The Sea Dragon's Clock: A Genius Thriller of Ingenuity and Bravery

I think I’m going a bit mad.

I stared at the clock for what felt like hours, until my eyes swam and my vision blurred, but still there was nothing. Just a round piece of brass with the word ‘CLOCK’ emblazoned on it.

“It works fine!” I said to the clockwork crabs. “Look! The hands move!”

The crabs looked up at me from their work benches scattered across the hold. Their tiny metal legs clanked on the floor as they scuttled over to look at the clock. I placed it down on one of their tables and held my breath.

Lenny, a crab who had lost both his pincers in a tragic incident involving a hammer, picked up the clock and inspected it. He waved his metal arms in front of it and peered into its face.

Then he dropped it on the table with a clang. “There’s no wind inside!” he shouted accusingly at me. “How can the hands move if there are no wind?!”

The other crabs crowded around him and made noises of agreement. They were right; how could there be any movement inside the clock if there was no wind?

I had been working on that very problem for almost five years now and I thought I had finally cracked it! But clearly these damned crabs didn’t understand anything about engineering.

“Yes, there is no wind inside!” I muttered through gritted teeth. “It doesn’t need wind because it uses something called…something called… Oh buggeration! It uses magnetism! Yes that’s it, magnetism! And friction! Friction allows for actual movement which causes the minute hand to move forward and that means… No wait, I think that means …Oh hell this is ridiculous!”

And suddenly, without warning, I burst out laughing at my own stupidity. Lenny and his friends all looked at me like I had grown another head while I continued to laugh uproariously until I couldn't breathe anymore. Which would have been bad if I hadn't been underwater but since we were in an air-filled ship no one seemed too worried about me drowning myself by accident.

After a few minutes someone slapped me on the back. “Here mate, you alright? You sound like you could use summat to drink.”

A rotund crab in an old fashioned sailor's uniform handed me a tankard full of some kind of liquid which smelled strongly of rum. It wasn't exactly how water smelled but this was close enough for me to enjoy drinking from it without getting sea sick. Oh, how I missed simple things like fresh fish and vegetables after so many years underground!

Slowly but surely every other crab also got up from their work benches and joined us in celebration of what should have been my greatest achievement yet: creating an engine powered by magnetism instead of wind or fire or any other damned thing that moved ships around! Yes, even better than using boats themselves as platforms for launching fireworks into enemy ships or using rockets as weapons during battle or even an underwater submarine just so we could travel around underwater faster than walking on our metal legs! How foolish all those inventions seemed now that we had this achievement to celebrate! What did we ever need them for when we had this wonderful discovery? This would make us rich beyond anything they could imagine down here in Hell's depths where nothing existed except roiling magma and occasional eruptions turning everything into melted slag overnight!

And so they cheered while they drank more rum and ate more dried fish until eventually even Lenny threw his pincers up in victory and started shouting stupid things like "we did it!" or "we're geniuses!" or something equally pointless which made everyone cheer again louder than before until eventually most of them fell asleep on their tables covered in dried fish scales in a drunken stupor. Oh well, good enough celebration for now; I'm sure everyone will be sober again once they realize what this achievement truly means for us!