Metaworld Chronicles

Gwen possessed no worldly knowledge of how a true Goddess might present herself to the masses, but she had seen Cleopatra in Panavision Technicolour.

In a scene lasting no more than five minutes but costing millions, the thickly-eyelashed Lizzy Taylor had gatecrashed Rome with the bearing of a deified being, defying the gaze of a hostile nation clamouring for blood, forcing even the most ardent senator and their wives to stand and applaud.

Therefore, to create the same impression, Gwen allowed Lei-bup to organise a procession of their most tentacled troops, with her appearing at the Dragon’s tail in a slow, dramatic descent.

Alone in the deep dark and surrounded by her fanatics, she had to hold her heart in her mouth and try her best not to bite, which was easier said than done in the depthless space of the Elemental Plane of Water and en route to confront a duo of Elemental Princes.

Sure, she had a Shoal of multi-millions, but her opponents had two Shoals, each in the billions, even if the majority were hapless civilians.

Additionally, the meeting place of the triumvirate, for which she was the hapless Lepidus, defied her concept of “space” altogether. The location was simply that—a point in the three-dimensional realm of the Elemental Plane of Water. She wasn’t even sure if the meeting place were predetermined or agreed upon by luck, for the three tendrils of light trailing from their separate origins seemed to weave and meander with total uncertainty.

Nonetheless, Gwen reminded herself that here in the Elemental Realm of Water, she was not the Regent nor a Magister. Instead, she was the Priestess of Power, the conduit of the World Tree.

Her Goddess’ garb, which Sanari had grown herself, wrapped around her dancer’s figure with the likeness of silk-thin gossamer. Like a living cloth, the fabric conformed to her silhouette yet expanded upon the bearing of her arms and legs with elegant strands of ivory-hued kelp that made her resemble the Nature Goddess of an ancient kelp forest. There was a crown as well, though that was a gift from her Shoal, a scented splendour that Gwen deeply suspected was a carved piece of diamond-hardness ambergris created by her Soul-linked Assault Leviathan.

With glacial patience, the lighted processions grew into vague shapes close enough to recognise.

“Priestess,” Lei-bup’s voice transmitted through the water. “Over yonder lies the procession of the Fifth Vel, presently the rulers of Ghurghdp Hiij.”

Gwen focused her cocktail of Essences around her optic nerves, transmuting her eyes to pierce the gloom.

The envoys of Bright Reef were several thousand in number, most of them humanoid with the upper bodies of mankind, while their lower halves were that of sleek fishes. For Gwen, whose own Shoal was an eclectic collection of refugees, it felt surreal to see a group of Mer that looked like they had emerged from a Disney classic.

When they came closer yet again, Gwen revised her judgement—the upper bodies of these Nin Clan Mer were humanoid—but far from Human. Unlike her comely twins, these traditional deep-dwellers had fins that lined parts of their arms, ending at an enormous dorsal fin that protruded between their shoulder blades, ending on their head. Most were also bald, lacking the human-like hair of her Sea Witches and instead wearing slitted, ornamental helms that reminded her of Roman Centurions.

Comparatively, the entourage of the Great Manta Sarkonnian was… a giant Manta in an arrangement that drew dangerously close to a trademark violation of Finding Nemo. As per Mr Ray’s school bus, Sarkonnian’s court rode on the back of a small continental shelf that stretched at least a kilometre from wingtip to wingtip, encrusted in interlocking plates of brilliant coral.

At the “rise” of the manta-vehicle sat Sarkonnian herself. Unsure of the physiology of an ancient Mer from the primordial age, it was difficult for Gwen to discern where Sarkonnian began and ended. Certainly, the silhouette of the Great Manta was neither flat nor pancake but closer to something of a winged serpent, with the wings substituted for the flesh flaps of the Great Manta. What made Sarkonnian more impressive was the sheer amount of work she had done to her body. From what Gwen could discern, every inch of its enormous skin frills was covered in jewels and precious in-lays of pearl, giving the creature the richness of a blue-gold Faberge’s Egg.

The First Vel’s entourage seemed to possess a less militant air than the Fifth, for most of the Mer had greatly emphasised displays of wealth and culture in the folds of their layered garbs or the intricacies of their headdresses. These Mer were also more fish-like in Gwen’s eyes, appearing as cobra-headed moray eels with muscular flaps that made them imperial and imposing compared to the tribes of Nin.

