RP:Holy Diver
Part of the A Line Drawn in the Sand Arc
Volcanic Menagerie, Rynvale
Wounded by a death-cursed knife, leeched of vitality by the death-god’s curse, and robbed of his ability to shift into his natural form, Mac had returned to the Rynvalian beach where the petrified remains of his long-lost wife stood, a place of comfort he was drawn to, the way a wounded animal heads for its den. The wound was open and seeping aquamarine-hued blood… He’d packed it with healing sea-weeds, tried to sing himself to health, but the bloody hole, right above the place where a human heart ought to be, showed no sign of responding. Mac wasn’t sure whether this was due to some dire enchantment on the weapon, or the way the curse on the Coral Castle had drained him not only of life-force but magical power, as well. Really, it didn’t matter too much to him right now. The raggedly-clad kraken had his back against the gorgon-stone, his mismatched eyes, one sea-green, the other entirely pearly-white, staring out to sea toward the beloved abyssal deeps his human-shaped body could not tolerate. “Evriale…” he murmured, having taken in his febrile illness to talking to her, the love he’d lost so long ago… “Soon it may be that I join thee in eternal rest..” Were she alive, the sea-gorgon would no doubt have flayed him with sharp words for this display of pathetic resignation. But she was merely a thing of stone, a cruel silence…The sea lapped the rocks dividing it from the stony path, its music a constant, soothing surge-and-ebb, a never-ending song.
In the waters off the Rynvalian shore, schools of mermaids swam and frolicked and drowned horny sailors for sport. They were achingly beautiful, ethereal almost, with porcelain skin and crystal eyes and silken hair. Momipo was not like these other mermaids. Oh, she was beautiful, of course, all mermaids are, but she was of a different breed. She was wrapped in darkness. Ebon scales, onyx eyes, raven hair, and deep brown skin. The only thing upon her body that didn't fade into the shadows was her Talisman of Selene, a shining blue pendant that hung around her neck and came to rest between her bare breasts. Momipo was from the south, and had come to these waters on a pilgrimage. And so it was that she stopped to rest from her journey upon the same beach as the gorgon-statue and the bleeding man. Her eyes settled on the man, who bled unlike any land-walker she'd ever seen. She said nothing, only stared.
He’d been too long out of water, the malevolent creep of the death-curse and the pain of his wound making Mac oblivious to how badly parched he was. In a face that seemed too youthful for the creaking of his long-limbed body, his lips were cracked and stinging, his skin rough in patches, his tongue a warped plank lying on the floor of his mouth. Eventually, he realised he needed moisture… With a soft croak of apology to the stone ghost of his wife, Mac pushed himself painfully to a stand and staggered to the rocks, for the moment unaware of the dusky sea-maiden whose midnight gaze perused him from beyond that jagged barrier. Toppling onto this erstwhile rockwall, the obviously unwell ‘man’ , whose aura was redolent of his true nature, sunk his head below the waves and breathed.. and breathed…
Momipo blinked in confusion, and then understood. She swam though the rocks toward him and hoisted herself onto the shore, her tail still dipped below the waves. There was something... ~wrong~ with that wound he bore, she could sense it. She was but a simple monk, no priestess yet, but she had some sense of the holy... and the unholy. And that bleeding hole reeked of the wicked divine. Momipo had not the power to heal him, but perhaps her goddess did. She didn't know if Selene would listen to her entreaties, but she asked her Lady of the Sea for her grace anyway.
Mcracken’s head remained below the brine while Momipo approached, and would have stayed there a good while more, had not the monk’s prayers washed over him like a vitalising wave. For the first time in days, the kraken experienced relief from the sick, slow ravages of Gevurah’s evil enchantments, and the black touch of her abominable god. His face lifted abruptly from the water, a cough of salty liquid expelling from his lungs, his wild mess of silver-and-black dreadlocks streaming rivulets.. and came face to face with the holy interloper to his suffering, presumably the source of this most welcome relief.. not only for his damaged flesh and depleted vitality, but on a level deeper than that, the internal abysses to which hope can sink and drown in caverns of black despair. “By the Mother…” he sputtered, pushing up to kneel, his eyes wide, “..of Oceans— who art thou, Holy Singer, that hath come with such succour.. in answer to my prayers?” Perhaps a little bit delirious, he reached out to try and touch the mermaid, in case she wasn’t real, but hesitated to make contact. For what if she was… real… and a manifestation of Selene, herself? All the while, the wound seeped less than it had before, but only a little.
Momipo flinched slightly as his hand neared her. She believed in the healing power of touch, but only when it was done with permission. But he stopped himself, and she relaxed. "My name is Momipo, and I am a humble servant of the Mother of Oceans." She wished to ask for his identity, but refrained. He carried with him the ancient power of the kraken, something most seaborn would sense right away, and the krakens were to be respected, if not revered.
