Okay, Crimson Tide just became orders of magnitude more cool, Wesley thinks as she marvels at the underwater civilization. His old fascination with ancient cultures had touched upon underwater peoples like the Oceanics and the Sea People, but he'd devoted his efforts on ancient human civilizations. Mainly because it was exceptionally rare for a surface-dwelling scientist to ever be granted the honor of visiting the generally reclusive realms of the underwater peoples. Getting not only to visit, but be welcomed was such an honor that the Curator's colleagues would have gladly submitted to the lamp for such an opportunity.
Ever since she'd become stuck as a female, Wesley had been cautious about pushing her powers too much. Her telekinesis, constructs, and shapechanging seemed more inherent to her being a Jinn rather than something that draws upon wishcraft to power. Even so, she didn't want to try a new trick unless it was absolutely necessary. That's why she relied upon the Ear Buddie to listen in on the conversation, but her underwater mermaid form didn't have the same vocal capabilities to actually speak back into them. So she heard, but couldn't contribute, to the conversation as they swam down to Kulana.
When the Sea King created the bubble of air, Wesley stuck her head into it so she could speak, though she stayed within the water -- no sense switching back and forth when it wouldn't help matters. She looks to Crimson Tide for social cues to follow before speaking to the king.
Tumbler checks the seals on her suit and the outside pressure herself before she deems it safe to remove her helmet. "Oh, wow, that air is salty," She comments as she gets her first whiff. Which did make sense being at the bottom of the ocean but she was still surprised and expected it to be more magically clear.
"So, not to be ungrateful, but I'm wondering how much you have to concentrate on this air bubble, Mr. King?" She asks him, wondering if he remembers the time White Rabbit attempted to steal the Great Pearl of the Pacific from the Sea People. "Just, you know, wondering how much time I'll have to put my helmet back on if it starts to collapse..."
Dervish, on the other hand, seems perfectly fine keeping his suit on for the moment.
"The air will remain in place until I remove it. You need not worry about suffocating, Lady Locke." The Sea King laughs heartily. "And may I say, it is good to see you have come to your senses and joined the good guys! The White Rabbit was a thorn in my side from time to time, but what hurt most was to see him guiding a young girl like yourself down the path of crime. Now, rather than a menace to society, you can be a boon for it! The villains' loss is the people of Bay City's gain!"
She nervously laughs, trying to write off the words as nothing. 'Menace to society' though stings a little in her.
We never hurt people who didn't deserve it. Right?
"...You really think that, or are you just paying lip service?" She asks the Sea King, sizing him up. "I mean, maybe people got hurt here and there during one of our heists, but you've probably failed in your own ways, haven't you?"
The smile quickly fades from the Sea King's face. "Yes. Despite our best efforts as heroes, we do not always emerge victorious. This city, Kulana, is not the first of its name. Long ago, there was another Kulana. It was a peaceful place, just like this one, until a spirit of wrath awoke a dormant volcano nearby. I did what I could to try to save as many citizens as I could, but I was just a boy then. I could not save them all. I could not save..."
He closes his eyes as he trails off. When he opens them, though, there is only a trace of sadness in them. "But that was a long time ago. You have all traveled a long way to be here. I have prepared a feast to welcome you! Take a load off, and eat your fill!"
He claps his hands, and several other Sea People emerge from side corridors, laying out tables laden with delicious-looking seafood and an assortment of tropical fruits and drinks.
Ziss enjoys the breathable air when the Sea King creates it. She is wearing her regular formfitting bodysuit, since it is quite resistant against cold. Upon learning about the invite, she has asked Wendy to affix a device similar to her O2 glasses onto her mask, which she removes now that food is offered.
The Nomad learnt years ago never to refuse food or help freely given, even if later in Razzara she was told it was also wasn't polite to do so. "Thank you for the wonderful food, Sea King."
Said that, Ziss skips the fruits, focusing on the seafood, specially on things she had never tried before.
Arcana reluctantly restores her legs when the extends his offer of a banquet. She'd slowly grown accustomed to the feeling of panties around her nether regions, which meant bikini bottoms felt like she was walking around in her underwear. She honestly preferred having the fish tail.
But she sits down and slides her legs underneath the table and picks at the offered foods, appearing grateful even though she doesn't eat much.
Wendy taps her press-on to deactivate the Grouch O2 outside the bubble. She then swims into the breathable air, not at all worried it will expire.
