Chapter 80 - Detective Diaries

Ahoy Clam Heads!

Hahaha see what I did there? Clams are mainly muscles and that indirect inference to your brains as only muscles is a direct insult to your intellect. How did I do there?

Ahem! I digress once more. It's you captain and yes, I noticed that there may or may not have been missing updates. Life at the seas have gotten a little more hectic these days, you simply won't believe the kind of mess we've gotten mucked in this time.

We've stumbled upon the devil's lair and are given a choice to work or die. Your captain isn't fond of working but to escape Davy Jones' Locker, work I did.

It wasn't anything terribly difficult for I am smart. But you'd be sympathising with the things I had to put up with because as a human, I am physically limited. Unlike the captive Kraken, I only have two feeble arms and two scrawny feet with one that's currently a wooden post. I say currently because the whale that ate it will return it back to me when I'm done with this.

In the devil's sea temple, the warden was an ugly red seahorse who loved wearing pearls on her head. We had clams, small fish, crabs and eels run when they saw her. I don't know why such a puny seahorse could be so frightening but we did not question it. The red ugly seahorse gave us some really shitty chores of mopping up whale poop and left us alone after throwing the responsibility of watching over frightening captives to a weak-looking sea cuc.u.mber.

Thankfully the sea cuc.u.mber was a nice creature and taught us how to look out for when the whales were coming. This way, the whole lot of us successfully dodged huge rains of whale poop on our first day on the job. When I think about it, the sea cuc.u.mber isn't very smart but she was very hardworking and humble. I felt slightly bad for taking advantage of the naive thing but I had some of the information I needed.

It's not really a secret to everyone in the whale toilet that Ms Red Seahorse was the mistress of the big shot running the business in the sea temple. She was backed by no other than the Giant Catfish who was in charge of the temple security. With his authority, it was easy to dispose of anyone. The Tiger Shark Army was trained by Giant Catfish and even if Ms Red Seahorse was a tiny thing, she could easily get her lover to get rid of those she didn't like. There was simply nobody more powerful than Mr Giant Catfish in the Whale Poop Field and that was why everyone became so fearful of the tiny vain seahorse.

Despite that, the tiny seahorse was a little wary of the Kraken that tagged along with me. Nobody knew if the Tiger Shark Army would win against the Kraken. Although it wasn't anything as terrifying as the full-grown Kraken that sunk sh.i.p.s in the legend, this baby Kraken still had enough power to break one of the gates before coming into the sea temple.

Your captain worked hard and sneakily tried to find out more about this sea temple. It was a complicated structure but with the help of the Kraken acting as a distraction, I made friends with a tiny hermit crab who was able to sneak through the tiny cracks in the wall. The little critter helped to discover juicy gossip and it got me scheming an escape plan.

Lately, the devil who rules the sea temple hasn't been particularly happy with Mr Giant Catfish because somebody had been stealing his jewels. The overlord suspected that it was the security chief in charge but because he didn't have evidence, he couldn't stop him. That went against the employment contract and the devil was frustrated. It was a matter of code and aesthetics that made the devil miserable. If anything, I would take my hats off to Mr Giant Catfish for outsmarting the devil. Sadly, he wouldn't be outsmarting the devil for long because I was determined to get out of the sea temple.

Together with the Kraken and the Hermit Crab, we devised a strategy. It was a commonly known fact that the Tiger Shark Army often dumped stuff that Mr Giant Catfish didn't want in the Whale Poop Pit. That was where we decided to start looking. The devil would never set foot in such a place but we've heard that he's keeping an eye on Mr Giant Catfish very closely from his bedroom to his office. It's really odd that Ms Red Seahorse always stops by the Whale Poop Pit whenever there was nobody on a shift. She also acted suspiciously sometimes which made me wonder if there was a possibility that the hidden gems were buried somewhere here.

However, all three of us were stuck on progress because whenever we tried to go after the evidence, someone would conveniently be around. It didn't matter if it was Ms Red Seahorse herself, one of the Tiger Shark Army or a suspicious-looking jellyfish... we couldn't be sure who was going to spy and tattle on us to Mr Giant Catfish. Herein lies our biggest hurdle yet... knowing the enemy.

After realising that I was a fool for not finding out more information about the inner operations of the sea temple, I revised my strategy. While cleaning whale poop, we still kept a lookout for the timing that anyone would show up. This went on for a while until we knew everything from when the Tiger Shark Army dropped by to dump stuff, when Mr Giant Catfish has his nap, how long it takes Ms Red Seahorse to finish polishing her pearls.

We also learnt that Mr Giant Catfish wasn't the only powerful person around. Mr Electric Eel was scary as well. Then there was also Ms Swordfish, Ms Anglerfish and many other scary wardens who worked for the sea temple devil. However, not all the powerful wardens had the same thinking as Mr Giant Catfish or even the sea devil himself. Everyone worked there for a different reason. If I could find someone whose interests aligned with mine then we could formulate a powerful plan to earn me a ticket out of here.

The real question is: Who?

While I scrub the whale poop from my hair, I still wonder what we could do to obtain that desired evidence of Mr Giant Catfish's crimes and earn the favour of the sea devil to escape this place.

Troubled and undercurrent

Pirate S.