Oh, yes.
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UPDATE 24: THE ABYSS
Thump.
Adribaal did not like the sound of that.
Turning a questioning glare to his helmsman, the grizzled Carthaginian captain communicated with a look what he could not over the howling wind and pounding rains. The squat Telkhian shrugged his shoulders at his superior, just as mystified as he.
Barely visible through the mist, the
Hannibal's companions,
Hiram and
Elisha, rolled over the waves. The trio of caravels kept close to prevent being separated in this... inclement weather. The likes of this tropical storm were rarely seen on Rabhasia, and the small exploratory fleet was doing everything it could just to survive the onslaught of winds.
Thump.
For all the good that Adribaal thought that it would do.
The noise echoed through the oaken hull of the
Hannibal a second longer, shaking Adribaal's boots. It was as though some great musician of the deep was thrumming a drumbeat against his boat. Sparing a worried glance at the men and women along the sides of the boat, his thoughts were interrupted by a great tremor.
"Captain!" cried a sailor from the bow, "There's something in the water!"
Hurrying to the man, Adribaal glared into the dark waters, squinting against the sea spray. A great, dark form moved just below the waves - towards the
Hiram.
"NO-!" Before his cry could go out, mile-long tendrils shot from the surf, each as thick as three Sabrathan cedars, closing on the doomed caravel. With a clench, the
Hiram buckled, its strong hull snapping like a twig, disappearing into the waves in a mere heartbeat.
The helmsman rang the warning bell loudly to alert the
Elisha. "KRAAAAAAKEEEEEEN!"
A smaller tentacle snatched away the helmsman mid-breath, quickly spiriting the terrified Indian man off of the deck and to a watery grave. Gritting his teeth, Adribaal hurried over the slick deck, trying not to slip on the rain-soaked boards, and barked orders to his men. "MALIK! ABDUL! READY THE CANNONS!" Picking up his scabbard from the deck near the wheel, now crewed by a scrawny Hittite lad, he drew his scimitar and hurried back down. "The rest of you! Ready your swords! With me!"
Glaring at the beast responsible, whose limbs now hung ominously over the
Hannibal, he found its head poking just above the surface of the water. There sat a giant, orange eye, unblinking, its pupil set horizontally like a goat's. Deeply unsettled, Adribaal turned his attention away. "Shaman!"
At his call, the ship's pair of shaman spoke an eldritch incantation. A shiver ran up his spine as the magics did their work, invisible to the crew, far below the ship and the monster.
For even darker horrors than the kraken lurked in the abyss.
Deep in the sea, miles below the boats and the kraken, something stirred. Here, since time immemorial, creatures had died. Their bones sank into the muck, accumulating over the ages into a layer of fossilized remains. And now, as the spells of the Phoenician shaman sunk into the mud as well, they stirred.
The remains of the smallest fish, the frolicking porpoise, sea crocodiles, grand whales and mosasaurs - from the ocean bottom they rose, bubbles on the surface the first signs of their unholy ascent. Together the bones linked, trapping the great cephalopod even as they took on a vaguely humanoid shape - a Bone Golem.
Adribaal shook off his instinctual fear of the unnatural being. "Now! While it's immobilized!" He began to clamber up onto the ship's railing to take a dive at the monster, but stalled as a blur moved past him - Elena, an experienced soldier from Qoshtant. With a sound leap, the Rhomanian woman had drawn her sword, and landed atop the great beast's head with a war cry.
Thrashing, the kraken swung a tentacle, under which Elena ducked, before rolling to a stop and planting her blade squarely into the beast's head. A low, keaning roar of pain shook the boat as the rain pounded on, and Elena twisted the sword. Limply, each of the kraken's tentacles fell to the waves, and it began to sink.
With a hop, Elena deftly landed on the deck. As the enchantment faded and the ancient remains, and the kraken's corpse, slipped below the waves, she resheathed her blade with a cocky smirk. "And that, boys, is how it is done." With a flick of raven hair, she strolled pointedly past the captain.
God, thought Adribaal numbly,
I love that woman.