The Heroes of Aeseganora: Part 1 - The Oca-Tree

The First Hint Of Fear

"That castle," Inkling wondered aloud. "It looks oddly familiar. I know I've seen it somewhere before. But where?"

Barnacles walked over to him. "You don't have any idea?"
"No." Inkling replied.

Meanwhile, a curious Shellington strode towards a cliff's edge, and he saw what looked like a coral reef nearby.
He ran down the hill and took a few more steps towards the reef, and to his astonishment, he saw a village from some sort of fairy tale, with crooked buildings, cone rooftops and kelp, seaweed and sea stars resting on the walls.

And they were all grey.

Jumping jellyfish, he thought. It's bleached.

Of course, he and the rest of the crew have seen bleached coral reefs before, but not as a village. In fact, none of them had ever seen an actual village on top of a coral reef before.

He jumped off of the cliff's edge and ran towards the village, thinking that the rest of the crew were right behind him. He looked around to confirm that no-one else was with him.

"Uh, guys..." he said. "Am I the only one who feels like we're being watched? Hello?"

Suddenly, a gust of wind blew at his back.

"Woaaah!" he said, trying to regain his balance and dropping his magnifying glass. He tried to catch it, but it fell into a little river, with a splash.

He turned around and stepped to the side of the river to try and find out where it was.

When he finally saw it, he picked it up from the river - but he thought he saw something else, so he bent down to examine the ground.

Well, there's certainly been some movement here, the ground is covered in footprints, Shellington thought to himself. He thought the footprints looked bigger than those made by a leopard, but it was quite difficult to tell.

He followed the trail of prints until he arrived at a cavern in the reef. He glanced around - it was coloured grey, but it had a few patches of colour, at least. His eyes fell to the ground - there, laying on it, was another trail of prints, but it also had little pieces of seashells. Shellington was just about to begin following it when he heard Barnacles' voice.

"There you are, Shellington!" Barnacles said, running towards Shellington with the rest of the crew following from behind. "We were wondering where you'd gone to! Are you okay?"

"I'm fine, Captain," Shellington said. "But I've just found this trail of seashells! Look!"

The crew exclaimed in wonder as they saw the trail of prints and broken shells. Kwazii in particular - having read and followed loads of treasure maps in his pirate days - was amazed by it, wondering what it may lead to.

"Yeow!" he exclaimed with excitement. "Who knows what lies at the end of this trail? It could be-"

"A trunk of treasure? The home of a dreaded sea monster?" Tweak finished for him.

"Well, either of these, yes!" he replied with annoyance.

"I highly doubt it would be either of those, Kwazii," Inkling said. "We'll have to wait until we get to the end of the trail."

"Indeed, Professor. Let's follow the trail and find out what's at the end, Octonauts," Barnacles said firmly and confidently.

And so, the crew set off in pursuit of the prints and shells trail. They were on the hunt for something... or someone.

****************

The atmosphere of the cavern was very eerie, like something out of a horror story, as they followed the trail. Silence was everywhere, except for a couple of drips of water every now and then, and a distant train-like vehicle making some strange sounds.

A terrified Tunip chirped, scared and frightened of the caves. Peso was worried too.

"This is so creepy," he spoke with a gulp. "It gives me this inner feeling of... sea monsters!"

"The shells are gorgeous, though!" Dashi said, snapping away with her camera.

"Yarr, 'tis a spooky one, me hearties!" Kwazii said.

Tweak sighed. "You're enjoying this, aren't you?"

Kwazii looked at her in shock, before pausing for a moment. "Well, I suppose this is a bit creepy."

"Kwazii, let's not get distracted." Barnacles said, shining his torch on the prints and the shells as they kept moving forward. A few moments later, they thought they could hear a loud, piercing sound.

Dooonnnnggggg!

Before anyone could say a word or ask any questions, a crab came scurrying from behind them, screaming, "The monsters are coming! AAAAAHHHHH!" In front of the Octonauts' eyes, many tiny sea creatures were running, hurrying and scurrying to safety, behind coral polyps, behind rocks, behind stalagmites, and hanging onto stalactites.

What is going on here? What monsters are coming?  the Octonauts thought to themselves, before realising that they must've been seen as the monsters, knowing that they've come into the cave to follow the trail of prints and shells-

Dooonnnnggggg!

There was that noise again. Peso gulped and snuck behind Barnacles, who put a paw on his shoulder to comfort him.

"It's okay, Peso," Barnacles said. "Hello out there, who's making that noise?" he then called out confidently.

Nobody answered.

"I said, who's making that noise?" he shouted out again.

This time, they heard a shriek of laughter. Well, two shrieks of laughter, to be precise here. Peso stepped forward.

"If you decided to make that noise to scare those creatures away-"

"Shhh!" Tweak interrupted, as she used her excellent hearing to try and find out where the laughter was coming from. It was coming from a door, which was sat at the end of the trail.

"Over there!" she said. "There's a door! It's distant, but right in front of us!"

The crew then walked towards the door - and to the end of the trail. Before entering, Peso paused, wondering if all of this could be for nothing. However, he knew there could be something as well.

Barnacles knocked on the door.

"Who is it?" a cheery female voice sung.

The crew looked at each other, wondering was going to reply to that. Suddenly, they heard the Vegimals chirping.

"Presents!" said Tunip, as he and the rest of the Vegimals jumped up and down with excitement.

"Presents? It's not Easter, or Christmas, or my birthday though!" said the voice.

"Tunip, don't lie to them!" Shellington whispered through gritted teeth. "We don't have any presents!"

"Sorry about that," Barnacles spoke up. "We mean you no harm. We are the Octona-"

WHACK!

Barnacles fell over as he got hit in the face with the door as it flew open. Walking through the door was...

...a penguin with an annoyed expression on her face.