2019-10-06 - The Kingdom Beneath the Waves

Eleanor is feeling horrific. She had her flu shot. That thing is supposed to make the flu either not bite you, or be much milder. This is putting the lie to the CDC's claims because right about now, death feels preferable to one more minute of suffering. She's exhausted, but nightmares have been jolting her awake when she tries to rest. Her throat hurts, her nose runs, her head pounds. She's coughing up technicolor phlegm, is terribly feverish, and she can't seem to hold down any solid foods. A few days back, she stopped being able to rely on her glimmer. She couldn't even reach out to August without a cellphone. She's been alone, because she didn't dare bring her little brother over. The city needs their fire fighters healthy.

She's currently in her bed, a bucket nearby for puking, although she hasn't due to not really eating the last couple days. She's in a tank top and panties, because she's sweltering in the fever, sweat soaking through her things. She had an ice pack, but it warmed up a while ago and she simply doesn't have the strength to get back up and get another from the freezer. Her hair is a tangled mess. She needs a shower really badly.

Fortunately for Eleanor, August is psychic, and, is finally on the mend. So he shows up at her door, and because he's been where she is now, lets himself in. "Anyone home?" He calls. His voice sounds normal again, a marked improvement over the last time she heard him. There's the sound of bags rustling as he sets them in the kitchen, then he makes his way into the bedroom.

He's dressed comfortably, because recovery is slow going: dark blue, slub t-shirt, black commuter pants, dark gray hoodie. He's probably lost a good 5-10 pounds from this, so there's a starker cast to his face than before. He smiles, but it's pained, to see her like this, and moves to the bed. "Oh, sweetheart, I'm sorry."

Eleanor's reply to the call from the doorway is to grunt miserably and pull a sheet up over her head. She doesn't want him to see her like this. He will run screaming and never come back. This is how the mildly paranoid conspiracy theorist coffee pusher thinks. It's not always pretty inside her brain. She pulls it down just to show her eyes when he comes in and her eyes are bloodshot from sleep deprivation and the nasal nastiness.

"You look better..." she mumbles through the sheet. When he comes near she shuffles over slightly to either make room for him or spare him a whiff of her unwashed sweaty self. "Shouldn't be here."

"I'm getting there. And, since it's my fault you got sick, I'm pretty sure I should." August settles on the bed next to her, gently brushes some of her hair away from her forehead. "I remember this part. It was fucking miserable." Also his subconscious did its best to kill four people, but maybe that won't happen to her. Maybe. He leans in to kiss her forehead. "Want some help with a bath or a shower? I brought some broth, it's about all I was able to keep down when it was like this, but it kept me functional."

"But I'm gross. You shouldn't have to see me gross. You'll never unsee it," Eleanor mumbles groggily. The promise of a shower or bath sounds like heaven to her grimy ears though, and she seems to weigh the horror of her boyfriend seeing her look like a Walking Dead extra, to feeling clean. "Shower. I need one so bad. But I am so tired. I couldn't stand up long enough for one," she whines. "I tried." Of course she did, she's female. They have some sort of mental block when it comes to resting when ill. Even the mention of broth makes her go a little green though. "Maybe later. I can't keep anything down right now."

August arches an eyebrow at her. "Pretty sure we've already seen each other scraped up and covered with grime. And..." He stops short, thinking of how he's looked over the last two days (feet cut up, shoulder gash, covered in the Blight's black, tar-like blood). "If I didn't want to see you like this, I wouldn't be worth your time."

He strokes her hair again. "Plain water it is," he says. "I'll help you stand for a shower, if you'd rather do that than take a bath." He eyes her. "Bath might be better, though; the hot water was helping me with the aches."

"Ok, a bath then. I just need to wash my hair. So. Bad," Eleanor whimpers a little tearily at that. It's so tangled, it's going to be hell to comb out. She seems mollified a bit by his assurances. "I look like a troll or something. A snot troll. A puking snot troll that got dipped in the swamp of loathing." That's the fever talking.

"But a cute one," August says on a wry grin. "One sec." He heads into the bathroom to start the tub filling, comes back after a quick trip to the kitchen for a glass of water. "You have some more cold packs in the freezer? I can bring some over if you need more, we get them in packaging a lot."

"I have a bunch of them," Eleanor says quietly. She's managed to sit up, her tank top stuck to her skin. "Sometimes, when I'd have a panic attack, the cold would help calm me down some. Weird I know." She takes the glass of water from him and sips, just a little. She waits then, as if testing whether or not it's going to come right back up. When it doesn't, she takes a larger sip.

August nods, brushes a little more hair out of her face. "In that case, I'll get you set up with a new one soon as your bath's done." He holds out an arm. "I can carry you, if you want, but if you'd rather try your legs..." He raises an eyebrow.

She's stubborn, and those legs of hers are long and coltish. Which means being this uncoordinated is bad. But she tries anyway. Eleanor grips his arm with both hands and levers herself up. It's a wibbly wobbly shuffle from her bed to the bathroom. "I wonder if this is how mono feels? I'm so tired. My legs feel like my hips aren't connected right to the rest of my body."

"Never had that one," August says, "thankfully. Heard it's a real bitch though." He holds himself like he's prepared to carry her should she make a single indication the walking is too much, and somehow, they get her into the bathroom without incident. The air in the room is gently warm and humid already from the bathwater, which is at about the right height. August leans over to check the temp, turns it off. "Okay. Need anything aside from me leaving you to your bath so you can transform from a troll into an Eleanor again?" A corner of his mouth twitches in a small smile.

