After several hours they finally slept. Sas’cha lay tangled in the covers, snoring while Wali stared at the ceiling. The body of a fit sixteen-year-old had been able to do things he hadn’t done in many years. Soon enough, he slept too.
Morning came all too soon, and the breakfast table was full of wry and awkward expressions. Apparently, they hadn’t been as quiet as they thought. Hansa slid a glyphed stone to Wali after breakfast, “This will help from keeping me awake at night, okay?” She said with a twinkle in her eye. Wali could only smile and take the seclusion stone. The device would make a room secure against sound escaping.
Wali spent the day with his totems. He swam with Noodle and basked on the back of Neferu. He raced Gulli and hunted ground fowl with Tag. Sas’cha went off into the jungle while Vinny again secluded himself in the alchemy labs. Yacob had received a meteor hammer from the elven king. The magical ball and chain were imbued with fire magic and something that allowed the chain to extend. He spent the day at the crater’s edge, figuring out how to use it with Greta's help.
In the following few weeks, they fell back into the rhythm of training. Wali’s totems now joined in the combat training. Mixing up how their fights went, everyone improved for the mixed combatants.
One morning Marsai came to the porch and whistled. The shrill noise echoed across the crater, and everyone stopped. She went back into the house and waited in the dining room. Eiko ushered everyone into the chamber. She looked at them before speaking, “It is as we feared. The Skintaker has recovered and is working to awaken one of his brethren. My sister Reiki has informed me that he has been seen in the regions around Guilfort. One of his brother heralds is bound under the port of that city. Someone reported seeing a huge demon swimming around in the bay.”
“My sister set up a teleportation beacon near the city and awaits you there. You need to stop this herald from awakening the others.” She turned to Eiko, who stood behind her shoulder with a small plain wooden chest. She did something magical with the clasp and the knot of cord unwound. She opened it and removed a large ornate dagger.
The blade was a single piece of black crystal engraved with tight patterns of runic scripting. There was no crossguard, and the handle was a single piece of wood that looked bonded to the crystal. She held it out to Wali, who took it and examined it. His Void glyph resonated with the dagger, and he had to make an effort to pull his eyes away.
Marsai said, “This is a Binding Dagger, one of the few left in existence. This needs to be embedded in the herald’s body when he turns to soul smoke. His soul will be trapped inside the dagger if that happens. If not, we will have to try again when he next appears. I have only two of these, but I have begun construction of another, but it will take me some time to finish. Do not store it in a void bag or extra-dimensional space unless you want bad things to happen. Carry it on your person and do not use it on another, only a herald. Otherwise, it will be wasted.” Her voice was stern and severe.
Wali looked again at the knife and traded one of his tusk daggers for it. It did not fit well within the sheath, but Hansa could fix that quickly.
“I told Reiki that you would arrive tomorrow morning. Go and prepare yourselves for what is to come. Gather your equipment, eat and rest. I will have some additional tools for you in the morning.” She turned to Vinny, “You get some rest too. I am banning you from the alchemy lab until you get back.” Vinny looked haggard, bags under his eyes and fingers stained with various alchemical substances.
He nodded, “I think I need to step away anyways. I need to let my mind rest. I’m so close, but I keep doing the same things.” Marsai nodded knowingly.
“When you say under the port, do you mean under the city or submersed in the bay?” Wali asked skeptically.
Marsai grinned, “Both, you will see when you get there.” She looked at Sas’cha, who hissed.
“I am not looking forward to this,” Sas’cha said sourly. “I remember Guilfort now. The floating city, right?”
Marsai nodded, “That’s the one. I hope none of you get seasick.”
***
The following day they all arrived at the teleportation circle, ready for a fight. Marsai handed each of them an earring set with a tiny conch shell and a mesh bag. “The seashell will allow you to speak to each other over distances of a few kilometers and underwater. Just touch it to talk. The bag is for when you go swimming. It will allow you to breathe and see under the water. It just slips over your head.”
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She constructed the teleportation circle this time and activated it using a crystal pendant she wore. The portal was different this time, blue with swirling green flecks. Wali did not know if that was a function of his power versus Marsai’s or the location. He stepped through first, quickly followed by the others.
Thick salty ocean air hit him first. Seaweed, rotting fish, old sour rum, and unwashed bodies assaulted his nose. The mana drained away from him, causing his skin to prickle. This was an oceanfront low magic area. Sas’cha wrinkled her nose, “It stinks here.” She whined.
Yacob and Vinny also wrinkled their noses distastefully. Wali smirked. This brought back memories of the Jersey shore and Atlantic City.
