I decided I’d cut my teeth on an issue close to home. The Village inhabitants were free to sass Taelah at their own peril. Between being an Elder and being a mom, anyone who gave her lip was taking their life, or at least their ego, into their own hands. But someone else being rude to her was not something I was going to let pass. At least, it wasn’t now. I was more than a little chagrined I’d let it pass at the time, and being in the throes of a depressive blackout-fugue wasn’t really a good excuse.

“Let’s do this in the Leviathan audience chamber,” I decided. “I think it’d send the wrong message if you go down there.”

“Aw, I was looking forward to trying out an aquatic form,” Shayma said with a grin. I didn’t think she was entirely joking. With her advancement to fourth-tier, figuring out something like a Leviathan form was probably a great way to improve her actual Skill levels, though I didn’t think she could quite manage that yet. It wouldn’t surprise me if she figured it out soon enough, though.

“Maybe when we talk with Uilei-nktik,” I suggested. We were on good terms with him, so I didn’t feel we were ceding anything if Shayma went to him to talk, but for someone we were taking to task I preferred Shayma in her original form. She nodded agreement and pulled on the teleport, bringing herself to the moon pool chamber.

With [Unbreakable Promise] I almost couldn’t teleport Shayma myself anymore. It was very similar to how Ansae’s sheer mana presence threatened to utterly wreck portals and teleports, the spatial threads shattering even if I overcharged them. In both cases, though, if they actually went along with the transportation their mana supported mine, preventing portals from collapsing or teleports from failing.

Since I hardly ever leveled, my mana never got any denser. I wasn’t even sure it got denser at all, so even though I had an awful lot of it there was a definite cap to how much concentrated power I could apply with my default Fields. The gap between standard dungeon stuff and Power related stuff was glaringly obvious, now that I was hitting the limits of dungeon Skills. It also explained why I wasn’t getting anywhere trying further crunches or other prosaic methods of boosting my default stuff. I probably needed to buy traits or level up or something.

Leveling up was something I needed to actively pursue anyway. The mage-kings had given me an actual avenue for that, and I had to take care of blightbeasts anyway. With more levels I might actually reach the mana capacity to finally purify Ansae, and then we wouldn’t have any issues with the mage-kings at all. My Stellar core was already providing me an extra fifteen hundred mana or so. A drop in the bucket, but enough drops eventually filled buckets, so it was nice to see.

“What was the name of the Leviathan that was giving you grief, again?” I asked Taelah. They all had complicated names and nobody in the abechrai stood out as being someone I particularly recognized. Which definitely bothered me, but it’d be even more mortifying to guess wrong if I was summoning someone to the moon pool.

“Kilianik-inui,” Taelah supplied. “She was demanding supplies from the Village.”

“Yeah, that won’t do.” I located Kilianik-inui where she was fiddling with something inside one of the coral growths and wrapped a teleport field around her. As with most Leviathans she was nearly a kilometer long, but since her actual level was only 57 she didn’t have the magical wherewithal to make transportation an issue. She popped into existence in the moon pool, her multiple eyes all swiveling independently as her tentacles thrashed about in surprise.

“Alright, Shayma, she’s here.”

“Kilianik-inui!” Shayma boomed, her Domain ensuring that her voice reached into the water. “Approach the core!” That certainly got the Leviathan’s attention, and she swiveled about and swam upward to poke her head out of the water.

“Who are you?” She demanded, her voice spellwork not up to Uilei-nktik’s standards. It sounded off, somehow, or maybe she was just that cold and indifferent. “What is the meaning of this?” It was not an auspicious start. I hadn’t been particularly active for the past year, and she hadn’t met Shayma before, but I figured it’d still be obvious what was going on.

“I am Shayma Ell, the Voice of Blue,” Shayma said, keeping the stentorian tone. “You are here because you have been disrespectful to Taelah, Blue’s wife, and placed yourself above the inhabitants of the Village. Fortunately Blue is a merciful Power, and has no interest in undue punishment. You merely need apologize to Taelah and revise your idea of your role in the Caldera.”

A blank stare using six eyes was pretty impressive, though it looked no better on a Leviathan than it did on human-kin. It was obvious that Kilianik-inui wasn’t parsing anything Shayma had said. It was a little disappointing. After dealing with Uilei-nktik I had higher expectations of Leviathans, but it seemed not every individual could be genteel and well-spoken.

“Are you referring to the Surfacers?” Kilianik-inui asked at last.

“Yes,” Shayma said shortly.

“But, that’s not how it works,” she said in a tone of complaint. “Abechrai charters are clear! Surfacers don’t have any standing! You can’t demand that Surfacers be put on the same level as Leviathans!”

