The Prosperos Sea, Chapter 8

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AS much as Hope was hiperventilating, she travelled right after Tem and Lemuel. Two kids sent alone was something she was not going to allow.
She came down with her spear, ready to face whatever sea life could threathen them.
They came down, down, down, until there was nothing but eternal night, claustrophobia, and the cold. The unstoppable cold. As light didn't reach the place they were, it was cold as a glacier, and the termic-arc light didn't help at all. Not at all.
The three of them were trembling, and they couldn't feel their hands or feet.
A rocky range ended up and lots of little sparkles of light that lit the night that was the bottom of the sea. They lit thousands of giants, all formed as a well trained army in the midst of a fight.

Hope took her own horn. We are among giants. They don't move, it looks like they're dead. What should we do? she sked. She wanted to turn back and breath normal air, but something spoke from the other side. I want you to go inside the heads, and try to look from there, if you can look at the giants, that means there's light. Find the weapons. K'larr said.

She put a hand on their shoulders and told them i think they want us to come inside they heads. Let's start swiming to them.
 
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Tem was almost startled by the avian's hand on her shoulder. Anything could have startled her at that moment. But she fought down the panic rising in her throat and looked ahead, where the expanse of old flesh began to taper to a point - the neck. She noticed for the first time some objects which she couldn't identify, as well - strange stone blocks with writing on them. Machinery. All beyond her comprehension. At one point, as she looked over the strange ruins, she thought she saw something shadowy dart from one block to the next in the giant's shadowy underarm. Maybe it was just her imagination - no, certainly it was just her imagination - but it almost looked humanoid. She shuddered, but started towards the head. On the ocean floor, where gravity wasn't an object, they walked with an odd gait, slow and lurching. It made her oddly aware of how helpless they'd be if some shark or sea creature were after them. Or something far worse, for that matter. Like whatever had been hiding in the blocks. But she didn't want to think about that. "What'sit we's lookin' for?" Tem asked. She was trying really, really hard to be gung-ho about the whole ordeal. Hope and Lemuel were being so brave, after all. She had standards to live up to, weird thing between the blocks or no.
 
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"Ah, guut! We have all gathered."

Vydus, Modakra, and Silvarum emerged from the canopy at about the same time. The green jungle spread out before them, and their complete horror was luckily stymied by the night, for the vast, endless above was damped by the darkness, the stars winking above them giving a definite ceiling.
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"Are ... inside ... tita --" Dob's voice, their only tether to the surface, cut in and out as they ducked into the skull of a relatively preserved giant. This particular one seemed to be fashioned out of stone, in fact, it was fashioned out of a million-million inscribed runic cubes. It lay tangled with another, more humanoid one, the torn flesh on its ribs waving in the cold, tepid deep sea currents.

It seemed to be genuinely hollow on the inside, just an outline of a man. In Kaustir, the street children liked to swindle the unsuspecting with small, weighted dice. When they were bored, they built little effigies out of wet sand an their dice. There may have been a faint resemblance here.

The seer was another spider-anima. It was an old one, the chitin drying and flaking in many places, exposing the soft fleshing underneath. Its compound eyes were clouded over, and it spoke from a great distance, fixing its attention on the stars.

"The moirgut?" The chitter of its mandibles approximated a sigh. "Aux-eaters. Carnivores."

"Yes, Kindly Seer, but ..."

A gnarly limb silenced him. "When a flower blooms in emptiness, how long does it go uneaten? When a sprightly fawn raises its head from the grass, how long until a tiger-lion does the same?"

Some silence passed. When it was clear that they would not be answering the anima, the Seer continued. "There is always a mouth for food, young kin. You can call the moirgut anything, it is just a name. Underneath it, they are the natural predator of the Old Gods."

"Shekar ... " They had spent the past hour or so trading friendly banter, speaking about their trade, comparing their different products, "Do you ever think that there is something else to this world?"

"Like dreams?" The lady Draken gazed at the horizon.

"No. Dreams are just a murky reflection of what we saw during the day." K'Larr rubbed the tablet with the knuckle of his index finger, which had developed a scaled callous from his obsessive caresses. "No, Shekar. There is something else out there. Something else that is completely beyond my ability to see, hear, or touch. It is not something that the Nocturnes or humans or forest kin can see either. It is something ... something that lays beyond the twilight, something that lays beyond the edge of the world. It is the thing that you would find, if you were confined to walking the surface of a sphere but were able to walk off it - just for the briefest moment - and glimpse all that lay beyond, or if you could turn the sphere inside out and see the inside. It is a complete inversion of reality, a knowledge that you can only be told, but never discover" He clawed the air, trying to grasp the concept, trying to put his inability to communicate the concept into definite words so he could show it to her.

The archivist slowly padded up to the Seer, its many limbs working in rhythmic motion. "Kindly Seer, you have never mentioned this before."

"These are the obvious answers." The old spider anima picked itself off the center of the web it was sitting in, and moved into the empty branches at the very tip of the canopy.

"The Old Gods have grown monstrous and sullen. Their children have multiplied and cover Sunne. It is natural for the predators to awaken ... when there is so much aux to be eaten."

"It is easy to call them. You speak the word, the divine syllable, and they are drawn irresistibly to you."

"The Old Gods, Shekar." K'Larr was almost panting now, and even the callous was starting to go raw, the scales flaking. "They left behind a fragment. A small piece of themselves." He grabbed the horn, holding it trembling to his mouth.

"A piece of the divine syllable."

"NO! DONT!" Shekar trusted her instincts, and dived for the fat Draken.

"להתעורר"

"כמו"

The archivist twisted, shivered, and screamed with lust, dissolving into a thousand black centipedes that swarmed the Seer. Modakra leapt back, and his heel crushed one of them, black ichor spraying over the branch. They had been precipitated into reality.

The titan under the water opened its eyes and began to rearrange its form.

divinesyll.png
 
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Lemuel: Ocean Ruins, green
Lemuel continued looking around from where they were, making note of the giants that Hope had spotted. A call from up top told them to check them out. Lemuel wasn't against checking them out, but the trio was pretty far down. Should anything bad happen with these giants, they'd be helpless to escape. The decision of whether or not to do so would soon make itself, as something seemed to be approaching them. Something that seemed far less friendly than the giants before them.

