It had not shrieked because it was in pain; it was an attack. Momentarily, a cloud came over my mind, and the shrieking sound made me nauseous. I couldn’t see, hear, or move other than to fall to my knees. The water that was knee-deep when I was standing became waist-deep after I collapsed. The waves caused by all its thrashing splashed against my robe and pulled me slightly backwards.

  Fortunately, at least a couple of the others were not affected in the same way I had been. Adriana and Wilma were sending more magical attacks at the creature, and Steven had waded right up to its side and struck it with his mace. The mace had been something he picked up from Rick’s Pawn Shop. The mace had a magical myth about it that guaranteed it would help its wielder survive a critical battle. What that meant, none of us had any idea, but we tried to convince Steven that it was probably a sales gimmick.

  But we were wrong.

  The mental attack of the eel must have triggered something in the mace because the weapon now glowed purple, the color of psyban mage robes.

  It appeared that Steven was unaffected by the eel's unusual vocal attack. Instead of disabling him, the eel’s shrieking sounds had magically enhanced his weapon. The mace now glowed like a small purple beacon in the night.

  When Steven struck the side of the giant eel, a hissing, dark liquid erupted from a pore concealed near its long, continuous, soft dorsal fin. It splattered all over him, and he lurched back, gagging and spitting. A putrid smell reached us in seconds, and I know that I did all I could to keep from throwing up.

  The eel bent back on itself like a wet noodle and dove toward Steven with its sharp mouth full of teeth. Steven did not see it coming.

  A few feet before the eel would have sunk its teeth into Steven’s side, it pulled up short, smacking its elongated head into the water and the shallow sandy bottom beneath it.

  The creature was as surprised as the rest of us. It seemed to squirm, trying to figure out how it had gotten stuck.

  Looking back along the sinewy body, the eel soon discovered the reason. Biff had wrapped his arms around the eel, and despite its slimy, slick outer coating, he held it firm in his double grasp.

  I don’t think that there was any possible way I could have held it. The mucus layer all over its body was nearly frictionless. But whatever skill or magic Biff possessed in those gauntlets of his held fast to the eel’s body.

  Wilma and Adriana hit it with another series of spells, and I soon followed with another barrage of Mage Blasts. I had launched three five-point attacks, leaving me with exactly one casting point. Being low on casting points was bad news for a mage in combat. I needed to use one or more of Biff’s presents. I needed a magical restoration potion.

  And then I remembered the 28pt diamond I got from Blinky. Before I had gone to sleep that night, I filled it with my remaining casting points and primed its two magical spell powers. I chose one to be a Lesser Group Heal spell that would heal all my companions for ten health points when activated. I could use it once per day. The other spell was a Holy Light spell and was not the best second choice under the circumstances. The diamond showed me that while 7pt gems had only one power, a 28pt gem had two.

  The eel turned its head toward Biff, ignoring our attacks. Despite its quick reflexes, it chose to turn purposefully and menacingly toward the brawler who held it fast. There was a cruel intelligence behind its jet-black eyes.

  I didn’t feel we needed the heal yet, but I did call on five of the stored casting points from the gem and cast a maximum strength Mage Blast I spell at the creature. It struck, and the eel flinched but did not stop its movement. The eel raised its head and looked down on Biff, baring its dozens of needle fangs. It focused on Biff, and it was apparent that it had something nasty in mind for him.

  That was when Simon leaped out of the water and struck the eel under the jaw with one, two, three sharp kicks. Each kick struck true and sent a sound over the pond like a whip cracking.

  The eel was rocked back and fell into the water, its head toward deeper waters.

  Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  With a surge, the eel dived toward the bottom of the pond and away from the shoreline where we were standing.

  But once again, Biff restrained it. His muscles were bulging like I had never seen them, and his face was beginning to turn red from the strain.

  The eel surged forward once, twice, and a third time, but it only gained inches as Biff slid against the watery sand.

  “Can you turn it toward us, Biff? I have something in mind, but it must look my way!” Wilma shouted.

  “I’ll try!” Biff grunted, gasping for breath against the strain of holding the creature.

  All of a sudden, Biff stumbled backward and almost lost his grip. The eel had turned again and moved swiftly toward him.

  Simon kicked at the eel, and Steven swung his mace, but neither landed a blow this time. It was too fast, and they were now fifteen feet behind the eel, thanks to the waves and movement of combat.

  The beast gave another shriek, but its effect on me was far less pronounced than it had been earlier. As it approached Biff, it did not lunge to attack, which is what we all expected. Biff had even braced himself so that if it had bitten him, it would have also bitten some of itself.