Eleanor ponders and she gestures to her shampoo and conditioner in the shower. "Those, and a comb. If I'm going to get this rat's nest out of my hair, I'll need to comb it through with the conditioner in it," she mutters. She gets out of her sodden clothing and gets into the tub with a shiver at the water hitting her superheated flesh. She's surprised not to see steam rise up. "Thank you, August," she adds softly.

August fetches the shampoo and conditioner, pulls out a comb from the drawer. He sets those and a washcloth in easy reach, crouches down by the tub and strokes Eleanor's cheek. "You're welcome. But you don't need to thank me for something like this." He leans in and kisses her temple. "I'll cook myself a little something while you're in here, so you can't smell it. Oh, and..." He heads back into the bedroom, returns with her water and adds that to the collection of things. "Want me to get you some Theraflu ready for when you get out, or you think that might not work?"

"The Z-Pack from the doctor didn't work, so Theraflu is probably a bust, but I'll try anything at this point," Eleanor admits. She gives him a weak smile, then sinks herself into her bath to wet her hair. This is not going to be fun.

"Well, maybe it'll help your throat. I'll get it going." August ducks out into the kitchen to get on that.

The water does wonders to ease the feeling of gross, though her hair is still a disaster, and it's going to take her time to work through those knots. As she works at them, she senses something change. A shift in how her bathroom feels--like its construction has changed subtly but she doesn't know how.

And then, there's...a knock, on the bathroom door. Which is, oddly, closed. "Ranna, are you done in there?" an unfamiliar, woman's voice calls. "I know it's you in there."

"August? Did you let someone else in?" Eleanor asks, confused. She felt the shift but just attributed it to her state of sickness. But the voice? Who the hell is Ranna? She has a comb stuck halfway through her hair as she adds, "I think you have the wrong house, ma'am! There is no one named Ranna here!"

"Oh, Ranna, nice try." The bathroom door opens, and a woman--short, heavy set, with a heart-shaped face, olive-toned skin, black, curly hair, and a dusting of freckles, lets herself in. She's wearing a sleek, dark gray outfit, like a comfortably snug leotard in dark gray leather, with a thick, dark gray, hooded cloak at her back.

"Really, you soak so much, it's a wonder--OH!" The woman starts and pulls up short. "I'm so sorry, ma'am, I didn't--I thought--" She blushes hard, stumbles back. "I'll--I'll just--be--going--" She scrambles back out the door and shuts it, still mumbling apologies. In the brief moment the door is opened and closed, Eleanor can see her room...is no longer her room. It looks, for all the world, to be a hallway in some sort of bathhouse, set with gleaming mosaic tiles.

On the plus side, there's a small shift in how she feels. She's not quite so weak and wobbly. She might even be able to stand and walk without assistance. But where her body has rallied somewhat, her Glimmer has taken the hit; it feels weak and uncertain, a flickering match ready to go out at a moment's notice.

Eleanor blinks at the woman, moving to cover her bits with her arms in the moment. "Uh....." at the apologies and departure, that's all she can manage. When the woman is gone she pulls herself up and out of the tub, getting the comb the rest of the way through her hair, before tying the flaming locks back in an impromptu bun. She leans heavily on the sink, trying not to panic. She saw that glimpse through the door. She's not home anymore. Or she fell asleep in the tub and this is another crazy nightmare. She wraps a towel around herself and moves to the door, opening it slowly and peeking through the gap.

It is, indeed, a bathhouse. An ornate one, with a flowing water-way motif in the pearly tiles that make up the walls. The floor is sturdier material, something black and grippy-looking. She's in a hallway of doors, some standing open; they're all private bathrooms, though many are far larger than her own, with enormous soaking tubs. Most have a cloak hung on a hook outside the door, the colors, styles, and lengths varying widely.

Women of all kinds come and go. Down the hall in one direction appears to be a large, open bath. Everyone in it is entirely naked, though most of those walking to and from have wrapped themselves in large bath sheet towels like Eleanor has done. Some lounge around, chatting, others sip drinks from cracked-glass cups. It's noisy and watery-sounding. There's no smell of chlorine, though, only the fresh, heavy smell of mineral water.

"Lose something, dear?"

A tall, willowy woman with ebony skin and curly blonde hair has paused in the hallway. She smiles at Eleanor, gestures at her door. "Your cloak's not out."

"I uh, seem to have lost my clothes, and my cloak," Eleanor tells the woman, her eyes wide. She doesn't add on, and my sanity, my house, my boyfriend... "Can I borrow some?" This is so awkward, she's scarlet from seeing naked strangers around, and even towel clad ones.

The woman's head jerk's back. "Lost your cloak," she whispers. She looks up and down the hall, snaps her fingers. A young girl of maybe twelve or so, auburn haired and pale, runs up. She's dressed not unlike the woman who'd barged into the bathroom had been, in a sort of leathery-looking leotard. "Yes ma'am?" she asks, bouncing on her toes.

"Lila, please ask the front desk if someone's cloak was returned," the tall woman says. Lila's gray-green eyes go wide, and she looks askance at Eleanor, back to the tall woman.

"Y-yes ma'am!" Lila runs off at top speed, looking terrified.