"Quickly! We've been spotted!" Lemuel didn't point out their pursuant, as it might slow their pace, should they freeze in fear. He motioned towards the giants mentioned earlier. "We may be able to use these as cover." Both the avian and the stowaway nodded in response, willing to listen to their companion without the question. The stowaway's curiosity got the better of her, though, and she was quite shaken by what she saw was pursuing them.

After they'd managed to reach the giants, Lemuel looked around, trying to find a good cover for them. He had no idea whether what was following them was gaseous or physical, and he didn't want to take any chances. Closer inspection with his advent enabled him to see that there was actually an entrance inside of them, just as Hope had mentioned those up top saying. "We'll try this, then. I don't think we'll all be able to fit inside one of them. Hope, can you man a different one? I'll keep Tem with me."
 
Tem couldn't remember being so scared in all her life when she looked over her shoulder to the sight of the titan, assembling itself from whatever it was once made from, and then some. She could hardly stumble into the giant, her legs were shaking so hard, and she desperately wanted to know what had become of Hope from the moment her vision was obscured by the ribcage. Hope didn't have time to respond before a compressed wave of water had forced Tem and Lemuel to retreat - or tumble, rather - to the safety of the ancient bodies. The force of that underwater wave was strange, like an invisible shockwave, but one without sound, only substance. She couldn't see past the giant, but she assumed that the wave had originated from one of the titan's footfalls. If Hope hadn't found shelter by then, surely she'd have been flung some distance. Tem cringed at the thought, but she was doing more than cringing. There were tears forming twin rivulets down her cheeks. In a burst of desperation, she grabbed at the horn. "What'da we do?" she cried into the opening. There was no response, just some distant chatter that she couldn't make out. Sometimes, others failed to understand Tem, due perhaps to her speech impediment or her thick cockney accent or both. But if anyone was trying to reply to her, she couldn't understand them, either.

She looked up a moment, more out of the childish desire to see the faces of Shekar or K'Larr overhead than to make an accidental discovery - dust, debris, the lighter bits and pieces of the bodies which littered the ocean floor scattered and drifted overhead, disturbed by the titan's footsteps. Blocking her signal? Perhaps. Tem didn't know much about magic or technology, but she knew that things couldn't go from one place to another if something was in their way. Her eyes followed the trail of falling dust to a hole in the flesh of their shelter - definitely wide enough for Tem, and perhaps for Lemuel. Was it suicide? Moreover, was it a preferable suicide to waiting inside a carcass to be clobbered by a titan?

Tem swam to the crest of the giant's ribcage, where the hole punctured the flesh, and stuck the horn through. "Up there! What'da we do?" she repeated her question into the horn and awaited a response, but again to no avail. The words were clearer this time, but no less indecipherable. With one final heave of effort, she pushed herself through the hole. She was floating now, above the carcass from which Lemuel stared up in dismay. The giant, a good distance away but still a looming threat, turned its head to face her. Her heart leaped into her throat, and she yelled into the horn, at the very top of her throbbing lungs; "S'a giant o' some sort! What! Do! We! Do!"
 
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"Madam I am sorry but I do not see how you can make such assumptions. Kaustir knows the penalties of going to war." The advisors voice was shrill and worried. His eyes shifting from Belphebe's face to the plans she had laid out on her desk. The moth aux that had been perched delicately on her shoulder alighted as the effects of her advent faded and she was left with the same conclusion she had reached many days ago.

"It does not matter if you can see it or not, I have already made the proper preparations." She said the decisive snap to her voice cutting off any complaints the advisor might have had. Mentally she made note that some of these entitled officials were getting a bit to complacent. With a flick of her hand she added her signature to the sheet of paper in front of her before sprinkling it with a fine dusting of sand to dry the ink and then handing it to the flustered human.

"You will take this to the messenger that waits in the Copper chambers. If K'larr stops avoiding me and replies I want his reply brought to me immediately." A final wave of her hand banished the man and when the door finally clicked shut she threw down her quill with a hiss; taking a moment to run a hand through her long hair-like tendrils as she once again considered the map that had been fastened to the wall left of her desk. All of the known world was copied there and here and there were brightly jeweled pins marking points on the map that must have been significant to someone. At one in particular she stared. Indicated with a black gemmed pin the Black city was different from all the other marked areas in that its pin had a strip of yellow ribbon tied to it. Gently she let the silky cloth weave in between her clawed fingers as she considered its meaning and the choice that it represented. Part of her thought she might feel guilty, she remembered spending many years in that city, and she was doing nothing but leaving them to the dogs.

She thought she would have felt something. Well, she supposed poisoning the bait was better than feeding the dogs fresh meat.

Black City
They had arrived in small groups, twos, threes, the occasional group of four. They were almost unidentifiable from the rest of the travelers that so often passed through the black city. The only thing that set them apart was the identical packs that each carried; square wooden boxes with thick leather straps to hold them in place. Perhaps the only other thing that set them apart was that it was several weeks before the majority left. Those that stayed could be heard wheezing and coughing, the whites of their eyes adopting a shade of green, and the roots of their nails darkening with rot. Their wooden packs disappeared from public view the only thing that became a presence was the harsh cough that spread like wildfire among the population.
 
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The Prosperos Floor

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"Hope?"

"Hope?"

Lemuel's voice echoed into the horn. He jumped up the spiral staircase in the giant's spine to its head, aided by the buoyancy. The suit constricted around him, the heavy pressure from the shockwaves squeezing the air from his lungs. No response, just silence. The silence was loud enough to crush his ears. It seemed like a fitting eulogy for the Avian - swept away by the pressure into complete oblivion, not eaten, crushed or screaming, but simply deposited somewhere to slowly suffocate.

Suffocate .. when Tem implored the darkness above, they both noticed their umbilicals waving freely, the metal chains snapped. Suddenly, the air inside seemed stale. Their hearts quickened a smidgen, and their eyes searched the darkness a little more frantically.

The water settled down, leaving only ringing silence.

