Ortana idled around near the entrance of the sect’s lair. One would get intimidated by her presence, especially considering her rotten past, a past which reeked with the severe lack of loyalty, but still it was pointless to fear her. She was a mere stingray, after all, and she didn’t have much firepower on her, if not at all so she couldn’t do any direct harm.
Tim was aware of that, so he approached her confidently, and then scolded. “What the hell are you doing here? Who was dumb enough to let you get near the sect?”
“John,” The other was quick to answer, and then she pressured. “Watch your tone there, Terrence, I’m a proud member of this sect, so you can’t talk to me like that! You can’t deny my long long membership.”
“Don’t lecture me, you left me for dead! I could’ve been eaten by sharks, lady!” He countered.
“But you’re not dead, so what are you mad about? You large baby you!” She yelled.
Timothy wanted to scream at the lady in response, but he contained himself. Somewhere down the line, he couldn’t really ask anyone to risk their lives for him, it was crazy, so it was pointless to argue over the matter, as anyone could have ditched him under the same circumstances.
In fact, he had forgotten about Ortana entirely up until a moment ago, that was for sure, and he was just mad right now, because he was reminded that she existed! That about summed up his fit of rage, but otherwise he was good, as everything hinted that his rage was superficial.
Skendus was unfortunate enough to witness their fit of rage, and he was quite intrigued now. This drama was funny at best, but he was also surprised how Ortana, a significantly smaller stingray, wasn’t scared of either him or Timothy. It was simply baffling for her not to budge at all, while in the presence of a three-meter long sawfish, and in front of the human-sized stingray that Tim was! It was amazing.
She was either fearless, suicidal, or, she trusted her stingray friend a lot. Only the latter made any actual sense, she trusted Timothy!
Skendus picked up on that, as he could read the minds of most. He sensed the drips of trust within the waters, and he didn’t identify a single sour thought from Ortana’s side either, and with that considered, he had to point out the overall good will.
He said, “If I may add, Terrence, your little stingray friend is a good person, erg, individual. She slaughtered whole tribes of shrimp, yes, but otherwise she’s really nice.”
“I didn’t know that sawfish could read minds,” She followed along, though she steered completely out of topic.
“Don’t remind me that I’m a sawfish, I burned an entire level of mana quality away, to become this big. I used to be a rat, like four hours ago, though, so I guess that it’s worth it to be sacrificial once in a while. But yes, I can read minds too.” He answered.
Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
Such an answer was vague, even Tim had a hard time following along with it. He had shapeshifted before, but although his mana pool had increased or decreased in the process, the quality of his mana never really budged. It was untouched, so he didn’t understand what Skendus was talking about.
The two weren’t aware of his confusion, but Ortana still helped make sense of things a bit more. She had her own little story to share.
“Oh, I feel you, honey. I used to be a plant, a very powerful plant too, but you can’t do much as a plant. I had to offer the quality of my mana to the gods as well, in exchange for ‘better’ bodies, eh, better is a horrible way to describe them because I’ve been a weakling ever since. Anyway, regardless of how weak I was, it was fun to shapeshift most times, erg, well except that one time when I was a spider. That was very very boring, god!” She explained.
Skendus couldn’t help chuckling in response to that latter part. He tried to taunt Timothy, who had been a spider up until a few hours ago, but then he decided to leave him be. Tim was pretty angry already, so there was no point in taunting a burning fire. They didn't clash.
Anyway, the following conversations were more detail oriented. They discussed the condition that the coral reef was in, specifically, the conditions on the opposite, south side, where the anti-mana was the most active on! They knew that side to be the most tainted of all, purely based on the personal experience that these stingrays had there.
The south side of the reef had been struggling, and the more they talked about it, the more intense things seemed to become. The south side was still struggling, and due to fresh new matters too, which was less than optional, because the team of two was still feeling explorative. They were explorative, while the anti-mana itself had become too dangerous to explore, so they quite likely might get killed. Ortana told them all about it!
She explained that the place was like a warzone now, and yet it didn't feature just brute slaughter alone. Something more advanced was happening, well, advanced for fish at least! Green fish from the deep dark sea were emerging from their habitats, just to bring those weird, green bricks to the reef. From experience, Tim knew that green stuff was anything but good here in the sea, and he was right to think so, as these bricks were somehow advancing the already dangerous pool(s) of anti-mana!
The anti-mana substance grew in intensity, and since the name itself suggests that anti-mana wanted to destroy mana itself, the main problem was apparent. This reef would soon be unfit to live in, no lair would be good enough to protect them from danger, and with that said, most of the already brittle life of this reef was bound to be destroyed!
However, the concept of an expanding pool did sound interesting, the two friends were mesmerized by the thought of that, and their urge to explore increased, however dangerous that sense of exploration may be! Ortana was less enthusiastic, but she felt a bit indebted to Timothy, so she decided to join them too, as long as the other two did their best to protect her from danger. She didn't want to die because of any causeless reasons!
Their conversation ended there, more or less. The team of three already discussed everything that was important, and since they agreed on that little plan to explore the anti-mana pools, there was no need for the atmosphere to be so dense anymore, so the two stingrays calmed down. They entered the den together afterwards, to rest for a while, and Skendus followed them, though he had to squeeze his way in due to his explosive size. The den was substantial, he was happy to be here, and then in order to make some conversation, he asked Ortana a question that he wanted to ask about thirty minutes ago, when they had first met.
Tauntingly, he asked. “Why do you call him Terrence? It’s really funny…”