Sea-spell

[multaekappae]

 Previously

The elder kelpies continued to spin around the city, the walls of the whirlpool starting to form. As the vortex was going in reverse, the center was nothing but swirling water. With an immense squelching sound, Vol Oros started it's slow ascent, a an immense cloud of silt trailing the city as it rose, much of it shaken from the city itself. With a nod to Flow, Riptide and the fry peeled off and headed to the heart of the city.

Vol Oros was quite unlike any place Riptide had ever been in. The base was broad and circular,  Riptide couldn't begin to guess how far across it was, but must have been on this section that most of smaller homes and businesses had been located. Riptide could only guess this was the case as she dodged a free floating shop sign. In a fleeting glimpse, she spied ancient carvings depicting what seemed to be reclining coaches and quills.

At the center of the city, was the central tower, though from the looks of it, Riptide figured it must have been a palace of some sort in the past. It was atop here the "light in the darkness" as the others had called the immense ball of pale light sat like an immense crown jewel. The palace may have been beautiful once, coral making up a major part of it's construction, but it's time in the cold, crushing depths had rendered it a bleached skeleton of it's former beauty. It was on the flanks of the central tower of the palace itself that the Silurians had constructed their weird little box-like habitats. Whether fate or some other force, but it seemed like it was the outer most boxes that had collapsed so far.

From the palace's base, six spokes what looked to be stone extended outwards into the lower edges of the city. From her spot, they seemed to reach the edge of the platform. Riptide could only guess at their purpose, but it was at the base, where tower met spoke that Riptide and her charges found their goal.

Nestled at the base of the spokes, where four large crystals surrounded by a lattice of metal. There were sockets for two other such crystals on two of the spokes, but now only the lattice remained, the crystalline cores likely having fallen off. Given what Taupe had said was the purpose of these structures, she couldn't help but wonder if the two damaged "reactors" as the Silurian had called them, had been the cause behind the city's plunge into the depths.

At her command, the fry swarm broke up into four small groups and began to spin around the cores, following the same direction as the adults on the outside. As they began to do so, Riptide noticed the city itself was beginning to spin. This was inevitable, but what the large kelpie needed to do was to prevent the swirling water in the city from getting too powerful. Settling just below the glaring orb of light, the kelpie extended her tentacles, letting them flow with the water as she imposed her will on the building currents threatening to permeate the city.

The current's seemingly petulant response was to rip off one of the outer most part of the Silurian habitat; The crushed box smashing through one of the palace's smaller towers on it's trip over the city's edge. Thankfully, the circling kelpies dodged the sinking hulk with ease.

Riptide gave an irritated huff, remembering too late one of Longshore's lessons: the ability to manipulate water was limited to just a few meters beyond the kelpie. While that distance varied between individuals, if she wanted to stop city threatening currents, she have to be pretty close to city-sized herself, which would be a problem. Trying to maintain any form of that magnitude for extended periods of time was suicide without some way to maintain her magic. Without it, the needs of the larger frame would quickly deplete even her larger pool of magic. Then it'd be down to trying maintain it with her natural mutative properties, leaving her a the full whim of physics.

With a groan, the kelpie up towards the surface. At most she could see was a slight lessening of the darkness. With the water currents flowing through picking up speed, the kelpie lowered her head as her body began to grow.

...
 

Riptide grinned a leer the size of a city block. The rush was incredible. Not only the feeling of immense power that came with her increased size, but also the attunement she felt with the ocean itself, the darkness, the cold, the rocks, and the other Kelpie. She had provided the completed circuit that had brought the city's magic back to life, but there was enough power to keep her huge for at least a little longer. And that meant she could pull the city to the surface that much faster, so it worked out for everyone's benefit... not that she needed any justification to do what she wanted, anyway.

She spent a period of time simply luxuriating in the feeling of swimming, of using all the muscles in her body the way they had been developed to be used. When she reached a meditative state, her mind wandered to the feeling of connection. She could feel the shape of the currents, the mass and density of everything large enough to be providing drag, and the little sparkling points that added to the vortex.

Her people. Imprisoned for who knew how long, the blanketing darkness had been a prison for them, rather than a refuge. Riptide's mind drifted further and she could taste the feelings on the surface of their minds. Mostly there was a sense of focus on the task. Calling up a whirlpool wasn't particularly difficult, but the sheer scale of this project, and forcing the water upward, against it's natural tendencies, was taxing them.

Some were scared, others angry. Many were simply curious what would happen next. And in a few a hunger began to percolate that every adult Kelpie knew all too well. 

Then something in the magic shifted, and she turned to look at the beacon seconds before the light changed. Something was feeding off the energy of the city, 'how dare something eat what is mine'. Under better circumstances Riptide would have wondered at the phrasing of the thought, but under the euphoria of a magic surge and the gnawing impulse of the hunger she had pulled from several kelpie, along with concern that something might be happening to her friends, there wasn't time to waste on tiny trivialities.

Next