Fate Weaver’s Legacy

#044 – I’m not desperate enough to eat this

To nobody’s surprise, instead of the entire octopus, only the pink tentacle emerging from the water next to me answered my angry call, making me curse under my breath.

I immediately spat fire at where it stuck out from before it could drag me under water again, but the whole thing dodged to the side unlike all the previous times. It then lashed out at me in a horizontal swipe and I only barely managed to summon my key sword in time to block it.

What I didn’t expect was something suddenly smacking me in the head from behind and dazing me for just long enough for the pink tentacle to get around my weapon and curl around my waist.

I sucked in some air and held my breath just in time before the thing pulled me underwater again – I was getting really tired of that.

I lit myself on fire, trying to get the damn thing off me, but this time, it kept its grip despite my fire burning through the plush and creating a thick screen of steam around me.

I grit my teeth to stop myself from inhaling the water and began struggling even harder, desperately trying to shake the damn thing off, but it just couldn’t be done.

I activated Bullet Time again and everything – including the tentacle gripping me, thankfully – slowed down to a crawl. I used that time to re-summon my key sword that I’d accidentally dropped when I’d gotten dragged under, and finally pried the tentacle off of me.

I quickly swam to the surface and took a gasp of breath before looking back into the water.

Just as I’d thought, the tentacle hadn’t come out of a portal like usual; it had come straight out of the water instead. I could see the rest of the tentacle leading deep underwater where it suddenly vanished.

The jerk was not just invisible, but also hiding underwater! That wasn’t fair at all! How was I supposed to do anything with my fire build? This was a direct counter!

Still in my Bullet Time, I briefly glanced at chat to see if they had any suggestions and did the first thing I saw Jeoff say.

I summoned John, my faithful cameraman, and sent him underwater to watch the octopus and hopefully help me figure something out. Then I placed my glove under me, created a bubble, stepped on it with both my feet, and just like last time I’d been here, I ignited my hand, burst the bubble, and sent myself flying into the air with the knockback.

This time though, I sent myself straight up, and before I even recovered from the whiplash of the pop, I began flapping my hands like a dazed chicken.

For once, I actually turned off Bullet Time manually as soon as I got launched and then watched the water below me as I slowly floated down.

By then, John had gotten right next to where the invisible octopus must have been because I noticed the tentacle-shaped white shimmer just like before. From up close though, I also noticed the various bumps on it, just like the eye-filled white tentacle had.

There had to be a reason why the octopus signaled its position like that despite doing so much to hide itself, right? That white tentacle had to be somehow important. I needed to target it. Or really literally anything else besides the tentacle that endlessly regenerated.

I noticed another suggestion from chat and quickly reached into my backpack and pulled out the ultra dry towel before tossing it under me. All while continuing to flap with just one hand, which surprisingly still somewhat helped me fall slower.

True to its function, the towel began to slurp up all the water like a parched man in a desert, causing the whirlpool-like currents at the edges of the room to get even faster and more violent.

It didn’t take long for the pink tentacle to shoot out of the water and lash out at me again. But since I saw it coming, I immediately spat at it and covered it in fire before it could reach me, causing it to flinch back away from me.

Then, to my surprise, something else shot out of the water. A purple blur whipped out and before I could even realize what was happening, it slapped me in the chest, pushing out all the air out of my lungs, and made me tumble through the air, which completely disrupted my gliding trick.

Fortunately, by the time I landed in the water, it was still deep enough that I didn’t have a hard landing, but shallow enough that I wasn’t in danger of drowning anymore.

I managed to quickly recover, glanced at John’s screen, and saw that the octopus was nowhere to be found. It must have moved from its spot after knocking me out.

Sneaky bastard. Why did it feel like it was more intelligent than most monsters in this dungeon?

I scanned the room and sent John to do the same and quickly spotted the telltale hint of white shimmer on the wall on the other side of the room. There was also the yellow portal right next to it and the moment I noticed it, I summoned my key sword, charged it with fire, and slashed behind me with it.

True to my instincts, my blind slash actually hit the pink tentacle trying to sneak up on me. Breathing in, I shot another Flame Bullet at it, causing it to move and cancel its invisibility again in the process. The pink tentacle likewise dragged itself back through the portal.

Now I got you, you bastard.

Before it could teleport out again I shot another Flame Bullet at it while swimming closer. At this point, the water levels were getting low enough that I could reach the bottom with my feet without submerging my face.

But the monster blocked my fireball with its pink tentacle and before I could shoot it again, it opened another portal and jumped through it.

I grit my teeth in annoyance.

Before the portal closed though, I made John try and go through the portal on a whim. And to my surprise, it worked. Soon enough, I was looking at myself from above through the little screen in front of me.

I whirled my head upwards and immediately spotted the octopus hanging around the tunnel leading to this place, waving its shadowy tentacle around and slowly coating itself in darkness. I gave it no time to set up shop and regenerate its scorched tentacle and shot another fireball at it.

This time, the thing didn’t dodge fast enough. My fireball hit the shadowy tentacle it was waving around and its invisibility abruptly cut out as it staggered and fell from the ceiling.

I grinned, re-summoned my key sword, channeled fire into it, and prepared to swing at my enemy as it fell down.

Unfortunately, it just opened another portal in mid-air and fell right into it.

Fortunately, I knew the perfect counter for that move now and told John to follow it once more.

I saw my own back on the screen, so I whirled around and slashed with the key sword still in my hands. Before my hit could connect, though, the blurry purple tentacle wrapped around my wrist and began yanking me to the side. I instinctively lit up my wrist on fire, causing it to flinch back.