The tall woman sighs. "I can get you a new suit, that's easy enough. Your cloak, though..." The woman is, in fact, wearing one herself; golden brown, edged in black. Her leather outfit is dove green. She rubs at her temples. "By the Goddesses, it better not be those little twits from the surface again." She sighs. "Well. I'll be right back with something for you to wear." She offers her hand; a ring of black pearl and opal set in silvery metal gleams on one finger. "Call me Sedna."

"Sedna," Eleanor repeats, taking the offered hand while looking dazed and confused, especially at the mention of people from the surface. "I may have bumped my head. Someone called me Ranna earlier, who is that. I'm Ellie." Pause. "I think?" This is really the weirdest dream ever. She looks at the woman's leotard and blushes more. Being in one of those will show off uh, everything basically.

"Ellie," Sedna repeats, accepting the name without a blink. She tils her head. "Ranna?" After some consideration, she says, "If it's Ranna Oriencor, I think she's on the lower council. But that's a popular name, of course." She shrugs. "Be right back." Sednagoes down a handful of doors, pulls out a large, black pack that appears to be made of some sort of slick, furred leather. From this she takes out one of the leathery suits, and a small pair of what are probably shoes, and returns to Eleanor with them. "Here you go."

The suit is the same dove gray-green as Sedna is currently wearing, and the shoes are, in effect, a type of hard-soled slipper. The leather is immensely comfortable, almost a second skin without the restrictive feeling conventional fabrics would produce, and the slippers support her feet despite not looking like they should be able to.

Sedna waits outside the room, ostensibly for Eleanor to change, but also to see what Lila's search has resulted in.

Eleanor puts on the offered garment and shoes and steps back out. She still feels a bit exposed in something so...leather, and she shifts from foot to foot as she looks to Sedna. "What's the name of this place?" she asks quietly.

Sedna gives Eleanor a puzzled look. "This is the Black Pearl Bathhouse." Another once over for Eleanor. "Have you not been to this one before?"

Before Eleanor can answer, Lila returns. She pelts up to Sedna, gives Eleanor a panicked look, then says, "I asked about a missing one, and they didn't have one turned in, but Yseult looked at the security sphere, and," an apologetic glance for Eleanor, "someone left with two cloaks. One was folded up, so they mistook it for a towel." She holds out a thin, square chunk of something that looks, for all the world, like it's a piece of sea glass, but images race over the surface, shimmering like a computer screen with a soft display filter. Sedna watches, sighs explosively. "Please, look at that, it's not a towel, that color!"

She pinches the bridge of her nose, offers the odd tablet-thing to Eleanor. "That's it, I presume?" She's paused the display on an urchin-looking child in an ivory cloak, with a dark red and gold bundle tucked under one arm, bound with black rope. The fabric--if indeed that's what these cloaks are made of--is the exact color of Eleanor's hair when the sunlight strikes it just so.

Eleanor blinks at the child, then the screen with another child, and more at the cloak. She feels it, it's hers, she knows it is, even though she doesn't know how she knows. "Yes, that is mine," she murmurs, squinting at the strange piece of technology or magic or....something.

Sedna makes a low sound of frustration. "If those surface mongrels are up to their nonsense again..." She shakes her head, hands the sheet back to Lila. "Thank you dear," she says, and Lila bobs her head, scampers off. "Well. Let's speak with Yseult, mmm? No doubt she's contacted the police, and they'll have a case number for you." She gestures away from the great bathing pool, towards other end of the hall, and begins walking that way without checking to see if Eleanor will follow. She seems to assume that'll happen.

Eleanor does follow because what else can she do. She has no idea where she is, somewhere in the Veil? Or just dreaming? She had been reading fantasy novels lately while she was sick. She wrings her hands, rubbing at a temple now and then due to the headache still on the periphery. "Yseult is....?" she asks, investigator instincts coming to the surface.

"An investigator," Sedna says as they walk. The hallway opens up to bathhouse entrance; it's a comfortable affair, with velvety-looking divans and chairs for lounging on, next to fireplace-like structures of gleaming rock that seem to radiate light and heat in a gentler fashion than a flame would. They almost resemble salt lamps, after a fashion. The floor is brilliant dark brown marble shot through with lilac and pink crystal and fossil inclusions, and the doors appear to be opalized sea glass set in great, wrought iron frames. Eleanor can't see much through this glass, except that outside is some sort of busy thoroughfare with people walking along it, and a broad swath of dark blue sky.

The front desk is more of the same material as the floor. A woman with tawny skin and iron gray hair bound in an elaborate, coiled braid not unlike a nautilus shell greets them. She's of a similar build to Eleanor, with black brown eyes. "Ma'am," she says, dipping her head to Sedna, "and Mistress," now to Eleanor. She pulls a face. "Our apologies, Mistress Ellie, we pride ourselves on keeping the riff raff out of the Black Pearl, but the recent unrest on the surface is sending shockwaves all over." She pulls out a slip piece of leathery paper with a string of symbols etched on it; they look similar to Viking runes. "This is your case ID. As soon as we hear something, we'll contact you."

"These surface people. If they're on the surface, where are we?" Eleanor asks, looking out glass at the people and the sky. She catches up and boggles at the title bestowed on her. "I, um, thank you?" she says, taking the leathery paper and staring at it curiously. "Who do you suspect did this?"