Gwen expelled her nervousness via a jolt of Essence.

Three, they were:

The imperial Sarkonnian.

The militant Nin.

And, of course, the fanatic Theocracy.

It was an odd triumvirate, and Gwen was sure they would get along like a house on fire if they were not underwater.

Gwen waited…

Then waited…

and waited…

The meeting did not occur until a half-day later, for the envoys were the first to cross each other’s boundaries, probing each leader's level of paranoia.

The issue, as Lei-bup sought to explain, was Gwen.

She was the other, so to speak, the one both sides sought to meet, but she was also Human.

When Lei-bup had broken the news to their “allies” that the Shoal was not led by him—but by the Pale Priestess of the Shoggoth, the confusion had been palpable, and both sides had thought the absurdity a ploy of the other. A flurry of envoys then furiously debated until Gwen presented herself for all to witness, whereupon their opposing Shoals grew contemplative.

To reach a consensus, the Shoals’ leaders did not have to speak vis-a-vis, for there would be a great deal of risk involved in exposing oneself. Yet, decorum demanded that a Shoal’s highest envoy could only be met by one of similar standing. Therefore, if Gwen were to present herself, the others had to speak in person as well or else appear weak and cowardly in front of their multitude of citizens.

As the deliberation continued, Gwen readied herself for a suddenly manifesting Shoggy.

Her revelation was a gamble to see if Sarkonnian was willing to work with a Human or if she was truly as species-supremacist as they say.

After all, she had left the shallows knowing that Sarkonnian worked with the Undead Followers of Juche. Once a ruler had dived off the deep end of Mer tolerances, what could be so dramatic about holding hands with a living embodiment of a World Tree?

“Priestess, they’ve taken the bait.” Lei-bup read the movements of the Shoals’ troops before she could even comprehend the chaos. “Sarkonnian has agreed to meet us, which leaves Nin Pak with no choice but to do the same.”

“Right,” Gwen slid her hands around the slippery surface of her underwater garb, the length of which had grown out immensely to hide those hideous Human legs attached to her hips. “How do I look?”

“Utterly alien and wordlessly bizarre, Great Priestess,” Lei-bup assured her. “You say an Elf designed this? Have they never seen a Mer before? Or a fish?”

For the first time since their couture partnership, Gwen began to doubt Sanari’s impeccable taste in floral chic.

“You said you liked it,” Gwen said accusingly, thinking of their earlier success on Aristotle. “Now it’s bizarre, is it?”

“Lady Sarkonnian has her garment woven into the fabric of her sacred flesh.” Lei-bup pointed out the obvious. “And Lord Pak is wearing ceremonial coral plating grown from his scales by his Sea Witch consorts. Our Pale Priestess is wearing plants… but this is good, your Paleness.”

Gwen moved with her entourage as they lifted from the Leviathan’s back, trailed by what she saw as epic lengths of fluttering, ivory kelp.

“You’re an existence that defines their understanding.” Lei-bup’s low laugh was tactile as his tentacles waved in tune with their gentle locomotion. “So are we, in a way. They’ve never seen a Shoal like ours, not ever. If they had, we would have been forcibly assimilated a long while ago.”

With agonising equal distance, the three branches of their Shoals extended themselves until, finally, they were close enough to ogle one another.

Nin Pak, sleek and angular with his broad shoulders, was the first to drift forward, his eyes focused entirely on the abominable, jewel-encrusted visage that was Sarkonnian.

Gwen willed herself forward, followed very closely by Lei-bup, trailed by the twins.

Finally, like a detached portion of her throne, Sarkonnian lifted herself from her nest, growing in largess until she positively imposed.

HUGE! was Gwen’s immediate impression.

If she measured just over two meters with her outrageous dress and crown, and Nin Pak was another half-body taller—Sarkonnian was at least three meters in torso and almost ten from crown to tail.

“We welcome the youngest.” Sarkonnian’s voice was soft and mellow but omnipresent as a generalise vibration through the water. With her depthless cobalt eyes open and drinking inward the light of their shared luminescence, Gwen was left with no doubt of Sarkonnian’s ancient age and cunning. “And though you profess to be Human, I sense there is much more to that pallid Vessel of flesh.”

