Chapter 38

Massive silhouettes swam into view. The shapes appeared to be moving slowly, but quickly arrived at the chasm.

Fey’s party was awed into silence. The new arrivals were a mother blue whale and her calf, the adult about 150 (metric) tonnes(1) and her offspring a third of the size. Ignoring the (tiny) players, the mother whale circled the newly-sealed chasm, inspecting the change to the seafloor while her calf tagged along.

After taking several minutes to get used to the sheer enormity of the largest animal in the world, Fey and Sirena glanced at each other.

:Is this even quest-related?: Fey asked quietly, so as not to disturb the gigantic creatures. Wellia had mentioned nothing about whales when giving out the quest.

Sirena shrugged. :Can’t hurt to ask.: She swam forward, her pace matched by a quest-eager Requiem.

:Unless we get killed, you mean: Fey muttered with her typical ‘take things literally’ mindset. Blue whales were filter feeders, but their sheer size made them apex predators. She swam forward anyways, not truly believing that the whales would kill them. (Blade also followed.)

:Hello!: Sirena called out cheerfully from approximately one whale-length (30 metres) away.

The whales did not appear to notice.

After a few seconds, Requiem tried. :Hello?:

Still no reaction.

:Maybe louder: Fey suggested.

:HELLO!: Sirena yelled, to no effect.

Impatient, Requiem swam daringly close to the whales. He was first noticed by the whale calf.

:It’s a merman: he noted. His voice sounded childish despite being immensely loud and deep.

The mother whale spoke, her voice even deeper and louder than her offspring’s. :What do you want, merman?:

:Do you know anything about siren’s song?: Requiem asked.

:Did you say something? Speak up, merman.:

:DO YOU KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT SIREN’S SONG?: Requiem yelled as loudly as he could.

Both whales swam away from him with annoyed flicks of their tails. :What are you screeching for?: the mother whale asked irritably.

From Fey’s perspective, she found it obvious that whales would find the normal pitch of human voices to be shrill and annoying. Reassured by the fact that Requiem had not been mauled after annoying the sea-giants, she decided to give communication a try. Swimming closer to one of the mother whale’s eyes, she imagined her voice as a resonant bass, amplified as if by loudspeakers.

:Hello!:

The whale glanced over. :Greetings, human.:

Fey ignored the mistake about her species in order to build good relations with the possible source of their next quest clue. :Greetings, great one. My name is Fey. The merman you spoke to is Requiem. Allow me to introduce my other party members, Sirena and Blade.:

:I am Laaguuna. This is my fourth offspring, Iaabaanaar.: The whales’ names had deep, elongated vowels.

:Hi!: Iaabaanaar chimed in.

The conversation appeared to be flowing smoothly. Fey continued, :If you could spare us a moment of your time, we would like to consult your wise knowledge about a mystery we are exploring.:

Laaguuna gave no indication whether the flattery had any effect, but nonetheless granted the request. :Ask.:

:Do you know anything about siren’s song?:

The party’s expressions became more alert, each member paying sharp attention to Laaguuna’s answer.

The whale gave a deep-pitched snort. :The merfolk spent too much time among the land-dwellers: she said, answering the question indirectly. :They confused singing with the noise-making that the humans make, and lost much of their ability.:

Fey felt that the whale was providing crucial information to unlock siren’s song, but did not quite understand what it meant. :Could you give an example of how merfolk have lost their ability?: she asked.

Another snort. :The way your Requiem screeched when attempting to speak with me. Even you, a human, are closer to grasping the true capabilities of sea-speech.:

Fey paused to reflect on the information. If “sea-speech” was telepathy, then Laaguuna had stated that Fey’s telepathy was closer to siren’s song than Requiem’s…

Laaguuna did not wait for Fey to finish thinking. :If that is all, we shall be leaving.:

:Hey wait—:

Fey interrupted Requiem’s exclamation with a well-placed elbow and a bow (only realizing halfway through the motion how stupid it looked underwater). :Thank you very much for your aid.:

:Bye!: said Iaabaanar cheerfully.