Yseult blinks at Eleanor's question; Sedna laughs. Yseult joins in the laughter a second later. It all has the sense of Sedna deciding that was a very amusing joke, and Yseult, not certain of that, joining in a second later after following Sedna's lead.

"Where are we indeed," Sedna says on a grin. Sighing, she adds, "Somewhere safe from their machinations, I hope." She glances at a clock on the wall (it looks like it might be made from a conical seashell cut along the end, giving it a mother of pearly spiral interior), sighs again. "I should be going. Court convenes shortly. I'll leave you in Yseult's care." Sedna pats Eleanor on the shoulder and heads back towards the hall, probably to fetch her things.

Yseult dips her head as Sedna departs, then at Eleanor in acknowledgment of the thank you. With Sedna gone, her expression becomes more shrewd. "Honestly, mistress, the local Thieves Guild is most likely. Rumor is they've been contracted by various surface factions to obtain artifacts of power. Our cloaks, of course, would be most valuable, as would," she gestures, "the horn of a Dreamrunner, for example."

"Horn of a dreamrunner?" Where has she heard that before. It sounds familiar but she just can't place it. She shivers though as she feels a sensation creep down her spine. "Something's coming," she whispers, looking around sharply for the source of her unease.

Yseult tenses, reaches her hand to her hip. "Are you with the Oracles? W--"

A loud, dull 'BOOM' sounds through the bathhouse, and the floor beneath their feet trembles and shakes. Yseult curses and launches over the long desk, throwing an arm over Eleanor. "Take cover!" she shouts to the patrons in the waiting area, who are already doing just that. There's no panicked screaming or shouting, though there are grumbles and sounds of consternation.

The reason for all this sheltering becomes clear a second later: something huge lands outside on the thoroughfare, where people had been bustling about moments before. Through the glass it's too hard to make out details, but it's large, and dark, easily the height of the building they're in, and moving around ponderously.

The Oracles? Eleanor is still fuzzy headed from the flu but she accesses that rolodex that is her brain to trundle through some Veil Lore to see if she recognizes any of these terms. Dreamrunners, Oracles, Sedna she vaguely knows from reality as an Inuit Myth, Yseult...Does she know of these things?

A song about Sedna comes to mind, a modern folk artist's rendition.

From her hands they fell, children of the ocean's swell
With ice's twinkle given sight
She offered them a name, and seals they all became
And laughing, took a coat of dappled light.

Sedna roamed the deep, the cold forgotten deep, no-one wants to be alone
Sedna roamed the deep, the cold forgotten deep, no-one wants to be alone

And another bit of folklore, the cloaks, a version of the sealskin jacket? Eleanor whispers the word under her breath. "Selkies." She moves to follow Yseult to investigate what the thing is that has arrived.

Yseult pulls away from Eleanor once it becomes clear none of the ceiling is going to come down. (Some of the mosaic tiles have cracked, but they've largely stayed in place.) Outside, the thing lumbers about. Yseult spits something that sounds like a curse.

"Wonderful. Did someone lure it here or are they just acting up again?" She mutters that under her breath, then rises and gestures to a doorway on the far end of the room. "Inner exit to the tunnels, please, everyone. Looks like we have an incursion." Some of the women are already doing this; the rest begin to join them, most bemoaning the inconvenience.

Yseult turns, starts to find Eleanor isn't among those heading for the exit. "The guards will handle it, mistress, you've no need to expend your talents on something so trivial."

Trivial, and yet the floor under their feet shudders, and cracks appear in opalized sea glass windows. Yseult groans. "I'm so tired of these things," she mutters, and gestures at the glass. A clear space forms, allowing them a view to the street.

It looks, for all the world, like a gigantic lobster. Some of the details of its shape are different, and the chitin has a glassy, transluscent quality absent from anything Eleanor has ever seen, but otherwise, it's very much an ocean crustacuan, about the size of a 737, and brilliantly colored. It's silent as it moves about, touching buildings with its antennae, stepping on lightposts and snuffing out the glowing rock crystals within them.

The only thing more amazing than the creature itself is the city street its smashed onto, and the sky overhead. The ground seems to be an aggregate of shell and rock, not unlike the mosaic tiles that formed the bathhouse interior. All around her the buildings are hewn from a mixture of the same aggregate and polished coral. They're neoclassical in style, overly ornate in the manner of architecture which needs not be concerned with cost.

And the sky isn't a sky at all. It's a transparent ceiling, with a deep, dark blue expanse beyond it, through which Eleanor can see the formation of a coral reef, like a distant canyon, schools of fish, the shadow of something shark-like.

She's at least a few hundred feet under water.

Ellie lets out a quiet gasp at seeing the massive lobster, the sky as sea, realizing she is under the water. Surface dwellers take on a whole new meaning now. Her green eyes flit to Yseult and she nods to the woman, following her to the tunnels. "Do things like that attack often?" she asks, curiously looking back over her shoulder for a last glimpse of the world's biggest need for butter and lemon.

Yseult gives Eleanor another of those shrewd, curious looks as they follow the others. "Yes, mistress, at least every couple of months." She seems about to ask something, but there's a resounding crash, and something smashes through the far wall. Yseult immediately moves to block the thing from Eleanor.

Another crustacean, maybe the size of an RV. It's not another lobster, though; this looks akin to a hermit crab, complete with borrowed shell. It examines the destruction its wrought for a handful of seconds, then its dark eyes fix on Eleanor.

