Interlude: Meetings in the Now, Shadows of the Future (Patreon)

Hello, good evening, and happy holidays! It's been too long yet again, but today has really been the first day I can type much in a while. I mentioned it on royal road, as a foreword in The Yes-Mage, but I haven't brought much more attention beyond that to the fact that I got surgery on my wrist not long after I got back from university for the semester. It was a minor operation, just removing a cyst that was in there deep, but it has also been pretty tough to use my hand. Both thankfully and not so much, it's the left one and I'm right-handed, so my day-to-day isn't too changed, but every time I sat down to write, typing quickly became either painful or just cumbersome, and that is not the right mood at all to write either story. Anyway, I'm rambling now and I apologize, I'll try to write more tonight and will write more in general, so this won't be the last thing I leave you with. Thank you, and enjoy!

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Jim and Lorraine followed alongside their sudden, unexpected new company as they explored the submerged market. While the group had hardly expected to literally run into the trio as they had finished their final preparations for their next dive, they were hardly upset. The two groups had gotten to talking, and despite the three mermaids’ varying levels of air-headedness and general energy, it was easily guessed, at least to the couple, that they were experienced.

A couple of questions, statements, and stories later and it was very clearly true. The three were the first group that they’d talked to that had gone as deep as the wyvern’s floor and made it back with no losses, although the one that had run into Jim, her name was Shaira, had been injured in some fashion, even if she hardly looked it.

Lorraine was right when she said that her moving around so easily was a testament to the healers themselves, always stationed outside the dungeon, always ready for whatever was thrown their way, though Jim couldn’t help but wonder what it was that needed healing so urgently in the first place. It was even odder, considering the mage, Shasa, was trained in the healing arts, not greatly but enough to fix most moderate injuries. Anything severe enough to require one of the medics, in that case, should have had some obvious side effects, but he wouldn’t pry.

It was within their rights not to share too much, and it was also possible that it was just some embarrassing story that seemed much more urgent in the heat of the moment. As greedy as it most assuredly sounded, Shasa being a healer, however minor and unfocused on the profession she was, was enough to get the party of four interested in keeping in touch with them, and it vastly outweighed any unfounded curiosity towards a slightly unusual story.

While nobody outright asked if they wanted to join the party, though the Delia the ever-impulsive lamia who nearly did before Mel ushered her over to a stall selling snakes in hopes that somebody might have brought something more interesting today now that people were venturing deeper, some definite hints were dropped that the four-person group wouldn’t mind becoming seven. Lorraine’s abilities, or rather, connections in making it a little easier for such a thing to make it into the Dungeon without too much hassle were also hinted at.

Unfortunately, the trio was unwilling. Again, it was all spoken in that polite but not straightforward language that anyone ranked A or higher was simply expected to know. It was the sort that Jim very much disliked needing to use, especially talking to his wife’s father but he was never much fond of it. That discussion was eventually shut down, no hard refusals but no uncertainty about them not wanting to go Diving for at least a few days and being iffy on the idea of joining someone else when it had almost always been just those three.

Thankfully, it wasn’t explicit denial, and the two groups continued to talk for quite some time, even after Mel and Delia returned, the serpentine girl once more disappointed in the lack of anything ‘interesting’ to bind to herself as a familiar, and since she could only have a single familiar at any given time, or possibly at all, it was an important decision if a bit whimsical. That said, she had picked up a couple of serpents purely for her own magic and potions, being a venomancer made it both difficult and expensive to progress, even if one could produce their own supply.

The two she grabbed, a mundane black-banded krait and a more esoteric night-banded evolution, were both known for having a potent bite, and she wanted to milk both of them for a couple of jars of their toxic before returning them to the vendor. So, while she wandered off elsewhere, probably to go make the day of some alchemist for the frankly exorbitantly priced water-proofed jars, the remaining six decided to wait for her. The day was still young, Shaira also seemed rather eager to go looking at the section of the market selling creatures, and everyone else was content to indulge her.

As they wandered, Jim couldn’t help but be a bit interested himself, since it was already difficult to drag things out of a Dungeon. There were really only two ways to do such a thing, the first and most ‘civilized’ involved spatial mages forming delicate and often broken prisons of pocket space. The second was much more straightforward and much more common. Upon seeing something that looks interesting, whatever that may be, one just has to overpower, incapacitate, and haul it out. A good artifact could transport some surprisingly large creatures out, like the now docile pod of razortooth dolphins the group swam by, but buying cheap means one needs to backtrack all the way out.

Thankfully, once out of the dungeon, a spawn would settle down, the bond between it and its creator shattering when both sides tried to prevent that left it reeling, and while they’d recover quickly enough it was still plenty of time for a mind mage, soul mage, tamer, or any number of other professions to come along and cast a spell and keep it tame until bound, or just bind it to themselves.

