Waves rumbled onto the tropical shore under a pale moonlit night. Scott stepped toward the churning sea that called out to him. The cool sand melted around each step as he moved calmly toward the vast expanse of the Atlantic Ocean. He swam in these waters at this beach thousands of times. The melody and might of the sea crashing onto the shore was one of the few constant comforts in his short life.
After reaching a comfortable distance from the shore, he looked back to appreciate the beauty of the isle he called home. The palm trees danced lazily in the cool autumn breeze. Slowly he felt his consciousness wane as the edges of his vision dimmed. Peacefully, he flowed with the tide, the cool waters gently carrying him in blissful serenity.
He reached into the pocket of his swim trunks and removed a small pill, swiftly swallowing it, closing his eyes in a silent prayer. With a small smile and eyes afire with tears, he dives deeper and deeper into the sea. Slowing turning to observe the surface, he appreciates the beauty of the moonlit ocean and gives thanks for all its provided. The walls of his consciousness close in rapidly as the moon slowly recedes from view, a faint ethereal glow left in its place.
As the light recedes, so does his grip on reality. As the currents pull his body deeper into the depths, his mind is drawn further from his control. Bizarre strobing lights hum to life against an endless void. A gentle multicolored tapestry of gentle blue, red and yellow merge to form spiral leading deeper into the void. They sing in concert with the currents, drawing him deeper into the mind-bending kaleidoscope of colors.
A sudden thrum beats in my heart as my body lurches to a halt, jarring me awake. A tendril of warmth reaches into my mind slowly enveloping my thoughts and then suddenly fires out through my body into every fiber of my being. The blinding pain lasts but a moment and my eyes flicker open to a blurry glow in the distance. A muffled soothing voice reaches my ears in an incomprehensible din. Shifting in place, I begin to take stock of myself and realize with some shock that I’m still underwater. Silently, I lunge for the surface only to find my body is stubbornly unresponsive to my commands.
“What the fuck is going on!?” Scott screamed. Only to have his shock compounded by the fact that his words are perfectly audible. “How am I breathing... underwater?” Scott murmured to himself as he scanned his new and confusing surroundings. He found himself floating at the center of a massive cavern. Gigantic stalactites hung from the ceiling looming 30 meters above. The cavern walls were dimly illuminated by innumerable little fish radiating a beautiful array of bioluminescence. A deep azure blue swirled around him as the fish swam among their coral homes along the walls and floor of this inexplicable cavern. “Ok, maybe this is just my brain giving me a sendoff party?” Scott thought. “I wasn’t exactly in a sound state before I jumped into the water and topped it all off with some benzos. Ok, just calm down and try to collect your thoughts. There must be a reasonable explanation for this.” Scott mused and he tried to take stock of his situation.
He was suddenly ripped from his thoughts as a large shadow began lumbering in his direction from the opposite end of the cavern. Impressions of smaller fish darting away from its direction gave him all the motivation he needed to swim as fast as he could behind one of the hulking stalactites near him. His heart began hammering in his chest, matching the pace of his rasping breath. “This can’t be happening. This must be a dream, or hallucination... something,” he whispered, still too shaken to spy from his hiding place. He continued to soothe his frayed nerves until he was steady enough to peer from safety and investigate the mysterious shadow. Peering from the base of the stalactite, among corals and sea fans, he inched his head away from shelter until it finally came into view. “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” he exclaimed as the massive form swam into view. It was a reptilian creature with a head of similar shape to a crocodile, but of drastically increased proportions. Its scales were a deep azure blue and large ridges ran along the length of its back, tapering off at the start of its massive tail. It swam gracefully through the cavern, propelled by two sets of fins the size of a small sedan. Dangerously sharp rows of fangs lined its maw which was kept partly open, almost daring challengers to deny their supremacy.
Frozen in place by fear, Scott stared at the monstrosity before him as it gently swam through the cavern. Once its shadow had receded from view, he was able to resume breathing. But just as he began to calm his frantic mind, a piercing pain gripped his mind and a disembodied, but voice intruded directly into his thoughts.
[System override - initializing manual integration. New mission: Belly of the beast. Escape the lair of *&#@&! and live to tell the tale. Reward: 1,000 EXP, Weapon – Grade D, 100 essence, &*@%_#3^/]
“New mission, EXP? Am I in a video game? Well, I absolutely need to get out of here if I’m house crashing a sea monster. So how to find my way out of here...”
[System override – initializing Heads Up Display]
Suddenly a series of translucent screens appeared at the border of his sight, one of which looked decidedly like a map. He shifted his sight toward it and the image enlarged while repositioning itself towards the center of his view. “That was convenient. Is this system reading my thoughts? Focus, Scott, first things first, I need to get the hell out of here.” He analyzed the map after inspecting the pulsing blue dot he assumed represented his current location. After plotting what seemed to be a path to the exit of the small but labyrinthine cave system, he set out. He swam along the left side of the cavern towards the first junction away from impending doom. The scenery of dazzling multicolored corals, sponges and wispy tendrils of filter feeders continued to amaze and distract him. Tempering his curiosity, he refocused his attention to navigating his exit as swiftly as possible. It wasn’t until now, in this moment of respite, that he realized that his hands were webbed. “OK, one thing at a time, I need to get to safety, then I can worry about whether I’ve been transformed into some kind of mermaid.” He pressed on through the winding tunnels until finally he reached a brightly illuminated opening that sang to him of freedom and hope.
You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.
