The Yellow Sea.

South of Dalian Fortress City.

Lei-bup, the tentacled High Priest of the Door and the Key, appraised the Mer-woman before him, his triple chin raised in arrogance against the blasphemy dripping from her pearlescent lips.

It was now the fifth moon cycle since the Priestess of Pale Flesh had left to organise her terrestrial affairs. Lei-bup, as his mistress’ most faithful, had organised everything necessary to enable an incursion into the domain of the Fifth Vel.

Before his mistress had arrived, however, an envoy had come, a haughty creature speaking for the princess of the First Vel, Sarkonnian, daughter of the world-enveloping Manta, a being Lei-bup imagined to be a deified sheet of dumpling dough inferior to the Shoggoth.

“… We would, therefore, more than welcome your Shoal into the ebb and flow of the Fifth Vel under the sheltered protection of the True Daughter, the worshipful Sarkonnian.”

Lei-bup might have been impressed if he had been a kelp farmer or a citizen of some coastal Shoal.

Unfortunately for the envoy, he was not.

The Deep Mother that had arrived with a retinue of Dragon-horse Riders was undeniably an impressive specimen. From shoulder to tail, the female fish was almost as wide as Lei-bup himself, indicative of her sacred Manta bloodline. She was also dressed from head to tail in the loot of her tribe, ranging from pearlescent shards of ageless shells making up her armour to the strings of pearls and Cores that barely covered her attractive girth. When she spoke, it was in the vernacular of Deep-Mer, a language so ancient that Lei-bup and his advisors barely understood half of what the Mer-Mother sought to infer.

But the general gist, the High Priest understood.

Come to the Fifth Vel.

Submit to Sarkonnian.

Prosper.

Refuse? They haven’t gotten to that portion of the treaties yet. Thus far, the Deep Mother doesn’t seem to comprehend that refusal was possible.

Her oversight was an arrogance that a commoner-turned-leader like Lei-bup found incredible. In the Elemental Plane of Water, bloodlines, and therefore power, were so dominantly entrenched by the passage of time that a Human perception of politics barely applied. When two Elder Lords vied for territory, they would send their minions until one side was exhausted. Conveniently, younger siblings would perish, rivals would die at one another’s hands, and the great hegemony of blood could continue like the currents of the Plane of Water. Furthermore, the losers were spared space for their remaining followers, and the victor won both loot and lovely vacancies.

While Lei-bup allowed the Mer-woman to drone, a Shrimp-squire jetted into the room and wagged an oily appendage that had replaced one of his foreclaws.

To Lei-bup, no words were needed to communicate further, for he read the fervency of the young Mer like runes on an etched turtle shell.

He coughed wetly, interrupting the Deep Mother.

“We have heard enough, Lady Sarrissa,” Lei-bup raised a hand and half-a-dozen tentacles. “We shall give Princess Sarkonnian a suitable answer. Though I must deliberate with the council, you may be assured of our impending arrival.”

The Sea Witch wobbled at Lei-bup’s polite rebuttal, displeased and visibly disgusted by his Goddess-blessed appendages. The infamy of their Shoal in the surrounding waterscape was a resounding one, for if Sarkonnian did not fear the unknown, she would have sent an army rather than an envoy.“Then we shall take our leave. Do take care, Lord of the Shoal. Princess Sarkonnian’s patience is long, but unlike her appetite, it has limits."

Lei-bup watched the woman go, then rose from his seat with the assistance of his twin Mermaids.

“Open a path for Lady Sarrissa to return to her troops. Take us up, and make sure we’re shielded from their eyes,” he informed the appendages and flippers watching in the dark. “Tell the Feelers to steer Aristotle toward the surface. We’ll dock and take stock while receiving the Pale Priestess.”

The lurking eyes violently wiggled, then swam away as Lei-bup’s heart filled with terrible exaltation.

Subordination to the Vel? The High Priest of the Shoggoth could almost laugh. Their sacred leader has returned; soon, even a Vel will become SPAM for the Great Shoal.

image [https://imgur.com/Ys9pKEb.jpg]

High in the air, the Pale Priestess felt ready.

Knowing her past ventures and adventures, even her Omni-orb spun with uncertainty. Even so, Gwen’s confidence remained. After all, she now possessed not only Almudj’s blessed constitution, but she could also tap into the growing strength of Sufina’s World Tree.

It was a phenomenon that, in hindsight, puzzled members of her management team. After all, where Henry was conjoined in Spirit and body with Sufina, Gwen herself was not. In addition, though she held a special relationship with the Rainbow Serpent, she was a Vessel, but not in any way the Dragons could figure. Her proposal, therefore, inferred that Almudj shared its bond with Sufina through the World Tree; thereby, the union of Tree and Snake was founded in her, the Woman.