The problem though, for both methods, and for the Dives in general, came from the environment. Unsurprisingly, the water made animals much more difficult to work with, and especially so for those terrestrial Divers. The aquatic races were alright at it, already used to dealing with the creatures they faced in some capacity, but the land-bound, those that made up a huge majority of ‘veteran’ Dungeon Divers were at a loss. The reason was simple, too, condescendingly so.

Moving underwater just isn’t something they do, not as much as they need. Obviously, most any Adventurer had likely fought underwater by this point, had experience navigating submerged temples and wrecks, could understand that movement through a liquid was just not the same and could adjust accordingly, but more often than not, hadn’t done all of this at once. The environment was different, the creatures were different, the experience was different. Even the weapons needed were horribly different and watching someone descend into that gaping maw of the abyss wielding a warhammer, claymore, whip, or any other painfully out of place weapon was almost heartbreaking simply because of how often people did it.

There was more, of course, terrestrials weren’t used to needing to be aware of every angle while they fought, the same creature could come from directly ahead or behind, could dart down from above or rocket upwards from below all while their movements were sluggish and dull. Sure, creatures could fly and they could dig, but on land if one is flipped upside down through a heavy hit they’d still be instantly aware of what’s up and what’s down. Underwater, it takes a moment to orient oneself, and a moment is all it takes. All this, and so much more, made it very, very difficult for ‘experienced’ Dungeon Divers to collect creatures and sometimes even escape alive, and some of them weren’t pleased. Those humans, elves, the kin who walk the land are at an inherent disadvantage there, although Jim had to give credit where it was due, some of them were still frighteningly capable.

That very thought was punctuated by a simple, small figure, a short white mousekin that he’d never seen in any aquatic setting and was still well aware that he didn’t need to in order to understand. Other figures came to mind, too, after that one. A towering bearkin, a squat dwarf, and a simple human; three similarly capable terrestrials he’d met in person and never wanted to do so again. And that was simply the ones stuck on land, completely discounting the aquatic races he’d so formally been introduced to. Even his very own father-in-law made it onto that list, a Selkie with a truly larger than life presence, and head of the Hynix Atlantean Guild. How his lovely wife was so relaxed around the various S rankers they’d met he’d never know.

It made their brief and unplanned meeting with The Mapper almost cathartic, watching his eternally composed spouse finally show the same fear he felt every time he was invited to a family dinner proved that she was still mortal like him, at least for the moment. Not that he’d ever dare admit to that, just like Lorraine likely hid her own amusement at her husband’s terror, and maybe even her own reservations towards these people of entirely too much power.

Hopefully one day, they’d get lucky enough to not need to fear, but that was still likely a long time off. Still, perhaps something in the Reef Dungeon held the answer, could become a catalyst to become something greater than themselves. Something to hope for, for their next Dive, not something to be brooding over when making friends, if he was interpreting his wife’s very pointed look correctly. They’d wandered through most of the market by now, and he was embarrassed to realize that he’d spent much of it lost in thought. Sure, Lorraine normally did most of the talking, but he still wanted to listen, to get to know the trio even if only as friends. He decided he could at least try to rectify that, anyways, and now that Mel and Delia had returned, they could all do something resembling a group.

“So, would you guys like to get a meal?” Asked Jim, and after a few very enthusiastic affirmatives, he let the trio decide where they wanted to go. Most restaurants, or the places that could be called such, were still new, most everything was still new, but the three mermaids decided to go a little distance away from the island, deeper even than the sheer drop of its west side that the docks and the sunken city were both built into. Most of the buildings reflected their age, or lack of it.

There was freshly grown coral, usually domed and almost all mundane, hollowed out and forced into residences. Hovels dug into the sand and then opening up in packed sandstone beneath. Even grand stone structures that rose up tens of meters, but they were all too deep to threaten any of the wooden hulls always passing overhead. And yet, all of it was just so fresh, not even hints of algae being scoured away, of barnacles killed and cleaned, of colors bleached or harsh edges eroded.

It wasn’t one of the impressive structures they were destined for, instead, it was another of many unassuming burrows, one that didn’t even bother with closing itself off from the waters outside. Most places didn’t, and it wasn’t unusual to see the sheer drop into a lobby of this place, apparently just a tavern, before taking a sharp turn and towards the island. Jim looked around at the simple place, it was shockingly large, although it was also stark and bare. Magical lighting lit up an open dining room, and the only real similarities between here and a tavern one might find on the surface was an entire wall decorated with ‘drinks’ and other concoctions, but again, with their own aquatic preservations.

The rest of the group swam towards a corner of the empty room, deciding to float in a loose huddle and further distance themselves from and terrestrial analogs, but Jim took a last look at the water above, and the evening sky barely illuminating through that. Faint orange beams shone down, the blades of light stabbing through the waves weakly but failing to provide anything more than scenery, all real light this deep and this late came from spirit or crystal constructions. As he followed the rest, he idly noted a large group of shadows approaching from further out. More than likely, just another band of merchants coming to dock, but them finding any space near shore, much less at an actual wharf, was unlikely at best.