Mother and calf swam off majestically in the direction they had appeared from.

:What the hell, Fey?: Requiem complained. :She didn’t tell us anything!:

Fey was busy trying to recapture the line of thinking that had been interrupted by the whales’ departure and made no reply (other than an annoyed shushing gesture in Requiem’s direction).

Requiem was wholly unused to being ignored by a member of the opposite sex (sorry dude, wrong species), and tried again. :Are you listening to me?:

:Shut up unless you have something useful to say: Sirena snapped. She recognized the look on Fey’s face as the one present when puzzling through problems.

Requiem had had just about enough of Sirena’s rudeness. :Sirena, you really need to—:

:SHUT UP!: Sirena borrowed Fey’s earlier technique and altered her telepathic voice to boom like speakers set to maximum volume. She did not bother altering it to sound deeper than her speaking voice.

Sirena was quite pleased with the turn of events. :Oh look, I made some quest progress. What were you thinking about, Fey?;

:Well, if I was trying to catch a train of thought, your shouting certainly derailed it: Fey answered dryly. :Besides, it looks like you figured it out by yourself.:

:Figured what out?: Sirena asked guilelessly.

:…What the whale meant when she said that telepathy differs from singing with vocal cords?:

Comprehension failed to appear on Sirena’s face. :How does it differ?:

With anyone else, Fey would suspect the person was feigning incomprehension as a joke. She knew her best friend well enough to just sigh and explain. :Volume? You couldn’t be that loud in real life without a hell of a lot of training.:

:Oh well, yeah.: Sirena flapped her hand at the obviousness of the explanation.

:HA!: Requiem suddenly yelled upon recovering from the stun. The other party members jumped in unpleasant surprise. The looks they shot the merman ranged between ‘displeased’ and ‘irritated’.

Fey instinctively clapped her hands over her ears, only to grimace and lower her arms after remembering how useless the gesture would be against telepathy. :What the hell did you do that for?: she asked irritably.

Requiem looked confused. :Why didn’t I unlock anything?:

Sirena rolled her eyes. :You’re doing it wrong.:

:HAA!!: This time, Requiem yelled for twice as long, with a similar lack of success.

Fey grimaced. :I wish I could plug my ears: she remarked wistfully.

:Yelling for longer doesn’t do anything: Sirena snapped. :Stop being an idiot and actually do it properly.: To Sirena, flexibility in telepathy came intuitively, and she had accomplished the necessary mental shift to adjust her volume without ‘yelling’ so easily that it did not occur to her that others might require a better explanation than “do it properly”.

:I’m doing the best I can: Requiem snapped back defensively. As a trained singer, it was quite difficult for him to separate what his vocal cords could do from his understanding of sound and music. :You could try actually being helpful.:

:And why would I want to help an incompetent playboy idiot like you?:

Sirena’s body language was becoming increasingly aggressive, and Requiem’s rose to match it.

Blade watched the escalating situation with discomfort. He glanced over at Fey for support in defusing the argument.

Fey was observing the merfolk players with a calm ‘well, I guess this is happening sooner rather than later’ expression on her face. She looked not the least bit stressed by the emotional environment, nor did she show any sign of wanting to stop the fighting.

:Incompetent!?: Requiem repeated incredulously. :You just became a bard a couple hours ago!:

(Haha, notice how he didn’t refute the “idiot” or “playboy” parts.)

:Yeah, and I’m already better than you! Quest answers are handed to you on a silver platter, and you can’t even make them work!: Sirena’s pent-up aggravation had clearly burst the dams. She was not as devastatingly critical as Fey in the insult department, but held nothing back in pointing out all the parts of Requiem that annoyed her.

Blade decided he should intervene, with or without (well, without) Fey’s support. “Um guys, maybe we should all calm down.”

Sirena disdainfully disengaged from the argument. :Hmph.: She swam away. Fey fell in behind the mermaid (and grabbed her hand, forcing Sirena to tow her friend’s weight), and Blade quickly followed.

