The tips of my toes tingle beneath layers of borrowed flesh as I slip deeper and deeper into the dark and misty abyss of this alien ocean. I’d hoped that maybe we were heading for a reef or some sort of city, but the longer we fall, the more those hopes crumble away.

This world is not Earth and the natural forces that shape this planet work differently. It’s vaguely possible that the depths reach near to the very core of the world itself. Gravity will still pull the heavier masses lower, but if there is a water vortex at the core, then high-pressure water flow could maintain deep oceans which would ordinarily be filled by falling debris.

“I’m sure you’re worried about all sorts of things,” Pi says. “You don’t need to be. We’re all here to support each other, and together we can keep the oceans safe and free. No tree is going to get the best of us, and no mindless beast is going to ruin us.”

“How?” I ask. “Do you meld minds and souls to condense your power? I’ve come across another being which has done as much to keep itself safe.”

“Melding minds and souls?” He asks, shimmering tentacles shivering in disgust. “No, no, not at all, that sounds terrible!”

“So, what do you do?” I ask. “You work together, and to survive you must concentrate your mana to serve your civilisation’s needs, no?”

It’s a simple concept, concentrated power is far more effective than power spread out. All it would take is one greedy beast, eating more than anyone else, to overthrow a society focused on pure equality and shared resources.

On Earth, equality is not only an admirable goal but a pragmatic means of creating a powerful nation, stuffing ten tonnes of food down one man’s gullet isn’t going to help him fight off a small army that eats an equivalent mass of food. Out here the rules are different.

Sharing mana equally just makes us all vulnerable to those who refuse to share. A million people with one unit of mana each cannot hope to stand against one person with a million units of mana.

“Ah, of course, you’d be curious about that,” Pi says, bubbling with laughter as his trailing limbs wave all about through the hazy waters. “I’ll introduce you to the guardians when we arrive. They protect us and ward off any terrible threats, you won’t have to fight anymore, not down here.

“Everyone gets to eat, and everyone is safe from violence.”

I want to ask about their management of population density, their legal system, and so much else, but restrain myself. I’ll see some of it through my own eyes shortly, and it’s more important to stay on task.

I need to make an alliance and keep this from becoming another war.

“Kyra,” Nel says, touching my mechanical shoulder and drawing me out of the depths.

“Did I do something wrong?” I ask, looking over the sizzling cutlets on the pan.

“No,” Nel shakes her head. “Your adventure is going well?”

“I’ve made contact, they seem nice so far…” I don’t need to voice my concerns. There are a million terrible things that could happen before the day ends.

“Are you resting enough?” Nel asks. “You’ve barely taken a moment to relax, especially since our kids were born, and I’ve noticed that you seem distracted more often.”

“It’s nothing,” I say.

“It’s not nothing,” Nel squeezes my shoulder. “If something is worrying you, then it’s important.”

“It’s… I don’t know where we’re going,” I say. “We’re taking over the world, and I’m taking the steps to do that. We’re building up our school and I’m running around fixing things, making it work a little bit better every day, our kids are alive and well…”

Nel patiently waits for me to find the words to try and express this feeling in me. The cold misty depths of the ocean only make real the same desperate feelings that rise in my guts when I think of the future.

“They’re vague goals,” I say. “I don’t know what I’m doing. I’m making mistakes with the school, probably making mistakes as a mother, too, but I won’t know until it’s too late.

“The way they treat me when I’m here in this mechanical body… Is that what it’ll be like in the future?”

“Kyra,” Nel says, wrapping her arm around my waist and pulling me close. “You’re overthinking things again. You’re not perfect.”

“Is that meant to make me feel better?” I laugh, it comes out dry.

“You don’t have to be perfect,” Nel says. “We’ll make mistakes but our children will forgive us, do you know why?”

“Why?”

“Because we’re family and we love them,” Nel says. “We’re going to try our best, and everything will be okay.”

“Right…”

“You need a goal,” Nel says, breaking away and tilting her head in thought. “That’s how you live, you need a simple, achievable goal. Taking over the world is too big while running a good school and raising our kids is all too vague.”

“Nel?” I ask, confused by her sudden shift in topic.

“Get new students for the school,” Nel says. “We can use it to initiate others into our culture, it’ll be useful for peacefully taking over much of this world.”

