Boris looks over to The Captain for an explanation, but now that the scraping sound to the side of the cavern feels only meters away from the wall, he’s able to connect the dots.

  Right when the herald draws back its hand for a single, decimating strike into the group, the cavern wall collapses, dug through by the crazed appendages of none other than The M.S. Nocturna.

  Grancis cannot believe what she’s seeing, but she can’t see much for long.

  The water pressure forces the ship’s hull through at a torpedo-like speed into the herald, cresting with the weight of an ocean behind it. The water does most of the work, slamming everyone and everything everywhere in a wild swirling current of destruction. Boris holds tight to Grancis, Dunklestein and Cluton, while The Captain puts his every effort in maintaining some pulse of life from Cole. They hold fast, and then the pressure increases drastically. Grancis and Cole feel the immense, squeezing pressure of the water over them: eardrums punctured, and much worse soon to come. While The Nocturna battles the herald in the enormous underwater tomb, Glorma’s many servants rise up from the very bottom of the temple, which just a minute ago had a deep, cavernous lake within. Mermaids and mermen: scaly, crank-jawed horrors wriggling like maggots in the sunlight, race for the group.

  The Captain launches off from the stone bridge, just peaceful moments ago, with Boris in a frantic swim back the way they came. They don’t want to be swimming in open water with a bare human like this. They’re progressing at a racing speed: when he wants to go fast, The Captain is nearly as swift as Boris in the water.

  “They shouldn’t have caught on to u-” The Captain stops himself, looking down to watch the merms, but also realizing the unconscious Cole’s bandaged-up injury has reopened.

  Genuine human blood flows through The Eversea, and everything for a hundred miles away picks up on it.

  “Obviously,” The Captain scoffs to himself.

  Dunklestein, having regained his baring with a shocking speed, snaps up Cluton’s rifle, the one that still has ammunition in it, and begins firing down at their pursuers.

  Unlike the herald, conventional arms work perfectly fine against these wild monstrosities, and also quite unlike metal slugs, the harpoons skim brilliantly through as many as three merm creatures at a time.

  The group swims at a frantic speed through the halls, the illusions shattered due to the herald’s break in concentration while brawling with The Nocturna.

  The Captain remembers the way, and navigates the group all the way back to the original cavern, battling scores of merms at a time with their firearms. Cole’s diving suit, which they originally intended to recollect and replace on the boy, has washed away from the flood. They’re going to have to risk going up without it.

  The Captain shoves Boris to get his attention amidst the racing currents.

  “You know that thing Dunklestein would hate?” The Captain starts.

  Dunklestein, in the collective group hug with Grancis and the now-unconscious Cluton, beams at The Captain with utter disgust.

  “OH, I AM OF THE KNOWING IT,” Boris says with a lot more excitement than his shark-companion would appreciate.

  “Get your “friend” up there, and take care of the O.E.L. ship before the whole archipelago is on our tail.”

  The mighty and good-cookening Boris fires off a salute, and splits his handful of companions between both claws, allowing him to navigate the group up with shocking ease.

  The Captain checks Cole, looks through him, checks his vitals using his sand, and estimates the very minimum amount of time before critical damage is dealt to Martaine’s body.

  “We’re running out of suitable hosts,” he says to himself with a chuckle, right before prepping to dive up through the thin way again.

  The H.E.G. Arwald Seventeen gains a Hasty Decommission

  Her Eternal Goddess’ Arwald Seventeen of The Requisitions Corps hovers gently over the reef, its cloaking field at max coherence and its post-fusion tech whirring along chipperly. It’s been waiting for nearly half an hour now, and the on-board crew is starting to get a little bit tired of looking at the same monitors, providing the same boring readings.

  Inter-Spatial Admiral Librarian Kernings is leaning back in his helm chair, watching a slew of terrifying sea creatures converge in on the one cave point where the away team was sent.

  “Well, that’s strange,” Librarian Eyrn notes on her monitor.

  Using a shared monitor set up, all Kernings needs to do is look into her projection using his in-helmet overlay. “That is peculiar,” he notes. Must be blood.”

  “Our agents… then?”

