Chapter 25: The Seventh Pagoda

 Hello, and welcome back to our irregularly scheduled nonsense!

Last time, Kelsey & Co. left Yinbailong's underwater palace and got the key they need to complete their quest for Durga's Necklace!

This series as a whole is a series of fetch quests for Durga's Magical MacGuffins, but this book in particular really feels like a draggy portion of a video game. Go to the first dungeon, get the thing that gets you to the next dungeon to get the next thing, over and over.

I just realized that this is basically what every game in the Legend of Zelda series is, but I like playing Zelda games. I hate this book.

Also, before I get started, let's have a bit of a recap of what Lokesh has been up to! Kindle says that the first page of this chapter is 87% of the way through the book, so we're getting close to the climax of the book.

(Granted, a better book would ideally have the climax start a little bit earlier than the last 10 ish percent of the book, but we all know by this point that pacing isn't exactly this series' forte.)

And, well. I have no idea what he's been up to. He was in the prologue, uh, lusting over Kelsey. Well, actually, if you remember Ren's rescue from the previous book, he's technically lusting over Kishan disguised as Kelsey, but you know what I mean. He vowed to find Kelsey so he can...have a powerful super baby.

God, I forgot how gross and creepy the villain's plan was. It was enough to have him just looking for power from the pieces of the Matt Damon Amulet. Why does he have to bring sexual assault and eugenics into this?

And, well...that's the last we saw of him. He's presumably been searching for them this entire time, but it's had exactly zero impact on Kelsey & Co., who have been swanning around on the beach flirting with hot Texan diving instructors and, like, partying. He is admittedly talked about a lot more in this book than the previous two, which I guess is an improvement, but most of the time they only talk about him as he relates to Ren's amnesia, since they spent a frustratingly long time thinking that Lokesh was responsible.

I've talked about this at length before, but it bears repeating. If you want to set up a Big Bad for your series, especially one whose goals are to chase after the protagonist's crew to (1) steal their MacGuffins and (2) kidnap the protagonist, he really shouldn't have such a minimal effect on the plot. He doesn't interact with the protagonists except for at the very end, and he barely has an impact on the world at all. Voldemort isn't on screen for most of the Harry Potter books (for a comparable example of a villain that doesn't usually show up until the last chapter), but his character overshadows, uh, basically everything in the wizarding world.

But hey, this chapter has a giant shark in it, so that's fun.

Chapter Twenty-Five: The Seventh Pagoda

We're back with Kaeliora (goody) and she says that since they want the Necklace she's helping them.

Uh, yeah, Houck. We know already. Why is Kaeliora telling them that they want the Necklace? That's why they're here!

Anyway, Kaeliora tells them to keep following the tunnel, which will lead them to the ocean. She warns them that there are some dangerous creatures around that might see them through the ice. There will be a door that the key will open, and inside will be a pool of milky water with the Necklace inside. Only Kishan can search for the Necklace in the pool.

If I had a nickel for every time there was a body of water containing a MacGuffin that only Kishan can get, I'd have two nickels. Which isn't a lot, but it's weird that it happened twice.

Kaeliora says that there's one more important thing to tell them, but she's already freezing. So she asks Kelsey to unfreeze her a bit.

Wait, but her refreezing was an obstacle before! That was the time limit for getting the key! Are you telling me that Kelsey could have literally just...unfrozen her with no consequences before?

But no, this scene just exists so that Kishan can say that Kelsey's too exhausted to shoot any more fire out before Ren grabs onto Kelsey's hand to make golden fire shoot out.

Sheepishly, I took a step closer to Kishan, who seemed shocked. I glared at Ren, who just looked away. It's not like I was exactly cheating on Kishan, but I felt like I'd just been caught lip-locked with Ren.

If you have to defend yourself by saying that something technically isn't cheating, that's not great. And I'm not saying that it would even be an issue if Kelsey was just attracted to Ren and didn't act on it--she's been deliberately hiding this from Kishan instead of just talking to him about it. That would be an interesting conversation! Let's hear that instead of Ren telling Kelsey she's in love with him for the fiftieth time!

Kaeliora says that she hasn't "seen a connection that strong in millenia," which opens up a whole can of worms that I don't think Houck even considered. Is this not the first time that this has happened? Has Durga sent out other groups of people on random quests to get her MacGuffins? This is never explored in any way.

Kishan asks what she means, and Kaeliora tries to explain the magic system:

"That light. It's more powerful than she can make alone. He acts like . . . well, a filament. She pours her energy into him, and he heats it. Then he sends it back to her just like a light bulb. They create a kind of vacuum between them; that is the connection I am referring to. It's very special and rarely seen. When they're touching, nothing else exists outside the two of them. All they are is aware of each other."