“Darling Derby’s the name, your sea-majesty. Crimson Tide calls me Derbs, which is starting to grow on me. She’s the muscle of our team, you might’ve guessed, but so much more—loud with ideas, quick to communicate them, looking out for her teammates… I’m sure I’m only confirming what you already expected.”
She takes a seat between Ziss and Arcana. She says to Ziss, “How’d your Foxygen Mask work out?”
Megan is very respectful of the Sea King, greeting him with the same horn-to-forehead tap, but waiting for him to initiate any embrace. Knowing that a feast was in the offing, she'd brought her appetite with her beneath the waves, and proceeds to power through plate after plate of fish.
Only once she's eaten enough to fill her belly and satisfy hospitality, does Crimson Tide turn to business. "Not that I need a reason to return to Kulana, your majesty, but are the Watchmen here so you can check in, or is there something we can help with?"
The Darling Derby’s eyes twitch ever-so-slightly to the fact that there my be a victory to celebrate, yet she brought no camera for the selfie. But between rose tinted lenses, and the way she keeps eating and genuinely enjoying the taste, and given all the Atlantean beauty about, surely no one noticed Derbs’ in that small fraction of a second.
Seated at the edge of the table in front of Wendy, the doll notices the legacy’s microexpression. Nothing to fear, Wendy, darling, she thinks but does not say.
The Sea King gives Megan a huge, crushing hug. "I've missed you, my girl," he says.
When she asks about the purpose of the visit, he nods. "A bit of both. I wanted to get to know this new family you have found for yourself, but there is also an issue I would like you to look into. There have been reports of strange beings lurking about the ocean floor nearby. Nobody has gotten a good look at them, but they do not seem to be any creatures of this world. The guards I sent to investigate them did not return.
"I remembered the battle in the Bay when you first got together. I wonder if these beings may be related to those otherworldly monsters you fought. Since you have some experience with them, I thought you all could try to find these creatures and deal with them!"
"It worked pretty well, Wendy! I don't understand too much about crafting fings, I it looks like you are as good as the crafters of Razzara and Taris, and in Taris, dey have floating cities!" Ziss is simply marveled by everything, finding it amusing that despite having traveled to other worlds, she had never been to a world with so much water, and deep water like Earth.
As the Sea King mentions the eldritch monsters, Ziss raises to her feet and bows deeply to the king, in order to request his permission for her to speak. Once granted, she begins her relate. "Great King Under De Sea. My name is Ziss, and I am a worldjumper, a nomad who travels between far distant worlds."
"I have seen monsters dese before, in a world called Dasko. De inhabitants of dat world all live underground in huge caves, because all de surface was lost to dese eldritch creatures... dey are frightening an incredibly powerful, but also corrupting and mischievous." She tells, obviously frightened, but trying to keep her tale to look like the story of a scared little girl. "I do not know much about deir origin, or shapes, for dere are many, but one fing I could understand from de short people of Dasko is dat dese monster are blinded to worlds dat do not welcome dem... if dey are here, I fear dar someone or somefing is calling dem."
Dervish raises a hand in the deep diving suit. ”Hate to be a downer here, your Ocean-ness, but I don’t think I for one will be of much help. I don’t have enough control over my abilities to teleport this suit and all the tubing around, and my psi-blades would probably cut it up if I conjure one. So…”
”We got you covered, brother,” the Sea King says. He gestures, and another servant steps forward with several necklaces, each set with a single pearl. ”These are enchanted to allow you to breathe water, keep your bodies warm, and protect you from the pressure of the deep. You won’t have to worry about bulky equipment so long as you are wearing them.”
Wesley had started to think of different ways she could have used her powers to help Diego short of wishcraft -- though that was always an option even if a generally bad one.
She sighs, then, with relief that the Sea King had a solution for Dervish (and for Derby as well since this mission was on the ocean floor). With that problem solved, she starts to think of ways they could locate these creatures.
"Your majesty, I think I know of a way to find them. If you could give us a place to start looking, we can begin." She glances at Crimson Tide and wonders if the rules about waiting an hour after you've eaten to swim apply to her.
The Sea King gives you directions to a kelp forest a few miles away from Kulana. "Good luck, my young friends! I will await word of your success!"
The Darling Derby dons the necklace. ”Oh, I love this! Any chance we can hang onto these, should our mission succeed. It’s rare to find great aquatic heroes, Crimson Tide being the amazing exception to the rule.