  Kernings sighs, takes another miserable glance at the suit feedback screens, where all four of the away team’s suits are drawing back numbers of “0”. The suits are still working, it’s like they were plucked straight out of them somehow. “It’s likely,” he explains. “Against R.W. Threes you can’t really know what the hell’s going on.”

  She sighs as well, looking over the crazed frenzy of horrors smashing frantically against each other and the solid rocks to squeeze into the passage. They’re so rabid, so senseless, that most of them are being crushed to death just attempting to get in. “Just a month or so and we’d be able to handle this.”

  Kernings leans back again. “Don’t believe everything you read from The Technicals. They said we’d get our Ywnaho five about four decades ago.”

  She grunts gently. Like most Librarians she’s consistently disappointed in how incompetent-seeming the Technical Corps can be when reverse engineering and refining their “new releases”. The reality is never that simple, of course: realizing an all-around upgrade to a firearm that’s been in service for thousands of years is a daunting task, and most Technical Corps administrations don’t want to be remembered as the ones that messed it all up.

  “So you don’t really think we’ll be getting those anti-extra stuff soon, sir?”

  The admiral’s silent, but the operator next to Eyrn opens his line.

  “I hear that it’s in trials now,” Librarian Ywr starts. “Only being issued to ‘special elements’ though.”

  The admiral scoffs and Eyrn sighs once more. “So you’re saying we won’t see it for like…”

  “Years,” Ywr says. “More than likely.”

  She taps her suited elbow against her console. “How long does it take these weirdos to decide if we’re responsible enough to use something?”

  “Extra dimensional weaponry is real shit,” the admiral chimes back in. “Saw a demonstration once.”

  She turns back with interest. “Yeah?!”

  “So they set up some subspacer P.O.S. for execution with an extra-dimensional tracking signal, to make sure he ended up at the realm they wanted.”

  “Yeah?” she says, egging him on and turning away from her monitor, which actually starting to read back some pretty important topographic feedback relative to their mission.

  The admiral nods back with a grin behind that computer-dense helmet of his. “Let’s just say things got pretty heated for him when his tracker correctly replied back to them with ‘Hell #88’.”

  For those not in the know, Hell #88 is one of the many “Hell” dimensions referred to among The Omniverse. It’s the one where victims are forced to “enjoy” the ultimate sauna for eternity, running between a freezing cold outside and a just-under-boiling inside over and over again. Most Omniverse exploration enthusiasts agree this wouldn’t be so bad, if it weren’t for the fact that the only people the condemned have to talk to during their everlasting torment are all commission-based time-share salesmen.

  “Sweeeet,” Eyrn says with a vicious inflection.

  “Again with the puns,” Ywr whispers to himself, looking back to the shared monitors out of habit feeling good about how little work the other two are doing in comparison to himself, considering he’s going to report the mission records to the Inspector General once all this stupid garbage is over. He squints with interest when a certain number starts rising on his display gauges.

  “Hey, s-”

  “So you can understand,” the admiral starts, interrupting Ywr, “that they don’t just want to give anyone the ability to shoot someone to hell.”

  “But isn’t that like, how guns work in the first place?”

  He points with a savvy flair, but in the way an unsavvy older man might do it. “Ahh, but can those guns hit non-physical entities?”

  “Sir, I-”

  “True,” she says with a nod, interrupting Ywr once more. “Yeah, all I’m saying is you’re going to have to explain this to Scribe Aqan why Lorn and his trigger happy dumbasses aren’t with us on the way back.”

  “Their fault branching into infantry,” the admiral says with a wry, unofficial tone.

  The two share a light, rather cruel chuckle. “I hated them anyway,” Eyrn says. “What a bunch of self-righteous cunts.”

  “Rondi’s True Knights,” Kernings mutters with a pretentious sigh, repeating the O.E.L. Infantry Corps’ nick-name amongst themselves. “They’re a necessary evil though, I suppose,” he continues, just as Ywr takes a deep breath. “It’s not like you could give me a rifle and tell me to go into a Goddess-forsaken hole like-”

  “SIR!” Ywr screams at the top of his lungs.

  The two start over to look at him.

  “Check your FUCKING GAUGES,” he adds with enough volume to get him brigged on a ship as poorly managed as this one.

