"First time I've ever seen one like it, really. It's just like those sea serpents we sometimes had to fight off in our fishing spots, but several orders of magnitude larger. I think we had all gone slack on the jaws when we saw it the first time.

I had thought at the time that there was nothing us tiny people could do to such a thing. Then the Bone Lord and the Young Lady came, and they proved us all so very, very wrong in the best way possible." - Sudirno Orangseb, fisherman from Southern Ptolodecca.

Approximately three days out from the shoreline

Open seas to the south of the Lichdom of Ptolodecca

Southern Ur-Teros

4th day of the 4th week, 10th month of the year 182 VA.

After they watched the massive beast gulp down the boat Aideen was on, the fleet of ships and fishing boats kept their distance from the massive sea serpent. The beast seemed annoyed by their presence, but had not seemed to care as long as they remained outside the waters it claimed as its own.

The Bone Lord had ordered the fleet to drop anchor at a safe distance and just wait, an order that was quickly obeyed. Many of the sailors and fishermen looked visibly nervous, and often stole glances to the ship the Bone Lord was on to reassure themselves.

A day and night quickly passed by, then a second, with no sign of anything happening. The nervousness amongst the locals built up over those days, and some of them wondered in private whether something untoward had happened to the Young Lady after all.

Then the dawn of the third day came. Suddenly the beast gyrated violently, as if in pain, its deafening roar sending many surprised fishermen falling on their bottoms. The Bone Lord meanwhile just calmly ordered the ships to advance slowly.

Waves threatened to capsize the smaller boats, caused by the beast's pained throes, but the experienced fishermen rode through the waves. The larger ships were less bothered by such waves, especially as the beast's movements weakened quickly.

When the ships were around half a kilometer away from the massive sea serpent, it gave one final cry, then its head fell to the water, never to rise again. Its body also began to sink into the water, if slowly due to its massive size.

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The four sloops that had water mages on board quickly closed to the beast, and almost immediately, it stopped sinking. The mages on board had pooled their efforts to keep the beast afloat, and even then some good swimmers had dived into the water while carrying thick ropes, went under the beast, and out the other side where they climbed to another sloop and tied the rope there.

As the Bone Lord's ship kept watch on the far side of the beast, the emboldened fishermen brought their ships and boats closer, and followed the lead of the sloops. People dived into the water and before long a criss-crossing net of thick ropes were suspended between the hundreds of ships, keeping the beast's carcass afloat.

Together, the fleet of ships dragged the beast's carcass towards the shore, which would be a journey of roughly three days from where they were. The water mages, freed from their task of keeping the carcass aloft, now poured their craft into pushing the ships ahead, so that they could arrive sooner.

Around a couple hours after noon, some sailors spotted a human figure coming out from the beast's nostril, and soon more noticed Aideen's reappearance as she screamed on exhiliration from atop the beast's head.

The sailors and fishermen watched as the Young Lady ran the length of the collosal beast and jumped into the water, swimming towards the Bone Lord's ship in the back, and just nodded. Their faith in the Bone Lord had been reaffirmed the moment the beast had died before their eyes.

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"Took you a while," said the Bone Lord as he greeted Aideen when she climbed up the rope ladder onto the deck of his ship. Despite his skeletal visage, Aideen could swear that he was definitely smirking as he said that.

"Bloody thing's far too fucking huge," complained Aideen as she received a towel from one of the sailors and tried to dry her hair. Her clothes were quite naturally sopping wet since she just swam through the seas, and she was dripping seawater all over the deck. "When did the thing die?"

"Around dawn, this morning," replied the Bone Lord. The goblins Colin and Cormin were also present, both looking positively giddy at what Aideen had done with their invention. She had to admit it would have been impossible to kill the beast on her own, without the aid of those explosive concoctions.

"Then it took me almost half the day just to find my way out," said Aideen with a nod, having dried herself as best she could for the time being. The towel given go her was now as sopping wet as she had been. "And around two days to get to its heart."

"You blew up its heart to kill it then?" asked the Bone Lord, which Aideen answered with a firm nod. He then looked at the pair of giddy goblins and asked something in their stead. "How many of the potions did it take to do so?"

"Most of them," said Aideen honestly. "I used up a few to get out of its stomach, and then again to deal with a swarm of parasites living inside the thing. Used all the remaining forty-five vials on the heart."

"That many!? And it didn't rip the beast asunder!?" asked Colin with visible disbelief on his face, as he was well aware of just how strong his improved brew was.

"When it was alive, its flesh was harder than boulders," explained Aideen patiently. "It has softened quite a bit after it died. Those forty five vials had not even completely torn its heart in half, by the way."

"You mentioned parasites as well, child?" asked the Bone Lord with some concern.

"Yea, there were like a hundred of them outside its stomach, like a centipede and a crab had a bastard. As thick around as my thigh and like four meters long," said Aideen with a frown as she recalled the unpleasant experience. "Can't tell if there's others in other parts of the beast."

"I see… I will make sure those who worked on it are guarded properly then," said the Bone Lord with a nod. "In the meantime child, you should rest first. Take a good bath, have some good food."

"Deities know I'm looking forward to exactly that," said Aideen with a beaming smile.