Karkinos

The stagnant air of Drenchfort clung to your skin, thick with the scent of damp stone and rotting vegetation. You had spent what felt like an eternity navigating its flooded corridors, diverting ancient waterways, and wrestling with rusted mechanisms—all to restore the flow to Tri Stone. The final gate stood before you now, barred by an iron grate, its mechanisms sealed tight. Beyond it lay the path to your goal.

But between you and that passage stretched a solitary island of cracked stone, and upon it rested something far more troubling. Even in the dim light, you recognized the shape. The texture. The way the moss clung to its surface, the way the faintest pulse of something living thrummed beneath its stony shell.

No, it wasn't an island.

Karkinos.

The guardian of these waters slept before you, curled within its armored husk like some primordial egg. And next to her was a boulder that was more like her egg. You exhaled slowly, the weight of inevitability settling in your chest. There would be no bypassing this creature. No bargaining. Only battle.

Steeling yourself, you stepped forward and placed your palms on the rough surface of her egg. The stone was warm—unnaturally so—and beneath your palms, you could feel the slow, rhythmic pulse of the beast within.

Then, with a sharp shove, you sent the cocoon crashing onto the island.

It shattered like brittle rock, splintering apart in a burst of viscous yellow fluid. The stench hit you first—sour, cloying, thick with the rot of stagnant water and old blood. Then came the sound.

A tremor rippled through the ground as something massive stirred beneath the earth. The island itself seemed to heave, stones scattering as a monstrous limb—thick, segmented, ending in hooked claws—burst from the soil. Then another. And another.

Karkinos emerged.

Its body was a grotesque fusion of beetle and nightmare, its carapace a mottled tapestry of greens and browns, layered with moss and lichen as if it had slumbered for centuries. A jagged horn, like petrified wood, jutted from its back, tangled with dead vines. Its face—if it could be called a face—was a gaping maw of jagged, uneven teeth, dripping with saliva and remnants of its shattered prison.

Giant.

It screeched, a sound like grinding stone and splintering bone, its many legs scrambling for purchase as it hauled itself free.

You didn’t wait for it to find its footing.

Your scythes flashed into your hands, their blades humming with grim purpose.

Karkinos reared back, its claws flexing, its body tensing for the lunge.

The water around the island churned, disturbed by the beast’s awakening.

There would be no more delays.

Only survival.