Werrica Proy felt the Leviathans clash overhead from six thousand fathoms deep. Her Crescent Moontide pattern's mastery over the ocean was unchallenged throughout Asin. After her ascension to Lutetium, if the aquatic behemoths didn't keep a tight leash on their anima she could sense them anywhere in the Thale Sea.
It was her life's work to eradicate the beasts, and business, as the shorelanders would say, was booming. Every year Leviathan sightings in the Thale grew increasingly rare, their populations either migrating to other oceans or decimated by her hand.
Some of her people had decried Werrica's purposeful extinction of the creatures, dangerous though they were. She'd snuffed those voices out before they became a chorus, and the rest of the gillfolk had taken the hint.
Her thoughts returned to the clash above, examining the animus that leaked from their pores like a shark might scent blood in the water. Juveniles, she realized. Territory disputes on the surface were vanishingly rare but not unheard of.
She silenced the courtier speaking to her, waving him away with a casual gesture. She put the petitioner out of her mind, her thoughts filling with greater concerns. Her consort, Dornus, would take care of the man. He would have sensed the Leviathans a few moments after she had.
She turned to him now, warmth flooding her chest despite the bone-deep chill in the water at this depth. "I go, my love," she smiled. "Protect the city until my return."
Dornus swam over to press his forehead to hers, the gillman's more prominent brow spines flattening against his head as they came together. "Come back to me, Werrica. Hadal feels cold and dark without your presence."
She snorted, a ring of water rising from her snout. "It's always cold and dark, you old romantic. I'll be back in ten breaths."
She spent the first three rising to the surface at a speed that would strip the flesh from any vulcanite below Samarium. As she approached the surface, her crucible came alight. Her chest filled with anima that felt like salt, sea, and darkness. With the breaths came connection, and links of animus formed around her arm in a great, razor-sharp fin that resembled the crescent moon.
The Splitting Moon was the crown jewel of her pattern, and it could cut in twain anyone or anything in Asin short of another Lutetium. Even the more defensive Lutetiums, like Lailatt and the Winterforge, were wary of this technique. She'd used it to slaughter the last Leviathan matriarch almost two cycles ago, a creature the equal of any vulcanite save perhaps the Sunscourge, and now her might was unchallenged in the Thale.
The fourth breath she spent analyzing the two Leviathans. Stonesworns, like the one that had killed her parents. Spotting two of the creatures on the surface was even less likely than she'd thought. Stonesworns almost exclusively stayed within ten fathoms of the ocean floor, and She grew excited at the prospect of finding what had driven them from the depths.
Her mind took in the other details nigh-instantly, seeing the small trading vessel drifting in the water, obviously trying to avoid the creatures' notice. Three vulcanites on board, the foremost among them a Strontium. Barely a real vulcanite at all. A third-step vulcanite wasn't worth spending the time or the anima to save them.
On the fifth breath, the technique on her arm solidified. She angled the anima construct so it would bisect both creatures, her body never slowing, extended blade slicing through both Stonesworns like an arrow through paper.
During the fifth breath, she arrested her momentum with her movement technique, The Lunar Cycle, swirling her anima in a great circle to shift her acceleration in the opposite direction. Werrica saw the twin pinpricks of light falling from the two corpses below her, but returning to Dornus was what mattered. She'd leave them for the depths.
She re-entered the water with a boom, bubbles following her in a swirling pattern for the first instant before she slipped below the sun-touched waters. The next four breaths she spent diving toward Hadal at speed, almost as fast as she'd risen, and before her tenth breath, she was back in the throne room.
The gillfolk petitioner had barely left the dais.
Dornus turned to her, a sharp-toothed grin on his face she knew well. "Successful hunt?"
"Two Stonesworn," she replied, settling onto her throne with a bone-weary sigh. "Sinking to the depths. Two more Leviathans that will never threaten Hadal."
Dornus bowed, slamming his obsidian scepter into the dais' floor with a clang that resounded through the water for almost a league. "Give thanks to Werrica Moonripper, Lutetium of the Crescent Moon!"
The city responded around him, animus flaring as the people thanked their monarch.
