The damp chill of the deeper tunnels clung to Aurélie, Kuro, Souta, and Koala as they re-entered the wider cavern where Sabo and Charlie labored. The air here tasted of wet rock and volcanic dust, thick with the tension of deciphering doom. Flickering lantern light illuminated walls crawling with ancient, fear-scrawled glyphs. Charlie, sleeves rolled up and chalk dust smeared across his cheek like war paint, was meticulously copying symbols onto a large slate, his loupe dangling precariously. Sabo leaned against a massive, moss-covered support beam, his arms crossed, his gaze distant and heavy.
Charlie looked up as their footsteps echoed, his pith helmet tilting comically. "Ahem! Back so soon? Excellent! Where are Miss Clark and the... ah... energetic young lady?" He blinked, peering past them. "Did they find a particularly fascinating pile of rubble?"
Koala stepped forward, her expression grim. "Separated. They fell down a... pit." She omitted the grisly details. "We came back for the old service schematics. Need another way in."
Sabo straightened, his eyes sharpening. "A pit? Were you seen? Any Marine attention drawn?"
Kuro adjusted his spectacles with a gloved finger, the gold chain glinting. "A brief, inconsequential interaction," he stated smoothly, his voice dismissive as a bored noble discussing the weather. "Hardly noteworthy. They seemed more startled than organized."
Aurélie cut her steel-gray eyes towards him, a flicker of frost in her gaze. "We were not followed," she countered, her tone as cool and sharp as Anathema's edge. "The forces encountered appeared surprised and likely lack the immediate resources for pursuit. Their focus seems fragmented." Her hand rested lightly on her sword's hilt.
Sabo nodded slowly, absorbing this. "Understood." He turned his attention to Aurélie. "We have made progress on the glyphs?"
Charlie couldn't contain himself any longer. He shot to his feet, nearly knocking over his inkwell. "Ahem! Progress? Chief of Staff, progress is a woefully inadequate term! We stand at the precipice of historical revelation!" He pointed a chalk-dusted finger skyward. "The containment mechanism! Powered by resonant suffering! The creature – Abyssal-class, likely Void Century vintage! The bridge itself, a colossal suppression cage! It's... it's..." He fumbled for words, his face alight with horrified fascination.
Koala muffled a snort, quickly turning it into a cough. Charlie glared. "This is hardly a laughing matter, Miss Koala! This is potentially world-ending architecture built on atrocity!"
Aurélie gave a curt nod, acknowledging the gravity but steering the conversation. "The Elbaph contact. Did they respond?"
Sabo tapped his transponder snail. "They did. Marya was in Elbaph. Briefly. Used their library heavily. But she's gone. Left maybe a day before the storm hit us. Heading... deeper."
"Where?" Aurélie pressed, her posture taut.
"Fishman Island," Sabo confirmed.
Aurélie's silver eyebrow arched slightly. "Did they say why?"
"Translating a text," Sabo elaborated. "Something about a 'door'. Searching for specific... elements. Materials, perhaps? The message was cryptic."
Charlie's own brow furrowed deeply, his academic instincts overriding the horror of the bridge. "A door... elements..." He muttered, pacing, his boots scuffing the dusty floor. "Ahem! It must correlate to the references at Angkor'thal! The submerged ruins! The 'Seal of Tides' fragment!" He whirled towards Aurélie. "She must have been cross-referencing the Elbaph records with the Angkor'thal inscriptions! Trying to triangulate the components needed for—"
Aurélie cut him off, her patience thin. "Did you translate the text she sought, Professor Wooley?"
Charlie deflated slightly, pushing his spectacles up. "With my current resources?" He gestured vaguely at the damp cave walls and his scattered parchments. "Portions only! Fragments! It spoke of alignment, convergence... a 'key' not of metal, but of resonance... Ahem! Chief of Staff!" He turned eagerly to Sabo. "Could your contact possibly relay what precisely Marya was researching? What translations she uncovered? It could be vital!"