She can feel it's regard in her stomach, sense it poking at her Glimmer, weak but still present. She knows, in that instant, that she is what it's looking for. What they are looking for--have been looking for this whole time. They kept coming, knowing she would be here, and now she is.

It starts forward with a purpose, shoving past furniture and the remains of the wall with ease, its shell ripping additional portions of the ceiling as it approaches. Nothing that big should be able to move that fast. Yseult, who was surprised enough it broke into the building, now shoves Eleanor towards the doorway. "Run!" she shouts.

Eleanor lets out a little yelp as the wall comes down and the crab appears. Then there is that sudden understanding that it is here for her, for her Glimmer. They have come for her and are destroying this beautiful place because of it. "It wants me," she yells to Yseult, "Which way can I run that will hurt the fewest of your people!?" She tries to access that spark inside her, the Glimmer in three equal portions within her, a balance. It is only a weak flicker though, the Veil Flu having smothered it.

Yseult curses as the crab thing gets aggressive in a way she's never seen, yanks a small metal bastion off her belt. It extends into a black metal staff that flickers with lightning with a twist of her wrist. The crab-thing lunges at them, and Yseult brings the staff down on the floor on front of it. A wave of electricity erupts and strikes the creature, causing it to stop and pull back.

She startles at a Eleanor's words. "Wants you?" She stares hard at Eleanor, like she can discern some difference in her just by looking. She must not find anything, because she still seems confused. "No, mistress, I can't allow a sorceress to--"

Another thud and crash. The lobster-thing out in the street has spied Eleanor and is trying to smash down the glass windows to get in.

"Do as I ask!" Eleanor demands in her best Ren Fair Fantasy movie declaration. "Show me the way that is safest for your people! I am not a sorceress right now! An illness has stolen my powers!" Man August is going to get an earful of this if she lives through it.

Yseult purses her lips. She looks really to did in her heels and argue, but the front glass windows shatter, and the lobster thing barrels through them, sweeping it's huge antenna. They catch Eleanor and Yseult both, tossing them several feet in opposite directions.

Whulf! Getting bitch slapped by a lobster's antennae was really not on the list of things Eleanor had been interested in doing today. She just wanted a damn bath so she could wash her hair. She goes ass over teakettle as she rolls end over end and smashes into a wall. Ow. She looks down at the long cut on her calf and grunts. "Yseult!" she hollers, pushing herself back to her feet and waving her arms at the crustaceans. "I'm over here jerks! Come and get me! Come on!" She tries to taunt them, to lead them away, to get their attention off the other woman. She sends out a mental thread to the creatures, expressing her anger at them.

Yseult hits the counter, stopping her flight short. It knocks the wind out of her, and before she can retrieve her staff, now sitting on the ground some feet away, the lobster snatches her up in its claws.

Yseult grunts. "No, mistress, don't--"

The mental thread had both pairs.of eyestalks fixating on Eleanor. The lobster drops Yseult and reaches for Eleanor as the crab tries to rush at her, causing them to collide. The lobster swings a heavy claw at the crab, the crab blocks with it's hard shell. It's not an impressive fight, except that their sizes are such that the flailing begins destroying the building. Chunks of mosaic and coral and obsidian begin to fall.

"Yseult! Run! I'll lead them away!" Eleanor calls to her. Then she's diving into a roll to dodge the ceiling coming down from the Crustacean UFC battle going down in front of her. She takes off, heading in the opposite direction everyone else seemed to be running, trying to save lives, because that's just who she is. "I'm an idiot," she mutters to herself.

The titans continue to duke it out until Eleanor runs out into the street. They disengage from one another ponderously, begin trying to follow her.

The thoroughfare is empty now, the windows of most builds covered with shutters that seem made of chitin. Eleanor runs, and the crab and lobster follow, pausing to exchange blows. She's drawing them out into the open. Sirens blare, growing closer. The 'guard' Yseult mentioned, maybe?

Out of the corner of her eye she sees movement, and is just able to dodge a black and yellow shape that dives for her from an alleyway. It looks like a shrimp, but is easily the size of a Saint Bernard.

"When I wake up, I am totally going to Red Lobster and eating my revenge you bastards," Ellie hisses at the creatures, dashing and diving this way and that to avoid her chitinous attackers. She runs towards the sounds of the sirens, hoping to lead them to people equipped to fight these things.

The crab and lobster aren't making much headway, since each attempt to get at Eleanor brings them at loggerheads with one another or a building. The chunks of building they're tossing all over after more dangerous than they are, ultimately.

The shrimp thing is another story. He's fast. He recovers from his near miss, rushes at Eleanor again and slams into her, sending her careening into a wall. That's probably a broken rib, or at least a lot of bruising.

Before it can bring those pincers to bear, electricity arcs all over it, and it bolts away, skittering clear of its new assailant. It's Yseult's staff, but not Yseult wielding it.

It's the girl from the security photo--the one who stole Eleanor's cloak. She's even smaller in person than in the picture, not even five feet, bony and scrawny.

Eleanor slams into a wall and she feels a rib snap. Ow. That is gonna suck to recover from. She lifts a hand to try and guard her face from the nasty little...giant shrimp, and then there is zapping going on. She squints at the girl. "Who are you? You took my cloak? I don't understand any of this!"

