Maya hopped over the edge of the boat. The ground crunched and shifted under her feet. She nearly lost her balance. A quick glance at the sooty white material that made up the earth beneath her summoned a grimace to Maya’s face.

Cyll and Patty landed beside her, sending a small puff of white dust up. Maya quickly distanced herself from the cloud.

“We’re standing on ground up bones,” Maya said.

Cyll grunted, picking up what might have been half of a femur and looking at it critically.

“Old ones,” he said, tossing it back to the ground. He shrugged. “Someone was trying to be scary.”

Maya nodded and took the lead. The cave entrance quickly proved to be far larger than Maya had first thought. By the time that they stood at its maw, it towered over them. It was pitch black, making it impossible to see anything beyond the entrance. A low moan echoed out from within the cave as a cool breeze rushed into the cave from behind them.

“That’s not ominous,” Maya said.

Cyll stepped past her and gingerly put a foot in the cave. He paused a moment, shrugged, and entered it. A few moments later, his head popped out of the darkness.

“Nothing’s tried to kill me yet,” Cyll said. “We’re going to have to go in eventually, and I don’t think there’s much we can do to prepare.”

“The boss monster must be really lonely,” Patty said, frowning. “We should go find them and keep them company as soon as possible.”

“Something like that,” Maya agreed. “After you, Cyll.”

The immortal pirate smirked and took the lead from Maya as the three of them descended into the dungeon.

It was slow progress. There was dark, and then there was dark. The cave, unsurprisingly, was the latter. It was like floating in a void of nothing. Sound had vanished along with the light. Their slow steps and Maya’s own erratic heartbeat were the only things that reached her ears. Even the wind had vanished.

Maya could only be thankful that the dungeon hadn’t riddled the corridor with traps. She wasn’t sure how long they walked, but a small pinprick of light appeared at the edge of their vision. All three of them drew sharp breaths and it took everything they had not to rush over to it.

They approached what quickly revealed itself to be a doorway with a blueish hue seeping out from the crack beneath it. Cyll held a hand up in the dim light, clearly signaling for them to stop.

Maya and Patty took a few steps backward. Once the pirate was satisfied, he nodded and turned back to the door. Cyll pushed on it gently and the door swung open without resistance. The blue hue washed over the hallway, filling it with gentle light. A large bone spear promptly flowered from his chest in a spray of maroon blood.

“Son of a bitch,” Cyll coughed. He lunged forward, tackling the spear’s wielder to the floor.

Patty and Maya rushed forward as Cyll repeatedly slammed his attacker into the floor, drawing their weapons and guarding his sides. Cyll rose a moment later, drawing the spear from his chest and skewering his dead attacker.

“Arkagoka,” Cyll spat as his wound closed. “Fishmen. Dangerous ones.”

The dozens of angry looking blue men in the room around them made Cyll’s explanation unnecessary, but Maya appreciated having a name to put to the creatures. They were humanoid up until their neck, where they each had a different, yet equally horrifying, fish head. Most of them were full of razor-sharp teeth.

They let out a collective hiss of fury at their fallen comrade and charged towards the small party. Each of them was armed with a jagged bone spear similar to the one in Cyll’s hands. Maya was the first to act, her sickle hissing through the room like a metal viper towards the nearest Arkagoka.

The fishman caught it on the hilt of his spear and the chain coiled hungrily around it. Maya’s experience fighting Axel reminded her that getting into a content of strength with someone that had more muscle than her was a bad idea. Instead, Maya dove to the side while keeping hold of her end of the weapon.

The chain swept across the ground at knee level, knocking three of the other fishmen off their feet as they charged straight into it. One of them never got the chance to recover as Patty vaulted through the air, slamming her axe into its chest with a spray of blue blood.

Maya yanked hard on the chain, using the element of surprise to rip the fishman’s spear out of its hands as she called her weapon back to her. She dropped the spear on the ground and sent the sickle whistling out again.

This time, with nothing to protect him, the weapon cut deep into the Arkagoka’s chest. The second strike slashed through his neck, killing him.

Patty disemboweled the other fishman Maya had tripped. As she pulled her axe free, another Arkagoka lunged at her, thrusting the spear towards her back with all his might. Patty spun, leaving her axe buried in the other creature’s corpse, and grabbed the spear with one hand.

The fishman’s charge ground to a halt. His wide, watery eyes widened in surprise. Then Patty’s fist went straight through his head, emerging out the other side covered in blue gore. She ripped it out of him, dropping the limp body to the ground.

“Holy shit, Patty,” Maya said. “Remind me not to get on your bad side.”

“Could I get a little help here?” Cyll roared. Eight fishmen had ganged up on him, but it didn’t look like they were winning. Two of them laid dead at Cyll’s feet, and the remainder all sported minor injuries. “They’re ruining my clothes!”

Patty ripped her axe free of the body she had left it in. She hurled it across the room. It went clean through one of Cyll’s opponents and embedded itself into the wall. Maya followed her crewmate’s lead. Her sickle bit into the man in front of Cyll.

He hissed in pain, but it was cut off as Cyll buried his spear in the Arkagoka’s throat. The few remaining fishmen glanced between eachother, but they didn’t have a chance to communicate further. The three crewmates dispatched the rest of them easily.