Chapter 14: Will

The Afflelands was a rich country. It had a strong and well maintained navy. The people loved their fish, after all, so boating was a strong suit to them in all its forms.

As luck would have it, their navy was out that day on a drill when they saw Alurel’s massive form approaching. However, no drill could have prepared them for such a sight: a 500ft tall woman of the sea. They couldn’t see her entire lower body as she swam over, but they knew it had tentacles: big ones. They saw her strange, purple anemone hair, and the large golden tiara atop her head.

The green-irised being was glowing a gentle golden hue, and she was heading their way.

There was debate on the ships whether or not to fire. She was monstrous in height after all, and despite her beauty none could deny the tentacles and thick, appendage-like hair were befitting a monster. So massive was she that her very movements kicked up powerful waves that lapped at their ships. It was a tempting instinct to just start firing.

However, once she got reasonably close to the forces, close enough to reach out with one of her tentacles, she stopped moving.

And she began to speak.

“Don’t shoot me, little humans.”, she said. “I come bringing good news.”

The people on the ships were educated, but upon hearing her radiant voice, they thought her some kind of god. They held their fire from a mixture of curiosity and the notion of not wishing divine wrath upon themselves.

The sun had finished rising; the sky now a clear blue. Alurel raised her hand and that quickly changed. White clouds now filled much of the sky across the entire globe. They were thin enough to let most of the sun through still. Every land-dweller everywhere looked up in awe as the sky shifted like that.

Alurel smiled. She was at last close enough to see a real human settlement, and it was beautiful. She wasn’t so close to touch it, yet, and her keen senses meant she wasn’t that near to the coast. She wanted to still be able to float in the waters, rather than having to scuttle across the beach. Yet, she saw the Afflelands very well.

She could still see the sprawling of wooden docks and small seaside homes by the shore. She saw past that to the structures of wood and brick and stone, crowded together. Store fronts and houses were topped with colorful roofs of varying shapes. The cobblestone and dirt roads teemed with human life. There, people went about their day till she showed up. Squinting with her powerful vision, she could even see the great stone castle that Afflelands king lived in, and where Ethan once lived.

‘It’s mine.’, she thought. ‘All mine~’

She spoke, and used her powers to convey her words from the seas themselves, and from the clouds she had scattered across the planet’s sky. Projecting her voice across the world like this was among the merest of her her powers. It impressed everyone all the same. She had the sweet voice of a woman with the radiant timbre of a god atop it, and the godly volume and reach to back up claims of divine power.

“Greetings humans. I must say, The Afflelands look even more lovely in person than I imagined. To think I had to wait this long to see them for myself. Well, no longer. Soon all of the sea will see land-culture.”

She paused a moment, smiling wider. Her tentacles idly shifted as she spoke, kicking up little waves to rock any nearby ships.

“I am Alurel, queen of Atlantis, queen of the seas, and the queen of all of you. I bring a message of welcoming into my underwater world. You are all being granted ‘citizenship’, as you say, into my queendom in the watery depths. By my powers, the ocean will be your new home. You and everything you know will be submerged, and you will be changed by my fantastic powers, and live as part of my new world.”

People over the world began to grew nervous.

“There is no point in resistance, my powers, my being is so very, very far above you even now. All your monarchies are revoked, your rulers illegitimate. There is only me now, Alurel, your one eternal queen. I can sense you all, vaguely, beneath my clouds and near my waters. You humans are diverse in your buildings and appearance much like the fish of the sea, it’s really marvelous. Now, simply bow in submission and gratitude: surrender, and await my waters to carry you down to a new home under my care and control~”

She waited, smiling. With her powerful senses spread beneath the clouds and near the seas, she sensed panic erupting across settlements across the globe. She could literally see that going on in that shore-side capital city of the Afflelands.

There was some order in the chaos there, emerging slowly but steadily. Men in fancy clothes talked with others. Nods were exchanged. Ships began to sail from docks, hastily loaded with men in uniforms.

A great horn sounded from the shores of the Afflelands. The ships before Alurel’s 500ft form turned their sides to her bulk and fired.

