Crossing the great Obsidian Mountains was easy going, having to ford some deep rivers and climb steep lifts was harder for the animals but they seem to find a way around any time the need to climb a sheer cliff they were already waiting at the other side. Coming to a high place she spies an Alter to Aries carved of stone. Vaguely that of a man, with a Ram’s Head and a cluster of horns both curled and straight came out of his temples, atop his head a golden Sun Disk and an Obsidian Serpent. The offerings were all the hands of children and eyes of animals. It filled her with a deep hate and she kicked the offerings to the ground, throwing the idol from the cliff to smash far bellow.
The Deadman stands at the edge looking beyond to a vast crashing black sea. Multitudes of boats and statues litter the shore. It is a violent place of great tempests and harmful currents. Remnants of a great city dot the shore. Black Marble and Glass shattered, only great monoliths to the dead remain. Skull faces and corroding metal leave a legacy of some far distant lost civilization once stood, now only the oceans violent whims rule here.
Scaling down cliffs of volcanic glass with threads of metal ore they reach a coast of black sand and broken monuments. Fearsome statues of Gods of Death stand three fourths submerged in an oily tide. There are bones every where and great flocks of black birds circle the sky. Dorotea is wondering how they are supposed to travel into this Dead Sea, but a shred of a memory comes back to her. Artemis told her if she believes she is safe, she will be.
Dorotea shuddered at the massive black waves crashing with no predictable size or rhythm. Waves 10 feet tall would be followed by none and the second she attempts to wade out a wave 50 feet or taller would be building on the horizon and sweeps up to her so quickly its all she can do to not be torn to bits. When she is truly bold, she runs out into the tide only to be crushed by a wave that was nothing impressive but she felt its cold pressure rolling her like a bug and she had to bite her tongue to not scream when it bent her hip all the way out of its socket and dropped her onto her back so hard her ribs pop when she takes a deep breath. The Deadman and Animals watch from the beach smiling with well wishes and a wisdom to not tangle with stormy seas.
Defeated Dorotea cries on the beach, shivering and unable to walk from cramping legs. The day seems lost until a glow comes on the horizon. A giant woman of such regal beauty and boldness arrives from the clouds. “Who are you?” Dorotea says. The giant woman whose skin and hair look to be chiseled from white marble says. “I am Demeter, a helper of Ashtoreth. I came to help you find the City of the Dead, known in old times as the Necropolis of Tiamat, the ancient Dragon thats dead body made the known universe.” Dorotea wondered how she will breathe under water. As if it was said aloud Demeter answered. If you find a great enough crystal on this beach, I will enchant it so you will be able to breathe under water.
Finding crystals was easy here. It seemed like any where you stuck your hands into the black sands hand falls of quartz and amethyst were bountiful. Seeing an outcropping of rock a ways off Dorotea found a pool where the tide had left dozens of crystals of all shapes and sizes. Pyramids, Cones, Boxes, Ovals and complex geometric shapes she doesn’t know the name for. Finding one that looked like a black dagger with all the colors of the rainbow within it. She returns to Demeter who sees the choice and approves. With closed eyes and a complex gesture the enchantment takes hold. Together the two of them bid farewell to the Deadman, Octavian and Ophelia and wade into the now calm sea.
Bellow the water it is any thing but calm, the current pulls and pushes far more strongly than any wind. Dorotea is battered and scraped by gouging rocks and sand. As they walk deeper into the depths Demeter creates a blue sphere of fire from a golden torch she had slung from her waist on a chain. The light is not predictable, the way it burns not like fire on land but like water that has come into contact with a burning star, washing out and ebbing with the flow of waves like a whirlwind of blue lava streaking off into the blackness.
As they come to an even plane Dorotea almost chokes on water upon seeing an endless field of bones. The place truly is a “City of the Dead,” but these Dead aren’t inert or still. The Dead here walk bellow the waves. Shrouded figures walk like families on a pilgrimage or day at the market. Skeletal figures going about their daily business not alarmed or angry at their presence. A few look their way but most seem to be working some crops under the sand, or mining glass from the rocks.
More and more statues fill the sea floor, the footings of walls, stair cases of buildings long knocked down by the waves, farther off structures still erect. Towers and toppled walls, designs no sane man would build. Moving into tunnels and doorways they pass the carbonized corpses of the original inhabitants, turned to glass in poses of horror and fear, recoiling from from horrific fate long before the sea existed here.
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Demeter is able to communicate with Dorotea telepathically, telling her to “be certain of your footing, there are giant fish here called Stargazers that can take the shape of something else to hide and seize you into an underground lair, that no one can save you from. There are also nasty worms with faces like scissors that will try to lure you with pretty light and flowers and will pull your arms and legs off and eat them in front of you.”
Coming to the crest of a steep drop Demeter says, “This is where we part, I have my own task to attend to. If you enter the valley of Columns, The Hanged Knight will be in the center. But that is also the feeding ground for animals that have no name and a place where the Dead are no longer friendly.” Dorotea looks down and sees the area is guarded by luminescent Jellyfish and Black Anglers whose forehead lure is Azure, illuminated to bait predators into becoming prey.