From their vantage point in the half-rotted giant, they watched the titan's face invert itself, the blocks rearranging into a set of eyes on the other side. Now fully formed, it searched the darkness with eyes that pierced the veil.

"..."

"...תבואו..."

The horn in Tem's suit spat to life. They locked eyes with the titan. It raised one foot, leaking runic stones all over, and took a step toward them.

The floor came to life. From every crevice and dark place poured a carpet of centipedes that swarmed over the titan. It didn't scream, but they could tell it was screaming anyways. For each black bug that swarmed up its foot, a crack of lighting and an inert runic block fell off. In response, it opened four mouths on its face and out poured white fire.
Up on the surface, Dob stared into water, but the sun's reflection made it impossible to see. As the minutes passed, a burning radiance grew and grew until it eclipsed the setting sun's red glow.

"Yes .. " K'Larr leaned forward, pushing Shekar aside. "Just as the tablet says. The Divine fire." He snatched the horn, and barked a string of syllables into it.

"ער ער! בואו אל פני השטח!"

"Hurry!" Dob snapped at the deckhands, frozen by K'Larr's antics. "We can still get them out! Drop the anchor!" A chain, hastily welded around a large rock, was dropped into the sea.

"Please find it .. " The gears screamed and glowed red as the anchor fell.

"No!" K'Larr waved a hand at Dob and guards restrained them. "They have to remain inside the titan, or else it will not be able to hear the syllables! Stop the anchor!" A guard dove for the braking lever.
 
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Lemuel and Tem
Lemuel looked in awe at the sight before him. In all his years of traveling, he'd never seen something so breathtaking. He closed his eyes and shook his head, emptying his mind. Now wasn't the time to be distracted. With their umbilical cables cut, they were no longer connected to the surface, or to air. With as much speed as he could muster, he snatched Tem's hand. "Come! We have to get to safety!"

His legs were shaking a bit, the pressure around them making it hard to walk. Nonetheless, he pushed forward. Where he was going, he had no idea. Dob seemed to be relaying something to them through the horn though. With the language he was using, it could only be meant for the titan. If that was the case, he'd have to get Tem and the horn somewhere the titan could hear the horn most clearly. They didn't have many options, but this seemed like the most viable one right now. He'd no idea where Hope was, but he could only hope she could manage on her own for right now.

After a few moments, more syllables could be heard through the horn. Lemuel reached his hand out for it, and Tem was quick to offer it up. "K'Larr, tell us what were supposed to do? Those words are supposed to control the titan, right?" He waited for a response, which was shortly returned. He couldn't make out everything, except for a confirmation and instructions to lure it towards the surface. They were running out of time. Lemuel tried to concentrate and remember the words that K'Larr had relayed to them. Still holding onto Tem's hand, Lemuel led them out of the giant they were in and swam towards the titan fast as he could. Once he thought he was in a place where he thought the titan could best hear the orders, he shouted out the syllables that K'Larr spoke to him.

There was no response for a while. Lemuel began to wonder if it didn't work. His attention shifted to Tem, who was almost cowering in fear at this point. The stress would become too much for her soon, and she was at risk of passing out. Lemuel looked back at the titan, in hopes that there would be some sort of response. It seemed the titan was finally beginning to move in response to his words. From where he stood, Lemuel could see that it was making it's way upwards, almost as if it had a floating property to it. The rune giant wouldn't let these intruders leave so easily, and it began moving in response to the titan's new direction. Centipedes could be seen moving towards the titan, latching onto the lower part of what were its legs.

"What's happening?" Dob called through the horn. Though Lemuel and Tem were in a rather dire situation at the moment, Dob still seemed to possess an air of calmness. Whether or not he was hiding the fact that he was truly a bit worried, he wasn't letting onto this.

"It's moving, but it's not going anywhere fast. The pressure and debris above us are holding it down, and this giant is starting to send things after us now. At this rate, we'll never make it to the surface in time... Any instructions that might help us get our asses out of here alive?" Lemuel squeezed Tem's hand lightly, trying to tell her indirectly to stay with him. She couldn't lose consciousness right now. The male wasn't sure he'd be able to get them both out if he had to carry someone. His eyes looked out into the surrounding water. Not only that, but Hope was still out there somewhere, and she hadn't contacted them at all. Could she have...died?
 
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Well, Lemuel was right about one thing - Tem was close to passing out. Not from fear, though. It was becoming harder and harder to breathe, back dots swimming in her vision, limbs growing leaden. But she'd received Lemuel's tacit signal, and clung to it like she clung to his hand - desperately. Though she would fight for all she was worth to stay awake for him, it would soon be beyond her control. The titan was going upwards, to the surface, to safety, as if Lemuel's incantation had made it buoyant. But all that left was how they should return, too. Their oxygen was draining, and soon they wouldn't be strong enough to swim to the surface. Tem definitely couldn't muster the strength, and even if Lemuel could, he'd have to leave Tem behind if he wanted to put that strength to use in saving anyone at all. Even so, he'd likely run out of oxygen on the way up, pass out, and they'd both be dead. What they needed, Tem decided, was a way to reach the surface without actually swimming. A ride, of sorts. "L'muel," said Tem, giving his hand a squeeze. "We's not gonna make it back up if we's got to swim." For emphasis, she gave her cord a tug. Having already broken, it was slack, and gave to her touch. For a moment, she watched it dangle in the open sea, useless. Then, she pointed to the slowly ascending titan. "Maybe we's could rides it up..?"

Then, something else interrupted her awareness - long, black tendrils rising from the sea floor to latch around the titan's foot. The titan kicked slightly against them, scattering each phantom limp into a hundred smaller ones. Each of the smaller fragments seemed to have a mind of its own, dispersing, regrouping, and returning to grab at the titan, pulling it downward. Centipedes. Hundreds of them. If they were to ride the titan to the surface, they would be both a bane and a blessing. The aux-eaters could drag the titan down to a point that they could climb on board, but after that, they would have no way to shake the centipedes so they could rise again. Still, it was their last hope, and they'd have to cross that bridge when they came to it.
 
