Chương 17: We're gonna need a bigger boat.

>>Hang on. Look back over at that orchid thing. George turned to look at the thing again—the impossible structure hovering in the distance. It looked like an endless piece of living origami that never quite settled into a final shape. >>Do you remember that thing having those long squidy tentacles? >> I'm pretty sure it didn't. What about it? >>I don't have a laser velocimeter, but I could swear it is closer. Yes. Definitely closer. >> You think it is coming over here? >>How should I know?

It gives me the heebie-jeebies though. And those tentacles are decidedly pointed toward our treasure island. >>Alright—well, let's get on with it then, yeah? I'm leaning quests, stats, and inventory. You? >>Those would be solid picks. Dimensional storage spaces are highly sought after by all the most fashionable adventurers. You see them almost everywhere. Which is actually a reason NOT to get one now. Odds are good that we'll get another opportunity to grab one at some point. >>Hard to argue with the stat pick.

I sure would appreciate someone with more intelligence to talk to. Not to mention that if you had a higher strength stat, Charlie James wouldn't have been able to toss you around like a rag doll. >>Quests are on my shortlist too. You need to grow faster. Quest rewards are a great way to do that. Besides, what if we had a quest about the last trial that gave us more information than those hidden objectives? What if the quest had said, "You're going to meet a guy named Charlie. He's going to try to kill you.

You should kill him first. And don't let him stick you with his giant fingernail, but, failing that, be sure to spray it down with sanitizer first." >>I vote quests, race evolution, and class system. >>The name of the game for you is going to be finding another way to grow than the broke-ass button routine. Quests will get you there because of extra rewards. >>The race evolution and class system are my dark horses, though.

If we could get you a better race than "Human: Frumpy" or a solid class we could bypass this whole button thing altogether. If you were a dual axe-wielding barbarian with a full-face skull tattoo, do you think anybody would talk shit if they found out you also had a little red button back home? >>No. They wouldn't. >>Now we just need to decide how to divide these bid tokens. 50/50 seems fair to me. >>I was thinking more along the lines of 0/100. >>You drive a hard bargain.

I suppose I could go down to 60/40 but that is as far as I'll bend. >>80/20. >>70/30 it is. >>Fine. Whatever. >>Ok. What in the name of sweet sassy molassey is going on with that thing!? George saw that the giant orchid had changed. A mane of bright orange tendrils had sprouted from its body, snapping outward like whips in every direction. Color pulsed from its center, washing outward toward the tips in rhythmic waves. Long, wavy fins unfurled beneath it, dipping down and sweeping back up again.

And it was moving toward them. >>I am getting some real Titanic-meets-iceberg vibes here. George squinted at the thing and said, "Yeah… I think you're right. We've got time, though. It looks like it's moving slowly." >>No. I don't think so. It only looks like it is moving slowly because it is so far away. It's moving fast. Really, really fast. At us. >> Do you remember that bit in the description about this being an unsecured dimensional space?

>>Let's hurry up and do this token thing and then get the pendulum going so we can get out of here. If you come across this story on Amazon, it's taken without permission from the author. Report it. George found that he could stand up and walk if he moved slowly. He shuffled toward the ten boxes and the large silver pendulum that seemed to be suspended from nothing above their heads. >>How are we supposed to give these things tokens? >>Beats me. I don't see a token slot.

George reached two tokens toward the quest box, and as soon as his hand came near the box, the tokens zipped out of his grasp and flew toward the box, where they sunk in and disappeared. >>I guess that answers that question. George gave two more tokens to the inventory box and three to the stat box. >>What are your picks? >>Screw it… put them all on race evolution. Let's do this thing! >>If I end up as a goblin, I'm going to be very upset. >>But you'd be a goblin with a very cool spider hand. Don't forget that.

The remaining tokens leaped out of George's hand and sank into the race evolution box. George stretched out his other hand and gave the jagged, rusty bottom of the pendulum a shove. The pendulum swung much farther than George's shove should have allowed. It came forward with a harsh, clanking lurch. George dodged awkwardly as it swung back and went down hard. The pendulum's movement wasn't smooth—it grated, like metal dragging across a damaged track. At the same time, the treasure boxes began to move.

