An Adventurer's Voyage

The men aboard the Grand Parrot were brave warriors from across the kingdom, as revealed by their demeanor and the names with which they greeted one another. Wanting to stir up some entertainment aboard the ship, they stared and sniggered at young Colin, who gazed out at the calm seas as if in a trance.

"What manner of person is this, among the greatest heroes of the land? Has he never laid eyes on the sea before?" Some of the men began to laugh audibly.

"I hear he's the son of a local fisherman," someone said.

"By the looks o' him, he ain't ever read a nautical chart or been out to sea even once, much less fought for his life. All he knows is fish! The fishermen 'round these parts never go out past the reefs, so they just catch whatever half-dead chum that floats into their nets."

"What good is he for finding treasure, then? Will he cast a net or two for it? Ah, at least he'll be able to bring some shrimp or seaweed home for dinner!"

By now, the whole deck was roaring with laughter, and the kingdom's greatest heroes took to calling the boy "Captain Colin".

Ignoring the jeers of the others, Colin retired to his quarters to rest for the coming adventure.

He was stirred from his slumber by the sound of someone shouting, "Storm ahead!" Half-asleep, he realized that the Parrot was violently rocking to and fro, like a sapling in the wind.

He stumbled up to the deck to see what was happening, only to be nearly thrown overboard by the howling winds. As he was tossed across the deck, he instinctively reached out and grabbed hold of whatever he could. Luckily, it happened to be a length of rope that was tied to the mast.

The captain, a tall, thin man with a wealth of experience sailing the high seas, prided himself with his ability to sense the coming of a storm through his knee joints. On this day, however, he had enjoyed a glass or two of the finest wine, courtesy of a nobleman's son, and his prophetic knees were rendered wobbly and utterly oblivious to impending disaster. Holding on for dear life, he commanded his new crew to lower the sails. Awkwardly, a number of the mighty heroes of the land attempted to find their feet aboard the careening ship, only to be swept out to sea by a gargantuan wave that crashed on the deck with devastating force.

In the torrential rain, Colin coughed and gor spurted. Regaining his senses, he realized that the wave had knocked him out but fortunately had not sent him down to a watery grave. Vaguely, he remembered hearing the captain scream at them to lower the sails before the wave hit. In the aftermath, Colin noticed that no one had heeded his orders.

The captain had been rendered unconscious by his injuries, as well. The rest of the crew were either wounded, drowned, or resigned to their fates at the hands of Mother Nature.

Steeling himself, Colin tied the rope around his waist and began to climb up the mast. As he attempted to lower the mast by himself, he shouted down to the men, "So long as the ship survives, we will survive with it!"

A few of the men below, stirred by Colin's words and actions and not wishing to die in vain, followed the boy's example. Tying ropes around themselves, they clambered onto the deck and lent Colin their support, his words ringing true in their ears. With the ship as their sword, they cut through the tempest and survived their first encounter with death on their voyage.

In the calm following the storm, one of the men approached Colin and asked for his name. Word of his heroics spread quickly throughout the ship, reaching the ears of every survivor and the captain himself, who had since regained consciousness. He was acknowledged by every one of the remaining men as a hero. The man who had mockingly dubbed him "Captain Colin" apologized, and thereafter took to calling him "Colin the Brave".

Their woes, however, were far from over. The storm left the sails in tatters, and the captain warned that without sails to direct their course, they have bound to either float on aimlessly or crash into their demise. It was then that Colin the Brave hatched yet another idea: turning to the crew, he suggested that they sew their blankets and other fabrics into the torn sails.

"Leave everything to me," Colin reassured them. "I am the son of a fisherman, after all."

He began unraveling a length of rope to make a thread and, taking out a needle made from a fishbone, he set himself to the herculean task of fashioning new sails entirely by hand.

After hours and hours of toil, the Grand Parrot raised its new, makeshift sails, and came aground without further incident.

The second island was occupied by flying dragons, more than any of the men had ever seen in their lives. Guarding a secret treasure deep within a cave, they swoop down in droves on anyone foolish enough to approach. Despite the warriors' proficiency in combat, when faced with an insurmountable number of flying dragons, they decided to retreat for the time being.

The dragons, however, were not so accommodating. They doggedly pursued the heroes to the island shores.

Provoked by their persistence, one warrior turned to the draconic horde and shouted, "Is this how you repay our mercy? We chose not to slaughter you, but now you leave us no choice! To arms!"

