“[I sense… your understanding. Answer.]”

It wasn’t a request. The air suddenly felt thick. Darker. And the eye didn’t seem neutral or curious anymore. Everything seemed to fade around the giant glare that pierced through his soul.

“I’m Henry! I mean you no harm. I’m sorry.”

The ominous air abated, and the giant eye blinked. “[You… have the gift… of mind. I do not… hear the words. But I sense… the intent. Reveal yourself.]”

Henry dropped Mimicking Tentacles and the air immediately tensed again.

“[Deceiver… spawn.]”

The displeasure of the voice made him quail, and the eye seemed to loom closer.

“[Wretch!]”

The voice boomed in his mind and his vision swam as a blinding headache slammed into his brains. He felt sick.

He looked at his health, and found it at 88%. Henry struggled to think clearly. It seemed to understand his thoughts. Not as good as the System, but close.

“I’m human. I was not born this way. I swear.”

The displeasure mellowed, but it was still present, right at the edge of his consciousness.

An odd call resounded from the whale’s physical throat, and similar calls were returned from all around them. Seconds later, shapes began to converge.

“[Explain, Deceiver.]”

By the time Henry finished explaining what he’d been doing when he died, the multi-colored turtle, waking up as an octopus, then talking to the system, four whales were surrounding him, with the fifth above.

A new voice spoke in his mind. “[You spoke… with the Supreme?]”

“[You found… a sacred… traveler?]” another asked.

The hostility was completely gone, and the one that had inflicted the damage spoke again. “[Forgive… my mistake… Henry.]”

Henry paused in surprise. “You believe me?”

He immediately regretted saying that. Why was he sabotaging his own damn self?

“[We sense… the truth… of your words. We see… your odd nature. The gift of the Supreme… does not lie.]”

That was cryptic. But okay? Most importantly though, he could ask questions.

“Are there humans nearby?” He tried to picture a human holding a tool, or sailing a boat like he’d done.

An odd call sounded from one of them, echoed by the others, one by one.

“[We… don’t understand… your meaning.]”

Henry deflated for a moment, then rallied. “They live on land. They’re small. They make objects out of wood to go into the sea. They’re smart. They can talk, like you, but with sound.”

“[Ah… yes. Some live on land… some in the sea… with us.]”

Wait what? Henry was going to need a follow-up on that, but for now he needed to stay on track.

“Are they far? How can I get to them?”

“[They are… outside… of the Great Current. It is… many cycles… of travel. Many.]”

Henry’s heart dropped. “You mean days? When the sun comes out and there’s light?”

“[A cycle… is ten of those days. Yes.]”

Henry tried to take in what that meant. Many 10-day weeks? How many?

“[You are… too young… to leave the sanctuary.]”

What did that have to do with anything? And what sanctuary?

The whales seemed to pick up on his confusion, so another answered. “[The sanctuary is in… the Great Current. To find… those you seek… you need… to leave the sanctuary, then escape the Current. You will not… survive. You are… too weak. Still.]”

Henry deflated. Then he looked up at the giant whales and asked, “Could you take me out of the Current? Can I travel with you?”

New sounds echoed between a few of them. Were they laughing?

“[You have spoken… with the Supreme. We dare not… interfere… in its designs.]”

“[But when you… leave,]” another one spoke, raising a flipper to point toward the kelp forest, “[go… in that direction. It is the shortest… path. And least… dangerous. Do not… stray. Even we… would be in danger.]”

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

A nice way of telling him he was on his own. Henry looked down at his tentacles, then down at the empty fields of gold ahead.

“[You feel… loss. We… apologize.]”

“I’ll have to manage, I guess.”

Henry wanted to go home. He looked up at the whale. “Can I come back and talk with you soon? Will you still be around?”

“[Yes… we will be here… for a few more… cycles.]”

Henry nodded and prepared to head back home. Under a disguise. He wondered if they’d let him bite them to get their Telepathy or whatever it was they were using to speak in his head… but maybe that’d wait for another meeting. Then he looked up at the calves in the distance.

“There’s something big that lives nearby. I couldn’t see its name… but Identify didn’t work.”

“[Yes… we sense… it. It will not… move… if we leave it… be.]”

Good to know. Henry said his good-byes, then left. Minutes later, he heard the first voice echo in his mind again.

“[Good… luck. The Supreme believes… in you.]”

----------------------------------------

“I should get my turtle shell and come to this area.”

Henry slowly made his way back as a rock. He was slightly less worried about the local fauna, but he still had to be careful. Now that he didn’t have five giant whales staring him down, though, it felt like maybe he should have asked more questions.

But between the disappointment of not getting a ride and them being massive and intimidating, he ended up wanting to retreat.

