Eli, now uncertain that his mistrust of Darya was well founded, keeps his hands near his weapons but leaves them sheathed. Eyeing the mammoth tentacle he says, "am I to understand you intend to send that back where it came from? You can do that?"
In reaction to Darya's distracted nods, his eyebrows rise and he whistles, inasmuch as anyone can underwater, "you may be crazy lady, but right now I'm wishing you're not... me and the whole crew are wishing that." He looks around, "feels a bit... exposed here, don't you think? That thing'll squash us like sea lice if it so much as sneezes. Shaman, is there a better place nearby? And Darya, tell me what you need and I'll do what I can, if it'll mean I never need to see the rest of that thing."
"Yes, I can. Summonings and the reversals there of are no easy tasks, but sending something back is often much easier than bringing it." Darya gave Eli a smile of thanks and a chuckle at being called crazy, though her attention was mostly on the horn. "Keep us from being interrupted. This could take as long as five minutes or so."
Darya, holding the horn before her, stood silent and still for a moment, gaining her focus and concentration. She trusted Eli to do his best to protect them and Dusk to be her eyes behind her, just as she was trusted with this ritual. Her focus found, she began to sing. Her voice soft and legato at first before it began to crescendo. The longer it went, the more complex her song-cast became. The magic surrounded her, flowing through the water and inviting the Shaman's magic to join her own. Magic danced and spun as Darya continued to sing.
You can really feel that something is changing. The water's starting to feel colder around you as well, like those currents beneath you that never see the warmth of sunlight are getting pulled up to the surface near where you are.
Mostul the shaman hands you the horn, then looks at you through those ink-black eyes. "You know how to use this, I'm sure. Keep the horn blowing as much as you can while you focus the energies. You'll have my focus as well."
There's a loud cracking and groaning suddenly. The reef that holds up the ship is faltering and beginning to sink back down below. Ost'ril and 4 others (one of whom is disproportionately muscular for some strange reason) can be seen swimming your direction now as well. Then you notice the second tentacle, creeping up the thin pillar atop which Mostul the shaman is resting.
A frost-covered claw suddenly reaches around the conical shield from your left--the vice-like appendage ready to snip whatever's trying to stall its progress. What do you do?
Taken by surprise by the sudden counterattack, Numeo's only response is to swing his cutlass and try to deflect the blow, inflicting as serious an injury as he can with his clumsy attacks.
Darya puts most of her focus into her current task, she does reach up to tap the deep red necklace about her neck when she spots the creeping tentecle. It quivers, before moving climbing to sit on top of Darya's head as a blob. Part of it stretches up, as if forming a head. This is proven correct with a mouth opens. "Incoming! Tentacle Attack! No Touchy him! Bad Tentacle! Bad!" It's voice is higher pitched, as it calls out it's strange warning.
Eli's eyes shoot back and forth between the tentacle and the bizarre speaking blob on Darya's head. "Cute, uh, pet you've got there, but, uh, if I alone am supposed to keep that tentacle off of you, I do believe we're in a world of trouble dear."
Eli draws his rapier and a dagger, and swims towards Ost'ril and his companions, "If you're here to help, we need to keep her safe until she's done," he nods back at Darya, "and if you're not here to help..." he shrugs and waves his blades suggestively.
"Friends! Hi Friends! Tentacle being Bad! Bad Thyric. No Touchy!" Bobbing up and down, voice and attitude strangely cheerful under the circumstances.
On Deck: Numeo, you raise your cutlass to strike back against the crustacean, but finds the claw too fast for your own swing. It grasps the blade between its pincers and wrenches it from your grip. Before you can attempt to snatch it back, your world goes white as the conical shield crashes into your body and throws somersaulting over Kale and over toward the edge of the ship.
For a moment you lose all orientation of which ways up. Suddenly you see the rail of the ship about to pass by as you flail past loose rigging. Below is the water you recently pulled free from, and a strange dark shape creeping toward the side of the ship.
Below: At your call, the orcillians quickly engage the rising tentacle. The unnaturally large one engages first, with a roar that echoes through the watery surroundings as he buries his spear into the tip of the appendage, pinning it to the nearby column.
You hear a groan from beneath as the tentacle rips free with a large chunk of reef and wraps the giant orcillian in its grip. In a rising shower of shattered reef, the tentacle and merfolk warrior are yanked down below. Its hard to see with the crumbling column, but its quickly growing darker, if such a thing is possible. It seems like something is rising.
What do you do?
Numeo is half-on and half-off the ship, his head upside down as he looks "up" at the waves below. One eye is bulging slightly from its socket, bloodshot, as blood flows freely from his scalp. "Ooooogh..." he moans, clutching at his head for a moment.
Seeing the dark shape rising from the depths fills him with horror. "NOOOOOO!" he cries, as tentacles break the ocean's surface. His scream goes on unending as his blood drips into the water below. He struggles back onto the deck. "CAPTAIN!" he shouts, hoping to break through Kale's battle-rage...that he helped inspire. "WE'VE GOT TO CO-" his shouting is cut off by a hacking cough. Clutching his head, he looks about himself for his cutlass.
Eli raises an eyebrow and whistles at the struggles with the tentacle. He backs closer to Darya, scanning all directions for further threats, trying identify what might be coming and where from. He mumbles over his shoulder, "how much longer might this take, dear? Surely not much longer?"
Numeo dashes for his hanging cutlass, trying to draw the rigging in so that he doesn't have to expose himself to danger to grab it.
