Chapter 16: The Blue Dragon's Pet

Hello, and welcome back to our irregularly scheduled nonsense!

I hope everyone is staying safe and healthy with this whole social distancing thing going on, and what better way to pass the time during quarantine than making fun of books I don't like?  Well, studying for my classes that have all moved online, but still.  Sorry for the massive delay, I've been 1) doing homework and 2) hanging out with my family because I decided it was a better idea to sit through this quarantine with other people instead of going slowly crazy from loneliness in my tiny studio apartment.

Last time, I had some good things to say about the writing in this series, for once!  There was some fun, creative stuff in the last chapter that was buried under laziness and every male characters' weird attraction to Kelsey.  Also, Kelsey's powers work by spooning, which is still really dumb.

This time, another dragon and a badly thought out fight scene.

Chapter Sixteen: The Blue Dragon's Pet

Kelsey complains about the flight back down to the boat.  When they get there, Longjun shakes his head to get them off his back, and Kelsey gets launched into the air because she is incompetent.  Ren and Kishan grab her before she falls off the side, and the three of them watch the dragon take flight back to his palace.  Without a word (because he is an asshole), Ren grabs the sextant from Kishan's hands and leaves to go talk to Mr. Kadam.

Kishan asks if Kelsey's alright, and she says she's tired, so he goes to put her to bed like an actual child.

He helped me down the ladder of the wheelhouse and briefly ducked his head inside.  "I'm putting Kelsey to bed."

See, I told you.

Kelsey changes into her pajamas and snuggles up next to Kishan.

"Where does it hurt, Kells?"

"My elbow."

He examined my bruised elbow and pressed a soft kiss against it.  "Anywhere else?"

"My knee."

He pulled down the sheet and slid my silky pajamas to above my kneecap.  He squeezed my knee gently.  "You've skinned it, but I think it will heal."  His lips touched my knee as he kissed me sweetly there as well.  "Next?"

Those of you who enjoy watching action movies from the 80s might be thinking, Hey, that's literally a scene from one of the Indiana Jones movies!  And you'd be right!

I could be watching Indiana Jones right now during this quarantine.  But no.

Kelsey uses her fast travel ability by sleeping, and wakes up a few hours later.  She complains about how much pain she's in when she takes a shower.

I briefly wondered why I wasn't healing as fast here as I did in the other realms.  I suspected that powering up that star drained me so completely that it was difficult for my body to catch up.

Nah, it's because Houck has no idea what she's doing.  And she didn't heal quickly in Kishkindha, either--she had to rely on Fanindra's magical anti-death venom that's never shown up again.

Kelsey meets up with the others and Nilima makes her breakfast.  No word on whether Kelsey actually thanks Nilima for that, and Nilima doesn't have any dialogue in this scene.  I thought she was like Kelsey's sister now?

Also, why does Nilima have to cook at all?  Kelsey uses the Golden Fruit in the very next scene, and they don't have to worry about the crew anymore since they're not on the boat anymore.  Guess Kelsey just really wants Nilima to be subservient.  Ick.

She confers with Mr. Kadam, who says that they're moving again, although they still don't know how.  None of their instruments are working, so they can't tell where they are, but he's discovered something inside of the sextant: a "dragon almanac," which is a small book containing helpful information.  Gee, that sure is convenient that they have a magical device that tells them exactly what they need to know, so they don't have to plan for anything and know exactly what will happen in the future!

Other than containing exposition, the sextant also allows them to plot their course.  Which...makes no sense, because they move automatically and can't change direction.  This is like me saying that the map on my phone lets me plot the course an airplane is going to take.

I guess it does let them figure out how long it will take to get to their destination, but that's not what "plotting a course" means.

"Once the star is in view, the sextant whirs and clicks, almost like a compass."

It whirs and clicks in exactly the way a compass doesn't!  Seriously, compasses don't make noise.

They'll get there at about 8:00am.  We don't know how long that will be since the only time given to us is "around dinnertime."

Mr. Kadam picks Kelsey's brain about the red dragon's palace and seems especially interested in how she got the star working again.  She asks if Ren told him, and Mr. Kadam says that Ren left the explanation to Kelsey.  How nice of him to force Kelsey to explain that.  He's even in the room listening to the explanation!  What a dick!

