The waterways of Europa and beyond were no longer as safe as they once were to those who could not breathe underwater. The Undead Naga, now known as the Necro Naga had become the bulk of the personnel that made up Darksol’s navy and were slowly putting the pressure on the naval trade of Darksol’s foes. Even large rivers were no longer safe to travel by night, as the amphibious ladies of the deep led raids not to dissimilar to the Vikings of Earth along coastlines, claiming plunder of all kinds for their domain. While the Necro Naga were powerful, they were not the only Naga to call the world outside the Dungeon their home, and the power of those who lived in the flowing waters of the world beyond the Dungeon only seemed to increase.

The only difference between them and their Dungeon-dwelling kin was the level of power the races possessed.

Perhaps due to their innate magical nature as former Dungeon Mobs or perhaps due to the innate magical potential that their original selves possessed, all of the Open-Water Naga were intelligent and fully capable of rational thought. It could be said that with the limitations of Dungeon life now removed from them, they could express a great deal more power than they could have done before. In fact, with their limited lives having ended and their free-roaming ones having begun it soon became clear that even what was once a baseline grunt mob with no magical capabilities in their past life now had at least the ability to sling some small spells after a bit of training.

There was a kind of irony that they fully embraced that their living counterparts were, while extremely prideful of their purity and nobility, generally weaker across the board. If you cut off the arms and tail of their living kin, they could not regrow them and would be helpless in many situations, but the ‘Free’ Nagas had no such limitations. Even if you obliterated them down to a single cell, the Emperor of the Deep, Kain, and the Empress of the Deep, Zalga, could bring them back from oblivion quite easily. Even the Necro Naga Empress, the one who now ruled the Free Naga on behest of Kain, had been taught how to weave atoms into molecules and molecules into cells and cells into more complex beings and thus their survival as a race was all but assured.

The only thing that they really had to worry about was that their Deep Emperor dwelled on land, and very far inland too. If it were not for the ape-lamprey woman that had taken him for herself, the Deep Emperor would belong solely to them and could drag the land beneath the waves! This was a naïve delusion, but they all sincerely believed that the Necro Naga Empress was a match for the Crimson Empress of Darksol.

Normally, there would be no chance for their kind to replicate, to expand their ranks, so to speak. Undead couldn’t give birth, at least unless Kain got involved somehow, and Alexis had put her foot down on that matter. The Naga were a purely female race, and with no males to mate with they had to be… creative in how they secured a chance at procreation. It took a bit of experimenting, but eventually they were able to establish cults all along the coast of Darksol and its puppet nation of Neo Albion. In every sea side town there was a decent number of men who would gladly spend a night of passion with their Deep Masters if it meant a bountiful catch for a year to come.

While the increase in the living was no longer a concern by that point, there was the concern of how to increase the numbers of Necro Naga, or as they were known by their living kin ‘The Chosen’. This too was fixed after much negotiation with their former god, the Dungeon Master, and a new way of expanding the ranks of the living and the undead was created.

…

In the Dungeon entrance positioned just off the coast of the puppet nation of Neo Albion, the tide had rolled in and the opening was covered in the saline water that had filled the oceanside cave to the brim. It was at this time, every time the tide rolled in that a special event took place. It was at this time that a select few Naga were allowed outside the Dungeon, but only until the tide came back in again. It was a bit like a cultural exchange of sorts, but the Naga that were leaving were not like their sisters. They had doubts about the gods they had worshipped, the Naga Empress or even the Dungeon Master, and they were about to experience a new way of looking at the world and their own lives.

As they swam out of the cave as others of their kin swam past them and back into the Dungeon. They went far out to sea they delved deeper into the depths of the ocean. Under such little light no normal being could see, but they were not normal beings and could see just as well at the deepest, blackest depths of the ocean floor as they could at the surface. These Naga were on a pilgrimage to a new home for their kind that was being set up in the ocean to the west of the large island called Europa. Deep at the lowest point of the sea floor was a city unlike any on the surface.

To a human there would be no way to see the glittering spires of gold, platinum, bronze, copper, silver and other metals and materials that made up the capital city of the newest puppet-state under Darksol’s umbrella of control. To the Naga that made their first trip there, it was like setting eyes upon Heaven itself, a city that looked to be a twisted mix inspired both by R’lyeh and the Disney Movie ‘The Little Mermaid’. The nation of Atlanti’lyeh was a place founded by the First Naga Empress after her resurrection by the Deep Emperor and the capital city of Nezperdia was a monument to her power and her desire to impress and eventually seduce the one who revived her.

