California, 90,000 AD, Deep Octlantis
The ocean floor rumbled and quaked, collapsing many of the habitats of the mound octopi. Some fled in random directions. Then fissures and cracks appeared in the ocean floor sending out waves of heat and exposing molten magma. Plumes of black soot shot upward darkening the waters. The octopi fled frantically in random directions. Fishes, shrimps, and other crustaceans boiled in the heat of the sea. The ocean floor shook cracking in a several deep fissures over a mile in length.
The ocean floor finally erupted over a twenty mile wide area, boiling the sea floor, the central breeding grounds of the Mound Octopuss, thousands died in the eruption. Others fled into deeper or shallower waters. Over half of their mounds were wrecked in the eruption. The ocean turned a deep black. Deep Octlantis would become an ancestral myth or image.
The octopi fled out into the ocean seeking new grounds and places to live. They were exposed without their mounds. Sharks, giant squids, and other predators initially got them. The weak and the slow perished. Those who could signal that predators were near were more likely to survive. There were some small areas with mounds that they could go to, but the existing octopi tried to fight off the new comers, signaling disgust, hatred, anger, and driving them away.
Several small communities of octopi where they found warm sea vents were started. There were now many more small communities of octopi, but no longer one giant Deep Octlantis. It was not easy starting over. Many of them died and had their eggs eaten, or could not survive at the new vents.
Objective: Natural disaster, spread of the Mount Octopi, survival of the fittest.