“Not a rule, really. Rather a perception known as The Aquaman Effect. Too many cape-chasers so fascinated by flying they fail to see the much-greater need, at least in this locale, to be immune to drowning and able to bear the pressure at depths a submarine could not survive.”
Bowing before leaving, she adds, “Perhaps we complete our mission, and you then decide what we earned. Even having one I can study in the hope of replicating the effect would be a boon—an earned boon!”
The Barbed Beret takes a lobster fork, wields it like a trident, and plunges into the water to aid the Darling Derby!
"Thank you," Tumbler says as she takes the pearl, strings it around her neck, and then reseals the pressure suit over her. It wasn't that she didn't trust the Sea King was telling the truth - but redundancies saved lives and trusting that nothing would snap the pearl off of its string around her neck while investigating things seemed far too optimistic for her.
"We ready to go? This place is definitely fantastic looking, but I would like to get the investigation done first before we relax and enjoy ourselves." She suggests to the team.
Ziss takes the magic pearl with reverence, wondered at the prospect of having a new toy that is actually magical. "It is my honor to serve."
Dervish also apprehensively took the pearl, but only after Tumbler did. He also quickly reseals his pressure suit.
Arcana steps back into the water without a necklace, shifting back into a mermaid shape. She follows Crimson Tide, trusting the aquatic superhero would better follow the directions than anyone else. She does have to pause once and readjust the straps on her bikini top; it still didn't feel natural to her and when her powerful tail picked up speed it felt like the thing was going to come loose any second.
When they reach the kelp forest, Arcana concentrates for a moment while letting her fins work to keep her stable in the gentle currents. She weaves together a psychic construct of a fish, putting effort into making it look and move about like a real one. Then with that as a template, she duplicates her efforts, one after the other, until a small school of fish swims around the group.
She closes her eyes as the effort of keeping a mental link to each one, but she doesn't need to sense their rudimentary thoughts or control their actions. She'd encountered the otherworldly creatures once before, and felt their oily wrongness. That's all she needed to feel through these tiny extensions of her mind. Something that would give her and her team a direction.
Still keeping her eyes closed, she sends the fish to spread out through the kelp forest.
After a while, the fish constructs get a hit. Arcana can feel the same wrongness of the monstrous aberrations. She follows the sensation, leading the group through the waving fronds of kelp.
Eventually, the seaweed gives way to the entrance of a cave. Concealed by the kelp, you cautiously peek out and see four Sea People standing watch outside. Each of them has a strange-looking nautilus shell attached to the back of their head. Slimy tentacles emerge from the shell to insert themselves into the sentries' ears. The Sea People have glassy expressions, but they grip their tridents with purpose.
What do you do?
The Barbed Beret says to the team,
“Analyzing… the narwhal boys are surely here against their will. The question is, what to do about it?”
Ziss remains silent for a moment, looking around with her sharpened eyes.
It's clear that the weird nautilus shells are controlling the Sea People, but there doesn't seem to be anything immediately available to help remove their control.
The best way past the sentinels would be to create a distraction and lure them away.
The biggest threat likely lies somewhere within the cave. Those nautilus things are the spawn of a larger creature.
The best way to end this quickly would be to find and destroy that creature!
The Darling Derby says, “Good news: the king’s men are alive. Bad news, Barbs ran an analysis and found no immediate means to snap them out of their trance. Ideas, peeps?”
Ziss points out to the cave. "If dey are guarding de cave, perhaps de real danger is inside it, right? Perhaps a big moder tentacly-shelly-monster." She shrugs. I was nothing but a guess, even if as good as any.
"We could create a diversion to try to lure dem away and den sneak inside."
She looks around, wondering the best way to do it. She and Wendy were very mobile on the surface, but down here not that much. Tumbler would be the same, and it was better to keep Wesley from using his powers. This leaves Megan and Diego.
"Diego, can you blink dere..." she points to a reef, not too distant. ... lure de sea people, and den blink inside de cave? We'll sneak while you do it.
”Daaaaamn iiiiit,” Dervish says to himself. He takes a deep breath and takes off the pressure suit. A moment passes before he relaxes a bit. He gives Ziss a look and says ”You owe me, chica,” before teleporting away, the crimson smoke lingering eerily in the water behind him.
He arrives at the reef and calls out, ”Hey! Boyos! You think you got what it takes to go three rounds with the Champ!”
The guards turn as one to regard Diego. Moving with eerie silence, they swim over to confront him. The cave entrance is momentarily unguarded, allowing the rest of the team to quickly slip inside!