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Thalassophobia
If Tem and Lemuel ever made it back to the surface, they would perhaps know more about the night than the Nocturnes that controlled much of Sunne. The Nocturne's knew only a fragile darkness, so easily broken by the star's reassuring caress, or by the moon. At the bottom of the Prosperos Sea, they knew what the abyss was. The beams from their thermic-arc lamps only lit five paces of the turbid water, and the rest was filled with crushing darkness. When they jumped from the seafloor, bouncing along the road littered with bodies from another time, it vanished so quickly beneath their feet, swallowed by the lack of light.

Their only beacon in the distance was the titan, illuminated intermittently by brief gouts of divine fire that it spat on the black carpet at its feet. Every few minutes they would glimpse it: a servant of the old gods, twenty man heights tall, composed entirely of runic cubes that fell around it in a fine mist. Each black horror that assaulted the titan gave its life to dislodge a cube, and eventually, the titan would return to the sleep from whence it came.

Lemuel's ragged breathing echoed in his helmet. The more they walked, the more of a dead weight the child became in his hand. Tem would soon run out of air. The titan did not seem any closer. Sometimes, when it poured its fire, it would be way off to their left, or to the right, or dead straight ahead. They were wasting too much time correcting their course.

The floor erupted beneath them. A scuttling horror, more spines than crab, more legs than shrimp, dove across the surface. Lemuel's breath hitched - was this the end?

It passed by them. On some hidden instinct, he grabbed onto one of the spines, and held as it walked a straight line to the titan. As they came closer, their ears popped every time the titan stomped on the floor, trying to rid itself of the moirgut. The water began to get uncomfortably hot. The titan's fire was boiling the seawater around it, and ghostly white points smouldered on the bodies of spent moirgut. If they did not die to a hundred other small things, they would eventually get roasted alive.
 
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When Taggart was told about the 'treasures' of the Prosperos Sea, he had envisioned something a lot more magnificent. Instead he was greeted with the dregs of the ocean, which was not only littered with trinkets, weapons, and otherwise, but also organic matter. He was a bit slow on calling them 'people,' because they weren't. Gods? Monsters? Titans? Giants? There weren't full carcasses, but the random bits of refuse here and there, and it smelled of offal.

Some of it had been drug under a tent, having not seen sunlight in countless years and quickly decaying under its rays. Some of it turned to mixture of sludge and paste once it no longer had the pressure of the ocean holding it intact. Most of it was fine just to sit there, and look dull in the daylight. What stood out the most about the various scavenged pieces was the fact that they were magical. Taggart could feel it in the back of his skull. He would say that this extra sense was akin to a thief's knowledge of what was valuable and what was garbage—yet at the same time, it was nothing like that. It was hard to explain having this extra sense to those that didn't possess it. It was like explaining how one's arm worked. It just did. Stop questioning nature.

Usually Taggart was keen on discovering magical items. They always felt like a diamond hidden beneath pounds of sand. Now he felt like he was surrounded by diamonds, and he was trying to locate the brightest and shiniest one. To say he had a headache would be a vast understatement. But here he was, tasked with organizing the various refuse of the undersea world that K'Larr had decided to hoist onboard. This was not quite the task that he thought would be handling when he joined the merchants, but then again—his current life was leaps and bounds away from what he thought it would be.

"'Ey Taggart. Wot should I be doin' wit dis?" asked one of the crewman. What was his name? Jorie, Jolly, Mory, Molly? Probably not the last one. Unless mothers took to naming their three-hundred pound, toothless, short-tempered sons with women's names. You know, to toughen them up from a young age.
Taggart eyed the piece and sighed. It was nothing more than a curve of metal, part of a filigree that had snapped off of something far larger. "Shine it up, and see if we can't sell it as some priceless but useless artifact."
"Heh, nobles aren't tha smartest folks, amiright?" Jorie-Jolly-Mory-Molly said, nudging Taggart with his elbow.
The goat anthro wanted to say something along the lines of: 'out of all the people here, you are the least qualified to judge the intelligence of others.' But for the sake of his well-shaped nose and all of his teeth, he just nodded.

Things just proceeded like that for a while, uninteresting and slightly overwhelming. Taggart scrutinized many a piece, and discarded many others. His caprine ears perked up as the tides of the oceans beat against the ships harsher than usual. He then noticed that many of the crewmen that were helping him with this task had disappeared. That was probably for the best, they were pocketing more than they were sorting.

Taggart ignored the sea, and knelt over an old book. Like the rest of them it should have been nothing but mush, and yet it wasn't. He ran his fingers across it. It was magical, to a degree. The cover was hard, and made of a smooth, slate-like stone. He flipped the cover open to find the pages were made of glass, or at least a glass-like substance. It was milky white with golden metal letters inlaid over each of the pages. Taggart couldn't make out the language-- if it even was one. He slid his fingers along the pages, the glass smooth to touch. Well, until he gouged his finger open on a partially shattered page. Blood ran down the digit, and he rammed it in his mouth. On second thought, that was probably a horrible idea. Who knows what he had gotten all over his digits. It was too late now, though. If he contracted a case of face borrowing sea mites, then his gravestone should read: "he knew better."
 
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Lemuel followed her stare up to the titan, stuck in a state of limbo between rising with the pull of those magic words and sinking as the Aux eaters tore it apart, block by block. It was unlikely, perhaps even fanatical, but it was their last hope, and a hope that was fading with each moment they wasted. Lemuel bit his lip, steeled himself for what he knew they were about to do. "Alright. Come."

And so they began swimming upward towards the barely-visible titan, illuminated by the fire it produced on occasion. Tem had wondered if swimming up from the sea floor would be something like flying, and she'd been wrong - the spot of sea floor which she could see narrowed to a dot and vanished into blackness, and she was once again terrifyingly alone, save for Lemuel's guiding hand. And still, they continued towards the sputtering beacon of flame that threw its light across the titan's many planes. Though the titan was near-stationary as it fought the Aux eaters, it took a long time to reach the titan, far too long for either of their likings. It gave them too much time to watch the Aux eaters tear away at their last hope for survival. With that knowledge eating away at their own psyches, they kicked faster, risking more of their rapidly depleting oxygen.

