The scent of the city never changed, it was always salty with a hint of sulphur, despite the majority of the population not cleaning themselves unless their bodies were molting.

Keira stared at the paper while focusing on the talk in the background.

It was just a normal afternoon, the city’s bustle was always quieter before the storm that a long week brought, and the academy students were just beginning to settle in with their friends.

Which was one of the reasons but not her only goal for staying at this bar.

Fixing her posture as a few more students barged in with their friends, Keira addled around the barstool for a better angle.

In the corner of her eye she could see the bar begin to settle, each table was separated and a meter off the ground, the only thing holding them up was the pole in the middle of each of them.

Much like the wood was sourced underwater, the chairs were slide-on’s attached to the table themselves but were often unused or ignored until the alcohol in the water would make the simple act of hovering too much to handle.

Keira’s eyes began tracking the next pair of mouths, which began talking about their day and the academy’s new faculty, boring every-day things.

Skipping across until she found the newly arrived table, Keira’s mouth reading finally hit gold.

“Expedition leader… -inking with him ov… Salty Ladle, he was chugg-”

The corners of her mouth rose as she left the refined paper on the bar counter and swam close to the ground towards the door, dodging fins, falling food and the occasional barmaids which were expertly navigating the environment.

Reaching the door she pushed it open, with some alcohol from the tavern dissolving into the vast water, all taverns were water-sealed otherwise the alcoholic solution would dissipate in seconds.

It made each bar unique as they all had their own mixtures, and staying at the bar was simply a one-time fee for entry, but Keira had no problems when it came to convincing the bouncers.

“More interested in finding a young and naive egg-laying neriead,” Keira couldn’t help furrow her eyes at the thought that anyone could be so stupid.

But from what she had recently experienced at the academy… Keira threw off the thought and focused on leaving.

Slithering out of the bar Keira instantly swept to the left side of the road, riptides were instated which pulled the water in long drifts in one way which eventually looped around to the right side of the road.

The technology was beyond her, but it made travel lightning fast, “Too convenient for all the wrong reasons.” With a small toss of her head her destination changed, and she began to slow down.

Beginning to see more nerieads flood the streets scaly clothes differentiated the workers while the puffy linen and cotton clothing outlined the wealthier citizens.

Well so did their bodyguards, those brutes would be better off working with different folk, different folk she knew.

Staring at the juicy target, Keira had to pull her eyes away, which was just in time to see a thick hand clawing into the riptide right at her direction-

Getting ripped out of the travel network Keira went from a few hundred kilometres a minute to what felt like a snails pace, her head stung as she could feel herself barrelling out.

The hand let go and Keira could feel herself go up.

The world kept spinning for a few moments longer, until finally her limbs stiffened enough to slow herself.

She was high above the kingdom twenty or thirty meters, looking up she could see the moonlight pierce the ocean around half a football field above herself.

Looking down, Keira began descending, staring at the male in question who threw her.

He awkwardly began swimming up but then stopped after seeing Keira descend, his cheeks were in contrast to the rest of his face, Obvious what he’s been up to.

As Keira began methodically swimming downwards, her face was neutral it wasn’t a poker face but her real emotions, “I’ve gone through this shit too many times.”

Scanning her peripherals she could see the tallest buildings were still halfway to the surface, she was around halfway down the one closest to her.

The towers were symbols of wealth but mostly of power, the surface of the water was the Leviathans territory, it was suicide to get anywhere close to them.

Even in the safety of the kingdom.

Passing a roof Keira saw her target begin to lean on the very same house she had passed, her gills expanded slightly below returning to their normal relaxed state.

“Hello.”

Keira stared at the man in question, taking notice of the alleyway to his right.

“-ive Uhp-” he burped and slightly vomited into the water, bubbles began floating to the surface and while the vomit wasn’t visible in the water it was hard to hide food, unfortunately.

“-your money, an follow me if you don’t want me throwin’ again, Urppp,” This time he did vomit, Keira didn’t need taste buds to tell you, as the vomit leaked from his crooked mouth towards the seafloor.

“So, you are trying to mug me?” Keira calmly replied as her hand went naturally to her hips.

“Yehh,” He wiped his hand over his mouth and regained his goal, so intoxicated however he could only walk slowly towards the young neriead.

“Oh, Good.”

Keira casually walked up to him before they were almost face to face.

The mugger smiled and brought his right arm around her neck and dragged her to the alleyway next to him.

Or that was what was supposed to happen, in reality however…

Keira’s blade was stuck directly into the towering man’s chin, the second he tried to grab her she pushed off the pavement with her arm swiping directly up.

It was precise and deadly, however “Thick skull hmm? Seems to be a shared trait among idiots.”

