Devil in the Deep Blue Sea

by A. J. Markam

  As he shouted out his name, he raised one hand into the air theatrically.

  Fucker.

  “So,” he said, wiggling his nonexistent eyebrows, “shall we fight again? Perhaps thees time you weel keel me, no?”

  “NO,” I snapped. “We’re going. Alaria! Stig! Come on!”

  “But… but… you just got here!” the little hatchetfish wailed. “Look, look – I weel fight you weeth one arm bee-hind my back! I, I – I weel let you cast Chain of Darkness three times before I fight back!”

  “Don’t condescend to me!” I shouted at him as I marched out of the villa with Alaria and Stig in tow.

  “Please do not leeeeve me!”

  “Oh, I’ll be back,” I snarled at him. “Count on it.”

  “Alright… come keel me again soon,” he called out piteously. “Until then, I weel turn my heartbreak into art!”

  I shuddered.

  God only knows what the hell he would sculpt in our absence.

  I had to make sure the next time I faced him would be the last.

  25

  And so we returned to the Great Abyss and began to grind.

  I joined up with any group who would have me. Didn’t matter their level – nine above me, nine below me, I didn’t care, as long as I got in there and scored as many experience points as I could.

  The next time I saw Zali, I was going to have even more powers, and I was going to crush him.

  Unfortunately, that was going to take a lot of trips through the Great Abyss.

  On my 4th time through, I finally hit Level 29. No new powers, unfortunately.

  About my 5th time through, I started having flashbacks to my weeks in Exardus.

  What I wouldn’t have given for another group of open-minded lesbians to ease my pain…

  Unfortunately, the LGBTQuesters had already moved on, and there were no more groups of hot chicks looking to score with Alaria.

  Plenty of fuckin’ dorks, though.

  “Oh, man, your succubus is so hot, dude! Can I… you know… do it with her?”

  That was a common request.

  “Woooow… can I, like, just feel them?” several players asked as they held out their hands.

  Alaria handled those guys. Usually with her pitchfork.

  “Dude, dude – how much to bone your succubus, man?”

  I got into a couple of PVP battles over that one.

  Finally I got tired of hearing other dudes hit on her, so I used the dungeon core to set up a structure where she and Stig could hang out.

  It’s not like they were a whole lot of help in an underwater dungeon, anyway.

  “What do you expect me to do in here all day?” she complained as I walked out the door.

  “I don’t know – masturbate!”

  “…oh… okay,” she said, like That’s actually a good idea.

  “Ah, fuck me,” Stig griped.

  “Okay,” she teased as she ran after him.

  “NO!” he screeched, and jumped out of the nearest window.

  Awkward.

  I had joined one final group for the last run of the day when the group’s Druid healer asked, “Are you grinding the Abyss?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Did you grind the Pit of Kakaroth, too?”

  “The Pit of Kakaroth?” I asked, confused.

  “Yeah, it’s right on the coast, near Vixil. There’s actually three of them right in the same general area, only a day’s ride from the others. Kakaroth, Mount Nihilus, and the Forest of Wraiths.”

  I pulled up my map. There was the town of Vixil, all right, in greyed-out territory since I hadn’t visited it yet.

  I started to get excited.

  Three dungeons, all within a day’s ride of each other?!

  I could level up SO FAST!

  But there was a problem. There always was.

  If the distance from The Blowhole (where we’d bought the Ring of Baloq from the sailor) to the Great Abyss was one leg of an equilateral triangle, then the second leg went from the Great Abyss to Vixil.

  Fifty miles to get out here, 50 miles to swim to Vixil, and 50 miles over land from Vixil to The Blowhole.

  Shit.

  I didn’t really want to swim ten hours to get to Vixil.

  Alaria could fly us there in stops and starts with bits of rest in between, but that would still probably take eight hours or more, and it would wipe her out.

  “How the hell are you guys getting back to shore?” I asked. “I mean, you can’t really catch a boat out here – are you going to swim the whole way?”

  The Druid made a face and laughed. “Dolphins, dude.”