The titan grew and grew in their field of vision until they could touch it, latch onto the blocks which made up its body. The awareness that they had lodged themselves somewhere on the legs arrived in the form of an Aux eater. It rose from the darkness like a spirit ascending to heaven, its deep, black mouth agape. At first, Tem scrambled to get away, but the Aux eater wasn't after her - it tore away a block of the titan's body and retreated to the dark hell from which it came. Similar others continued their work, eating their way to the titan's knees. A fresh sense of urgency overcoming them, they began climbing upwards. The blocks of the titan's body made for good handholds, and they ascended as fast as their feet could carry them in the slow, syrupy state of reality the water created.

From the corner of her eye, Tem could see Lemuel say something into the horn as he climbed. After a moment, there was a garbled but intelligible response - "Get to the head." Tem shot a glance at Lemuel, then up to the head. He nodded, and they continued with a renewed vigor which was bridled by the onset of oxygen deprivation symptoms. Their movements were growing sluggish, vision fading, hearts hammering. Up the stomach, over the chest, under and around the curvature of the jawline. Up the cheekbones, where they clambered to the top of the head with relative ease.

For a moment, they sat still at the summit of their conquest, awestruck. They could no longer see the Aux eaters, but they were assuredly there, perhaps working at the thigh or kneecap. Tem's heart was hammering harder than ever now, her breathing going shallow. Lemuel, seeming to sense this, spoke urgently into the horn. "And what now?"

A voice replied, "בֵּית עִבְרִי."

The voice was clearer than before, Lemuel noted. They were a bit closer to the surface, surely. That was hope. To the best of his ability, Lemuel relayed the message; "בֵּית עִבְרִי."

A great change overcame the titan. Its inner workings of block and stone and fire and whatever else drove such a thing began to grind and hiss and throw bubbles in the water, and the sensation of ascension manifested as a light feeling in his gut and a passing downward of the water around them. The thing even accelerated, presumably shaking off the Aux eaters which had clung to it before. The deep, eternal darkness began to lighten just a little as they rose toward the distant surface. For a moment, Lemuel allowed himself to relax, revel in his accomplishment. Then, a movement off to his right caught his attention - a few paces away, Tem was incapacitated. She lie on her stomach, gasping at nothing for breath that wasn't there. Her hands were doing something - they looped her slackened cord around a block of the titan which jutted out just enough for her to moor herself to the titan like a boat to a dock. Then, she went slack. Passed out at last. For fear that he, too, might pass out, Lemuel moored himself to the same block that Tem had used, and waited for the surface to shed its light on the fruits of their labors.
 
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Lemuel and Tem
With the titan slowly making its way towards the surface, Lemuel leaned against what he could in order to relax. Swimming under such conditions was exhausting, especially when so much stress. He made sure to hold tightly to Tem, so as to prevent her limp body from slipping into the depths below - the same depths that seemed to have swallowed Hope.

The titan had managed to slip away from most of the Aux eaters, but it was hard to tell if they'd be bringing any to the surface with them. "Be ready," Lemuel spoke into the horn. "We may have some unexpected guests once we breach the surface. Tem's passed out and Hope is nowhere to be seen..."

Years of travelling had hardened his heart to such matters. It was tragic to experience death of any form, but in such a situation as this, Lemuel couldn't afford to let the situation hold him down. Rest would be soon though. Once they breached the surface, those on board would be quick to come to their aid. If they were lucky, they'd be able to leave the rest to them. His attention focused on the unconscious girl before him, Lemuel let out the equivalent of a sigh. The poor stowaway had been through enough already. He'd see to it that the crew would give her a free ride to somewhere safe. After all, one experience like this was enough to teach anyone a lesson. Being more careful in the future was definitely something Tem would make sure to do.

After a few moments of quiet contemplation, Lemuel prepared himself for their breach of the surface. The open air hit him hard and felt almost like an unfamiliar experience. The depths to which they'd reached would certainly have such an effect on someone. The voices of those welcoming them were blurred, but slowly came into focus as time passed. Looking over towards them, Lemuel could see everyone rushing towards them, some with weapons while others assisted in retrieving them from the top of the titan.
 
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[fieldbox=On the Prosperos Sea, grey, solid, 15]The moirgut were not going to give up easily. A maw sprouted from the ocean floor, as wide as the entire floating Guild city. A bubbling mass of insectoids and malice, it surged upwards and chased the now very small titan, floating its way to the surface. As they came closer to the surface, it withered and fell. From inside its mouth came another, and another, successively smaller and smaller, until the last one leaped forward with resolution and bit off the titan below the waist.

The runic creature flailed out of the water and grabbed the side of the giant metal boat. It was a testament to the Guild ship's sheer girth that it did not flinch. Lemuel saw, through the water sluicing off his helmet, teams shooting grappling hooks into the titan, sloughing off centuries of algae and rust. He popped the visor and sucked in the ocean air, before opening Tem's suit and pushing over her chest until he heard her gasp in kind.

Nausicaa3.jpg

"Ilium's grace ... " Dob gazed upon the creature from the deeps with unabashed shock, the sword hanging limply from his hand.

"Well done, Shekar." K'Larr leaned forward on the iron railings until they trembled. "You shall receive your payout." But he was no longer interested in their wager - the titan consumed all his attention.

Shekar seemed to sense as much, and watched the Draken drag his calloused knuckle over the tablet. How long ago did K'Larr plan his treachery? One could not possible decide, on a whim, to lie, steal, and cheat enough Dorgrad iron to build a city. He did not know whether his expeditions could have uncovered divine weapons, but his entire strategy seemed to be pinned by the excessive force that they could produce. What was-

"Excellent work!" K'Larr's hissing sibilance easily carried to the workers below. "Rest well, and we will dive again tomorrow."

"I hope you have a different set of divers in mind." Shekar's voice was as ice.

"Hahaha! Worry not! With the success of our little girl over here, there will be many inspired to follow her."

Shekar hugged herself and stared at the rotund retreating back.

"Oh ..."

"and why did you only bet on the girl's return?"

