Dear Diary,

Thus far the closest I've gotten to 'someone screwing up my Season without malice aforethought' has been Jack. Frankly, if anything that season I fucked around and found out. I mean, yeah, I was fucking around with good intentions in good faith, just tryna make my daughter's sister's life maybe a little less shitty, so I'm not gonna get on my own case too much about the fuckery this Spring. I'm especially proud about the fact that while I lost some time and maybe strained a few things, I didn't actually wind up having to end anybody. I talked things out with Jack, and as far as I know, he and Adrienne are doing just fine.

Probably need to pay a visit to them after this.

I'm also oddly proud Boltophsberg. Not only did I wind up not fighting with almost all of their Deities, Vyenemoinen actually thanked me for offing the one I wound up sort of killing, and I made friends with Baba Yaga. Okay, I think we're friends. Hopefully if I swing past for tea and those little pastry cookies again she'll let me in and shoot the shit rather than kicking me out. Yet another person I really ought to drop in and talk to, although in this case I'm not as sure of my welcome.

I'm not sure whether it's rude of me or not to not feel super safe inviting her over to my place, what with her dietary habits and fifteen kids running around the place.

So yesterday as the sun set, something reared its ugly head over the horizon. Literally, in both cases.

I watched through Madeline's eyes as the thing rose above the horizon, getting taller and taller with each step. Waves tossed the Plundering Tentacle up to the limits of its anchor chain, then dropped it back down, creaking filling Madeline's ears.

My Kitten spoke through our mental connection. Madeline? Ward against waves, then...

Pardon, Imperator, I don't know how to Ward.

Saffron just rolled with it. Allow me?

At Madeline's wordless assent, Saffron took control of Madeline's Mana, Co-Located my Calverton High Priestess to M-Space, pulled Mana from me, and Shaped three massive Wards in rapid succession. The Plundering stabilized on a flat plane of seawater contained within the innermost of the Wards, but the sails still flapped as the approaching whatever it was sent waves and water toward the shore. When the big humanoid figure's waist cleared the sea level horizon, she Shaped an amplification to her voice, at which point Madeline called out, "attention, visitor to the Alliance! Please state your name, your origin, and the intended purpose and length of your visit!"

I couldn't help it. That ought to do it. Thanks very much, Ray.

Pardon, love?

Nah, all good. I'm stepping to support.

This may still be a distraction.

I shrugged and stepped to M-Space, above the Plundering Tentacle and between it and the shore. The thing didn't leave an imprint on M-Space like my Black Dragon did, but its passage disturbed my tentacles where they rose up from the sea. Just getting close enough to intervene if needed.

I felt Saffron's wordless acknowledgement, then refocused on Madeline. The thing was still a couple miles away, towering into the sky, when the announcement reached it. The sun had set, but I'd still caught edges of the thing's head before it dipped into darkness, leaving me watching it in wireframe. I couldn't tell exactly what, but it looked wrong. Misshapen, like that big mutant dude in that old Sean Astin flick from the eighties. Not bald, though. Even in wireframe, I could make out a halo of curly hair wreathing its noggin.

Of course right about then it set its feet and hunched down like a haka dancer, then let out an incoherent scream of rage. I felt Saffron pull more Mana, and while the newest outermost Ward around the Plundering Tentacle vibrated, nearly shattering, it held, only allowing a painfully loud and deep roar through.

Then the thing charged. Sorry, Kitten. That's not a friendly move.

I stepped to the Mortal Realm, throwing a Air Shield box up at the thing's chin level, a few hundred yards in front of the Plundering Tentacle, as I did. I reached out with a quartet of Category Five tentacles, crisscrossing it's chest and stopping its charge before it could get up too much momentum. Well, trying to, anyhow. It pushed forward, I shoved back, and I barely managed to bring it to a halt as it raised its foot to stomp down on the Plundering. I didn't know if Madeline's Ward would hold, and I didn't intend to put it to the test just now.

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"Hey, asshole!" I shouted, amplifying my voice to carry over the waves and wind of the thing's approach. "The lady asked you a question!"

I realized the moment its eyes focused on me. Which was a moment too late. Nothing that size had a right to be that fuckin' fast. It couldn't really lunge forward very much with me holding it, but I'd grabbed it around the torso, and it managed to keep its arms free. One of those Brobdignagian hands smashed into me, ripping me free of my Air Shield box and flinging me southward. Screaming, "motherfucker!" at the top of my lungs, I rolled through M-Space to arrest my momentum, then stepped back to the deck of the Plundering Tentacle, more big tentacles coming out of M-Space and wrapping around the thing, grabbing it by its arms, its legs, anything I could get a grip on.