  “…dolphins?”

  “Yeah, up at the north end of the abyss, there’s a dude with a bunch of dolphins. You can hire them for one gold apiece to take you back to shore. Takes, like, four hours at most.”

  Holy SHIT!

  This was GREAT news!

  We could go back to the mainland… visit the dungeons for a week or so… Level me up substantially… maybe even get me up to Level 40… get a flying mount, come back to Zali’s, and kill the little fucker!

  YES!

  I was the happiest I’d been all day.

  Well, you know. Besides the lesbian orgies.

  I explained everything to Alaria and Stig that night as we sat around a makeshift campfire with a luminescent jellyfish tied down at the center of a bunch of rocks. It didn’t give off any heat, but when the water was 80 degrees, you didn’t really need any. However, the jellyfish did provide a soft, pink, relaxing glow.

  After I finished talking, Alaria asked dubiously, “Are you sure that’s what you want to do?”

  “I don’t see any other way to kill Zali except to get more powerful. And on land, you guys can help me with your powers, which will help me in the dungeons. You can’t really do much down here in the ocean.”

  “It’s not so bad just hanging out at Zali’s villa, you know.”

  I frowned. “I thought you wanted him dead!”

  “I do, it’s just…” She sighed. “I prefer lying out in the sun to dungeon-diving.”

  “Well, you know, if we go to these other places, there’s probably more hot lesbians looking to do orgies.”

  A little white lie. I had no idea if there were or not… although I was guessing it was closer to ‘not.’

  “Oh, well, hell then, I’m in,” Alaria said happily.

  “I’M not,” Stig grumped.

  “You just want to get drunk,” I pointed out.

  “Hell yeah.”

  “Alright, here’s the deal: you be sober during the day for the dungeon runs, and I’ll buy you as much booze as you want at night.”

  “DEAL!” my imp hooted.

  And everybody was happy.

  For a while, anyway.

  26

  We set out the next morning. I paid a gold apiece for me, Alaria, and Stig, and the dolphin wrangler set us up with three dolphins with saddles and bridles.

  I gotta say, it was one of the best experiences I’d had so far underwater.

  You know. Besides the lesbian orgies.

  I’d been on a jet ski once on a family vacation in Ft. Lauderdale, and it had been awesome. Roaring across the ocean… crashing through the waves… the wind whipping through your hair… gunning the motor and going airborne, then crashing back down again…

  Imagine that, but underwater.

  The dolphins were as fast as a horse on land. We darted through forests of kelp, over beautiful coral beds, and past ancient ruins of sunken cities.

  Every five minutes or so, the dolphins would need a breath – so we would break through the ocean waves, soar five feet into the air, and plunge back down into the surf.

  It was like a combination submarine/WaveRunner.

  I wasn’t the only one who enjoyed it, either.

  “This is almost as good as sex!” Alaria cried out joyfully as the dolphins leapt into the air.

  Not everyone enjoyed it that much, thoug
h.

  “AAAAAGH!” Stig screamed as he repeatedly fell out of the saddle and barely hung on to the reins.

  About four hours later, we sighted land – a craggy shoreline of rocky cliffs that stretched for miles in every direction.

  I figured the dolphins could drop us off at the base of the hundred-foot cliffs and Alaria could fly us to the top. From there I would summon Balrog, and we would continue on to the dungeon.

  That was the plan, at least, until we heard the screaming woman.

  The dolphins surfaced about half a mile out from shore. That’s when we heard her panicked shrieks.

  “PLEASE, SOMEONE HELP ME!”

  “What the hell?” I muttered, and steered my dolphin towards the sound of her screams. Alaria and Stig followed close behind.

  As we got closer, I heard wailing and crying in addition to the screams.

  Then I saw why.

  There was a narrow canyon that split one of the cliffs, only 20 feet wide at most. About halfway up, a woman was bound by her wrists, with one chain bolted to each side of the canyon.

  Except she wasn’t human.

  She was a mermaid.

  And she was exceptionally beautiful.