Werrica smiled. It was good to be a savior.
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Were it just the Leviathans' conflict, they might have escaped unscathed.
Seph was gripped tight to an exposed railing as the ship listed, and he'd already seen Hileria save one of the gillmen from going over the side. He begged silently to whatever gods would listen that the wave wouldn't obliterate the ship.
They seemed to mock him in the next moment.
The wave hit the ship, the groaning impact rocking the bones of the vessel but not doing any lasting damage, and he watched as Hileria began to right them along with two other vulcanites who had emerged from the hold. Before they could make any real progress, a spray of golden ichor fountained into the air from where the Leviathans had clashed.
At first, he thought they'd injured each other badly enough to account for the blood. Then he saw the tiny figure in the sky, an extended blade of animus visible even to his Hollow eyes at this distance. The blade dwarfed the gillwoman a hundred times over, shaped like the crescent moon and colored almost the same, and it faded into nothingness even as he watched. He couldn't make out details at this range, but he could see the vulcanite's gaze turn toward the ship as her eyes glowed with a pale white anima.
She looked away just as quickly.
The gillwoman stopped rising in the next moment, movement arrested, and with a swirl of anima that he had no doubt was far more intricate than he could make out, knifed back into the ocean faster than he could see.
He looked on in wonder for a moment, mind struggling to catch up with his eyes. Finally, he turned to Hileria elatedly, expecting to see joy from her as well.
If Hileria had looked nervous when the Leviathans clashed, now she looked horrified.
"MOONRIPPER! BRACE!" She screamed, terror ripping her throat raw as she tried to create webs of water, solidifying them into a brace of animus meant to preserve the integrity of her ship.
Seph looked back at where the Lutetium known as Moonripper, Werrica Proy, had re-entered the water.
A crater was being birthed into existence, as though a meteor had struck the ocean.
He scrambled to do as Hileria said, wrapping both arms around the protruding railing and pushing his back against the wall.
The wave hit in the next moment, and a rush of water turned the ship to kindling. Seph's head slammed into the wood of the vessel as he tumbled, and everything went black.
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Seph woke to the sounds of someone retching. He blinked sand out of his eyes and swiped a hand through his hair, pushing it away from his face.
As his vision cleared, he turned, getting his hands under him and lifting himself to his feet.
The beach he stood on was more gravel than sand, small pebbles rolling in the waves that lapped against the shore. He turned toward the retching before examining the rest of the coastline distracted him.
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Lume was coughing, trying to clear the saltwater from her lungs. Hileria was next to her, drawing water out with her animus so Lume didn't suffocate. Hileria's yellow pants looked as though they'd gone through a meat grinder, and the captain had lost a few of her head spines.
Seph surveyed the beach frantically, searching for Nax, and finally spotted him lying in the sand with legs spread. One arm shaded his eyes, and the other rested on a sphere the size of Seph's head. The orb glowed with a pale red inner light, seemingly forming a ring around Nax's touch. His friend took deep breaths that inflated his core, looking more tired than Seph had ever seen him despite watching him in the ring for almost a decade.
He filed away the sphere and turned back to Hileria. "What in the Fortress' wrinkly ass was that?"
She glanced his way before returning to Lume, continuing to tease the water from her lungs. Finally, she spoke. "That was the Moonripper. Proy hunts Leviathans like you shorelanders go fishing. When they fight, they use anima instinctually. She must have felt it from Hadal."
Seph looked at her incredulously. "Hadal was a full three days sailing from where we were, not to mention the time it takes to reach that depth!"
"Yes," Hileria grunted, finishing with Lume and turning the girl to her back. "She was probably back in Hadal before the wave hit us."
The world of Lutetiums, still so foreign to Seph, continued to frustrate him. Werrica Proy had seen their vessel, and despite that, she'd left them to be battered by her oceanic voyage. Once again, his distaste for the state of vulcanites grew.
Then he reminded himself that a vulcanite had saved them, and he bowed at the waist toward Hileria, performing the salute of respect. "Thank you," he intoned. "Both for shielding us and for bringing us to shore. We won't forget this."
