Chapter IV.XXXVIII (4.38) - Lobster

  It took very little convincing to get Ione on board with his sudden plan. In fact, she practically flipped the script and was talking him into it.

  “Over in this corner!” she beckoned.

  Kizu followed after her into the dark nook. They were alone in the open room with only the sea creatures to bear witness to their trespassing.

  Kizu cast an illusion over them, blending them into the darkness.

  “You know, for the daughter of prison wardens, you sure did jump quickly at the chance to commit a crime,” Kizu commented.

  “Statistically, law enforcers have children who are more likely to break laws.”

  “Is that true?” Kizu frowned. He would have assumed the opposite. Harumi, whose father was the town constable, was one of the most straight-laced kids he’d ever met.

  “No idea. Made it up. Do I look like Sene? Why would I know statistics like that?”

  Kizu rolled his eyes. Before he could reply, a whistling tune echoed down the corridor.

  A worker passed by, spinning a ring of keys on her finger as she walked. Her whistling cut off as she spoke.

  “Goodnight, Clawdia. Goodnight, Shelly. Goodnight, Bob. Goodnight, Puddles.”

  She wished each of the sea creatures a goodnight before resuming her whistling and continuing on her way to the next area. The overhead lights cut out in her wake, the enchanted gems dimming to just a faint glow. Kizu’s eyes quickly adjusted to the dim light. A few of the animals took the darkness as prompting to sleep. Bob, the dire sea lion, heaved himself onto the ground section of his enclosure. The sea lion laid his head, which was the size of Kizu, down on a rock and started snoring nearly immediately.

  Other animals, though, became even more active now bathed in darkness. He saw the beady eyes of the invisible crab shifting around in its tank. If Kizu didn’t know any better, he’d think the crustation was dancing.

  While he and Ione were shrouded in an illusion of shadow from the perspective of anyone walking by, they could still see one another. Kizu had created an illusionary wall, rather than individual camouflage over them.

  Kizu looked over at Ione. His arm was wrapped around her shoulders. Her soft face and dark eyes looked back at him.

  Getting romantically involved with a friend was a bad idea. Kizu’s last relationship had ended with him removing the kneecaps of someone. Logically, it made sense not to get involved. So much could go wrong. He really valued his friendship with Ione.

  And yet. He wanted more.

  He leaned into her and their lips met.

  She pressed into his embrace.

  A blissful few seconds.

  Then Ione broke the embrace and cackled. A gleam of sickly green flashed in her eyes. She blinked and Chiame disappeared, replaced by a blush on her cheeks.

  “I’m—”

  “Don’t apologize,” Kizu cut in. He pulled her into a hug and she clung to him.

  “Thank you,” she whispered back.

  They held each other for several minutes.

  This time Kizu was the one to reluctantly break the embrace. “You want to explore for a bit? I think we’ve got the place to ourselves now.”

  “Yes! But…do you have any light? I don’t have your nocturnal eyes.”

  Kizu blinked. It was easy to forget that not everyone could see in the dark like he could. He reached into his storage ring and felt around. He’d unloaded the majority of the ingredients into the shelves of Owl’s Respite as storage, but he still found one of the few things he’d left inside. He pulled out a light gem. He’d opted to keep it in his ring rather than have a glow omit from his cupboards.

  He passed the gem over to Ione, who took it gratefully. Her grin flashed in the light.

  “You’ll need to stay close to me,” Kizu said. “There could be divination detection security in here. My necklace has a radius that blocks anything like that.”

  “Staying close won’t be an issue.” Ione reclaimed his hand.

  They strolled through the now empty rooms, examining the creatures at their leisure. Ione used her free hand to hold up the light gem.

  “It’s amazing getting to see the creatures at night,” she said. “Look at this school of fish. In the daytime they moved in as an organized unit, but now they’ve completely dispersed into erratic movement. So few people get to see this aspect of their nature!”

  While she stared up in awe at the fish, Kizu let his eyes wander. A lobster raised an oversized claw at him and waved.

  Kizu tilted his head. The lobster beckoned him over.

  “I think…that the red lobster over there wants to chat?”

  Ione’s attention snapped over to the crustacean in question. It waved again.

  “Hello!” it said cheerily as they approached. “My name is Kevin. I’m a lobster!”