  Though her expression was one of terror, her features were delicate, and she had big, expressive eyes. Long, red hair cascaded down her bare back. Her body was lithe and nubile, with firm breasts covered by a seashell bra.

  She didn’t look exactly like Ariel from The Little Mermaid, but there was a definite resemblance. I’m sure my four lesbian LGBTQuesters would have loved to been there to save her.

  The iridescent green fish-half of her body writhed midair as she hung there, arms stretched painfully above her head by the chains.

  Beneath her in the waters at the mouth of the canyon, dozens of women were crying as they stared up at their friend. They were mermaids, too, I was guessing, though everything beneath their bare shoulders was covered by the waves.

  From what I could see, though, they were gorgeous. Every skin color you could imagine – deep chocolate brown, dusky tan, peach-colored pink, alabaster white – and two dozen different shades of hair.

  The dangling mermaid saw me approaching and screamed, “HELP ME, KIND SIR, PLEASE, I BEG OF YOU!”

  All the other mermaids in the water turned and began to cry out, “Please, sir – please save our friend, PLEASE!”

  “Okay, okay,” I yelled out, and guided my dolphin directly below the chained woman.

  What the fuck is going on?!

  How the hell did she get up THERE?!

  It looked like some sort of sacrifice, almost…

  But to what?

  And by whom?

  I found out the ‘by whom’ part pretty quickly.

  “GET AWAY FROM HER, BOY!” a man’s voice roared.

  I peered up to see a bunch of figures standing atop the cliff.

  Since they were a hundred feet overhead and difficult to see, I cast my All-Seeing Eye and sent it zooming straight up.

  There were about ten men on top of the cliff – rough-looking bastards with wild beards and ragged clothes.

  “Did you do this to her?” I yelled at them.

  “Aye, now go away and leave what don’t concern you!”

  “If a whole bunch of assholes chain up a woman on a cliff, I’d say that fuckin’ concerns me!”

  “You don’t know what you’re meddlin’ in, boy! You best leave now, ‘lessen you wanna be fish food!”

  At that, all the men on top of the cliff laughed.

  “What the hell did she do to you?” I shouted.

  “It ain’t what she did, it’s what she can do! Why, sacrificin’ one little fish-tart to the sea god’ll ensure we have safe fishin’ for a month!”

  As soon as he said it, all of the other men bowed their heads and muttered in hushed tones, “Blessed be its name, forever unspoken.”

  I only heard them because the Eye picked up everything they said.

  Sea god?!

  FISHING?!

  These assholes were fishermen?!

  “THAT’S what this is?!” I yelled, furious. “You’re such a bunch of gutless cowards that you’ll string up a helpless woman for some fucking make-believe god, just so you can catch some tuna?”

  “Heathen fool – we’ll see how high and mighty you are when it comes for you!” the leader roared as he and his friends ran away from the cliff.

  “Oh yeah? Well, you and your stupid god can suck a bag of dicks!” I yelled.

  “Uh… Ian?” Alaria said, her voice unsteady.

  “What?”

  All the mermaids around us screamed, “IT COMES, IT COMES!” and began darting underwater.

  Within seconds we were alone in the water. The only sounds were the waves and the shrieks of the mermaid hanging 50 feet above us.

  The dolphins began to chatter and squeak in panic, and I had to forcefully rein mine in to keep it from bolting.

  “I’ve got a bad feeling about this,” I murmured.

  About 200 feet out from the cliffs, the water boiled and frothed as something humongous began to surface.

  Water spilled off a massive head as big as a house, followed by shoulders broad enough to support one of the faces on Mount Rushmore.

  Except it wasn’t human. Not even close.

  The head looked like a cross between a snapping turtle and a shark’s – scaly skin and boxy head, but with six-foot-long daggers festooning its cavernous mouth.

  Beady, red, malevolent eyes peered out from hollows just above its upper jaw.

  “Uh-oh,” Stig muttered.

  And then the monster kept on rising.