"I know," the girl says, holds out her hand. "I'm Ursula. Come, quick, before he comes back. They can sense your power, they're drawn like prey to an anglerfish. They don't know any better, but that's not much help to you."

Scrawny though she may be, Ursula is strong. Her hands are knobby and callused, and there are numerous small scars on her arms. "Come, quick, I know a way into the Beneath. They won't sense you there. We can talk."

Ellie lets the girl pull her along, watching back over her shoulder for any more threats. "Ursula, like the Sea Witch?" Because of course she knows all the Disney characters, she practically looks like Ariel herself.

Ursula is genuinely relieved Eleanor doesn't put up a didn't or pick right then to argue anything. She casts a puzzled glance over her shoulder. "The sea witch? But you're a sea witch, aren't you?" She doesn't seem to care what Eleanor's answer to that is, keeps leading her clear of the chaos and deeper into the city.

The sirens are close now; Eleanor can begin to see flying, sled-like constructs, shaped similar to a manta ray. People are seated on them, carrying spears that flicker with the same lightning Yseult's staff does. Their cloaks billow behind them as the sleds sweep in around the lobster and crab, who finally leave off their grudge match and failed pursuit to attack the new arrivals.

The shrimp hangs back, watching Ursula lead Eleanor away. Eleanor can see it slipping from cover to cover, trying not to be noticed by them as they go and it follows, but it's not a match for her observational skills.

Ellie blinks at the whole sea witch thing. "Not that I know of, I mean, maybe here I am? It's all pretty confusing. This entire place is confusing." She continues to look back and mark the passage of their pursuer. "That shrimp is following us," she informs Ursula.

Ursula half turns, pauses, and shakes the lightning staff at the shrimp. It scuttles back behind what looks to be a dumpster, antenna peeking out to feel around the structure which is ostensibly hiding it.

"Stupid things," Ursula growls, setting off once again. She jerks her head for Eleanor to keep up.

Ursula leads Eleanor down numerous alleys, some clean, some not. Sea weed, mildew, and algae clog more than a few of them, making their trip into the deeper parts of the city treacherous for Eleanor. She keeps her footing, and presently, they come to a grate in the ground. Ursula hefts it with a grunt, lets it slam against the building wall with a loud clang. The noise goes unremarked from the windows of the two buildings towering above them; their sills are ornate, with pearl-edged filligree spreading from them over the sides set in black, obsidian tile. "In we go. There's a ladder. Mind the last step."

Eleanor boggles at everything she is seeing. It seems so very real. Maybe it is. Is she on the other side? She's beginning to think she is. Did she fall through her bathtub? Or just Dreamed her way here? Or is it just another fever dream from the flu? She picks her way carefully, trying not to get the borrowed bodysuit dirty. "Do you still have my cloak?" she asks Ursula as she begins climbing down the ladder.

"Of course! As soon as I got a better look at it I came back to find you. Never would've agreed to steal it if I'd known it would belong to a witch. And, yes, you're a witch, though I've heard some don't know they are until they're older. Seems like you should be old enough, though, aren't you at least two hundred seasons on?" It smells like low tide down in this underneath place. Not a sewer; none of that stench plagues this close, humid space, thankfully. They descend down a narrow shaft that, on closer examination, Eleanor can see was carved out of the surrounding stone, probably by hand. The ladder likewise has a bit of a handmade look to it. It's sturdy, at least, and brings them down to a tunnel which seems to be part of a larger, constructed system, with great, sturdy archways, drainage gutters on both sides, even light-rocks set into small sconces.

As Ursula warned, it's about a four foot drop to the floor of the main tunnel, as this side entrance was absolutely not part of the building code.

Eleanor drops the last few feet to the floor and remembers to bend her knees. She straightens and watches Ursula come down as well. "Two hundred seasons? I'm only 35 years old, so uh..." she maths in her head "136 seasons if you mean other side ones. But I've been Glimmering since I was twelve or so." She looks around curiously. "Ursula, I don't think I'm from here. I'm from Earth, uh, the other side of the Veil. I don't even know what this city is called."

Ursula lands in a professional crouch, straightens. "Really? That young?" She tilts her head, eyeing Eleanor. "Hm." Whatever conclusion she comes to about Eleanor's age seems largely irrelevant, as she shrugs and snaps the staff, collapsing it back into a little baton, which she tucks into her belt.

"I expected not. That's why I was hired to steal your cloak. They thought you were part of the delegation from the Northwestern Maelstrom. But you're not--you're not from our ocean at all. I could tell the second I touched it." She taps her chin, looking like she's pondering 'Earth' and 'Veil' and what they could mean, shakes her head. "Haven't heard of any of that. This is Abyssus, one of the the ten kingdoms of the selkie. The mer-peoples have their own kingdoms, and then there's the surface dwellers." She makes a face about them, waves a hand. "But nevermind all that. Your cloak." She nods down the tunnel; in the distance, Eleanor can see it's well lit, with a T-way intersection.

"This is amazing, it's all like something out of a fantasy novel," Eleanor murmurs, walking in the direction Ursula indicates, looking over the lighting fixtures as she passes them, trying to determine types of stone and mineral with her researcher's mind. "But it's definitely not my home. We don't have people who live under the water where I am. We have animals, like the things that attacked? But they are much much smaller."