  “Are you trapped or imprisoned?” Kizu asked. “There aren’t supposed to be Awakened animals here.”

  “Oh no! Not trapped. I wanted to come here. Do you have any idea how terrifying the ocean is? I decided, to hell with that. Now I get to live a nice pampered life here, watching all the silly humans stroll by.”

  “Why did you call us over? Aren’t you worried we’ll expose you?” Kizu asked.

  “Nah. Why would you do that? None of us are supposed to be here. We’re all sneakin’ about. And it can sure get lonely sometimes.”

  “Who Awakened you? What part of the ocean are you from?” Ione asked.

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  “A beautiful mermaid! One of the loveliest things I’ve ever had the golly good fortune to lay my little peepers on!”

  He clacked his claws together and did a little dance. That got a chuckle out of Ione.

  “What sort of monsters are down in the depths?” she asked. “I’ve heard that merfolk tame all sorts of insane beasts.”

  “Oh yeah! I’m pretty young. So when the revolution hit and my creator got gutted by a tusked dire shark, I was like, hell nah and bounced. Heard some merfolk talking about a human city before the revolution so made my way over here and plopped myself into this tank. Been here ever since.”

  “A merfolk revolution?” Kizu asked. “When did that happen?”

  “You know, it always seems like underwater folk sure do know quite about more about what’s going on in your lives than landfolk know about theirs. You guys should pay more attention. Giving all of us fellow legged folks a bad name,” Kevin the lobster scolded them. “Maybe like, ten years ago? I was still a baby. Barely a year old at the time.”

  The same time as when the Oozes invaded Ilosin-Don. Was that a coincidence? Kizu mused on that information while Ione asked more about merfolk society. Despite the lobster berating them for not paying attention, Kevin hardly seemed a font of information about his old home.

  “Do you know anything about jellyfish?” Kizu asked. “We have a giant, psionic jellyfish in the cove near where I live.”

  “Jellyfish? The merfolk bottle up some of them and use them like lanterns. And my old creator had a little jellyfish trap that would drop the suckers on anyone who tried entering her home without her say so.”

  Not exactly information that helped Kizu.

  “There is a book here somewhere that contains information about all the known magical creatures ever recorded,” Kevin said, clearly seeing his crestfallen expression. “You could read that.”

  Kizu and Ione shared a look, eyes wide.

  “Think it might be locked up though. But I’ve got a bunch of keys somewhere. Give me a sec.”

  Kevin scurried around in his tank, kicking up sand. The water turned a light brown, completely obscuring the crustacean. When it cleared, Kevin proudly presented a ring of keys in one of his claws.

  “Here you go!” His claw then phased through the glass and dropped the keys on the floor, then phased back into the tank.

  “What was that?” Kizu asked while Ione snatched up the keys.

  “What’s what?” Kevin replied.

  “You just used spatial magic!”

  “Well, yeah. How’d you think I got in here? I am a magical lobster.”

  Questioning the lobster about the phase spell would get him nowhere, Kizu knew that. Awakened creatures often had innate magical properties that they didn’t need to think to cast. It was simply part of their instinct. And yet, he couldn’t hold back at least one question.

  “That mermaid you mentioned. Was she a spatial mage?”

  “She definitely dabbled. Think she was considered an archmage? Elemental, soul, space, spiritual. A master dabbler. Never cracked time though. Was working on it before she got gutted. Was planning a trip to some underwater island to investigate ruins left by time mages when everything went down.”

  “Sounds like my sister,” Ione said dryly. “Good at literally everything.”

  “Except summoning,” Kizu pointed out.

  The corner of Ione’s mouth twitched. “Except summoning,” she agreed. “How about we go take a peek at that book now?”

  “Thanks for your help, Kevin,” Kizu said. “We’ll bring back the key when we’re finished.”

  Kevin waved goodbye as they departed. Earlier, they’d been in such a hurry to investigate all the animals in the aquarium that they’d forgone visiting the research museum attached to the building.

  The room was filled with documents, charts, and diagrams all sealed behind glass cases. This room showcased the history of marine studies in Tross. Kizu wandered around, looking at maps of old coral reef locations and sea monster breeding grounds.

  “I found it!” Ione said behind him.

  Kizu looked over to see her already unlocking and opening the glass case. He winced, expecting an alarm. But nothing happened.

