Jade said ‘Thank you for your hospitality. Atlantis huh? So the legend of the drowning city was true’. The woman’s excitement visibly rose but unlike Jade, she was better at controlling her curiosity, years of suppressing it had helped. She sat down on the floor of the large and empty room and said ‘My name is Tendril. What might yours be?’

Jade sat down and said ‘Feisal’. Tendril said ‘About this legend can you tell me more?’ Jade said ‘You see there is this legend about a city, an island, that drowned for some reason and the people in it became Atlantians and live under the water. It’s not exactly accurate but it seems true’.

This conversation was only possible because the psychic communication didn’t just transmit words but raw thought hence Tendril could understand the meaning of words and concepts she never related with. Seeing that their discussion had hit off Eel, Ink and Coral swam away.

Tendril chuckled and said ‘That is not how we began. If you tell me how humanity began I’ll tell you our origin’. Jade scratched his head and said ‘There is no certain history of how humanity was formed, too much war and our ancestors didn’t really think ahead to leave any information behind’.

Tendril nodded and said ‘As I predicted. Would you like to know the origins of you humans from our own history’s perspective? Our ancestors were not as absent minded’. Jade nodded and thought ‘History of humans… from their perspective so they’ve been sentient longer than us is what their saying’ and Tendril started ‘According to our history humans never existed at the start of our race’s sentience’.

Jade nodded and she continued ‘Our race spent millennia evolving in the sea and we only saw humans when we had evolved to merfolk’. The term she used was strange but Jade understood the meaning since the concept was given to him.

Tendril said ‘It was at this point we were evolving to be more land based. My ancestors lived on the beach, spending time on the sand and in the sea, slowly adapting to the ground. Then humans came.

Your ancestors were large and powerful and we tried communicating with them but to no avail. They kidnapped some of the merfolk on the beaches and even started searching for them in the sea to kill some for reasons unknown to us. The record says they were way stronger than us and captured us for entertainment not sustenance. The only advantage we had was that they were dumb so we posed as extremely powerful creatures, accrediting natural events to ourselves before they left those they took alone.

This is the reason why some merfolk consider you humans as invaders. From their perspective you people came from a different place and started ruining the world and the oceans. But it’s more complicated than that.

My ancestors hid in the sea, almost no one daring to go out to see the humans for generations and generations. Almost no one; there were still a few of us who dared to venture and spy on you humans while keeping a safe distance. You people were very different from us. You fought and killed each other again and again. An action we thought would lead to your extinction but alas it lead to your evolution.

Your species became weaker physically but smarter and soon you became a force we could not hope to rival. We hid in the sea improving our own technology and fighting prowess as best as we could. We thought we would be able to take back the land from you, even if it was only a small piece of it.

But then we saw your new weapon. You set fire to the air and sea with it and poisoned the matter. We knew then that it was unlikely that we would catch up to you. So we hid even more, it was the only thing we were successful at, you people couldn’t find us, the ocean was large and we had mastered hiding so you never knew we were there.

Our only hope of ever gaining the land was Length and Ocean. We began working on ways to improve them and we succeeded in some aspects for Ocean but Length was always more of a loner. But then, the monsters came and now here we are’.

Jade’s was completely dumbstruck at the history he just heard and he thought ‘A whole race of people right under our noses and we thought we were the rulers of the planet. What a joke… Wait’. Jade said ‘You said Length and Ocean were your only hope ‘Isn’t Length a monster?’

Tendril smiled in fascination as she said ‘No, Length is a native of this world, the oldest native in fact. He even helped us destroy some of your floating machines when they were about to chance on some of our hiding spots or one of our own’.

Jade’s eyes widened in disbelief as he thought back to when Length called him a child, he thought ‘He’s the oldest being on the planet. Leviathan, there were mentions of sea monsters but they were mixed in with so many lies no one could tell the difference! We humans are our own undoing! Just 5% of the planet’s Oceans have been explored but that is the modern records. The ones we’ve lost to the ages must have had some hints’.

Tendril laughed as she saw Jade’s discontent with human history written all over his face. Jade asked ‘Are there any other creatures were humans haven’t seen? Any other events you guys caused that we didn’t know the cause of?’ Tendril smiled and said ‘Yes there are many such creatures and events, but I’ve said so much. Tell me about the weapon you humans used to burn the planet’.

Jade said ‘That’s a nuke. It’s a missile that can blow up… a lot of stuff to say the least. It uses nuclear energy and the radiations are what you consider poison to the air’. Jade created a ball of nuclear energy in his hands using his Cosmic-Soul glyph and passed it to Tendril.

She caught it with her force field and examined it. Her eyes widened as she noticed the intricacies and potential of the energy form. She said ‘So profound, it’s hard to believe that you people made this without evolving. And to think you would only use this for fighting it could be used for so much more’.

Jade smiled softly and said ‘It’s hard to understand the lengths humans would go to in order to kill each other’ as he remembered that his own efforts had given birth to a profound technology even better than nuclear energy in some aspects. Camille’s battered body also came to his mind as he reminisced.

Tendril was silent as she sensed his sadness. Her drive to understand humanity increased as she saw the clear difference in her experiences and Jade’s experiences.

Tendril said ‘I would like to know about what you humans think of us’. Jade nodded and explained what he knew about the mystery of mermaids.