Requiem was left hanging in incoherent anger. (Poor dude, it was his turn to talk in the argument.) His pride strongly discouraged him from following after Sirena, but no matter what he wanted, he needed to return to town with the party. He gritted his teeth and caught up.

The party found the dolphin taxis and hitched a ride back to Pearlview. Sirena seized the singing role the entire way (in order to deny Requiem the chance to gain experience). Instead of the cheerful pop songs of the first trip, the song selection veered towards ‘dark and aggressive’. More often than not, this resulted in attack buffs rather than speed, but the dolphins did not quite dare to complain.

After the third incorrect song choice, Fey rolled her eyes and intervened. :If you’re going to pick angry songs, at least pick fast, angry songs. We agreed to provide speed buffs.: She made a few suggestions of songs that would fit the criteria.

Sirena patted Splash apologetically. :Sorry, guys: she said to all the dolphins. She chose one of Fey’s suggestions, causing the dolphins’ speed to surge.

:What has her tail in a twist?: asked Whistle in an undertone.

:Oh, she and Requiem got into a fight: Fey answered in an unconcerned fashion. :Group tensions and all that.:

:Did the quest not go well?: Whistle asked sympathetically.

:Oh no, it went very well. We got enough information to almost solve the quest. It’s just that Sirena figured out how to use it to improve her bard skills, while Requiem hasn’t quite gotten the hang of it yet.:

:I see. Well, not everyone has the flexibility of mind to master the finer aspects of sea-song: Whistle replied in a knowledgeable tone.

Fey began to suspect that the dolphin knew something that would help them solve the quest. :So do you sing?: she asked casually (or, more accurately, ‘attempted casually’; our heroine’s ability to dissemble is quite sadly lacking).

:Me? Nothing anyone would want to listen to. I have a cousin who’s quite good, though.:

:Did she take lessons?: Fey asked.

:Nothing so formal. We listen and join in with our families and during larger gatherings, and you either pick up the tricks or you don’t.:

:And what tricks did your cousin pick up?:

Whistle’s telepathic voice was amused. :Nice try, little human. Your quest won’t be as easy as asking me.:

:What if I bribed you with delicious fish?: Fey asked (after grumbling, :I’m an elf: to herself).

:This information is worth more than a few nomfish. I wouldn’t give you a hint for less than a netful of water swifts.:

:Hmm.: Fey was unfamiliar with the name of the creature Whistle referred to, but she assumed that they would stronger than the level 21 nomfish. :I’ll let you know if I’m ever in possession of these water swifts, then.:

For everyone who was more sensitive to emotional currents than Fey (i.e. everyone except her pets), the trip back to Pearlview was awkward with unresolved anger. The dolphins dropped off their passengers, accepted their payment in fish, and left as quickly as possible.

Blade rather desperately thought of something to say in order to sweep tensions under the (figurative) rug, and said the first thing that popped into his mind. At the same time, Fey started talking about the water swifts.

“Oh yeah, Fey, Sirena and I—”

:So my dolphin said—:

Both players paused. “You first,” said Blade.

:Okay. So my dolphin said that she’d give us a hint about siren’s song if we got her a netful of “water swifts”. I don’t know what level they are, but I figure it might be a good next step in the quest.:

Sirena glanced up at the water’s surface. It was not dark yet, but it soon would be. :We probably don’t have time to go out again before dark. Stay in town, get information, practice skills, and go out tomorrow?: she proposed.

Fey and Blade nodded, while Requiem glared in sullen silence.

:What were you going to say?: Fey asked Blade.

“Oh well, Sirena and I got a quest from a mermaid who wanted to see a flower. We figured you could teleport out and get one while the rest of us worked on something else.”

:Yeah, sure: Fey agreed. :I’ll go grab one while you guys find out about the water swifts.:

:Get a nice one: said Sirena. :I’m pretty sure the reward depends on the type of flower you get.:

:…I’m not really qualified to determine what a “nice” flower is, but I’ll try: said Fey. She swam off towards the teleportation gate with a wave of goodbye.

Blade realized that his hasty speech had resulted in him being left alone with two hostile factions. (Oops.)