He drew his blade, the furor of battle raging in his eyes.

But Colin the Brave took hold of the man's arm, pointing in the direction of the mountain at the center of the island. Before the warrior had a chance to retort, loud rumblings and violent tremors began to spread from deep within the mountain.

Suddenly, a colossal shape emerged from the peak. It was no mountain, but a volcano, and the home of a titanic dragon, no less!

The warriors, knowing they stood no chance against such a massive foe, pushed their vessel back out to sea, and away from the dragon-infested island.

The warrior turned to Colin the Brave, and asked him, "How did you know a dragon would come crawling out of that volcano?"

"I didn't," Colin responded. "I just sensed the vibrations in the ground beneath us."

The warrior, however, was not satisfied with his answer. "The shaking only started when that great beast started to emerge! What is this nonsense you tell me, then?"

Colin politely asked the warrior to avoid jumping to conclusions, then listened intently for a few seconds before saying, "The ship's cook will be coming up to the deck in a few moments."

Sure enough, just seconds later, the cook made his way up to the deck.

Colin began to explain himself once again, but the warrior had finally understood: Colin the Brave was capable of sensing vibrations that ordinary people could not, and could even discern the approximate size and form of an incoming object. As such, he was only able to foresee the dragon's massive form approaching. The cook, hearing of their experience and Colin's amazing ability, jovially invited the men down for drinks and his special rabbit jerky.

The Grand Parrot sailed for another half-day, but upon arriving at its destination, the passengers were utterly shocked. The first island they landed on, which they had decided to retreat to, had all but vanished into thin air!

A puzzled adventurer looked upon the crew and asked if they had read the map incorrectly.

The crew scrutinized the map and consulted their navigation tools, and after a spell of bickering, they concluded that no error in navigation had been made.

Suddenly, Colin felt yet another mysterious vibration. He ran out to the bow of the ship and looked out to sea. After a few moments, strange waves began rippling out towards them, causing the Parrot to rock harder and harder.

As the heroes speculated on the nature of the phenomenon, a few of them peered out into the horizon. They noticed the sea was getting darker and darker out there, as though a huge shadow had cast itself over the waters.

"This happens all the time," one man said as he chuckled to himself. "The clouds block out the sun from time to time, and they leave a shadow like this on the water's surface."

Every man looked up into the sky, but to their dismay... There was not a single cloud above them. They realized that this could only mean the shadow was beneath the water's surface, lurking in the depths.

Not long after, the surface of the water began to bubble all over, and small, white objects began to float to the surface. One of the men pointed his telescope towards a cluster of white objects. Horrified, he whispered, "Those are the rabbits that we found on the first island..."

Colin the Brave woke up and found himself lying on hard ground. Groggily, he reached out a hand. It was cold and smooth, like a huge stone. He sat up and rubbed his eyes, and began to look around. What he saw took his breath away. Water flowed high above his head, blurry and blue, as if he were at the bottom of the sea. A pale dot of light shone overhead, as well. Was it the sun? He realized he was breathing, but no bubbles came out of his mouth. He wanted to make a sound, but his surroundings were too quiet for comfort.

Getting up, he realized he was in the middle of what appeared to be a road, flanked on both sides by strange statues. Drawn by his curiosity, he inspected the statues more closely. They resembled monsters sculpted out of some sort of mud.

Colin reached out to touch one, and its eerily gritty surface caused him to pull his hand away, as if he had been shocked.

Beyond the stone statues, he saw an ordinary road stretching out in the distance, terminating in what appeared to be a disproportionately large stairway. He looked up towards the top. At the end of the stairway, there appeared to be the remains of a massive stone gate, mostly collapsed now.

He looked behind him and found the stairway terminated at the edge of an undersea trench not far away, leaving Colin with only one way forward. After passing a stone pillar, however, he noted a change in his surroundings... He felt as if he were being watched by countless eyes, but there was nothing around him. Losing his nerve, he began to run. He desperately wanted to leave this place, even if he had to crawl his way up those massive stairs before him. Glancing back, he realized with horror that the gazes he felt seemed to be coming from the abyss. Every hair on his body stood erect, every instinct in his body telling him to flee for his life.

He scrambled up dozens of the huge stone steps almost effortlessly, but then he noted a strange characteristic of these steps: they seemed to grow taller and wider as he went up.