Other than the question of how on earth a mermaid who's been frozen in a tunnel for millenia knows what a light bulb is, this is, no joke, almost identical to how soul resonance works in Soul Eater. Down to the metaphor involving modern technology and sending energy back and forth to strengthen it.

Read right to left, you weeb.

So that's a thing.

Kelsey thinks that the mermaid is right about everything except for the vacuum thing, because she doesn't even need to touch Ren to feel his presence.

All I needed to do was close my eyes, and he could wrap me in a bubble so strong I'd forget everyone and everything else. Ren was just that potent.

My connection to Ren was cosmic.

That's, like, so deep, man.

She says that all she has to do going forward is not touch Ren anymore so that she can be Kishan's girlfriend. Glad to see that's her top priority in life.

"Well, I guess that explains why we can create the golden light together, if you can take an ice mermaid's word on the whole light bulb analogy. As if she would know. Like she's changed a lot of bulbs down here in the ocean."

POINTING OUT THAT IT MAKES NO SENSE DOESN'T MAKE IT OKAY

Kelsey downplays her ~magical connection~ with Ren for Kishan's benefit as a useful tool to use going forward and pointing out that it kept Kishan alive in the water. She also asks Kaeliora to continue.

Kaeliora explains that it won't be too hard to get to the Necklace--getting back to the surface will be a lot more difficult. There's a giant monster that's there to stop them from escaping with the Necklace. Spooky. Hey, wouldn't this be a better place for the kraken to be? Since we went through that whole section explaining how it's a harbringer of the apocalypse and everything?

Kelsey says that they should get a move on, and Kaeliora tells Kishan that he can fill up his flask with some water from her fountain. Kishan says he doesn't have anything to put the water in, and Kelsey excitedly shouts out that it's the kamandal that Durga gave them! Wow, lame!

Also:

Hmm

Kishan asks if he's supposed to use the water to kill people. Yes, he specifically uses the word "people," which is...troubling. Kaeliora says that it won't hurt anything. 

"The nectar of immortality is to be used when you are the most desperate. Trust your instincts. To use it liberally is to change the course of destiny. A wise man sees the path all must walk and embraces the free will of humankind, even if to watch t unfold causes him great pain."

Wow! Sounds like that's some powerful stuff! I'm guessing that it's a one-time use kind of thing, that they can use to save someone's life in the future--but they'll have to choose who to save, maybe.

Just kidding! They literally use it constantly as basically a health potion. Whenever someone gets hurt, they just drink from the kamandal, which siphons out any of the remaining tension we have left (since Mr. Kadam can't get hurt because of his Matt Damon Amulet, and Ren and Kishan heal almost instantly). And you know what makes this super duper extra pointless? FANINDRA HAS MAGICAL HEALING VENOM THAT SHE USED ONE TIME AND THEN HOUCK FORGOT ABOUT APPARENTLY. THEY'RE ALREADY TRAVELLING AROUND WITH A HEALING POTION.

They start getting ready to leave, and Kaeliora gives Kelsey a flower from Durga's lei and some advice. It's the generic sort of advice that's like, "Love is the greatest treasure of all, don't let it get away, blah blah." Then she freezes completely, causing Kelsey to gasp in shock for some reason. Like, she had to unfreeze the thing at the beginning, and keep it from freezing over again not once, but twice. Kelsey really is as dumb as a box of rocks.

The black water surrounding us suddenly made me fearful. As we raced along, I couldn't help but hum the song from Willy Wonka's scary paddleboat ride.

Yeah, but why though

Suddenly, a big gray shadow shows up! Oh, no! Wait, the water is black. How can they see a shadow in completely dark water? Especially one that's gray?

But then Kelsey looks over the side of the sled and sees a giant eye through the ice in the tunnel. Oh no! 

The monster bumps the tunnel hard enough to send the sled flying, but not hard enough to completely break through the ice, which makes NO sense. I don't know what world Houck is living in, but ice in the real world is pretty rigid and brittle. As Ren and Kishan pick up speed to get to the end of the tunnel before it manages to break through, Kelsey gets a good look at the monster.

It looked like a prehistoric crocodile.

It's like I'm there.

(Also, as a super nit-picky point, crocodiles already are basically prehistoric, since they look basically identical to crocodilians that lived, like 80 million years ago. Unless you count this bad boy, who is absolutely terrifying:

Kaprosuchus saharicus

One of those guys is going to be chasing me in my nightmares tonight.)

Also, I can't really think of any deep-sea crocodiles. This book is so dumb.

The giant crocodile finally tries to bite the tunnel, and punctures it with its foot-long teeth. Frustrated, it roars. Underwater. Oy.

