”Sometimes the fight comes to you.."  Another overdrawn sigh escaped the tragic Elf’s lips.  It was mixed with a peculiar and bitter laughter.  If only she knew.  Winning against a bully wasn’t victory - it was survival.  While what she said was perfectly reasonable and true, it rang differently her pointed ears.  It was the fights that came to you that mattered.  Whether it is by honor or happenstance, they were the ones that tested your fiber.

The Elf painted a look of mild concern across her face.  The woman was awfully startled.  Then again, the shorter-lived races always seemed to have that air about them.  Nevertheless, this woman in particular seemed to have a particularly apprehensive nature.  All the inquiry and curiosity flooded back.  What had made her so fidgety?  What horrible past haunted her?  She turned attention back to the cloud of flour and the pair entangled there.  It was the polite thing to not stare.  A light and unreadable smile flitted over her features, while deeper thoughts put her eyes at a distance.  She had just brushed aside the questions of this polite and considerate lady.  It was not too late to go chose honesty and friendship.  If she waited much longer, the opportunity would pass.  A glint of a real smile flashed across her lips as her resolve settled.

She listened half-heartedly to Myrnal’s commentary.  There was not an awful lot for her glance from the casual remarks.  The woman was tough, but this had already been established by her brash manner and dark garb.  A tense moment entwined the two women.  Ana’e looked to the stair tumblers with disregard.  She breathed deeply, tasting the abnormal calm that stuck in her throat.  The play going between girl and the wizard could not have fascinated her at all.  She would have been most content to sit in her own cabin, rather than be here in the throng of mayhem.  In her lack of enthusiasm, she nearly forgot the conviction she had sampled moments before.

“I was introduced to battle at an early age,” she said in a hollow tone.  The words were encrypted and ambiguous.  They seemed to be totally real and meaningful against her tongue, but they echoed differently in her ears.  She wetted her lips, solidified her resolve and attempted to elaborate.  “It left a lasting wound.  My foe left more than a physical mark though.”

The stuffiness of her own words overwhelmed her.  She was being perfectly honest and open.  However, she was not encouraging further conversation.  These answers, while offering a glimmer of truth, did not tell a story or expose any of facts of her condition.  “Pick your fights wisely.  Being brave is admirable, but the more honor you amass, the more you have to lose.”

She shook her head and smiled.  She was on a tangent and the more she tried to make sense, the further lost she became in her words.   “I’m sorry,” she said in a tone that implied frank conversation.  “I’m rambling.”  She was good at stating these statements of fact.  “I… You probably want to be going to rest.”  It was the least she could do to provide an escape from this banal conversation.

Night had long since fallen over the waters of the Sailor's Bane, and a thick fog had settled across the ocean's surface, leading the ship's lookout to curse silently to himself as he peered out into the mists with his spyglass. This was relatively normal for the area, and the sailor had years of experience aiding the ship's captain in plotting a clear course through the clouds. It was his talent, he reasoned, or at the very least, it was a skill that he had developed quickly out of necessity for survival. Without a sharp-eyed lookout to aid in navigation, those foolhardy enough to attempt to cross the Sailor's Bane usually met an untimely demise, ships splintered and shattered by a sudden impact with the ubiquitous near-surface coral formations that dotted these waters. The crews of these ships would join those before them in a mass of seaweed-entangled corpses, the aquatic graves of sailors whose remains would be eaten by fish instead of worms.

The ship's lookout was hoping to avoid this fate. He very much hoped to live to be eaten by worms.

Favorable winds had kept the ship on schedule so far, but the voyage was in its infancy. It would take some time to reach their destination in Tarsis. He figured that it was too early to make predictions about the outcome of this trip, but, understandably, he preferred an optimistic outlook. It was a journey that this crew had made many times, and its captain was still sailing the seas. The lookout had been with this particular crew for a comparatively short time, only a few years, but his sailing experience carried far beyond his tenure with this particular vessel. He had parted ways with his old captain just shortly before signing up to crew this new ship. It had been a tearful goodbye for everyone involved, but mostly for the captain in question.

Idly, the lookout wondered if his old captain had used the one bullet his former crew generously bequeathed to him when he tendered his resignation.

The fog was breaking up ahead, and the lookout adjusted his spyglass to get a clearer view. It was a rarity for the mists to grant sailors traversing the area a reprieve, but it occurred from time to time, and as the ship's mast passed out of the cloud behind it, shaking off the aquiform ghosts hovering over the waters, the lookout was treated to a beautiful view of the night sky. He knew that the shimmering stars would only be in view briefly, and he hoped that the ship's navigator was noting their positions while he still had an opportunity to do so.

The lookout leaned forward against the railing of the crow's nest and lowered his spyglass for a moment, taking in the majesty of the stars with the naked eye. He was permitted brief distractions for his own enjoyment on occasion. If the fog was allowed to have a break now and again, so was he, he figured. In a few hours, he'd have an opportunity to get some much-needed sleep when another crew member relieved him of his duties. Even though he was forced to be awake now, in the middle of the night, the lookout felt that he was getting the better end of the deal. The stars were proof.

Something stirred ahead in the water, counter to the natural movement of the ocean's waves. Raising his spyglass, the lookout cursed softly. He had allowed himself to become distracted. The breaking of the waves and the eddies on the ocean were usually indicative of coral, and it was careless of him to assume that the disappearance of the fog meant that danger had taken a leave of absence as well. What hazard had he overlooked?

