Shadow Seer (Rogue Merchant Book #3): LitRPG Series by Roman Prokofiev (read ebook pdf .TXT) 📕

of death... What? No, they aren’t a threat to us. Get one? Why would you want to? These are ordinary, unremarkable creatures. The Sea of Terror’s teeming with them...”

In the meantime, the blows ceased, as the Abyssal had gone deeper.

“No, they won’t follow us. They live near the surface. For the deepwater monsters, they’re a mouthful.”

We stopped descending and, according to my senses, started moving forward, gradually revving up the engines and gaining speed. The anchor chain, originally aimed straight down, strained—we were dragging the bait askew. It reminded me of trolling, a method of fishing I had seen on video a few times. Essentially, the fishing line was attached to a fast-moving vessel, a motorboat or a yacht, and dragged at a considerable depth, attracting predators with scent and motion. The resemblance was made stronger by Rocky alternating between tightening and loosening the chain, while Thrainul kept adjusting speed, making our movements uneven.

However, we weren’t trying to catch a tuna or a marlin. Our fishing line was a calf-sized steel chain. What did they want to attract while playing with the bait in those abyssal depths?

The seeker, Thrainul, and the crew switched to their own chatroom or simply fell into a tense silence, sometimes gesticulating. Here, in the deep, the water was ink-black, and we couldn’t see anything through the portholes. The gears of the handwheel creaked, and the Clay People in the hold sighed as they steered it, while the fire elemental in the rear engine hissed and wheezed.

Everyone felt it when our prey took the bait. The Abyssal shuddered and stopped, despite the still-working engines. Then, a sharp jolt knocked us all down, and the deck rose at a sharp angle as some unstoppable power pulled us downward almost vertically.

“Heat the engine!” Thrainul bellowed. The white-bearded zwerg, his blue eyes wide with fury, spun the steering wheel, almost returning the submarine to the horizontal position. “Rocky! Can you see what we got there?”

“Not by a damn sight, Cap!” the Gravekeeper reported, futilely trying to stop the chain from rapidly dwindling away through the gap. “It’s too far! I swear by the Prime; it’s something really big!”

“I know that already!”

The captain hurled out orders, jazzing up engines and forcing the golems to work harder but to no avail: the unknown monster was stronger. Overcoming the resistance, it burrowed downward, dragging the heavy vessel with it. What creature could possess such power? Was that a routine situation? I didn’t know.

“Going by the signal, the monster’s very large!” Fayana, who was standing by my side, told me. “It’s bigger than the ship... HotCat, are you scared?”

“Honestly, a little bit, yeah.”

“Me too!” She nodded. “I’m starting to regret paying for this...adrenaline!”

“Don’t, or we’ll lose the wheels and burn the engine!” Snippets of conversation reached us. “Let it drag us. When it gets tired, we’ll pull it up and call it a day.”

“I dunno, it’s something from the depths! A Flaming Urchin or a Screamer!”

“Just look on the map where it’s dragging us to! It’s not the edge of the Sea of Terror anymore: we’re just above the chasms! We might draw attention...”

“Dammit, you’re right!” Thrainul snapped. “It’s bad. Whatever, we’ll get through! Silence!”

“Phew, I think it’s running out of steam,” the captain said after ten minutes of fighting the invisible underwater leviathan that dragged us into the depths like a giant dog and its blundering master.

“Rocky, try pulling it closer!”

The Gravekeeper and Bonus, who was helping him, barely managed to turn the spool, drawing in the heavy wet chain that was almost completely unwound. Another jolt knocked them down, and the ship swayed—but it was a different kind of motion as if hit by an invisible boxing glove. Armor plates screeched as they returned to their positions, and a vortex of bubbles swirled up behind the portholes. A drop of water fell on the deck right next to me, with several more forming on the ceiling: one of the ship’s joints had sprung a leak.

“A tringalote!” Rocky shouted, quickly pulling in the loose “fishing line”—the monster was closing in. “Cap, it’s a tringalote!”

“Looks like it!” Thrainul said, content. “So what can it do? Whirlpool and Spit? Hold tight; it’s going to be bumpy!”

“What’s a tringalote?” Fayana asked quickly.

“Oh, a rare monster from the deep. Its maw is really something else! I guess we grazed it by chance. It’s like a vacuum cleaner. When it breathes in, a huge whirlpool appears on the surface, sucking everything in. That’s how it feeds—it moves while processing a stream of water and spits it out with great force...”

Confirming his words, a blast of water crushed into the Abyssal, sweeping it up in a powerful tornado. The deck and the ceiling seemed about to switch places. We were saved by the skill of our captain—who masterfully controlled the steering wheel—and by the wall clamps that we clutched onto to avoid flying across the deck.

The next few minutes were completely chaotic. We were shaken and thrown around, Thrainul cursed, and Rocky still tried pulling the chain to get the monster closer to the ship. The safari was a real success. I hadn’t experienced anything like that since my latest rollercoaster ride.

“Prepare the Ripper!” Thrainul commanded. “Load it up with physical damage. Stormbreaker, are you asleep?”

“Can I take a shot?” Fayana waved her hand. “I can do it!”

“Do you have the Cannoneer skill?” the zwerg asked in a matter-of-fact tone. “Fine...go to the cannon! Stormbreaker, load!”

Stormbreaker reluctantly stepped away from the gun carriage. The Abyssal’s artillery was structured in such a way as to allow the cannons installed in special slots to work underwater. The monstrous Ripper, located right next to the cradle of the rear harpoon gun, had the best field of fire. A spiked cannonball the size of a human head fell into the breech, and