"Their attacks truly aren't supposed to be that strong," Arnold said, a frown on his face, "Their known ranges and strength are what I've told you about, what you've faced is too much of a discrepancy to be just a mistake made by the authors."

  Dan, Robert, Old Raily, and Marcus were together as they sought Arnold for an explanation about what might have gone wrong with the mission before.

  Having known their expected range of attack, George had only stopped the tender when they were double that average range away from them. Who knew that it still wasn't enough? The attack still reached them and George would have gotten injured if not for his fast reaction speed saving him.

  "Any idea for why that happened though?" Robert asked.

  "I would have to go and recheck this," Arnold started after thinking for a bit, "But all the research done on them was done either when they were leaving from their original grounds, or when they were arriving at their destination, none were done while they were still amidst their migration. That might be it."

  "So they are much stronger while on their journey?" Marcus summarized what Arnold just said, "And they return to their normal state once they are in fresh waters. Is that just a biological change, or something else at play here?"

  "I was watching through the binoculars when the attack happened," Arnold said, "What I've noticed then was that the creatures seemed a bit weak after their attacks, as if they overexerted themselves too much."

  "That's it then?" Old Raily asked with a raised eyebrow, "They just pushed themselves too much to achieve that attack?"

  "Not just that," Arnold said thoughtfully, "Their shells are darker than was mentioned in books, something else is at play here, I can feel it."

  Dan just frowned as he looked at the man. The Class Arnold got was called Nautical Archivist, a Class that dealt with ocean creatures and other ocean phenomena. Dan trusted the man's judgment, and he even suspected that his instincts and feelings were affected by it. All in all, he was the highest authority when it came to oceanic creatures on Voyager, and he was most likely going to be the one to realise what was happening with those creatures if he had the time and chance.

  "I'll be happy to study them if I get the chance," he said as he looked at the trio responsible for the coming grind, "Get me some of their bodies if you could, I feel this is going to be important."

  "Well, that would need us to go down there and start hunting them," Marcus said what everyone had in mind, "And with what we just went through, I don't really know if we should push for that."

  "I think we should." Surprisingly, it was George who spoke. "Things aren't always going to go the way we want them to. This isn't going to be the last time that happens, we can't retreat every time it happens."

  "I think so too," Old Raily agreed, "We need to get used to dealing with problems that we aren't well suited to deal with, we can't always choose our battles."

  "Well, it's decided then I guess," Dan said as he glanced at Marcus who also nodded, "We will look into how to deal with this before sending anyone there. Any ideas?"

  "The easiest is of course just asking Voyager for help," Marcus said, "The good girl can stop their attacks easily if we ask her to."

  "I did think of that." Dan smiled at the amount of pride he felt from Voyager, he did find it weird that she seemed to be a bit distracted though, her attention pulled towards the migrating eels. "I feel that you don't like that too much though?"

  "It's not that I don't like it." Marcus shook his head. "It's just that I feel this might be a good chance for us to use our skills and the skills of the people in the workshop to come up with a solution on our own. I feel that it would be good to put our minds on something practical like this."

  "Even though Voyager is a bit disappointed," Dan said as he sensed Voyager's reaction to Marcus's words, "I think that's a good idea, I will share this with William and the others, I'm sure that they would welcome the challenge."

  "How long will this migration last though?" Marcus turned to Arnold as he asked.

  "We still have 2 to 3 weeks, don't worry," Arnold waved his worries off.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

  Just as Dan was paying farewell to everyone, deciding to head to the workshop next to see if they would come up with some ideas about how to deal with the problem they were facing, he saw Sam and his sister heading their way.

  "How did it go? Do you think your Tanks can take that on?" he asked the Vessels' Runesmith.

  He knew that she had gone to the tender George and the others were on, to assess the damage and see if her other creations could handle it.

  "They should," Rose answered after greeting them, "The damage wasn't that bad. But again, it was at a great distance, which would have been worse if they were closer."

  "So we should expect them to handle most of the damage, but it's still not enough?" Robert asked.

  "Exactly." Rose nodded. She appeared a bit hesitant before saying, "That's why I want to head out there to try and push for tier 3, with my skills at that tier, I should get even more runes and techniques, it should make my tenders even stronger."

  Dan and the gang looked at each other for a bit, considering her words, before old Raily eventually spoke:

  "It's possible, going to be extremely slow as we have to be as careful as we can, but we can do that."

  "We can get a couple of essential personnel whom we would need to make hunting those eels much easier."

  As the other three started going over the logistics of organizing the coming hunt, Dan's attention was suddenly caught by Sam who was looking at the line in the distance.

  "What is it?" Dan asked quietly as he approached him, "You want to add a few of them to your pets?"

  "Oh?" Sam looked at him in confusion at first, as if he didn't understand him, he then added, "Sorry, I was a bit lost in thought, and no, it's nothing like that, it's just that there's something weird about those creatures."

  "Really, what is it?" Dan asked in interest.

  "They are surprisingly perfectly suited for my taming skill," Sam said, "You should know, my skill only works on specific creatures that need to check quite a few conditions. Even many of the creatures in the ocean might not achieve that. But these here feel as if they are perfectly suited to be my tamed beasts, yet..."

  "Yet, what?" Dan raised an eyebrow.

  "I instinctively feel that it wouldn't work," Sam said, seeming quite confused, "It's the first time something like this is happening."

  "These eels are really quite something." Dan chuckled as he shook his head. "They are like the gift that just keeps on giving, so many surprises."

  Dan... he was about to continue joking around with Sam when Voyager contacted him, a bit hesitant.

  "What is it, big girl?" Dan asked, some worry surfacing, whenever she reacted like that, it was due to something troublesome.

  There's something off about those fish, she sent, the hesitation she had growing.

  "What? I saw nothing?" Dan said.

  He noticed nothing like that while he was keeping an eye on the group as they went out to test the Obsidian Eels. They seemed just like any of the other monsters they had met to his eyes while he was looking through Voyager's sight.

  I only noticed it after using dark aura, Voyager said, her reluctance reaching new heights.

  Dan understood then why she didn't want to mention it, she was worried that he would pull her dark aura within him to see what she was talking about, and she had seen how it hurt him before whenever he did that.

  "What is it?" Robert was the first who noticed that something was going on with Dan and Voyager.

  "Voyager said that she feels something wrong about those eels," Dan relayed to the group. He then focused on Voyager again and asked, "How weird? In what sense?"

  They feel familiar, Voyager said, her confusion seeping into him, They give me the feeling of the place I found myself in when I woke up for the first time.

  Dan opened his mouth and closed it again. Voyager woke up somehow along the journey that got them from Earth to Talia, he didn't know how to react to the fact that those eels gave her the same feeling as that place.