finding the right strokes

Cly braced himself.

He had come to a final decision.

He was going to fall on his but.

Yes, he had decided to test an idea he had in his mind but he was now certain that he was going to end up on his butt.

He waited for it to look away. This time it felt like ages.

To him the creature was Starting to get sure that it was close, which it was.

' come on, dammit. Just a little bit more.'

The creatures head was finally almost completely looking away from him.

He jumped, the creatures upper half turned quickly and faced him. It's maw opened up.

His right hand was coming round from behind him.

Before he could fall he felt the pull.

His body was tugged back like a rag doll.

And his hand accelerated faster than before.

He launched the stone into the air, in the direction of the beast.

The creatures pull lessened. It seemed a bit torn for a moment between evading the speeding pebble or keeping hold of it's prey.

It choose the prey and payed for it dearly.

The stone smashed into it's face like a baseball that had been pitched by a star player.

It face folded inward a bit before it's whole body followed and was flung backwards.

It's pull on cly vanished and as he had predicted he fell on his butt.

' damn!! my sore ass!!'

He didn't waste too much time thinking about his sore behind cause he had found a way to hurt and even kill the damned thing.

Kris was shivering.

Nathan had decided that two teams would be formed for different roles.

One to distract and draw out the tentacles beast and the other to find it's core and destroy it.

Kris was armed with a makeshift spear. There was relatively little steel on the island so it had taken a while for them to make this.

She was in the search and destroy team and that's why she was shaking.

Other than knowing how to swim, the other criteria used to select those going to destroy the core where, wether you had strength or not. Everyone who was going under was considered weak. At least all except Kris who was being forced down because she was the tasks leader and Reagan who was supposed to protect the team or the mission if anything went wrong, the criteria for which he would eventually do was determined by likely hood of success and discretion.

Kris didn't feel safe leaving the discretion to the dwarf but she had no choice. Regardless of what she thought, he was the only one who could break the crystal amongst them since he was the only dwarf amongst them and they were rumoured to be stronger than most.

The two groups were being led by Nathan and Kris respectively.

Nathan decided his group into two.

He didn't know how long it was going to take for them to find and destroy the core.

His group was armed with several oddly shaped but lengthy sticks, some of which were harder than others. It was the best they could come up with and it didn't really matter anyway considering that what they had to fight was made of water.

The submerging group was to move last, after the distraction group had gotten the thing out of the water.

Kris took her time to calm herself and steel her nerves.

She requested that her team form two lines.

She had said that it was to minimise the total space they covered, which was a lie she only needed them to do so, so she could feel some semblance of sanity.

The first group approach the river cautiously.

Three people were in the front,These, unlike the rest, where carrying rocks.

They starting tossing the rocks into the water to see if they could stir up the beast.

It did stir it but not the way they had hoped.

A single tentacle shot out with astonishing speed and whacked the spot where the throwers were.

Only one of which was fast enough to escape.

The rest were swept into the water.

Blood didn't rise but most people weren't naive enough to think any of those people were alive.

Although one person did.

" Gary! Gaaary! " The owner of the voice broke formation and rushed towards the bank.

He was Gary's twin brother, grey.

" I'm coming for you Gary! Just wait I'll..."

Another tentacle shot towards him. He was flung back several feet away.

His body slammed down hard and not to far from where the divers were.

Kris hurled at the sight.

' I really can't keep doing this. In this line of work dead things are common so get yourself together and stop hurling'

She didn't stop and stooped over.

Reagan looked at her and shook his head.

Another member of the group came up to her.

" If you aren't feeling up to it you can sit it out"

Kris looked up at the girl, it was another younger elf.

' this kid has more guts and a stronger one than me '

She straightened herself barely and grinned

" I'll be fine"

The first group somehow successfully attracted the whole river beast out of the water and where now engaged in a crazy game of tag with it. Only in their version they had pissed off the catcher.

The other group slowly made it's way to the river bank.

They had still gone in a straight line considering it smart.

Although they only believed that because she was an elf and elves are usually smart and right.

They all reached the river bank and so far they hadn't been noticed yet.

Kris turned face her group.

" Except for bubbles all of you get ready to submerge"

Bubbles was a shouki and was half fish as well so she didn't have to do anything.

Soon after they all went under.

The light from above reached this far but the turbulence in the water had stirred dirt so the water was a bit hard to see through.

They started to make their way towards the tentacle beasts position.

Kris instructed them to spread out, with her in the front and Reagan in the middle.

The idea was who ever located it first should alert Reagan.

They swam a bit of a stretch since they had distanced themselves so as not to be discovered by the beast.

It didn't take long to spot it.

Underwater in the murky waters, the shining star ahead was glaringly obvious.

Kris wanted to groan.

Because it was too easy. Of course all they'd done so far was the easy part but, when you don't suffer set backs in the easy part then the hard parts bound to get ten times harder