Its noise must have attracted attention, because it was soon joined by another beast--an eel that had a long tail ending in a fin.


It wraps around the tunnel and starts to squeeze it like a boa constrictor, which is totally something that eels are known to do. The crocodile then starts to fight the eel for some reason (I'm also at a loss) which gives Ren and Kishan some space to escape.

Well. That sure was completely random.

They turn a corner and see the Seventh Pagoda off in the distance. But then the crocodile comes back, having evidently killed the eel. No, I don't know why it's ignoring the eel that it just killed to try to get to Kelsey & Co. If it's a magical creature that only exists to stop them from getting to the Seventh Pagoda, it makes no sense for it to have fought off the eel, which was trying to do the same thing. If it's just a regular old animal that's just trying to get food, it killed the eel. That's food.

More and more freezing water starts pouring into the tunnel as the monster attacks it in an admittedly pretty decently-written couple of paragraphs. Kelsey unties Ren from the sled, who tells her to go unlock the door while he frees Kishan. Kelsey has to basically swim through freezing cold water while they're under the constant threat of the tunnel breaking apart completely. It's a pointless action scene, but it's (1) short and (2) actually has stakes, so I'm kind of enjoying it.

Kelsey gets to the door and tries to find the keyhole. She struggles to get it in, and feels hands guide her to the keyhold and help her turn the key int the lock. We don't actually get to hear which one of the brothers helped her out, but I think that kind of works with the general chaos of the scene.

The door opens and they spill into the temple with a wave of seawater. Ren had grabbed their bags of stuff, so Kelsey reaches into hers and makes sure Fanindra is alright. She apologizes to Fanindra for the cold, which is nice, but I immediately take back the compliment because she refers to Fanindra as her "pet," which is very rude considering Fanindra is, like, the queen of serpents or something like that.

But hey! They made it to the Seventh Pagoda! They take advantage of the peace they'll have before getting the Necklace, and decide to spend the night in the entrance, changing into some warm, dry clothes, eating, and sleeping. Weirdly, we get a reference to the circus here:

I remembered Ren's circus trainer, Mr. Davis, had once told me that big cats sleep most of the day and use up their energy in quick bursts. These two had been runnign for quite some time, and Kishan had been swimming like a polar bear.

Hey, look, it's Matt's dad! Who here remembers Matt's dad? Good times.

Also, I have no idea what "swimming like a polar bear" means.

Rest assured, Houck lets us know what everyone eats before going to bed. Kishan eats three pizzas, because Man Eat Lots is still funny, I guess. Kelsey eats biscuits and gravy, while Ren eats stuffed pasta shells, breadsticks, and salad. Glad they're all carbing up before they have to do a lot of physical activity the next day.

Also, Ren's dinner menu was chosen to be as much as a Dick Move as possible, because that's the first meal that Kelsey ever cooked for him. He even "nonverbally dare[s] [Kelsey] to do something about it," so he's explicitly being a douche in the actual text.

Kishan passes out almost instantly, and Ren also sets up his sleeping bag with a conspicuous space in between them for Kelsey. She moves her stuff to the other side of Kishan (which is an amazing power move, tbh) and Ren has the Audacity to try to argue with her about the sleeping arrangements.

"It's not like I'm going to attaack you in your sleep," Ren said softly.

"I get too hot between the two of you," I lied.

"I could have switched with you."

"I wouldn't want Kishan to get the wrong message."

I heard a deep sigh. "Goodnight, Kelsey."

Like, Ren isn't an idiot. Kelsey moving away from him is a pretty clear message that she doesn't want to sleep next to him. God, he's such a dick.

The next morning, they explore more of the temple! There's lots of rooms full of treasure for some reason, and they eventually get to a huge, dark room with basins of sand at one end. There are sticks of incense in a box next to the basin, so they all place the incense in the sand and Kelsey lights them with her fire power. As they smell the incense, the entire room lights up. Okay, that's kind of cool.

The room is huge and very pretty, so they spend some time exploring. Most of the space is filled with milky white water, and there are some giant murals on the wall. Ren points out a part of one of the murals that shows the Necklace in an oyster shell. In a bed of oysters. So, basically, instead of using magic, or like, their brains or something, Kishan just has to open up every single oyster until he finds the Necklace.

God, it's like grinding in an RPG for random loot drops. Ew.

We get some...weird flirting.

As I turned back to the mural, Kishan wrapped his hands around my waist from behind. "Want to go for a swim, beautiful?"

"The water will kill her," Ren said dryly.

I glared at Ren, turned around to hug the bare-chested Kishan, and smiled. "Maybe later." I patted his chest and ran my hand down to his waist. Poking him in his rather fine abs, I said, "I really think you need to be working out more, Kishan. You're getting all flabby in your old age."