Kelsey lies and says that it must be because they're in a different world.  Ren, upon hearing this, leaves the room like a little baby because he just can't bear for Kelsey to not constantly acknowledge her feelings for him.

Conveniently, while Kelsey was asleep, the others have been doing actual work.  After sending Mr. Kadam off to get some sleep, the others goof off and play Parcheesi.  While I would argue that they should be doing, uh, anything else to prepare with their meeting with the dragon, such as using the dragon almanac to get information about it, because we haven't actually heard what it says yet, I fully admit that Kelsey is next to useless so this is probably a better use of her time.

Uh, Kelsey and Kishan flirt some more, so that's something that happens.  Kishan says he's feeling happy for the first time in centuries.  Kelsey (an idiot) asks if he means that he likes fighting monsters, and Kishan says that it's because he's with Kelsey.  Um.  Duh.

Kelsey leans in for a kiss and Kishan says that he'll kiss her soon.  What is it with these two guys and spurning any affection from Kelsey once she actually wants to kiss them?  That's...kind of weird and creepy.  (Yes, Kishan's doing it so that Kelsey can get over Ren, but it's a strange pattern of behavior, especially following the whole "I'm not going anywhere until you kiss me" thing both have individually done.)

She picks up the kimono and sees some extra embroidery showing their path in the water.  You know, exactly like this:

She turns it over and sees the red dragon wink at her, because as we've already established he's into her now.  Like, romantically.  She sees the blue dragon resting on some clouds, and a puff of cloud comes off of the kimono.  That's...random.

They keep on the same course until the sun starts to come up.  She notices that it's getting very foggy, and the stars are being obscured by clouds.  She sends Kishan to go wake up Mr. Kadam and they prepare for what's coming.

"I think the blue dragon's a fog maker.  Can we sail through that?"

So...this dragon is Puff the Magic Dragon?  That's...lame.

Mr. Kadam says that there probably won't be anything to crash into so they'll probably be fine.  Their depth gauge is still working so they won't run aground and the water is too warm for surprise icebergs.  What he doesn't consider is the possibility of any variety of sea monsters that could destroy the ship, considering they're in a magical realm with actual dragons in it.  This crew has already had an improbable amount of random animal encounters throughout the series, so I'd plan for the worst.

Hey, were you getting invested in the tension inherent in navigating through a fog-filled ocean with no way to tell where you are, where you're going, or what might be surrounding you at any moment?  Yes?  Too bad!  Mr. Kadam decides to break any tension by expositing about Viking sunstones and navigation.  I get that it's a character trait of his, but it's an annoying character trait that completely obliterates any suspense that might exist otherwise.  So I'm going to complain about it.

Apparently the Vikings used to use sunstones to navigate through foggy oceans while pillaging.  Basically they were some sort of crystal that could show which direction the light was coming from.  Neat.

Kelsey goes back to sleep (gee, what a pointless little scene) and wakes up when Ren tells her that she's needed in the wheelhouse.  He looks surprised and Kelsey wonders why until she sees a shirtless Kishan in bed next to her.  She says she's used to only sleeping with a tiger.

"Umm . . . you're not . . . that is . . . you are . . . wearing something under there . . . right?"

Kishan grinned and threw off the covers.  I squeaked and then breathed a sigh of relief.  "You could have just answered the question instead of being all dramatic."

We must remain Chaste and Pure at all times.

Kelsey thinks about how she feels uncomfortable about Kishan being human while she slept.  She of course compares him to Ren, who is "adamant" about them not being physical until after the curse is broken, and she realizes she has no idea what Kishan is expecting.  This is...a surprisingly okay section because Kelsey actually thinks like a human about this.

Anyway, the ship stops moving in a dense cloud cover.

"The island came up out of nowhere," he said.  "I guess the depth perceptor isn't working.  The only reason I was able to stop the ship in time is because Ren had been on the lookout."

Okay, fair, but then why did you say it was working a few pages ago?  That's...that's a simple edit.

They all just kind of stand there for a while wondering what they should do until Kelsey decides to use the Scarf to blow the fog away.  There's a "joke" that the Scarf turns blue when she picks it up (because it's the color of ~Ren's eyes~) but it's not very funny.  They brace themselves and gather all the wind and release it in the direction of the fog.  It's very loud, which Kelsey complains about.

