Finally, when the tempest eased and the ocean surface was tranquil once more, the soft wind played a poignant homecoming tune...
—Receding Torrent—
Although the moon was veiled by dark clouds, her shanty did not cease.
As the surface grew eerily calm amidst the storm, the splintered ship drifted slowly towards the abyss.
The monster's massive spiraling mouth lay open wide, and a rumbling growl came from deep within it. The monster was content with its prey and opened its eyelids, crusted in reef and coral, to witness the final moments of yet another opponent who had underestimated it. The monster's massive eyes revealed their fragile gaze to the dying Skipper.
The monster revealed in the moment and through his pair of eyes beheld a heart that was darker than the abyss.
A final bolt of lightning flashed in the sky above, illuminating the ship as it split into two among the monster's swirling fangs, fading beneath a mist of splinters. Even the screams from the keel were drowned beneath the waves.
And then it was dark again... until the furious roar of the monster broke out over the black waters once more.
The Skipper plunged his severed sword into the eye of the beast again and again, until he was immersed beneath the filthy tide, when finally his broken sword became lodged in the monster's soft eyeball.
As the Skipper drew closer to his treacherous fate, clutched by countless claws and pincers, he continued fighting tooth and nail until the monster's sharp claws were torn into pieces...
A familiar tune then filled the salty breeze as the monster's movements began to cease.
"Sing with me, farewell to the sea, a shanty I hold so dear,
When the sea and winds flow in our favour, I know my end is near.
Ol' captain is calling me name, back to whence I came,
So forget not the captain and I, and hum this melody again.
There will come a day when at last you find me, slumbering in the abyssal deep...
Or perhaps you too then, will be swallowed by the whirlpool in the sea."
The monster's gigantic tentacles burst forth from the water, snaking upwards like towering columns, but the young maiden simply lay there floating on her back, singing amidst the turmoil. Even as the tentacles coiled tightly around her arms, even as the sharp claws pierced her skin, and even as they shredded her clothing to pieces, leaving it floating in tatters on the sea, still she continued to sing her farewell shanty towards the Skipper.
Then, the maiden was gently pulled into the black sea by the monster.
In an age where the sea was ruled by unpredictable disasters the people of the waves die each passing day.
The Skipper awoke to find himself on the deck of some unknown merchant ship. Having lost his ship and entire crew, all he had left was a body covered in wounds and an old dream echoing an ethereal sea shanty.
"When the sea and winds are right, I will go forth to sea and avenge her, O maiden charmed by the tidal song..."