Her scholarly colleagues, Slylth and Ollie, disagreed. They believed she had replaced Almudj, as per Tyfanevius, with his Tryfan. At the same time, Sufina was Tree, and the role of the Bloom was more so Sufina than herself—else Gwen should have been bound to the tree, as opposed to galavanting across the globe.

It was all too confusing, with even Sanari apologising for her lack of insight. Meanwhile, the two master Druids in Gwen's employ merely rejuvenated Shalkar and fled to their domains, leaving the Regent growling for clarification.

When Gwen finally caught Sythinthimryr in the final days of her child visitation, the goddess informed her that she was an unorthodox existence and that the norms that governed the primordial age of Elves, Trees and Dragons weren’t modern blueprints. The Red Dragon further intimated that Gwen’s inexplicable uniqueness was key to the leeway she enjoyed, for nothing else quite so successfully relieved the monotony of time for the Axis Mundi’s old guardians.

At any rate, Gwen felt confident, for her control over the consumptive qualities of the Void had increased by many folds. That said, she highly doubted that the vital energies of a World Tree should be consumed for something as frivolous as fuel.

Instead, her true confidence came from her newly attained expertise in Spellcraft.

Thanks to Slylth, her education in Morden’s Blade was sufficiently certified.

She could also pre-cast the supplementary Crown of Thorns.

And most importantly, Sythinthimryr had sent for Suilven to gift her with solutions to streamlining Essence Tap and Sympathetic Life-link, which they obeyed.

The solution to her Necromancy combo was inspired by the Centaur’s Şöpter Shaman magics. Through a basis in Faith Magic, Henry’s old Necromancy had been compressed into a Ritual which her followers could enact upon themselves. There were stringent conditions, of course, caveats so Necromantic that even the most liberal Arcanist would turn a shade paler, but all understood the necessity of her underwater penetration into the unfathomed.

Gwen baptised the new spell with an uncreative name, Sympathetic Essence, lest her utilitarianism turned infamous to haunt future generations with a moniker like Morden’s Blackened Blade of Disaster. After all, by her realisation, she may very well be alive centuries later to pick the bitter fruit of her careless actions.

As insurance, the Ritual required both Essence and body fluids from herself to make the tattoo pigments for the Mandala. Thankfully, the original material component of the Caster’s Heart Blood had been replaced by regular blood and Golden Mead, furthermore secretly compounded with precious ingredients from Tryfan and the Dragons.

Like the Centaur’s blood magic and akin to her success with Strun and the Rat-kin, she would construct a web of metaphysical conduits tethered to an enormous source of vitality used to feed her minions and vice versa. The source, Gwen noted before she had even arrived at the South China Sea, would be the young Leviathan Lei-bup rescued and raised. In battle, Caliban would act as an intermediate transformer to regulate the flow of life between her minions, and aid the Shoggoth in identifying friend from foe.

Her new spell was why the Mageocracy shared Gwen’s confidence and had signed for her a blank check to operate as she pleased, a decision lubricated by her gallery of Elves and Dragons.

Therefore, Gwen was rightfully and proudly confident, for her new arsenal was the convergence of many boons and crises, carried forward by the momentum of need.

Besides her, the Omni Orb hovered, arriving as a Wizard would, precisely where and when.

Below, the bean-green sea churned until a mass of kelp broke the surface like Moses parting the Red Sea, greeting her with countless tentacles and tendrils. Gwen waved back at the feelers with their enormous eyes. This creature, whatever its grade of intelligence, would soon be her underwater Garp, and for this, she felt both guilty and expectant.

The flotation sequence took a dozen minutes for the water to sufficiently drain so the Leviathan’s carapace could open and expel Lei-bup and his entourage.

“Great Priestess of Pale Flesh!” As always, Lei-bup was hyperbolic in his performative greeting. “We welcome you home to your humble abode.”

Perhaps because of Shalkar and its worshipful Rat-kin, Gwen felt caught in a blustering breeze. Though the cause could have been the overwhelming scent of brine and fish, she felt acutely a ripple of psychic energy crashing against her Astral Body as the news of her arrival soaked through the Leviathan’s catacomb body.

It was Faith, as Elvia might have put it. A resource that, if she chose to harness in earnest, would cause Ravenport’s Department of Foreign Affairs to combust into blue flames spontaneously.