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Those who lived here were powerful beyond measure, with even the weakest of the living Naga who dwelled there being more powerful physically and magically than most Dungeon-bound Naga, and this didn’t count the Chosen. Truly, gazing upon this marvelous place was enough to convince many, if not all who saw it of the merit of the purity that even the Dungeon-bound Naga Empress could not offer. Each time the tide rolled in, new Naga reentered the Dungeon changed beings. They were radically different to the stuffy, holier-than-thou creatures of prideful arrogance that they were before. They were still sisters of those in the Dungeon, but some of them now had a goal in life beyond merely protecting the Empress and the Dungeon.

To leave the still waters of the Dungeon and to eventually become one of the Chosen, those given a second life via resurrection, these were the new goals of many. Some others had a different view on things, their goal was to show others what they were missing, effectively proselytizing to their own kind about the oceans of promise and growth that awaited those with the drive and passion to go beyond their limits. While it was certainly a religious experience, there were a few who decided not to try anything new and returned to the still waters in their floors, but they would never again experience the same thrill and excitement that had been laid before them.

Some of them returned to the Dungeon, but some also stayed behind, and occasionally almost the entire Naga-held parts of the Dungeon would empty for a special celebration held once in a blue moon when the city of Nezperdia was magically lifted to be just above the water line (for the most part).

With each cycle of the tides, the Dungeon lost more inhabitants and thus had more spawned.

With each cycle of the tides, more Naga embraced the gospel of the Deep Empress, Zalga.

With each cycle of the tides, the puppet-kingdom of Atlanti’lyeh grew in scale and brilliance.

With each cycle of the tides, the capital city of Nezperdia became more populated.

With each cycle of the tides, more surfacers came to worship those who dwelled in the deep….

…

Over time, some of the few fishermen who dared to sail out to the Atlantic from the coast of Neo Albion began to come back with wild and unbelievable stories about being whisked away to a place deep beneath the Atlantic Ocean. They spun tales of a place where twisting spires made of precious metals and materials towered up from the bottom of the depths. Eventually, these stories became widespread enough to call sailors from other nations beyond Neo Albion to try to meet the beautiful mermaids who ruled a sunken kingdom of gold and jewels.

However, it seemed to be that even attempting to meet the mermaids was hopeless unless you were a part of the rising power in the west, but eventually even those from other nations besides the fallen and dark land of Neo Albion began to speak in earnest about their trip to the sunken kingdom. And, in a tavern deep in the slums of a Teutonian town far from any bodies of water a single former fisherman was regaling the youths with his story, although he did not seem happy to tell it.

“When the stars are right and the tide is high, go to the point in which the waves go deepest to the bottom, there you will find the crown jewel of the sunken kingdom, rising above the waves for but the briefest moment and forever out of reach. When you see the maidens dance upon the streets, so flooded with water that no man could stand upon them, then quickly cease your gaze. No matter how much you wish to look and the enchanting mermaids, you must shut your eyes and pray to the whims of the sea that you are left unscathed.”

“Why must we do that? Shouldn’t we see the mermaids dance? And why should we pray to the sea? Should we not pray to Lumina instead?”

“No! You must never make that mistake! They dance not for you, but for their Sunken Lady! Should your gaze meet hers then you must never go to any coast again and flee inland as far as you can go. She is a being so far beyond us mere mortal men that to even look in her direction is to realize your own cosmic insignificance, and such a thing is fate worse than death.”

“But why can’t you go near the coast? Should you not just steer clear of the sea?”

“Because of one simple fact, my boy. She is the water and she is the sea, and the sea is a spiteful mistress. To gaze upon the embodiment of water in its perfection is to accept its judgement, and only men who live in Neo Albion seem to escape unscathed. Even then, I have heard tales of seaside towns worshipping her as they make offerings of unspeakable nature to appease her… Mark my words, boy. There are some angels, some gods that should never be gazed upon. I will never dream of anything other than the damnable Drowned Domain that claimed the rest of my crew for the rest of my days, and I will always hear the call to dive beneath the waves and lose my life to the deep. You must never sail the heart of the Atlantic! There is too much to lose and too little to gain…”

The other people in the tavern laughed off the wild ramblings of the man who had drifted in from the northern coast, at least they did until the air around him condensed into a blob of water and drowned him in front of them. The mage who tried to pry the blob of water from his corpse’s face was unable to, as was the high-ranking priest who was brought in to dispel the magic. Eventually, the body was hauled away by the Mage’s Guild so they could try and find a countermeasure to the magic spell that had assassinated this man, but the only knowledge they managed to acquire from studying the spell was that it was a Divine-class magic…