The disruptions of the water's surface seemed to be far enough out of the ship's course that it was unlikely that there was anything that could cause damage. If it was a reef, the shallow spots were too far to port for it to matter. The lookout could rest easy in the knowledge that the captain would need to make no adjustments at the helm. It was unnecessary for him to shout any warnings, as the ship would simply pass right by the threat without need for correction of the ship's course, and the last thing he needed to do was worry anyone who might be enjoying the clarity of the night sky.

Wait, thought the lookout. The disturbance had vanished. Or had it? Whatever it was that had been near the water's surface to distort its flow was no longer there. Perhaps the ship had simply passed it by during his momentary lapse in concentration, No, he realized, the ship's speed was insufficient to have already passed by the hazard. It was likely that whatever had been creating the disturbance before had simply moved. Coral, the lookout was certain, did not move. He had never seen coral move before in his life.

It was at this point that the lookout was suddenly certain that coral must be able to move, somehow. After all, if coral lacked any means of mobility, why was it everywhere? It didn't seem like a plant, and he had never heard of coral seeds. He resolved to figure this mystery out at a later time, possibly by asking some scholar at the next port.

Suddenly, the ship jolted to the starboard side, rolling over toward its z-axis in three-dimensional space. S#^t!, thought the lookout, the coral must've snuck up underneath us!

Nearly pitched out of the crow's nest by the sudden impact, the lookout lost his grip on his spyglass, dropping it onto the deck as he frantically grabbed at the railing to avoid suffering a similar fate. The instrument plummeted rapidly, smashing into myriad irreconcilable pieces as the lens struck an improperly-secured deck cannon that had slid forward and slammed against the deck railing. Sailors below shouted and raced to the deck, frantically grasping at riggings and trying to prevent further damage as the ship swung back into an upright position. What the hell had they hit? And why hadn't the lookout spotted it?

"All hands on deck!" roared orders from the bridge. The lookout, distressed by the loss of his spyglass, frantically swung his head back and forth, hoping that the absence of fog would permit him to see whatever the ship had struck.

Luckily for the lookout, the enormous tentacle that reared up before him was quite visible without his spyglass.

Gigantic, sucker-lined arms burst from the surface of the water, slamming down against the ship's deck and holding it fast. The huge creature grappling the vessel, still hiding its main body below the crest of the waters, wrapped itself around the top deck, the mast, and the prow, squeezing the ship as though it intended to choke the life out of the transport. It was then that the lookout realized what he was seeing. The creature assaulting the ship couldn't possibly be real, or so he had thought in the past. But yet, here it was, embracing the ship and presumably intending to rip the vessel apart. The lookout stammered momentarily, leaning against the railing of the crow's nest, and shouted a warning that he knew was, at this point, entirely worthless.

"KRAKEN!"

In the galley, before Ana'e had a chance to respond to Myrnal, their conversation came to an abrupt end when the ship rolled drunkenly, tilting the whole galley. Myrnal and a few other canny sailors had quick enough hands that they saved their rum from joining the avalanche of flatware sliding from tables onto the floor.

The ship righted itself and the cry for all hands on deck went out in the resultant stunned silence. A few sailors tossed back the last of their rum and stood to get back to their posts. Then, echoing through the space of the lower decks, came the thunderous BOOM of an impact. The sailors looked more annoyed than afraid, their concern manifesting in grumbles of annoyance at being denied an evening of drunken relaxation.

Then came the word that cracked the veneer of jaded irritation. Kraken. They didn't even bother to hide the beginnings of fear in their eyes. There was nothing they could do about this, nothing. Myrnal saw it, and she knew other passengers had as well. These were sailors, not warriors. Even then... what could warriors do about this? There was no place to hide for Myrnal to gain the advantage on this creature, and no place to run if she failed.

Her eyes locked with Ana'e's. This woman was wounded, seemingly had trouble walking and even conversing without exhausting herself. If Myrnal didn't do something... this woman would die. Badly.

"Ana'e," Myrnal began. What could she tell her? Stay here? Here wasn't safe. Up on deck wasn't safe. Nowhere was safe. "Grab a lifeboat if you can." She reached under her tunic to the belt she wore. As her hand slipped under, the bottom edge of the shirt lifted to reveal the half-dozen daggers she'd been concealing. If Ana'e didn't know what sort of woman Myrnal was, she had a better idea now. Myrnal's hand found the daggers that seldom left her, but her fingers dropped away immediately. Better luck at range.

"I don't know what I can do about this but..." She reached down into her backpack and pulled her crossbow. Slinging the bag over her shoulder for easy access to her supply of bolts, Myrnal headed for the door. She passed Hakaril to follow Somnia up the stairs to find the ship in the implacable grip of the most horrendous mollusk Myrnal had ever seen.

Anyone on this ship has ever seen, Myrnal noted distantly. If they'd seen it before I don't think they'd have survived.

The thought formed itself before Myrnal even knew what it meant. They were going to die. The job for Minshara had nearly gotten her killed half a dozen times, but it wasn't until the trip home that Myrnal would finally be finished. Anticlimactic. An annoyance.

And no one would ever know what had happened to them.

Putting her back against the wall of the quarter deck, Myrnal did the only thing she could for now. Hoping to keep the roiling, thrashing tentacles away from the lifeboats, she began firing shot after shot into the kraken's thick, rubbery hide.