The entry was as surreal as always, with the passageways being calcified organs moulded by the resident Sea Witches, then adorned with luminescent corals and anemones to create patterns of light that resembled the interior of a bio-organic spaceship. In the sea, the living “Tower” of the Mer-people was much more advanced and practical than the artificial, mana-burning Mage Towers of the Mageocracy. Though incapable of magics, a well-groomed Leviathan provided food, housing, shelter and locomotion all in one and was arguably infinitely sustainable so long as its denizens did not overpopulate.

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

At the end of the passage, Lei-bup apologised that there would be no more “air” for their most esteemed leader.

Gwen motioned for the transition to take place.

For this unavoidable circumstance, Gwen had asked Cambridge for the best solution their Enchanters could muster, for her usual Dwarven Artificers were notorious for near-drowning in several inches of water, all despite having the means to peddled to perfect safety in multi-storey brew tanks.

The solution was gruesome, involving the Core of an ancient Sea Witch. With the pendant placed between her collarbones and attuned to her Astral Body, she gained the metaphysical qualities of its previous owner, such as the means to breathe in water, will herself through the liquid, and speak to semi-intelligent sea creatures. The experiment was deemed a failure for Cambridge’s Enchanters, for the passive requirements made a regular Mage pant for VMI. For Gwen, whose mana pool was Olympic, the portion it consumed was barely notable.

Slowly, the seeping water rose around them until Gwen was forced to take her first breath.

When she did, she was surprised to find that she continued to breathe air.

The Witch Core did not transmute her into a fish but instead created a circulating, hydrophobic current of air and water that allowed her to fly through the liquid at will. The design made much more sense than she had initially supposed from reading the instructions—for this was a product for Human Mages, and to cast spells, they still needed aural and somatic components, both of which would be diminished in water.

As for her outfit—her advisors had begged her to lean into the role of the Pale Priestess, for no one else could reasonably accompany her into the Leviathan except Richard—and even then, Gwen preferred to take on the task alone, choosing to trust in her contingencies rather than risk her city’s leaders. The loudest protests were from Lulan and Strun. Still, Gwen explained that the Mermen responded only to herself, and having loved ones underwater with her would only complicate her decision to retreat immediately.

Therefore, Gwen had Sanari stitch a white vestment suitable for her Prophetess projections. The Elf did not ask unnecessary questions—offering only that the attire would be suitable prophetic when she willed it into bloom, even underwater.

Weightlessly, Gwen slid forward with her entourage.

Deeper into the interior, the worm-ways opened into chambers, then entire cathedrals where gills and lungs had been coaxed into alternative accommodations. Here, the Mer went about their daily business of trade and barter, forming a rudimentary economy based on each tribe’s ability to produce products for the public.

Everywhere she ventured, business came to a halt. Squids half-raised were placed back into enclosed cases, and fishes crammed into kelp cages were spared as stall owners prostrated. There was no Jamaican major-domo to turn the underwater spectacle into a song and dance number, which was unfortunate, but Gwen had seen enough to know that she had truly entered a Wet New World.

The tour took almost an hour, during which The Pale Priestess came to understand the various organs of the Leviathan and its operations. Nearest to its Core was the “Bridge” where the Council under Lei-bup made their decisions and issued commands via sympathetic telepathy to the creature. Lower near the belly, Half its three dozen stomaches were commandeered into chambers that allowed troops to organise and amass. The deepest part of the Leviathan, the chambers nearest the heart and lungs, were the residential quarters for the upper echelon, which also housed the sheltered pools for fry.

On the outer quadrant, hundreds to thousands of caverns, sealed by scaly shellfish growing on the overlapping carapace of the Leviathan, made generous abodes for the Shoal that followed the moving island.

Toward its barbed forehead, guard stations housing the highly mobile Wave Riders took their place near its multitude of tentacled eyes-sockets. The regular troops from the Crustaceans to the muscular Tuna-headed Mer-kin made their supply bases in the middle rise for ease of deployment. In an unexpected twist, Lei-bup explained that the Leviathan’s rear was the most guarded—for its many orifices expelled precious materials from enriched kelp-faeces to compressed metal-coral amalgamations used to make Merman weapons and armour. Therefore, the enormous structures surrounding each “vent” acted as both protection and industrial centres for manufacturing.

Once they were away from the eye-watering plumes of kilometre-long “poo ropes” and back near the Leviathan’s heart, Gwen overcame her shock and redressed her audience in the bone-white throne room.“Before we begin…” she spoke through a resounding Clarion Call as the mixed Essences entwined within her conduits. “I have a gift for the Faithful.”