Arriving at the collapsed gate, he saw a grotesque figure etched into one of the fragments: a monster of some sort, with gigantic eyes and tentacles.

Colin shuddered, either from fear or excitement. He felt his heart urging him to keep moving forward. Crawling over the stone gate's rubble, he was stunned at the sight before him. Situated in a vast, undersea plain were the ruins of a massive kingdom.

Colin's mind practically buzzed with questions, but one thought in particular nagged at him. At the bottom of the stairway he had just scaled, the steps were befitting of an average human's size. As he ascended, however, they grew larger and larger until he had no choice but to climb with his hands and feet. How strange, that even though this kingdom once worshipped by everyone now lies in ruins, its visitors must still crawl towards it as though prostrating themselves...

Colin felt that familiar, unsettling gaze behind him, and quickly turned around... But when he came to, he found himself lying on a warm, sandy beach. Assured by the cool waves lapping at his feet that he was no longer dreaming, he began to explore his surroundings. He found nothing unusual, aside from some strange drag marks left in the sand.

Suddenly, Colin recalled the last thing he saw in the sea: a huge monster with grayish-white tentacles...

Suddenly, a massive tentacle rose from the water, creeping up along the side of the Argo. The entire ship began to tilt, and the crew was frozen in place by their fear. Only Colin the Brave moved, he raised an axe above his head and swung it deep into the encroaching tentacle. The warrior, stirred into action by Colin's bravery once more, drew his dagger and plunged it into the tentacle. The two hacked away at it until it was severed clean from the beast.

The crew frantically raised the sails, wanting to return to land, but the seas began to churn violently. At first, the crew thought it was a large chunk of a coral reef that had floated to the surface, but as it continued to rise out of the water, the crew realized it was the gnarled flesh of some gargantuan monster. To the relief of the crew, it stopped rising from the depths, unnaturally still.

Colin the Brave felt dizzy, unconsciously recalling the huge monster sculpted on the remains of that stone gate to the kingdom under the sea. What he did not know, was that this beast had a name that could only be found in ancient sea charts: Havga.

After tossing this way and that on the water, the ancient vessel Argo finally made it to shore. The crew jumped down and decided to climb up the cliff that ran along the edge of the beach.

Halfway up the cliff, one of the men heard Colin muttering under his breath.

"There are two monsters of the deep..." he heard him say.

The warrior, always concerned for Colin but impatient nonetheless, grabbed him and asked, "What was that you said?"

"A monster that can attack ten ships all at once... This new, black creature fits the description much more, don't you think?" Colin was not looking at the warrior, but gazing into the distance, as if in a dream.

"Two monsters, you say?" The crew was incredulous, but after thinking about it for a moment, they realized it was entirely possible. The first monster they encountered had grayish-white tentacles, same as the tentacle that had just grabbed hold of the Argo. The new monster rose from the sea, however, was jet black...

"Were the rumors wrong? Is this not the Kraken?" The warrior bantered among himself for a long time before concluding the discussion.

"Have you men ever seen a creature of the sea called an 'octopus'?" asked Colin, seemingly back to his senses.

"No, what is it?" asked one of the men.

"I hear it's no fish, but a demon that possesses the evil eye!" replied another.

"I've heard rumors about it, they say it's a clever and deceptive creature," chimed in a third man.

"That's right. My father caught one before, but it escaped... And that grayish-white monster closely resembles an octopus." Colin said. "But no octopus is huge enough to make a fleet of ships or an entire island disappear overnight," he added.

Sure enough, the jet-black monster gradually rising out of the ocean was much bigger than any octopus. As the froth and the waves surrounded it grew larger and more violent, the form of a small mountain appeared out of the water. It seemed to have lost most of the vegetation that once grew on it, only bare stone was exposed to the air.

Only after the crew reached the top of the cliff and looked down upon the water did they realize the true scope of the monster of the deep. The small mountain they saw earlier had completely surfaced along with a large, black tentacle. With one massive sweep, the tentacle sent a surge of water crashing into the island's forest below, along with the Argo.

With their ship stuck between the now-submerged trees, the men began to lose hope. "It's impossible... How could we ever defeat a monster such as this?" Terror began to grip the hearts of the kingdom's bravest heroes.

"The ancient ship Argo, and the Golden Eye... According to our treasure map, all we're missing is the Deep-sea Trident. So long as we find it, we have a chance to defeat these monsters of the sea!" proclaimed Colin the Brave.