“Well met, Priestess.” Nin Pak was not the diplomatic type. It was an expected persona, for despite being an Elemental Prince of a wily Sea Witch Clan, the Warlock possessed the vibe of a Militant Magister. “I have agreed to come because I could not fathom how or why your Shoal came to be, so before we proceed, I would like an assurance.”

“I, as well, am curious.” Sarkonnian’s serpentine musculature shifted sensuously as she spoke, creating the uncanny likeness of a humanoid body trapped under a living sheet of tautly stretched skin. “This Seat would very much like to know who… or what… we are conversing with.”

Gwen did not enjoy being stared at like a curio, even for one who had experienced it daily in the past.

“Not WHAT but WHO.“ Lei-bup spoke in her defence, delivering his sermon speech in the equivalent of Mermen High Gothic. “You address the Regent of Shalkar, Magister of the Shard, Vessel to the Great Tree, and the High Priestess of the Door and the Key!”

Gwen doubted the pair understood a single title, but it did sound very impressive.

“Thank you, Lei-bup.” She placed a gloved hand on the oily shoulder of her oozing high priest before floating forward. “And as for why we are here—we are here on your invitation, Lady Sarkonnian. Did you not offer our Shoal a permanent residence beside the Fifth Swell so that we may all participate in the bounty of its offerings from the Elemental Plane of Water?” She turned to the Warlock before Sarkonnian could answer. “Are we not welcome, Lord Nin Pak?”

The translation stone had to be doing its job, for Sarkonnian and Nin Pak appeared taken back by her hijacking of the initiative.

“Lady Sarkonnian offered you a place in the Fifth Vel?” The Warlock’s agitation rippled the water around him, distorting the space between them. “If so, she offered a portion of the sea she did not possess.”

Sarkonnian chuckled at the Mer’s displeasure. “You’re welcome to refuse, as the circumstances now differ from our discussion. Yet, I found her Shoal worthy of a place. As for the Fifth, are you violently disinclined or just disgruntled?”

So that’s her ploy, Gwen growled inwardly. Of course, they were doing the same, but the smoke and mirror games were mentally taxing.

“You misunderstood our intentions, Princess.” Gwen moved closer to the position of Nin Pak’s troops. “I would not have ventured so deep were there not an opportunity here to better my Shoal and make new friends.”

“Hoh…” Nin Pak’s face relaxed somewhat as he studied Sarkonnian’s growing irritation. “The Fifth Vel can benefit those it considers its friends.”

“Aye, our humble Priestess is a friend with benefits.” Lei-bup added with a wink, much to Gwen’s internal screaming. “The Fifth Vel is a large place with plenty of resources for the open-minded ruler.”

“Do you really believe that, Nin Pak?” Sarkonnian’s flesh quivered. On the serpentine Mer, Gwen saw the likeness of a bejewelled belly dancer. “She may look like a Human, but I know her true form. They are greedy and avaricious and see us as little more than pawns and fodder. There are rumours that in the South Sea, the Sixth Vel had met with one such as herself and lost three Princes. Is that what you want for your Shoal, Nin Pak?”

“You speak as though you are my beneficiary.” Nin Pak seemed to enjoy the Manta-Mer’s consternation. “Is it offensive to yourself that we of the Fifth Vel can make our own choices?”

Gwen was surprised that the hostility between the two could be so honest—but also understood that politics were far less twisted in the underwater world. Those who ruled by power and tyranny tended to perceive dilemmas as problems that could be torn apart rather than unravelled like an intricate cat’s cradle, and such was the impatience on display here.

Nin Pak was on the losing side of a long contest, and while Sarkonnian could afford to pull Gwen’s leg, the Nin Clan had far less flexibility.

“I can see you’re close friends,” Gwen spoke over them, ending the bickering. “Our Shoal is greatly pleased by your joint welcome—but also fatigued from the long journey into the deep. As fellow rulers, you should also know that care for your people comes first…”

Both Nin Pak and Sarkonnian followed her words with raised browns of doubt.

“… and the people need to know there will be good shelter and fertile hunting grounds,” Gwen continued. “If you will settle us briefly between you, we will welcome additional envoys to find our place within the Fifth Vel.”