By the time it's done, most of the fog has been blown away and they can see the island.  There isn't a beach, and the only way up is to climb up a sheer cliff.

THE CLIFFS OF INSANITY!

They hear a whooshing noise coming from the island, and they see a giant tail wrapped around a ruined castle.  It's asleep, and every exhale shoots fog out of its nostrils.

Houck seems to completely forget what her characters can and can't see, because in one paragraph she describes the sun being too bright to see the peak of the island where the dragon is, but they're able to describe it perfectly and, weirdly, talk to it as if it is right next to them.  It's weird.

Kelsey tries to wake up the dragon by shouting at it, but it doesn't do anything.

Kishan cupped his hands and hollered, bellowing in a deep voice.  He switched to a tiger and roared so loudly, I pressed my hands to my ears.  We tried shouting together.  We tried both Ren and Kishan roaring.  Finally, Mr. Kadam went below and rang the ship's foghorn.  The blast of noise was loud enough that rocks tumbled from the top of the mountain.

Yet, somehow, the bag, which was just described as being incredibly loud, did nothing even though it was aimed directly at the dragon.  I hate this book.

That's enough to wake up the dragon, and its voice shows up in their heads just like Longjun's did.  It asks what they want and seems annoyed that they woke it up.  They tell it that Longjun sent them to get help in finding the Necklace, and the dragon tells them to leave or it will attack them.  It also introduces itself as Qinglong.

Now, Qinglong is a real dragon in Chinese culture.  It represents the eastern point on the compass, and is blue.  There's nothing I can find connecting the real Qinglong with fog in any way.  In the Chinese elemental system, Qinglong represents wood, which has nothing to do with fog either.

Kelsey offers an exchange in return for its help.  This interests it, and it comes down from the ruins to get a closer look at them.  It looks different from Longjun, and it's covered in feathers, has a narrower head and body, and is a shiny blue color.

Like this but blue and bigger, basically...

Kelsey stands there like a lump, and the dragon angrily says that there's nothing she can offer it.  Ren and Kishan respond to this by turning into tigers and roaring at it, which piques its interest.  Kelsey says that they'll perform a task of its choosing to prove themselves, and it tells them to get to its temple at the peak of the island.  Kelsey asks how they can get there, and it tells them that there's an underwater temple with a guardian blocking the way.

Desperate, I questioned, "Who guards you?"

Yao guai you yu.

I whispered to Ren, "What does that mean?"

"Uh . . . it's something like a devil squid."

It means "something like" a devil squid because that's a literal translation of "devil squid" into Chinese.  Yaoguai means something like "monster" and is a general term in Chinese folklore to refer to demons/monsters.  I can't find any reference to a yaoguai that is also a squid, but that's partially because a google search turns up roughly 10 million articles about Fallout, which apparently has a mutated bear enemy called a yaoguai.

Qinglong snorted.  Bah!  It's called the kraken.  Now, be off with you.

Yeah, so now the kraken is in this series.  Why???

The dragon falls asleep and Ren and Kishan start to head back to the boat to suit up for a dive.  Kelsey flips the fuck out.

"And . . . the kraken is huge!  There's no way we can fight it!"

"Kelsey, calm down.  Just come down here, and we'll talk about it.  There's no need to get hysterical."

"Hysterical?  This isn't even close to being hysterical.  Have you ever seen a kraken in the movies?  No, you haven't, but I have.  They destroy whole ships!  A couple of tigers would be like kibble!  I insist we plan with Mr. Kadam before you two jump into the water."

Notice how she bases her argument solely on the fact that she's seen a couple of (fictional in-universe) movies that featured a kraken.  How does she know that this kraken behaves exactly like the ones in movies made by people who have never seen it?  All she has to go off is that it's shaped like a squid.

We cut back to the boat and Mr. Kadam says that he's not sure how much help he'll be.  Kelsey lampshades the fact that Mr. Kadam has known everything so far, and Mr. Kadam says that he only knows about the kraken from movies and bits and pieces he's read from random places.

"Nothing can kill it.  It's immortal.  It's originally from a Norse myth, described as a giant tentacled beast that attacks ships.  They were considered fantasy until recent years when a couple of them washed onto beaches."