Sabo looked from Charlie's eager face to the ominous glyphs covering the walls, then back to the scholar. His expression was unreadable, but the weight of the unsaid sacrifice – the 1,200 souls above – hung heavy in the pause. "I can ask," he said finally, his voice low. "But guarantees? None. Elbaph guards its knowledge fiercely, and our contact treads carefully."
"Please do," Aurélie stated, the request firm.
Kuro chose this moment to interject, his voice smooth as polished onyx cutting through the tension. "Fishman Island," he mused, adjusting his spectacles again. "A significant depth. She would require coating for her vessel. Sabaody Archipelago is the logical staging point for such a descent." He stated it as simple fact, a helpful observation. Aurélie gave a brief, acknowledging nod. It made tactical sense.
"Then Sabaody is our next destination," Aurélie declared. "But first—"
Koala jumped in, remembering the immediate crisis. "Oh! Right! The schematics!" She hurried towards a stack of worn, mildew-spotted leather tubes leaning against a crate near Sabo. "Somewhere in this mess... Revolutionary surveys from thirty years back... might show access tunnels, maintenance shafts..." She began unfurling brittle, yellowed parchment, the sound crackling in the cavern.
Suddenly, a blur of pink and manic energy erupted from a side tunnel they hadn't used. Ember, her space buns askew, dress smeared with bone dust and something unnervingly dark, shot past the group gathered near the glyphs. Her mismatched eyes were wide, unfocused. "Found you! Found you ALL!" she cackled, her voice echoing shrilly off the stone. "Hide and seek is OVER! My turn to hide now! Bet you can't find me before the BIG BOOM!" She didn't stop, didn't look back, just kept running, vanishing down another dark passageway like a phantom, her mad laughter trailing behind her.
Charlie gaped after her, chalk forgotten in his hand. Kuro sighed, a sound of profound weariness. Souta's shadowy form seemed to deepen. Koala froze, a schematic half-unrolled. Aurélie's hand tightened on Anathema's sheath, her jaw clenched. Sabo just ran his fingers through his hair, the impossible choice of the bridge momentarily overshadowed by the immediate, explosive chaos embodied by a single, fractured girl. The borrowed time wasn't just dripping; it felt like the dam was cracking.
*****
The submarine's interior hummed with the muffled groan of the ocean depths. Outside the thick viewport, sunlight faded into an eerie twilight blue, then surrendered to utter blackness, punctuated only by the sub's forward lights carving tunnels through the ink. Galit Varuna sat rigid at the helm, his long neck coiled in concentration, emerald eyes darting across flickering dials and glowing runes etched onto volcanic glass screens. His fingers, usually restless, moved with deliberate intent over the controls. Beside him, Marya eased into the co-pilot's seat, the worn leather sighing under her weight. She stretched her legs, the heavy tread of her boots resting against the base of the console.
"Think you can handle this, Tide?" Marya asked, her voice a low murmur barely audible over the thrumming engines and the distant, unsettling creak of the hull. She watched him, golden eyes unreadable beneath the shadow of her jacket collar.
Galit didn't look away from the screens showing depth, pressure, and bubble integrity. "Perfectly capable," he stated, a touch defensively. "Though, strategically speaking, having only one competent pilot navigating dimensional compression at eight thousand fathoms borders on recklessness. Redundancy is prudent." He finally glanced at her, his sharp eyes challenging.
Marya's lips twitched, the ghost of a smirk. "Can't argue with that logic. Alright, pay attention. Normally, you'd input lateral coordinates like this…" Her fingers danced over a secondary panel, pulling up a star-chart hologram shimmering with intersecting lines. "But Fishman Island isn't just across; it's down. Deep. We need to compensate for dimensional depth displacement caused by the water column itself. It warps space-time like a lens." She traced a complex sigil on the glass. "The bubble coating mitigates pressure, but navigation requires… finesse. Know how to compensate?"
Lulee, perched on a crate near Fia, piped up, her voice small in the metallic space. "How long until we get there? It's… really dark."