It seemed her call for a universal surrender had been rejected. Only some nomadic tribes had the good sense to bow to her voice as far as her vague senses could tell.

“Very well.”, she said across the globe. “I can have a bit of fun first, showing you my power. Besides, I have had nothing to eat yet this morning.”

The Afflelands ships fired volleys of cannon balls. Most reached only at her dark-green octopus half, yet a scant few landed against her taut, fair-skinned tummy.

She giggled.

“That tickles, sillies~”.

She raised one massive tentacle around an offending ship. The limb’s suckers made for easy, inescapable gripping. People onboard brandished their swords and struck at her flesh, but they couldn't even scrape, let alone cut her limb.

Alurel squeezed, completely crushing the ship in half. The sailors fell into the waters, where a swipe of her tentacle took them up. People were gripped to the suckers, stuck like fish in a trap.

She stretched the long limb to her smiling face. As cannon-fire continued to futilely pelt her, she opened wide and slipped the limb in. Everyone stuck to it was sucked off, swallowed.

She slid the tentacle out with a pop of her lips.

“Mmmf, yummy as always. You humans always were a treat. Soon, you’ll all be my treasures.”

The ships kept attacking her, although they began to build some distance, sailing back towards the shores of the Afflelands.

“Where are you going? I’m still hungry~”

Their speed was pathetic in comparison to her, especially when she could will the sea winds to blow them back her way. She did just that and simply swam a little forward. Her very movements were an attack, as the undulations of her tentacles kicked up ship-tilting waves.

She reached out towards the battalion of ships with her four front tentacles. Each limb found a prize to coil around. Unlike before, she didn’t crush the vessels: she lifted them out of the sea itself.

She brought the limbs up to her mouth, balancing her form with her back tentacles in the waters to float still. She passed one vessel from a tentacle to her hands. She held it like a toy ship, bringing it real close to her eyes. Brave sailors threw harpoons at those green-irised orbs, but they simply bounced off of her. She was impervious to mortal weapons.

Her face was all they could see.

“Oh wow, look at you all. So brave, so handsome.”

Her tongue slipped out of her lips.

“So delicious~”

She snapped the ship in half, making a deep crack down the hole to bend the vessel at. She titled it over her open mouth and shook it.

Crew-members held onto masts, shrouds, or just anything built into the ship for dear life. They witnessed their fellow sailors fall from the ship into that great yawning, salivating maw. Each shake made their finger holds looser, each shake prompted more of them to at least lose their holds and plummet to their dooms. She could swallow with her mouth open, as they witnessed she did when her mouth was full of the humans and cargo crates that plummeted from the wounded vessel. Yet, she waited till her mouth was full, usually.

A couple more shakes and everyone on that ship was in her gob. Her lips sealed, but they could still see thanks to that golden glow which permeated her very flesh. They were scarcely savored: a quick suckle and they were swallowed down whole and wriggling.

“Ah, lovely.”, she said. She moved a tentacle with another ship to her mouth.

“More~”

This time, she cracked the ship in half with her free front tentacle. Since those limbs were more flexible than her arms or a single finger, it was about as easy to shake the people out. She devoured the second vessel as such, then repeated for the third and the fourth.

Alurel treated the ships not as enemy combatants, but as meal baskets: as treats hiding in shells she could crack with ease. Occasionally, the people she sloppily shook out would miss her mouth. Some fell against her body and down to the waters, dying outright or under the crashing waves her massive body made when her tentacles shifted.

Others landed on the thick strands of her purple ‘hair’, which was actually tendrils much like a sea-anemone. They quickly learned the hair tendrils were not just for appearance. Tiny needles stung the sailors on contact while holding them stuck to the head-appendages. The needles injected a toxin into their bodies. It was painful, and paralyzed their body while starting digestive processes. They couldn’t even scream as it numbed their forms from moving.

Alurel could of course feel with her ‘hair’, and she knew when they had caught prey. They were opposable appendages as well to her, and she stretched the tendrils into her mouth to suck off the stuck, softening humans. She was, of course, immune to her own ‘hair’’s sting after all. It was hardly a mercy for the people to be removed from the appendages, though, as the toxin still coursed through their veins while they were swallowed down.

