These Depths To Which We Sink

“There weren’t always dragons in the valley. In fact, the earliest reports received indicated nothing was living in the black depths of the Valley of Luciad’s Rest. The first mining rig to be lost was assumed to have failed in some way, either due to human error or perhaps a part failure. It is not common for a rig to sink suddenly with all hands lost, but it is not unheard of. Shortly after another mining expedition was launched. Then, several days after the second mining rig had been deployed, a number of the televoces stationed around the coast began to receive a constant stream of communiques all pleading for help, screaming about and I quote-” Lieutenant Skinner pulled a neatly folded vellum sheet from the breast pocket of his uniform and read “…four great leviathans, marine serpents from the depths, and finally giant expletive wyrms tearing the expletive rig apart…” he glanced up from the paper. His company didn’t seem impressed with his reluctance to swear. “None of the rescue missions that were launched found any survivors, or indeed any wreckage. A deep-sea survey ship was sailed over the area, and it detected some fragments of the rig near the deepest parts of the trench. The sketches the survey ship returned clearly show the rig ripped into pieces. Normally rigs fail at the joint between two sections of the bulkhead, so the miners inside drown as the water rushes in to equalise the pressure. This bulkhead failure results in the superstructure of the rig remaining largely intact and given the state of devastation that was observed it was concluded that the televox aboard the rig was telling the truth and was not suffering from some fear induced vision as televoces have been known to do.”

The lieutenant sat back in the damp and puckered leather clad chair. The air in the Drowning Sailor had been fetid and laden with moisture when he had first entered with his entourage, and it seemed to be getting thicker by the hour. It permeated everything, the once grand hardwood table his rusting tankard of ale was standing on was slowly rotting from underneath. Black mould bloomed on the ceiling of the room, and the brass light fittings all fought to hide every stray gleam underneath layers of tarnish. The stained carpet regurgitated some unspeakable concoction every time a step was taken, and sections of the windows let less light through than some of the walls. The lieutenant and his fellow soldiers were like a different species to the usual clientele. They were polished, refined, could live without being in perpetual stupor. If this bar was an abscess, they were the scalpels. High quality people in high quality uniforms, brandishing high quality weapons and firearms. Only the lieutenant wore dress uniform, but the others looked just as impressive in their polished armour. They were a far cry from the three people they had come to meet, who sat across from the lieutenant seemingly at ease in such a cess pit.

They didn’t move much as he spoke, their eyes either fixed on him or cast down at the table. He didn’t think the captain was listening, wasn’t even sure she was awake. Although her eyes met his, they were milky and vacant, seemingly unable or unwilling to focus. She breathed through her mouth, deeply and quietly, her chest heaving with each breath. Her arms were resting on the table, the fingers of her human left hand interlaced with the scaled fingers of her right. Below her right elbow her arm was that of a mermaid, taken from the murderer of her husband and child, or so the legend went. It was rare to see a follower of St Yarrow so far from the mountains. Herb sellers and missionaries were seen on occasion around the capital, but rarely further than that. To see one so far from where she started both geographically and physiologically was off-putting. He had heard there were further mutilations beneath her clothes, gills cut below her ribs, potent symbols carved down the length of her legs and around her waist. Her clothes and hair reeked of the sea as well as a far more complex bouquet of something resembling fish, something the lieutenant couldn’t quite place. Both of her companions shared this scent to a much lesser extent. To the captains right lounged someone the lieutenant knew through reputation, or perhaps notoriety. Gabriel Bellator had been a rising star in the Navy of Abar. The latest child from a long line of great sailors and soldiers, his family’s blood had powered the kingdom’s war machine for more than ten generations. He had had a promising start, it had looked like another great career for a descendant of Bellator Prime, one of the great generals of the Unification of Abar Campaign. That was until he was seen killing a merman unprovoked, down a small shadowy side street in one of the coastal suburbs of the Capital. Although not murder, as merpeople were not considered to be equal to humans, it had become a focal point of the merpeoples rights campaign, which had been gaining traction across the continents. The Navy saw it as too big of a risk to keep Gabriel enlisted, and so they publicly shamed and discharged him. It had initially been difficult for him to find work at sea which did not employ or have dealings with merpeople, and he had gladly accepted the position of Captain Claybourne’s first mate. Now his ancestral skills were used to plan the logistics of long range and large quarry hunting expeditions.

