Daar’zel had been looking for clues to a mystery that may have been at the roots of her world, but this was no longer ancient history. Whatever forces had crafted her world were still at work, and she would understand their purpose and why she had been spared.

She had given up on official records and was beginning to wonder whether she would find anything at all that she noticed the book that had been there all along.

She had looked at in her first days in the Undercroft. A dry historical account of the Empire that had left the keepers to their fate. It was mostly military manoeuvres and self-serving praise for the emperor and his generals that aligned with much of what the primer had claimed, sitting on a small shelf in the privy. Left there by a previous occupant. A typical spot for books too tedious to read anywhere else.

The afterword had read strangely at the time. The writer actively refuting theories on the origin of the People that they had never suggested in the text. Assuring readers that any suggestion that they had originally settled in a place known as Elhome was nothing more than myth and the rough map on the back page a common urban myth. The author was far too insistent for someone who did not believe the legends were true.

Daar’zel had no doubt that the icon below the temple was a place desecrated in the name of the Dark Lord. Its function fit too well in the intricate structure of control that she had begun to understand. The primer confirmed that the Dark Lord was present when the empire was born.

She would have to return to where this story began. Elfhome, wherever it was, held the truth behind the Dark Lord. If there was anywhere that would give her answers, it would begin there.

The maps inscribed on the inner covers took on a new meaning. The front contained an exacting map of the underground cities described in the military text. The style was different from the maps Daar’zel was used to and she didn’t recognize the names on the labels.

All of the founding dark elf cities had great temples to the goddess and the immense caverns that housed them were shown in many of the records. If she was reading this correctly, the Empire had conquered and settled these lands, and the cities of her people rested on the bones of theirs.

Inside the back cover was a much cruder map, mostly filled with pictures of strange beasts and cryptic warnings, but there was a cavern marked Elfhome, and a passage that led toward it from a city she knew.

The powerful enemies she would make when she returned unscathed would work to her advantage after all. Leaving the city ahead of their wrath would be seen as an act of simple cowardice, not strategy.

She checked the time with a quick rune and planned her departure for when the temple would be at its quietest. The Ocularius showed an empty Nave, and she slipped quickly out through the brood chambers, into the shadows of the temple depths. Her route into the city was as easy to retrace out and she was back in the sealed tunnel before long.

Daar’zel drew herself up in the image of Matronly hauteur as she approached the city gate. The males playing bones at the rude table in the guard hut sent jumped to their feet as she barked out a command, scattering the scraps of meat and trinkets they had betting with. The functionary that had delivered her death sentence before looked ready to collapse just as quickly when he realized who was standing in doorway.

Her voice dripped malice as she swept past and instructed the males to inform the Matrons that she had returned and would resume her duties at first Mark tomorrow.

Whoever had planned her death before would know she had returned within minutes. They alone knew that there was never a problem at all and that she had spent the time she was gone in a different pursuit. They would try to strike again before Daar’zel had time to use whatever had given her enough power to return.

She would have to thread a narrow path. Too vigilant and she would delay an attack too long and the power struggle to regain her former position, no doubt claimed by a new Mistress, would have to be fought. Too lax and her opponent might succeed, a definite problem.

She appeared to be deep in contemplation of the Pillar of Shadow. Reading the gospel of her people and lost in a moment of deep thought. The shadows flitting through the columns at the side of the temple courtyard were too deliberate to be passers by. She had to be ready. They would strike soon.

She deflected the first daggers with a flick and muttered incantation. She needed them to feel victory within reach but being wounded was not part of the plan.

They were about to scatter as she began an enchantment to ensnare them all when she appeared to stumble and lose the rhythm of her casting. When they pounced on the mistake and were convinced, she was doomed, she pulled the wards of the main chamber down on them in an act of seeming desperation.

Their screams as the ancient wards tore them to pieces and added them to its own defenses echoed through the courtyard and ensured the whole city knew she had acted.

She returned calmly to her rooms, waiting for the contingent sent to bring her to the temple for judgement. The Matrons were now aware that she could use the city wards against them, and she would never be allowed to remain.

Trials were rare in the goddess’s lands. The justice of her servants was like her own. Quick, brutal and absolute. The only time the Matriarchs would gather in formal judgement was if they were too frightened to act alone.

The corpse of the young elf that had claimed her post still lay on the altar stage. Apparently, the others were unimpressed with her failure to secure the wards in her own name.