“The Priestess speaks for all of us,” Lei-bup added sagely. “Else, we have enough resources to return to the surface…”

“Stay at the Circle of Cobalt, where the hunt is plentiful.” Lei-bup’s trailing silence enjoyed only a few seconds of resistance before a compromise was brokered by Nin Pak. “The region is not far from where our Leviathan roosts.”

“A suitable place for a newly arrived Shoal.” Sarkonnian did not disagree with Nin Pak but studied Gwen intently. “We will speak again, Vessel. Hopefully, next time, without the interruption of the low-born.”

“And you are welcome to visit Ghurghdp Hiij, where the malignant eye of the First Vel is made less inquisitive,” Nin Pak’s tone grew firmer in its conviction. “Whatever you may be, Priestess, there is much wonder within its coral walls. This I can promise you.”

Before the two could bicker again, Gwen signalled to Lei-bup for a full retreat.

Her High Priest made his promises of platitude, hinted at their interest in Bright Reef, and then recoiled their entourage from the meeting space like a tendril.

“How was that?” Gwen noted that she had not felt intimidated by either of the Mer leaders. She had now seen her share of Demi-gods, and the Fish-folk were not much of either. Nin Pak was at best at the level of Golos, and Sarkonnian herself wasn’t even comparable to Ruxin. It was their armies and their home base, Leviathans, that truly made them impressive.

“We expected this,” Lei-bup offered his reading of the situation as they slid away. “Our only fear was that the invitation was a trap and that both Shoals would be at our necks when we entered Ghurghdp Hiij. Now that it’s clear they both lacked conviction—and trust—in each other to carry out the deed. If so, how could we fail?”

Together with her entourage of Mer, the Pale Priestess glided through the water, their silhouettes illuminated by the glimmering bioluminescence from Bright Reef. At her beckoning, Aristotle began its glacial descent, stirring up swirling currents that sent its parasitic inhabitants reeling in the wake of its passing.

When she re-oriented herself to the Vel’s illuminated egg-like facade, she couldn’t help but think of her shining city on the hill, where its industrious people laboured to make anew what had been turned to ash.

“So what’s next?” She asked her tentacally-endowed advisor. “It’s a little on the nose if we immediately harry the orcas to attack the sea lions.”

“We shall perform the plan as promised. Visit the Reef for a spell; help the Vel, get to know its people.” Lei-bup’s mouth formed the grin of a piranha. “After all, we still need to find the source of the Undead Mer.”

“Well said, High Priest.” Gwen’s gaze returned to the glowing city. “And while we’re at it, let us bring a current of change to these stagnant waters.”

The Fifth Vel.

Ghurghdp Hiij.

“Cali! No eating the locals!”

With one simple trick, the Pale Priestess of the aberrant Shoal transformed prejudice into abject terror.

After settling down, she and a crew of her bodyguards had entered through the main gates of Fifth Vel’s crown city, whereupon Gwen instantly became the greatest curio Bright Reef had ever beheld, inviting unabashed attention from all walks of life.

Most were curious, for indeed, she was a Human, and yet she phased through the water with the ease of a seasoned Sea Witch, unperturbed by the immense pressure of the water.

Unfortunately, a not insignificant number of her observers were also furious.

Gwen did not blame the natives, for a flash mob would have responded exactly the same way if an Orc had wandered into Paris. Additionally, Lei-bup had assured her that something like this was bound to happen, for both Sarkonnian and Pak were rearing to see what she would do and what measures she possessed to defend herself, making the possibility of provocateurs a near certainty.If so, the Pale Priestess would have to show the Mer-rulers exactly why she was called as such.

With the crowd bearing inward as a sardine ball, she conjured forth her Void Familiar, releasing a living stomach into a biome with more vitality than it had ever perceived in its eight years of existence.

Like a pack of spilt cola, Caliban’s inky form spilt forth into the Elemental Plane of Water, sizzling the seawater before it contorted into the likeness of a faceless Koi. Her creature was far more impressive than in her more recent memory, perhaps shaped by the largess of its presence in her mind, or perhaps it was a form best scaled for a seafood buffet. From head to toe, Caliban’s tentacled, lung-fish guise measured almost half a Golos, stretching some nine to ten meters from its featureless bullet head to its tapered, whip-like tail. A collection of fins and tendrils protruded from its torso, hiding what Gwen knew to be a pair of six-fingered hands in prayer that opened to reveal a grasping maw.