To the captain’s left sat an animatrix. Despite her great age, her skin showed barely a hint of wrinkling, a common condition for someone who dwelt inside of a formaldehyde tank for so many hours. Her back was curved forwards lending a hunch to her shoulders, and her withered arms were cupped around a steaming mug of tea. Her eyes followed his and her face remained alert, the only member to show that she actively listening and engaged with everything the lieutenant was saying. Every few minutes she pressed her thick spectacles back up her bony crooked nose and took a polite sip of her drink. Several times, she withdrew a handkerchief from beneath her seafarer’s jumper and delicately wiped the rim of her mug. The lieutenant would have believed she was the captain, and the poor vacant wretch to her side was some mouth-breathing imbecile she had hired as a servant. He knew the truth however, despite her look Magda did not suffer fools, nor did she readily forgive. So, he turned his attention fully to her as he continued.

“So, Captain, I come before you with a contract, a bounty on these four Dracones Maris. We will offer 20,000 Suns for each beast you kill before Year’s End, an extra 1000 Suns for each month before this deadline. After Year’s End the contract expires, and we will seek the services of other crews. If you accept now, we can give you 5000 Suns as a down payment.”

He watched as the milky whiteness of her eyes pulled back and fought the urge to recoil as he realised it was not some fast-acting glaucoma, but rather a secondary pair of transparent eyelids like those of an amphibian. He struggled to keep a look of disgust from creeping onto his face.

“A small price for big prey” she said, her voice grating from lack of use and cold sea air. It sounded like the hull of a ship scraping a stone pier during a storm, or a deep keel marooning itself over a shallow reef. Her secondary eyelids slid back in to place as she sat back against the seat. “First mate, ask your questions” she ordered in a grating murmur.

Gabriel sat forward this time, his eyes rising from the table and meeting those of the lieutenant. Clearly the shame of his military discharge was a lesser emotion than the fear of his new Captain. Or perhaps his love of giving and following orders had followed him to his new occupation.

“It strikes me lieutenant that the navy does not have any mining rigs. It also hasn’t escaped my notice that one of the men in your entourage is no mere soldier but one of the Royal Paladins. That or he has stolen his medallion of merit.”

The man Gabriel was referring to was a hulking beast, his armoured breastplate was scarred and battered, sections obviously having been beaten back into shape after some blow had deformed them. Yet it retained its gleam, and it was carefully maintained. The paladin’s medallion hung around his neck, resting on his metal chest. A mace was held loosely at his side, and unbeknownst to most an extensive potions pouch was concealed beneath the crimson cloak he wore on his back. He smiled at Gabriel as he was identified, a threat in many respects.

“Ah so he is a Royal Paladin, an interesting twist in this mystery. Why does the mighty Navy of the Great Kingdom of Abar want to mine some mineral on the bottom of the ocean. I noticed in your monologue you never referred to the rig as “our mining rig”, rather as “the mining rig”. Am I to assume you are acting on behalf of some private contractor?”

The lieutenant grew angry as he was slowly examined, but he held his anger in check.

“Assumptions can have severe consequences”

“I do apologise lieutenant. So, you are acting on someone else’s behalf. Someone who clearly has ties to the King as evidenced by your paladin, and someone with enough money to launch two mining missions so far, and the strong possibility of launching a third. I wonder Sir, do you even know your employer, or does Lieutenant Skinner not question where his orders are coming from?”

The lieutenant said nothing, but his anger threatened to boil over beneath his cool facade.

“So, someone with royal ties, plenty of wealth, and an interest in mining. Our iron comes from the red coasts of the New World, our coal is still rich beneath the feet of our nation. Copper, gold, and silver are shipped along the Great Mineral Road all the way from Umshka. Tin is still drilled in the Northern Mountains. All other metals are not profitable enough to be able to afford a significant mining operation, let alone to be able to lose two and stay afloat. Perhaps a more esoteric company is behind this contract, a company which relies on steadily diminishing reservoirs of rare earth minerals. If I am not mistaken the market price of Thum and Tithe’s universal potion base had leapt up, and the industry as a whole is suffering. Could Thum and Tithe, the largest purveyors of pharmaceuticals be behind these foolhardy expeditions? Have they found more of their precious Polysalt on the seabed? Which one of them is married to the King’s cousin, is it Thum or Tithe I can never remember.”

“Is there a point to your inane ramblings Bellator?”

“Yes, Lieutenant let me get to the point. A company like Thum and Tithe can do better than 20,000 Suns a creature.”