"Please excuse me. Jusssst an idle thought."[/fieldbox]
 
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The sun was being a little shit, shining like it was. Taggart had retreated to one of the tents where a few pieces of this and that were sorted. He could see the pink on his nose flare up, a smattering of freckles threatening to form where his skin had been unblemished. Honestly he should have been used to the sun by now. Yet he scattered anytime it got unbearable. He placed his aux, a copper plated lantern, on the makeshift table. The flame always burned within it, but neither heat nor smoke was generated. Still it gave off some illumination, even if it was stunted by its size and lack of ferocity. In Taggart's other hand he had a globe—of sorts. It reminded him of the helmets that the divers wore, as it hand a small opening that led to its inside.

It looked hollow at first glance. But when he tried to slip his hand past the fist sized lip, he found that it was filled with numerous glass tubes coiled around themselves. They had been welded into the glass globe, and Taggart was unable to loosen any of them. The labyrinthine glasswork seemed to have porous holes that allowed liquid to pass through it. All of it encapsulated by the thick outer layer of glass. The lip was serrated, and he had to be careful where he put his fingers lest he cut them to fleshy ribbons. Considering the wear around the opening, it looked like it had been screwed into something some time ago. But not in the typical fashion, there were no threaded grooves. Instead it looked as if it cut into whatever it was being placed into. Taggart had no idea what that could be. Yet, that was not the oddest part of his piece.

There was a soft etching on the outside of the glass. At first Taggart had thought it was wear, but when the light hit it just right he saw the flashes of words, then the flash of a face. When he had seen it, he nearly dropped it. In desperation and curiosity, he turned the glass. The various etchings, so small and precise, painted a different picture every time the light hit it just right. He never saw the same thing twice. There was not much else to the globe after that. Just an uneasy tension of magic, and the promises of secrets birthed by light.

Taggart held the glass globe up to his aux, and it said something. He leaned in to get a better look.

The ship vibrated at that moment. Taggart lost his footing and went head first into the ground. He curled his arms around the globe—much like a mother would protect her child. His knees knocked against the wooden flooring, and his horns clipped the table. He then sat the globe aside as he stood, trying to be careful as not to jar it around too much. Rubbing his hands over his black fur covered knees, he looked around. What had that been? Taggart grabbed a blanket that had jewels sitting on them, cleared them, and threw it over the globe. He would investigate the incident first, and then come back to it.

Taggart clipped his aux to his hip and exited the tent. He ran in the direction of the commotion, against his common sense. Usually he fled danger. Danger equaled pain, death, or more responsibility. He had enough of the latter, thank you very much. Crewmen slowed and gawked. Taggart tried to see over their bodies, but had little luck. He started elbowing various lollygaggers out of his way. While he was far from being child-like in size, he did lack a head on the normal height of humans. Then again he could usually run faster than them. And that was all that mattered when it came to their aggressive natures.

It didn't take him getting in close proximity of the titan to see it. The massive thing hung from the side of the guild ship like an algae ridden tumor. Taggart gave a solid elbow to another man and pushed his way forward.

"Oh," he said to no one in particular. He looked around and spotted K'Larr and Shekar, and it looked as if the former was gripping something in his hand. Taggart turned away, and inspected the titan. He rubbed the side of his neck, and his long, caprine ears dipped down. "I escaped to the sea to avoid trouble. But look at this, trouble. A veritable mountain of it." Still, he couldn't silence the intrigue that rattled around in his brain. This was quite the find. Then again, what were the implications of something that large?
 
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[fieldbox=Ambiance, teal, solid, 15]The sun began to peak over the Prosperos. Drawn by its warming rays, sleek schools of tuna-whales followed the circular currents of the Prosperos Sea, riding them to the sunny water near the surface. Some passed beneath the ready and waiting city-ships, and the trap was sprung, a giant hook shooting down out of the moon pool. The speared tuna-whale thrashed, but was inexorably hauled up into the slaughterhouse. Although it could have done serious damage to one of the city-ships, by catching it underneath the ship its motions merely translated the ship along the water instead of tipping it. Once inside, the fishermen from Hosia and Avarath would expertly butcher and dry the fish, placing some of the meat on ice buckets and shipping it immediately to the Chersonese for the Czar.

The titan still clung to the side of the ship, and quartermasters were furiously pumping ballast to keep the it righted. Its eyes were dull, and its head was barely peaking over the edge of ship, as if it was an exhausted sailor who had been tipped overboard. Crewman had spent the night hosing it down, and their diligent polishing revealed that the titan was composed of cubes, each one about the size of a grown man's head, meshing together seamlessly to form a skeleton and some musculature. The cubes were pitted from corrosion, and every so often a few would break off and fall into the Sea. It seemed that it had a limited lifetime - the dive was a success in some ways and a failure in some others. Another one would have to be attempted.[/fieldbox]
 
Taggart had spent uncountable hours with the globe. He charted the etchings on many leafs of parchment, recording their placement based on the hemispheres of a ball. At first the pictures and words seemed erratic, glittering random blurbs of information before transitioning into something entirely different. Yet once he got it down, and it could no longer flicker in and out of transience, he began to understand it.

The sun rose before he pulled himself out of his quarters. The anthro's living space contained the most noble of scholarly mountains, but it had had an avalanche sometime during the night. Papers, both new and old, were spread everywhere. Absentmindedly he crunched a few underhoof. They were expendable, though, because what he had in his hand was something far more valuable. Fatigue was a distant echo, replaced by pure, vibrating excitement. Sure, it felt like every time he blinked sand was rubbing against the soft tissue of his eyes, but it was worth it. That and if the experiment failed he could at least curl into a ball of shameful slumber without much problem.

