The pool the kelp monster came out of led to a kelp forest. It was as beautiful as the coral reef, and both similar and different at the same time. Unlike the reef, there wasn’t a clear path through the kelp; it had to be carefully stepped around or even pushed over a bit when there wasn’t enough room to get through. The water was also noticeably colder, and there were different species of fish.

Serenity couldn’t really tell the fish apart, but they were pretty to watch anyway. What he noticed the most was that there seemed to be more sea otters; he’d only noticed one while traveling through the reef, but he could see one every few minutes in the kelp forest.

Of course, it was possible he simply hadn’t noticed. He hadn’t been feeling well, after all.

It was only a few minutes before the group found the start of the trail - a twisted and warped piece of metal. It was a trail of debris, rather than a pathway. From there, they could actually see the next piece. Sometimes several pieces would be near each other, but as long as they headed in more or less the same direction, they always found more broken bits. Many were partially buried in the sea floor, but others seemed to be sitting calmly on the surface as though it were dry land.

Soon, there were other things mixed in with the metal wreckage, mostly broken crates and canisters, but there were a few things that simply seemed odd. They even passed what looked like a box of mail.

Eventually, they reached a large piece of wreckage, what was left of a large airplane. One wing was completely missing while the other was only a stub and the tail seemed to be the cause of the wreckage they’d been following, but the nose was there. The plane looked like it had been partly flattened, but there was an opening where the tail had once been.

“Should we go in? This is creepy.” Echo floated near the opening, off to the side.

“The dead city full of undead was creepy. This is sad.” Rissa swam over to the opening and tried to direct the light on her spear inside. It didn’t go very far. “I think it opens up a bit more inside. This is a dungeon, aren’t we supposed to explore?”

Lancaster swam past Rissa. “I don’t see any other options. Maybe there’s another way forward, but chances are this is it.”

The inside of the crashed cargo plane was another damp but air-filled arena. It was much larger than the space should have been. At the far end, they could see several animals, one large and four that seemed to be about a third its size. There was an almost musical-sounding bark as they came closer and were able to make out that the animals were extremely large sea lions. Even the smaller ones were Serenity’s size.

[Basic Analyze]

Large Sea Lion Bull

This male sea lion has grown beyond the limits for its animal cousins. Large and aggressive, it will defend its territory against any who enter.

Physically oriented

Defensive

Limited special abilities (2-4)

Large Sea Lion Cow

This female sea lion has grown beyond the limits for its animal cousins. While not aggressive on its own, when it is in the harem of a sea lion bull it will attack any creature designated by the bull.

Physically oriented

Balanced

Few special abilities (0-2)

Five of them wasn’t going to be an easy fight, unless they were able to take some out without entering their range.

They quickly developed a plan. It was basic, since they didn’t know what the sea lions could do.

They all opened with ranged attacks from as far away as they could manage, concentrating on one of the females under the assumption that the smaller ones would be easier to kill. It took a moment for the sea lions to realize where the attacks were coming from. The one being hit realized it first and headed towards the group, barking as she went. The other three followed her.

The lead sea lion fell before she’d even reached halfway across the floor. When she did, the male ROARED.

Lancaster, Rissa, and Moira all froze. Echo yelled something back at the sea lion bull. Serenity simply kept shooting the current leader of the charging sea lions. That had obviously been an attack, but he hadn’t felt anything. It hadn’t even felt like something hit one of his resistances; he’d simply not felt anything beyond hearing the noise.

Was that from [Resilience of the Dead]? If it was, it was even better than he’d thought. Immunity was not what he’d expected from something that claimed to grant a “slightly increased resistance to certain status ailments”.

Maybe the attack was something that only worked on people with no resistance to it? There were some of those out there. Serenity didn’t like them, because they tended to be weak and either completely worked or completely didn’t, so they were unreliable.