  Ione began flipping through the leatherbound tome.

  “Woah! Kizu! Look at this!”

  Kizu looked over her shoulder. She’d flipped to a sketch of a fox. It was labeled ‘Kitsune.’ Underneath was a description of their powers as shapeshifters and stories about their communication with mankind. Apparently they were directly to thank for some of the information recorded in the tome. But nothing had been reported in over a millennia.

  “Anything on Dragons?” Kizu asked.

  Ione flipped through more pages. “No. I don’t see anything. Almost everything in here is ocean related. Kitsune were the only fully landbased creature mentioned that I’ve seen so far.”

  He was probably better off mentally not thinking about Dragons. It might ruin their night. Their absence was a blessing in a way.

  “Here! This is your guy, isn’t it?”

  She pointed to an image of a jellyfish with measurement lines and weight estimates beside it.

  Psionic Acraspeda

  A creation by Archmage Wilber Goldenberry. Reportedly used by the archmage as protection of his ship. It, like the ship itself and the archmage, went missing on an expedition to Shinzou Island during its short period of gnome occupation.

  It appears to be based off of the local fauna found off the coast of Ilosin-Don. Though further enlarged and given mental capabilities. One report of a tentacle sting from the creature resulted not in a rash or burn, but rather mental damage to the victim. Mental protection is highly recommended when handling the Psionic Acraspeda.

  The Psionic Acraspeda is not entirely sentient, though Archmage Goldenberry reportedly did instill in it a means of responding to noise and some artificial rudimentary mind. Though it has no record of aggression, it is still considered extraordinarily dangerous. Archmage Goldenberry did not keep useless tools.

  “‘Archmage Goldenberry,’” Ione read. “What a name. That’s the necromancer Sojan was puppeting the clone of last semester?”

  “From context, it would seem that way. He was a gnome and his ship was found on Shinzou Island. No mention of him being a necromancer, but Kevin’s creator was also an archmage who studied necromancy so I assume it’s normal for them.”

  Ione considered this. “Mind if I read some of the other notes?”

  “Go ahead.” Unfortunately, while it was nice to know there was precedent for the creature’s existence, it didn’t actually help him counter it. Unless he found some way to protect himself mentally.

  Kizu had to stay close to Ione, so as to not have her slip away from his necklace’s radius, so he ended up returning his attention to the maps on the wall. He pondered and theorized where Kevin’s birthplace might be. The lobster hadn’t given them a straight answer and there was no sign of merfolk settlements on the maps. He wondered if the World Dungeon connected to underwater entrances as well. Could his bell and atlas guide him to an underwater city unknown to the rest of humankind?

  Not an expedition he intended to go on anytime soon.

  “Let’s go look at the jellyfish,” Ione said, breaking into his thoughts.

  While his mind had wandered, she’d finished studying the tome and replaced it in the case.

  “You sure? We can go study another marine creature if you want. I bet you can get enough information for a few more summons.”

  Ione shrugged. “You want to see the jellyfish. So let’s go take a look. Besides, there’s nothing stopping me from studying the jellyfish as well. I’ve already got something big to carry me around underwater now. That was my main priority. Something threatening like a jellyfish would be a nice addition.”

  They strolled through the dark rooms and entered a glass tunnel. Suddenly, Ione no longer needed the light crystal.

  Hundreds, maybe even thousands, of bioluminescent jellyfish drifted by on the other side of the tunnel’s glass. Pink, blue, purple, yellow, green. Their colors varied across the spectrum. Even the jellyfish that don’t glow naturally, had a sheen to them, reflecting off the bioluminescent species.

  “Woah.” Ione gaped up at the jellyfish overhead. “No wonder it was full earlier today.”

  “And that was during the day,” Kizu added. “Nobody else gets to witness a sight like this. Only us.”

  Ione reached out and touched the glass. A wall of purple undulated on the other side. They swirled in a mindless dance with unknowable choreography. “It’s gorgeous.”

  The violet glow bounced off her skin, giving her an ethereal luminosity.

  He admired Ione, a powerful mage marveling in the beauty around her. She looked so perfect. After a few minutes, he couldn’t resist any longer. He let the moment pass and turned it into something new. Arm around her back, he slowly shifted her to face him and embraced her. Their lips met and she melted in his arms.

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