I woke up to a soft, ice-cold surface kissing my skin. My hands numbed from the freezing temperature, so I set a fireball on my palm.
“Why is it so fucking cold?”
It was dark, but not quiet. A gentle flow of water murmured. Along with a muffled choir of hums around me, I was slowly being lulled back to sleep. But if I closed my eyes I could freeze to death.
I pressed my palm against the surface. It was soft as a membrane but difficult to tear through. I tried standing up, only to hit my head against the same material. Did those mermaids trap me under the ocean?
“I knew following that trail was a bad idea.”
Even if I couldn’t negotiate with them, I thought mermaids would be easy opponents on land. But I was stupid enough to think they’d face me head on. Someone struck the back of my head. Had I activated Ironbody I wouldn’t be here.
Eventually, the surroundings brightened. Water pushed against me… no, I was gliding through it. Long silhouettes glided with me from all sides. As the darkness faded away, light slowly revealed those figures. Mermaids.
“Hey! Where the hell are you taking me?” I yelled.
No response. I carefully manipulated the water around me to tear through the membrane, but I stopped. I might drown to death.
“Fuck it.”
I had no choice but to find out where they’d take me.
It didn’t take long before we reached the ocean floor. My jaw dropped at the sight of literal hundreds of sunken ships settled on the floor. But the ships looked different – it had somewhat of a Chinese style to them. The hulls were long and thin, and it had lots of masts.
Marine flora claimed the ships, sprouting colorful corals and a forest of seaweed everywhere. Fishes and other marine creatures swam around. It was a beautiful ship graveyard.
We hovered just above the ships, gliding through the seaweed forest. I couldn’t take my eyes off of them. The ship graveyard kept extending regardless of our gliding speed. For them to gather in one place meant they were probably sunken at the same time. Whoever did it was probably a god. Agaphonet, maybe?
Soon, massive structures appeared from the horizon. I thought it was just a cluster of underwater volcano, producing huge bubbles that floated upwards. But the surface was shiny, like marble, with horizontal ridges similar to stalagmites. They were more like spikes.
These spikes grew taller towards the center. It was such a mesmerizing sight. But seeing how there were windows and doorways, I realized they were underwater towers. Mermaids swam around these towers.
“So they’re not just water monsters, huh?”
They had a civilization of their own.
We slowed down as we approached the largest, tallest central tower. The doorway was at the tip where bubbles were produced. They pushed me in first. I thought it was all water until the bubble that kept me pop, dropping me into a pitch-dark free fall.
“What the fuck!”
I used telekinesis to latch onto something, but I just kept on falling.
The bottom flashed a blue light and I felt myself collide with a cold membrane. Just as I thought I was safe, I penetrated through it, and I was back underwater.
I scrambled to swim up, but the membrane was tough. I tried tearing through it with telekinesis and waterflow but nothing worked. I was running out of air and on the verge of losing my consciousness until a loud pop startled me. I could breathe again all of a sudden.
“So this is the courageous lander,” a loud, feminine voice spoke.
I searched for the source. There was nothing to see but the blueness of water. It wasn’t even cold. Hell it didn’t feel like water!
“Where the hell are you?”
A choir of hums rose from below. I swam towards the sound, and the ocean began to glow brighter.
I emerged from the water… or did I? I emerged into crystal-clear waters, revealing a massive underwater cavern. Teal bulbs dotted the cavern, providing enough illumination for the interior. Spaces were carved on the cavern walls where hundreds of mermaids sat on huge, open clams.
“What the hell is this place?”
“You are in Thelassi, lander.”
I followed the source of the voice. It came from a titanic woman. She sat on a black shiny pearl inside a half-closed gigantic clam.
No, that was barely a woman. She looked like an elongated octopus meant to mimic a humanoid. Its head was long and round like your typical extraterrestrial, its huge, circular eyes dark as the abyss. Its nose was a holeless bump. Her mouth split into four lips, revealing a deep chasm with hundreds of fangs similar to a lamprey.
Multiples tentacles replaced its limbs, swaying like seaweed. Although the torso was humanoid – slim and shaped like a human female – the lower half was that of an octopus.
I meant it when I said titanic. She was almost the size of the Statue of Liberty from where I swam.
“Jesus…” I said, my jaw dropped at her sheer scale.
“I’m Agaphonet, though I’m certain you already know.”
It only opened its mouth to speak. Its mouth looked like a grotesque vortex, but I couldn’t take my eyes off of it.
“I… am Caesar. Look, I was lost. Can you send me back?”
The mermaids laughed.
“I’m sure you landers have been warned not to wander too close to the Black Island?”
Oh, so it was called that.
“Yeah, but I got swayed by the sea—”
A loud whip from a single tentacle sent a reverberating shockwave that washed me hundreds of meters away. My ear rung for a minute before my normal hearing returned. If I was a normal human that would’ve shattered my eardrums and mushed my brain.
