Karma has a very sick sense of humor, and a wicked sense of revenge…
For many years my friends and I would get together, eat some calamari, laugh and talk about our favorite games. Recently we’ve been very excited about Sea of Thieves. We all played in the beta, all pre-ordered the game and we were all very excited when launch day came.
Thirty minutes AFTER going through a fairly c****y character creation system to find pirates that we all like, our wait was over and we finally set sail. Upon arriving in our new world, filled with excitement at the treasure we were going to plunder, we all changed into our notorious “Black Dog” outfits, picked up as many voyages quests as we could and boarded our very plain looking galleon. We adjusted the sails, raised the anchor and shouted, “Bring me that horizon!”
We sailed for all of about 2 minutes before things went sideways on us.
While manning the helm of our proud ship, officially dubbed the “Water Weasel” the waters around our ship suddenly darkened as if some giant abomination had voided its bowels beneath our ship. Little did we know at the time that it was actually the mating call of the mighty Kraken.
Not understand quite what was happening and not understanding why our fearsomely named ship was now dead in the water I looked to the sky, expecting to find a large could or something overhead. Not finding anything I asked if someone had accidentally dropped the anchor. A quick inspection showed that all was supposed to be well and we should be sailing. There were fat chests laden with gold, just waiting to be plundered and fine tavern w*****s waiting to fill our tankards so were excited to get a move on with our plundering.
We were discussing the possibility of a bug when from out of the water a green and pink tentacle slid from under the waters and attached itself to our ship.
Being a scuba diver and a lifeguard, I’m well aware that sometimes sea creatures do the strangest things by mistake when encountering humans. I once saw a young harbor seal try very hard to mate with another diver. While I almost wound up with the bends from laughing so hard, my compatriot was far less than amused and the remembering the sounds of someone screaming in terror while underwater has been the source of many a chortle for me.
Karma is evil…
So seeing this large tentacle latch itself onto our ship and the darkened waters beneath us, I realized that this poor dumb see squid was trying to find a way to mate with our ship. Encouraged by this thought I approached the tentacle and tried to interact with it. Sadly, not finding any way to do so, my crew mates and I started talking about the strange mating habits of giant squids and how we might convince this beasty that we did not have the necessary equipment needed for its reproduction and how to convince it to let us go. We all shared a laugh at the stupid squid.
We shouldn’t have laughed.
Lots of tentacles appeared.
Never laugh at a giant squid monster.
They don’t like it.
C**p went sideways after we laughed.
So there we all are, laughing, discussing the mating habits of this strange beast and having a good time when all of a sudden our headphones are filled with the terrified screams of one of our crewmates. Looking around we see that someone is missing. This is followed by the frantic sounds of a saber flailing about and then a blunderbuss unloading.
We have just enough time to release the Krappen in our pants before another crewmate is swallowed whole. This stupid squid was eating us, off the deck of our ship, like we were some damn pirate buffet!
More screams ensued and the unloading of many a cannon.
It didn’t help.
Soon enough it was my turn to be the next appetizer for our not-so-friendly squid and I was picked up off the deck, swallowed and then plunged into the darkness of the waters. I let loose a manly pirate war cry that may or may not have sounded like the terrified wail of a 12-year old girl. It’s hard to tell when your underwater. All I knew is that judging by the size of those tentacles, I did not want to wind up as this Kraken’s new sea w***h.
I’ve seen some awful anime. This wasn’t going to end well for me.
It didn’t, in case you were wondering.
Needless to say, the mighty “Water Weasel” was crushed to bits and less than 5 minutes into our first voyage into Sea of Thieves we wound up as a bento box for a giant squid.
Thanks Rare. I’ll never eat calamari again or laugh at the strangeness of sea creatures.
For the rest of my brother and sister pirates, if you see a giant squid latch on to your ship, run below decks, make non-threatening noises and Do Not Laugh.