Twisting the knife further his small struggles stopped completely, Keira could barely taste the blood in the water, exactly what she needed unless getting chased by the guards was on her agenda… again.

Still the guards would be here in minutes, seconds if she ripped the knife out, blood is heavier than water, neriead blood in particular has a unique scent that’s better than any bell when it comes to alerting others that something's wrong.

Pushing his now lifeless and light body into the alleyway, Keira decided to walk the rest of the way, The next part of the plan does need some planning, though this incident did give me some ideas.

Keira looked downward as she casually swam to the next bar, the mirror-image of a normal academy student, her uniform was standard, but she made sure it stuck to her body more than it usually did.

Noticing the scent of raspberry alcohol in the distance, Keira knew she was at the right spot.

Giggles turned into full-blown laughs as she stood outside the door, adjusting her blouse before throwing the door open, “The Expedition Leader himself! What a coincidence seeing you here.”

The door shut with a rumble as cheers and catcalls launched from the bar.

Seconds turned to minutes, turned to hours as the rumbles of the nightlife grew softer.

Until the old door was nearly ripped off its hinges as Keira was walking out of the bar with Unix, the expedition leader on her shoulder.

“...water-sealed tents with lots of alcohol seem like the perfect way to travel, don’t you think?” Keira whispered as she brought him to the highway where the rest of his mates were waiting.

“We-ll Miranda was going to be the cook but-” Keira giggled as she passed the barely conscious form to the ‘driver’ who’s job was to lead the party back to the dorms after long hours of drinking.

“I’ll see you there~”

Waving as the group slowly entered the riptide with the last pair needing a kick, Keira was about to join the road until she saw a black figure with a circular green and black blade stare at her from across the road.

“Ah, brother” Sealing away her blouse she slowly swam over to him, avoiding the loose nerieads travelling in the riptide lanes under her.

“Perfect timing,” Swimming deeper into the alleyway she continued, “I’ll be in the roster by tomorrow-this morning, the third phase is coming to a close, did you end up…”

Her right made a circling motion, “Finding the artefact?”

PID Interface

[Map updated!]

[View Results]

Sera jumped off the floor and promptly thumped her head on the cave’s roof.

Her eyes swam as her body began slowly spinning from the impact.

“Eruugh,” Still remembering the feeling she got when Keira was in the alcohol-ridden pub, Sera was seconds away from vomiting.

Thankfully those seconds turned to minutes, until the feeling dissipated completely, leaving only the pain on the head to worry about.

...and the memory.

Slowly floating downwards she saw an alert looking Iva look at her in an ‘Are you crazy?’ manner before lying down where it was before.

That was her… the person who had this body before, Keira.

Closing her eyes she couldn’t help but feel the confidence emit from the flashback, Keira’s presence was overpowering, nothing like how Sera had managed herself.

Her memories… the city, it must’ve been the Aquo kingdom. It was unreal. And the end of the dream, I-no she has a brother… How do I tell him I’m her?

An image of the figure flashed, his scales a crisp black rather than the grey she was wearing, and his blade was curved with a dark green covering.

The city as well, towers that looked like forgotten rock trumpets that were a thousand times the size, and the people all looked unique despite just being neriead, it was a culture shock.

A small vibrating noise took Sera out of her daydream, the PID which awoke her from the dream was nearby and a different message shown.

PID Interface

Builder Tool Materials Required:

Quartz(400g) Gold (20g) Copper(30g) Lead/Black Iron (1000g)

[Crafting… Time left seconds.]

“Oh right the Builder tool, sorry Iva, but I have to move again,” Lightly shrugging off her companion who gave her an unhappy glare, Sera lightly swam towards the PID just as it flashed again.

On top of the blue screen held a small device that looked almost identical to the scanner except it contained an extra few barrels of the pistol grip.

Builder Tool Acquired!

The Builder tool is recommended for any exploration, bases and long-term survival in hostile space.

Checking the general building recipes is recommended.

“Woah,” Grabbing onto the gun looking tool the barrel immediately unpacked itself, showing a small laser, a couple of small robotic arms and a couple of other accessories that quickly disappeared as it morphed back.

“Iva, did you see-” Turning to her small seal fish, it was digging into her bag before turning back and swallowing something.

“-that, alright. It looks like food is now second on the agenda.”

Swimming over she looked in her bag and saw only two pieces of sealed meat within.

“Crap,” Sera was about to shout at Iva before almost loosing grip of the builder tool and remembering the recipes that were waiting to be opened.

“Iva saved by the bell again, let’s hope for the both of us that there’s at least some way to make food with one of these recipes.”