The glowing rocks certainly look like a type of quartz, but certainly nothing Eleanor has ever encountered before glows like this. Here the colors are uniformly soft oranges and yellows, like citrine. Checking will reveal the rocks aren't secured in the sconces, just set in place in shallow, metal bowls. Ursula seems unconcerned with Eleanor touching anything, is more focused on making sure that damned shrimp doesn't sneak up on them.

At the T-intersection she takes a left. It ends at a large, metal door with a circle-lock, like she might expect on a bathysphere. "Home sweet home!" Ursula announces. She draws a rune in the air in front of the door. Water coalesces into little droplets forming the shape, then splashes to the ground. Ursula gives the handle a yank, and the door swings open.

There's not much space inside; it's maybe about as large as a modest bedroom, and is, as one might expect, circular in shape. The bottom floor is a large, nest-like bed, and a loft-like upper floor plus a catwalk surrounding the bed provides additional spaces. Shelves line the structure, crammed with all manner of things: books, trinkets, doodads, clothes, and--

Ursula pulls Eleanor's cloak off a shelf and offers it to her. It's more glorious in person than it was in the photo, the same fiery golden red as her hair in sunlight. Just seeing Ursula touch is makes Eleanor jealous and frustrated. How dare she...!

Ellie turns the rock over in her hands, carrying it with her to inspect as they walk. She starts cataloging possible mineral origins of it, trying to match it with anything she knows of on her side of the Veil. She watches the unlocking of the hatch enrapt with everything that happens. She tries to even memorize the rune drawn in the air. And then they are inside. She explores everything with a child's curiosity. "This is amazing! You live here?" she asks.

Then the cloak is drawn out and her breath catches. She feels that surge of jealous and frustration, but...that's not who she is, is it? She's not a jealous person. She shoves it back down deep and reaches to take the cloak. "Thank you."

Ursula offers it over without hesitation, even a touch of humility in how she ducks her head. "Sorry, I mean--bad enough, I stole someone's cloak, but you're a sorceress. A witch. That's extra bad." She clears her throat, seems glad to have the cloak out of her hands. At first it seems like fabric, but the longer Eleanor looks at it and holds it, the more she realizes it's a kind of fur: short, thick bristles, silky soft with the grain, sharp against it. Marine-mammal fur, for certain.

Cloak relinquished, Ursula seems relieved and more at ease. She's even overjoyed that Eleanor is interested. "Yeah!" She grins, hops down into the floor-bed-nest and pulls a battered leather trunk out from under a pile of pillows. She stows the lightning staff in it (Eleanor gets a glimpse of yet another hoard of doodads and trinkets) before the lid shuts. "I know it's not much, but those of us who're born in the depths, this is what we get." She shrugs.

"So there is a caste system? Hierarchy?" Eleanor asks. She joins the girl, finding a spot to sit as she puts the cloak around her shoulders hesitantly, not sure if something will happen when she does. "And someone mentioned Dreamrunners. What are those?"

Ursula shrugs. "Less caste, more hierarchy. Anyone with the Art's top level, though." She points at Eleanor. "Like you. Sorceresses, witches, oracles, healers--all big deals." She sits on top of the trunk, regards Eleanor with a serious expression. "It's not like that where you're from? Artists, then everyone else?"

Before Eleanor answers that, Ursula answers her other question. "They're like, ah," Ursula snapes her fingers, trying to think of a word. Sighs. "Hard to describe. OH!" She hops off the trunk, throws open the lid, roots around. She pulls out an old, waterlogged book, flips it open, grins. She holds it out to Eleanor: it's an old mythology book, and Ursula has opened it to a page with a picture of the rather infamous unicorn tapestry 'The Unicorn in Captivity'.

"They only look sort of like this," Ursula admits. "Their horns are a little more curved, and they're heavier. Bigger. A lot more dangerous. Colorful. They run between the paths of the world water. They're surface dwellers, technically, but only the snobbiest snobs think of them like that. They walk on the world water, no surface dweller can do that."

"The world water?" Eleanor asks, looking at the book and recognizing the tapestry and the series of the same it belongs to. Some are lost to time and damage but there are several still out there in museums. "Unicorns exist here?" She seems so hopeful for a moment, her green eyes lighting up with it, almost magical in itself. "There are definitely hierarchies on the other side, but they involve wealth and privilege, not magic," she explains.

"Over there I'm nowhere near the top tier. I'm more in the middle. Middle class is what we call it. I own my own small business, I own my house. I own a car, er, a vehicle we have, they have wheels." Her hands move as she tries to explain, looking exasperated. "They run on technology not magic. There is almost no magic, just the kind I have, and there are others far, far stronger than I am. Where I live? It draws people with it."

"The world water connects the Dreamway," Ursula explains. "I've heard stories that it goes all the way to a place where the world water ends, and the land doesn't shift so much." She gives Eleanor a sudden, speculative look.

She laughs at the question about unicorns existing. "Of course they do! Do you not have Dreamrunners in your world?" She seems honestly surprised to hear this. A nod for the mention of technology. "We have that too. It can be expensive to run, but then magic is hard on the wielder. So we use some for one thing, some for another. We balance it."

A frown for a world with little magic, and for all that it's a precious commidity, it's in no way valued. "That's...horrible," she murmurs.

And as Ursula talks, Eleanor can feel the cloak is doing something to her. Her breathing is coming short. Her lungs are getting congested. The air in the little bathysphere home is becoming thickly humid.