Mcracken’s flesh was pale to point of greying, though a shade more vital than it was before. “Mo..mipo..” he spoke her name carefully, and while a vast portion of his inherent magic was drained, there remained enough to him that he could invest its utterance with a little of the mermaid’s own nature, so that it became less a mere noise than an imprint in the air; a wave-form, vibrant and gleaming. “I am..” he made a sound then, like a chorus of whales shouting, mingled with the liquid-magma chuff of a sub-aqueous volcano,. “.. but thou canst name me ‘Mac”. Please…if thou wouldst be so kind, my den is near..” he glanced to the west, and made an awkward clamber off the rocks, slipping into the water. “… and I am in sore need of thine aid and company both.”
Momipo nodded and slipped a well-muscled arm around his waist, helping him towards his den. "Of course, Mac. It's nice to meet you, though I wish it were under better circumstances." She glided through the water easily, even weighed down with Mac's large form. She was not slim and slender like most other mermaids, but muscular and strong from years of toil.
.The kraken wasn’t too proud to ask for and receive help on those rare occasions where he needed it, even aid as humbling as the mermaid offered him now. As she shouldered his weight and all but carried him beyond the surface, down into the water, Mac directed Momipo into a strong current that would assist her in her task, pushing them westward like two leaves in a gale. The riptide swiftly deposited them near a subaquatic cliff, a shelf of stone that formed the bedrock for Horseshoe Bay’s pristine shore. There, he spoke to her in mermish, gesturing to a wide gape of darkness in the stone, “The entrance…” He wouldn’t blame her for hesitating, the place had the feel of a terrible trap, a spine-tingling sensation that seemed to crawl from out the darkness and was rudely emphasised by the sudden presence of several very large, very agitated-looking sharks. Deep below, undulated the dim and brooding shadows of other, much larger things… “It is safe... for us,” he assured Momipo, pointing out the way the sharks circled round them but would not come near, “Merely precautions.” If the mermaid agreed to enter the darkness, she’d find it a pitch-black, cloying nothingness for a few moments, but then the kraken would make another sound, one far beyond the perception of any land-walking creature other than bats, and the inky waters began to glow… and brighten. All about the pair, a swarm of small, bioluminescent jellyfish blooped about like little phosphorescent mushroom-caps, providing as they did so more than sufficient light to see by. As Mac urged Momipo deeper into this aperture in the solid stone, which proved to be a tunnel, the swarm grew thicker still all around them, until the light they threw off was almost glaring. Where the tunnel ended in a blank, oddly smooth wall, Mac pointed up, to where they'd break the water’s surface after a short vertical swim. The kraken exhaled water, then inhaled air, “My den…” The light from the tunnel below offered the stone chamber an eerie, gentle light which reflected softly off the smooth, dark walls. He’d probably need some help getting over the rim of the stone pool’s lip.
Subterranean Sea-Cave
A natural pocket within a dense mass of volcanic stone, this voluminous dome-shaped cavern surrounds a wide, air-locked pool of sea-water. In places the walls are still rough to the touch, but someone has spent a great deal of time and effort polishing the jagged, ancient magma to glassy smoothness. Here and there, the walls are carved with reliefs, giving the impression of many huge, glossy tentacles splayed against the stone. There is nothing much in the way of comfort here for those who dwell on dry land, but the warmth of the water in that fathomless pool, the result of volcanic vents in the abyssal sea floor far below, makes it a cosy enough place for any sea-born creature to rest a while. It might be tempting to dive right on in and discover where that briny pool may lead - but anyone doing so had better own a working set of gills if they don’t wish to promptly drown.
Momipo was indeed hesitant to go down into the inky depths, but she couldn't leave an injured man to die. She went where he directed, deep into the ocean, and down the tunnel. When they broke the surface of the water, she looked around the chamber. It was kind of spooky, could use something to warm the place up a little. But that wasn't important. She brought Mac to the edge of the pool, and let him grab the side. She hoisted herself up, sitting on the edge, before reaching down and pulling the man from the water.
The cavern-chamber was indeed sparsely decorated, its only embellishments being the tentacle-shapes carved into the wall, and a simple shrine on which rested a few items, shells, seaweeds of different hues, a coral bowl. Uplit by the phosphorous glow of the jellies, the kraken took a moment’s silence to study the holy maid. “Thou art from the south..” He said it, rather than asked, and shucked off whatever rags still clung to his torso, revealing a series of murky-blue rings scattered over the skin there. Where, for other races, the act of disrobing may seem flirtatious, here it was merely perfunctory, a creature shedding a foreign skin to reveal its true nature. The rings abruptly brightened to an electric hue.. Momipo would probably know what the rings meant, for only tropical creatures have such flair for color in their venomous parts. The rings dulled again. “I oft swam the Coral Castle’s garden in my distant youth,” That ancient structure had met with ruin so many centuries ago that most mers had lost count, but its legends lived on, “For I was spawned in the warm southern sea near the magma vents. Thy people were familiar to me,.” He glanced down to the wound, frowning, “Long ago. Glad I be, to see they too hath swum time’s ocean.”