“THE SEA IS DEAD!”
Her screams were just as loud. I had to shove my fingers deep into my ears.
“Ever since you landers ‘killed’ me this sea no longer listens to me!”
Oh shit I made it worse.
“You came here of your own volition. To acquire blacksteel and forge weapons to harm my daughters!”
“Oh, I didn’t come for that! I mean I came for the blacksteel but it was meant for the lizardfolks.”
Her eyes narrowed at me.
“Your motives don’t matter. You would’ve been damned to the depths for eternity had you not let your greed overcome your senses!”
“Then why did you bring me here?”
I hadn’t seen any men or any land creatures around. Unless they had a dedicated place for them.
Agaphonet slowly turned around, producing thousands of bubbles from her motion. On her back was a black tattoo of a six-petaled flower. My jaw dropped. Just how far did this cult reached?
“Six-petaled flower. You’re a believer of the Mother?”
She laughed. Her laughter boomed across the cavern.
"A believer of the Mother? Wrong. I am her friend. And I believe it is in her best interest to restore my power by using you, her prophesied Champion.”
Whoever this mother was, she didn’t seem to be a Jesus-like figure. She was a real person. But whether she was a human or a god-like being was up in the air.
"How did you know I’m the champion?"
"Because your network feels oddly similar, but not the same, to her."
It seemed that my status as the Champion always helped me out in precarious situations. First was the cult, then in Xitlachtan. I just hoped it worked here too.
"Then I can help you fulfill that. I have the power you need. You simply need ask and I will voluntarily do it."
"I don't ask, much less from a lander."
If she was a normal mermaid I would’ve let myself be tied and fucked like a sex slave. But this “woman” was massive and I had no damn clue what holes to fuck. Hell was she even fuckable? And what would I do if so? Was she capable of shrinking to my size?
“I wish to make a deal, then.”
She swam towards me. I felt fear dominate me as she got closer, her cosmic face approaching me with those dark abyssal eyes. I wanted to run away, but I stayed still. Her face occupied my whole vision.
“A deal?”
“I’ll let you use me for power. In return, I want all the blacksteel I can get from the island.”
She remained quiet for a moment. Then she chuckled. That chuckled soon turned into a deafening boom, each “ha!” struck like a giant drum right against my ear. The open mouth was like a blackhole attempting to suck me in.
Tentacles popped from the black waters below. It grabbed my limbs and stretched me out. I gnashed my teeth from the pain as it almost crushed my bones from constriction.
“And you believe I will agree to that?”
“Let me go!”
The tentacles slowly pulled my limbs. The mermaids began to cheer around me as if it was an entertainment.
“I believe it is more convenient to have you lose your limbs so you cannot swim away. Don’t worry, I will let you live for as long as I do, but in my chambers!”
The pain was excruciating. I tried to pull the tentacles back but more shot from below to reinforce it. Waterform and telekinesis did nothing.
At this point I was gonna be enslaved. I was up against a god and I was powerless. I couldn’t think of anything else to do.
“No wonder why you lost to a human!”
The tentacles kept pulling me apart.
“You play around! Fight me fair and square! I will win like he did!”
She just laughed.
Now I really couldn’t think of something else.
No, there was one thing I could do.
I pushed through the pain and used waterform to press against the bubble around my head. As I felt my limbs slowly get torn, I mustered all my strength to break the bubble. A loud pop caused the water to pour in. I hardened water around my face, essentially forming a thicker ball of water to drown me.
"What are you doing?"
I thickened the water. Slowly I was gasping for air.
"Stop!"
The tentacles let me go and a huge bubble wrapped my body. But I wasn’t over yet. I tore through the bubble again and let water in.
A tentacle grabbed me and threw me into another bubble. I tore through it again.
"Are you that desperate you will kill yourself?"
She kept on putting me in bubbles but I kept tearing through it. I was losing my consciousness as water filled my lungs. Then a tentacle dragged me out and shook me awake.
“Pathetic lander!” she yelled, “if a fight is what you want, then you will get it!”
I sat inside another bubble she made. This time I didn’t try to drown myself.
“A deal. I want… to strike a deal,” I said, trying to recover from almost drowning.
I just had to get out of here. I could always find an alternative to blacksteel.
She glared.
“If you win I will let you walk away and never return again. But if I win, you will become my slave and promise not to harm or kill yourself.”
I snorted. “But I’m not fighting you.”
“What?”
“I will fight your best fighter. If I win, I get to walk away with all the blacksteel in that island. But if I lose then yes, I swear I will become your obedient slave and not harm or kill myself.”
She returned to her clam throne.
“Then so be it,” she whipped her tentacle, “I call upon you, Solephia, to teach this lander manners!”