Sirena did not bother looking at Requiem when she announced, :We’re splitting up.: (*passive-aggressive*) Imperiously indicating that Blade should follow her, she swam off into town.

Requiem immediately swam away in a different direction.

Blade looked at the angry merman’s retreating back, sighed, and followed Sirena.

◊◊◊

Fey appeared in a flash of light in River’s Bend, a town in the middle of human lands she had passed through on the way to Seaport. She judged that she would be more likely to find flowers on open plains than her native forest.

She had no idea what kind of flower would be the best for the quest, so she decided to just collect as many different kinds as she could find and present them all for inspection.

Following a trail out of town, Fey came upon a meadow full of lush grasses and vibrant flowers. In the warm afternoon sunlight, the scene looked absolutely idyllic.

“You don’t fool me,” she muttered. Marshalling her pets, she laid out the plan. “Got it?”

The pets squeaked in agreement.

“Okay? Go!” They burst into action.

Fey dashed from flower to flower, severing stems and collecting blossoms. When the plant and its same-species friends rose up in retaliation, the Feypets moved in. They had been told that Fey only needed one of each species; therefore the rest were simply potential experience points to be harvested (through violence).

The glooms reverted to their shadow-rabbit shapes and hopped through the meadow, biting through stems and leaves. The plants, affected by their dark-element blight, shrivelled and browned, crumbling away into dust after dying.

Amethyst handled the larger and more aggressive plants. All of their attacks bounced off of her upgraded Queen Membrane without a scratch, and she retaliated with devastating blows of her level 18 Whip. She also secreted gloom poison, leaving circular patches of dead land wherever she hopped.

Boris was in charge of uprooting the stubborn plants that retreated underground or used the soil’s nutrients to replenish their health. Using his snout, he exposed plant roots and mercilessly ripped them out of the ground; the glooms took care of the rest.

The level 20 mark resulted in another intelligence boost for the pets.

Amethyst squeaked nostalgically while beating a sunflower-like opponent into a pulp. (“I miss Magic.”)

Boris grunted, ripping a family of wild carrots out of the ground. (“Yeah. This would be a lot easier with him around.”) When Onyx hopped over to infect them with his blight, Boris stomped an impatient foot. (“Those are edible. Leave them as loot.”) Onyx instead pounced predatorily (in a rather un-rabbit-like fashion) upon a creature that looked like an animated troll doll with grass for hair. It shrieked and punched at the gloom before crumbling away into clods of earth.

In the end, Fey collected fifteen different varieties of flowers, as well as miscellaneous roots and seeds that she decided to let Kallara sort through later. She praised her pets for their hard work, treated the various bruises and cuts everyone (but Amethyst-the-triple-membraned) had acquired through combat, and packed up to return to River’s Bend, then Pearlview.

She left behind a barren, devastated meadow. Some of the hardier plants respawned, but the carnage was sufficient enough to permanently alter the monster population of the area. Thorny, poisonous plants grew, and dark-element creatures appeared, thriving in the blighted lands.

The next players to follow the trail to the formerly-pleasant meadow barely escaped with their lives.

Before teleporting back to Pearlview, Fey stopped at the local healer’s and purchased a batch of basic antidotes from a Kallara look-alike named Kinsey. She had Amethyst absorb one of them through Osmosis in order to add the potion to her Potion Slime repertoire.

“There,” she said with satisfaction. “Now you can fix Blade if we poison him again.”

Amethyst squeaked. (“But then Blade won’t learn Immunity.”)

Fey sighed. “Yeah, but we shouldn’t force him to train it if the side effects really bother him that much.”

Amethyst squeaked judgementally. (“He’s kind of wimpy.”)

“When it comes to poison, yeah,” Fey agreed. “But we’re all wimpy when it comes to something.”

Amethyst blinked several times, processing her owner’s words.

…Philosophizing appears to be good for my pets’ intelligence. Just when I think I’ve gotten used to Fantasia, something weirder comes along.

Footnotes:

(1) A “ton” is the equivalent of 2000 pounds, while a “tonne”, or “metric ton” is the equivalent of 1000 kilograms