The vision was terrifying; only Caliban also bore the supernatural presence of the Night Walker it had consumed in the Antarctic. As it passed through the streets, its murky, ink-like skin seemed to extinguish the light from the city’s all-pervasive bio-lumen organs, transforming it into a roving mass of vaguely fish-shaped hunger.

As expected, no one cleared the crowds faster than Caliban.

Yet, somehow. By some compulsion greater than existential extinction, someone in the crowd threw the first stone.

Her Crab-men moved to intercept—though Caliban transformed the offending missile into nothingness with a tendril whip, then plucked a drably garbed Nin-Mer like Indie summoning an artefact from a museum display.

The occurrences had transpired in a flash, and Gwen’s protest was barely out of her mouth when the surprised Mer launched as if by magic halfway into Caliban’s lower mouth.

“Mer-killer!” someone shouted from the three-dimensional wall of fish surrounding them. “The Human is a Merk—“

She had to stop Caliban yet again, for such was the dexterity and intelligence her creature now displayed as it snatched the new offender within the space of a breath.

For a few eternal seconds, Gwen waited for more provocateurs.

Her soldiers had formed a barrier around her, though there was little they could do as footmen against the ceiling of shimmering scales and writhing fish-flesh bearing down upon the group.

“Caliban, bring them to me,” she communicated the command in Mer so that everyone could hear.

The pair was lowered without ceremony, each with a lamprey tendril attached to their abdomens so that they looked umbilically connected to the shadowy lungfish.

“Is this how Sarkonnian’s men greet their new Overlord?” She demanded of them, scanning one shaking creature to the other. “Or are you sent by Nin Pak?”

The shoal drew back, not expecting that a good old-fashioned lynch mob would spontaneously turn political.

“You, Human!” The first Mer spat, though not very successfully. “You eat Mer alive! I’ve seen it! You’re here to deceive us and make us food!”

The second Mermen protested that he only expressed the feelings of their people.

Gwen gazed at the ten thousand pairs of eyes, some large and yellow and others compound, each a witness to her first display of magnanimity. In the society of the Mer, relenting from extinguishing these two would be a sign of weakness and fear for their backers. To kill them like so much chattel would cement their expectations of her Shoal as a dangerous, Human-corrupted collective.

Whoever had set up this public theatre obviously knew she was coming and had set up a trap.

How unfortunate for her aggressors then that both herself and Lei-bup had counted on the fact, albeit not less than a hundred meters past the coral gates.

“Poor lost souls of the deep, The Great Shoal Forward isn’t what you think,” she spoke for the benefit of their onlookers. Then, to accentuate her performative gestures, she walked a full circle around her panting victims before resting just behind them.

She could feel the paradoxical emotions coursing through her fishy rubberneckers.

Would the Human dismember them now for sashimi?

Or would her horrifying Void-thing consume the Mermen wholesale?

How fortunate, then, that the subject of their obsession was a walking miracle.

From her palm, Gwen excreted two motes of mixed Essences wrapped with a bubble of clarified water. In the shadow of Caliban, the two droplets of Golden Mead appeared as pearlescent cats’ eyes, pushing away the life-sucking dread radiating from her aberrant lungfish.

“The Great Shoal Forward is fair,” Gwen’s voice projected through the water in mimicry of Sarkonnian’s projection. “We do not believe that a Shoal’s citizens should exist as fodder for the demigods among us. Instead, even the meanest Mermen have their purpose within the great coral circle of life.”

The droplets hovered toward her two assailants.

Unable to help themselves, their bodies forced their mouths to open, for such was the yearning for that universal blessing of life contained in the sap of a World Tree.

As one, the crowd swallowed as the fishes swallowed.

Caliban allowed its prizes to go, withdrawing its Aura of Desolation as per Gwen’s intent.

“ARRRRGGH—!” The Nin-Mer let loose a cry of unconstrained triumph as the unadulterated elixir of life coursed through its abused body, repairing injuries and strengthening his bones.

His compatriot was the opposite, falling to his knees in prayer to weep as old skin and dead scales fell from the exposed parts of his body.