Her stomach was growing packed with humanity. The sailors clambered over one another as they landed. Her digestive stomach was lit, leaving nothing to the imagination. The humans weren’t alone, as the scent alone would reveal. It smelled like acid, but also fish.

Deep-black and purple sea creatures occupied her stomach. There were dissolving carcasses of large, tentacled squid with skin as black as ink. There were eels long as three men laying side by side scattered among the stomach. All sorts of fanged and ferocious, almost alien looking fish and sea-creatures were there. She had feasted while she practiced her powers in the deepest recesses of the ocean.

The creatures were all in various stages of dissolvement like any food would be. Most were dead, yet a scant few resilient ones were merely heavily wounded by Alurel’s persistent stomach acids. They were harmless to the sailors in the sense of not being able to physically attack. Still, some of them and some of the dead fish had toxic spines of their own, which still stung on contact.

As the sailors were thrashed about with every turn of the digestive muck they were in, many stumbled into said stingers despite any effort to stay away. They had the agony of deep-sea toxins added to the omnipresent burning from Alurel’s relentless and effective acids.

Finishing that fourth ship, Alurel crushed it in her tentacular grip before tossing it aside like all the others. She noticed the remaining ships in the navy moving away from her. They were retreating, though firing at her with their ships’ back-cannons all the while.

She giggled.

“Hey, where are you sillies all going?”, she said.

“You should be sailing towards your queen, not away~”

She slowly swam towards them, toying with them. She reached out with one of her front tentacles and shadowed a couple of vessels beneath the limbs. Rather than grab them, she merely slapped them below the deaths. Their hulls were cracked and they promptly sank.

Alurel laughed, and continued leisurely swimming after the ships. It was about halfway till they got to shore that they turned around. Alurel easily saw why, many more ships were just launched from the docks of the Afflelands’s coastal capital.

Her glowing eyes widened, as did her smile.

“Oh I see, you were gathering more of your friends. Well, if you get to double your efforts, it’s only fair I get to, don’t you think?”

Alurel stretched her arms to the side. Her glow briefly intensified as her body began to slowly expand. Before the eyes of the freshly reinforced navy, she grew. Her tentacles, her arms, every bit of her stretched up and out in proportion. That clay-beige shell bra on her chest started to strain, than the seaweed bands snapped entirely. It fell into the seas with a great big splash, her naked chest was entirely bared.

She finished at double her old size, now a good 1000ft or so.

“There.”, she said. “I think this is fair now, don’t you?”

She giggled as the ships sailed towards her, firing all sorts of long range cannonballs her way. They couldn’t crest past her octopus half anymore in their shots.

“I always knew I was meant to rule over the smaller folk. I mean, it’s obvious that my sheer scale made me better than others, right? But now, now I have more than that. I have power. Power beyond your imagination. Let me demonstrate just a small sample.”

She pointed her finger at one of the front-most vessels. A beam of lightning surged from her digit to strike the ship. It exploded at the sight of impact, and caught fire from the fury of the lightning-like blast. Wooden shrapnel exploded out from it to pelt nearby ships, and what was left of her target quickly sunk into the sea.

She giggled.

The sailors grew more concerned, but the honor of their country steadied their fears enough to keep fighting, even as she eyed them with a hungry gaze.

“You know.”, she said. “Doubling in size made my stomach get twice the room it had before.”

With that, Alurel lunged towards the fleet, mouth agape. She took in a couple ships in one bite. Ships were cut in half by her teeth. At times, she had to briefly chew to crack bits of ships in her mouth. Even big as she was, she couldn’t yet swallow ships whole. However, she wasn’t throwing away any parts of the ship either. She knew her digestive system could handle dissolving away wood and metals.

The slamming of her teeth cut off any escape for those inside. She swallowed her prizes down with the salt-water they sailed in. Those already in her gut had to dodge swallowed cannons and entire heavy chunks of wood now. It also made the churns of her gut ever more dangerous and disorienting.

