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

“I’ll pull it closer, and when you see it, fire along the harpoon chain!” Rocky instructed the girl. “Got it? You won’t miss; it’s large! Just don’t hit the chain.”

Adjusting the ship while dodging the Spits and the monster’s lunges was a challenge, but Thrainul did it. I pressed myself against the window, trying to make something out in the darkness.

Fire! Ripper’s recoil shook the Abyssal, and Fayana shrieked in triumph. In the blaze of flash that momentarily illuminated the bottom, I finally saw who had swallowed our bait. I shouldn’t have looked. It was a colossal carcass the shape of a long onion covered with a shroud of moving tendrils. The narrow end of the “onion” had a gaping star-shaped mouth that could easily fit a boat. A vivisector’s wet dream. Whose fevered imagination gave birth to such monstrosities? Was it the procedural generator? Ugh.

The piercing howl of the wounded creature reached me even through the thick walls. With another jolt, the Abyssal was pulled forward, even faster than before!

“Did we really hit it?” I yelled.

“We did! It just doesn’t want to die!”

“Then finish it off!” Thrainul yelled. “And faster—it has dragged us far away already!”

The more experienced Stormbreaker fired two more shots, and they hit their target. The tringalote’s onslaught weakened; it was clearly dying, and the ship’s movement slowed down with every second.

When we finally stopped, Rocky chuckled, pulling the rope in.

“It’s almost down. Still twitching, but the end is near.”

“The signals!” Fayana suddenly spoke up. “Captain! Can your seeker see this? Giant signals just appeared in the distance! Over there!”

She confidently pointed somewhere below.

“What’s that?”

“We’re above the chasms in the Sea of Terror, Cap,” Rocky said, alarmed. “Tentacles or...”

Thrainul replied by cursing angrily and quickly turning the ship around.

“This creature has dragged us somewhere we shouldn’t go! Keep an eye on your Dread and put on Estel if you have it!”

The warning came just in time, as my Dread bar spiked by three points, resulting in seven. It was a lot; it decreased my stats almost 75%. I felt unusually weak, despite the protection provided by my Estel set.

“The signals are closing in,” Fayana said, concentrating. “Weird...they’re fusing together. It’s a giant creature! I can’t even imagine its size. I’ve never seen anything like that. And it’s moving upward!”

Two more Dread points, nine in total! Just one more point, and everyone who didn’t have special items or Estel buffs would lose the ability to do anything but writhe in agony, caught in an undispellable paralysis.

“I think we’re screwed,” Rocky whispered loudly. “It’s moving up... I really don’t want to die! Captain, what should we do?”

“Do you know what signals those are?” Fayana glanced at the zwerg. “What kind of monster is this? Have you seen it?”

“It’s our doom!” Thrainul replied curtly. “Those who’ve seen those never come back! It’s the Guardian.”

“What Guardian?”

“What Guardian? There’s an island in the Sea of Terror. HotCat mentioned it. It’s surrounded by chasms—trenches so deep that nobody ever risked going there. These chasms are home to monsters like this one. I’ve only heard about them—nobody’s stupid enough to enter these waters!”

“Do they attack everyone?” Fayana asked.

“There’s a certain line. If you cross it, they crawl out of the deep. They can aggro to noise, light, or movement. We were firing cannons—I didn’t realize it could be a problem. What an old fool...”

“All right,” he said, abruptly pulling himself together. “Turn off the sidelights! Disengage the engines. Stop the handwheel! No casting, complete silence, talk only in the chat! Rocky, unshackle the chain and throw it away!”

“Together with the booty?”

“Yes, overboard! Maybe we could distract it! It’s one chance in a million that the Guardian won’t touch us, thinking us a dead piece of iron...”

The chain swiftly disappeared in the hole with a loud clang. We hadn’t gotten the chance to look at the caught Tringalote, but it’s not like I was eager to do it.

The impenetrable darkness in the portholes suddenly cleared up. I carefully looked out and saw a source of light somewhere far below us, a round yellow patch slowly rising from the deep. Another one suddenly appeared right next to it, and I realized what it was.

Eyes, each of them the size of a Tringalote. Yellow pupils illuminated pale beams that dispelled darkness like searchlights. Thanks to them, I could make out the monster’s outline: the spots on its round head, the writhing tentacles...

The chain with a slab of flesh slowly fell toward the rising Guardian. It was so small next to the monster that I felt cold shivers down my spine. I had never seen creatures of that size in Sphere.

A colossal tentacle, each sucker cup of which was as big as the Abyssal, moved underneath us. Most of the monster was hidden in the darkness, but it definitely resembled a squid...scaled up a thousand times.

Bonus: Holy crap. Fayana, I hope you’re recording.

Our submarine was hovering underwater, showing no signs of life, while the gargantuan monster took its time getting closer, probing the depths with his eye-beams. I wondered where the closest resp point was and whether the Pandas would intercept me there. What would I do if they did? From the looks of it, we were about to be eaten; fighting a creature of that size wasn’t even a question. What could actually hurt a monster that big? It probably had billions of hit points. Several player raids? Probably not, considering the level of Dread. Maybe even True Fire...

Wait. True Fire. Just like Rocky, I really didn’t want to die...

HotCat: Thrainul, how much are you willing to pay if I destroy this monster?

Thrainul: Are you kidding me? It’s impossible.

HotCat: I understand that you don’t want to lose the Abyssal, and still…