"Wait, wot?" asked Jorie-Jolly-Mory-Molly.
Taggart stood in front of the man, maybe a foot shorter than him but radiating a rather intimidating aura. "I need you to fill this with the Tear of Ukevy."
"Look." Jorie-Jolly-Mory-Molly shook his head. "It needs to stay in tha water. Or else it just eets you up."
"It won't this time." Taggart smiled. "Trust me."
The large crewmember rubbed his head in thought. Pensiveness did not suit his boorish nature. "Then you do et."
"I can barely hold this thing, empty. What makes you think I'm capable of lifting it full?" Taggart added a vibration to his arms to prove his point. The glass globe was a little taxing, but it would be a while before he lost his grip on it. Taggart was in a better shape than he had been as a scholar in Pegulis, but he was far from owning the musculature of the strapping crewmen aboard the city ships.
Jorie-Jolly-Mory-Molly eyed the apparatus with speculation and disdain.
"Trust me," Taggart reaffirmed. "I am just going to have you lower it down there with a rope, and that should give you plenty of time to see if it is going to 'eet' you."
The crewman remained silent.
"If it works K'Larr is going to be exceedingly happy with our findings. So much so, he might give you a wealthy sum for helping me." If one couldn't pry the cooperation from oafs with logic, then money always did the trick. The real trick would be actually getting K'Larr to live up to his promise.
Jorie-Jolly-Mory-Molly nodded his head. "Eh why not. Like you said, should have plenty a time to get rid of et if it comes at me."
"That's the spirit." Taggart thrust the globe at the large crewman. "You won't regret it."
It should be well known that Taggart was not a prophet.

Sometime later they had the globe tied to a long robe. A small crowd of gawkers had formed as Taggart and Jorie-Jolly-Mory-Molly made preparations. The anthro still failed to learn the crewman's name, and so had just settled on Molly—internally.
Everyone held their breath as the globe plunged into the substance. Molly waited a moment, eyeing the rope, before hoisting it back up. The sunlight hit the spherical glass, and one could see coils of silvery substance inside of its confines.

"It looks like a—" Taggart bit his word off there. He wanted to say 'brain,' but he didn't want the other crewmen getting any ideas. The globe had more-or-less presented itself as one of the few carrying apparatuses for the Tear. It had also glinted at its use in one of those titans, hence the shape it took. Taggart didn't know what its effects would be, but nothing led him to believe it was harmful inside the titan. There were notes scrawled across its surface that warned that very little should find its way into mortal blood. Taggart was unsure if it had anatomical uses, but he didn't want to delve into those uses until he was entirely assured that it would work in the massive non-living titan. He believed it was better to test a hammer on a rock than on a skull.

"Now grab it and come with me," Taggart said to Molly.
With the help of a few others, the man lowered it down towards the deck. No silver substance clung to the side, and so he grabbed it. There was a sudden silence as everyone held their breath once again, and once again nothing happened. Taggart was downright overflowing with joy and pride. Now all he had to do was speak to K'Larr, present him with the apparatus, and see if he could get it in the titan.

Molly took a step forward, and his feet fumbled. While the globe had no silvery liquid on it, it was still wet. It slipped from his fingers. He tried to grab at it, pawing desperately at the air. The globe titled and threatened to spill the Tear onto the deck. Molly grabbed it about that time, but tore his hand open on the serrated age of the globe. The silver liquid mixed with his blood as he righted the apparatus upwards.

Taggart immediately felt the hair on the back of his neck rise. "Someone grab that thing out of Molly's hand."
Stares of confusion followed that, but the anthro pointed in Molly's direction. Three of them sprung towards him, and pulled the globe from his grip. The timing could have been more perfect, because at that time Molly started convulsing.

He fell to the deck in writing spasms. His back curved up quickly and violently leading to spastic pops as his arms turned in on themselves. Muscles bulged under his skin, and it became silvery thin from the amount of mass being pumped into his body. Eyes blackened and pushed out from his sockets. His teeth ground against his tongue until he chewed it off and it flopped into a bloody mess besides him. In mere moments Molly looked nothing like his previous self. The spasms only heightened before they ceased all together.

A few crewman sprinted towards Molly's body. They felt all over him, and grumbled amongst themselves.
"He's dead," one of them yelled back to Taggart.
"He feels as cold as winter's tits," commented one of the crewman.
"Wot in the blazes are winter's tits?" asked another.
"Will ya look at 'em? He doesn't even look human anymore," the first one said.
"Balls! I think I accidentally touched his tongue," piped up a new voice.
Taggart slowly approached the group. He motioned for the ones still holding the globe to gently set it down in some place cushiony and upright.
About that time a guttural groan pierced the air, and Molly's body vibrated for a moment before it stilled.
"Lonnie, you alive?" asked one of the crewman.
Ah, so his name was Lonnie! Taggart hadn't even been close. Still, that was one of the last things on his mind as he approached Lonnie-Molly. The man had been dead. What was happening now?

Lonnie-Molly brought an overly muscled arm upwards and gripped a crewman's head. Screaming commenced as the dead man bore down with all his might, and given his newly acquired strength it was a lot. The crewman's head popped like a grape.

The screaming only grew louder.
 
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Throughout the process of getting her on board, Tem was mostly listless. Her vision was still partially blackened from the strain of oxygen deprivation, her limbs still too heavy for running to the far end of the ship (which she most certainly would have done). Though she couldn't feel the fresh air outside of her suit, she did feel the pressure of the water fall away, the sensation of normal gravity returning. For once, it was a relief, but a short-lived one. She felt a strong hand tug her foot, pulling her down across the titan's cheek. Though her heart leaped in her throat, she was powerless to stop it. Fortunately, when she fell, the same hand was there to catch her, holding her firmly around her waist and setting her down on the ship's deck. Suddenly, there was not one pair of hands on her, but five as the deckhands attempted to pull her out of the suit. First came the helmet - the rush of fresh air hissed in her ears and tossed her hair, and she took a long, gasping breath. As the strength began to return to her limbs, she found herself fighting, struggling with futile abandon against the deckhands as they unlatched, unzipped, unbuttoned, and unscrewed the various components of her suit. In her weakened state, she was only a mild bother to the crewmen.

When they reached her waist, Tem took the liberty of jumping out of the half- open suit. She ran a few paces, only to stop at the realization that she was forgetting something. There was a very good reason she was still so afraid, and it wasn't the titan. She quickly scanned the crowd - the fat draken she'd met briefly in the hull was gone. The she-draken merchant wasn't far away, but she could only catch glimpses of her in the shifting crowd. The kindly bodyguard from earlier was in full view, inspecting the titan with some degree of awe. Hope was nowhere to be seen, and the thought of her brought on a sharp pang of guilt - was she dead? Well, if she wasn't before, she was now - but there was someone she was looking for. She couldn't call out his name, but she'd know his face when she saw it...

