"Shizen!" I shouted as the merchant hit the water in a murky spray. The boat errupted in chaos as everyone ran for the far edge. The raft tipped precipitously. I unslung the fusil and brought it up to my shoulder by reflex and squeezed the trigger. The weapon thumped against my shoulder as it went off with a crash. I had never fired it before and had no idea how to use it properly. Though I could hardly be described as 'aiming', I pointed the barrel in the general direction of the things head. The tentacle holding the merchant exploded in a spray of blood and ichor a few inches above where it gripped his leg. It looked like a masterful piece of shooting for all it was the product of sheer dumb luck and the merchant managed to flail to the edge of the raft and pulled himself gasping onto the canted deck. I lowered the fusil, tried briefly to remember how to reload it, and then slung it again, drawing my sword with an appropriate flourish.

The wounded beast wasn't giving up its prize without a fight however. Three more tentacles struck at the raft. One wrapped a barrel of supplies, the other snatched a conquistador. Before he could be pulled into the water, Beren cut down with his axe, severing the wrist thick appendage with a butchers clop. Water sprayed up in a vast bow wave as the creature hauled itself up against the raft, easily counteracting the combined weight of the passengers. Slavering jaws snapped and gnashed bare feet away and I backed up frantically, bumping the second conquistador knocking musket a side a second before it fired. Splinters flew in all directions.

"Watch where you are going you dumb bitch!" he screamed, eyes half bugged out of his head with fear. A tentacle lashed at me and I made a slash with my sword that was two weak to do more than knock the thing away. It lashed back irritabley and grabbed me around the waist. I screamed and made another ineffectual slash. Beren's axe severed it but instead of relaxing the nerve impusles constricted it around me so that it half squeezed the breath out of me. I yelped an incantation and electricity sparked along the length of the severed limb. It flopped free and fell into the river with a spash of water and a hiss of steam.

It had half pulled itself onto the boat now, wild with pain and flailing with its remaining tentacles, pummeling our gear and the surivors with wanton abandon.