An Old Acquaintance

The regular hexagon panels, unlike the foundation ring's half-hexagons, carried the full benefit of Arista's original shield loophole, each one properly classified as equipment, one panel per inventory slot, no stacking, the same way any weapon or piece of armor occupied its own dedicated space.

"...A hundred slots total, ninety-nine dedicated to panels, one left over for a stack of Pink Salmon," Arista said, running the math out loud, genuinely startled by her own numbers. "Nettle's entire guild could theoretically deliver all thirty-six thousand panels in about six trips. Doesn't even need to be our seventy specifically, anyone holding a full slot-load of panels can drop them from the ship."

"Six trips," Bram repeated, flat.

"Six trips, for delivery," Arista confirmed. "If they were all already built. Placement's still ours, though. Someone's got to actually be down there locking each one into the lattice, and that still needs Strength enough to survive the depth without protection. Delivery can be crowdsourced. Placement can't."

"...Ah." Bram nodded slowly, the actual bottleneck landing properly. "Right. Production's still the limiting factor, not transport, and placement's still specifically us."

"Exactly. Nettle's original sixty have been teaching steadily since then, word spreading guild to guild the same way any useful technique eventually does, so we're up to a few hundred trained smiths working steadily now. But thirty-six thousand panels at even a generous production rate is still months of manufacturing before the material even exists to carry down. Transport was never actually going to be the slow part, once the classification loophole solved it. It's the building of the panels themselves that sets the real pace." Arista shrugged, unbothered by the reality of it. "Which is fine. We were never expecting to finish this in a week. Slow and sustainable, remember."

The first full ring of the actual dome lattice reached completion at the end of the first full week, regular hexagonal panels locking cleanly into place atop the already-finished foundation, anchored securely against the alternating half-hexagons below.

The crew had gathered near one of the diving bells to mark the small, quiet milestone when the water beyond the construction lights shifted.

A single, massive eye emerged from the dark, tracking the newly completed ring with slow, patient curiosity.

"...Squishy," Arista breathed, delighted recognition flooding through her instantly.

The kraken drifted closer, tentacles trailing loose, rings of soft blue light rippling gently across its skin as it studied the finished foundation, the diving bells, the crew still faintly pink-tinted from their most recent round of Pink Salmon.

One massive arm extended, curious, tracing gently along the outer edge of the ring without ever applying real pressure: the same patient, gentle investigation it had shown the submarine hull months earlier.

"...He's back," Colm said, quietly delighted, already reaching for his notebook out of pure habit.

"He never actually left, probably," Claire said. "This is his territory. We're the ones who keep showing up in it."

Squishy's attention shifted toward the diving bells next, one enormous eye tracking the slow, mechanical rise and fall of the crank system with obvious fascination, then toward the crew members themselves, several of them, fresh off a Pink Salmon dose, still radiating the faint, unmistakable pink hue Fen's compound left behind.

The rings across Squishy's own skin pulsed in response, shifting through a slow, curious spectrum that seemed, for a moment, almost like an attempt to mimic the color.

"...Is he trying to match the pink?" Bram asked, genuinely startled.

"I have no idea," Arista said, delighted beyond measure, watching the massive creature's color patterns ripple and shift in what looked, unmistakably, like curious experimentation. "I think he might just be really interested in color, generally. Same way he was interested in the hull texture last time."

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Squishy drifted closer to one of the diving bells, studying the crank mechanism with the same patient, tentacle-assisted curiosity, careful never to actually interfere with the machinery itself.

"...No zapping," Arista said immediately, before anyone could even reach for a lever that no longer existed on this particular vessel anyway. "He's not hostile. He's just interested. Same as before."

"Nobody was reaching for anything," Claire pointed out, amused. "We learned that lesson already."

Arista watched the great, curious creature a while longer, feeling the same warm, protective fondness settle in that she'd carried since their very first encounter.

"...Welcome back, Squishy," she said, quiet, genuine. "Glad you're keeping an eye on the neighborhood."

The kraken's massive eye blinked slowly, unhurried, one final ring of blue light pulsing bright across its skin before it drifted gently back into the dark, apparently satisfied with whatever it had come to observe.

The satisfaction lasted approximately four seconds before one massive tentacle curled back around, gently, for a creature its size, wrapping around the nearest diving bell and giving it an experimental, curious tug.

The entire ship lurched violently to one side.

"WHOA—" Bram grabbed the nearest railing, boots sliding across the suddenly tilting deck.

"He's just touching it," Arista called out, bracing herself against the bell's crank mechanism, watching Squishy's tentacle flex with what was, for him, clearly an extremely light, curious grip. "That's gentle, for him!"

"That does not feel gentle from up here!"

A second tentacle rose from the water, curling with the same patient, exploratory curiosity toward the next diving bell along the ship's hull.

Arista watched it approach, watched the first tentacle still idly testing the give of the bell it already held, and felt a slow, dawning, deeply unwelcome realization settle over her.

"...Wait."

"What?" Bram called, still bracing against the tilting deck.

"He's got eight tentacles."

Silence, save for the groan of straining cable.

"...Eight?" Claire's voice, sharp with sudden alarm. "As in, potentially eight diving bells, all at once, if he decides all six of them are equally interesting?"

"We only have six," Arista said, already scrambling for a solution, watching the second tentacle drift closer to its target. "But that's still not a comforting number given he apparently has two tentacles worth of spare curiosity left over!"

She didn't waste time deliberating. She yanked open her inventory, fingers flying, and dumped an entire stack of luminescent ore straight over the railing into the water below, the same faintly glowing mineral she'd once used for hull lighting, scattering in a slow, glittering cascade through the dark water.

Squishy's attention snapped toward it instantly.

Both tentacles released their respective diving bells at once, the ship lurching back upright with a violent, relieved groan, as the kraken's massive form drifted eagerly toward the slowly sinking, glimmering ore instead, rings of blue light rippling in rapid, delighted patterns across its skin.

"...Oh thank god," Bram said, gripping the railing, breathing hard. "Shiny rocks. Of course. Of course that's the distraction that works."

"He's curious, not smart about prioritizing," Arista said, already digging through her inventory for more, dumping a second stack of glowing ore further from the ship to draw him properly clear of the diving bell array entirely. "Same as any cat with a shiny object. Doesn't matter how interesting the first thing was, if something shinier shows up."

Squishy gathered the scattered luminescent ore with slow, delighted precision, tentacles curling gently around each glowing piece, examining them one at a time with obvious, genuine fascination, entirely forgetting the diving bells now that something new and sparkly had claimed his attention.

Claire let out a long, unsteady breath, checking the bell mounts for damage. "...Structural integrity's fine, thankfully. Just a rough shake."

"Note for the log," Bram said, still catching his breath. "Kraken. Eight tentacles. Curious about literally everything, and apparently very into shiny rocks."

"Add 'bribable with luminescent ore' to his profile," Arista said, grinning despite the residual adrenaline, watching Squishy drift contentedly through his new collection of glowing treasures. "Genuinely useful information. I think we just found our permanent solution for keeping him away from the equipment."

"...We're keeping a kraken as a pet now," Bram said, flat.

"We're not keeping him," Arista corrected. "He's keeping himself here, because we keep accidentally providing the most interesting things in his entire territory. That's different."

"Is it, though."

"...A little," Arista admitted, grinning, already adding a standing note to keep a stock of luminescent ore on hand for exactly this purpose going forward. "Okay. Crisis averted. Let's get back to building a dome before he finds something else interesting to grab."