Uh.  I think Mr. Kadam is referring to the discovery of giant squids as a real animal in the 1860s when they began washing up to shore in Europe.  I wouldn't exactly call that "recent," but then again I'm not 350 years old.  Unless Mr. Kadam is referring to actual krakens washing ashore in this universe, because he doesn't go on to clarify that he's talking about giant squids.  Which is a crazy thing to just drop into your worldbuilding--KRAKENS ARE REAL AND PEOPLE KNOW THEY EXIST!

Kelsey asks how they can fight it.  Mr. Kadam goes on to list a (very long) series of myths that talk about how unbeatable it is.

Mr. Kadam sighed.  "I only know a few middling facts.  In the myth, when the kraken opens up its mouth, water boils.  When it raises its head above water, the stink of it is more terrible than any living creature can endure.  Its eyes have great illuminating power; when they shine it's like looking into the sun.  The only things I've ever heard it's afraid of are kilbits."

"I'm sorry I don't know anything useful.  I only know its one weakness, but that can't possibly be helpful in any way."  God, Mr. Kadam is so stupid.  EVERYONE IS SO STUPID.

Kelsey asks what kilbits are.  We're back into the old formula of Kelsey asking "What is X?" and Mr. Kadam saying "X is [really long explanation, most of which is useless]."  Basically, kilbits are mythological worms that latch onto the gills of fish.  Hey, you know what squids don't have?

EXTERNAL GILLS

Also, doing some research shows that the kraken has nothing to do with kilbits.  In reality, the Leviathan is afraid of kilbits.  The kraken is from Norse mythology (as mentioned by Mr. Kadam), but the Leviathan is a Judeo-Christian sea monster mentioned in the Books of Job, Psalms, and Isaiah in the Bible.  The fear of kilbits is mentioned in the Talmud and makes much more sense, because the Leviathan is described as being a giant fish (since the passage mentions fins).  Also, this is where the "glowing eyes like the sun" bit comes from.  This is Houck once again taking multiple myths that mention a sea monster and then equating them together as talking about one creature, which isn't how any of this works.  I'd accept it more if there was even an attempt at saying that it's because there are multiple sources interpreting the real creature in different ways, but there's none of that.  All of this slap-dash, hit-and-run mythological research is presented as 100% fact, which really just serves the purpose of teaching readers incorrect facts.  It's annoying.

"Oh, but in Good Omens the Leviathan shows up, and everyone calls it the kraken, so why do you like that book/TV show?" I can hear someone say in a really annoying voice.  Well...yeah, it probably should have been called the Leviathan, but I can excuse it because 1) Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett weren't trying to lecture me about mythology like Houck is doing and 2) the kraken is a manifestation of an 11-year-old boy's reality warping powers regarding something he read in a conspiracy theory magazine, so I can believe that he wouldn't quite understand the nuance given that he also makes aliens show up and makes Tibetan monks start tunnelling through the Earth.

Also, this isn't the worst example of Houck mixing things up, since the terms kraken and Leviathan look like they were eventually used interchangeably in Romantic poetry, so there's at least an excuse there.

Just in case you thought we were done, Mr. Kadam reads "From the Marriage of Heaven and Hell" by William Blake, which is about the Leviathan.  I don't know why they treat this poem as complete and accurate fact, because the poem itself describes the Leviathan as having "scaly folds" even though they know the monster they have to fight is a squid of some sort, which are pretty lacking in the scaly folds department.

Ren brings up another poem, "The Kraken" by Lord Alfred Tennyson.  It's about how the kraken/Leviathan (which does look like it's at least a squid/octopus creature this time) will appear, ushering in the end of the world.  Mr. Kadam mentions the Biblical references I pointed out to the Leviathan and says that it can be interpreted as a metaphor for the "mouth of hell or even Satan himself."

Just to point it out for the terrible, terrible editors of this book: when Hell is mentioned while referring to the actual afterlife in Christian mythology or the Bible, it should be capitalized.

Kelsey continues to flip the fuck out.

"Alright.  Stop right there.  That's enough for me.  It's bad enough thinking of fighting demons without dragging the devil into it.  I'd rather be surprised.  The more I learn, the scarier it gets, so let's just get this over with."

