'Can my luck get any worse today? Not sarcasm, just a genuine question.'
'Okay let's recap a little bit. I'm stuck in a tank on a boat with three very strong and deadly humans slowly rising to who knows where to be given to a strange human they call Meira? You know on second thought my situations pretty good, 6/10 maybe a seven.'
'Joking aside I need to figure out what happened to me' I began to inspect my surrounding tank more thoroughly and have come to a shocking discovery. There is no way out. The glass is harder than any rock I have ever seen, and the lid is weighed down with a sandbag or something.
'Okay if there is no way out I just gotta make my own way out.'
I then start punching and scratching the tank with my beak, putting all my effort into getting out of here.
…
"Hey Captain, what do you think the octopus doing" Oscar asks Muk while sitting on the main deck. His back to the mast with Beau to his left.
"I think its hungry. You see its mouth there? It's trying to get to the fish." Muk responds while helping beau lower the main sail.
"It's probably trying to escape. Octopi are known to do that" Beau responds.
"After you guys finish flaking, we can start it."
Oscar hears this, stands up, and his face is fraught with worry.
"Are you sure we can do that, captain? Last time we did that I almost lost everything."
"Aye. You have been training since then and I believe in you, don't let fear control you Oscar."
Oscar slaps himself on the cheeks and resolves himself, he won't fail again.
"Got it, sir."
...
'Okay that completely failed. I think I saw one of the crewmen ask if I was hungry. These bastards won't even offer me any food such terrible service.'
I have spent the last hour trying to destroy this tank, but nothing has worked. Not biting, not punching, I even tried using my suckers to push the lid off, but it didn't even budge. But this wasn't a complete waste, I have realized I'm not stronger than before, but I am more malleable. Every part of my body feels like it can each be individually controlled to do anything. I can stretch my tentacles to be 10 times longer or make them incredibly rigid. I can expand my body to cover about half the tank, but that was very tiresome. I can also make my skin any color, I can even make it fairly translucent. Not invisible but I can get close.
Weirdly though, I can feel a sort of energy flowing throughout my body. Is it left over moss? I really have no clue, but I want to know. It might be my natural curiosity, but I want to know what happened to me. but first, escape.'
I began to closely watch these sailors and what they are doing. 'Are they gambling?'
…
"I raise you twenty Nautils" Oscar says while rubbing his forehead.
On a table in the middle of the deck, right next to the chain, there are three seated sailors gambling their nest eggs away.
"I reraise you, all in" he says while pushing all his chips to the center of the table.
"Damn, I fold. How do you always know when I'm bluffing Captain?"
Muk smirks to himself.
"Many years on the sea help develop a sort of instinct."
"A blind man could see your tells Oscar." Beau responds.
"Do you want to join in Beau?"
Beau stands up from the table, walks towards the mast and leans on it.
"Nah wouldn't want to ruin the old mans fun, I'm going to keep watch until we get to the port."
Oscar looks back at the table and starts to consider.
"You might be right beau, I think I might need to stop here-"
As he was about to get up, Muk grabs his arm and with a sinister smile on his face he says
"Never mind him Oscar, he's no fun anymore after he got married. You need to develop the necessary skills to be a great sailor like in the tales of old, you want to be swashbuckling and adventurous right? Well gambling is a natural part of the sailors life. Sit down, I'll tell you what, if I lose, I will pay double how does that sound?"
Oscar slaps his cheek, and you can almost see a fire in his eyes, a strong determination to succeed has encased his whole being.
"Let's do this Captain, I'm ready."
Beau sighs and mutters under his breathe "Here we go again."
…
I have been practicing for the better part of two hours to improve the control of my body. I keep copying different fish I can see from the fish pile behind the crewmen right now, I have copied a few yellow spotted fish with long sloping bodies, I tried to be a tiny version of that shark and I had some decent success with that, still could do better with the teeth though, I tried copying a chair but solid things are difficult to keep together. I even tried copying the captain but that is far too complex right now, but I can do his beard pretty well so small wins. The more I practice different shapes the more I can feel that moss energy increase in my body. I'm not really sure what it is but it seems to inhabit my hearts, and it grows the more I use it. for what am I'm using it for you ask? Well to boost my mimicry of course.
From what I can tell, the moss energy flowing through my body can help me do certain things, like stretch or compress myself. The faster it flows the more of an effect it has, but it is tiresome to keep going for long. And no, I haven't practiced with my ink as there is no place for the ink to go.
Honestly, I'm considering whether it was good to be on this boat, I want to know why I'm so smart now but being kept in a small tank against my will isn't the greatest situation I have ever been in. Eh I'm going to sleep on it. Oh yeah, sleeping seems to regenerate that moss energy faster so that's neat.
A few hours later.
BbrrROOOOOOAAAAHH
'I'm up I'm up geez.'
I'm woken up abruptly to see all around the ship dozens of other chains moving up and down carrying other ships. Some ships are being lowered down to the lake and some chains are retrieving other ships from below to go back down to the lake. I look up and see a large structure made from a dark wooden material built into a large stalactite housing every boat and chain. As we slowly rising to the platform, I see dozens of other boats just hanging from hooks attached directly to the stalactite. I'm both in awe at the structure and nervous about what's going to come.
"All hands to the ready!" I hear the captain bark orders to the other sailors, they all head to the side of the boat and prepare to dock at what I later learn is called an explorer's hub.
I feel a small rumbling as the chains pulling comes to a halt and the ship is brought to a complete stop after hours of ascending. After the ship comes to a complete stop, the captain shouts to Oscar "you did very well young Oscar next time you will definitely beat me, no doubt. Beau, Oscar, I will take care of the docking costs and selling the catches, you just need to take the gift to my house before Meira gets home."
"Yes sir." Oscar shouts
"Oh, and Oscar. You can keep your clothes."
"Thank you, sir,"
Oscar shouts completely naked before running to put his clothes back on
The captain starts laughing while he drops the plank and walks off the ship to pay the docking cost or whatever. Then beau approaches my tank and grabs it with both hands from the bottom and starts carrying me away.
"Come on let's take this to Muk's place" beau says to Oscar while he is putting on his shirt on.
"You're really under selling his place there, it is a mansion."
"You can correct me after you put your pants on, let's go."
Beau walks off the plank with me in hand and I see a bustling outpost with about 20 different ships of different sizes all just hanging in each of their bays. As they kept walking, I saw different buildings built into the stalactite directly, one of them was even a pub.
"What do you think Meira is going to do to that octopus."
Beau looked back at Oscar and thought for a moment.
"If I had to guess probably some experiments into how it changes color or how fast it regenerates."
Did he just say experiment? Welp, I think my situation might have just bumped up to a 8/10 huh. Nah its still a 7/10 we aren't there yet. As they turn a corner, I can see a long bridge made from stone connecting this stalactite to another one. This other stalactite is truly ginormous; it's like an upside-down mountain and has thousands of lights all over it as it's apparently a hanging city built directly into the stalactite.
"Hey Beau, you want to get a drink?"
"With what money are you buying said drinks?"
…
"We can figure it out from there"