Those of the sea know, as honest told truth and veritable, undeniable fact, that Atlantean fishermen were just made and built completely different. They were used to toiling with the likes of the Leviathan. Even the Valusian vessels fell to their knees and cried to the ancient gods for aid when they saw one of these things. But the Atlanteans considered it all to be good sport.

The crew of the Antarga had been commissioned directly by the Atlantean military. By this time in the histories, this sort of tactic was quite common.

Indeed, no other vessels on the planet were built quite like their ships. Where the Valusians had slaves at oars, the Atlanteans had two technicians at a massive engine. Where the Valusians had boarding parties and men with cutlass swords, the Atlanteans had deck cannons and men with rifles and heavy bolt shooters—similar in many ways to the ancient fire staffs, only more reliable and able to pierce through even the thickest armor.

The ship, chosen specifically because it was rather small and rugged-looking, had done this before—called to service in the last two wars with the likes of Valusia. This was a thick and heavy payday with a considerable amount of garnish and sauce.

The captain, Veltru, had a good feeling about it, but they had to act quickly. They had already dragged and wrecked a ship sent to pursue them. While the vessel might have looked ready, it was indeed a fishing vessel off the deep waters of Atlantis, and therefore was armored and armed to the teeth. So much so that each and every one of those teeth was probably carrying a full bandolier of weapons.

Now the Valusians were scared because they did not wish to be conscripted to row. They did not want to be beaten by the Atlanteans, as these men were bigger than them.

There were not even many soldiers aboard the vessel—just sailors, the captain, a representative from the Atlantean Navy, and a small ape-man carrying one of the ancient KolShatra. He seemed to be something of a pet of the captain and his crew, wearing little trousers and a tall pointed hat with a feather in it. He came waddling over.

The men of Valusia, the aggressors, were chained together at the ankle, still expecting that there was a chance their comrades might come across the horizon to rescue them. They kept putting on a brave and arrogant face. Unable to help themselves, they asked if the monkey was going to be hunting Leviathan all by himself.

The monkey looked hurt. The little ape-person couldn’t quite keep up with the conversation, they thought—but instead he looked at the captain and grinned. The captain grinned back, and the monkey looked again at them and said in perfect Valusian:

“Haha! Noooo, good-ser! The captain will be hunting dread Leviathan. Monkey boy just here to cut bait.”

And with that, he opened fire point-blank, shooting the Valusian captain straight in the chest, sending him shrieking over the edge of the boat with a giant hole blown through him, causing a chain reaction that dragged the rest of his men over the edge. The body, on the way down, caught the massive weight suspended from the back of the ship—covered in sharp armor and blades—and was torn to pieces on the way down, causing him to bleed.

This being both efficient and brutal, it was also the direct lineage of where the phrases “chain reaction,” as well as “chum,” came from. One for the fishing method, one for the name of the bait and his ilk.

Before any of them could even react, they were dragged over to meet a similar grisly fate. Already on the horizon, they heard a massive roar coming from under the water and saw the shape of the horizon itself begin to bow as something massive started moving in the direction of the ship—much larger than they had anticipated. But the vessel would be able to outrun it.

Then came the grisly part: taking off at full speed back toward the Atlantean coast. Even though the beastie had noticed the dead, screaming bodies floating to the surface below, that had only been put in place to catch its attention.

Always an opportunist with obese, deep-bottom-feeding intelligence, the creature anticipated a larger meal at the source of the explosions. Mines were now being dropped to draw the creature in. It would swim straight through the blood and the bodies, allowing the men to drown in peace, with their organs spilling out and their legs drifting beside them.

But they wouldn’t be eaten. They were just there to make noise, scream, bleed well, and die on the way down so that the creature would have something to zero in on.

Now chasing the vessel, it was only a few knots behind. This creature—big, agile, and young—was one they had not seen before. While this angered the crew on a deep personal level, they also saw it as a possible opportunity to kill two large and obnoxious ocean-born pests with one boat.

Two of the rear deck cannons ripped to life, sending six-inch-long brass-forged needles laced with acid into the beast’s face and maw, driving it to a mandible-gnashing frenzy of hunger and primal, inhuman disdain. The creature was close enough so that they could hear the vulgar, saw-like ripping sound of its inner mouth as it grinded the long chitinous plates in seething, fast-moving rage.

The creature launched out of the water, trying to snatch at the boat, yet it was nowhere near fast enough. Fast enough to keep up, yes—but not fast enough to maneuver for a kill.

Indeed, not fast enough—as the Atlantean captain had been promised the weight of his vessel in gold for every one of these things drawn to the coast in times of need. The captain chomped on his rolled cigar and laughed maniacally as the beast roared in anger behind them.

The monkey climbed the crow’s nest with gusto and struck the bell at the top, and on the horizon, flares went up. The captain snarled a devilish smile, then took a swig of hard Atlantean rum and threw the skin of liquor to his flame bolt-wielding mascot. The crew belted out the ancient chant: “Rise.” As they tore into the Atlantean shallows, approaching land.

And so, after all of this, two miles away at the shoreline, the Atlanteans were finishing their little speech. The Valusians, facing away from the coast, were laughing.

The Atlanteans promised that they would retreat, and that they had obviously been bested. But they warned, with a smile, that the wrath of Poseidon—their great and terrible ancestor, so they claimed—would not go easy on those who attacked the shores of Atlantis. He would send the Leviathan, if he had not already, to deal with those who had dared strike his kingdom and his kin.

All the while, the Atlanteans boarded their vessels and pulled into the mainland, seeming to feign retreat. The general could barely contain his laughter—his men already failing to—and it was then that one of the Valusians noticed one of the Atlanteans looking at the horizon.

They didn’t even have time to scream as a boat—longer than two of their largest ships—spun just out of reach, almost clipping the paint on the largest vessel, with a crazy man leaning off the deck screaming about Leviathan, the terror of Poseidon, as a monkey drank rum and wielded what looked to be a slug-loader in his thumbed foot, waving, clapping with his long, lanky arms and whooping like a mad wee-beastie crowned king of all creation for the day.

And then the Valusians were slammed into by the largest sea scorpion to ever curse the Earth and sea with its hunger. The entire minor Valusian fleet was killed when the body weight slammed into the coast—the back of the Leviathan snapping against the rocks—but the flailing of the creature turned the Valusians into nothing but crushed, human-shaped pots of paint.

By the time this happened, the Atlanteans were already inland, up the coastline—not retreating into the forest, but returning to their stronghold after a particularly good day of fishing and sport. The captain collected the fat gilded bounty of the Leviathan Dreadmoore. The crew, the equally fat bounty for the crushed Valusian frigates and her pressed landing crew of would-be invasion.

And that monkey?

Well… he got to tell the story however the hell he wanted.

Indeed, the captain himself would pay some land-loving jackass to write it all down on some fine, gaudy Elysian vellum.