The ships desperately tried to shoot her face as it came down, then up, then down again while she lunged through their ranks. It mattered not, she was too fast, and the blows that landed out of pure chance did nothing to her. She was toying with them, like a predator with its prey.

She was also moving, though, steadily towards the shores of Afflelands's capital. Each dive of her body kicked up large waves which assaulted the shores and flooded the buildings closest to the seashore. Their problems were many as it was, but when she emerged in arms reach of the coast they only intensified.

Alurel smiled down at all the running, screaming people on land. Some were military, firing at her with cannons on the docks, but for the most part they were the normal people. Shop keepers, farmers on a trip to the docks, fishermen, artisans. These were some of the creators of the human culture Alurel found so endearing and cute.

She giggled.

“It’s adorable how you try to run. Human determination is really something. Perhaps that’s why you wriggle so much when I swallow you down.”

She reached out with her front four tentacles. They curled around entire shops and groups of people. They cleaved through homes, snatching the prizes within.

She brought it all up towards her upper body. Her tentacles slid into her mouth, sucked clean of their prizes. She cracked open buildings like shells and feasted on the living ‘meat’ within. Her tentacles cleaned entire seashore-near streets in their sweeps. They flattened about as many buildings as she picked up.

Some men rushed through the roads, armed with gunpowder arms. Before they even got off a shot, she slammed a tentacle down upon them and flattened them to paste.

Alurel even scuttled onto land a bit, at least feeling the sands of a shore, the wood of a dock, and the stones of a road beneath her bulk. She reached out towards one of the more inland homes with a tentacle, dripping water down to drench those beneath the limb.

She curled the appendage about a quaint and quirky steepled home. Brought to her mouth, she bit into it like one would a fruit, then sucked up the couple living inside along with much of their furniture. She saw some of the fancy, wooden chairs and such after the fact.

“Oooh, what clever humans you are. There’s still so much I’ve never seen. All these structures, all your tiny trinkets: so much of it has never been shipped in the cargo I used to sift through. You’ve no idea how exciting this is for me.”

As she ravaged the coast of the city, what few ships that escaped her earlier devourment fired at her posterior side. Her back-facing tentacles were enough to handle those few forces with a bit of flailing and slapping. None escaped her limbs, which were oddly precise.

“I can sense you even when my head is turned, you know.”, she said, reveling in her abilities. “It is my sea you sail on. I can sense the smallest flail of a flipper, to the biggest churn of the waves.”

Her voice echoed across the seas and clouds, as before.

“I can also sense all these wonderful ships, from across the world, coming out to meet me.”

She turned around and, indeed, in the distance was a massive gathering of seafaring vessels. There were thousands. All the navies of the world were heading over, having heard from her earlier proclamation that she was near the Afflelands. A cacophony of war-horns from different nations sounded out across the waters.

The nations of the world varied on the minutia of their interpretations of what she said and what she must be, but they all agreed she was a threat to humanity herself. Her attack on the Afflelands was seen as an attack on human societies everywhere, so they sailed, united, to try and stop her.

The Afflelands was thankfully close to many other countries on the planet, so travel time was not too much, and even more distant navies were on their way.

Alurel looked to them on the horizon, and laughed. She started swimming over. Her voice boomed around them.

“So much people. So many exciting ships. It’s like a sample from so many human cultures, just for me. I can’t wait to meet you all.”

The waves churned as she swam faster towards them. Although, as she approached, she slowly sunk into the water.

“I bet you’re excited, excited to think you can stop me. But you haven’t even seen a fraction of my true power, my true strength.”

She giggled, only her head above water.

“I suppose I’ll show it to you now, given the display you’ve offered to me in turn. Such thoughtful, silly humans~”

She dove under the water. No ships could see her now. For a moment, the sea was calm. They could hear a great shifting of water though, and it drew closer and closer to the mighty unified fleet of ships out on the ocean.

All aboard their vessels felt a great stirring of the sea. The water began to bubble under the central cluster of the fleet. Hundreds of ships were atop the shifting area of water.

Something was below them, something big.