“How brazen. Name your price for this contract and be done with it.”

“We will take 50,000 Suns now, and a further 50,000 per wyrm. Upon our successful completion of the contract, we want a new ship built to our specifications, and an exclusive contract for future Thum and Tithe hunting work now that they have begun mining the seabed. Also, we will be needing a new diviner”

“And a license to catch krakens” chimed in the animatrix “The Rock Lobster King won’t last the trip to the valley, never mind the fight against the sea dragons.”

“And the license” added Gabriel.

“A Diviner will not be necessary for this trip, we can provide escort and meteorological support should it be necessary” countered Skinner quickly.

“I’ll not be sailing my ship in waters such as those without a Diviner” Magda said, her voice resolute and full of menace “without a Diviner, there is no deal.”

Skinner shifted uncomfortably in his seat, “the college outputs fewer and fewer Diviners each year. Employing one at such short notice will prove difficult, if not impossible.”

“We have never found the contracting of a Diviner to be particularly challenging, especially with the rates offered in this line of work” Gabriel replied.

Skinner leaned back in his chair, the leather creaking beneath him and he shot an uneasy glance to the Royal Paladin, standing almost too close behind him. The Paladin gave the barest of nods and Skinner swung his attention back around.

“Very well, we will get you a Diviner. Will that suffice?” the Lieutenant asked Magda directly. Magda said nothing, just nodded once almost imperceptibly, the air whistling in and out between her teeth.

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The sun hung hot and low in the sky, pulling great clouds of fog from the sea. As Magda was leaving the Drowning Sailor she squinted against the light, searching for her ship against the glare. Outside of the Inn a coastal road wound over and between large outcroppings of rock as it approached the dock. The plant life they passed as they walked was stunted, scoured to nothing by the storms during the middle months of the year then frozen as the temperature plummeted towards Year's End. Now as the new year started and the temperature began to climb back to its usual tropical inferno the plants were beginning their agonizingly slow pilgrimage to each rock's peak, desperate to be this year's victor and to steal as much sun as possible.

Magda slowed as she reached the apex of the path, one scaled hand blocking the sunlight from her already protected eyes. Whenever they caught something particularly dangerous, she liked to view it from a distance. Across a small bay swayed her ship, rusted and proud. It was 180 metres long and almost 20 metres wide, standing as tall as any galleon. Its main deck bristled with harpoons and ballistas, and several short-barrelled cannons peaked over the side. Two colossal winch systems, each as tall as three men and infinitely stronger, stood fore and aft, both holding their prey tight between them. Curlews wheeled overhead, crying out as they were disturbed from each perch, dropping scat and diving for scraps. A flock of them gripped the roof of the stern tower, surveying the work being carried out below. The stern tower was the aftmost section of the ship. The highest-ranking members of the crew were accommodated within its metal frame, beneath the enclosed bridge. The enclosed bride housed the wheel, the charts, the altar of the televox, the platform of the yeoman, and the rune circle of the diviner. It was the brain and heart of the ship, and Magda kept hers as organised as possible. On her long foredeck, stretched tightly between the two winch systems was a depth beast, a monstrosity of tentacles and teeth and sunblind eyes. Nearly as long as the deck, it had been a difficult fight pulling this creature aboard, and several crew members had been lost during the struggle, including their diviner. Black oily blood covered the starboard side of the vessel and ran through the drains at the side of the ship, staining the metal and the sea a deep brown. Crew members were swarming over the creature, slowly taking it apart with long sharp blades. The ships stores had been drained after a lean season of the Frost and the crew would be eating the beast for at least the next month.

The sea was quiet this time of year, the waves and swells lapped mindlessly at the stone walls of the pier as the trio made their way out to the gangway and began to climb aboard. The smell was thick in the air, a smell of entrails and viscous blood. Crew quickly stepped out of her way and made sure not to brush against her in their filthy overalls. She made her way down the length of the deck and as she walked a bubble of silence walked with her. Crew talking among themselves stopped and suddenly became fascinated with their work, as if the act of slicing through blubber was of utmost intrigue.