"I'm going to take these fictional poems at face value, even when they mention Biblical mythology, despite the fact that the Chinese dragon clearly gave it a Chinese name earlier.  Also, knowledge is Scary, so I'm going to rush in blind."  Genius.

Wow, after all that build-up, the kraken's got to be pretty scary right?  What with it being the creature that ushers in the apocalypse and everything?

Ha.

Kelsey, Ren, and Kishan all change into their wetsuits and gear up with their two MacGuffins and magical weaponry.  Kishan takes the chakram (yeah, I'm sure the throwing weapon will be just great underwater) as well as the kamandal, and Ren takes the trident, leaving the gada behind.  Kelsey also leaves her bow and arrow behind since they won't work underwater, but says that she can just use her lightning power.

They leave the ship and exit into the fog.

The normally blue-green water seemed gray and cold.  Bubbles hissed and popped on the surface, and I allowed my mind the create the terrifying monster below.

What a weird way to say "I imagined the terrifying monster below."  Seriously, "I allowed my mind to create"?  This book sucks.

Mr. Kadam runs out to meet them before they dive in and hands Kelsey Fanindra.  She apparently coiled up in preparation for Kelsey to wear, so they figure it's a good idea to take her.  You know, what with her magical healing venom she never uses again.

Ren and Kishan prepare for an exploratory dive and elect not to use oxygen tanks because they're heavy.  God forbid there's some sort of EMERGENCY where a many-armed sea monster grabs onto you and drags you underwater.  I mean, that doesn't happen, but they don't know that it won't, so it's not very smart.

The three of them swim around the island--it's not very big, so it only takes about an hour to swim all the way around.  Ren eventually finds the entrance to the tunnel and lets them know that they'll have to go back for some diving gear.  Kelsey feels much more nervous about fighting the monster now that she's swimming in the cold water.

She tries to joke around a bit to make herself less nervous.  It's not funny.

"He's probably just waiting for all three of us.  He'd rather get the combo special.  A chicken, a cheese, and a beef enchilada.  I'm the chicken, by the way."

Kishan laughed.  "I'm definitely the beef, which means Ren must be the cheese."

lolwat

They go back to fill up on some lunch (enchiladas, har har), and gear up for a longer dive.  Once in the water, Fanindra comes to life and leaves Kelsey's arm.  She seems to struggle for a bit until she changes shape--now she looks like a sea snake.  That's kind of cool and reminds me that Fanindra is the only character who is somewhat competent, and she's a piece of jewelry most of the time.

They enter the cave, and it's dark and spooky.  Kishan kicks up some sand by accident, and Kelsey says that they all try to avoid disturbing any more sediment to keep their vision clear.

We turned a corner around a bumpy outcropping, and the light was cut off completely.

Spooky!  It's actually kind of effective at building tension, but that also just might be because I am highly claustrophobic, especially with caves (following an incident where I got left behind and almost got lost in a cave once.  It was not a good experience.)

Fanindra starts glowing and she lights up the area around them so they can see where they're going.

Pale stalactites hung down from the ceiling ready to impale us.

Would you even get stalactites that form in an underwater cave?  They form from dripping water, right?

They squeeze through a tiny opening into another cave, must like the one they were just in.  Wow, that was pointless.

The cave opens up and they can only see in the perimeter lit up by Fanindra.  Kelsey imagines a giant shark appearing out of nowhere and eating them, and then she has...an actual thought!  They're underwater, so an attack could come from above them too!

I looked up, but the water was so dark even Fanindra could light up only the area directly around us.  I realized that we were very visible to any creature that happened to be looking when suddenly the entire cave lit up.  We stopped swimming and hovered.  The bright light was coming from the overhead stalactites.  I could now see the sides of the grotto and the floor that dropped down into a deep chasm.

*Gasp* An...effective paragraph!  Or, well, it would be if Kelsey actually used her brain.  Seriously, we as the reader are presented with "something can attack from above" plus "light is coming from above" and "the kraken has really bright glowing eyes" and can figure this out immediately, but Kelsey doesn't get it yet.

I could also see we were about halfway across to our destination.  On the far wall, carved rocky steps led up through the ceiling.  One light turned off, and another turned on.

Kelsey's two brain cells frantically begin bumping into each other, trying and failing to form a synapse.