"Thank him," the gillwoman replied, gesturing to Nax. "He dragged you most of the way. I barely had enough in the hold for the girl."
Seph looked toward his friend, exhaustion writ large in every line of his body. Nax lifted a thumb toward him.
"Then thank you for Lume's life," Seph returned, swinging back to gaze at Hileria. "I hate to ask, but your crew?"
"Most are dead," Hileria said, voice flat and without inflection. Emotion roiled under her surface, a great predator circling in the deep. "Two survivors. Both elected to wait on the ocean floor for a trading vessel to come through. It should be a week at most."
Two out of a crew of almost fifty souls. Seph's heart burned at the waste. "Moonripper. You yelled it like you knew we were done. Does she make a habit of this?"
Hileria chuckled, the sound surprisingly alien compared to human laughter. "Yes. I told you we lose one in twenty ships a cycle to Leviathans? A tenth of that comes from her slaying Leviathans and us getting caught in the shockwave."
Seph tried to contain the disgust that welled in him at that. "You're telling me she kills her own people regularly?"
Again came the snorting sound. "Do you watch your steps so you don't tread on an ant? She's not trying to leave behind a trail of corpses. Lutetiums do it just by existing in the same world we do," she said, seemingly resigned to her fate. She slammed a webbed fist into Lume's chest, eliciting one last cough, before grabbing the Ojentus under the arms and beginning to drag her to the tree line. "They move, and we scatter like rats. I should've known she'd come for the beasts, even if they were babes. Moonripper hates Leviathans more than carnacles hate the world. She's been trying to eradicate their whole species for hundreds of cycles."
Seph had heard about the Lutetium's crusades against the underwater behemoths but hadn't realized how deep the Moonripper's enmity ran. "How are there any left?" He asked.
"The smarter ones figured out how to hide themselves, same as my crew did to the ship. Nowadays, she only catches them when they slip up. Or they're young and stupid, like our pair was," Hileria replied, setting Lume in the shade with Seph's help. "Rumor is a Leviathan killed her parents. Once she reached Samarium, she started hunting them to the ends of the Thale. Half their population migrated into tarranid waters."
Seph leaned against a nearby tree, the rough bark bolstering him as he took a breath. "Where are we, then? I haven't seen trees like this anywhere on Tuwallo."
"Terundria or Poltare, one of the two. My guess is Poltare since you're not freezing to death." Seph didn't miss the implication that the vulcanite would be fine.
"Poltare, then. But where? Are we close to Matin?"
Hileria's response was interrupted by Nax trudging into the tree line, sphere still cradled as his heavy-footed tread brought him closer to the group. He dropped the sphere unceremoniously in Seph's lap, listed to the side like he'd been struck, and sank to the forest floor to rest.
"No more ocean. Seen enough water for a lifetime," Nax said.
Seph chuckled, a short laugh that faded into seriousness. "Thank you," he said. "I'd tell you I'll repay this, but I already owe more than I could repay in a thousand lifetimes." He cleared his throat, face reddening. "Now, what have you gifted me?"
Nax groaned before replying. "Don't know. Found it glowing in one of the Leviathans. Figured you could use it."
Seph didn't miss the sharp intake of breath coming from Hileria's direction, and he couldn't blame her. Solid animus from a creature as powerful as a Leviathan? Vulcanites had killed for a bounty of that magnitude.
He looked over at the gillwoman and spotted the war in her eyes, but before long, she seemed to come to a decision. "I won't take it from you. That doesn't sink right, stealing in the shadow of my crew's lives. But you should know that if you'd found it under normal circumstances, I'd tear it from your hands and peel your bones if you protested. Do you realize how valuable that is?"
Seph suppressed a shudder at Hileria's honesty. "I have an idea. I'd imagine this would help enormously for anyone with water animus."
The gillwoman snorted. "Help enormously, he says. I could crack that open and ascend to Barium today, and probably most of the way to Titanium. You have no idea what you've found. When you get back to civilization, they'll gut you for it."
Nax laughed weakly. "Been trying to kill us since Seph could talk. Don't know what I'd do without death over one shoulder."