“I’m already doing that,” I say.

“Yes, but you don’t see it as your purpose, do you?” Nel asks. “What I’m saying is that you should treat the school as your battlefront. It is what you should use to take over this world, get students, introduce them to our culture and way of life, and convince their people to join us.

“That’s something that you can focus on, it’s not violent,” she leans in closer, “and it gives you a real path towards our ultimate goals, taking over the world, creating a community for our kids, and empowering yourself to face future threats.”

“Nel, have I ever told you how much I love you?” I ask, leaning into her and squeezing her gently. “I sometimes forget that I have you to watch out for me.”

“We are a family,” Nel says. “I can’t support you on the battlefield but I can help you set things straight and plan things out. Don’t stress about these things alone.”

“I try not to,” I say, breathing a little easier even as the water pressure grows heavier and heavier on my chest.

I’d hoped that as we fell away from the surface of the world that maybe the waters would become clearer, but even as Pi escorts the twins and I into a world far below the light of the sun, I’m just as blind as ever before.

“It’s peaceful down here?” I ask. Pi floats through the water so completely carefree that I can’t imagine anything striking out at us from nowhere.

“Absolutely!” he says, his limbs reaching out wide and shivering. “No one here would dare hurt another citizen of the ocean.”

“Does this mean we don’t get to fight anything?” Leai asks, her bored expression turning downcast.

“You want to fight?” Pi asks. “There’s always something that we can find for people who want to fight, the shores can get violent at times.”

A smile returns to her face as hope is revived.

“Who do you war against?” I ask.

“The land crawlers mostly,” he says, waving his arms around loosely. “We do have to deal with some of the ravaged, too, but we leave most of that to the guardians.”

“The ravaged?”

He shrivels and his colour drains away. The shadows around us seem that much darker as he shrinks in size and gazes around us. He looks between us and a nearby shadow before leading us towards it.

“You don’t have the ravaged where you come from?” he asks, moving slower than usual.

“No,” I shake my head readying for a fight as the shadow looms before us.

“It’s an illness,” he explains, as I start to make out the detailed shape of the monster before us.

Convergent evolution leads to animals taking similar shapes, so it’s not surprising to see something akin to a whale in this ocean. The skin is covered in thin cracks, like the glass of a windshield after a terrible crash. Its tail is ragged and torn, its eyes glazed over.

“Is it…”

“Still alive,” Pi says, gently resting an arm over the creature.

“Those afflicted gradually lose their ability to think. At first, they’re just exceedingly agreeable, floating around laughing and having fun.

“Then, comes the quiet.”

Pi slowly swims us through to another shadow, another comatose creature, this time a shark of some kind. Its eyes are fully glazed, I’m not sure if it’d respond even if I stabbed it through.

“They stop responding to anything anymore. For years they can just float here… empty.”

“For years?” I ask. “They get better?”

“Sometimes,” he says. “Rarely.

“Most become ravaged. They no longer talk or think, they just… they attack everything they can see. We can’t save them when it comes to that. It’s a terrible tragedy.”

“Sounds bad,” I agree, nodding slowly. My skin crawls as I gaze at the shadows surrounding us. Those who are living, but not yet living. I wonder if our healers could figure out what’s wrong with them.

I don’t doubt that these people have tried their best to find a solution, but we’ve stolen a good chunk of knowledge directly from the most powerful empire in existence. There’s a chance we could do something to help.

“Do you think we could become allies?” I ask Pi as we weave through the still shadows. “I’d like to help, if that’s possible.”

“We’re all allies out here,” Pi says, chuckling to himself. “I’m sure there are many who would appreciate your help.”

“The experts that I know are from the land… do you think I could bring them down to help?”

Pi puffs up, glancing back at me without saying anything for a time.

“I don’t think that would be appropriate,” he says. “The few land crawlers who are washed out here don’t last for long. They don’t belong here.”

“What about the nice ‘land crawlers’?” I ask.

“Nice ‘land crawlers’?” Pi asks.

“We live near the coast,” I say, “There are plenty who are nice.”

“Be careful talking like that,” Pi says. “We have a few amphibians here, but most people don’t take well to any positive talk about the land crawlers.”

“What about you?” I ask.

