The Return of Shantae

The Land of the Rotting Dead: Necropolis

This land full of dangerous creatures and nightmarish scenery was once a home to the undead, where zombies obtained citizenry and individuality from the unkind masses of "normal" society. Yet during the years of the Dreary Century, the endless rain had flooded their graves and rotted the zombie populous away during the decades, unknown to what happen to them. All that was left standing during the harsh years was Castle Hypnos, the domicile of Hypno Baron, and any zombie that took refuge inside never came out. Soon the land was overrun by monsters who can withstand the harsh environment and will kill anything that comes in their sights, living or undead.

In a decaying forest around the land, the squid creature was washed up on the shore half of his body still submerged in water. The marked on the back was still glowing on his back until it fades away during his awakening, indicating that this thing was Korah. Upon opening his weary eyes, he finds himself in this unfamiliar area unarmed and alone. He roles on his back having a hard time to breathe. This was remedied by the rain that fell into his mouth, making him "breathe" properly. Korah sits himself up but feels completely off, his body felt much heavier and his balance was off every time he tries to stand on his "feet", which he soon finds out that he doesn't have any and notices that their tentacles.

He responds to this by panicking and crawling around like an amputated paraplegic trying to get away from his angry wife or morbidly obese mother-in-law... I know, oddly specific. After finally wearing himself out, he finds washed up garbage nearby, one of them was a broken mirror. He looks a one of the larger shards and sees his reflection: the skin around his eyes was black making into a mask shape mark and his hair was replaced with more tentacles, two larges ones acting as his sideburns; even his teeth was changed making it more like a squid beak. When he tries to speak, nothing came out but gurgled words. When looking at himself closer, he just realizes that he's naked and tries to cover himself.

The only thing on him was a beautiful wide sash covering his pelvic area (thank goodness) and small pack attached to it. The contents were a salmon and the now broken Kraken Emblem, this wasn't helpful at all and he doesn't know how to turn back to normal. All he could do right now is scout around for ways to go further on land and try out his new swimming techniques, or he could swim out to sea and travel back to Gearton. As he looks underwater look out in the depths, he finds hidden eyes everywhere in the abyss waiting for something to pass by. A Macro Shark swims near the shore and back into the open water from Korah's sight, whatever was waiting grabbed the shark by means of impaling with a spearlike tentacles and dragged it into the darkness. Nothing but the echoes of mashing teeth and fresh blood rising from the abyss.

So there was nothing left for him to do but to enter the island of the dead and find a safe means to get home, and finding away to transform back, if possible. His scouting skills soon paid off as he finds a river leading into the land. Traveling underwater soon became second nature to him as he traveled agains the light currents of the river, unknowingly making his way into Necropolis. Even being trained as an explorer with his guild, without any of his teammates or being within the city itself he still has fears of the outside world and what's been happening. Due to his state, he can't fight back nor can he call for assistance; everything was left back home. All he could remember before being here was getting rid of the squid monster.

And the last thing afterwards that he could recall was that he was gasping for breath and wanted Shantae to be okay, then something slammed into him which caused his unconsciousness. He can't tell if anything good happened between Shantae and that mermaid thing, he just hopes that she's okay. As a precaution, Korah peeks at the surface for a bit and finds several monsters crawling around in the background: Arachnid Women waiting in their web canopies, Winged Beholders flying around for prey, and zombie archers shoot at other monsters. Before he could skin back down, one of the Arachnid Girls gets the literal drop on him and catches Korah in her web. Though she tries to grab him in her claws,  his skin was slippery enough to get out, except that he was still caught in her web. The Arachnid Girl was a minor but was a beautiful and "well-endowed" as it was deathly hungry to eat Korah.

The creature finally gets a firm grip on him and readies her fangs for the feast, but out of the panic Korah starts to cough instead of screaming. Soon the gurgling of his coughs turned into spats of black ink, which gave him an idea. Before she can begin he dark feast, he grabs her face and begins to build up his ink in his mouth which he then fires a hard ink stream into her face. The pressure was hard enough to push her away and blind her, the ink also spattered the web of its adhesive properties which allowed Korah to escape back into the water. Due to the blindness and the ink caught in her web, the temptress slipped and fell into the river hopefully getting washed away by the current. To Korah, it was good riddance to bad company; amazing to look and lavish but it's just asking for death. This will mean that he has to be more vigilant in his surroundings and to be even more cautious of the dangers that lie ahead.

As he continues against the river's current, he notices that the river bed is growing wider as he swims, which then leads to a lake of sunken mausoleums and graves. To him it was strange that their arranged to look like a town be nether the water. Before he could enter the lake entrance, something grabs him again on the back. The same Arachnid Girl persisted into hunting him down even in the water, as he struggles to break once more she tries to drag him to land in order to finish the deed.

As she gets on leg on land, Korah squirms enough to get his lower body on her, entangling all six of his tentacles around her body. His tentacles have minds of their own and restrain her back into the water. He grabs on the ledge of land and slams her into the underwater side wall, and in his mind he concentrated his lower have into strangling the monster as if he was performing the world's most complicated leg lock. Due to her arms and legs being entangled, she's completely immobilized, drowning, and final long being crushed to death. With all of his strain, he managed to feel cracks and ruptures beneath him.

The final sign of the monster's death was the strange green fluids flowing down the river underneath him. He finally releases his grip and sees the monster floating up, showing no sign of life and her exoskeleton shattered and mangled beyond recovered. But just to be sure, his instincts tell him to twist its neck to ensure her death and let her flow down the river. If he had his gear with him, he would've dispatch her in mere minutes- as long as someone with him to back him up. Anywho, with that finally out of the way he can proceed into finding a vessel back home to Shantae.

And yet up ahead, there will be things that will shake his very world and will meet and unlikely enemy; one of Shantae's old enemies. What will happen? Will he ever get back? And can he even change back? The answers lie into the next chapter.
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This was a great start for me and I finally found some BG art for the chapter cover! Korah's power are very different to Shantae's, she can transform back into her normal self willy nilly, their was never a record of Half Djinns before so I hope this would spark some interest. See'ya next time!
- Kanadzuchi