Round 183

The water is unnaturally cold, biting into her exposed skin and chilling her to the bone. She needs to find higher ground or a heat source before hypothermia sets in, but every instinct screams at her to keep moving forward. She’s halfway across now, the far shore tantalizingly close when she hears it—the unmistakable sound of something large breaking the surface of the water behind her.

Merrin spins around, mace raised defensively, just as a massive tentacle erupts from the depths, water cascading off its slick surface. It’s followed by another, and then another, as what can only be described as a colossal creature begins to emerge from the lake’s murky depths. Her heart races as she realizes the true scale of the beast—it must be easily twice the size of a whale, its body covered in writhing tentacles that seem to move with a life of their own. And worst of all, its skin pulses with the same eerie bioluminescence as the smaller creatures that had attacked Varikka. For a moment, Merrin is frozen in place, her mind struggling to process the sheer scale of the threat before her. But then she sees it—the creature’s main body, a grotesque mass of flesh and muscle, pulling itself up onto the shore mere yards away from her position. And as it does so, she catches sight of something even more horrifying: a human-like figure trapped within its grasp, struggling futilely against the creature’s grip. It takes her only seconds to recognize the figure as Varikka—the very friend she had abandoned in her desperate bid for survival just moments ago.

Guilt and terror wash over Merrin in equal measure as she realizes the true extent of the danger her friend now faces. The tentacled horror has pulled Varikka towards the water’s edge, its massive body now half-submerged as it begins to drag her back into the depths. Merrin knows she should be looking for Seraphine—her party member is out there somewhere, possibly injured or worse—but the thought of abandoning Varikka again is simply unthinkable. With a cry that echoes through the cavernous space, Merrin charges forward, mace raised high as she lunges towards the creature’s exposed flank.