“The open waters were no joke!” Tim exclaimed, as he tended to a bunch of kids within the sect.
He wanted to give them a fun story, as Marlo requested such, so he then added. “There are hundreds of fish out there, thousands of them that we can eat, but they’re crazy as shit! There’s no fighting them, so stay here, and listen to your elders until you grow big and strong… or at least until you can shapeshift into something bigger, cuz the oceans aren’t so friendly towards tiny fish. I know all about that first hand, I used to be very tiny too!”
The small fish (some older than others) loved his over-dramatic storytelling, but at some point, he had to put an end to those same stories. There was a lot going on here, in the sect, so he didn't want to waste anyone's time. He didn’t want to distract these folks.
That aside, he was yet to see Ortana, a female stingray whom he considered to be a lousy traitor! It was imperative to meet her, so he wanted to spend a moment looking around for her. Tim wanted a word with her, but he didn’t want to appear too eager about seeing and or looking for her either, because he didn’t want to look hostile right now. He was under a microscope now, regardless of how the sect members were busy with other drama that had recently unfolded.
With that considered, he wanted to be friendly and approachable, or at least socially invisible. He didn't want any trouble right now, regardless of how pent up with anger and stress he was.
He thought, “I will see you again, Ortana. I know you're not dead, no, you're too sneaky to die. Gotta play nice now, but I will find you… and that asshole of yours better be ready for damage, because I'm raining a storm of fire on you! Well, I might? She probably had a good reason to betray and abandon me, let's hope she did, because come to think of it, I don't want to fight an entire fucking sect.”
Tim felt perplexed about the sect, he felt both challenged and welcomed by them. Speaking of which, he and Marlo got back to the blistering mana sect, about half an hour ago. Tim was welcomed here, even if not entirely peacefully.
He was welcomed without suffering any questioning, because there was a lot going on within the sect's very lair right now. This necessarily meant that no one had enough time to hate him, as fish could only multitask so much, they weren’t the brightest! They were exceptionally busy, due to multiple reasons.
The lair suffered implosion-like damages, due to a quake of sorts, so the lair lost a great portion of its walls! That was why the sect members were busy, they stood guard, and tried to keep this place as safe as it can be under the current circumstances!
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
Tim managed to fit within the new cracks of the lair, and he didn’t even have to slip and slide in order to enter successfully, but that was the only positive side of what this place was suffering, nothing else. The lair was as exposed to the world as an open wound would be, which was no fun, as its contents were up for grabs!
At some point, Tim thought. “Hell… I can kill them all myself, if I attacked fast enough. The big guys are distracted, they wouldn't see a fireball or two coming. I'd feel much safer in the reef if I killed them all… but damn, can't say that it's not risky to try either. Erg, so I shouldn't try. Besides, I need them to help me find a soul cave and shit, they gotta know something about that.”
Tim had a lot in his mind, but the solid facts remained. The sect's inhabitants could be attacked at any time, as long as there was an opponent in the vicinity, who had the guts to attack! This exposure itself, ruined the entire meaning of a secret, hidden lair.
However, the sect didn't care about getting attacked, they didn't care much, as they had another problem to deal with, problems which came along with the aforementioned quake. The lair's bottom, for example, its flooring, was crackling with this fresh layer of intoxicating, green, and heavy liquid. The liquid weighed down to the bottom of the lair, it sank there, and judging from its aura alone, this green stuff could only mean trouble!
The liquid had a threatening aura, it fried a couple of fish too, but this itself wasn’t threatening enough to scare the lair’s inhabitants away. The lair was like a cavern, it was about fifty meters deep, and since the liquid only occupied the bottom portion of the lair, the inhabitants were a comfortable distance away from this horrid liquid. They weren’t dumb enough to swim in the pool below them, no, but they didn’t feel threatened enough to flee either.
This was a perplexing situation that the blistering mana sect found themselves into. Tim observed the area, and then he had his own two cents to share about the matter, as he too had sour experiences with weird, green stuff before, be it with bricks or with whole fish! Most recently, he saw those weird dolphins, so he decided to start a conversation with that particular experience.
He looked at Marlo, and then he asked. “What do you make of this green pool, Marlo? I killed a couple of dolphins recently, they were as green as this pool, and they were also very poisonous. It can’t be natural, so where do you reckon all this weird green shit is coming from? It’s obviously bad for the fish kind.”
“That right there is what my great grandpa would call, anti-mana. Very rare, but also very destructive if its quantities were allowed to multiply.” Marlo followed along, and furthermore he added. “I haven’t always been a shark you know… so I’ve heard plenty of stories. Stories aside, I know it's destructive out of experience, because when I was a tiny marble shrimp, I had an uncle who got corrupted by this anti-mana; He went insane with power and then he done wiped out most of my lineage, it was gruesome!”