“Are you sure you still want to meet her then?”
“Yeah?”
“Alexio, what exactly is a forbidden mermaid?” Freya asked.
“A mermaid who has been deemed a betrayer to the mermaid kingdom.”
“Well that should have been obvious just from the name,” Nyx said.
“This is an intriguing development, Diablo,” Acnologia said.
Yes, but also potentially dangerous, I sighed, and swam through the waters. About ten minutes in the land sloped down once more, and far off in the distance, about a mile away, stood a collection of structures—small buildings of bright colors. To a dazed, or careless eye, they’d look similar to the coral reef we had left behind.
“Is that the kingdom?” I asked.
Alexio shook his head. “That is an outpost,” he said. “It is a small town living outside the borders. The actual kingdom is very large!”
“I see. Are we heading to the outpost?”
“We will avoid it. Surface dwellers are not seen favorably by the mermaids.”
I guess I should have expected that, I thought. “Alexio, you don’t seem that way though.”
“I am not a regular mermaid,” he smiled. “Merman,” he corrected himself.
I chuckled. “That is good to know.”
“We will take another path to Voora’s house,” he said. “One that avoids the outposts. It is much shorter as well.”
“Where’s this path?” I asked.
He swam a little further and pointed. “There.”
My eyes followed his finger to another landform. A tunnel laid in a wall about fifty yards ahead, and it felt like darkness filled it more than the water did.
My shoulders slumped. How wonderful.
“Zoran, you’re the Phantom Lord,” Nyx said. “At least pretend to be more confident than this kid is about treading into darkness.”
Hey, he’s not the one that has to worry about losing his breathing powers here, okay? I touched my neck.
“I wonder if your Water Arts skill will eventually allow you to breathe underwater.”
Well, I hope it does. That plant tasted terrible.
“We go down now,” the little merman said and dived, descending steeper than before. We followed him, through the waters and toward the tunnel.
The young boy hovered over the shadowy entrance. “We need to be careful here, okay?” he said.
I frowned. “What do we need to be careful about?”
“Oh, nothing big, just fire and spikes.”
“Oh, just—wait what?”
He looked at us. “Is that not okay?”
“No!”
“These are normal things here. I will keep you safe. Just follow me.”
And without letting me speak another word, the young one swam in. I looked at Freya, but she just shrugged her shoulders and swam down, following him in.
“I guess it’s okay then?” I hovered for another second and then pushed down, catching up to the two of them a few yards into the tunnel. Freya summoned her ball of light, and illuminated the region before us.
Sharp extensions protruded from the walls, and extended out a foot at least. They were all around, and we swam away from them, following the narrow line of safety before us.
“Move carefully,” Alexio said. “The spikes contain poison that is hard to heal. The antidote exists but you will be in much pain before we find it.”
Sure. Of course they’re poisonous. Why wouldn’t they be?
We swam for another minute before the young one held up his hand, stopping us. He looked around for a second, and then nodded. “Odd,” he said. “The flames don’t seem to be active today.”
“I’ve been meaning to ask this before,” Acnologia said. “But flames underwater?”
Well, it’s probably possible.
“I doubt it.”
Alexio swam forward once more, and we followed. How much longer will this breathing plant last? It’s been like forty minutes already, hasn’t it?
“I didn’t keep track,” Nyx said. “I’m sure the merman did. He seems quite responsible.”
“We’re almost there.” The young one said a minute later. We swam with gusto after, and in seconds we’d reached a special kind of darkness in the tunnel.
Why was it special? Well, for one the light from Freya’s ball couldn’t get through it. I activated my Night Vision skill but that didn’t help in any way either.
What is that?
Alexio stood before the hazy black. “Voora?” he called out. “I have brought two visitors with me.”
The darkness shifted, and a raspy voice called out. “I will see no one,” she hissed. “Leave.”
The tone sent a shiver down my spine, but we weren’t ready to give up just like that.
“Voora, please,” Freya said. “Our friend Ijyela asked us to come to you. It’s very important we talk right away.”
Two eyes of blue shone through the darkness. “Ijyela?” the voice chuckled. “I haven’t heard that name in years.”
Freya’s face brightened. “She asked us to meet with you. Please?”
Voora laughed, and her raspy voice echoed through the tunnel. “I have better things to do than to entertain two surface-dwellers.”
“Please,” Freya said. “We just need—”
“LEAVE!” Her voice boomed.
A blast of blue light shot out of the darkness. However, it didn’t strike us, but Alexio instead. The young merman screamed in pain as the attack hit him, and in an instant the little one had dissolved into a shoal of gray fish.
I watched wide eyed as the creatures swam, leaving me alone in the sounds of my own heartbeat.
Alexio was gone.
***
CHAPTER FIVE
Anger coursed through me.
The merman child had done nothing but help us get to where we needed to. Freya and I were the ones who had requested to come here. Freya and I were the ones who wanted to meet this Voora.
And yet the child was the one who was now the shoal of fish that had disappeared into the darkness.
“Why did you do that?” Freya’s knuckles turned white as she clenched her sword.