  Instead, it rose again and crashed its head into the pond's surface. The concussion of the head hitting the water sent a double wave against us as we stood in a semi-circle behind Biff in the water and along the shore.

  The first wave was air, knocking all three mages off our feet. The second wave, almost instantaneously behind the first, was a six-foot wall of water, and it struck us and tossed us around senseless for a few seconds.

  Simon and Seven were out of range and behind the creature, so they suffered no ill effects. Biff was the worst off. He bore the entire brunt of the double attack. It was enough to send him flying back ten feet through the air, and he lost his grip on the eel.

  That must have been the plan because the eel quickly turned to flee back into the watery depths when it came face-to-face with a monk and a cleric. The eel hissed at them defiantly and lunged to bite one or both on its way past them.

  But once again, amazingly, it got brought up short. Somehow, using one of his brawler skills, Biff had stood, lunged forward ten feet, and grabbed the creature. He once again held it in place.

  Simon and Steven took full advantage of the creature’s confusion and struck, one to either side. This time, their blows landed solidly. I added another round of magical blasts from my staff for good measure, and it seemed to me that the giant eel was slowing. I followed it up with a Firebolt attack from a topaz in one of my Dwarven copper rings.

  Adriana sent another jet of flame into its side, but a bit stronger than my own, based on its glow and thickness. Not surprisingly, a creature of the water did not appreciate the fire attack, and it did noticeable damage along one side and below its top dorsal fin.

  The creature tried to escape left and then right, but Simon and Steven were in the way. Biff still clasped its body to his side, but the strain was causing him to dig his heels into the soft sand. He was leaning backward, his arms beginning to shake with the effort.

  The eel turned to either strike at Biff to get him to release it or to leave the water entirely and depart on shore. It had no difficulty moving along the shallow sandy bottom near the shoreline.

  That was when Wilma unleashed her attack. A kaleidoscope of colors slammed into the eel’s head and momentarily stunned it into stillness.

  “Dispatch…it…quickly!” Wilma struggled to say. “It is far more intelligent than I guessed, and I won’t be able to keep it mesmerized for long!”

  The eel still had a third of its health points remaining. We must have all determined that Wilma’s warning revealed that it was more dangerous than we had first believed, because we all let rip with a barrage of attacks.

  I let loose a Fire Blast spell from one of my staff rings, seeing how fire damage was more effective than my Mage Blasts had been. Unfortunately, Fire Blast was an area of effect spell, and both Steven and Simon suffered partial damage because of their proximity to the eel.

  But it did not deter them. Simon jumped onto the back of the eel and ran toward its head, gliding across its slimy skin like a professional figure skater. He leaped into the air and struck with the balls of his feet, landing a blow that echoed across the park.

  Steven struck the eel’s side in nearly the identical location as before. But this time, the glowing purple of his mace discharged into the eel as he struck, doing some kind of augmented damage.

  Bido, who had been mostly quiet during the battle, had been working on some kind of thaumaturgy spell and had made a wet sand eel sculpture on the shore. He smashed his foot down on the image in a flash of red that matched his robes, and a magnified burst of red energy exploded out of the eel’s side in perfect symmetry with the attack.

  But Biff had the final word. He released his grip and struck his gauntlets together, creating electric sparks. He struck the eel once with a left fist, once with the right, and then jumped up and crashed down on top of the eel’s back with a double-fisted blow.

  The blow broke whatever served as the monster’s back, and its health bar turned gray. The attack was over.

  We all slowly gathered around the giant eel, grimacing as much from the terrible stench it released as the battle itself.

  “At least it stopped screeching,” Adriana said. “That gave me a terrible headache.”

  Everyone agreed.

  Simon pointed to Steven’s mace, which looked like it was dissolving in his hands. “What’s wrong with it, Steven?” He asked.

  The cleric reached down and tried to rinse it off in the pond's water, but whatever was happening just accelerated, and the mace dissolved and dripped through his fingers.

  We all stared at where the weapon had been clenched in his lowered fist. “Well,” Steven began, “it did last through an important battle.”

  Bido was the only one of us who had escaped getting wet. Wilma and Adriana were not too bad, but they had both been swamped by the eel’s wave attack and were waterlogged from the waist down. My hair was mostly dry, but that was about all of me that had escaped a dousing.

  Bido offered an idea from the shore. “It is possible that the eel had a corrosive against metals. I have heard of such things before. Your skin and clothes would be fine, but metal could be adversely affected.”

  Sure enough, as he looked at his chainmail armor, it, too, had been damaged in places and looked like a kind of acid had melted parts of it. “I’ll need to stop by the Cathedral and get more armor before we enter the bay,” Steven commented.

  We could hear whistles blowing from the north, and they appeared to be coming our way…