Henrick, massive frame folded near the hatch controls, offered a reassuring rumble. "Several hours, little pearl. The sea's embrace is vast."
Atlas Acuta, leaning heavily against a bulkhead near Jelly, his bandaged leg propped awkwardly, managed a pained chuckle. "Feels like forever when you're leaking, huh, Red?" He winced as he shifted.
Jelly wobbled excitedly beside him, morphing his upper body into a spinning blue top. "Squishy time! Zoom-zoom-fast! Bloop!"
Galit, already focused back on the primary console, inputting sequences Marya had indicated, spoke without turning. "This vessel employs spatial compression technology derived from vibrational harmonics. The journey feels instantaneous, though the transition can be…" he paused, searching for the right word, "...disconcerting. The temporal and spatial displacement is significant. Unnerving, perhaps, but the speed is undeniable."
Marya watched his inputs, her gaze sharp. "Normally, you'd set it like this…" She reached over, her finger hovering near a specific rune cluster. "But for depth displacement, you need to override the lateral stabilizer here," she tapped a different sigil, "and channel the energy through the bubble's resonance frequency. Like tuning a harp string under pressure." Her tone was matter-of-fact, devoid of condescension, simply stating parameters.
Galit nodded curtly, his long neck muscles tightening as he adjusted the sequence. "Understood. Compensating now. Engaging the dimensional depth matrix."
Atlas groaned, pushing off the bulkhead with a grunt. "Don't mess it up, Noodle Neck. I'd rather not become mincemeat smeared across some trench wall. Marinara sauce on rock isn't my preferred afterlife."
Galit's stylus tapped a final command with a decisive click. He didn't look back, but his voice held a dry edge. "Given the alternative is listening to your whining for several more hours, Furball, becoming marinara holds a certain appeal. An aesthetic improvement, perhaps."
Henrick opened his mouth, likely to mediate or ask a technical question about the bubble harmonics, but Marya cut across, her voice cutting through the banter like cold steel. "Strap in. All of you. Now."
The command brooked no argument. Fia swiftly pulled Lulee and Geo into harnessed seats near her, buckling them securely. Henrick secured himself beside the hatch controls. Atlas cursed under his breath but lowered himself awkwardly into a seat, Jelly morphing into a gelatinous safety belt around his waist. "Bloop-safe!" Galit secured his own restraints, hands steady on the helm. Marya simply braced her boots firmly against the deck plating, one hand resting lightly on Eclipse's reclining against the console, the other gripping the armrest of her seat. Her gaze remained fixed forward.
Galit took a breath. "Activating Bubble Porter. Initiating dimensional compression… now."
He pressed a final, glowing rune.
The world didn't fade. It shattered.
It wasn't sound, but a silence so profound it vibrated in the veins. The viewport didn't show darkness; it became a swirling vortex of impossible colors – bruised purples, sickly greens, and a black so deep it seemed to absorb the sub's lights. Gravity ceased to exist. One moment Atlas felt the weight of his injured leg, the next he was floating an inch above his seat, held only by the harness. Jelly flattened into a panicked blue pancake against Atlas's chest. Lulee gasped, her small hand clutching Geo's, whose eyes were squeezed shut, a high-pitched whine escaping his lips. Henrick grunted, his massive frame straining against the straps. Fia's knuckles were white on the armrests.
Marya remained utterly still, her breathing even, her golden eyes narrowed as they scanned the chaotic swirl outside. Her grip on Eclipse tightened fractionally, the only sign of tension. Galit's neck was rigid, tendons standing out like cables, his eyes glued to the screens that now showed only cascading streams of indecipherable glyphs.
Time stretched and snapped. Was it a heartbeat? An eternity?
Then, with a bone-jarring THOOM that resonated through every rivet, reality slammed back into place. Gravity returned with crushing force, slamming everyone back into their seats. The chaotic colors vanished, replaced by an overwhelming, crushing darkness outside the viewport. Not the twilight of the descent, but the utter, lightless depthes of the abyssal plain.