I was pretty sure that my tentacles were each as strong as its arms, maybe as strong as its thighs, but the fact that I had to say 'pretty sure' a mass of mystical muscle the size of a big tornado was stronger than one of the things limbs says a lot. Worse, it set its feet and wound up with some serious leverage. Worst, just when I thought I had a solid grip around its head, the fucker bit me.

The Mother of Water Panthers had taken chunks out of me with Draconic Mana fuckery before, and Cold Iron always stung when it intersected with the parts of me that were more Pure Mana than the others, but this wasn't that. This was just something big and strong and feral enough to take a huge chunk out of one of my big tentacles with nothing but teeth and jaw strength and rage. I screamed, and almost went into the water, but held myself back, bringing more and more tentacles in to wrap around the thing. The further away they came from, the less leverage I had, but however much mass and strength the thing had, its technique was pure unrefined animalistic rage.

I noticed Saffron pulling Mana from me and throwing up Ward after Ward around the Plundering, as wind and waves and sound hammered them down one after the other. As I managed to get a solid grip on every part of the thing, even holding its jaw clamped to my poor bleeding tentacle, I muttered, "this fucker's a legit threat, even if it is a distraction. Can't let it through."

Agreed. The Black Dragon will be in firing range soon.

"Hold off."

Saffron's tone was curious Kitten, not Imperator commanding, when she thought, why?

Same reason I haven't gone all titanic and engaged in hand to hand. Don't know if whoever sent this knows I can.

Fair. Shall the Black Dragon approach to Mana Lance range, or remain below the horizon?

Keep her below the horizon. Might want to stay above the waves, though. Lot of chop, and you can't put a Ward around the Black Dragon, can you?

Her fuzzy chuckle rubbed across my brain in ways that made me get less gentle than I'd been being with the big brute in the ocean. I cannot. Carry on, Champion. Kill this thing.

I hadn't really intended otherwise, but felt a wave of gratitude for Saffron. I'd gone out of my way to avoid killing lately whenever I could, and knowing somebody I trusted agreed with me that something this powerful and this out of control needed to be put down would assuage a lot of my guilt in advance.

I bore down, wrapping tentacle after tentacle around the thing. At first I hoped I could smother it, but after a bit I realized that anything this big couldn't be relying on air for breathing. Instead I lifted it off the seabed to deny it leverage. Fucker was heavy. I'd lifted a sixty thousand ton battleship without much strain, and this fucker was heavy. With aching, exhausting slowness I managed to twist it around, turn it until I held it prone at its own waist height. It never stopped struggling, biting, screaming incoherently into my tentacles. I shifted those tentacles around, pulling its legs apart, twisting as I did. Octave by octave, decibel by decibel, its screams changed from rage to pain.

Moonbeams struck the deck next to me, and a moment later Diana asked, "may I be of assistance, Matriarch?"

I shook my head, then nodded to the forecastle. "Stay hid. Stay close. I'll let you know."

She nodded and disappeared, and I went back to my grisly work. As I felt sunrise nearing, an avalanche of sound hammered the ship once more as the things hip popped free of the socket.

Amplifying my voice, I called out, "ready to give up yet?"

It bit me again.

I grabbed its chin and held its mouth closed. Then wrapped tentacle after tentacle around its head and bore down. Something deep and dark within me shifted, and hunger tested my concentration, but I persevered, squeezing and twisting, treating the fucking giant like a recalcitrant pickle jar.

It felt like it took all fuckin' day long, the thing screaming and thrashing and causing fuckin' atmospheric disturbances just from that, not to mention coastline threatening waves every time its thrashing intersected the surface of the ocean. Some time around noon its ribs started cracking. One at a time, each one a massive detonation of sound, both from the actual crack and the scream that accompanied it. I realized right around then that I'd been screaming as well, an ongoing litany of imprecations inspired by my frustration, my pain, my exhaustion.

Eventually, late in the afternoon, Madeline lay a gentle hand on my arm. Saffron's quiet voice filled my head over the sound of my own enraged screams. I think it's dead, love.

"How..." I wheezed.

By the volume of gray matter and blood that just erupted from your tentacles around where its head used to be, I think its no longer in possession of either.

"Still. Twitching."

Madeline sighed, shrugged, and Saffron thought at me, rend it asunder or hold it until it goes still, Champion. But I believe the hardest part of your task is done.

She was right. I hadn't thought about it a lot, because while Marie had shown me how to kill and dress a chicken at one point over the summer, doing so kinda put me off my feed, while licking the bloody mess off her paws seemed kinda like licking nacho dust off after finishing off a bag for her. This thing had that random jerky motion of a just killed chicken. Only large enough that any of those motions could have sunk ships or sent devastating waves at the coastline.

As I slowly pulled the thing limb from limb, both to be sure it was dead and to maybe speed up decomp when I tossed it in the water, rain started to fall.

No idea why my face had been wet before that.

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