"Where?" he demande,d as he tried to pinch the skin at his waist.

Laughing, I said, "I'm being sarcastic. You could grate cheese on your abs. I'm just lucky there aren't any other girls around. They'd all be swooning at your feet."

He grinned. "One girl swooning is enough for me. Besides, a guy's got to be strong enough to save his damsel in distress, doesn't he?"

Like I said. Bizarre. Literally this conversation just happens so Houck can drool over her hot love interests.

Ren, sensing my confusion, interrupts these loons to ask what Kishan's going to use to get the oysters up. Kishan says he'll use the chakram to pry them off of the bottom of the pool, while Ren and Kelsey will pry them open above the water.

Kishan dives in and throws a giant oyster up for them. Instead of actually contributing anything, Kelsey decides to wander around and gape at the room instead of doing anything useful. She claims it's because she doesn't have a weapon, which is dumb. We already know the Scarf can create near-perfect replicas of the Matt Damon Amulets, which are made out of stone. The Scarf can make something to pry open oysters.

She finds an alcove with some marble statues. Based on the poses, she realizes they they represent Parvati, Shiva, and Indra. Well, they represent Houck's terribly written myth involving the three of them, which I tore apart ages ago when they heard it the first time. Seriously, what kind of myth involves two separate people turning into sharks. Dumb.

Indra is pointing to somethig behind a giant fountain, so Kelsey checks it out. She slowly walks around the corner and sees a gigantic statue of a dead shark.

So yeah, Kelsey's fear of sharks that she's been harping on for hundreds of pages is finally relevant. She's such a baby that she has like a full-blown panic attack just from seeing a statue of a shark.

I slowly backed away from the nightmare creature until my backside bumped up against the alabaster railing. Freezing there, I stared at the length of a creature that frightened me more than anything I'd ever faced. The Kappa were kittens compared to this thing. The Stymphalian birds? Canaries. I started shaking as waves of fear poured over me, obscuring everything except the monster I couldn't look away from.

Yeah, we're not done.

I shook my head, and little mewling sounds spilled from my lips. Stumbling quickly down the steps, I stopped at the waterfall and froze again. All I could think was the word no. I chanted it over and over in my mind--no-no-no-no--and didn't realize I was repeating the words out loud until I heard the word echoed in another's voice.

So I think her brain broke.

Ren finds her and tells her to show him what she's freaking out about. Kishan says that he'll keep looking while the two of them are off canoodling somewhere. Well, he doesn't say that, but if I were him that's what I'd be thinking. They reach the statues, and Kelsey is too scared to even look at the thing again, and points to where the shark statue is.

I grimaced thinking that, compared to the shark, Ren looked like a tasty cream puff dipped in chocolate.

What?

He'd be delicious, decadant, even. But even he was just an appetizer. Me? Maybe a celercy stick. Not the tastiest, so I might as well douse myself in ranch dressing to save the shark the trouble of spitting me back out. Kishan was perhaps a little meatier. He'd be more like a taquito or an egg roll. Even if the shark ate all three of us, it's likely it would have to go back for seconds and thirds. It was just . . . that . . . immense.

WHAT?

Ren tells Kelsey not to worry, and Kelsey flips the fuck out.

"Ren! Spider monkeys are to King Kong as great whites are to that thing!"

God, that reads like an SAT question.

Kelsey says that it must be the monster that Kaeliora told them about. Ren says that they have no way of knowing that for sure.

"It looks bloody likely to me!"

Oh look, Kelsey's British again.

Ren says that it's no use worrying about something that they don't know for sure is going to happen, which somehow works. He starts carressing her face (because of course he does) and Kelsey has to pull herself away from him. I hate him. So much.

Kelsey walks up to the statue of Parvati and sheds a Single Tear over how Parvati also had to choose between two men. Deep. She touches Parvati's hand, and the statue shimmers and disappears. Indra and Shiva also disappear. So does the shark.

At the same time we heard a bark of triumph come from below us.

"Hey, guys!" Kishan hollered. "I found it! I have the Necklace!"

And with that, the chapter ends.

Closing Thoughts

Well, not a whole lot to talk about this time. The conversation with Kaeliora is kind of dull, but I actually liked parts of the journey to the Seventh Pagoda (well, the tail end of it), and the incense part was kind of neat. Ren continues to try to gaslight Kelsey into touching him by being absolutely shocked that anyone would think it's weird and creepy for him to be acting that way.

Next time, Chapter Twenty-Six: Surfacing! It's our penultimate chapter (not including the Epilogue), and in typical Houck fashion, the climax is way more violent and gory than it should be when compared to the rest of the book. So that's something to look forward to.

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