Darya eyed the tentacle, keeping her eyes on it and the rising form below, as much as she could and still continue the ritual. At Eli's question, she gave him a brief glance and held up three then made it four fingers before waving her hand side to side. "Uh-oh..." spoke the blob on her head, sounding suddenly very ominous. "He's coming..."
Darya tried to keep her eyes out for incoming tentacles, but she could only spare so much focus from the ritual. That's why she asked Dusk to be her voice and her eyes, well for the most part. She would move if she had too, but this ritual must continue.
On Deck: Captain Kale leaps upon the flailing Crustacean like a pouncing lion. By this point, the frightened creature is so tangled and bound in the hooked netting that he is unable to bring anything to bare on the feral Captain. You can hear high-pitched squeals as the old-salt cracks open the outer carapace and digs into the pink flesh within.
Numeo, you pull yourself up from almost falling off the deck and immediately dash for your hanging cutlass. You are quickly reminded of the imminent danger in that conical shield the creature wields as he plants it firmly between you both and raises your own cutlass high in his claw. Should you continue your charge, as sudden collision is imminent, likely followed with some more aggressive action. What do you do?
Quelthas, from your vantage point and relative safety, you can feel the subtle ripple that rumbles through the boards of the ship. Whatever is rising up from below has gripped the Eye.
Below: Another massive shape rises from beneath with incredible speed. The orcillians guarding you react swiftly to intercept. This one is different than the last, which came to a soft tip like most tentacles. This one, however, has a broad, flattened appendage on the end covered with jagged barbs on one side. It collides with the remaining orcillians, digging into their flesh and ripping them back down with the same speed and ferocity as the last one; which leaves only the three of you left.
"We need to get out of here... we're too exposed in this open area!" the shaman yells, breaking his concentration for the moment. The rising entity from below keeps getting closer. You keep expecting to be able to see more definition and detail as it must be near. But as the shape continues to grow, you're realizing more and more how gargantuan this creature really is since there already seems to be a small island amassing beneath you.
Numeo skids to a stop just before colliding with the shield, and backs up rapidly. I need to get to a distance away from that monster before he disembowels me! Numeo thinks frantically. If so, Numeo jumps down it, trusting to the narrower spaces to afford him greater places to hide and ambush.
That's definitely Plan A right now then.
"Where the hell do you think we'd be less exposed to that?!"
Eli thinks, we're obviously all going to die, but better to die a hero than just floating here!
He swims as fast as he can to a hole in the coral, yells back, "Keep going! I'll do what I can to slow it down!" which may be the stupidest thing he's ever said, and swims down to get a better look at what's rising from below...
As soon as more than a tentacle is visible, Eli will wrack his brain for anything he knows about the creature and, against his better judgement and the voice screaming in the back of his head, begin swimming down towards it.
You are currently pinned to the upper deck, by a couple of spears that pierce your clothing and drive deep into the boards at your feet. The hail of javelins were merely guessing at your location, but it appears a couple of them got just close enough to make you sweat. So yes, you're relatively safe at the moment, but also momentarily immobilized.
Eli: Your people have numerous stories about Kraken, but it's incredibly difficult to separate the myth from the reality. Every story tells of their incredibly long and powerful tentacles: most of which are long, spindly appendages like that of an octopus, but two particularly vicious ones end in flattened palms covered in spikes, hooks, or even mouths in one gruesome tale. The tentacles are powerful, but also sensitive should someone manage to actually damage them. Although, this seems to be more of a delay tactic than a resolution as rumors speak of a Kraken's ability to regenerate such appendages with such speed that an entire tentacle could be replaced in less than a week.
Finally, while the tentacles are what every story speaks of, there are several hints that these are only the tip of the iceberg (so to speak). That unlike a squid or other cephalopods, the bulk of the body is something much larger and more dangerous--the tentacles allegedly sprout from the creature's nose or beak, like the tiny appendages that sprout from the snout of some breeds of moles.
Numeo: You rush below decks, noting where Kaph and the others have done there best to lock and seal absolutely everything that could be. This deck seems dry, so if you're taking on water then it hasn't reached these levels yet. However, you hear an echoing creak as something presses an incredible amount of force on the outer beams. You don't hear anything snap yet, but you can hear some frantic voices shouting down in the crews quarters.
The current deck houses much of your supplies as well as docks for the cannons. Behind you is the entrance to the galley, and at the other end of the ship are the stairs that descend to the crew quarters.
Glancing over his shoulder to ensure that the crustacean isn't trying to follow him, the alchemist rushes around the ship to one of the cannon ports to look outside and try to see what just hit them.
Quelthas manages to bob and weave quickly enough to avoid getting stabbed by the spears, but finds himself pulled down and pinned to his ship. Supported by a string of curses, Quelthas yanks the spears free, or in some cases, yanks his robe free from the spear, leaving some holes and tears in his robes.
Quelthas makes his way to the edge of the deck to see what is latched onto the ship.
Eli squints, clamps his dagger between his teeth, and swims deeper, trying against all reason to get as close as possible to a tentacle that isn't one of the spikey-hooky ones. Swimming quickly but carefully, squirming and spinning, he does his best to get next to it without getting whacked... ... and grabs with one hand, tightens his grip on his rapier, and plunges it as deep as possible to anchor him on the thing. Depending on the reaction, and as long as he's able to hang on, he'll start carving chunks out with his dagger...