I stared at the eyes of blue. “You took it too far.”
And in that moment, I snapped.
I thrust my palm forward. “Kezio!” I yelled. A twister of black winds surged out of my hands and shot into the darkness. They’d only traveled a few yards when all of a sudden, the waters around us shook, and in an instant, the attack broke apart.
Damn it! I attacked once again. “Tritus Oceanus!” I yelled. A blast of water shot out, pushing through the dark depths.
“Tritus Oceanus!” Voora repeated.
Another blast struck out, and this one was much larger than mine. The attack completely obliterated my attempt and surged into me. Freya and I flipped through the waters, rotating multiple times before coming to a stop.
“A Water Arts spell,” Voora chuckled. “How amusing.”
My feet kicked and I brought my twisting motion to a stop. “There is nothing amusing about it,” I muttered.
“You have strength. That I will acknowledge.”
“And do what?”
“Come.”
Her eyes blinked once and then disappeared. I looked at Freya. “What do we do now?”
“Head in,” Nyx said, but I stayed put, and moved only when the elf nodded at me.
The two of us headed down into the darkness.
Just a few seconds in, I could no longer see Freya, nor could I hear the sounds of swimming next to me. The haze had blocked my senses, rendering me blind and deaf at once.
“She’s close by, don’t worry,” Nyx said. “Unless this haze has a way to manipulate your maps as well, I can tell you for sure that she’s beside you.”
I nodded and headed through. Where are those blue eyes? The thought just reminded me of Alexio, and that just made me angry. Really angry.
Now isn’t the time. I exhaled and swam thr
ough, using my anger to fuel my swimming pace. In a few moments, I saw a speck of light before me—a lone point coming from far off.
I swam towards it with vigor, and pushed through the haze as I made my way to the speck of light.
A second later I exited this darkness as the black haze in the tunnel ended. We were still in the tunnel, but it was dully illuminated. The pathway sloped downwards, and a few yards away hovered a bright speck light. The pathway widened deeper further in as well. There’s some kind of room down there.
I turned and saw Freya swim up to me. Her eyes were focused on the light as well.
She pointed at it. “Down there?”
I nodded. “Seems like our best bet.”
She also nodded, and we headed down, making our way towards the light. A few more yards after, the tunnel widened, and the light within it turned brighter. I blinked, to get used to the excess light, and when I did, I was stunned.
We were in some kind of room now. A bed of shells and metal sat in the corner, and on the opposite side was a desk made of old, molding wood. Paper scrolls laid over the ground, some half-opened, others properly rolled up.
“You made it,” a voice said.
I turned, and there before me, hovered a mermaid.
“Voora.” My fists clenched.
“Indeed.”
She had hair that was leaf-green, and yet had some fluorescent glow to it. Her eyes were teal now—like the shades of a radiant ocean—and she looked at me with a wry smile on her face. A mermaid tail swished beneath her torso, and had scales colored similar to the young boy’s—purple, green and blue. She held a staff of mud-brown, and atop it sat a large pearl of milky-white.
“Why did you do that to Alexio?” I clenched my teeth, and anger coursed through me once again.
She chuckled. “Do what, dear?”
My eyes widened. Why is she laughing? Was she going to pretend like she hadn’t just turned that young boy into a shoal of fish?
I heard a giggle and my heart froze. Voora waved her staff in the air, and a string of lights emerged. The water before me folded away, as if an image was being torn down.
A current struck out, rushing around me for just a second, and when it was gone, a young merman of teal-hair and similar-shaded eyes hovered before me, with a smile on his lips.
Freya gasped. “Alexio?”
The little one nodded. “I can’t believe you fell for that.”
“I told you we’d get them,” Voora chuckled.
“What?” I blinked, looking at the priestess and then at the little boy.
Freya’s eyes narrowed. “What’s going on here?”
“This is just a simple little trick we play on visitors every once in a while,” the mermaid said. “Just to have some fun with them.”
“Why did you even attack us in the first place then?” Her voice was stern.
“Those were all valid events,” she said. “I most certainly did not trust you both, and even now I only trust you enough to know you do not mean me any harm.”
I glared at her. “I’d say that’s questionable.”
Freya slapped my wrist, and shook her head at me.
“Do understand,” the mermaid said. “If you both try to attack me, it will not end well for you. Facing a mermaid in the water is never a good idea. And a mermaid priestess at that.”
How strong is she anyway? I wondered, and used my Analyze skill on her.
DING!
Name
Voora
Race
Mermaid Priestess
Level
942
Health
14710
Mana
14320
Stamina
14330
What? I froze. How the hell is she that strong?
“I guess you just level up that much if you live for so long,” Nyx said.
Either way it was clear from this that the mermaid was not someone I should take on, especially while we were still in the water. I was strong, but she could wreck me here if she wanted to.
“We have questions to ask of you, Voora,” Freya said.
“I figured as much,” the mermaid smiled. “So Ijyela sent you.”
We nodded.
“Ijyela,” she muttered. “I have not heard that name in a very long time.”
I flinched. Uh oh.
