Vance Moore - Odyssey

It was dark and cold in the vault. Her ears started to hurt as the last remnants of the air supply spell failed. It was time to go home. Home, where a person could find a decent graveyard and strangers could disappear without awkward questions.

Laquatus meant nothing to her. She needed no aid to escape from something as simple as a collapsing underwater building. The plant still held a pocket of air though the earthquake might rip it free any moment. She concentrated, calling into being a mount she had studied for a long time.

The travel fish faded into being. Its flesh was transparent, and the dementia caster could see the bones and organs pulsing inside its monstrous body. It flopped and wallowed in the shallow water, the wave it created reinforcing its gigantic size. She watched the ambassador jump for safety as the fish smashed whatever was in its way.

"Be still," she commanded, and it was. Laquatus was talking, but she ignored the words lost in her new creation. She stood before a blind eye, the monster unable to see except through her. The pressure was increasing, and she knew that the chamber must be moments away from catastrophic failure.

The fish turned, and its mouth gaped open, the toothless jaws stretching wide, inviting her in. She laughed, waved to the merman, and leaped into the monster's throat. She slid down the tube to the stomach still able to see the outside. It reminded her of her childhood, and she wished she could go again but time was running out. She knelt in the monster's belly, the chamber draining of the water that accompanied her on her entrance. The travel fish transported its passengers inside, and the room expanded as she stood up, her gigantic steed responding to her will.

She could see Laquatus hurling himself into the fish. She wondered if the monster should gulp him down in pieces, for the jaws were strong enough to shatter bone. No time for such rough horseplay she decided and turned her attention to the outside.

Fulla dispelled her plant, the rotting vines vanishing.

The cork holding the air pocket down ruptured. The corpses caught in its grip floated free as the travel fish wriggled through the hole to the first room and the trap door. The chamber was full of debris, but the fish blindly searched the murky water and surged out of the bedrock.

The palace gaped open above them, a direct path to the ocean torn through the structure. The travel fish surged up, its motion jostling the dementia caster against the ambassador. She half-drew her sword, hating his touch.

"Wait, good caster," Laquatus cried, throwing himself back against the stomach wall. "Remember our agreement on shipping treasures back to the Cabal. I can still be of use."

The travel fish shot out of the palace. Huge rents in the sea floor sent gas bubbling to the surface. There were few signs of other survivors. The Cabal operative imagined them swimming far away. The empire was decimated, and the noble who had overseen its fate sat beside her. She laughed and loosed the ball the fascinated Laquatus so.

Fulla looked at the sphere as the fish swam up through the depths. The orb called to her, entreating her to commune, telling her its name—Mirari—but she ignored it. Most of her attention went to directing her steed. The glassy fish swam away from the destruction and violence that even now reduced the mer capital. Fulla turned the beast to avoid the currents rising from the sea floor.

The dementia caster regarded her stolen prize. The Mirari had turned from liquid metal as she rescued it from the dead emperor's grasp. A ball of dirt lay in her hands, the black soil reminding her of a grave. She believed the change inconsequential as her senses often misled her. Still, something lay beneath the surface, and part of her ached to raise it up.

Perhaps the orb really did promise power. She noticed Laquatus's trepidation as he regarded her in the dull light glowing from the fish's belly.

Fulla chuckled and tossed the sphere into the air, laughing harder as the ambassador barely restrained himself from diving for it. She opened a pouch and dropped it in, closing the leather bag without hesitation.

”It offers you what you want, not what you need,” she crowed to Laquatus, thumping her purse. The call of the globe was lost and muted in the fractured horror of her mind, its visions overwhelmed by the dementia of her calling. Grim merriment filled the undead steed as she directed it to shore, leaving the corpse of a kingdom behind her.