  “You little…” Kernings was just about to give Ywr the chewing of a lifetime, but in a scant moment of actual professionalism, he does in fact scan his eyes across the topography data.

  There’s something very, very close to the surface of the water, and it’s moving their way.

  “What is wrong with you, Ywr,” Eyrn asks with the tone of a true interrogator. “You don’t just yell at th-”

  “Manual, now!” Kernings screams over his mic.

  With practiced speed, Eyrn slams down on the manual pilot option, allowing anyone on the bridge to drive.

  Admiral Librarian Kernings juts out his hands, the on-helm camera picking up the shape and realizing he wants to control the ship. It designates him at the operator with a confirming, cheerful *ping!* but this is exactly the same moment that Boris bursts out of the water with an enormous, gargantuan sea snail’s fang, headed right behind him at a truly blinding speed. With a movement that would make Boris seem more like a light-suit mech than a lobster, he spins out of the way mid-air, just in time for the enormous, hyper-venomous skewer of the reef beast to slams into the bridge of the H.E.G. Arwald Seventeen. With a swing and a pull, the ship’s computers cannot hope to calculate the correct trajectory to right itself, and it’s pulled straight into the sea.

  “I fucking told you mother fuckers tha-” and that’s all Librarian Ywr gets to say before the bridge is flooded and invaded by a violent frenzy of blood-frantic sea animals.

  Fifty meters off, Boris lands on a rocky outcropping with the two smaller ones intact, and an okay but emotionally-shaken Dunklestein.

  “WELL, THAT WAS OF THE CLOSE!”

  Dunklestein holds onto Boris’ massive arm a mast on a raft: his only salvation. “Never… do that… again.”

  “THANKING OF THE YOU, BIG FRIENDING!” Boris shouts out to the massive sea snail, the same one that he lured to help chase the Librarians into the cave.

  The snail doesn’t say anything, it’s just doing its best to collapse the space ship’s hull against the opening of its shell.

  “I AM OF THE THINKING THAT HE IS OF THE BUSY. WE SHOULD BE GOING BACK IN TO BE GETTING OF THE CAPTAIN AND THE COLE MEAT.”

  Dunklestein wriggles with a sudden burst of energy. “No, no way, pal! Leave us on this rock or so help me-”

  “YOU WANT TO BE OF THE PUTTING DOWN?”

  Dunklestein nods with vicious speed. “Hell yes I do!”

  “THAT IS OF THE OKAYING WITH ME!” Boris drops everyone on the rock, but takes extra care with the somehow-still conscious Grancis, her arms crossed securely around the little rock she got from the temple.

  Dunklestein and Grancis watch next to an unconscious Cluton while Boris leaps back into the chaotic amalgamation of sea beasts. Their area in the reef is now so crowded that not a single patch of clear water is visible. Drawn away by the blood of the newly-fallen O.E.L., the mass of the feeding frenzy focuses in on the spaceship, rather than the cave entrance, and when Boris makes waterfall, the creatures naturally make a space for him; even they are not senseless enough to get in his way.

  Grancis limps about, trying to move forward and get a better look. She coughs a few times, but for some reason she doesn’t feel nearly as bad from the sudden change of pressure as last time. “Do you… ” she clears her throat, doing her best to prevent the croak. “Do you think they’re okay?”

  Dunklestein scoffs at the mere thought as he leans back to sit down somewhere. “Come on, kip. Get real.”

  Grancis stares at the wild frenzy for a moment, and spots Boris squeezing into the cave once more. “Yeah… I should get real.”

  Dunklestein glances over to make sure Cluton is okay, he is, and then back at the scene below. “You’re a good kid, kip. You’re too good for all this mercenary garbage, whatever you are.”

  Grancis’ face looks a little wetter to Dunklestein, and he’s not sure if it’s the saltwater or not. “Y-yeah,” she mutters. “Whatever I am.”

  Dunklestein’s excitable, ‘always-action’ expression sobers up a little. “Kip. Whatever’s going on with you, I’m sure Cole’s feelin’ the same way.”

  She slants her eyes at the idea. “I guess s-… he, right now, is going through a lot of changes too. He’s just acting strong.”