When they reached the stern tower they descended, their eyes desperately fighting for light among the harsh black shadows of the ship’s belly. A specially cultivated fungus grew on the walls, casting a bioluminescent glow on bulkheads and portholes and long metal corridors. The fungus stank of thick vegetation, like the plantation run-off in the New World Colonies. It pulsed slightly in the darkness, pulsed in time with your breathing and your heart, calming the seasick and soothing those striken with a desire for home. Gas lamps were forbidden unless carried by someone after so many ships were defeated by that ultimate irony, of burning down while surrounded by water, so it order to light empty corridors they bought this fungus from some trader in Máthairthír and had let it run riot below deck. Now the ship would glow at night, and the submarine portholes would attract fish to gaze in rather than crew members to gaze out. Only one man had been lost to this glowing crew member, having been struck on the head during some dangerous hunt and stumbling below deck, only to collapse against a particularly dense culture. Most crew would not have thought he would get up again anyway, but the sight of him covered in soft green hairs and with his flesh slowly falling off was enough to make them scrape it from the walls of their accomodation and keep a constant vigil against it’s ingress.

Magda led the trio down deeper into the ship, intent on assessing her greatest weapon before setting off. She always checked the creature personally before cast off, even before a short sail. Once, she had deployed the creature only to watch it fall apart in the water, and to watch her animatrix’s mind collapse with it. The smells of vegetation and innards slowly became replaced by a cloying stagnant stench. Slightly sweet, old, sickly it reached in through the nostrils to grab at ones stomach, trying to pull it up through your mouth. The animatrix had a similar smell, but to a much lesser degree. It was in her skin, and would be long after she died. The graves of animatrices were known to erupt every now and again. Their skin was so well preserved during life that even in death it retained much of it’s strength, and the gases of decomposition build to a much greater pressure inside the body, unable to break through their tough outer layer. When a split finally occurs the resulting decompression has been known to suddenly split the lid of the coffin and shift the very earth above it. Although few ever made it into the ground.

After a maze of corridors and corners they emerged into the bow stores of the ship. It had been an age since the bow stores had contained medicines and potions, iron tools and agricultural machines, grain and wheat and corn, all heading for the New World Colonies during their early existence and famine. Back when the trade companies were in their prime, creating bigger and faster ships every year, employing whole cities of people to cut wood and work metal and build great skeletons. This ship had been the biggest of the year, built by 100 people in 200 days, designed to be the saviour of the poor starving pilgrims languishing on red beaches in some far away land. An aquatic angel, a sign of salvation for so many, aptly named “The Hope of the New World”. When the famine had been averted, when the colonies had become self sufficient it was tied up and forgotten about, in some far away dock, rusting against a callous pier. Too many years had passed before it was rediscovered by some clerk, looking through records at the trading company’s head quarters. It was finally refitted, repaired to it’s former standard. New engines, new steering mechanisms, a taller bridge and a heavier ballast were all installed before the company realised that despite the latest coal burning engines it was slower than any other trading vessel, smaller than any other trading vessel, less secure than any other trading vessel. It had a tendency to steer to port or starboard rather than directly ahead and no amount of work could recitfy this. It was too old for trading but thankfully a new industry had begun. No longer did trade companies have to pay the sea dwellers extortionate rates to ensure their cargo would make it across the sea safely. Now people of the land were setting out, harpoons and cutlasses at the ready to drag dangerous creatures from the deep and dispatch them. They found “The Hope of the New World” a captain, one so full of hate for anything swimming below the waves that no matter the condition of the ship she would finish the contract, and set her to work immediately. Magda had been captain of the ship for almost 9 years now, and in that time she had killed hundreds of nightmare inducing beasts most land dwellers couldn’t imagine and wouldn’t believe.

Two enormous tanks filled the bow stores, one of riveted steel with small portholes punched along the side, and one of thick reinforced glass with a hatch on top. The glass tank was empty but covered in symbols, runes scraped into the interior surface, forming circles and hexagons and other more complex shapes. A harness hung suspended from the corners of the glass tank, with quick releasing straps down the left hand side. The hatch could be opened from either side, although exiting the tank was far easier than entering. A large pickaxe was secured to a wall near the glass tank, along with several smaller hammers and hatchets. Inside the steel tank was a smaller sea of a hazy yellow fluid. Slightly thicker than water and foggy, as if the mist from outside had permeated all the way through the hull. A dark shape loomed near the centre of the tank, obscuring any light entering from the other side. It was as long as the tank, nearly longer, and the giant claws were pulled back and underneath its massive body in a way that would have been incredibly painful if it were capable of feeling pain. It’s antennae were long gone, lost in some fight against a creature it had been driven against. It’s eyes were shrivelling, turning to glass or maybe rubber the longer it hung in that fermaldehyde solution. As Magda watched, one of the legs of the Rock Lobster King drifted past the porthole, as big as her entire body. It’s chitinous shell shone blue in its brief voyage through the light beam, and a trace of what once had been blue lobster blood diluted the water behind it. The Rock Lobster King was reaching the end of it’s usable “life”, barely holding together in the tank as it was. Most of its meat would be long rotten and dissolved despite the preservative quality of the solution. The bandages they had swathed it’s great shell in were wearing thin, and the thick symbols scrawled in sloppy ink were beginning to run together or fade. Sections of the cloth lay in ribbons on the floor of the tank revealing large sections of invertebrate armour crusted in dead barnacles.