Lemuel! A short ways past Dob, being helped out of his suit. Though no longer in imminent danger, Tem was still running on survival instinct. And, a mere few minutes ago, Lemuel was survival. She certainly wouldn't have survived without him, and for a moment, she was convinced that he was still the only thing standing between her and certain death - not to mention someone she needed to thank. Tem scrambled through the crowd, shaking and flushed but as swift as ever, until she reached Lemuel. He was all the way out of his suit now, allowing the crew to brush by him as they swarmed the titan. For a moment, Tem just stood before him, lost for words and actions. Then, she wrapped her arms around his waist in a (as high as she could reach) in a shaking but firm hug.
 
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[fieldbox=Winding down, turquoise, solid, 15] Lemuel went into convulsions as they pulled them out. The deckhands had to pry his fevered, deadman's grip from the handles, and his body cramped from the air shock.

"We .. made it!"

Despite the pain, he fondly shuffled Tem's hair before blacking out. The deckhands moved him onto a cot in the shade and covered him with blankets - he was suffering from the deep sea chills, and Tem doubly so due to her small size.

A commotion was brewing nearby. Soon, only Tem was left at Lemuel's side as more of them streamed towards the ring of steel surrounding "Mad Lonnie." The dead, but not quite dead muscle, had several arrows sticking out of his body, and also a few broken blades. The reason was quite clear: his hands appeared to be exuding some sort of silvery coating, and when Lonnie reflexively covered his face, arrows pinged off his palms.

Around him bristled a forest of spears. In between lay a dozen bodies, belonging to those who had tried to re-kill Lonnie. There was a bit of a standoff: if Lonnie moved, he would become a pincushion, yet if they moved, someone was going to die.

Things would soon resolve, though. Lonnie's silvery armour began to drip from his fingers. Not satisfied with coating his entire body, the pores in his skin exuded the liquid in mite-sized beads that welled up to drops before rolling off like water from a well oiled duck. He sweated and cried the stuff. Soon, he fell to his knees and gagged. He coughed up more of the silvery liquid until it was a torrent.

His skin turned silver, and his hair. His eyes became spheres of metal before pooling out of sockets. The skin fell away and left behind an anatomical model, then so too did the flesh, until the only thing left was a metallized skeleton ... and a pool of liquid metal.

"GET THE TEAR INTO SEAWATER!" K'Larr's roar unfroze the men and a fireman's hose spat all over it, while the deckhands feverishly scooped up the quicksilver into buckets.

Taggart found himself restrained by several irresistible men.

"Get him. To. The brig."
[/fieldbox]
 
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Lemuel
The rustle and bustle of the ship exterior could faintly be heard as Lemuel awakened from his short, involuntary "rest". He found himself laying on a cot in the ship's interior, with but few other crewmen besides himself being present. After looking around, he was surprised to find that the short girl who'd embraced him in a hug (shaky though it were) was sitting nearby, seeming to have been waiting for the moment in which he'd awaken. He offered a smile, much to her relief. The poor girl seemed to be deathly worried that a little rest was more than he'd be taking. Unfortunately for him, his body weren't agreeing with him. Attempting to reach the surface under such pressure, as well as keeping the young girl with him, took a great strain on his body. He could only hope that their turn was over, and that they could leave the rest to the other crew members.

"Do you know what's going on up top?" he asked, eager for knowledge as to what had happened while he'd been out.

"I's dun know much," the young girl responded, still shaking from their earlier experience. She seemed to be calming down though, which was a good thing. Lemuel would hate for someone to have to go through such a life-scarring experience simply for being a stowaway. Maybe he was simply too forgiving. "I's been down 'ere fur th' most purt. Not much use fer me up there."

Lemuel relaxed. That was true. K'Larr had his titan now, and Lemuel and Tem had little knowledge pertaining it, other than what K'Larr had told them himself. He didn't care much. If they were going to be left alone, even for the time being, without any worries about dangerous work, he'd gladly accept it. A sigh escaped him as his thoughts proceeded to flow forth. It wasn't everyday that a merchant looking to earn some cash and a young female without a place to stay uncovered a thing of such bewilderment. There was also the other one present, but...he didn't want to burden himself with thoughts of those lost. It would only cause problems between him and K'Larr if he were to confront him about such a thing. He couldn't afford to be tossed aside like the expendable asset he currently was. Not when he knew how willing the man was to throw people around willy-nilly to do his bidding, even if said person was a stowaway.

"Perhaps we should stay here and relax then. No use in going out and making a fuss if they don't need us." Lemuel shifted to ease himself into a sitting position, only to be shocked back into a more upright position when one of the doors swung open. K'Larr himself would be entering the room, and he seemed to be glad that Lemuel was now awake.

"You did great work today, you and this young girl here. I might almost consider you forgiven, if you can keep that up." His last comment was towards the girl, whom he would not soon forget was a stowaway. Dobs probably would've said something, if he wasn't still on deck, cleaning up after what had recently happened with Lonnie. "Thanks to you two...er, three...we have quite a bit to go on with this find. Unfortunately..." The male's face seemed to shift into that of a somewhat worried one, though he still bore a smile. "The titan isn't really in good enough condition to properly examine, as of yet, so we'll be conducting another dive exhibition. Mind you, there'll be some time before you go down again, but due to your stellar job, I'd like you to lead the ocean floor team."

Lemuel frowned inwardly a bit. He wasn't sure how blunt of a being K'Larr might be, but it seemed almost as if the term "lead" was being used more as a persuasive term than a term of position. There was no way that Lemuel would have him sending them back down to the depths because what they just unearthed was currently "inadequate". He wasn't one to be tossed around so easily. "Then as the leader of the ocean floor team, I declare for them to go on ahead on their own, while I remain up here." He looked towards Tem and then motioned from K'Larr towards her, as if to draw his attention towards her. "And this one, too. Too much stress isn't good for a body, you know. Wouldn't you agree that enduring such a life-threatening experience is worth all the forgiveness in the world?" He displayed himself with confidence that tried to lack in smugness. He made sure to cement the line between being sassy and being firm in one's position.
 
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