The Guardian

Giant long legged creature of doom

The monkey let go of the spear and let it fly. The least I could do was hit the rope and drop the monkey to slow him down. But my luck ran thin and dry.

The arrow grazed the rope, cutting its edge and nothing more. No satisfying snap followed by the sound of a screaming monkey being plunged in water. Just the sound of a thick brass spear destroying the pipe I stood on.

As soon as I crashed into the water, my head smashed into a pipe, and I couldn't feel anything. I don't know whether it was the freezing cold temperature of the swamp water or the trauma of my head hitting the pipe, but I couldn't move. My limbs just floated in the water as if I was dead weight. For the hundredth time since I first talked to Rosslyn, I was low on hope. Even if I knew how to swim, it'd be useless. I was trapped in my body without any control.

The little bit of oxygen left in my lungs was quickly leaving. Murky brown water clouded my vision. Water began climbing into my ears, up my nose, down my mouth, and into my throat. Everything sounded muffled. The only thing I was sure of hearing was the rippling of water in my ear canals.

All I could do was wait in my still state and hope someone would save me. Every time I've been down, I've gotten back up. As I felt my lungs fill with water, I could feel my fingers move again. My legs started kicking. My arms started flailing. And it was all followed by a shockwave that floated me back. The water in the room was... draining.

Someone grabbed me and started dragging me back to the surface. Once I got up, I couldn't breathe. I aggressively choked on the mucky water in my lung, trying as hard as I possibly could to get it out. They slammed their fist into my stomach over and over again until I started choking out the water. Mamble had me by the collar and was holding four fingers. The last of the water spilled out of my ears, and I could hear him yelling over the sound of something snapping.
"How many fingers am I holding up?!"

Behind me, the front of the ship was cracking apart. Something slammed into it, again and again, successively getting harder with each bash.
"Where's Amphia? Where's Rosslyn?"

Klumpfs and Japes still fought like crazy. The gorilla was knocked out and floated in the water, and the long armed monkey was jumping from rope to rope towards the cracks of ship wall. Something was trying to get in, but with half of the room enveloped in smoke, it was next to impossible to see anything, especially not through the cracks.

Mamble just shrugged.
"Rosslyn went off to go help Amphia. The smoke from the Japes will -"

The cracked wall of the ship blew to pieces, and I finally got sight of what was breaking through it, but they weren't getting in. They were getting out.
Through the sawdust, I could see a giant long creature obliterate the floor, sending a massive wave of brown water out before smashing through the wall, scattering out with its 15-foot legs smashing through anything in its way.

The navigator quickly fled after it. It must've been the creature that got the ship moving, so without it, he had no purpose, especially with the ship on land. Me and Mamble quickly fled after them, leaving no time to waste.

The outside was just as chaotic as the inside. Green fires began to melt away at the mud village, making it look like a wildfire in a forest rather than a swamp village hidden from people. The Jinjaga out here tried their best to summon rain clouds to snuff out the fire, but the attacking Japes made it impossible for them to focus on the battle and saving their village at once. The yellow woman from earlier approached us with Amphia and Rosslyn behind them.
"What happened in there?"

We quickly gave her the gist of the monkey mayhem before telling her what we knew about the creature that just smashed out of the ship with a long armed monkey close behind. The ship looked to be a giant empty shell without its legs, and considering the state of the lower hull, I don't think it'll be standing much longer.