The charges were high crimes against the goddess herself. Her use of the wards was painted as a vicious attack on the safety of the eternal city for personal gain. Pursuit of power was admired, but wanton risks were not.

The formal proclamation of death was interrupted by a ‘vision’ granted to the High Matriarch by our goddess. The goddess had spoken. She would spare the offender, but she would be banished from the city. Sent on a pilgrimage to learn the humility that the goddess demanded of her.

Daar’zel summoned an air of thinly veiled contempt as she accepted the judgement of the Matrons and thanked the goddess for her mercy. Her announcement that the goddess had spoken to her and told her that her journey would take her to the city of [to be named later] was accepted with great suspicion, but no one dared to refute her claim.

[tbnl] was the dark elf city closest to the surface lands. Even with a trade caravan, the journey would take months through the maze of the underground world and the dangers of the dark were ever present.

The caravan master knew her trade and the troupe were well supplied and expertly managed. The slaves were well fed and well disciplined. Dwarven backs were strong but needed to be kept firmly bowed to serve their function as pack animals.

The first month of the journey passed without major incident. A few of the males were lost to bandits and other minor annoyances. No more than the usual number of slaves were used to placate larger threats. The losses were expected, and numbers would be shored up at the first major stop.

The waypoint should have been safe. It was well known to caravans and travellers. One of the few caverns with plenty of fresh water and a variety of subterranean game. Very few of the mushrooms that grew in the area were aggressive or dangerous, and the fresh meat was always a welcome change from trail food.

When the fish-heads swarmed out of the river and into the camp, the defenders were overwhelmed before they knew that they were under attack. These waters were supposed to be warded from any kind of infiltration, but the fish-heads had found a way through.

The survivors of the first onslaught were bound with kelp strands as strong as steel and the fish-heads got to work carving up the bodies of the slain. The soft bits were shared among them, torn off in bloody chunks by piscine teeth, the rest wrapped in kelp and dropped into the water to waiting fins.

The fish-head that approached the prisoners was older and more ornately adorned than the simple hunters it accompanied. The crude staff in its finlike hand was carved in the shape of creatures that could only have existed in the deepest waters of a demon’s nightmares. Strange, alien shapes with a fluidity only possible in something that has never known dry land.

A throat that was never meant for air forced out a croaking command and a small altar was raised from the river and placed in the center of the camp. The first of the prisoners was dragged forward and forced down in front of the altar.

The shaman’s ceremonial knife glittered in the air as it swung and sliced cleanly through the throat of the slave bowed before it. The thick skin of the dwarf parted like parchment and its life flowed out. The remains quickly joined the rest of the meat, and the next victim brought forth. The caravan master was not without the company of her slaves for long.

She was next. She could see the knife rise in the air and steadied herself for the end. If her path led to her ending up as fish food, so be it. Maybe Ariachne’s ring would find its way back to familiar lands like the husband’s tale of old.

She lifted her head a few moments later. The cold eyes that should have been watching her lifesblood flow were looking in different directions, one staring thoughtfully at her as the other gazed at the small gem glowing in the intricate designs of the staff.

Both eyes swiveled to focus on her as the fish made a decision. It reached out and touched her on the forehead with its staff then croaked another word. Her captors picked her up and threw her in the river, bound and unable to summon a bell of air to protect her.

Why keep her alive if they were only going to drown her moments later?

Her lungs burned as she fought to free herself. The kelp around her wrists and ankles was as strong as ever and the living weeds had begun to wrap themselves around her and drag her down. When she finally gasped out the last of her saved breath, her lungs drew in water in a final, desperate attempt for oxygen.

She neither knew nor cared whether what filled her chest was still water or if it had transformed into air as she breathed. The acrid mineral taste and traces of underwater life didn’t stop it from keeping her alive, so whatever was performing the miracle, she was grateful for it and breathed deeply.

The expressions of her fishy guides were impossible to read, but she suspected that they shared a laugh at her expense.

Their race had evolved to hunt on land out of necessity, but they were creatures of water and in their domain, they were transformed.

Ungainly, awkward bodies became elegant darts in a complex, high speed dance. Hanks of sodden kelp and matted sheets of seaweed became gossamer ribbons and gowns of the finest lace once freed from the constraints of the air.

Sound in the water was more an impression than something to be heard. She didn’t realize her captors had been sending word ahead until the strange eerie sound from ahead vibrated through her bones.

Her group passed through a low coral passage and passed a pen with a huge fish under the care of two fish-head warriors. As the party went past, they stroked its massive gullet, and another booming moan echoed out. A gate slid smoothly down from above and blocked the passage they entered through.

