Water began to boil out of nowhere, forming paws, tentacles, and fins, grasping and foaming at the dead men. Their bodies began to deflate as the water was drawn out of them, and with it, the desperately struggling souls of the dead men.
They were writhing and screaming, but the Waters were having none of it. They wrapped and wrestled, streaming towards the salty sea just below as their captives struggled helplessly against the morass of appendages and inhuman grasping limbs holding them, and poured over the side of the dock. The souls were still kicking and screaming as they were dragged smoothly into the waters below, creating nary a ripple in the waves as the shocked fishermen there leaned over to look.
All that was left of their bodies was dry dust, sucked clean of all moisture, which started blowing away in the slightest breeze from their empty clothes.
“Lady Heavenbound, if you would see me to my girl up on the hill, I would be grateful,” the dead fisherman murmured, even as his phantasmal form rippled and went away.
Legion looked at the houses above the town, spread the white wings of someone sworn to Storm and Heaven, and leapt into the sky smoothly, leaving the dry and dust-filled clothes of the dead Drowners behind for someone else to tell the tale of.
After all, there were two more of these Drowners in the city just to the south, too... and it was polite to relate the true tale of what had been done to the relatives of the dead.
Now, what was going to be done to the families of the Drowned, who certainly had to know of their Pact, was something for the Church of Harse, who had already been contacted and had an Inquisitor on the way...
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They came up between floating chunks of ice, not too far north of Svalbard, north of Norway, halfway between there and the North Pole.
It was March, and the ice pack was at its most extensive, locking the northern island in an icy grip. Nobody had lived on the island for decades, despite some extensive coal deposits, after the entire settlement there had vanished in the winter of 1953. The barracks and processing plants had been found battered, broken, and open to the elements, and the coal mines yawned still and silent when the investigators went in to see what was going on.
Nobody was surprised by the lack of bodies. If men had died, they would have gotten up and wandered away, probably down into the sea.
Surprisingly, it was the local polar bears who proved to be the most helpful. After being sufficiently bribed, they were able to relate that they saw the dead walking down into the water and away from the island, leaving none behind. The bears didn’t know what had killed them, and in the end, it didn’t matter, as the island was largely abandoned, except for occasional visits to make sure nothing set up shop here, and an emergency shelter maintained in case of disaster in the area.
That event was taking on more ominous tones as Traveler rode due north, now racing over the ice, and the occasional gaps between, on the Old Steed, and the landscape rolled by under the surface.
Legion spread both their wings and took off after her at full speed, although staying fairly close to the ice so as not be seen from afar.
Base landbound rate of 60’ from Lilitu. +10 from Amazon. +10 from Dash. Doubled by the Waveskating Step to 160’. Quadrupled at full speed, quintupled if sprinting.
Cloudstepping Sandal Tats, aerial movement at normal speed. Add that again for Stormbound. Add again for Hellbound. Add again for Heavenbound. Add +90 for Air Elemental Command Ring. Add +90 for Telekinesis Ring. Maria had the Fly Ranks to get all the movement bonuses at top speed.
Double speed if they pumped at least 4d6 of Wrath into the Shinjets Graf Mochtal had made from Traveler’s design for them, delighted at the novel project.
3280 feet every six seconds of sustained overland movement, 6560 with Jets, and up to 8400 feet if going all out, or about Mach 1.25, 900ish mph.
There were jets that could outrun them, but could a jet pull a 50g hairpin turn at full speed like they could, ignore weather conditions, follow the terrain so closely, or look through all atmospheric haze?
Well, they didn’t have radar, or carry an anti-tank cannon or missiles, but their internal radio was much more viable than that used by aircraft...
The ice field rocketed by below them, but there was no sonic boom of them flashing past, although a burning red streak did trail them by hundreds of feet as they shot along Traveler’s trail, wings spread wide and giving them a fine feel and control of their flight no airplane could possibly have, while being Stormbound turned air resistance into air encouragement.
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They could leave a sonic boom if they desired, and they had in the past when testing out their top speed. But there was no reason to announce their presence more than they had to here, and the only thing following them in this place were the polar bears and the seals they passed by... and perhaps some of the curious boreal spirits dancing in the sky, watching the Warlock moving at a speed none of them could match curiously, but ultimately unimportantly, as Legion were Stormbound and so not hostiles.
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Eagle Eyes let them see her at some distance away, and they broke off the Jets, letting them Compress back onto the shinguards they came from, and they basically glided in the last couple of miles to catch up to her.
Traveler held out a hand for them to take as they came up alongside her, the Old Steed moving tirelessly at 200 mph overland, eating up the miles himself and establishing a Lived-Line towards the North Pole.
