Thoster crashed into the outer circle of distracted kuo-toa. He struck down two instantly with his envenomed mechanical blade, opening a hole in the already crumbling formation.

"This is too easy," muttered Japheth. He scanned the periphery of the vault and glimpsed movement.

"Over there!" he yelled, pointing. At least three more groups of kuo-toa spearwielders materialized through the mist. With them came other creatures, some recognizable as squid-like beasts the size of hounds, a few so misshapen he couldn't immediately classify them.

The warlock uttered a series of arcane words and directed a beam of dire radiance into one of the groups, dazzling their eyes and disrupting their forward progress.

"And above us, Japheth!" Anusha's voice yelled in his ear. He looked up.

The kraken was back.

Icy warnings blared from the Cerulean Sign on Raidon's chest, a new pulse with each heartbeat. As if he didn't already know all these fish-men were touched by corruption.

Still in a guarding stance, Raidon palmed a slashing spear haft with his left hand. He jerked, pulling the kuo-toa forward, directly into a rising right knee. The kuo-toa's head crunched, and the creature fell away. The monk retained his grip on the spear, spinning it like a staff. He spun it around one-handed, landing a resounding blow along another kuo-toa's head. He leaned into the rebound to clip a second foe, then put his other hand on the shaft so he could thrust the butt end of the spear into a third foe's throat. The kuo-toa tried to scream but choked instead. The staff lengthened Raidon's reach, but the blows it delivered were not as powerful as his Sign-enhanced fists.

The choking kuo-toa cried out, tried to turn, but fell into a bloody heap instead. The ship captain stood behind the corpse, his strangely clicking sword beaded with water and blood, a manic expression making his face a strange mask. Something in that expression and the shape of the man's head reminded Raidon of the kuo-toa themselves.

"More's coming, my Shou friend," panted the captain. He pointed the tip of his blade at the scurrying fish-men drawing nearer through the artificial rain. The captain's grin expanded. "More for us to kill."

Raidon's symbol suddenly turned as cold as a blizzard. He looked up. Just visible through the water streaming down from the ceiling he glimpsed… a great flock of bats? No. A single creature, one with vast arms of squalid black muscle. It was the very beast Cynosure had revealed to him. Gethshemeth.

The great kraken clutched a head-sized orb in one tentacle, and in another, a humanoid figure carved of stone, a mere doll in Gethshemeth's tentacles. It hunched over the tableau, its arms flickering and weaving overhead as if it cast a spell requiring all its gesturing arms.

As if being waved forward, a half dozen more kuo-toa formations rushed across the flooding vault. Before they reached Raidon, Gethshemeth reached down and set its doll down not far from the monk. He saw it was actually about twice his height. Another stone behemoth, like the one he'd dispatched on first arriving in the chamber.

The statue shuddered forward, its arms rising.

Raidon charged it. From his focus of concentration he projected stone-shattering force into the heel of his right hand. Threads of coolness reached from his chest, down his arm, and interlaced themselves with his focus. His spellscar, its shape that of the Cerulean Sign, aided him all on its own.

The lobster-clawed humanoid sprayed him with crimson fluid.

"Raidon, no!" he heard someone shout, perhaps the invisible girl, or maybe the panicked wizard. Then silence claimed him.

When a coral dome sealed the monk away, Anusha's fear returned like a thick gag threatening to choke off her breath. She'd expected Raidon Kane would rise to this final challenge, as she'd seen him do against the threats they'd faced on the surface. Instead, the kraken neutralized him with its first move.

Close by, the wizard Seren seemed to be crying, even as she launched a wave of lightning at the closest kuo-toa phalanx. A crack of thunder knocked six or seven fish-men backward, head over flippers, to land in a heap, dazed and hurt. But more kuo-toa continued to pour into the area. Seren's lament grew louder even as she prepared another blast. She sobbed, "We're all going to die!"

Anusha stood near Japheth. His eyes were locked on the kraken, or perhaps the orb the kraken wielded. Her fear crystallized. "Wait!" she counseled him, thinking he was about to engage Gethshemeth himself. "Wait for Raidon's help! I can free the half-elf as I did you!"

Without a backward glance she dashed through the press of scaly bodies. She called up her dream blade and lay around her with it as she passed. She imagined her blade's edges as real and sharp as Angul's steely edge.

Anusha's passage was a bloody furrow through the kraken's advancing minions. Composed as it was of dream matter, no blood stained her armor or even her sword. That's how she dreamed it should be, and that's how it was. The creatures only sensed her by her bloody deeds. Kuo-toa squealed and died.

She reached the lobster-clawed statue where Raidon was entombed. Captain Thoster had so far avoided a similar fate, but what was he doing? Thoster was on his knees in the pooling water facing the eidolon, his sword sheathed and his arms outstretched as if in entreaty or worship. The man chanted something in a singsong tone, perhaps a prayer.

His strangely liquid vowels were having some sort of effect. The statue wavered, tried to step, paused, vibrated, then shuffled sideways.

"Whatever you're doing, keep it up," she murmured, and plunged into the stone that imprisoned Raidon. She had just trawled three similar stone shrouds, so she knew what to look for. Almost immediately she located Raidon's form. She grabbed the rigid monk beneath his arms and heaved, but her hands slipped free. She tried again, remembering to will his flesh to be as her dream body, like smoke flowing through air. She heaved once more, and a moment later the man was free of the clutching stone.

Raidon resumed his charge as if nothing had detoured him. Even as Thoster retained the eidolon's attention, the monk jumped at the end of his trajectory and smashed the statue in the chest with the heel of his palm.

The crack of rending stone echoed through the chamber. Fine lines burning with cerulean fire suddenly spidered the statue, thickest at the point of impact.

Anusha came up behind Raidon and brought down her dream blade. Jarring impact surprised her.

"No!" said Thoster suddenly "Don't attack her!"

Her? Anusha wondered why the pirate would suddenly refer to the animated statue as a "she," and wish to protect it. Had his mind been suborned by Gethshemeth?

Raidon spared a puzzled glance at the captain's insane plea but didn't cease his assault on the stone figure. Even as stone claws snapped toward the monk, he evaded them by slipping to one side and around the statue. From there, the monk launched into a fury of stinging blows. The sound of crunching stone, like Anusha imagined might issue from a mine shaft, accompanied Raidon's unstoppable onslaught. The half-elf’s hands and feet had somehow become harder than stone.

The kuo-toa swarming into the cavern paused to watch, their eyes fixed on Raidon. Moments later, the statue's swift demolition was complete. Raidon stood on a pile of slick, wet rubble above the rising water line. His hair was molded to his head in the constant drizzle and his clothes sopped, but in that moment he seemed unstoppable. The monk's eyes lifted and focused on the kraken itself as if in challenge.