They were in a small wood-walled room, and the ceiling was low and lit by a single lamp. He looked around at the barrels and coiled ropes and felt the floor gently rocking beneath him. They were in a ship’s hold. Leaning against a column was a tall woman, pale-skinned and burly. She was built like Yacob. Long silver-white hair was braided back from a face that looked weathered but not tanned. In the dimness of the hold, she was luminous. She was dressed in tight red silk pants and knee-high black sharkskin boots. Her black silk shirt hung loose. A pair of black sharkskin gloves were tucked into a thick belt of the same material.
“Aye, about time you showed. I was about tired of waiting. Come along. Let’s get above deck and get situated.” Her voice of command was well practiced and brooked no questions. She turned and moved up through a passageway and a ladder to the left. Wali and the others followed.
When they cleared the ladder, they stood on the deck of a large ship. Three masts, not including the bowsprit. This was a large frigate if Wali could associate the name to ones of his world. The vessel was fifty meters long and fifteen meters wide. It lay in anchor in a broad ring-shaped bay.
High cliffs of chalk or sandstone rose along the edges of the circular bay. A city had been built along the inside of those cliffs and had grown out into the water.
A full quarter of the bay was filled with a flotilla of barges, ships, and other floating things. The city’s bulk floated along the waves, lashed together and bobbing gently. The bay itself was calm, and as Wali looked out across the open water, he could see the mouth of the bay. Some sort of low barrier enclosed the bay from the ocean beyond. Waves crashed against a stone wall separating the much darker ocean beyond the blue water bay.
The ship swayed and rolled very gently and slowly in the waves. Wali saw at least five other large ships floating near the floating town.
Yacob looked to the ocean, “There is so much water.” He stumbled as the deck moved beneath him, and they all watched in horror as he turned green.
“Over the side!” Shouted the woman, and Yacob ran for the rail, barely making it before hurling. The technicolor yawn, thankfully, was downwind, and Yacob hung there for a bit, retching.
Vinny walked over to the man and opened a small tin of ointment. Dabbing a finger in the paste, he dabbed a bit onto Yacob’s forehead. Yacob sat there for a moment before turning to Vinny, “Thank you, the moving ground doesn’t sit well with me.”
“You can thank Hansa for that. She knew you might have an issue being Earth-aspected.”
“Are you lot done fussing around?” Asked the woman.
Wali turned to her and said, “I think so. You must be Reiki?”
“Captain Reiki the White, of the Storm Dancer, at your service, young master Wali of the Colri.” She said with a bright smile. She reached forward to clasp hands, and Wali found that her grip was firm and her hands thick with callous. “This is my ship, and watching the coastal stones is my duty. Did my sister give you an idea as to why you are here?”
“Yes, she said that Skintaker was here and working to free the one bound below,” Wali replied as Vinny helped Yacob to a seat on a coil of rope. The green of Yacob seemed to be calming. Sas’cha stood stock still, peering around herself suspiciously. A scant few sailors moved around the deck, keeping watch and triple-checking stays and binds.
“I came into port not three days ago, and rumors are all over the city about a huge chicken-footed monster swimming around in the bay. No one had fought with it yet, but it fouled a fisherman’s nets, and the fisherman abandoned his nets instead of trying to bring them aboard. This bay is normally monster free on the surface, so it’s big news. When Marsai told me about Skintaker, I knew it was him.” Reiki said.
“Is there any more information about him or the obelisk?” Wali asked.
“The obelisk is about three hundred meters straight down from here. It lies at the bottom of this bay. We had to bind it where it lay due to its size. You see, this herald was known as Jemna, the Sea Monster. When we fought, it was a conglomeration of giant squids, several whales, and countless sea serpents and fish. The herald itself was a huge crustacean thing that bonded anything it caught to its shell. It built a massive swimming fortress out of the creatures it captured and made a part of its body.”
“Sounds nasty,” Wali said.
Reiki shrugged, “Gavo was never the bright one when it came to his heralds. He went for the strongest beings and made them more powerful. This herald, Jemna, was tough and strong but not bright nor magically powerful. We had just figured out how to bind them into the stones when we defeated it. The only reason the binding is still intact is the fact that it is at the bottom of the sea where darkness and a lack of other erosion have kept it whole.”
“I can feel the binding is far weaker now than when I was here last year. Skintaker has found the obelisk and is working to break it. We need to stop him from doing that if we can. Jemna getting loose would be a disaster for these folks. It would turn this whole place into a floating fortress.” Reiki said.
“I think I’ll take a look and see what I can see,” Wali said as he walked over to the rail. He called forth Noodle and Neferu. Wali bound a light spell to Noodle while Neferu floated in the salt water. He instructed them to dive and find the obelisk.