Chapter Twenty-Five: Just a Bunch of Hocus Pocus
The following morning, we made our way to the beach to explore the area.
"Folklore or not, there is a connection between the Kraken and this town." Milo commented.
"Volgud hands out food and supplies from somewhere." Kida spoke up, "Maybe a hidden cave."
"I could search." Vinny suggested, "It would make a very nice boom."
"Which would draw a lot of attention." I replied.
Mole laughed, "The answer is staring at you right in the face." He then went talk about how a boulder was being disguised as part of the cliff and then moved to pull a lever hidden by another rock formation.
"They look exactly the same to me." Kida commented in surprise.
"Yeah, but you weren't raised by naked mole rats." Audrey told her as the others passed her.
"It can take a little getting used to." I said to Kida as we followed behind the others, "You'll get to a point where this type of stuff doesn't faze you anymore. I should know, I've been working with him for the past five years. The naked mole rat thing isn't exactly true though, he grew up exploring sewers, catacombs, and caves. He actually had a job as a technical advisor for a mining company for years until my Grandfather hired him."
"That would explain so much." Kida responded.
As we made our way through the cave, we started to see boxes, crates, and people. Everyone who had disappeared from the town along with the people who had missing from the cargo ships were here.
"This is all from the sunken freighter." Mole commented and then Kida spotted Volgud. He had been standing by the water, watching as the kraken's tentacles rose to the surface.
"Volgud is controlling the kraken." Milo gasped.
"How table scraps and a rolled up newspaper?" Audrey questioned sarcastically.
"He's not using table scraps." Vinny told them, which was true, it had been more of the hypnotic trance. Milo's theory had been that he used it to tell kraken where to go and which ships to attack. He had been so engrossed in tell all of us what to do, he didn't notice Audrey was not with us. She had fallen under the monster's trance. Seeing that they were all caught up in the moment, I tried to go after Audrey.
As she started to walk into the water, I pulled at her arm, "Audrey, snap out of it." I hissed at her, trying to draw as little attention to myself as possible. She shook me off and continued walking. I tried circling around to her to push her back and then I noticed her eyes, they were glowing green. "That's not good…" I backed away from her, she had been under the kraken's spell. "Um, guys I think we could use your help over here." I called to the others as one of the kraken's tentacles wrapped around Audrey.
"Get Audrey, I'll distract him." Milo told us.
As we tried to fight the monster and the hypnotized people, it became pretty evident that it wasn't helping anything. Milo had knocked out Volgud and nothing had happened. The most we had gotten was thrown around.
"Alright, time for plan b." Vinny lit a stick of dynamite, "Plan bomb."
Mole stopped him before he threw it, "No, not at the creature, at the ceiling." He pointed.
"How about picking the target before I light the dynamite?" Vinny responded before throwing the dynamite. Rocks came crashing down on to the kraken and it let go of Audrey. Milo and Kida got Audrey and we headed to the sub pods to stop the kraken from getting out.
When we got the sub pods, we each separated into groups of two. Milo and Kida took one, Vinny and Mole took another, and Audrey and I took the last one.
"Talk to me, Mole." Milo said over the intercom, "Gotta find that cave exit. The only chance we have to stop the kraken is to trap him inside. Audrey, you doin' alright?"
"Yeah, now." Audrey grimaced, "It was creepy, all cold and slimy. Everything faded away like I was drowning."
"You're okay now though, right?" I asked and she nodded in reply. "Remind me later, I may have something that can help you from that happening again or at least ward it off."
"Hey, pay attention." I heard Mole say to Vinny, before adding, "It is too dark to see, fire the magnesium flares." Vinny did as Mole instructed
"What are you doing?" Milo asked them incredulously, "We want to sneak up on-"
"Milo, look in front of you!" I cut him off, seeing the monster in front of us.
"Jiminy Christmas!"Milo exclaimed, "It's already out." As we got closer to it, he added, "Stay clear of the tentacles."
"You think?" I replied.
"Ha, no kidding." Audrey said in agreement, and then told them, "We're going to take a shot." We maneuvered our pod through its tentacles, trying to go for a shot to hit it, but only hitting the wall. "It's no good, can't line up a decent shot."
"We've still got a few more rounds." I responded, "We can try another tactic."
"We're on him." Milo responded, but when they tried to fire their missile, they were hit by one of the tentacles.
"You think it's weird we haven't heard anything from Mole and Vinny in a while?" I asked Audrey.
She shrugged, "Maybe they turned off their intercom."
"Maybe…" I replied, and then I noticed something coming towards us, "Um, Audrey, we need to move."
"Why?" She asked, I nodded to her side at the missile heading right towards us. We quickly maneuvered out of the way.
"What was that?!" I retorted to Mole and Vinny if they could hear me.
"Shoot at the squid, not us!" Audrey yelled at them.
"Vincent has gone mad!"Mole exclaimed coming back on to the intercom, "His mind is all blank!"
"But Volgud?" Milo questioned.
"It's not Volgud, it's the kraken."Kida told him.
"Of course, the kraken is the one with the mind powers." Audrey said in agreement.
"Hey Mole, you might want to knock out Vinny." I suggested, "It might help with the mind control."
Not too long after the suggestion, a bang was heard over the intercom. Mole then came on and said, "It is okay, I have distracted him."
We started to steer our sub pods back to the beach to regroup, seeing that we were running out of ammunition. As we passed by a sunken sub pod, Vinny and Mole's pod quickly turned around.
"Are you crazy?!" Audrey yelled at them.
"No, I think they have the right idea." I told her, pointing to the missiles on the sub pod.
"It's Milo's sub pod, it's got a full load of torpedoes." Vinny responded, "We can blow the whole thing at once."
"Let's do it!" Milo said in agreement.
We all turned around and each fired at the sub pod, blowing it up, which in turn destroyed the kraken.
"You know I think Mr. Squid was a bit hocus pocus, myself."Vinny commented as we started to head back to the beach.
When we pulled back up to the beach, we secured our sub pods and headed back up to the village. It had still been dark when we headed up, most likely past midnight. We headed back to the inn to get some sleep.
"You okay?" I asked Vinny as we headed to our rooms.
"Got a bit of a headache but otherwise, I'm fine." He replied.
"Well, I did tell Mole to try to knock you out." I replied sheepishly.
"Try?" He raised an eyebrow, "I don't remember you using try in that sentence."
"Well, you did fire torpedoes at us." I reminded, "Even if it were due to some hocus pocus."
"You didn't seem too fazed by that."
"It's not the first time I've seen something like that." I replied as we reached my door, "Goodnight, Vinny."
"Night, Tia."
The next morning, it was like we had found ourselves in another town. The fog had lifted and the sun had been shinning. The statue of Volgud had been torn down and the villagers were interacting with one another.
"Oh yeah, you won't find the kraken in any biology book." Milo commented. Kida added on about how things were different now that the curse had been lifted.
"So if something stinks now…" Vinny added.
"That'll be remedied once I get him back on his regimented schedule." I spoke up, "If he wants to come home then I'm not dealing with the smell or his lack of hygiene and he knows that."
"How'd you get him to agree to that?" Vinny asked.
"I gave him a job, shelter, and food." I answered, and then changed the subject, "So what do we do now?"
"I'm guessing we go to Trondheim, that's where the ship's being repaired." He responded.
"You think the repairs will be done?"
He nodded, "There wasn't much to repair; it was minor damage."
"That's good."
"You're ready to go back."
I nodded, "I'm ready to go home."