She was hungry by the time they stopped at what appeared to be a guard station. She refused the first offering of meat. The dark elves had no use for their dead, either as relics or food and she was not prepared to chance the source of the meal.

She was unsure if the darting fish that the fish-head snatched out of the water and bit the head from before proffering it was one their young or not, but cave fish she could stomach.

The hunter unbound her hands and feet. She could breathe in their environment, but they had no concerns that she could escape.

The two others who joined the shaman that had spared her were of a similar nature, but they gave the sense of clergy who controlled a congregation, not a battle priest supporting the hunters. She had reached civilization, whatever that meant in this world.

She was unable to hear what passed for speech, but the intricate patterns they wove as they flashed through the water suggested an intense discussion with no obvious agreement. The swiveling of the cold eyes left her dizzied and confused as she tried to decide if she was being watched.

The newcomers each approached her with their staves, and as they lit up in turn, their arguments seemed less defiant and more concerned. In the end she was passed to their care, and the hunting troupe went back to the search for fresh meat.

Daar’zel was alive, but so far that seemed the only requirement for her captors. She knew that the fish-heads had traders who spoke Deeptrade but no one had attempted to communicate with her and they didn’t seem inclined to now.

The shamans didn’t seem to be in a rush to move her from the outpost and she took a chance when they appeared distracted lose herself in the weeds and escape.

Her goal was in sight when her lungs exploded. She had been underwater for days and she had been able to breathe fine, but her lungs knew what was in them now and convulsed to get it out.

She was convinced she would drown after all when one of the shamans darted over and tapped her lightly with its staff. Her lungs accepted the water once again and she breathed deeply in relief. The fish stared at her coldly until she nodded and went back to her place. They didn’t need a restraint. If she tried that again she would not get another chance.

Her attempt may have been what they were waiting for. The one she assumed was the junior departed shortly afterwards and returned with a small group of warriors in formal gear. A large manta ray with raised ridges along the front of its wings floated along with them gently.

The shaman pointed at the ray and made a grasping motion with its hands. When she gently wrapped her fingers over the folds, it held its hands in front of her. Clenched until the scales stood out in a ridge of tiny shields.

She understood. Letting go would be as bad as trying to escape. She strengthened her grip as the ray began to pull her along in the middle of the formation. She would not be dragged as baggage this time, but she would not be traveling slowly or as she chose.

The differences between the settled lands she now traveled through and the wilderness outside were subtle, but she began to note them as she was pulled swiftly behind her transport.

There was nothing like a home or personal space as she understood them. The caverns of the dark elves were massive but so was the number of her followers and most of the land was taken by houses. The fish people had no use for beds or other furniture as she understood them, and they were as comfortable upside down as they were any other way.

The kelp farmers were the first ones she learned to see.

Few things grew in the depths and where they did, they were straggly and fought to survive in whatever dim light was available. She had wondered about the health of kelp growths they had passed, and a brief rest stop gave her a chance to learn how they were kept alive.

Her darksight was as sharp as the fish, though it had a strange, warped appearance through the watery lens. The dim light of bioluminescent life and underwater growths was more than enough to see by, so the growing light above the kelp field confused her at first.

A gathering of fish with strange bulbs hanging from their heads had begun to form over the field, drawn to a cloud of fine particles suspended in the water above it. The dust was streaming from an opening at the end of a squat ugly growth on the rocky wall. One of the fish-heads floated beside the growth, stroking and kneading its body in a practiced rhythm.

The bulbs hanging off the strange fish feeding above the field, began to glow, dimly at first, but growing in intensity until her sensitive eyes had to look away.

The living tools that the fish people employed began to be more obvious after that. Seemingly random encrustations of mollusks and gatherings of strange and surreal creatures were carefully designed systems each serving its role in the fish-heads domain.

Cutter fish nibbled the ripe kelp free. Ones like bellows sucked in the newly released spores and spread what they did not need on to the fields to seed the next crop.

Nothing was wasted. What one organism didn’t want, another needed to survive.

Once she began to understand what structures they did not need, she began to see the ones they had.

What she had assumed to be rude, rural way markers or rough shrines to strange deep gods revealed themselves as the focal point of intricate systems of utility and beauty. Every growth, every outcropping, even the living tools darting about, were placed not just to serve, but to enrich and enjoy.

Her guides were determined to get her wherever she was going quickly, but the pace they set allowed for moments to rest along the way.