"Only as myth and folklore, fairy tales they tell little ones before bed," Eleanor says sadly. "Ursula, the place where the world water ends. That is where I am from. It shifts very little, only where the Veil that separates it from the...Dreamway...is thin, or where those that Glimmer step through."

She shifts as the cloak seems to be doing something to her. "Ursula, what's happening to me?" she asks, looking down at herself.

Ursula stares at Eleanor, wide-eyed. "It ends? There's a place where the world water doesn't go?" She seems torn between amazement and true horror.

But there's no time for that. Her eyes widen further, and she jumps back from Eleanor. Red-gold light is pouring off Eleanor and the cloak, bleeding out of her hands, her hair, her eyes. "Oh. Oh wow. I--I'm, not sure--it's not supposed to do that unless--woah!" Ursula holds out her hands, looking frantic. "Wait!"

She feels the cloak grow tighter around her, merge with her. Ursula squeaks in alasm. "What in the deep--"

Water closes over Eleanor's head, cold and heavy. She slides through it, swimming with an ease she can't remember, navigating the currents with a memory that can't be hers...

A voice. A familiar one.

August's.

"Shit, Ellie." He's pulling her up from under the tub water. Miraculously, none of it got into her lungs or her eyes.

Ellie splutters, coughing up water and flailing. "A-August? I got pulled in...to the Worldwater...the Dreamscape..." she gasps out, hanging onto the sides of the bathtub hard. "It was a beautiful place, under water, I think the people were selkies, and there were giant seafood items trying to catch me because of the Glimmer, and a little girl stole my cloak and I..." she stops, reaches into the tub and pulls out the strange rock. She cups her hands over it. "Turn off the lights a moment, will you?" she requests.

August doesn't look less panicked that Eleanor's description isn't 'I passed out and almost drowned from this flu you gave me' but is instead 'I was yanked into a fever Dream and by this flu you gave me'. If anything, he starts freaking out even more. A lot more.

Then he sees her injuries.

"Oh, Jesus--" He ignores the rock, the everything, just grabs her hands and cups his around them. Her ribs mend, and the gash on her calf fades. Her fever, though, and the flu's attendant symptoms, all persist.

He has to let go of her the second she's healed and head for the sink. He hovers over it a second, pale, on the verge of throwing up. "Goddamnit," he mutters. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have left you alone, then you wouldn't have been by yourself."

Ellie feels her injuries heal and she watches him in awe. "No, don't feel bad! It was incredible! For once it was...I wasn't in a horror show. There was a whole civilization, society, etc. And I found out that there are Dreamrunners that can move between the Dreamscapes. And they're UNICORNS. I didn't see one, but Ursula told me about them! In this place I was, Abyssus, it was just one of ten selkie kingdoms, and there are surface dwellers too. And Mer-people who have their own kingdoms. And our world, this is where the water stops, the dreamwaters, and things shift less. I brought this rock back! We aren't supposed to be able to bring things back!" She is running on and on full tilt, super excited and feverish and glowing from both.

August stares at Eleanor as she rambles. He's clearly thinking, 'it might be the fever', at first, but she says 'Dreamrunners' around the same time his stomach determines it's going to stop threatening to make him dry heave. He sighs, turns on the sink, runs some cool water over his head. A few seconds of that, then he stands, takes a towel and towels his head off. He looks from her to the rock a few times, reaches over and turns off the light.

The glow is faint--nowhere near so bright as the rocks in Abyssus had produced--but it's there. Little enough it could be written off as something entirely normal, if one hadn't seen them on light posts, in fire places, in sconces lighting tunnels under a vast city.

The faint light draws August a little further out of his panic. He crouches down next to Eleanor in the tub, peers at the rock. He looks at her, hazel eyes wary in the near darkness. "A selkie kingdom," he repeats, maybe to assure Eleanor that he was listening, and not writing it all off as fever talk.

Eleanor beams at him, laughing merrily, if feverishly. "It was, and these glow so brightly there. It must be harder for it to have fuel on this side of the Veil. Maybe...Maybe it can show us thin spots?" she ponders. She puts a wet hand to the side of his face, tears leaking from her eyes. "It was the first time I was over There, and felt joy, not terror. Even getting beaten up by crabs and shrimp didn't matter. It was a good place, with good people."

August reaches out, gently wipes the tears from her face. Their faces are just suggestions in the dark, lit by the rock's faint light. He's a little shakey in the wake of his sudden panic; she can feel the tremor in him when he covers her hand with his and kisses her forehead, rests his against her temple. "I'm really glad to hear that, because..." Because his last two trips were bad, and the thought of her being in there alone is terrifying. Especially sick.

He sighs, squints at the rock. "Maybe," he says, brushing some of her wet hair back from her face. "Come on. Let's get you finished up and back in bed, yeah? I changed the sheets and got the laundry going. You can tell me all about it."

Ellie looks less tortured in the wake of it all. Maybe it's because she's clean and her hair has been detangled and wound into a bun. She nods at him and keeps hold of her little light stone, letting him help her out of the bath, into clean pjs, and into clean sheets. Then she regales him with the entire tale until the fever knocks her out once more.

It takes a while for August to settle down from his almost panic attack. And even once Eleanor is sleeping, it's almost two hours before he can bring himself to risk the most meager trip into the kitchen to eat something.

He finally falls asleep, hand carefully tucked in with hers, determined to not see her get dragged off without him again.