Come to think of it, “weak and unreliable” abilities would be perfect for a Tutorial level. Unfortunately, that meant he’d be immune and Echo might be able to handle it because it was sound-based, but it would continue to work on Rissa, Moira, and Lancaster.

The others started attacking again, but their distraction had allowed the sea lions to get much closer. They were barely able to bring down the second sea lion before Serenity and Lancaster had to swap weapons to meet the charge.

Serenity aimed his naginata at one of the last two charging sea lions and braced to meet the charge. There was no way the sea lion would be able to divert in time; it was simply moving too quickly.

The male sea lion ROARED again as the females reached the party. The sea lion aiming for Serenity skewered herself on his naginata, deep enough that removing the weapon was going to be difficult - but also deep enough that the sea lion wasn’t going to be going anywhere soon, possibly ever.

The sea lion aiming for Lancaster had better luck, since he froze for a moment when the male sea lion roared. The female swept into him, knocked him over, then trampled him. Serenity didn’t have time to see how bad Lancaster’s injuries were; he needed to deal with the sea lion before it hit anyone else.

Serenity ignored another ROAR from behind him as he pulled out his knife. It wasn’t nearly as good as the naginata, but there was no point in trying to use a weapon that was stuck in a large sea mammal. He slashed the flank of the sea lion, hoping it would draw her attention.

It worked. She whipped around and lunged at him. She was quicker than he’d expected; she actually managed to tag him with one of her flippers as she turned. It glanced off his armor.

Serenity figured he had two choices: bleed her out the way they’d done with the two who fell running at them, or get her in something vital like he’d managed with the one who charged him. Bleeding her out was safer if he was faster than she was, and he thought he was, but Lancaster was down and he wasn’t sure what the bull sea lion was doing. It had to be the fast method.

He moved quickly left, then right, trying to trick her. When she followed his movement, he backed up, away from the group. She followed again. He stretched up as tall as he could, trying to make it look like he’d left his chest open.

When she went for it, he slid to the side and dropped low, narrowly evading her lunge and ending up behind her. He sprung up quickly and shoved his knife into her spine somewhere below the skull but above the shoulderblades. It was a move that would be hard on his knife, would probably cost him the use of the knife for the encounter, and only worked because he had a strength advantage over her defenses, but it was fast.

The ROAR from the bull sea lion sounded a lot closer this time. Fast had certainly been the best choice.

Serenity took a moment to check the battlefield. Rissa was at Lancaster’s side, but Lancaster wasn’t up yet. Serenity needed to count him as out of the battle.

Rissa and Moira were frozen, but they’d be back with it soon - though Rissa would likely be busy with Lancaster for the rest of the battle.

Echo was lobbing sonic bolts at the sea lion bull as quickly as she could.

The sea lion himself seemed to be slapping the ground. He seemed to specialize in abilities, which probably meant this was another one. Serenity didn’t wait to see what it did; he simply charged at the bull.

Serenity had lost both of his weapons for now, but he hadn’t lost his claws. He might not be entirely sure how to use them yet, but for now he’d treat them as a bunch of small knives. He was suddenly really looking forward to level 25, when he’d be able to start learning how to adapt his unarmed training for claws.

This time, he thought he’d try to bleed out the sea lion. He had help from Echo and Moira; a lot of small attacks would eventually do it as long as he kept the bull’s attention and didn’t get squished himself. The bull was large enough that he didn’t want to end up under it, even if it wasn’t trying to trample him.

A wave seemed to erupt in the ground as Serenity ran towards the bull. It was a single wave front and he leapt over it, but it was followed by another and another. They got closer and closer together, lining up with the faster tempo the sea lion bull was using as he pounded the ground. It was ignoring the ranged attacks in favor of continuing to generate ground waves.

Echo started swearing somewhere behind him and her attacks stopped. Moira seemed to be doing better, but she was still interrupted each time a wave came by.

Lillene

Sea lion males are bulls, sea lion females are cows, and young sea lions are pups.

The first two are on theme with each other, but why aren't the young ones calves?