There seemed to be two lights about ten feet apart, and they were moving.

Please, they cry, pay attention to us.  They sob desperately, doomed never to be heard.

One would hide behind a stalactite while the other shone down on us.  Then the lights both shut off and turned on again.  I felt the water move me, shoving me against Kishan.  The cavern shook, and the lights blinked again.

They beat frantically with their fists on the inside of Kelsey's cavernous skull.  O cruel world, what did they do to get placed inside of Kelsey's head?

They . . . blinked?  I panicked.  Those aren't lights.  Those are eyes!

A stalactite started moving toward us.

No!  It's not a stalactite.  It is a tentacle!

Weeping with joy, Kelsey's two brain cells embrace and fall back into a deep hibernation, their job complete.

Kelsey alerts Kishan to the kraken's presence, and he and Ren gear up to fight.

Hundreds of pale white, subspherical suction cups trembled, ready to grab anything the tentacle contacted.

Subspherical???  

Aka, "almost a sphere."

I think the word you're looking for is hemispherical, Houck.  This also should have been caught in editing since it's just blatantly the wrong word.  Unless she's trying to say the tentacle has a bunch of spheroids hanging off of it.  Which is gross, sure, but not exactly what a suction cup looks like.

Anyway, the suction cups are ringed with spikes and it grabs onto Kishan.  It shoots out a couple more, which grab onto Ren.  They both wiggle free.  While Kishan checks to make sure Ren's tank is still working, another tentacle grabs Kelsey's leg, and Kishan chops it off with the chakram.  She uses the Scarf to make a bandage around her leg, since she can't heal like the other two.

When another arm comes towards her, she blasts it with her lightning power.

A black hole appeared in the tentacle, and we all heard the scream.

A scream...from a squid that has neither lungs nor vocal cords.  Because it's a squid.

We finally got a good look at what we'd been fighting.

The kraken hung from one tentacle; its soft bulbous mantle was pressed between stalactites, but it slowly slipped through like a blob of Jell-O, reforming itself to fit between the small spaces.

So it's literally just a big squid.  Laaaame.

Okay, it's time to talk about something important for when you're writing!

How can they get a good look at the kraken in the first place?  Kelsey just spent the better part of the last section telling us how dark it is and how their only light sources are Fanindra and the kraken's eyes.  But this whole fight scene is described like it's happening in broad daylight!

Limyaael has, of course, written a great series of rants about this.  The gist is that when you're describing things in a limited point of view (limited third person or first person), you should only describe things that your character is physically able to perceive.  If you've set up a scene to be dark with limited light sources, you can't then describe how things look with the degree of specificity we see here.  There's an attempt to describe the feeling of the water moving, but it's completely overshadowed by the description of what the kraken is doing, which they shouldn't be able to see.

You know what would be really cool?  If they had to fight this thing in near darkness, fending off attacks from all directions that they can't see coming until right before they hit.  Then Kelsey could realize that she could use her lightning power to light up the area to give the others a target!  That's a much more interesting scene than "we chopped fifty of its tentacles off with no effort," and allows the characters to actually do some problem solving in the setting that you came up with.

And yes, before I continue--the kraken's eyes are very bright, to the point of lighting up the cavern.  But they're like headlights.  Next time you drive along a road at night (once, uh, this whole social distancing thing is over I mean), look right into the oncoming headlights of a car and then try to describe what the car looks like.  You can't!  It's like when someone shines a flashlight in your face and you can't see anything!  So they shouldn't be able to see anything in the direction of the kraken either, and certainly not anything on its face.

It gets trapped in the stalactites (some guardian...) and rips itself up a bit trying to get to them.

Ren has raised [sic] his trident and was trying to get the monster's attention.

Ooh, a nice typo.  That should be "had."  Although this could just be an error in the Kindle version, since I don't have the physical book to compare it to.

The colossal black orbs turned to him.

I cannot begin to express how much I hate the word "orbs" when used to describe eyes.

Kelsey sees that the light is actually coming from the tips of its two longest tentacles rather than its eyes, which...what?  Wouldn't having a light source make it harder to kill things, which would otherwise be in complete darkness?  Why would those blink?  Wouldn't that make it even harder to see what's going on if those tentacles are flailing around?  It'd be like a rave in there!

