Aquatic Nightmare

If we survive, then we won't die.
-Russian proverb

POV ???

A̷A̸̛̯A̶À̶̛̘͜Ä̴̰̳̭́̍̈́A̸̗̎̿͑͛͝À̴̠̪̼̪̈́̆͋͆̀A̶̲̙̺͆̕ͅH̵͖̖̝̦͎͖̖͑̈́̐͝͝Ḥ̶̢̫̊̈́͘H̷͈̲̺͉̯̪͛̏Ḧ̴̨̢̱̙͔͕̩͍͇̻́̈͋H̷̨̨̛̳̘̝͙̫̭̮͇͇̗̿͊̈́̔̅͋̐͗̏̀!

FUCK THAT HURTS, OH SHIT I HAVEN'T FELT THIS MUCH PAIN SINCE BASIC.

MY SKIN FEELS LIKE PEELING.

The pain quickly wears off as I lose and regain consciousness. The fuck did that bitch cast on me? It doesn't feel like it's lethal, so it clearly wasn't effective enough. I look around me and quickly realize I was blasted backwards and wasn't even out for moments, as there are still people panicking and the black sphere cast by the young Queen is still active. I might still have time to end her before she recovers. I try to move back towards the black sphere, but quickly fall over. I remove the mask that feels like it's suffocating me and look down what I tripped over. Right, I can't walk because I don't have legs, but why did I have pants? I put my beret back on, and I start crawling using my shovel towards the black sphere, thinking can come while I crawl.

She clearly hit me with something, but other than the pain, I don't feel too different. I try to think back towards basic but nothing comes up other than the part where I did way too well on land for someone with no legs and did horrible in the aquatic training for someone with the lower body of a fish. That's odd, I'm rather sure they don't accept women in the spetsnaz either. As I enter the black sphere, shovel in hand, I see the figure of the fledgling Queen come into view.

POV Kyla'th Mazurio, Queen of Mazurio

As the last assassin is blown away by a transmogrification spell, I take the time to recover.

"Damn those assassins got me good, Jalaha should be here soon to help deal with all the wounded, and I should be able to ask the last one where they came from, the transmogrification spell is truly our greatest asset."

I realize the dark sphere is still up and running when I see a vague figure crawl towards me. I lift the sphere and get a good look at the latest addition to the forces of demonkind. Long blue hair that looks like the ocean and fin-like ears protruding from where human ears would be that protrude outwards of her head, her blue tail glistening in the small amount of light that gets through the destroyed dome above.

However, what is truly noticeable is the stark contrast with her choice of attire. Green-brown armor covers her chest and similar clothes cover her arms. More things become clear as the haze lifts, and more things seem to just be...wrong. She's crawling over with a small shovel in one of her clawed hands, and her sharp teeth show a twisted smile. As I get a good look at her eyes, it becomes clear what's wrong, and her shout agrees with my assessment.

The transmogrification spell isn't supposed to blast people back.

"УМЕРЕТЬ!"

The mermaid has a crazed look in her eyes as she clearly still has enough energy to spare to leap on me to knock me over. She raises her shovel high and prepares to swing it down hard, no doubt aiming for my neck. However, the moment I see her muscles contract to swing downwards she gets blindsided by the pommel of a scimitar, knocking her out cold.

"Kyla, are you alright?"

It seems I'm finally seeing some luck today as my faithful dark-elf aide Jalaha makes a heroic entrance.

"W-what was all that? Those assassins? The crazed mermaid just now?" Damn can't even get the shakiness out of my voice, I'm a Queen, not some pampered noble's daughter.

"I'm sorry Kyla, we had gotten reports that the Dalkans were planning a major summoning use against us, but it seems they were directly trying to access the prophecy spawned by the church of the east."

"When was this? Why was I not informed?!"

"I received a report an hour ago saying that the summoning had success a mere 3 days ago, not in my wildest dreams would I have expected them here now, more importantly right now are those injuries, how did they even damage you?"

Jalaha helps me with healing my wounds as I'm still shaking from everything about this that happened, I think this is the closest humans ever got to killing a lord of Mazurio.

"T-the nullification effect of my dark sphere was ignored, I don't think their attacks were magical at all." Not to mention that the last one clearly didn't seem to be too effected by the partial-mind wipe that always comes with transmogrification, yet they were all hit so easily by spells that are normally rendered ineffective by magical resistances.

Jalaha moves to one of the corpses of the masked men and casts an analysis spell on the half-molten corpse, the one that went down first. During this I have to work to keep my dinner inside as I get my bearings, people are still bleeding and painful moans, but temple personnel are already rushing to the many wounded. There is also still a distinct smell of fire and sulfur along with metal. As I take a closer look at the former masked men I notice that all their clothing is green-brown and adorned with a patch of a human skull wearing a red beret with a red-yellow star at the top of the beret, two shovels cross behind the skull like some kind of pirate or necromancer symbol.

"Kyla, it's probably best if you don't stare at corpses of dead men, this is all bad enough for you already."

"Jala it's important to know who they are and where they came from mother taught me that much at least about assassins"

"Well good luck with that, I confirmed the men are from a different world because they have the magic resistance of newborn babies, they really were 3 days on this planet and never tried to manipulate mana in their lives. That's probably also why the last one resisted the effect partially, by the time you hit him with the spell you were heavily wounded and was just throwing around undirected power."

"So a miscast on someone that doesn't even have any magic resistance causes them to be able to remember their past selves? Great now I can safely cast this on literally no one else other than babies with this knowledge."

"While you were busy staring at corpses I also took the liberty and made a quick scan of the non-corpse and I can conclude good news and bad news, the bad news being that the survivor is probably incredibly unstable and hostile towards us and our nation as a whole. The good news is that she is actually mermaid royalty, so congratulations on turning your first royal of the solar races, this hasn't been done in five decades and a mermaid royal for quite some time longer than that."

Jala has a mocking grin on his face as he said that. In history books it is clear to see why royal turned are so valuable, all naturally born Mazurians are timid and isolationist compared to the solar races and especially turned solar races. A turned royal is an actual game changer and were frequently right-hand men and women of ruling lords, but here I am with me being one of the youngest if not THE youngest demon lord to produce a royal, but she's insane and hostile.

"Preserve me from Jala's mockery, oh Luna, the First helping me right now also would be appreciated." Despite my acting, Jala has been able to relieve the tension from me and make me feel better.

"It isn't too bad, while I don't think this will be the last we heard of the solars and their plots involving interdimensional soldiers, I believe at the very least this one won't be coming back no matter what considering how solars treat mazurians."

I wonder for a bit at the offhand comment about interdimensional soldiers before I realize Jalaha just gave me a great idea.

"Get a message to the warden of Bartholm, I need her to take a prisoner and find a way to release her into human lands without Mazurio as a whole being implicated."