There is no limit to human ingenuity or depravity.

  [Quest Stage Four: Survive the Beast 7:25:22]

  Yacht Sothoth was suffering, and Brom was having the time of his life. He was peeling up sections of metal sheeting, bursting through walls, kicking catwalks free, and ripping doors off their hinges. He was powering through those branching side tunnels like an air bubble in an artery. The innards writhed, their predictable movements now disjointed as he was beating the hell out of the ship-shark. Brom was going to kill this monster with a thousand tiny little pinpricks.

  The chains were hot on his heels now.

  Those extensions of the core and thus the will of Yacht Sothoth now followed him on his mad dash through its flesh. Like white blood cells hunting down an infection, they would swarm at him. This far from the core, though, they were cool and sluggish, easily snapped and broken with little damage to him. Each time he did so, a howl of agony would roll through the behemoth, and it would pitch violently. Like now, as Brom was forced to cling to the still attached end of links he'd just severed. The pitch was particularly violent, sending him airborne in the large chamber. Without that chain, he'd probably have been hurled into any number of horrible landing points. With the chain, he was able to make a graceful arc, running along the wall, letting go of it only when he grabbed a catwalk railing.

  "That's right fucker! How do you like it when it's turned back on you?!"

  Brom laughed manically, heaving on the cooled chain and feeling the links groan before another several snapped off, and that distressed wail sounded again. The whole of Yacht Sothoth's form shuddered now, and a rumble unlike the previous noises grew louder and louder, accompanied by a sense of pressure.

  Water.

  The creature was sucking in a belly full of the harbor in hopes of cleansing him. Or maybe it was to make it easier to vomit him out. "Hahaha! That's not going to work!"

  He locked his stance and grinned into the wall of water, feeling it smash into him like a freight train.

  - Unyielding Stance Activated!

  Maybe Brom was finally going insane. Maybe the horror had finally worked into his brain and snapped vital connections within it. Still, when the water washed back past him, it left him with a feral grin on his face as he ripped up the section of railing he was holding onto and ran to the end of the catwalk, driving it between two of the metal plates and into the Yacht Sothoth's slick flesh. He hammered the end of it with his fist, driving it till it vanished. It had to be like swallowing a needle and having it go through the intestinal wall. "Does it hurt?! It fucking better?! Call me Ahab, you Mopey Dick, because I'm going to kill you come hell or high water!"

  A chain got ahold of him around the middle and yanked, sending him airborne before he had a chance to lock in his stance. It flailed him around like a rag doll, bouncing him off any surface it could. He gripped hold of it, pulling himself closer to get some slack in it, and bit down. The chain broke before his teeth did, sending him spinning through the air to slam down against the filthy tunnel bottom.

  HP: 310/600

  Slowly, he rolled up onto his feet again, spitting blood and staring at the rattling chains in the gloom. "C'mon. What the fuck are you waiting for? An invitation?" He jerked his hands at them and pounded his chest. "C'mon! Come and play! You fucking wanted me here, you opened that big fat mouth of yours and invited me right the fuck in. Regretting it? Me fucking too!"

  He lunged, making a grab for the nearest chain, and it flinched back. Then they all surged forward at once.

  - Unyielding Stance Activated!

  "Ha! You've activated my trap card bitch!" They couldn't drag him. Couldn't lift him. Couldn't restrain him. The chains of Yacht Sothoth had grabbed hold of something they couldn't release from. Like an anchor wedged in the sea floor, unable to be cut loose, the links strained. With slow, deliberate action, Brom began to pull them toward him, hand over hand. When he got enough slack, he'd snap them and listen to the ship-shark squeal in metal distress.

  Slowly but surely, everything began to grow warmer as the core was pulled ever closer to the madman.

  [Quest Stage Four: Survive the Beast 3:13:58]

  Time was measured in links. He was pulling a heart up by the arteries, and everything in the beast was resisting him. The Innards had come, trying to get a bite, only to find him armored by a fortress of discarded chain links he'd carefully built. They snapped, dripping slime all around him, but their efforts were futile as Yacht Sothoth began to flail in agonized panic. His health began to tick away as the heat increased, but Brom saw it as a resource to be spent.

  "C'mon, you bitch, it's you or me. You might have a bigger health pool, but it's not the size that counts! It's what I fucking do with it!"

  You seem very familiar with those words, Player Brom Jones.

  "Oh, go play in traffic. This has to be a hell of a show!" He bared his teeth, sweat evaporating in the red glow of the ever-nearing heart. "I expect royalties from this!"

  You still have more than two hours, Player Brom Jones. Please do not confuse eggs for poultry.

  He was well aware of how much time he had. He could see it right there, that little timer in his vision that kept tick-ticking down just like his health bar did.

  HP: 230/600

  - Burning

  HP: 229/600

  - Burning

  HP: 228/600

  This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

  - Burning

  HP: 268/600

  Arrows burst into flame, thudding through the links of the chains and pinning them for a brief moment. "UNCLE BROM!"