She was resting on the shell of a giant mollusk and watching the interplay of life around her when the older shaman swam up and hovered gently beside her. One eye gazed at her thoughtfully, then reached out and gently wrapped its finlike hand around the back of her skull.

She had gotten used to the sound that was not sound that was the equivalent of hearing in the deeps, so the music that filled her ears came as a shock.

It was not the commanding, jagged music forced from instruments carved forcefully out of the world. This was the music of life.

Deep booming echoes and high trilling rills. Subtle songs of mollusks greeting the day and the insistent croaking of the bulb-fish waiting to be fed.

She gazed at the old fish in wonder. Her people had always seen the fish-people as barbaric and barely above animals. They were seen as invasive water pests at worst, and an excellent meal when they were fresh, at best.

They were not kind or sentimental in any way. They were as cold-blooded as their ancestors and she had seen violent death as much as cultured life, but they were not savage.

The farmer injured by the slap of a bulb-fishes tail wasn’t treated and given time to recover. It was torn apart by the other workers and a cloud of tiny silver teeth cleared the water of any trace in minutes, but it was done without malice. The weak were food. That was how it worked.

Clouds of fry hid in the mouths of their mothers when others passed by, but those who hid too long risked being her meal instead.

The cold, black eye watching her seemed to see what it was looking for and the shaman removed its fin. As the music faded, it signaled that it was time to go. Looking out over the scene below, she could hear its echo in the dance before her.

She waited while the shamans debated.

The had entered caverns with a more settled feel. Artisan weavers guided loomfish in intricate dances to create seaweed tapestries of dazzling precision. Fumaroles and fonts of gasses and other substances repurposed into food preservation systems and driving odd and esoteric devices.

They had stopped at something like a crossroads. Or at least a point where other caverns branched off from the path they were on, but the direction that they should go on in appeared to be a question for the first time.

It seemed the older shaman won the argument, at least that was what Daar’zel assumed from its attempt to bite the younger shaman’s fin and the youths subsequent retreat.

The caverns they swam into were less developed, more industrial. The tools were still crafted from nature, but they were heavier, more purposeful. Mining anywhere was dirty work.

Flat ribbon-like eels slipped into cracks then expanded in a sudden surge. Heavy beaked fish beat the edges of the seam until the rock shivered and split into boulders.

Giant clams ground the boulders in their mighty shells and flock of small crustaceans sifted through the remains.

The deep red glow emanating from the low cavern ahead caught her eye before the shine of the bubble at its entrance. The water had been growing steadily warmer, and this was the source.

Daar’zel was ready to use her feet as she passed through it, although it took her legs a moment to remember what she wanted from them after so long in the water. But her lungs had been breathing water and this thin, dry substitute replacing it as she gasped was not enough.

She felt the gentle tap of the shaman’s staff and coughed out the last of the water. The dry, metallic tang in the hot air was familiar and the sounds of metal being shaped were those of smiths and artisans everywhere.

She took a moment to steady herself, but for her guide there was no need. By the time she looked up, the shaman was deep in conversation with a scarred and grizzled smith.

A flow of molten lava along the wall was the source of the light. The apprentices stood before it, using slender tongs to clasp snail shells full of molten ore and pour it into forms for the smiths who used smaller cousins of the hammer fish to shape and form it into tools and weapons.

The shaman gestured at her as it spoke. It’s movements strangely awkward after its grace in the water but still controlled and more purposeful than the hunters had seemed to her unpracticed eye.

Acquiescence from the old fish was less violent than with the young shaman, but no faster, and it gazed at her steadily at her with one eye as it watched the shaman with the other. Finally, the smith nodded and gestured them both ahead through a low arch.

The small workshop beyond was dedicated to a singular purpose that rested on the humble stand at its heart. Tools and molds that had served the name needs for master craftsmen since before most histories began.

It was as intricate and fine as the work of the finest dwarven slaves. Sinuous, fluid shapes of gold and platinum threads forming tentacles holding a shimmering, opalescent pearl.

The shaman touched the pearl with the end of its staff and nodded with satisfaction when a deed, toneless hum filled the space. A clamshell case came off its belt, and the object was quickly stashed inside.

It moved quickly towards the exit without looking back. Apparently, they had come for that, and it was time to go.

The transition back to the water was much easier walking than being thrown.

The younger shaman kept a bit more distance from its elder when they rejoined the others. She had seen enough juniors reminded of their place to understand why.

After the detour, they quickly approached what had to be the center of this underwater empire.