Hileria shook her head. "Not like this. I'm talking real vulcanites, not whatever whaleshit excuses you had in Tuwallo. A Zirconium would see benefits from what's in your hands. Think about that."
Seph did. Zirconium was the seventh step on the vulcanite ladder, where the fires of their crucible completely reforged a vulcanite's body. It was where someone became their idealized self. Zirconium separated the world powers from the pretenders, the first stage unreachable through hard work and resources alone. And in his hands, he held something those same vulcanites would kill for.
He felt foolish for the excitement that came, but he couldn't help himself. It was exactly the type of break they needed: an honest-to-gods relic quality resource. Seph could barely contain himself.
"I don't like that look," Hileria sighed.
"He's thinking of doing something stupid," Nax agreed. Seph had to suppress a laugh at the lack of movement from anything other than Nax's mouth. He'd never seen him look so wrung out, even after he'd fought the Lithium. Nax continued, "We'll get stronger for it though. Say what you will about the idiot, he solves problems."
Hileria looked back and forth between them, seemingly trying to tell if they were joking. "Shorelanders," she sighed. "I'd ask you to buy it, but I seem to be out of funds."
"I wouldn't sell it to you if you weren't," Seph replied frankly. "There aren't enough chips on Asin to convince me to squander this opportunity."
Hileria laughed at that, though it was short. "There are always enough chips, boy. Trust me." She shook her head, rising with a groan. "We'll, I'd best return to my crew. The ocean floor is harsh for Hollows."
She was doing her best to remain nonchalant, but Seph knew the truth. She wanted to look for a second anima construct. If this had dropped from one Leviathan, where was the other?
Good. It wasn't like their group could retrieve it anyway, and Hileria had done more than enough in saving Lume. "We understand," Seph said. "Thank you, once again. Without you, I don't know what we would have done."
Hileria stared at him for a moment, tattered yellow pants a marked contrast to her somber demeanor. "Don't die, Seph. Even if you are an idiot. You've got good people around you." She glanced at Lume and Nax, the former still not having awoken. "Take care of them." And with that, she turned, striding toward the surf until she disappeared beneath the waves.
"Well," Nax said. "Looks like we're stuck here."
He and Seph exchanged a look.
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"And she just left?" Lume asked.
"Yep," Seph replied. They sat around a small campfire, huddled together for warmth while their garments dried on a rack Seph had put together. The construction looked like it had been made by blind children.
"Went looking for the other half of the set," Nax grunted, gesturing to the orb. "Saved our asses enough for one cycle, I suppose."
"And left us alone, in the forest, on a continent we've never been to," Lume said, the disappointment in her voice palpable.
"Island, maybe," Nax offered.
She silenced him with a glare. "Why not offer the orb for her help?"
Seph blanched. "This is worth a kingdom. I couldn't bear to see us give it away."
"We wouldn't be giving it away!" Lume exclaimed. "We'd be buying our lives! Do either of you know how to hunt and navigate through a forest like this? This is practically barren compared to Omata!"
Seph and Nax exchanged a look. Seph spoke for both of them. "We'll figure it out. Look, Lume," he said, lifting the sphere with a flourish. "This thing is our opportunity to start vulcanization ahead of the curve. We could turn this into ignition for all three of us if we play our shells right."
"Turn it into ignition with who?" Lume asked. "Who could we trust not to slit our throats and take the damn thing for themselves, if it's so valuable? Did you think of that, O Wise Leader?"
"I did," Seph admitted. "But the risk is worth it. Lume," he said, forestalling her before her tirade could continue. "I know. I hear what you say, and I agree. But we now possess an object perhaps worth more than all of Tuwallo. If we went to the Fortress and asked him to trade, there's a good chance he'd give us the city in exchange. Think about that."
The heat seemed to fade from Lume's voice, though it didn't disappear entirely. "We can't trade it to insects and trees." She sighed, seeming to resign herself to their shared fate. "But I'll trust you. If you get me killed, though, I'm strangling you in your sleep."
"Do it when he's awake," Nax said.
They both turned to him.
"He couldn't stop you either way," he explained.
Lume laughed first, Seph joining in a beat later.