blacker. I forced the sword of water to slice through the tentacle. It hacked through.

A great roar rumbled through the water. An angry fury. The boat creaked louder. Its other tentacles shifted on the hull. It squeezed tighter about it. I could hear the coral planking protesting the crushing embrace. Parts of the ship flexed.

Fear shot through me. Ahlona and Illina would drown if the ship broke apart. If I couldn’t slice through the tentacles fast enough, it would squeeze even harder and break the hull into a dozen pieces. It hadn’t done that yet. It was taking us down whole.

I didn’t know why, but something else had to be done to stop it.

The nixies threw harpoons. Many bristled in its body, but it didn’t seem to care about them. I kicked in the water, thinking. How to attack it. The lesser tentacles lashed at the nixies. It wrapped one up in a small tentacle. She squirmed as it slid its tentacle up her thigh and found her pussy.

Her body thrashed as the monster shoved its tentacle into her twat and fucked her hard. Her girl-cock bobbed before her as she thrashed. Another nixie came up and rammed a harpoon through the tentacle. It loosened, and the one grabbed, Wave, kicked free.

There had to be a way to lure it from the—

The pressure of water shifted. I looked to my right. Out of the murk, a purple tentacle hurtled at me. I gasped, a burst of bubbles rising from my mouth, and kicked with my legs and swam with my arms.

It struck me.

I gasped, the bruising impact threw me to the side. The water flowed past me. I spun, the world growing disoriented. I gasped, flailing limbs to right myself. Darkness surrounded me. I couldn’t see much at all. I’d been knocked from the ship.

I twisted around, panic about to seize me. Then I spotted it, a vague shadow to my right. I was beyond the ship and the monster. Nothing but open water was around. Panic shuddered through me. Slimy terror squeezed about my heart. I wanted to kick for the surface. Find light.

Light. I would love light.

I was a Gods damned mage. I could make it!

I wove the elements. In the waters above me, I created a massive light. A bright illumination that drove back the darkness. A world of blue engulfed me. The River Whisper appeared, pink and violet planks wrapped up in the darker purple of the krakens tentacles. Its bulbous body contracted as the light surged over it. Nixies swimming and fighting flinched before the sudden dawning of the sea sun.

I had my bearings. I wasn’t in a world of darkness. I fed a good portion of magic into that spell, but I had more. I began drawing air out of the water to keep myself alive as I studied the beast. Where was it vulnerable? There had to be a mind somewhere in that bulbous sack. I had to direct my attack into the right place to slay it.

Which was the right place?

Before I could even guess where it held its mind, the ship groaned. Creaked. Fear flashed in me until I realized it was releasing the River Whisper. Fleshy appendages unwrapped from about the ship. Confusion rippled through me as the ship lurched free of the monster’s embrace.

“What?” I gasped aloud, my voice distorted. A torrent of bubbles rose from me.

The massive kraken fluttered tentacles and burst away from the ship. I didn’t understand what it was doing. Then I realized it was heading for me. Fear gripped me as it flexed its appendages again, propelling it through the water right at me.

No, at my light.

But the ship was free. Ahlona and Illina and the crew of the River Whisper were safe. No worry about it crushing the ship. It was out in the open water. I could fight it. Elation surged through me. Tendrils of water magic surged out of me, feeding on Azure’s cunt cream brimming in my belly.

I burned her sexual fluids and fashioned blades in the cold seawater.

They hacked at the kraken.

Tentacles spasmed. Inky blood flooded the water as I severed through three of them. They came free to float away, spasming with the final moments of their usefulness. The kraken’s entire body rippled. A mighty roar slammed into me, the water itself churned up from its bellow.

It thrashed. Tentacles flexed and coiled. Turbulence engulfed me. I shouted, my body twisted and tumbled in the current of water spinning me around. I kicked my legs and swept my arms to right myself. To regain my sense of balance. The light spun around me.

The kraken loomed over me.

Fleshy tentacles reached for me. Black eyes focused with beady intensity on my face. I hardened the water before me, burning magic to protect myself. The tentacle struck my shield and drove it back into me. It pushed me deeper into the ocean. My light grew farther away.

The kraken roared again. The water swirled around me. Its tentacles lashed at me from a dozen directions as it forced me deeper and deeper into the blackness. I fashioned barriers of water, hardening the sea around me to stop the body-crushing blows from striking me. The current washed over me, pushing me deeper.

The pressure on my ears grew. My entire body felt the weight of all that water. Bubbles burst from my mouth, forced out of my lungs. I pulled more air out of the water, but there was less and less the deeper the kraken drove me. My light glowed above, eclipsed by the dark form of the monster battering me down.

It took more and more magic to keep myself alive. I was burning through it faster and faster. I had to fight back. I couldn’t stay on the defensive or I would die down here. I would be lost to the abyss beneath me.

Terror rippled through me as tentacles lashed at my shields. The kraken growled. Something snapped in the water, the clack of beak snapping shut. I had to focus. One powerful attack to kill the monster before it killed me.

I formed a hardened lance of water before me. I kept up the shields, blazing through the energy in me. I was almost out. Not much left. The Gods damned thing loomed over me. It had utterly blocked out my light.

But I couldn’t miss.

Pater, I prayed to my father, guide my strike. Gewin, God of War, let me aim true!

I fired the lance of hardened water. It surged upward. The force of its passage sucked me up in its wake. I felt myself rising towards descending death. The spear hurtled into its fleshy maw. My senses were the weapon, controlling its flight.

The spear tore through its waxy skin and buried into the bulbous form. I sent a surge of magic into the lance as it penetrated its flesh. I detonated it. The water burst apart, pummeling its flesh from the inside. Tearing apart its organs and ripping the mass of squirming flesh. It birthed a maelstrom. A violent vortex that sucked up the magic in me.