Dorotea asks, “How will I light my way?” Demeter silently hands over the torch made of starfire and burning glass and turns away to seek her own way. Dorotea starts down the chasm to the lowest level of the Underworld. She comes to great processions of the Dead, Skeletons walking among more statues. The statues here are of great edifices of execution. Carves spectacles of beheadings, people burning at the stake and being torn apart by beasts, all lovingly carved out of stone. She sees the Knight, but he is encircled by Bobbit Worms, their colorful lures only betrayed one the exposed ones actively feeding on sea life.
Dorotea wonders why these death scenes were so important as to be immortalized in such painstaking detail. Among columns and a maze of fallen fortresses and a forrest of every manner of Deity, Dorotea feels watched by the great bug eyed fish that patrol here. In these putrid depths plants become fossils.
Dorotea has an idea to distract them. She takes a handful of gold coins from her pocket and tosses them to the feeding worms. Causing such a violent stirring that the sea floor becomes black with swirling debris. From the black cloud, horrid mandibles lash out, a feeding frenzy of centipede-like worms lashing out at each other searching for the source of the coins. Crawling to the Mausoleum of dead and dying creatures she is trying to not touch the writhing legs of worms clashing all around her.
Among the chaos, Monstrous Fish were tearing each other to pieces, eyes and hunks of gils and fins were falling all around. Dorotea is wildly crawling as fast as she can and hits the top of her head into the ancient gallows post unleashing a white flash in her head followed by streaks of blood.
She falls unconscious.
When she awakens the water has cleared but purple and pink innards of fish and worms float back and forth in the current. Seeing the Black Knight now startles her. His armor is covered in wings, from his helmet, back, feet and hands. 12 in all. His armor is bent and blackened not from dye, but some horrific heat that malformed it into a mass of spines, cracks and jagged edges. Once it was a suit of great majesty, now looks as much like a broken stump in a forest fire than hardened steel made by fine craftsmen. Above him a plaque “Mercury herald of Mars, Traitor to the Fallen Star.”
Taking the Crystal Dagger she shimmies up the post to free the Black Knight who is battered endlessly by the current, held only by the rope around his neck and the anvil tied to his feet. It seems like such an insane thing for a man to be suspended like any mundane execution, but being far underwater in the blackness of a city whose name no one knows. The surreal horror of it almost breaks her mind. She has to focus on staying calm, because her enchantment to breathe in his place relies upon her confidence it works. Any panic or doubt would spell drowning and being lost to the violent tides.
On the top of the gallows she tries to cut the rope, but its not any ordinary thread. Its some kind of metallic barbed vine like a rosebush, Impossible to cut. She sees the fish and worms have settled into their ordinary hunting routines. Just as the thought of the worst thing that could happen now, it develops before her eyes. The light of an Angler comes from behind her shoulder, just as the flowery glow of the Bobbit Worms lure appears bellow the Knight.
As Dorotea tries to roll off the top of Gallows, an inky mess burns her skin as a nasty Cephalopod seizes the Bobbit Worm, taking hold of the Anvil tied to the Knights foot. While this is going on, several more Angler Fish have keyed in on her from above. In the tumult the Cephalopod tears into the Bobbit Worms head, ripping it half way out of the ground. The Black Knights body is wrenched free from the gallows and flung into the dark waters just out of view.
This has disturbed something massive that made the entire sea floor shudder. Hateful Magenta eyes open where once the sea floor had looked like edges of a great wreath nestled between cliffs of black rock. She knew before the world turned sideways that this was the mighty Stargazer ambush predator. As Dorotea has her arms snatched from each side by a swarm of Angler Fish, whose giant glass incisors sink into her soft flesh deep. She closes her eyes and expects a sharp tearing of her body while she is eaten alive. But through her eye lids instead there is a great light streaking by.
Demeter has joined the Fight, with a younger goddess that could be her twin, except Demeter’s hair is sparkling white and Persephone has deep brown almost black hair. The Goddesses are wielding whips that crash into molten rock when coming into contact with sea life. Brutality is unleashed as broken bodies of Fish, Worms and Cephalopods are vomited form the great furious mouth of the Stargazer. Shattering rock and great physical forces of cataclysm rock Dorotea. Human bodies can only take so much, her fight is over. She is flung about in the torrent of earth shattering forces around her.
On the sea shore beyond the fluted columns falling into the sea, the great monoliths of death come the procession of the damned. First Demeter and her daughter Persephone, followed by the Black Knight carrying Dorotea’s lifeless body. The Deadman and animals turn to see this sad turn of events.
Dorotea is placed down on the ground by the Black Knight. There is a whimpering coming from the Rabbit Ophelia, Octavian The Stallion lets out a mournful squeal. The Deadman takes Dorotea by the hand, tears of blood come down the sack covering his mummified face. Persephone, the daughter of Demeter puts her hand over Dorotea’s face. Looking into the sky she says “This is beyond my power, or Astarte’s. I fear this may be hopeless.”