“Me?” Pi asks. “I’m open-minded, I sometimes wander to the shore and trade with some of the smarter beasts. It’s because of that that I know they’re not like us.”

“I’m not like you, either,” I say, sinking deeper into the dark depths. “I hope that we can still be friends.”

There are a few senses that I could work on down here, Skills and adaptions that would potentially aid me in the future, but I’m not a genius and it’ll take more than this short trip to master them.

“Just because you’re cursed, doesn’t mean everyone will treat you badly,” Pi says, bloating up and turning his big eyes back towards me.

“I hope so,” I say as we enter a powerful current. I have to weaken my defences to let the water carry me alongside Pi and the twins.

“We’re almost there, no more talk of land crawlers,” he says, twisting around ahead of us.

My translator picks up a few vague conversations from the distance ahead, just before we break through the darkness.

Bright lights glow from every direction, while massive creatures weave between, not with the same ominous air as the peaceful monsters above, but more akin to a busy city seen through a thick haze.

We drift close enough to a few other people that I can make out their shapes but quickly lose them again as they continue on their way.

“Well, this is boring,” Leai groans, floating along beside me. “There’s no arena, or street fights or anything!”

“We can take a detour on the way home,” I say, trying to pry apart the shapes of the monsters that surround me. I’ve never been blinded like this before.

I’ll have to invest in new senses and add them to my ‘Eyes of an Empire’ Skill.

“Oh, Pi,” One of the strangers stops beside us. “What have you got there? Are they your daughter’s friends?”

“Not all cursed know each other, Flotsam,” Pi calls back, his voice trilling through the thick waters. “These young women are new here.”

“New?” A sonorous whale calls through the city’s din.

“We have newcomers?” A piercing shriek cuts in.

“Where’d they come from?” Growls another.

“Do they have any stories?” Pops one stranger.

“Stories? I’m more interested in what they can do,” whispers another vague shadow in the mist. “We need more metal shapers down here.”

The swarm surrounds us, nothing more than a vague blob of colourful shadows through the swirling rust water. A cacophony of deep-sea sounds imitates the busy clamour of a city.

This would be so much easier if I could see who I’m trying to make peace with.

A fish floats closer, its scales a putrid yellow-green and its eyes bulging out of its head. Hanging from its underside is, what I can only describe as a sizeable ‘elvish feature’.

“Hello,” the fish pops its lips, its eyes swirling around wildly.

On second thought, maybe I don’t need eyes.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Stats and Skills

~Mana Form:

Current mana crystallisation:

-2.1% at 78,231 (Stage 2)

-97.9% at 60,892 (Stage 1)

Current mana volume: 30,450 / 30,450 shards

Mana volume at Stage 1 crystallisation (Max. mana volume):

Kyra: 30,271 shards

Kyra’s armour: 20,777 shards

Kyra’s throne: 1,109,298 shards

~Forms

Mana Canon

-Annihilation Heart (Adapted)

-Blood Fuel (Adapted)

-Bone Magic Storage (Adapted)

-Nail Shifters (Adapted)

Dancer

-Flash Nerves (Adapted)

-Quick Perception Mind (Adapted)

-Burst Reflex Muscles (Adapted)

-Layered Space Muscles (Adapted)

Turtle

-Rebinding Tissue (Adapted)

-Catalyst Sweat Glands (Adapted)

-Repulsive Skin (Adapted)

-Prehensile hair (Adapted)

-Fatty Tissue Blood Storage (Adapted)

Investigator

-Wide eyes (Adapted)

-Wide ears (Adapted)

-Sharp nose (Adapted)

Misc.

-Clean bowels (Adapted)

-Mana Drive (Adapted)

~Favourited Skills:

Magic:

-Annihilation Magic (Customised)

-Fire Magic (Functional)

-Space magic (Broken)

-Force magic (Functional)

-Ice magic (Broken)

-Wind magic (Broken)

Movement:

-Hand-to-hand casting (Mastered)

-Mana surge movement (Customised)

-Stealth (Functional)

Senses:

-Eyes of an Empire (Customised)

-Combat Awareness (Mastered)

-Watchmen (Functional)

-Hidden bug (Mastered)

-De-tagging (Mastered)

-Anti-stealth sight (Mastered)

Special:

-Spirit Transformation (Broken)

-Conformity (Broken)

-Training mana form (Functional)