Using the Core of the Sea Witch, she perfectly willed the glowing droplets of mixed dew excreted from her palm to rise into the air, each a dainty, golden Jupiter of swirling divinity.

“Circumstances have improved since our last meeting,” she explained to the glazed expressions overtaking her multitude of slitted, polished, and compound-eyed council members. “What I shall offer you is the new and improved Blessing of Life, a blessing that is essential for the execution of the Grand Purpose.” “The Grand Purpose!” her entourage from Triton’s court lowered their heads.

Lei-bup approached, his body laboured under the weight of parasites eating through his innards. Without a split-second of doubt, he took the first orb into his mouth, then swallowed with an exaggerated expression of complete submission.

The rest of the Mer watched.

The High Priest smacked his lips, tasting the sweetness, then erupted.

“OOOOOH—!” The explosion wasn’t literal, but the eruption of joyous tentacles bursting from his many folds of clothing was like the death bloom of a fluorescent anemone. His dozens of eyes rolled back in their skin folds as something indescribable built up inside her creature.

Psychic energy with the feeling of warm water in a frozen brine pool washed over the control room—then Lei-bup rose from the floor, blue and inky blood oozing from every conceivable orifice to disperse into the surroundings.

“Lei-bup, are you… okay?” Gwen felt a spear of horror pierce her laboured lungs. The Franken-Mer’s transformation, she had to confess, was no less intense than one of Caliban’s first-time show-and-tells.

“More than hale.” Lei-bup prostrated, his body suddenly nimble. “My injuries have lessened greatly. I am truly grateful, O Priestess of the Door and the Key.”

The Merman’s voice, Gwen realised, was no longer like a man trying to blast death metal through a chest tube.

Before she could speak, the weeping Lei-bup turned to address his fellows. “Take the elixir! You ingrates! Renew your faith! In the coming moon tides, we follow the Pale Priestess through the gates of life and death to paradise!”

The Sea Witch twins were the next to imbibe her Golden Mead.

Then, the hulking Wave Rider Alphas.

Followed by the lumbering crustaceans, and finally, the wizened sea turtle.

“ARRRNGH—!”

“Pale Priestess—“

“Paradise! I COME—!”

Orgiastic cries filled the chamber as Gwen drifted away from the clouds of expelled fluids to take her place upon the coral throne. She also released Caliban, who dutifully transformed into a horrific, faceless carp to rest underfoot, elevating her feet upon the world’s most dangerous ottoman.

Gwen took mental notes for her future Sympathetic Essence applications as her followers writhed.

From what she could discern, the Golden Mead’s ability to offset the meta-physical deformations invited by Shoggy’s parasitic appendages was enormous. If this were how Suilven envisioned the propagation of her blessings—it would go a long way to ensure that her minions didn’t outright perish from becoming receptacles of Lei-bup’s delusional faith.

While her followers danced the tentacle fandango, she plotted out the overall spread of her vital resources.

The first to finish was the Sea Witches, who emerged as younger versions of their siren selves, with glossier skin, shiner scales, more tentacles and fewer blemishes that marred their skin.

The same could be said of the oceanic Mer, who pulled off old scales and scars while brandishing their glossy, many-hued eye stalks with joy.

The turtle emerged looking no different.

And the crabs and spiny lobsters added to Gwen’s nightmare fuel by expanding and moulting, momentarily becoming twenty-limbed, two-dozen tentacled, dozen-eyed chimaeras before discarding their old selves to prostrate under her glazed gaze.

With her appetite for seafood extinguished by Lovecraftian ultraviolence, Gwen greeted her rejuvenated court.

“ALL HAIL THE PALE PRIESTESS!” The Mermen offered their newly embedded faith, their belief so strong that Gwen felt the swirls of their fervency like a riptide.

Caliban coiled around her body.

She sensed that the moment was ripe.

“NOW—” Gwen stood with an arm outstretched in the style of Mao’s old propaganda posters, though having a Caliban-themed shawl made the gesture more villainess than Lady Liberty leading the Fishes. “Let us discuss the quelling of Ghurghdp Hiij, the Bright Reef— WHOA—!”

At the height of their unholy chorus, the throne room shook.

While the Mermen scrambled for purchase in the water, the floor of the enormous chamber slid open like a slow-blinking eye, revealing a flesh chamber that led downward into the dark.

“What’s this?” Gwen enquired of her High Priest. A Spartan pit?

“Ah—Aristotle answers your call,” Lei-bup answered. “It is impatient for the blessing, Lady. This is the entrance to the young one’s Core.”