The water in Traveler’s cells tingled at Legion’s touch, and she raised an intrigued eyebrow.
“We’ll not be granting any Drowning Pacts,” they said, having no problems speaking and being heard despite the basically breakneck speed. “And neither will anyone else!”
“My apologies for inflicting her upon you, but I think you will find their gifts useful,” Traveler smiled, despite herself.
“Unable to be harmed by anything with a sexual interest in me is very, very broken when combined with a succubus,” they admitted softly. “It is a pity it does not work against undead.”
“This is true.”
Using her hand as an anchor, Legion smoothly glided in behind Traveler and settled down on the Old Steed once again. She could move faster, of course, but there was no use for doing so. The key here was the Commune being in place, and Traveler moving forward as fast as she did was already impressive enough. The terrain additions to The Map were scrolling forward at a mile every twenty seconds, painting a cold, clear picture of the bottom and top of the sea in her Visual File as they traveled.
The icepacks were not level, but that mattered not at all to the Old Steed, who could leap over icebergs with alacrity, go down to wide fissures in the ice and cross them to the other side without fail, still leaving the Line of their Lives behind. If such hadn’t mattered, Traveler likely could have whisked them directly to the Pole without much effort, simply by scrying ahead to get a position lock first for a Teleport VII.
“The Harsites should have the Drowned’s Cult wrapped up shortly. There are Illuminati links to it, of course. You found no bones or other remains in the grotto, other than a fewscore skulls?”
“That is correct.” Which meant the bodies had been taken off elsewhere, especially if they were recent. Concentrating corpses might call a Shroudzone into existence, after all. “I understand Captain Manakai’s people promptly got five more Waterbound to help them out?”
“Another way to stop crappy Pacts from being Sworn is to replace them with positive Pacts.” It was nigh impossible for a faction to monopolize all the Pacts, naturally enough, but that didn’t mean they didn’t try. Knocking off rivals and promptly swearing your own to a different faction of the same Patrons was a time-honored tradition among the more fractious Warlock Patrons, especially those who Aligned to Evil.
The Water Patrons in New Zealand were actually another group of sirines, who had been quite happy to hear of the deaths of the Drowners. The Princesses of the Sea quickly swore in some of the people who were quick to defend and support them and the inhabitants of the sea. They were yet another reason why the New Zealanders got along at least neutrally with the suspicious merfolk, and were holding out against the aquatic assaults around there.
Tying up the Drowned Pacts would also tie up Water Pacts overall, which was counterproductive in this case. Ergo, Shvaughn had not been called in to permanently dispose of the bastards.
“You have some concerns about where all the bodies have gone,” Legion nodded behind her embrace.
“Concerns is a little strong, although the numbers that could accumulate over the years could be very high, indeed. That communication link off her mirror simply cemented the fact that they and their Cult members were suppliers of the dead to them... and the undead of the sea tend to be stronger than most of the dead of the land.”
“We are more water than earth,” Legion agreed in their layered voice. “What are you expecting to find?”
“First, that.”
Their attention was drawn inside to The Map, and to what on the surface just looked like a sea-ridge, extending off to the sides out of sight. It did not look that suspicious, until you looked deeper and found that the ridge line actually extended underground and onwards, the fact obscured by centuries of debris and dust falling from the waters above.
Traveler calmly overlaid a certain arc on it, and a rounded edge, and then drew back from the image.
Legion watched in amazement as the image of Hyperborea’s circular land exactly fit the massive depression in the waters, and the great mountain at the center of it had once stood where the North Pole was.
“There really was a fabled land at the North Pole,” they murmured in some disbelief. “When was this done?”
“Best guess is between seven and twelve hundred years ago. We saw recognizable Viking cultures over there caught up in it, but the overlay on the seabed is randomized with debris from the removal.
“There must have been major powers of Water involved, because the sea levels would have dropped massively when it was removed, and instead there was basically no reaction at all.”
There were indeed ridges and rifts down there along the fault lines, but they were obviously younger and shallower than those farther south, as if their tops had been clipped off and taken away.
“And the ice replaced it, and the land at the Pole simply ended up becoming just another old tale, when all that could truly be found there afterwards was ice.”
“Magic is so damn good at this, especially when we’re so bad at believing the words of those who died before us.”
They rode in silence, the severed seascape scrolling by below them, taking peace in the quiet of the moment, even as things were developing in the back of their heads. Traveler had multiple thoughtstreams, after all, and the members of Legion all had things they dutifully kept track on, and people they chatted with.
But, in the physical world, for a time there was nothing to do.
“You’ve been parsing Queen Rayetizvisha. Have you discovered anything of value?” Traveler finally asked them.