Outside Influences

Bel fumbled with her short sword for a moment, but abandoned the idea as the clear water became murky from stirred up silt. Instead, she reached down to whatever had gotten a hold on her boot. Her fingers slide along the shell of what she guessed was a hard-shelled claw.

She couldn’t see what was attacking her, so she used liquify to weaken her assailant. At first her ability didn’t push through the resistance, so she doubled up on the ability, sending it into cooldown. To her relief the resistance crumbled a half instant later. Bel snapped the claw with vicious jerk of her wrist, freeing her leg. She immediately swam towards the surface.

She struggled awkwardly through the water in her boots and armor, but she didn’t let herself ease up. So she couldn’t afford to get swarmed by a pond-full of angry crabs, not when the water was their element.

I can’t even glare at anything under the water. Didn’t Kjar tell me to grow some claws?

The reminded Bel that she wasn’t completely helpless – the passive form minor body modification let her reshape her body slighly, so she gradually increased the webbing between her fingers to speed her swim. She was just feeling good about herself, settling into a rhythm of splashing with some strong forward progress, when she was overtaken by Orseis. The water-loving woman zoomed past her, dragging a sputtering Flann in tow. “I’ll come back for you in a minute,” she shouted over her shoulder as she went past.

The wake of her speedy passage almost sank Bel, but a competitive streak flared up and pushed Bel to kick a little harder for short. By the time Orseis returned and towed her out of the water, both of Bel’s calves had cramped.

Bel flopped over and massaged her aching calves, but Orseis strode back into the water until she was half submerged. The tentacled woman looked eager for a fight.

“Why do you want to go back in there?” Bel groused. “It’s full of giant crabs or something.”

They had originally thought that the body of water was just a small pond, but the distance had been deceiving. It was instead a respectable lake, teaming with dangerous and unknown creatures. The diffuse lighting from the tiny insects gave the water’s surface an eerie look, and the farther from shore she looked the darker and more foreboding the view became.

Orseis glanced over her shoulder, and waved Bel forward. Her W-shaped pupils were wide with excitement. “Looks like we’re having crab for dinner tonight,” she crowed. “Help me catch some!”

She reached a tentacle over her face and undid her veil, letting Bel catch a glimpse of her face for the first time. The gorgon was surprised to see a very young girl. If she was human, Bel would have guess that Orseis wasn’t older than 11 or 12.

I assumed that she was older since she’s on her own, but maybe things don’t work like that here. Or maybe she ages really slowly.

Bel stood up slowly, eyeing the lake with suspicion. She didn’t have to wait long before a swarm of bumps broke the surface of the water. Claw after claw emerged from the depths, each pair followed by crab with a bright red shell. Their beady eyestalks and grasping mouths reminded Bel of one of Technis’ fanatics who used to hassle her when she went near Baytown.

“Nothing about them is appetizing,” she declared. Orseis shook her head with disbelief, so Bel turned to her other companion. “Right, Flann?”

Flann groaned and stood up. He immediately shook himself off, spraying Bel in the face with water. He spit out the sand from his mouth and gnashed his teeth at the approaching army of crabs.

“Dunno about eatin’ them, but I don’t mind seeing ’em cook,” he proclaimed, tossing an orb of fire at the crabs.

Bel watched expectantly as the attack hit, but it fizzled when it hit the water, only knocking a single one of the crabs under the surface. Bel doubted that the attack had done any real damage.

Orseis laughed. “It looks like you’ll have to leave this to me, old man.”

Flann heaved a rapid barrage of streaks of flames into the water, with little effect. The water hissed and spat, and steam started rising into the air. It didn’t matter to the crabs, but the pyrotechnics seemed to offend the glowing insects; within a matter of moments the foliage nearest to the assault was dim and devoid of insect life.

“Maybe no more of that,” the worried gorgon cried out. “What if something really scary shows up when it’s dark?”