Racing as fast as he could, he shot through the opening, momentarily blinded by a bright light radiating from above. He paused for a moment while shading my eyes from the oppressive light. After a few moments, his eyes were once again able to focus, and he found himself once again in a horrifyingly confusing situation. A phalanx of spear wielding half-fish, half-human beings were arrayed before him in a semi-circular formation that completely barred passage from the cave. Looking around at the scene before him, he was completely at a loss for words, but decided to say the first thing at the top of my mind, “Please help! I’m trying to escape from this giant sea monster!” The army of mermen shot brief glances at one another while still maintaining a vigilant formation. They seemed to create a bit of distance from him while maintaining formation, but none responded to his plea. “I need to get away from here! There’s a monster in that cave! Can you understand me?!” He implored and tried to communicate the urgency of the situation, but they moved away from him once more while maintaining their regimented guard. Suddenly a ripple of movement emanated towards the rear of the soldiers directly in front of Scott. They methodically parted their formation as a smaller merman dressed in flowing white robes with shimmering golden fringe floated toward Scott. His features were distinctly more human than the soldiers. The main difference being his having two legs instead of a single tail, but there was other minor differences Scott immediately noticed. Where the soldier’s faces were flecked with bright green scales and other facets along their torsos, this figure’s body was nearly void of scales. The most striking difference, however, was the shimmering ruby lodged in the center of their forehead. Scott could see fine tendrils of bright ruby light gently spreading from the beautiful gem into a small area surrounding the gem that formed a beautiful and intricate pattern that seemed to cause him to lose focus on reality the more he gazed upon it. “You can understand me, little one?” a gentle voice said in his mind, like the previous machine-like voice that he was first met with upon awaking to this underwater nightmare. He immediately recognized it as the voice of the robbed being moving towards him, but that fact that their lips never moved, and they seemed to be effortlessly floating towards him through the water without making the normal physical steps to swim through the water caused even more questions to swirl around in his mind. “Yes, I can understand you, but there’s a monster in that cave! We need to get away from here to somewhere that’s safe!” Scott said with pleading eyes. If he can understand me, maybe I can convince him to help get me out of here and away from that monstrosity, he thought to himself.
The diminutive merman cocked his head to the side while looking Scott up and down. He then closed his eyes for several moments while saying something that didn’t reach Scott’s ears and brought his hands into a mudra. Moments later he opened his eyes, and his previously black pupils were replaced by a bright red haze that shone brightly and an intricate pattern of disk-like vertical circular sigils appeared in front of him. He released his hands to his sides and then the sigil immediately began to furiously glow at six points. Six rays of blinding red light shot towards Scott as he threw his arms up to protect himself, but nothing seemed to harm him. He quickly inspected himself to confirm he was uninjured before turning around to the cave entrance he had just escaped. The entrance had been covered by a ruby red hexagonal sigil formed by a series of circuits reminiscent of those used in advanced computers from Earth. Waves of invisible but palpable power pulsed through the sigil and he felt himself being slowly pushed away from the formation. As he turned around to face the creator of this mind-bending creation, he found himself face to face with the petite merman. “Who are you and what your business in this domain?” the merman asked Scott. “Um, I’m Scott and I have no idea how I got here,” Scott said. I can’t exactly tell him I tried to off myself and then woke up in another world, with a different body and an AI game-like system seemingly integrated into my consciousness… can I? he thought to himself.
“Why do you wave your lips at me, little one?” the merman asked while cocking his head slightly to the side. “Has the Leviathan maimed your mind?”
“It's how I always....” Scott paused and recounted the moments when this merman had spoken to him, or rather he heard them – not once did they moved their lips. He focused his attention completely on the merman and focused on directing his thoughts to him. "Can you hear me if I don’t speak aloud?” Scott asked. “Hahaha, you’re quite odd,” the little merman cooed at Scott with a voice that could only be described as Angelic. “How has a daughter of the Oceanids come to be in our realm?” he pressed, while narrowing his eyes to Scott. “Daughter? Oceanids? I don’t understand, my name is Scott and I’m from Tampa, Florida. I was…. Swimming when I lost consciousness and then woke up in that cave! I don’t really understand what’s going on! How can I breathe underwater, why can you speak to me mind-to-mind and why is there a voice in my head giving me system, updates!?” Scott exclaimed in a huff. The merman fixed him with a quizzical gaze and then his demeanor slowly softened, but his eyes were still intensely fixed on him. “You poor dear, I don’t know what tribulation led to your present state, but I you have nothing to fear now. We will see you to safety” they said as their arms opened towards Scott in a motion of embrace. His vision suddenly shifted, and he lost all focus. The world became a blur, and the last thing Scott saw was the shining ruby glittering on the little merman's forehead. “If what you’ve said is true, it’s of upmost importance that I see to it that no ill befalls you.
Epitropos methodically inspected the slumbering Oceanid who named herself “Scott”, such a peculiar name for one of her kind. There were no records in the holy texts of these venerated demi-gods claiming such masculine namesakes. But it was not his place to question the will of the divine. One thing was certain; however, she was far from her realm and if he allowed any harm to come to one such as she, it was result in nothing short of the annihilation of him and his entire family, perhaps his kingdom if the Gods were especially wrathful. As a paladin of the Holy Order, it was his duty to defend the leagues he was granted stewardship over, but he was also de facto defender of the faith, which included the defense of the physical embodiment of the divine and all their royal descendants. Despite how confused the ramblings of the one called “Scott” were, their form left no doubt as to their royal lineage and that meant her protection and safe return to the Imperial capital just became his top priority.
There were a myriad of mysteries surrounding her appearance here in his backwater league, however. She alluded to hearing the message of the heretical “system” but that would be impossible for one of royal blood. She also hailed from a locale Epitropos was certain did not exist on any map of the depths. The leviathan raging in his domain was trouble enough, and now he had to manage this new crisis. “The God’s are capricious.” He thought as he and his battalion swam back to his home region, Epíneio.