Interlude: Sirens, Near and Far (Patreon)

Hi! I'm going to try and finish up another chapter in the works tonight, and get that out. I work tomorrow, though, so I might need to call it a night before I can. Still, hopefully I can get some done after that, and on my day off, and I'm also pretty sure I will suspend August payments for Patreon as I did July's. Still, I won't bore you all, thank you for reading, and thank you even more for waiting, I can only hope to make it worth it.

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Kelly was concerned, a frustratingly common feeling for the siren despite her ‘retirement’ from active Atlantean duty. She was concerned for her boss, how the constant stream of job-related stress threatened to grey his scales- and maybe even hers. She was concerned for her old friends, how Mel and Del insisted on trying their hand as Dungeon Divers despite the risks, and she couldn’t help but sneak a peek at every new casualty report that she had to ferry to Rok, just so that she could be sure that she wouldn’t need to request time off to attend a funeral. She was concerned for the island, and her old home nearby; the increased activity was no doubt a boon and she knew that she and her family and friends all benefitted from this, but everything was becoming so different and very soon her childhood home would be unrecognizable.

But that all seemed mild now, something happened earlier that day and Kelly only knew that nearly a dozen people were taken into custody in one fell swoop, only for Rok to disappear for hours, come back literally a different person, shut half the island down and declare the Dungeon off-limits and disappear again. Kelly was angry at him for some of that; he decided to ascend, a foolishly dangerous idea for the unprepared, without any sort of preparation, all without telling the rest of the Guilds or even her and it irked her.

However, she couldn’t bring herself to be angry, because from what she’d overheard of his talk with the regional Guild leader, there was some more hired muscle on the way to the island or the Dungeon, and they might be S rank, and even the idea of that being true terrified her. There was so much happening, and she rushed out of the Guilds hall moments after Rok trudged off into the night, feeling the need to clear her head. 

There was a little relief to be had, swimming into open waters after being stuck in the shallow halls as disaster loomed, but she still felt uneasy. There were no palmwood walls and limestone floors threatening to close in on her, but even the water around the hall was frustratingly low and almost stagnant to her in that moment. She swam away from shore, away from the sharp drop of the marina or the dug-out depths of the residential section that were on either side of the hall. Instead, she just followed the slow slope of the island’s natural shoreline, feeling the gentle currents guiding her further out with the tides, until signs of the reef began to dominate the formerly rocky scenery.

She always turned to the coral when she needed to calm down, the vibrant colors and wild, natural growths were everything she wished she could be when things were threatening to overwhelm her: loud and unconstrained, free to be herself in whatever way she desired. But the changes all throughout the island were pushing the reef further and further back, leaving bleached skeletons in the wake of the sudden development.

Still, it wasn’t nearly enough yet to repel the fringing reef more than a hundred meters away, and Kelly could still see the arcane glow lighting up Sleepy Gills like a beacon against the empty sky. And yet the reef behind her was so glaringly brilliant that the island might as well have been as dark and desolate as the firmament above them. That was what she needed, at that moment. It set her at ease, knowing that despite how she felt, seeing even Rok look so powerless, the world was bigger than the problems at home, and even if they were all she could see things would pass and she’d find a way to get through it.

This was the catharsis that she so desperately needed, and she was able to lie on her back, floating amidst the corals and basking in their power and radiance. She spent the night like that, and the worries of the evening before became little more than background thoughts as she floated amidst the reef. Sleep never claimed her, but neither did she need it, not when her own natural mana reserves and a bit of healing magic would make it unnecessary.

By the time the first rays of morning light started to filter down through the waves, Kelly was feeling markedly better, though she’d still need to return to her home and work the sand and detritus out of her hair. One painful untangling and change of clothes later, and she was ready to return to the office, much less worried for what the day might or might not have in store. She was wearing a professional smile as she swam up into the halls that just hours earlier left her nearly in tears. She pulled her upper body out of the water, wringing out the seawater from her hair as she did so, and headed to the desks, relieving the few night receptionists and taking over their posts for the bulk of the day shift arrived.

She also organized the requests for the day, ranging from standing orders for hunts that seemed to never be fulfilled, like the one noble demanding the head of a wyvern who slew his heir, to simple deliveries between the budding island city and a nearby isle being repurposed for artifact and weaponcrafting. Familiar faces flitted by, not just cashing in completed requests, but also selling or trading elemental crystals, with each other and with her, both as an individual and as a representative of the Guilds. New blood was also common, overwhelmingly so, but Kelly tended to forget many of them not long after handing over their licenses to Dive the Reef Dungeon. It wasn’t until groups came back that she, or most of the other Guildsmen for that matter, would start to warm up to them.

More of her coworkers started wandering in right about the time she’d pinned the most important news to the board, and for that, she was glad. Those who weren’t already aware didn’t take kindly to the big, urgent notice that the Dungeon was closed for two days, and Kelly slipped into one of the back hallways as the unhappy murmuring started raising in volume; her talents lie in subduing already off-balance targets rather than using her Charm to quell outright riots.