Just as a man from Nazareth had once healed the lame and blind, the infinitely patient Pale Priestess watched with boundless compassion as the offenders plucked from the crowd stood in awe of their newfound health.

“Pale Priestess—“ The first knelt.

“P-Pale Priestess!” The second made a full-body kowtow.

Gwen placed a hand on each of their trembling heads. She understood how they felt, for her Essence now coursed through their Cores.

“There is much death here in the Elemental Plane of Water, much of it without purpose.” Gwen sadly shook her head as her infinitely charitable gaze swept over the crowd, burning the guilty and enlightening the repressed. “And our Great Shoal Forward is about finding your purpose.”

“Please accept us into your Shoal!” The Mermen provocateurs had, as she prophesied, found their new purpose in life. It was inevitable, Gwen supposed, for the experience of the Golden Mead wasn’t just alchemical. They may not have understood the metaphysical sensations coursing through their body—but they understood with perfect clarity that for a split-second, they were connected to something infinitely larger than themselves, something that was all-seeing, ever-present, and vaguely benevolent.

How could their loyalty as fries to a tyrannical Shoal compare to that?

“Then follow,” Gwen indicated to the back ranks of her bodyguards. “When we return to the Shoal, they will find a place for you.”

Others in the fish-ball of watchers broke into a thunderous clamour for undeserved ascension.

“MAKE WAY—! MAKE WAY—!” Her troops glowed red, then golden, their bodies burning with the excess vitality supplied by their inscribed Essence Link. For a moment, it was as though a troop of divine paladins had descended to escort their Pale Priestess.

The crowd rolled backwards as her men advanced, covered by the hovering Caliban, whose warnings of SHAA—! kept the fanatical howlers at bay.

Gwen wasn’t worried. Once her promotional tour through Bright Reef was done, Lei-bup’s work would begin.

Missionaries, each carrying hundreds of red-covered pamphlets, would soon infiltrate the city, bearing the gospel of the Great Shoal Forward. For the Mermen here who had lived under the yoke of oppression for a hundred generations, even the most meagre of her High Priests’ promises of labour and an opportunity for her “Blessing”—would send the fish here into a feeding frenzy.

Meanwhile, comrades of the Shoal who had received blessings would dispense SPAM and other prized foodstuffs to the needy and stand up for the repressed and abused wherever they may find them. Even if the local powers bested them, their borrowed tenacity from the Shoal and empowered by the life furnace of Aristotle itself would manifest as extraordinary displays of selfless sacrifice.

In the long term, it was a matter of time before their Shoal grew beyond the comfort of Pak and Sarkonnian.In the short term, Lei-bup’s evangelism would be an almighty distraction that frazzled their limited imagination.

“Caliban, come—“ Her great lungfish drifted lower until it became an oily, faceless eel trailing behind her shoulder like a scarf carved from shadow and death.

“Commander,” she addressed the senior Crab-kin of its brood, a true decapodian juggernaut armed with an obscenely tentacled claw. “Take us to where the food is sold and traded. I want to see how Bright Reef fends for itself.”

The Fifth Vel.

Aristotle.

Back in her makeshift bed chamber and office, Gwen pondered her tours of the city on a whalebone divan, waiting for the fish to bite.

She had been here for a week now. Though the permanence of the Vel’s energies had blurred her concept of time, her Message devices still operated on its internal metronomes, counting the passage of time in Human terms.

Bright Reef was an interesting place, to say the least.

For a landlubber like herself, the city's three-dimensional nature was astounding up close, for even its broadest avenue was overshadowed by a myriad of networked coral linkages, each a branch from some other overarching growth.

With its present conditions, human habitation was impossible, even with the application of magical items and devices. The infrastructure, populace, and cultural habits were simply inhospitable for mammalian creatures, even ones that had evolved from oceanic cultures. If the city survived, there would not be another Shalkar here. The world of the Mermen would belong to the Mermen themselves, meaning its boons and troubles would also be its own.

For a whole week, Lei-bup’s missionaries had made their case in every nook of the Bright Reef, with the most ardent Mermen believers urged to join them in the kelp fields of Aristotle. For the newcomers, the Great Shoal Forward was a novel and almost unbelievable place.In Bright Reef, Mermen without a Shoal was predated upon by those with one.