Flann lifted a hand into the air and summoned a bright flame for light while he grumpily muttered something about the water.

Orseis waded into the pond and started sweeping the crabs into her tentacles, squeezing them until they cracked before tossing them away. She was merciless, but the swarm seemed to be endless and she soon found herself stumbling out of the water and back onto the shore.

“Damn,” she cursed, “I can’t move around in this thing.” She hopped back to give herself some breathing room before grabbing the hem of her robe and pulling it over her head.

Bel expected to see an octopus – James’ best guess as to Orseis’ identity – but instead she saw a short girl with a pair of human legs covered in water-repellent hide pants, a human torso, and a bald, human head. Her arms were tentacles though, with two of the flexible limbs sprouting from each shoulder, and a longer tentacle emerging from underneath each of her armpits.

Orseis hopped back into the pond and set about herself with renewed vigor, summoning the occasional wave of water to push the crabs back. Bel was just starting to relax when the water over an area twice as wide as she was tall began to visibly bubble and froth. A moment later an enormous specimen of a crab burst through the surface, its shell an bright, angry red. It brandished two claws the length of a person at Orseis, clicking them at her menacingly.

Orseis leaped towards it, but the crab waved a claw and launched a pile of crabs at her with one of the most bizarre abilities Bel had ever seen. Orseis disappeared under the shelled assault. Bel quickly lost track of any details, only seeing a mess of claw and tentacles writing furiously beneath the surface of the water.

“Orseis!”

Bel rushed forward to help, but the giant crab was moving just as quickly in the same direction.

Shit! I’ll just have to concentrate on the big one and hope that Orseis can look out for herself.

Bel drew her short sword as she splashed her way through the calf high water, directly towards the giant crab.

The crab’s eyestalks pivoted towards her, and when she was within striking distance one if it claws snapped forward. It swung with the force of a runaway cart, but Bel was ready for it. She threw herself down and to the side to safely pass beneath the attack and underneath the crab itself. She stabbed her sword up through the water and into the underside of the crab, but her weapon bounced off of the shell.

The crab didn’t roar – in fact, the entire battle was only filled with the sounds of clicking claws and churning water – but it did scuttle rapidly to the side, clearly irritated by her attack. Bel grabbed onto a leg as it went by and so that she could remain in a relatively safe spot underneath the frustrated crab’s body.

Safe, until the crab tried to drop down and crush her. Bel wouldn’t have made it out, but Orseis grabbed her with one of her longer tentacles at the last moment and pulled her free. Bel breathed a sigh of relief as she tugged her legs out from under the descending crab body.

The crab smashed its claws against the shallow water and several spears of sand shot forth from the impacts. Orseis yelped with surprise and dove into the deeper part of the lake to avoid the attacks, dragging Bel with her. They had avoided the spears, but now they had landed in the midst of a mob of angry, smaller crabs.

Bel felt several claws squeeze around her impervious armor before one managed to clamp onto her unprotected forearm. She yelled with pain, letting loose a large amount of precious air, before stabbing the crab through its irritating face with her short sword.

I think I’d rather fight one big thing, Bel realized.

She pushed and flailed at a few crab that were attempting to drag her down before her feet found the sandy lake bottom and she slogged out of the water. The moment she emerged there was a boom of something heavy striking the water and Bel threw herself forward, instinctively evading the arc of sand that sliced through the air where she’d just emerged from the water.

Bel spun onto her back and locked eyes with the crab. She glared, forcing three times the normal mana through her ability and stunning the crab into immobility.

The affliction only lasted for a few heartbeats, but, while it was still, Flann scampered up one of its legs and onto the back of its shell. He quickly grasped onto the ridge at the end of its shell with one hand while slapping the palm of his other hand onto the shell’s smooth surface.

“Die ye overgrown sea monster!” he shouted with vengeance.

The crab waved it claws frantically, bucking and spinning in an attempt to dislodge the disgruntled fox. Soon though, the air was filled with the smell of cooked crab meat and the giant monster collapsed into the sand.