Side caverns and nets of cultured growth held bubbles of air and the fish-people within them had the distinct look of merchants no matter the race. The gathering spaces were less functional and more decorative, though still part of the natural order around them.

Some groups gestured gently, languidly expressing a point of view. Others darted about, snapping and feinting, arguing in motion as much as in words.

The honour guard left them as the approached the end of the main chamber. A growth of ancient coral formed pillars for a living temple with walls of mollusk shells, layered so thickly that the mightiest siege engine would have bounced off like sand.

Had she not seen the synergy of their fields, she might not have recognized the artists as they passed them at work on the temple walls.

Tiny crabs pulled free and ate the baby bivalves at the edges of the patterned colonies while larger ones removed those in the middle that that expired. Shrimp collected eggs in their brush-like tails and seeded new ones where the larger crabs had cleared the way.

 A simple ceremony taking place in an alcove showed their work in its full glory.

She could not hear the music, but the formal stance of the shaman leading the prayer suggested something formal and solemn. As the rite progressed, the shells on the walls shifted, opening and closing to reflect the dim light in dazzling patterns and indescribable colours.

The shaman who met them would have seemed frail if not for the wisdom and power radiating from it like waves. It impatiently held up a fin when her guide began to explain and pointed at the clamshell with the other.

It stroked the hinge, and the shell opened smoothly, a quick look and it was closed again. The ancient fish moved down an open passage and her guide motioned quickly for her to follow.

If any had dared to challenge the one they followed, it would have been the four that waited solemnly for them in the chapel. This was the first time since she had entered the water that she had encountered something that felt truly permanent.

The walls of this space were coated in shell fragments and gems depicting scenes of religious worship and strange otherworldly creatures that light and air would have rejected as impossible.

The small shrines and sacred objects of the shamans that she had seen so far had all depicted a confusing blend of creatures, intertwined and wound about each other. But here, each had its place. Intricate statues connected to each other by a system of shallow grooves, joining together in a small depression at the center of their arc.

The ancient one opened the clamshell once more and carefully placed its contents in the depression. The others took up places near the statues and raised their staffs as the junior retrieved the clamshell and returned to her side.

When the ancient one raised its staff into place, the statues began to glow faintly, then a sliver of phosphorescent liquid cascaded from the mouth of each and into the troughs below.

The liquid didn’t disperse in the currents around it, but flowed swiftly along the grooves to surround the jeweled pearl in the centre and fill the depression it was in. As the last of it pooled, the eldest lowered her staff and spoke a word that echoed below Daar’zel’s hearing. As deep as the warning fish that had announced their arrival, but stronger without volume and older than any here.

The pearl began to glow as it absorbed the light around it. In moments the depression was dry, and the pearl sat as it had before, but now with deep, persistent light that danced over its surface.

The finlike fingers in her hair were welcome this time. What began was something that elven ears were not created to understand.

The tone she had heard in the smithy was issuing from the pearl once again, but this time it was a question, and the voices of the elder shamans were answering its call.

No shaman sang the same song, and none had words as she understood them, but what they wove was more than sound. They essence of every sound that she had heard or imagined through her watery journey was called and contained in those simple tones and the pearl resonated as it heard their symphony.

The pearl continued to sing as the shamans’ voices faded, its toneless hum replaced with the echoes it had heard. The sound faded gently as the light in the pearl dimmed and the others began to move towards the door.

The elder gently picked up the pearl and motioned her towards a small coral gate along the back wall. As Daar’zel approached, the elder opened the gate and held the pearl out towards her. She glanced briefly at her guide and was gently urged forward. This was for her alone.

Daar’zel accepted the pearl from the elder’s grasp and entered the gate. It may not have been a choice, but it was action, and that was better than watching.

While the temple had felt like something grown over eons, the passage she entered now felt like it had been old before anything had thought to shape the world.

Countless generations of snails cleaning its inlays had warn the frescoes along its length to near invisibility and the cavern at its end was ringed with stalactites and stalagmites that had joined long enough ago to not know where they began.

If the creature that hovered in the center of the space was an ancestor of the fish people she had met, it was in a primordial age when size meant survival and time was merely an idea. It floated gently and would have appeared dead if its gills had not moved with the slightest flutter.

Ahead she saw a simple stand, the only thing in the room besides the massive beast. The depression worn in its stone surface showed that pearls like the one she carried had rested there countless times before.

It was not the first time that Daar’zel had faced a rite without knowing what the consequences might be, and she would not hesitate this time either.