They slid toward the center of the pendulum's arc, bumping and jostling until they stacked themselves into a squat, shifting pyramid. At any time, one of the chests was on top of the pyramid, and the others shifted around beneath it. Then, a moment later, the top chest would fall as a new chest pushed its way to the top of the pile. George realized that the boxes that had received tokens were at the top of the pile longer than the others, while the boxes that had none were displaced as soon as they rose to the top.

As he watched the treasure boxes shuffle themselves, the sound wave from the orchid creature's foghorn blast arrived at the treasure island. The sound was so loud that it almost felt like it should have scattered all the floating chests like leaves, but they continued slowly revolving as they pushed upwards for prominence. George snapped his head around just in time to see the creature jump forward—like reality had skipped a frame. One moment it was distant. The next, it was closer.

Its outer limbs flared a vivid red, pulsing to yellow and back again in a steady rhythm. At its center, something was opening. A dark violet structure unfurled outward, layer by layer, like a rose that had no end. As it spread, the color drained inward, collapsing into a core that deepened into absolute black. Another long, low blast rolled out from the creature, passing through George and making his whole body rumble. And that is when George's Identify kicked in. <Sidereal Kraken: Level????

> >>We're gonna need a bigger boat. The pendulum continued its loud, mechanical ratcheting sound with each swing as if some invisible and ancient machinery was controlling its movements. Sometimes it swung in a steady arc, and sometimes there was a grinding sound, and it halted, only to rasp forward a second later. The kraken advanced in bursts—long stretches of steady movement broken by sudden, impossible jumps that carried it far closer each time.

It dominated the horizon now, filling nearly a quarter of the visible sky. Its tentacles stretched far ahead of its body, already reaching for the island. The invisible mechanism driving the pendulum was causing it to slow down more rapidly than a typical pendulum, but George still didn't think it was nearly fast enough. The arc of the pendulum was now only half the width it had been when the swing began.

With another blink of movement, the tentacles were around them on either side, falling slowly but inexorably toward them. One of them reared back above the island and shot forward across the remaining distance with the momentum of a falling building.

"Ahhh!" George screamed and curled up on the ground, throwing his hands over his head, but Nod raised one of George's hands up toward the kraken and said, >>From hell's heart I stab at thee! The three long, thin spider fingers that Nod had used to stab Charlie's eyes unfolded themselves from the back of George's hand and stretched toward the creature. The tentacle collided with the treasure room with a force that should have shattered it or sent it spinning off into the darkness, but instead, nothing happened.

There was no impact nor sense of motion. The boxes continued shuffling, undeterred. The pendulum continued to rattle through its ever-narrowing arc. George forced his eyes open. The tentacle hadn't struck the island—it had struck something around it. An invisible barrier. The massive limb pressed against it, flattening slightly, then spreading as hundreds of tiny suckers latched on. Each one opened and closed, revealing small, beak-like mouths snapping hungrily against the invisible surface.

The entire treasure room lurched. George could see the world tilting and shifting above him—but he couldn't feel it. Gravity stayed fixed beneath his feet, even as everything else moved. The spider fingers on the back of George's hand quietly folded back on themselves and disappeared. >>Ooookkayyyy. >>I might have wet myself. Sorry about that.

"What happens now? How do we get out of this?" George kept looking between the treasure boxes and the tentacle arcing above his head. The monster was pulling them in and the only thing George could see in every direction was the pulsing rainbow colors of its strange skin. >>Easy. Sneak aboard. Turn off the tractor beam. Escape through the trash compactor. Obi Wan's going to have to duke it out with Vader, but… sacrifices must be made.

Suddenly, the view above them opened up to reveal the black void where the creature's mouth should have been. As the tentacle pushed the treasure island further into its maw, the colors around them all deepened to purple, then black. The tentacle pushed them into its mouth and then released them and withdrew. Now, the shifting colors of the outside of the monster were fading into the distance as they drifted deeper into its black gullet.

The light dimmed to nothing except for the faint green glow of the Oblivium Tremens box. Then as George looked into the darkness ahead of them, he saw another faint light source coming from deeper inside the monster. >>Whoa. This game just gets weirder and weirder.

"Is that a… galaxy?" George asked. With a final, violent grinding sound, the pendulum stopped and fell silent. In the darkness, George could only see the Oblivium Tremens box glowing with that weird, green light. Thankfully, it did not seem to be at the top of the pile. Legendary Box Obtained Quest System Unlocked Then, everything disappeared.