  Brom's head snapped up, his eyes squinting through the heat waves to make out the source of the sound. On a catwalk fifty feet away, TJ and his friends were gathered, his nephew sending arrow after arrow into the hot links of steel in an attempt to help. Rudy and Maxine were holding Alex, who dangled over the railing, hurling healing spells his way. The splashed over his sizzling flesh like cool water, refreshing him as they forced his flesh to knit itself back together.

  "What the fuck are you doing here?! No, forget it, we'll talk later. Why the hell are you still here?! Fucking run!"

  HP: 308/600

  HP: 348/600

  HP: 388/600

  "I'm O.O.M.!" Alex hollered, reeling back as a signal for Rudy and Maxine to help pull him back.

  Brom ripped on the chains again, trying to keep their attention on him. He needn't have bothered, they didn't even seem to acknowledge the teens' presence. Instead, the few that had peeled away from him were busy yanking out the arrows to free the others. Sweat dripped into his eyes, running down his face like tears, sizzling after the hot links bound around his arms as his health began ticking back down.

  "We can't just leave you here!"

  "Yes, you fucking can." He leaned against the counter weight of the chain pull, and slipped one foot a step back. "You absolutely fucking can."

  "We can help!"

  "You just did, kiddo. I feel great. I'm going to feed this monster its own heart and let it choke on it."

  Rudy whistled. "Hell yeah, Mister B!" The shorter teen punched a fist in the air. "You go!"

  Yacht Sothoth gave another squeal, and Brom felt the telltale signs of another impending gutful of water coming through the maw. "TJ! TJ, you gotta go now! Get to safety!"

  The teenager did exactly what teenagers often do. Fucking didn't listen to him. TJ remained stubbornly in place, firing arrows at the core despite the fact that it was now too hot to matter, the projectiles becoming harmless ash long before striking. He didn't seem inclined to stop, though, his face a mask of concentration.

  This was not the fucking time for the Jones native stubbornness to rear its ugly head.

  Before Brom could say anything, though, Maxine seemed to have realized the danger, slapping Rudy on the shoulder before she started running for the door they'd come through.

  Rudy glanced back, saw the water, and moved as quickly as short legs could carry him. "Oh shit! Move!"

  Alex caught hold of TJ, dragging him bodily away from the railing, and TJ gave Brom one last helpless look.

  Brom gave him a thumbs up as the water hit, grateful as that door was slammed shut by the force of the oncoming sea. They were safe. TJ was safe. How they'd gotten here, how they'd found him, how they'd avoided all the horrors in this hellhole... those were all questions he wanted answers to. More reasons to survive. No doubt those kids had a hell of a story to tell, and he wanted to hear every moment of it. Preferably with a cup of tea and a cat on his lap.

  The water hit the core, and the resulting steam explosion must have been true agony for the monster. It was the equivalent of Yacht Sothoth ripping off a leg to escape a trap, all the chains snapping their links and falling backward to leave Brom standing alone, surrounded by massive chain chunks.

  As the water surged back out past him, a wicked idea surged through him. He reached down, taking hold of the longest section of chain he'd snapped off and gripping it tightly. Timing was going to be precise, drop his stance too early, and he was going to be vomited too far out of the maw, drop it too late, and he'd be left as easy pickings for the Innards when the surge didn't carry him far enough. He counted, sorting the chain through his hands till he found the end, and then just went with his gut.

  He rushed along in the current, feeling that length of chain dragging out behind him, bumping and catching as it went.

  HP: 383/600

  HP: 378/600

  HP: 373/600

  Just when he'd worried he'd miscounted and that he was going to spill too far back out into the waters of the Harbor, he was out. He was pressed flat against the outer skin of Yacht Sothoth by the motion of the creature in the water. His flesh groaned with the pressure for a moment, and Brom wondered if maybe this had been the worst fucking choice after all. Then that small pinprick of light illuminated, the star in the sapphire of his ring flaring to brilliant radiance.

  The Ring of Aquatic Combat was dropping in from the top rope. With the tag in of his equipment, that squishing pressure eased, and Brom found it easy to make the motions he needed to. It was all about the chain. Part of it was still inside the monster, and that's exactly what Brom wanted. He wiggled back and forth across the maw, dragging those links and forcing Yacht Sothoth to crack open its jaws, trying to dislodge the uncomfortable thing. All it was doing was playing right into Brom's hands as he worked it slowly, back and forth, until he had it exactly where he wanted it.

  The behemoth dove, and Brom let the force slowly drag him upward. He wasn't sure if losing contact with the skin of the ship would stop the survival counter from ticking downward, and he didn't want his efforts to be ruined now. Slowly, ever so slowly, he slid up until he was standing on the creature's foredeck. Then he got a very good grip on the ends of the chain and began to walk backward, step by step, until he felt the links go tight.

  Then he yanked.

  [Quest Stage Four: Survive the Beast 1:16:19]