She placed the pearl on the stand and stepped back.

The surface of the pearl began to shift as the glow began to dance across its surface once again. She couldn’t hear the echo of the shamans in the pearl until the throat of the ancestor began to vibrate and its rich complex tones rose and gave it places in their song.

The pearl began to fade and crumbled into dust, but its song belonged to the ancient now. As the sounds combined into one great harmony, the great beast opened its mouth. The shimmering orb shining at the back of its throat caught her gaze and held it.

Daar’zel awoke with a sore dorsal and her gills fluttering to catch a breath. Her scales felt hot and dry her fins felt oddly long and loose.

The wave of nausea as her body remembered it was an elf not a fish was enough to cause her to lose everything she had eaten since she left the city.

The headache that followed as her eyes realized there were SUPPOSED to point the same direction was worse.

The cloud of silver darts clearing up her sick looked like fever stars but settled into their proper shapes as she took a breath, without her gills, and tried to understand what had happened.

The last thing she remembered was feeling like she was being drawn into the consciousness of the being in front of her through the shimmering ball. It was not imposing its memories on her but offering to share the experiences and wisdom of its people.

If what she experienced after that remained in her mind, it was locked away so deeply that no force would expose it and leave her intact.

The essence of thousands upon thousands of generations of a people who understood their world so differently from her own was more than her mammalian mind could understand and something within her had torn.

For all the strange events she had witnessed so far, the feeling of concern for her evident in the elder shaman’s posture was the hardest to reconcile.

The relief as she gathered her senses and looked around was palpable. The seaweed holding her, not restrained, just kept moored in the current, released her when she brushed at them, and pulled herself free.

A pale sheet of seaweed that the elder held out was as much explanation as she would get. The DeepTrade runes scratched into it were crude and not meant to convey complex meaning.

Flopping almost-food one.

If flopping to not-food buyer of big not-things gives many happy.

Buyer of big not-things offers many refund for good deal not good. Honest offer.

Fish-eye old buy dry-fish. Fish-eye not new buy dry-fish.

Dry-fish sold out. Prices not sold?

You go. Old trade.

She understood that the Elder was pleased that she had survived and was apologizing for what had happened. But the rest made little sense until they reached the part of the city that the shaman led her to next.

The openings from the main passage led to air-dry storage rooms and spaces that looked more like offices than anything Daar’zel had seen here before. The proportions were strange, built for beings who did not sit, who had shaped their world for different bodies and different minds, but whoever it was appreciated dry air, and warmth too, from the soot still laced up the wall above a covered vent in the rock.

The area had a sense not of abandonment, but of disuse and maintenance of something long past its purpose.

She knew she was missing the story the way it was meant to be told. The frescos lining the walls were meant to be seen from two perspectives at once and her singular focus could only catch the grossest impressions, but that was enough to explain the strange note.

The mosaics depicted the trade history of the fish-people with a race that looked like cave lizards, standing upright and wearing gowns and jewelry to rival any dark elf matron.

The oldest showed scenes of meeting and sharing knowledge with the “dry-fish”, then images of a thriving trade empire.

As they approached the end of the passage, the floor began to slope upwards, and the content of the pictures began to change.

The last section was noticeably more recent than the others and it showed the end of the dry-fish.

The first panel was a meeting of the leaders of both people, with a shadowy figure offering a box of light with open arms. The lizard creatures were staring fixedly into the box while the fish-people leaders shielded their eyes and looked away.

The next showed the gates of a great city, closed tight with fish-people merchant trains outside of it. The glowing box hovered over the city and the leaders of the dry-fish stood on it’s battlements, staring at the glow.

In the third, the glow over the city was no longer light, but as dark as the deepest cave. The dry-fish leaders now faced the shadowy figure once again, gesturing at the glow and shielding themselves from it at the same time. The gates were still closed, no caravans or traders remained.

The final scene showed the once mighty city in ruins, the shadowy figure standing at its heart with the dark glow shining above.

Daar’zel looked away from the wall to see the old shaman waiting by a coral gate that had been unused long enough that workfish had had to rush free it from the wall that had absorbed it. The rubble of their efforts still lay strewn along the hallway, a stark contrast to the efficiency they usually displayed.

The old shaman hung simple pearl on a strand of the steel-like weeds around her neck and then handed her a pack, with a bubble of air around it keeping it dry. She opened the gate and waved Daar’zel on.

The reclosing of the ancient gate behind her as she swam upwards in the passage said that if she returned at all, it would not be soon.