“Test it. No pumps, just a basic report” Magda ordered without looking over her shoulder.

The animatrix sighed deeply, beginning her rituals and spells. She was well practised, and had made various changes to the spells since she had ventured forth as a budding puppeteer. The world and all of its creatures had been her plaything, and she had trod a more uncommon path than most. First she provided veterinary service to some high born family with Royal ties. Later she commanded a military lupine unit in the War of Green Gold in the south west, protecting the nations largest and most profitable copper supplier. After that was she served in the New World Colonies as an avian scout, scanning the desert regions from the thermals, looking for signs of scorpion meganests before sending settlers in. After leaving the military she worked in Inthtar as a “squealer”, piloting gulper seals and orcas through and around huge shoals of fish to direct them into the nets of fishing vessels. Here she had fallen in love with sea creatures and the mysteries of the deep sea, and realised that what she really wanted to do was to become abyssal, to suffer gigantism in an ecosystem that revered it as godhood. She wanted to be feared on instinct, and she realised that the best way to achieve this goal was to join a crew that routinely hunted giant things, to study their techniques and to avoid making the same mistakes as the prey they caught.

Puppeteer Caliamba undressed quickly and clambered up onto the reinforced glass tank, before heaving the great glass hatch open. Gabriel had seen this process many times previously so he barely blushed when he saw her imodesty, and he helped lower her down into the squat tank. She suspended herself by the harness as she intoned the reanimating prayers, and the symbols scratched into the thick glass began to hum or shake as if alive. With the hatch closed and locked her prayers were dulled, but still a deep throbbing filled the air. Fields of charge spread through the bow stores and in the steel tank a great leg twitched. As Caliamba’s actions became more animated, the charge grew greater, and a dull roar sounded through thick fluid and steel plating. With a flourish and a crescendo a great boom echoed thorugh the chamber and the animatrix slumped forward in her harness. The fermaldehyde sloshed angrily in the steel tank and the portholes alternated between illuminated and dark as the great beast shifted. As Magda watched through one such porthole she saw all of the remaining legs stretch back and forth as they were being tested, and heard the great claws clash together beneath the carapace. The eyes swivelled weakly on the small stalks to gaze at her through the murk, and the feeding whiskers twitched with hunger. It continued to spasm for a while, the puppeteer pushing each muscle as far as they would go. At last the great beast fell still again, and the electric atmosphere dischared through the air. Caliamba slowly came back to her senses, suspended in her tank. Her hair was slicked down on her head from her exertions, and the colour had left her skin. She reached a trembling hand up to undo the clasps of the harness, and collapsed onto the glass floor. Gabriel retrieved the narrow ladder attached to the hull next to the tank, and lowered it through the hatch, careful not to get it tangled in the harness. The animatrix was able to slowly pull herself up off the floor and finally through the hatch. She stood unsteadily next to Gabriel and held his shoulder for support, her small chest sucking in the fetid air of the stores.

“Well?” asked Magda, no sympathy in her voice “What is your report?”

Through great lungfuls of air the animatrix began her report of the creature, her voice was soft most of the time, high pitched and warm, but after a hop her voice became cold, or maybe damp, and there was no joy in her speech.

“The left legs are decayed beyond saving, the right legs are functional but one has detached. The claws are decaying quicker than I would like but they should survive to kraken waters. The tail is in good condition and the armour is still strong. Sensory organs seem to be functioning, although difficult to tell with lack of stimuli. Strong response to the porthole light, and the reminants of hatred when it saw you so evidence of the brain still being in good working order. I would say it has 20 hours maximum of usability before it decays too far and becomes bait.”

Magda listened but didn’t say anything. Once Caliamba had finished her report, Magda turned with a grunt, and strode off to begin the rest of her preparations.