Those within a Shoal were predated upon by their superiors within that Shoal.

Yet here in the Shoal of the Pale Priestess, its myriad of Mermen simply got along, interlinked by a belief that seemed to repress their primal instincts. Conflicts still broke out, of course, and Mermen died as they do to the usual hazards of living in the Vel, but there was no looming shadow that one’s children or brood mates would be butchered en mass for feed or that they would be traded as chattel by Mer with nobler blood.

A thrilling whistle rang at her door.

Gwen willed the clamshell to open, revealing Lei-bup, the twins and a few others who looked like new recruits from Bright Reef.

Her fish was now pulling on the line.

“Pale Priestess.” Lei-bup’s yellow eyes told her everything she needed to know. “I bring dire news from Bright Reef.”

“SHAA—!” Caliban hissed from underfoot.

Gwen rolled her dark sausage like a slick log, kneading the embodiment of living hunger with her bare toes, setting the creature to purr.

“Approach, do not feel so frightened.” Gwen’s amicability did not translate well into Mermen's body language, but her new followers seemed to believe her. “What’s the matter? You may speak your mind without fear.”

“Your Highness, this is Nin-bo and his kin of the same brood. They would like to report a case of their missing brood-siblings.”

“The terrible tyranny of the bloodlines never ceases to amaze me,” Gwen repeated a line from the Red Pamphlet. “Come, Nin-bo, who has taken your siblings? The Shoal will not let this stand if they are our believers.”

“Umm…” the star-struck guppie took several seconds before rediscovering his mouth. “They weren’t taken or eaten, your Highness. We would have been told otherwise. What I fear is that they simply disappeared.”

“Disappeared?”

“All sixty-odd of them,” Lei-bup clarified his concern. “I believe we have a case of the… suspicious activities we discussed prior.”

“When did you last see them?” Gwen asked.

“Two days ago, they left for the Coral Mines of Whabpuz Gyli, but they never returned. There were two dozen broods with them, but they told us there were no raiders or monsters while they worked on extracting the mana crystals.”

“This isn’t an isolated event,” Lei-bup added for her information. “Pelahwi here says that her local Cabals have logged almost a thousand such incidents—and that’s in a society that rarely keeps records of anything!”

“I see; this Whabpuz Gyli is owned by who?”

“It’s currently under Sarkonnian’s control,” Lei-bup emphasised the temporal ownership.

“Nin-bo, who hired you?” Gwen asked of the guppie.

“Hire? I am unsure what you mean, Priestess” The Merman flapped his facial fins.

“Ah—the labourers here are compelled to work,” Lei-bup clarified for her. “Hire would infer payment—although I supposed not becoming food for Shark-kin cavalry would constitute payment. There’s only one rule of law here, your Highness, and its power.”

Gwen’s sympathy for the guppies was genuine. “Nin-bo, are there many other families with missing brood-mates?

The fishes nodded as a school.

“Can you put them all in contact with Lei-bup?”

The school confirmed their willingness to serve.

“Then take this with you.” Gwen smiled. Then, in a gesture akin to sowing seeds, she dispensed a droplet of the Golden Mead to each of the lucky few who worked up the courage to approach a foreign Shoal.

After a great show of humility and under the watchful eye of her followers, the surviving guppies metamorphosed into less apologetic versions of themselves.

“We’ll find the missing Mermen, of course,” Gwen promised the prostrating fish-folk. “Whabpuz Gyli, eh? We can send a group of our gainful faithful to offer their boundless labour at the mines. With enough of them, someone is bound to pull a fast one again.”

“And I shall send our Priests to offer prayers for Nin-bo’s peers.” Lei-bup twirled his tentacles. “We will scour the city for the victims, Priestess, and form a great committee of those whose kin have been dragged into the dark without payment!”

“To steal not only the sweat—the excretion of their brows—but the body of labour itself! Atrocious!” Gwen remarked.

“Atrocious!“ Lei-bup and the twins echoed.

“Atrocious…” the guppies mimed them for fear of disrupting the atmosphere.

And after that… Gwen watched as her followers marched away.

A reckoning will come to Bright Reef, driven by its own citizens.

The only question that remained…was who would pay for the curious case of the city’s missing fishes.