The still-charred pink tentacle tried to whip at me, but it was much slower than the purple one and I was already breathing in while holding up my key sword to ward it off even as I steadied my footing from the attempted throw.

The tentacle snagged on my sword, I let out a Fire breath at the thing point blank, and my vision filled with steam. A moment later, something slammed into my chest and sent me flying.

I wheezed as it punched the air out of my lungs again, and as I automatically breathed back in, I breathed in some water just as I landed, causing me to choke on it momentarily.

I scrambled to get back to my feet while coughing out the water in my lungs, and when I did, I was greeted by an unexpected sight.

The thing’s tentacles were going crazy, blindly flapping all over the place. All of them except for one – the eye-filled white tentacle. That one had an ugly burn on it just like the rest and was cradled close to its head protectively.

Well, now.

Its weak spot couldn’t be any more obvious, could it?

Once I got rid of most of the water in my lungs, I reached into my backpack and pulled out the naginata as the octopus continued to seemingly panic.

Getting close didn’t seem like a great idea with it thrashing like that, and Fire Breath was still on cooldown after that last shot, so I had to use my other long-range attack.

I raised my weapon, fed it Ether, and then stabbed forward straight in the white tentacle’s direction. The lightning bolt shot out but missed my target, hitting the octopus’s head instead. All the tentacles momentarily spasmed before continuing to thrash around.

It was kind of strange how useless it was now despite seeming so intelligent just a moment ago. The white tentacle had to have been really important if a small burn like that crippled it so much.

Well, if it was going to just sit there, I had no reason to switch up my strategy.

I fed my weapon more Ether and stabbed it forward again. Then again and again and again.

A few of my shots hit the head, a few were coincidentally blocked by one of the thrashing tentacles, but a few hit the white tentacle as well. Whenever I managed that, the entire thing shuddered to a halt for a good few seconds before it seemed to force itself to continue its blind thrashing.

The third time I hit the white tentacle, the thing stopped moving entirely. I eyed it suspiciously, weapon still at the ready, expecting it to get up again.

But then it turned into mist and disappeared, leaving the now-familiar boss chest behind.

I let out a sigh of relief as my entire body relaxed. I also idly dismissed John.

“Finally,” I breathed out. “What an annoying boss…”

GeorgeDoshington: sneaky lol
SunOfABeach: that was well done!
KaiEbikoOfficial: good job!
Jeofffff: that was a cool boss
Jeofffff: no achievements though

“Thanks guys.” I smiled before side-eying Jeoff’s message. “Not cool at all, Jeoff. Just annoying. Ugh… Teleporting, invisibility, and super speed on top of super regeneration.” I shook my head. “I wonder what the white tentacle did. If anything… Yeah, too bad I didn’t get any achievements for this.”

Jeofffff: probably just see
Jeofffff: its why it panicked when you hurt it

“Yeah. Makes sense,” I agreed with a nod before looking at the chest. “Now then… Loot time!”

By which I meant, poking the chest with my naginata time, of course. I ignored the impatience and exasperation chat exuded as I grabbed the towel – which was still sucking up water – on my way to the chest.

“It’s important, chat! What if this is actually phase two of the boss or something? And it’s like… waiting for me to get close so it can sprout more tentacles?”

Jeofffff: it’s not
Jeofffff: dude cmon

I ignored him and proceeded to poke the chest for a few minutes like always.

Nothing happened.

Nice.

I put away the weapon back into my backpack and heaved the chest open even as water began to flood back into the room from the tunnels now that the towel wasn’t absorbing it all.

There was a tentacle inside the chest.

I immediately recoiled, summoned the key sword to my hand and prepared myself for a fight… And then I suddenly felt very silly because that tentacle was detached and very much not moving on its own. Also, not made out of plush like the boss.

“Ahem. It’s not a mimic, chat,” I announced.

GeorgeDoshington: lmao
Jeofffff: you don’t say
KaiEbikoOfficial: uh why is the dungeon giving you tentacles?

“Eh… Who knows?”

I quickly replaced Craftsman with Appraisal – I’d kept it because I was still struggling to properly channel my Ether without it – and appraised the tentacle.

Ancient octopus tentacle
A piece of the legendary octopus’s meat. Infused with Tempor to keep it from going bad.

“Huh… Wait, it’s meant to be food?!” I squeaked and looked at the thing in horror.

Who would eat that thing?!

Blouterest: oh I love octopus!
Blouterest: it’s delicious!

I looked at my chat in horror.

“Delicious?! That thing?!”

Was I being pranked? Now I didn’t even wanna get close to that chest anymore.

Jeofffff: isn’t seafood generally healthy n stuff?

“I…I mean, I guess?”

I still didn’t like it. To me, octopus tentacles were… well, tentacles. Gross slimy grabby things… that could teleport, regenerate, and go invisible, apparently.

But chat insisted that it was probably delicious and likely healthier than my magical pizza.

Ridiculous. As if I would eat tentacles when I had infinite pizza.

I spent enough time hesitating that I didn’t even notice the water level rising. When it began to stream inside the chest, I hurried up and ran to the chest again.

“Okay, fine! I’ll just store it away! It’s not like I’m hurting for space!”

I shrugged off my backpack and with great reluctance and a good deal of disgust, I grabbed the damn tentacle – which was bigger than my freaking arm, augh – and stuffed it inside. Then I quickly glanced at the other items in the chest and my eyes widened.

“Oh, crap…”

The second item looked like a water gun, but the third one was a piece of paper  with scribbles on it and it was already getting wet.

I had no idea what it was for or whether it was fine for it to get wet or not, but I didn’t want to risk anything, so I stuffed both of the items inside the backpack and zipped it up.

Once the chest disappeared, I put the backpack on again and began swimming out of this place.