Bel watched as all of the little ones ran away deeper into the lake or into the surrounding woods. Within moments, Bel, Flann, and Orseis were surrounded by darkness and silence, alone in the second level of the Labyrinth.

Orseis was suddenly free of her own struggles, and splashed ashore with wet, slapping footsteps. “Sometimes legs are the worst,” she complained.

As things quieted down from the battle with the crabs, the insects slowly returned to the area. The ethereal green and orange glow that illuminated the vast cavern revealed a shore covered in crabs the size of dinner plates.

Orseis had her eyes on the largest specimen. “Well,” Orseis said, eyeing the massive crab, “at least we know what’s for dinner.”

“I s’pose I don’t mind ’em cooked,” Flann agreed. Bel grinned as she watched his damp tail wagging happily behind him.

Orseis nodded dove under the water. The tentacled girl easily flipped the giant crab over and began dragging it to the shore. She still struggled and grunted, but Bel could tell that Orseis was by far the most physically powerful of their group.

“So how should we divide the essence?” Bel wondered as she checked through her bags to make sure that nothing had been ruined.

Flann hopped along the shoreline, hopping over puddles until he retrieved his walking stick from where it had been tossed. “Little too small for me,” he replied with a shake of his head. “The big one is somewhere on its second core, so I guess it’d be good for one of you ladies.”

Orseis waved it off. “I’m almost on my third core, and this one felt like it was mid. You’d better drain it, Bel.”

“You sure?”

Orseis nodded, so Bel strode up to the boulder-sized crab.

Wow, I haven’t gotten any essence in a while. I think I’m a little excited.

She placed her hands against the still-warm shell and felt around with her spiritual senses. A moment later she forced open the dead monster’s core, sucking down as much essence as she could before it was reclaimed by the Heart of Olympos.

Her cores swelled, more petals unfurling in her original core and a series of strange and grating instruments joining into the increasing cacophony that Dutcha’s Path added into Bel’s core. The essence easily pushed her to the twenty-first threshold. She flashed a thumbs up to show that she was done.

“Great,” Orseis cheered, “now let’s crack this one open and eat. Flann, I don’t suppose you could cook some of the smaller ones too, could you?”

The fox eyed her skeptically. “How much d’you need to eat, young’un?”

Orseis laughed, but Bel noticed that she blushed slightly at the fox’s comment.

“Well, I’ve got an ability that boosts my strength but taxes my metabolism, so I’m always a little hungry,” she explained holding up a pair of tentacles to indicate just a small distance. All of the eyes on her seemed to make the girl suddenly self-conscious, and she looked around for her cloak.

Bel reached down and picked up the soaked fabric from where Orseis had tossed it earlier.

“Looking for this?”

Orseis nodded eagerly and quickly accepted the cloak. As she started wringing it out, Bel spoke up. “Hey Orseis, why do you always wear the cloak? Wasn’t it making it hard to move?”

Orseis grimaced. “Well, I’m a bit sensitive to the sun.” She looked up at the sunless cavern ceiling.

She scratched at her bald head with a tentacle-arm, clearly embarrassed that her rehearsed response had fallen apart so easily.

“I’m also going for that ‘girl of mystery’ kind of look, you know?” she added as she threw her cloak back over her shoulders. “I hear that boys are into that, right?”

Bel’s snakes looked at the girl with curiosity. “Boys? Really? You didn’t strike me as that kind of girl.”

Orseis laughed with embarrassment. “I’m just kidding!”

The flustered semi-human hurried over the pond to pull out more crabs, but Bel smiled when she saw that she didn’t pull up her hood or hang the veil over her face this time.

Thanks to Orseis’ enthusiasm, it only took them a few minutes to haul an entire fishing boat’s catch worth of crabs onto the sand, where Flann cooked them with brutal efficiency.

They’re not my favorite food, but can’t argue with the quantity.