The sub groaned. A deep, resonant, metallic moan echoed through the hull, like the sigh of some immense, ancient creature. It wasn't a crack, but the sound of immense forces pressing in from all sides. Outside the forward lights, now pitifully weak, illuminated a landscape of utter desolation. Jagged, black volcanic rock formations, sharp as shattered glass, clawed upwards from a silty, grey seafloor that stretched into infinite gloom. Strange, pallid worms burrowed blindly in the sediment. The water itself seemed thick, heavy, pressing against the bubble coating with visible tension.
"Whoa!" Geo breathed, his fear momentarily replaced by awe as he pressed his face to the cold viewport. "It's… like another planet!"
"The hull," Henrick stated, his deep voice steady despite the unsettling sounds. "Just adjusting. The pressure here… it's immense. Like standing under a mountain range made of water." He watched the bubble's shimmering surface intently, noting how it flexed inward slightly but held its shape. "The coating. It holds."
Galit, already scanning the pressure gauges spiking into the red zones, nodded curtly, though a bead of sweat traced a path down his temple. "Structural integrity within predicted tolerances. The dimensional jump placed us precisely on the seabed approach vector to Fishman Island. The groaning is the metal… acclimating." He adjusted the controls with careful movements, the sub gliding forward with a low hum, navigating cautiously between the towering obsidian spires. The lights reflected dully off their glassy surfaces.
As they moved, shapes began to coalesce in the darkness beyond the rocks. Not worms, but creatures. Gigantic, blind crabs with shells like pitted stone scuttled slowly. An eel longer than the sub, its skin the color of old bruises and dotted with faintly glowing parasites, slithered sinuously through a canyon, stirring up clouds of silt. The sheer, alien strangeness of the deep pressed in, silent and watchful.
Then, something beautiful. A school of creatures darted into the light – not fish, but delicate, translucent beings like living crystal lace, trailing long, shimmering filaments that pulsed with soft, internal light. They swirled around the sub for a moment, curious, their movements ethereal and silent.
Marya, still watching the viewport, didn't smile. But the rigid line of her jaw softened almost imperceptibly. Her fingers, which had been tense on the armrest, relaxed. She watched the crystal creatures dance in the sub's beams, a flicker of something quiet and unguarded in her golden eyes – a silent appreciation for the abyss's unexpected, fragile beauty. For a moment, the stoic Bearer of Eternal Eclipse was simply someone watching something… cute. She leaned forward slightly, her gaze tracking their graceful, silent ballet in the crushing dark.
The delicate crystal dancers scattered like startled snowflakes as Galit's voice cut through the sub's quiet hum. "Coordinates locked. Fishman Island in twenty minutes." The announcement shattered the abyss's spell. Marya's fingers tightened imperceptibly on the armrest, the unguarded softness in her eyes hardening back to sharp gold as she straightened.
Fia, smoothing Lulee's coral-pink hair, turned to Marya. "May I ask what brings you to the Island? After... after everything?" Her voice held the weight of surfacing from nightmares.
Marya paused. The lie coiled on her tongue—information retrieval—felt flimsy under Fia's earnest gaze. "An ancient sea creature," she finally offered, her tone carefully neutral. "Research points here."
Henrick stroked his chin, the gesture echoing generations of fishman blacksmiths pondering flawed metal. "Legends crowd these waters like barnacles. Got a name for this beast?"
"The Sea Devourer."
Lulee shot upright, scales shimmering. "Kulakana! We saw its heart! At the Royal Museum! It glowed like... like frozen lightning!" Geo nodded vigorously beside her, missing front tooth whistling.
Marya's focus snapped to the mermaid child. "A museum? With relics?" Her voice stayed level, but Atlas caught the slight lean forward—the hunter sensing prey.