  “Would you expect kip to act any other way?”

  The two share a quick chuckle, and Dunklestein looks up, out to the horizon, instead of the splashing carnage below. “I knew she’d become great, whatever’d happen to her, but now that he can take me one on one… I think my time with him’s about up.” He sighs. “And I just gotta see him go on, do greater things.”

  Grancis stares out to the horizon with him, the sun steadily curling on the tip of the horizon with a promise of the glorious sunset. “Maybe so… maybe it’s the same with me. Maybe I just need to let go, and let her become what she’s supposed to be.”

  Dunklestein shrugs. “Or maybe he just needs someone to reign ‘em in. Keep an eye on him, alright? Because I know I will be, but he’s a lot to handle.”

  Grancis looks over to Dunklestein, and realizes that he’s actually not half bad. “Yeah, okay.”

  The two watch the beginning of the sunset for a moment, serenaded by the combined screams of the eldritch and O.E.L.. A minute passes, and Grancis spots a red dot appear in the water, with a torn-up captain and a perfectly intact Cole in his arms. Boris leaps up again to the rock, at the same time The M.S. Nocturna breaches the surface over from the drop off.

  The Captain, being held like a baby by Boris while simultaneously holding Cole like a baby, glances down to Grancis, spots the rock, and then shoots out his thumb in congratulation. “Mission complete!” The Captain exclaims.

  Dunklestein laughs. “That so, Cap?”

  “That is so, Dunklestein The Daring.”

  “So where’s out little gem?” The semi-shark asks while The Nocturna cruises over to the reef with careful, very unshiplike movements.

  The Captain points at Grancis. “Right here.”

  Dunklestein shakes his head. “And the reason we went on this trip was for friendship, I betcha,” he says with a crass tone, certain the The Captain’s referring to Grancis rather than the unassuming stone she’s holding onto.

  “No no, she is holding The Mermaid’s Tear,” The Captain corrects, getting set down by Boris so he can stand upright with Cole.

  “Fuck you say?!” Dunk spits, winning an instant glare from The Captain.

  “Huh?”

  “OHHHH, I AM OF THE SEEING NOW,” Boris exclaims. “BECAUSING IT WAS OF THE NAVIGATORING, IT WAS OF THE MISNAVIGATORING USING DIFFERENTINGS OF THE SIGHTINGS!”

  “Precisely,” The Captain says. “As a realm constructed by Glorma, it made use of multiple modes of illusion to navigate victims about. Turns out we were lucky Estradia laced that laudanum with LSD or else that would have been far more difficult.”

  “OH, THAT IS OF THE RIGHT.” Boris turns to The Captain. “YOU WERE TAKING OF QUITE A LOT OF THAT STUFFINGS. ARE YOU OF THE OKAY?”

  The Captain nods flippantly. “Well… the sea is all pink… frankly everything is pink right now. I am talking to Boris, aren’t I?”

  The folks exchange a few awkward glances at The Captain’s expense.

  “So, you’re seein’ that Grancis has The Tear,” Dunklestein says, making sure he has the situation understood.

  The Captain nods with a loose tilt. “Yes… wow it’s taking effect fast. Erm… but, yes, you see. Grancis can spot out… wait, no that’s a secret.”

  “She just did it, Cap!”

  “Yeah,” Grancis says, looking over the stone. “I don’t know why it just… seemed… different. Like it was talking to me.”

  “Yeah, well I’m not telling,” The Captain notes right when The Nocturna sails up to the side of the rock. “Now let’s be on our way. I need to handle business with that stupid idiot back on the island before I’m too long gone!” he says, a relieved crew coming out from the sealed decks to come and greet the successful away party.

  “What are you going to say to the slug person?” Grancis asks.

  “Oh, I’ve had a change of heart,” The Captain says. “I’m afraid we simply have to give him The Mermaid’s Tear after all.”

  “So you were really thinking we could get away without giving it to him?”

  The Captain shrugs. “Eversea folks have a lot of secrets in their bags. It’s a crying shame that we have to return it, but I’m sure it’s for the best. We don’t want a warlock of Glorma on our tail,” he explains, handing off Cole to Boris and outstretching his open hand. “The Tear, if you please.”

 

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