“This is Blue’s Caldera,” Shayma told her. “It doesn’t matter what you do in your own home, but when you’re talking to other inhabitants you’ll have to abide by Blue’s wishes.”

“The rules of the Surface don’t bind an abechrai,” Kilianik-inui said, still complaining. “Even by bringing me here you’re breaking all kinds of rules! The Wayfarers are going to be unhappy with you and no mistake!”

“It doesn’t matter⁠—” Shayma started, but I stopped her.

“No, you’re just playing her game. We don’t have to do that, and we shouldn’t.” It took all of my self-control to keep from reminding her that was what got her killed. “We tried being reasonable and asking. Now, we enforce things on our own terms.”

“Hmm.” Shayma pursed her lips in thought as she screened herself off, ignoring Kilianik-inui’s continued ranting about how things did matter and something about thousands of years of law. “I suppose I see what you mean,” she added, a little uncertainly. “But what did you have in mind?”

“I actually don’t know. Just killing her seems way over the top and unnecessary but my options are kind of limited. You have a lot more tools for intimidating people and showing them that they’re dealing with a Power.”

“Right.” Shayma’s tail swished back and forth as she considered for a moment. “Let’s see if I can do this now that I’m fourth tier.” The mana of her Domain swirled and expanded, and she even pulled on my own mana to feed the Skill’s appetite as she spread herself out to wrap around the Leviathan’s enormous body. Then the entire room seemed to compress inward.

Some of what happened was Shayma’s Skill, but some of it was the Leviathan’s own size-shifting Ability, the one that my Inhabitant core granted to those who lived in my domain. Slowly at first, then with increasing speed, Kilianik-inui shrunk, growing smaller and smaller until she was the size of a trout and suspended in a ball of water between Shayma’s hands. Her longwinded complaints had dwindled to nothing and she stared wildly around as Shayma frowned at her.

“The Caldera is Blue’s domain, and those of the Village are Blue’s people,” Shayma told her, voice hard. “He does not care what you do within your own community, but do not mistake that forbearance for weakness. Your choices are to acquiesce, or to remain bait.”

I was pretty sure that was a bluff. I didn’t think Shayma could keep Kilianik-inui tiny indefinitely, but as a threat it was impressive. Kilianik-inui seemed to agree, because she squeaked an affirmative immediately.

“Can you get me the signal device?” Shayma said in an aside to me. “I want to give her to Uilei-nktik so it’s clear what’s going on.”

“Absolutely.” I reached out and pulled the communicator over for her. She activated it with one hand, while keeping Kilianik-inui’s water sphere hovering over the other, and after a short wait Uilei-nktik’s familiar form appeared on the other side. He was still primarily based out of the abechrai that was located off Tarnil’s shore, rather than the one that existed in the Caldera, and it occurred to me as he appeared that nobody had actually told him Shayma had returned.

“What?” He sounded a little bit shaken, his bioluminescence flickering wildly. “Shayma? Is that you? How…?” The rumbling trailed off as he saw the captive Leviathan floating above Shayma’s hand.

“Yes, I’m back!” Shayma said, her voice far warmer with him than it had been with Kilianik-inui. “I’ll explain later, but right now I have a bit of an issue. Kilianik-inui here has not been treating the Village with respect, and while she’s agreed to apologize and mend her ways, I thought you should know what was going on.”

“Yes, of course,” he said, recovering. “I will come over and ensure she follows through.” Kilianik-inui squeaked again, and I had no idea whether Shayma was doing that or the size transformation meant that her speaking spell or Ability automatically shifted to a high register. “In the future, should there be any issues between your abechrai and anyone else, anyone at all, do not hesitate to contact me. I would be honored to take care of such problems for you.”

“We will certainly do so, thank you,” Shayma said. “I’ll come visit as soon as I can, and catch you up with everything that’s gone on.”

“I look forward to it,” Uilei-nktik said, taking the idea of Shayma visiting him in the depths in stride. Shayma cut the connection and cast Kilianik-inui back into the moon pool with a flick of her hand, dropping the magic and letting the Leviathan return to her normal size. I teleported her back to the abechrai before she could get herself into trouble by ranting any further, and Shayma sagged, leaning against the faux core.

“That was not easy,” she said, and judging by how much mana she had pulled during the short conversation, it had been a heck of a strain.

“No, but it was awesome.”

“That it was!” Shayma agreed with a laugh.

“I feel bad for not keeping Uilei-nktik in the loop. You’ll have to add my apologies when you go see him.”

“I can do that,” Shayma said, straightening back up. Whatever exhaustion she had from using her Domain like that seemed to have already passed. She’d have plenty of time to gossip with Uilei, too, since my next goal was to secure my borders, and I’d need Iniri to prepare the way.