Momipo, being bare herself, hardly batted an eye as Mac stripped down. She did widen her eyes when she saw the rings, however. So he was not just an honored elder and a kraken, but practically kin. Her obsidian tail lazily floated in the water as she pondered this new information. Finally, she said, "We have had a hard history, with the encroachment of the northerners... Sailors and merpeople alike. But, we will survive. I believe in Selene's grace." Her eyes went to his injury again. "May I ask what happened to you that hurt you so?" Surely a creature as great as a kraken could not be so easily wounded.
An expression of distaste.. perhaps mingled with pain.. fleeted over the kraken’s human features, “A knife…” He would go on to explain this most unlikely of explanations, “Cursed by the touch of a god, I believe.. for as I came to lay my gaze once more on the dry ruin of that former pearl of the sea, the Coral Castle., and remember all that has passed from the world, a terrible geis touched upon me— its epicenter, I believe, at the heart of that ruined Keep. Closer I came, while my skin crawled with its foul magics, the like of which mayest be drawn into the world from hell’s own abyss. Closer, and it leecheth from me vitality… closer.. and it stealeth the mana from my spirit… All about lay the corpses of the many small lives it had previously drank, all life of land and sea alike afflicted by its touch… When I spied a cowled figure, its nature not clear to me because the geis had blurred mine eyes. Its song was dark and filled with hate, its curse gnawed at me, flesh and soul… Before I could retreat, the creature did pierce me with a weapon, of no ordinary make. I believe I may have caused it a wound in turn, but of that I am less sure. What god the things prays to, is beyond my ken, as its own nature, but I am certain its work is unholy, to inflict upon my flesh this…” No mention of his inability to shift back to his natural shape, perhaps Mac was just not quite willing yet to admit to himself that this could be a lasting problem. He glanced to the injury, before returning his gaze to Momipo’s own, his brows glowering down over his mismatched eyes, like storm clouds over the sea. “Whatever it is, whatever power it hath summoned, I will find it. I will cleanse all trace of it from that sacred place. And I will destroy it.”
Momipo nodded gravely, solemnly. "I will help you, however I can." She had not the magic of a priestess, but she had her faith still. And her fists. As if she could punch the evil out of the Coral Castle. "The Mother of Oceans will guide us and protect us, I am sure." Momipo removed the talisman from her neck and held it out to Mcracken. "Take this, it carries a trace of Selene's power. It will help you."
Mcracken gathered the talisman in his ling-fingered hand with great care, ever-respectful of all that represented the divine Mother, Selene. Closing the item up in his fist, he pressed it to his chest, over the wound, and nodded gravely to the mermaid. “Thou hast my gratitude, Sea-Child. If I may ask one thing more of thee… My sense is that it would be expedient to gather unto our cause all the Holy Ones of Selene, from land and ocean alike. For such a terrible spell have I never encountered, and many may be the blessed ones, priests and holy warriors, needed to raise prayer and might against it, and the fell creature who hath lain it down on our ancient Keep. Wouldst thou aid me in this quest?”
"I would," Momipo replied. "I will spread the word amongst the ocean people, for I cannot walk on land. And I will return to you when I have news. Where might I be able to find you? Here? Or perhaps near the statue where I found you?" If she knew the truth behind the stone sea-gorgon, she would not have brought it up so carelessly.
Mac offered Momipo a faint smile, not being prone to taking sudden offense, particularly not against the Children of the Sea. In reply, he rose to his feet, seeming a little invigorated for contact with the holy talisman, and trod over to his starkly decorated altar. When he returned, he held out to Momipo a seashell, its spiral vibrant pink and green. “Whisper to it, when thou dost need. Wherever I be, I will hear thy call.” He’d wait for her to take it before adding, “But I shall likely be oft in the waters as close to the Keep as I dare, for many are the afflicted and the suffering.”
Mcracken gave Momipo 1 unusual sea-shell.
Momipo turned the seashell over in her hands and nodded. "I will seek you out there, then, if I need." When she left on her pilgrimage, she had been told that she would be called upon to bring aid to her oceanic brethren. Perhaps this task had been prophesized by the oracles back home? Whether or not that was the case, she would do her best to save the accursed creatures and Castle.
Mcracken lifted the talisman once more to his wound, “Thou dost indeed shine with the Mother’s blessing, Daughter of Selene. Go in peace…” he peered into the luminous waters of the pool and emitted a gentle, oscillating noise, “The dire ones below will harm thee not. Mine den is for thee, ever sanctuary.”
With a dip of her head and a smile, Momipo slid into the waters and vanished from view.
Mcracken lingered in the cavern for a time, kneeling at the altar in prayer to Selene, in gratitude for what he believed to be her divine hand in setting the mermish monk upon a path that conjuncted with his own. Eventually, he too would slip into the warm waters of that pool, to seek out the deeps of the Gulf in another vain attempt to regain his natural form.