With another puff of smoke, Diego rejoins the team, and you move deeper into the cave. A long tunnel opens into a room with walls lined with strange, fleshy sacs that glow with dim green lights. Vaguely humanoid shapes twitch and writhe inside of them. The hall continues to another room ahead...
Wesley draws her powers to her, getting ready to unleash them at any moment. However, the strange environment and writhing bodies inside the sacs cause a fear to settle on her heart.
Wendy catches the startled looking Wes’ face as she swims alongside the Jinn.
“Nothing to fear, Wes. You’re a mermaid. You got a home-court advantage here!”
Ziss is naturally curious, so she needs to hold herself not to poke the things in the sacs, those she has enough sense in her not to get close to them. She points to the deeper tunnels. "We have not found de big monster yet..."
As you approach the end of the hall, two large sacs ahead of you suddenly burst open! Two horrible crustacean creatures emerge from the clouds of goo, clacking their claws! Their mouths are masses of barbed tentacles that wriggle and writhe!
What do you do?
Wesley sends a telekinetic blast of force at the first one, hoping to keep it at bay and maybe even cow them. There was no telling what these things could do, but she knew what she could!
Oh, fffffffuuuuuuuu, huuuuuuuuuck…
As usual, the Darling Derby internalizes her feelings to look strong for her team. She calls to her doll, ”Get a read, Barbs.”
"Fun. I should have grabbed a trident on the way here," Tumbler says over comms as she steps back and let's someone else take the front.
When Tumbler complains about her lack of a trident, DD’s Barbie doll swims over and offers the lobster fork. ”Will this do?”
In reply to DD’s call to action, she says, ”On it, Darling.”
The doll wonders, what here is the biggest threat?
“Analyzing the nature of the threat… goo, claws, mouth with creepy tentacles.”
"Ykes!" Ziss charges her helix gloves, combining both hands to send a massive blast at the monsters.
Tumbler notices some bits of metal around the rim of the burst sacs. She could take hold of them and fuse them together into some sort of metallic weapon.
The doll realizes that both of these creatures pose an equally large threat!
The doll announces, ”The tentacles are more than just a misogynistic fetish. They contain a paralytic poison.”
The Barbed Beret says to Ziss, ”Do not get licked. It would be unpleasant.”
The Darling Derby rushes into the battle, avoiding blows especially from the tentacles!
Dervish figures the fastest way to the surface is to end this fast. So he proceeds to teleport all around these things, and every time he gets an opening, he slashes at it with his psychic blade.
Crimson's speech remains mysteriously unhindered underwater, so she's happy to banter while she batters. "'F I'm honest, I don't get what's so bad about tentacles," She seizes one of the gribblies, slamming it up against the wall again and again until the chitin cracks. "'s just another appendage. Someone gets too grabby with me, 's not like a tentacle chomps off any harder than a hand."
"I think people confuse sexy tentacles with real ones. These are 'predatory grabbing to consume' tentacles, not the ones you would find in some cheesy mid-90s hentai," She speaks over the ear buddy, grabbing the metal from the rims of the burst sacs, twisting them into a slim harpoon that she can manipulate. She's not engaging at the moment, seeing as she thinks the rest of the team has it in hand.
You lay into the crustacean creatures with gusto! Arcana's telekinesis hurls one of them back, then Derby swims up to that one to kick and punch at its body. She keeps its focus on her long enough for Ziss to line up a clear shot, and the blast from her helix gloves finishes it off!
Diego teleports all around the second monster, slashing it at it whenever he gets an opening. The thing snaps its claws, but is unable to grab a hold of the slippery trickster. Seeing an opening, Derby kicks the body of the first monster at the second one. This creates an opportunity for Crimson Tide to barrel in, grabbing the corpse and swinging it into the monster to knock it off-balance! The shark-girl grabs the creature and slams it against the wall, bursting open several more of the fleshy sacs a she smashes it again and again until its chitin cracks and it goes limp in her grasp!
The burst sacs reveal partially-formed, human-fish hybrids. The grotesque things twitch and burble feebly, but they are not developed enough to pose any threat.
As you are catching your breath, you each hear a voice echoing in your minds. "Who disrupts the spawning pods?!? Come forth and face me, little humans, if you dare..."
“The pods were an accident. Our entry, not so much. You got the Sea King’s men under a trance, and we can’t have that.”
Wendy is ready to move in if her team is.