Fia chuckled, the sound warm as sun-washed shallows. "Oh yes! The Devourer's Sanctum. When we're home, I'll take you—after you two catch up on schoolwork." The kid's groans erupted. Henrick rumbled laughter. "Listen to your mother. Books before bones, little pearls."
Fia turned back to Marya, ocean-blue eyes earnest. "Stay with us. We've room above the forge. Safe. Warm."
Henrick crossed massive arms. "Won't hear 'no.' Debt's owed."
Atlas gave a pained thumbs-up from his seat. Galit merely nodded, stylus tapping calculations onto volcanic glass. Marya studied them—the wounded Mink, the calculating tide-breaker, the family radiating stubborn kindness. Obstacles. Distractions. Yet… convenient. "Very well," she conceded. "If refusal's impossible."
Fia beamed. "Perfect! I'll make Sea King stew with Devourer Dumplings—"
"Arrival imminent," Galit interrupted. Outside the viewport, the crushing blackness dissolved. Like a sun birthed from the deep, Fishman Island bloomed—a colossal, shimmering sphere cradled in a dome of liquid light. Not merely bright; it throbbed. Streets coiled like nautilus shells, buildings carved from luminous coral pulsed with internal radiance, and towering kelp forests swayed in unseen currents, their fronds trailing sparks of captured sunlight. The very water around it seemed warmer, humming with life.
Galit adjusted the helm, brow furrowed. "Fascinating. Light emission at this depth defies standard photic models..."
"It's the Eve Tree!" Geo piped up, pressing his nose to the cool glass. "Its roots drink the dark and spit out rainbows!"
Henrick chuckled, pride warming his deep voice. "Near enough, son. Steer for the Whaletooth Gate, Tide-Breaker. Starboard side."
As the sub neared the colossal bone arch marking the entrance, armored guards wielding tridents etched with kraken motifs emerged from bubble-riding seahorse mounts. Their leader, gills flaring, tapped the hull with his weapon. THUNK. THUNK. "State purpose and registry!"
Henrick slid open the comm grate, his voice booming with the relief of deep-water pressure lifting. "Henrick, of the Deepwater Forge! Returning home with family and surface allies! Tell Old Man Goru his anvil's still singing!"
Recognition flashed across the guard's face. "Henrick! We heard whispers… slavers…" He peered inside, spotting Fia, Lulee, Geo. His sternness melted into a grin sharp as reef teeth. "By Neptune's grace! Welcome home, smith! The Forge District's been quieter than a clam without your hammer-song!" He waved them through. "Enter in peace!"
Passing through the bubble membrane was like sinking into warm, liquid silk. The crushing silence of the abyss vanished, replaced by a symphony of life: the distant clang of hammers from forges, the melodic calls of fish-herders guiding shimmering schools, the sizzle of dumplings frying in stalls shaped like Sea King's gaping maw. The air carried salt, hot oil, and the sweet, green scent of the massive Eve Tree, its trunk a pillar of living light piercing the dome's apex.
Marya scanned the bustling Merfolk Promenade as they drifted towards a docking spire. Tourists—fishmen, merfolk, even a few wary humans in bubble coats—touched enormous, fossilized ribs arching over a plaza (The Ribcage Colosseum). Holographic projectors shaped like barnacles cast shimmering tales of the ancient Sea Kings above a shrine where children dropped iridescent shells into a dark tunnel mouth—the Whispering Tides. A stall vendor bellowed, "Get yer Fried Fish Dumplings! Squid-ink guts just like the Titan swallowed!" The scent of fried dough and salty filling wafted past the sub's vents.
Fia followed Marya's gaze. "The Sanctum's just past the palace square. We'll go tomorrow." She placed a gentle hand on Marya's arm. Marya didn't pull away, but her posture remained watchful, a dagger sheathed in denim and leather. Her eyes, however, lingered on a cluster of tiny, fuzzy seahorses with wings like damselflies—Sea Kittens—nibbling glowing algae off a statue of the First Poseidon. For a fraction of a second, the Void Bearer's fingers twitched, as if imagining the softness of their downy fins.