“Doesn’t sound like they had a healthy relationship,” Nyx said.
“Ijyela?” Alexio asked, his eyes wide. “Priestess, isn’t Ijyela the one that—”
She nodded. “She is.”
I looked between the priestess and the young boy. What is this about? I wasn’t sure if I could ask either.
However, Freya had no such qualms.
“Did something happen between you and Ijyela?” she asked.
Voora sighed. “She is one of the reasons I was banned from the kingdom,” she said. “Actually, she is the reason I was banned from the kingdom. And labeled a ‘forbidden mermaid’ as well.”
I blinked. “Ijyela got you banned?”
“How?” the elf asked.
“That is an odd story,” Voora said. “I do not know how Ijyela looks now, but back in the day she used to be quite the warrior, always wearing male-clothing, and with her white hair cut quite short.”
“What?” An amused smile curled on my lips at the thought of the image.
She nodded. “It wouldn’t be hard to mistaken her for a man back in those days.”
“Wait.” My eyes narrowed. “What does this have to do with you being banned?”
“You see, the mermaid Kingdom bans illicit relationships with surface-dwellers,” she said. “And once when Ijyela stayed the night here, we were mistaken to be a pair of lovers—a longing man from the surface, and his beloved mermaid from the sea.”
“Oh. My. God.” I hunched over, and laughter exploded from me. This was not the story that I had expected to hear. But it all made sense now. This was why Ijyela had said things were ‘complicated’ between her and the mermaid.
“How long ago was this?” Freya asked.
“A few centuries,” Voora said.
I held back my laughter. “Have you spoken to Ijyela since?”
“Not till recently. She contacted me, asking about some ‘Time Lord’ she was trying to learn about.”
“Ah,” I said.
“Exactly. What an odd thing to inquire about. A ‘Time Lord’,” she chuckled.
If only you knew.
“So.” She looked at me, then at Freya. “What did the two of you come to the forbidden mermaid for? I do not get as many visitors anymore.”
“Ijyela sent us,” I said. “She told us you had sensed some oddities around the lands.”
“Now she’s accepting my claims?” She raised an eyebrow, then sighed. “I most certainly did sense an oddity. What exactly are you searching for though?”
I hesitated for a moment. “A Spectral Spirit.”
“A what now?”
“You see, I’m the Phantom Lord.”
She frowned. “A who now?”
I blinked. What?
“You don’t know who the Phantom Lord is?” Freya asked.
“If this is something about the surface then do not expect me to know much of it,” she chuckled. “It has been many centuries since I actually paid attention to what was going on up there.”
Mermaids live for that long? I wondered. Feels like everyone is living for centuries these days.
“Have you heard of the Eternals?” Freya asked.
“Ah, the Eternals,” Voora said.
“You know about that?”
“Most certainly. Why would I not? The Mermaid Kingdom had such a woman many millennia ago.”
“What?” I blinked.
She chuckled. “Did you think Eternals lived only on land, boy?”
“Wow,” I said, realizing that was something I’d just assumed for some reason.
“Does this Phantom Lord thing mean you are also a
n Eternal?”
“Yeah.”.
“That explains this weird presence I feel from you.”
“I get that a lot,” I chuckled. “What about this Mermaid Eternal? Do you know anything about her?”
“She was called the Ocean Empress,” she said. “But that is about all I know. There used to be a few scholarly articles in the kingdom about the woman, of who she was and what conquests she made. But as a forbidden mermaid I lost access to them before I could even find them all.”
“That’s unfortunate,” I said.
“Many of us know of the Ocean Empress, but most are not aware she was what you would call an Eternal.”
“So,” Freya looked at the mermaid. “Getting back to topic, what can you tell us about that oddity?”
“To be perfectly honest,” Voora began. “It is probably not okay to just call it an oddity. I looked into the presence more after I talked to Ijyela, and have been able to determine quite a few things now.”
“That’s good,” I said. “What can you tell us?”
“I spent days in meditation, trying to place my consciousness as close to this oddity as possible,” she said. “And a few days ago, I hit a breakthrough.”
We looked at her, waiting for the information.
“The oddity is not a mere presence,” she said. “It is some kind of an object. I can tell that the presence has been trapped in something.”
“Sounds like a Spectral Spirit to me,” Nyx said.
Well, we’ve been wrong before.
“I know. We’ll still be cautious, but it really does seem like this could be your Spectral Spirit.”
“Does this oddity mean something very important to you?” Voora asked.
I looked at her. “Yes?”
She smiled. “I was just curious is all,” she said. “It has been a while since I saw any adventurer with such vigor.”
“By the way, Voora,” Freya said. “You have yet to mention where you sensed this oddity.”
“Ah,” she said. “It was at the Hexel ruins.”
Freya frowned. “That doesn’t sound like a safe place.”
She chuckled. “Ijyela used to explore it quite a bit back in the day,” she said. “I do not think much happens around there anymore. I have not personally seen it but I heard it has turned into a desolate wasteland now.”
The Eternal: Infinity - A LitRPG Saga (The World of Ga'em Book 4) Page 5