Thankfully, the Guild, Atlantean or Adventurer or maybe both, was good about appointing someone who could take care of that budding unrest as leader of the town, and for once in her time as a secretary, Kelly’s boss was on-time, perhaps even early. It was hard not to notice Rok’s arrival, even a day later when he seemed much better at controlling the mana that rolled off his body. 

After nearly throwing the woven reed door across the room, and accidentally bowling over an elf in the process, the grand hall seemed much quieter. A brave few people continued their protests, walking or swimming or slithering alongside Rok as he stepped over the crowds to get to his post, but he either brushed aside their complaints, or told them to deal with it. Kelly was also well aware that anyone on the island right then wouldn’t be able to Dive any time that day anyway, such was the length of the line.

Finally, Rok’s tone turned firm, and he growled out an order to leave the subject be or be personally, permanently banned from the Dungeon. He turned into the hall that Kelly was waiting, a stack of papers in her arm and a complicated look on her face. She let him get a step or two ahead of her, then rushed to catch back up after realizing that his steps were now vastly larger, almost leaving a wake behind himself.

“So,” Kelly started, feeling unusual at watching Rok fail to react to her voice at all, despite not muffling her Charm as usual, “were you ever going to tell us about… any of what you’ve been up to? Are you even going to now? Or do I get the same excuses you fed the people out there, about this being long in the works, but carefully hidden, all while you promise to tell me more ‘later?’”

“Kelly, I-” began Rok, but it seemed neither of them were quite used to his new voice or the effects it had on their environment, but despite the unnatural pauses Rok’s input continued to have, he continued. “I am sorry, and you are right. I don’t know how much you’re aware of, still probably more than the people out there, but things are shaping up to be messy, for everyone, and I want to have as much control over it all as possible.”

At least this was reasonable to the siren, but Kelly was hardly feeling reasonable after her boss nearly publicly killed himself over some looming threat. She wasn’t angry, but she pressed him for more regardless. Despite some intense reluctance, Rok was talking again by the time the pair reached his office, Kelly not even bothering to hide her Charm while she tried to draw more out of him, though both knew he’d be utterly unaffected by it.

“There’s not a lot you won’t know about eventually, very soon more than likely, but I don’t think there’s any way of telling someone, or a whole island of very twitchy, greedy someones if word gets out, that I’m going to declare the Dungeon off-limits for the upcoming week at least tomorrow at the latest. That’s not going to be well-received even if I have it on good authority from a Titled Diver that a group of mercenaries were hired by… a party I don’t think I should name to bring a foreign Dungeon Core inside and spark a war.

“Asking them to try and keep their displeasure to a minimum is a fool’s mission; just because I have to worry about an S rank with unknown capabilities- hired by that same group- trying to destroy that Dungeon, this island, myself, or some selection of all three, hardly makes for a good reason for the reckless and the desperate to not become another issue on top of that. The Guilds are as much help as you’d expect, if it takes Petra another week to get here then maybe I could hope from help from an Enforcer, but that’s not likely and I’m on my own.”

Rok’s ranting grew louder as he spoke, though he wasn’t putting much power into his complaints. Still, the fact remained that the mana he'd sculpted his new body out of was still rolling off him, intimately tied to his soul, and it meant that his displeasure was obvious to anyone nearby, one such example being Kelly. Thankfully for the siren, Rok spent the past day making sure he’d mostly gotten his new aura under control, so the worst of it was a mild sense of anxiety on top of a nagging frustration towards something she wasn’t aware of.

Still, Rok realized what he was doing by the end of his diatribe, as he was trying to settle into his chair, and just like everything else after his ascension he found it too small. He gave up very quickly after he realized Kelly was tugging on her vivid yellow hair just a little too hard, one of her tics he’d come to notice. He heaved a deep breath, calming his nerves and himself before he relaxed his body, finishing with one final deep and ultimately pointless breath. Kelly, too, seemed to get over the mood quickly, but quickly realized that the worst of the anxiety wasn’t coming from Rok and his forced empathy, but mostly the realization that she heard right, and there was an aggressive S rank, nothing different to her than an earthquake or a waterspout, on their way to the island, and the name even sounded very vaguely familiar.

But the reason why it was so was anything but forthcoming. After a moment of thought, trying to trace that name back to someone, she gave up, no doubt she’d heard the name from a rumor somewhere, and she was now frustratingly unable to remember what those rumors were. Knowing about the S ranker would hardly help anyway, if they were going to go after her then her best bets were to run now, or to hope Rok was strong enough to hold his own, at least until an Enforcer arrived.

No matter her choice, she needed to make it fast, and the best person to help her make it was still awkwardly crouch-standing right before her, seemingly deciding whether it was best to simply use his desk as a chair until he could order something new. She opened her mouth, beginning to freely interrogate the man, hoping to better understand the chaos that was about to find their island before everyone knew, and things truly became chaotic.

Neither she nor Rok were aware of a brilliantly golden figure stepping onto a dock, a short island away, and the painfully blinding glare coming from the setting sun catching her aurum scales.