“I’ll have to try moving the shell. Could I carry it? I’d have to cover it up… Some fish are attracted to shiny things. With kelp? Maybe?”

Henry hummed. He didn’t have any tools to use–if he could even manage that–to camouflage the shell. He was definitely not leaving it, though.

“So I’m in the safe section of this Current? And it takes how many cycles to get through it?”

Henry should have gotten a figure. But if it was more than three or four, then it wasn’t much of a current. Depending on their speed…

“This Current sounds like a sea at least. Probably an ocean. And it extends in every direction from here?”

Henry arrived home and looked at his shell. He swam around, examining how it was stuck.

“I’m curious what a map of this world would look like. And how did you even get stuck like this?”

He thought at first that maybe the boulder had slid and trapped the turtle. But after examining the position of everything surrounding the shell, it didn’t seem like it.

He began working under the shell, digging into the sand to create some space. Which wasn’t easy or effective with his tentacles. Henry then tried to move the sand with Telekinesis. It didn’t work. After searching his surroundings for a couple of minutes, he found a flat enough piece of rock and used Telekinesis on that instead.

Thirty minutes later, and after an expensive push down with Telekinesis, the turtle shell was dislodged.

“If this was the same turtle I chased…. It might have been dead for a while. Now that I think of it, even its bones aren’t around anymore.”

It was scuffed around the edges, specifically where it had been stuck. Barnacles grew around those spots and along the exits, but they didn’t seem to want to stick on the luminescent bits. So aside from some scuff marks, the colored structure itself was intact.

Henry slowly moved across the shell, examining the colorations of every scute. Each had vibrant colors that seemed to vary depending on the angle and light. A spot he would see as red would turn to yellow as soon as he tilted his head or angled the light differently. The whole back of the shell was like that, and it seemed like every color in existence was available somewhere on the shell. As long as you angled yourself right.

Something about it was tingling the back of his mind somehow.

“What is this even made of?”

Henry tried to move it with his tentacle… and he succeeded, to his own surprise.

“Still too heavy for me to carry.”

He looked back toward the territory of the whales, then back to the shell. He was going to need some more Strength points, and Telekinesis might end up the first to get to level 10.

“This might take a few days.”

----------------------------------------

2 days later.

Henry was in a foul mood as he dropped onto the back of another shark.

[Riptide Shark (F) - Lvl 26]

He stabilized himself and tore into its gills, then immobilized it with Telekinesis before it could activate its Skill.

When the Core formed, he immediately Consumed it and popped off the shark’s carcass before its brethren came to eat it.

He’d had some concerns about the killing spree he’d been subjecting the local ecosystem to, but then he realized that for every shark he killed, ten showed up the day after.

And he wasn’t a safe human on a boat anymore. Taking measures and samples and tracking migrations patterns to safekeep the dwindling population of Earth’s oceans. He didn’t have that luxury here. He was in the food chain. Not on top of it.

Short of it was, he wasn’t collecting cores anymore. Not after he lost two of them. And if he found what stole them, he would tear it apart.

Henry swam down to his overturned shell and went inside, ignoring the stalks of kelp that came up from each of its sides.

On the first day of travel, he’d confirmed that the shell was extremely attractive to every goddamn fish around. So after hiding it, he went and collected long kelp stalks that he wrapped around the shell to keep it somewhat hidden.

It had been a massive pain in the ass, trying to tie kelp without hands. Telekinesis helped, but it wasn’t very accurate. Or at least he wasn’t while using it.

“I miss having hands.”

Two Shark Cores. Two. Bundling them under a bunch of algae hadn’t been enough. Something had come in, sifted through the algae, and picked them up.

Henry shook his head. He had wanted to collect a few and then decide on how he’d use them, but even though he’d intended to store them for only a few hours, it had been a mistake. He should have just been using them for levels as he went. Or, if he insisted on hoarding enough to splurge, he could have converted everything to Tokens, then sat down and spent it all at once.

At least he kept the Skill levels. And he should be getting to the whale territory in a few hours; he could relax then. Find a good spot to hide the shell, and then go pester the Whales for their Telepathy Skill.

And kill more Riptide Sharks. Then maybe leave them alone and find something else to harvest.

Henry settled down in the center of his shell and watched from a distance as Riptide Sharks tore their own to pieces. He’d be at 29 or even 30 if it wasn’t for that stupid thief. Whatever it was. And his own stupidity for leaving the Cores in his shell.

But it hadn’t been all for nothing.

Both Telekinesis and Razor Tentacle were at level 9. And he was one or two sharks away from figuring out what happened when a Skill got to 10. He’d head back out once they calmed down. He wanted to get this over with before reaching the whales.

It was time to assign his new stat points, so he pulled up his menu and got to work.