I won't mention the lighting situation anymore since it'll get repetitive, but just imagine me saying "How did Kelsey see what's going on?" after every action taken for the rest of the fight.

Ren shoots it a couple of times with his spear/trident thing, and Kishan and Kesley fight off a couple of other tentacles, sawing another one off.  Kelsey and Ren hit it a few times and it flees, turning its lights off.  When they come back on, it's right behind Kishan, and it grabs him.  Ren tries to free him, but it was a trap!  It grabs onto Kelsey and turns the lights back off.

Suction cups gripped me hard, digging bony little pinchers into my skin, like acupuncture needles.

That's "pincers," Houck.

Kelsey blasts it, but this time it doesn't work.  For some reason.

Ren and Kishan's flashlights turn on, but they can't see her.  Meanwhile, the kraken starts moving Kelsey towards its mouth.  Kelsey compares it to the Sarlacc pit (the old version, not the one where George Lucas inexplicably added a giant comedic duck bill onto it).

The tentacles squeezed me roughly a final time, shook me, and let me go, trusting that I was sufficiently incapacitated by the green tongues.

I writhed back and forth, desperately trying to free my hand, but I was beaten.

BUT YOU JUST SAID IT LET YOU GO???

Its beak grazes her leg, and the Scarf creates a bandage.  Kelsey realizes that she can use the Scarf, and creates ropes to hold its mouth open.  No complaints there, since she's actually using her resources.  It shakes her around as it tries to close its mouth, and Kelsey decides to wax poetic about how she's going to die.  She sees some blood coming from somewhere, and sees Fanindra biting its tentacles.  Fanindra's leading an army of sea snakes to attack the kraken and they're doing a good job of attacking it.

Some of them bit savagely into the purple flesh and wriggled their way inside.  They moved under the squid's skin like worms, biting and tearing as they went.

Holy shit!  That got really violent and gory.

As it tries to get away from the snakes it loosens its grip on Kelsey.  Kelsey feels a hand on her arm and sees Ren pulling her out of its arm.  He and Kishan cut the kraken's tongues off (!) and pull Kelsey to safety.

Ren, "bent on violence," (natch), stabs it a truly ridiculous number of times until he's obscured by the blood pouring out of the monster (!!).  Kelsey and Kishan head to the stairway and wait until Ren joins them.  Fanindra and the sea snakes (dibs on that band name) ascend with them, and they see some light, indicating the end of the tunnel.  It opens up into a tiled pool, and they all take a moment to rest after fighting the kraken.  They check on Kelsey's leg, which is cut up a bit.  It's fine.  Crisis averted.

There's a staircase leading up to the top of the island so they climb up.  When they get to the top, it opens up right next to the blue dragon.  Ren shouts at it to wake up, and Ren--here's a shocker--threatens violence!

Ren worked his jaw angrily.  "You will wake and speak with us, or I will ram this trident into your fleshy throat!"

Did he just call it fat?

Ren's mad that the kraken almost killed Kelsey, and the dragon says that she didn't die, so he shouldn't be mad.  Kishan asks it to fulfill its end of the bargain, so it reaches up to its neck and takes a disc hanging from a leather cord off.  It hands it to them and tells them to get lost.

The blue dragon shifted its bulk noisily.  Don't I get a thank you? Qinglong said.  After all, the sky disk is no trifle.

Ren picked me up and turned his head slightly toward the dragon.  "Neither is she."

The Drama.

Ren presses his forehead against Kelsey's (which is really weird) and passes her to Kishan, and they head back downstairs.

And that's the end of the chapter!

Closing Thoughts

Well, that chapter was...bad.  And really long.  I probably could have broken it up into two, but I didn't.  So there.

I think the only good thing I can say about this chapter is that at least this dragon didn't hit on Kelsey.  The kraken/Leviathan was lame and derivative (it's a giant squid!  I've never seen that before!), and the fight scene was repetitive and didn't make sense given the setup to the scene.  Fanindra continues to be too good for this series since she's the only one that actually accomplishes anything.

Next time, Chapter Seventeen: Remembering!  Houck gets bored of the whole amnesia subplot she set up.

Or, alternatively, check out my ongoing Moon People spork, which will probably be updated before the next chapter of Tiger's Voyage!