  An arthropod’s body, big as a six-story building and covered in reptilian skin, emerged from a wash of sea foam. The tops of crab-like legs, big as construction cranes, poked up out of the water, and tentacles thick and long as redwoods erupted from the waves.

  Then it roared.

  It was like being right in front of the speakers at a Metallica concert as they piped a foghorn through it. My chest cavity literally buzzed from the rumbling in the air, and my ears were ringing afterwards.

  Not to mention the cold, damp blast of air and the smell of rotting fish that rolled over us.

  “Goddess, the stench,” Alaria gagged as she held one hand to her nose.

  Just for shits and giggles, I selected the creature as a target. Just to see.

  Kraken

  2,000,000 Hit Points

  “Ohhhhh SHIT,” I groaned.

  Twice as powerful as Orlo. Twice as powerful as the bounty hunter Shyvock.

  And there wasn’t a handy volcano anywhere to be seen, either.

  Then a computer window popped up in front of me.

  Better Get Kraken!

  You better hurry up if you want to save the sacrificial (mer)maiden!

  20,000 XP

  A treasure map and key

  Captain Darrow’s Pirate Belt: +10 Armor, +7 Intellect, +7 Stamina

  The rewards were pretty awesome – I couldn’t wait to see what was on that treasure map – but facing down this aquatic monstrosity to get them?

  FUUUUUUCK.

  “What should we do?” Alaria asked.

  “Run away,” Stig said, like it was obvious.

  “No – we’ve got to get her down from there,” I said. “Everybody, let your dolphins go!”

  “What?!” Stig gasped. “But – ”

  “Just do it! You can teleport out of here as soon as it attacks!”

  “Oh yeah,” Stig realized.

  We set our dolphins free, and they darted off parallel with the shoreline.

  The kraken wasn’t interested in them, though. Its beady little eyes were focused on the morsel suspended midair in the cavern.

  The monster began lumbering through the water towards the shrieking mermaid. The one advantage we had, apparently, was that the kraken was incredibly slow.

  “Alaria, fly on up to the mermaid and cut through her chains, then get her som
eplace safe.”

  “What are you going to do?” Alaria asked.

  “Distract it,” I said grimly.

  Alaria burst up out of the water with a flap of her wings and soared up towards the mermaid.

  I used the next wave to propel me toward the rocks beneath the cliff, then climbed up onto a giant boulder slick with algae.

  Far above me, Alaria was hovering by the mermaid’s chains, using her fire powers to cut through the metal links.

  The kraken roared as it stretched out one clawed hand towards the cavern.

  It ordinarily would have been out of my range of attack, its body was still so far out to sea – but as soon as stretched out its arm, it was close enough.

  “Here goes nothin’,” I muttered, and cast Chain of Darkness.

  A string of tiny demons burst out of my sleeve and swooped around the kraken, finally settling in around its wrist. The dark lasso tightened, and immediately golden numbers leapt up through the air, one per second.

  -20,000

  -19,800

  -19,602

  -19,406

  Fuck YEAH!

  Most Over-Powered spell ever.

  Just two of those hits would have destroyed Zali!

  Only problem was, it was a percentage-based attack. Chain of Darkness would only do about 7000 damage maximum to Zali.

  And even after knocking 200,000 off the kraken, the monster would still have 1.8 million hit points left.

  While the attack lasted, though, it was effective.

  The kraken howled in confusion and anger, and began scraping and biting at the strange chain encircling its arm. Which meant it wasn’t paying attention to the mermaid anymore.

  I glanced up.

  The mermaid was doing her best to be brave. She had stopped screaming and thrashing, but she was obviously still terrified.

  And Alaria hadn’t even cut through the first chain yet!

  This whole operation was probably going to be a ‘process.’

  Which meant I was going to probably ‘die.’

  A ‘lot.’

  Better head ‘em off at the pass, then.

  I triggered Gravesite, clicked ‘Yes’ to destroy the tombstone I’d left back at the Great Abyss during my last run, and began to cast my spirals of black energy. By the time Chain of Darkness had worn off, I had a brand-new respawn point on top of the boulder beside me.