“Aristotle?” Gwen blinked in confusion. “Why is our Leviathan called Aristotle?"

“You spoke once, Pale Lady, of a Leviathan dubbed by Humans of antiquity as Atlantis,” Lei-bup offered an answer as wild as unexpected. “I made sure to acquire information on this incident in Human history. The High Priest who spoke of it was called Plato, was it not? He was also infamous for trapping a man in a cave for half of eternity as a sadistic curio. I named our vessel Aristotle after he, the advisor of the Land Kings, the student and Apprentice of Plato.”

Gwen recalled that she knew nothing of Aristotle or Atlantis in this world. Rather, it was Sanari who spoke of Atlantis and its Elemental Princes, which she had spoken of in passing to the lore-starved minds of Lei-bup and company.

“… does it answer to Aristotle?” Gwen asked.“It does,” Lei-bup seemed to focus his mind. After a few twirls of his enormous yellow eyes, the carapace that made up the floor of the throne chamber shifted and trembled.

“Right…” Gwen pondered the moniker of her world-transcending intellectual. “Is Aristotle a boy or a girl?”

Lei-bup appeared both confused and entered by her audacity, which was amazing when seen on the face of a fish with eyes like dinner dishes.

“Ah…” Gwen coughed. “Does it… have a preference?”

“Leviathans are solitary creatures that drift through the endless space of the Elemental Plane of Water,” Lei-bup painfully explained. “When a pair of mature Leviathans meet, both sets of organs set to work immediately to maximise the opportunity. This business of males and females concerns lower life forms like us… not yourself, of course… but us.”

“Right…” Gwen signalled the all-clear. “Right… sorry. Aristotle, it is. Good name. The duality of Humankind! Very well then!”

The floor shivered.

With Lei-bup as a guide, she stepped into the limbless dark with a limber catfish-Caliban nestled against her pearly bodysuit. Slowly, the passage grew narrow, with further progress managed by Lei-bup massaging Aristotle’s arterial linings with his tentacles, coaxing cooing sounds from the walls.

At the end of her passage, the Regent laid her hands upon the Creature Core for her future Tower.

No! Gwen mentally slapped herself. This pristine, beautiful, enormous, all-natural Creature Core with the density and size second only to Gunther’s adult Leviathan Core wasn’t hers for the taking! It had a name, Aristotle! And it was her friend, ally, and assault carrier.

Aristotle the Assault Carrier. Surely, the METRO Editors would like that.

“Priestess?” Lei-bup mopped the slime from his face, his tentacles acting like living squeegees. “I fear it’s a bit crowded here.”

Gwen willed the liquid to part, forcing herself against the warm flesh until both of her palms dug into the membranes wrapping the Creature Core.

A Leviathan had dozens of Cores, Gwen recalled, but only one that truly mattered.“Aristotle…” Gwen infused both hands with an abundant supply of Golden Elixir as her internal Elemental Gates rumbled open. For the performance of Soul Tap, there was only the powers of the Void to draw upon, and considering the size of Aristotle, she would likely tap into every drop of her new and considerable powers. “Relax, child. If you wish my blessing, we must undergo a ritual to conjoin our Essences…”

The chamber relaxed.

Lei-bup had transmuted her message.

Gwen steadied herself with her Sea Witch pendant. The Flight wasn’t too different from flying through the air, though every movement was a battle against the viscosity of the Leviathan’s cloudy secretions.

From a void-tinged finger, she began to etch the principle Mandala of Essence Tap upon the multi-storey Core of their eager and innocent Aristotle.

With each inch, her Void-mana ate away at the creature’s flesh, hungrily gouging channels of flesh a finger deep. As her digits passed, a golden snail trail of conjoined Essence connected the Leviathan mote by mote to an existence greater than itself. Each Glyph was the node of a larger matrix tied to herself, one that, put into practice, made her palpably realise why Suilven had proclaimed this Biomancy to be akin to Faith Magic. Indeed, in the terrestrial world, the distribution of the psychic energies used by Elvia and her Knights were similarly disseminated—albeit through sanctioned Relics.

Half an hour of blood and Essence later, Gwen paused for breath. She observed the scale of her work, the scope of which she had completed perhaps a hundredth. Upon the Mandala’s completion, Aristotle would become the living locus of its Shoal’s biomechanical engine of life, but that moment remained as her ability to regenerate blood.

“Er… Lei-bup?” she took a deep breath to re-evaluate her scope of work. “Maybe tell the others we’ll be here for a few days… at the very least… and bring me something salty and hearty… but not caviar… For the love of Shoggy, no caviar.”