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Mlly
(I really like the spellcraft you came up with for that bounty, it's very cool.)
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ColorfulCredit
The range of bounties offered by Star Station was startlingly vast at times. One day it’d be spaceships and mech suits and the next it’d be guardian foos and whales. What could anyone possibly want with an entire whale anyways? Well, apparently it was ‘relocation for protection of the endangered skycrest bicorn population’, but Tide hadn’t bothered to read beyond that. He knew what planet he was going to, he’d managed to convince the captain to let him transport an entire whale on board the ship, and Phidi was putting the finishing touches on the transport aquarium. That was enough preparation for him. Time to sit back and relax while the ship made its way through space.
“What sort of planet is too flat to land on?”
“Huh?” Tide groggily pushed himself up from the table where he’d fallen asleep in the canteen. He pulled his hat up from where it had slid over his eyes and tried to focus his blurry vision on whoever was speaking to him. “What are you on about, Duster?”
“This planet, Tide!” Duster, the sphinx second in command of the ship, scolded. “It’s entirely ocean, there’s nowhere for us to touch down. You should know by now the thrusters don’t work underwater.”
“There’s got to be an island or something around we could land on,” Tide suggested.
“Nope. Just endless waves. Sensors picked up some unusual volcanic activity though, so maybe if you wanted to wait around a couple of years some new ones might form for us.”
Tide groaned. “I’ll pass. Give me a few minutes and I can get ready to go down there.”
“Now, please,” Duster insisted. “Captain wants to stop wasting fuel and get back up to orbit, so move it.”
“Fine.” It wasn’t like Tide didn’t carry everything he’d need for a couple days of expeditioning on his person at all times. He was pretty much prepared already. For the most part, he just wanted to be a bit more awake before jumping out of a spaceship.
And yet, within minutes, that was exactly what he was doing. Tide stood at the top of the ship’s landing ramp, feeling refreshed by the ocean air. A quick check of all his vest pockets — nothing missing. Mostly awake by now, he sprinted down the ramp, spread his wings, and began his glide down to the ocean below. The contract hadn't been able to give more than a general area — he was looking for a whale, and those tended to roam — but the reports were fresh. Hopefully, it wouldn’t take more than a few days of searching to find the creature. By now, the rolling waves below were close enough that Tide felt he could safely let himself dive straight down. He did just that, tucking his wings in and falling without fear. He was a water dragon after all, and the water would welcome him home.
“Hey Phidi, did the contract say anything useful about the whale I’m looking for?” The communicator in Tide’s hat was waterproof. As was the hat itself, of course. He’d been swimming for hours and hadn’t found a trace of endangered megafauna.
“If you’re trying to build an aquarium to transport one in for a few days? Yes, quite a lot.” The faint rustle of paper was picked up by the headset. “If you’re hunting one? Er… This bit here claims that the skycrest bicorn is timid but intensely loyal to those it deems worthy, and apparently invisible to the sight of those who are not virtuous. Which seems like a bit of a stretch, but there you have it.”
“So,” Tide said, “If there happened to be an underwater ruin complete with a big old statue of the Tidelord, that’s where I’d find one?”
“Yeah, probably.”
Tide folded his headset back into his hat and took another look at the ruins below. Despite the depth of this shelf, the incredibly clear water above it still let light filter down to this level. Crumbled and eroded stone buildings surrounded a large statue of the Tidelord, which was immaculately carved and painted as if it had only been revealed to a crowd of local dragons days ago. The city appeared small, but Tide knew that many of the living spaces would have been built into underground caverns and grottos. At least a whale wouldn’t fit into any of those caves. Or no, guardians had probably lived here, and a whale probably could fit into one of their living rooms. Nothing to do but start searching then.
With his wings cutting through the water with ease, Tide descended upon the ruins. He couldn’t help but feel the Tidelord statue watched him approach. Its eyes had been painted particularly life-like, the unblinking gaze of the deity judging his actions. Well, perhaps the Tidelord would approve of his actions on this day. He was here to protect undersea life, after all.
Tide searched the remains of a building or two before he realized the futility of what he was doing. He wasn’t going to find a whale under a rock. If the bicorn was around here right now, he would have seen it.
“Whaaale!” He called out. “Here whalewahalewhalewhale!” No whales answered his call. Not that he’d really expected any to. How did whale calls go again? Tide tried to make the deepest noise he could, but only managed to feel like he was trying to cough up his own organs. Wildclaws were built for screeching, not roaring. At least that’s what Tide told himself.
Without any better ideas, he sat down at the base of the Tidelord statue. It was worth waiting for some time, he decided. Even if the bicorn spent a lot of time in these ruins, it probably left to hunt at times. Maybe he’d be able to catch it as it returned.
Waiting, as always, was boring. Before long, Tide had exhausted how much fun he could dredge up from tossing his blaster around (much easier to do underwater) and switched to trying to toss bits of gravel into a cracked pot a short ways away. Annoyingly, the ocean currents kept pushing the rocks off course. He thought he’d try something different. Grabbing a flat, oblong stone, he aimed it off-target and into the current and gave it as much spin as he could muster.
It didn’t curve near as far as he’d hoped. What it did do was stop after only a few seconds of travel and slowly sink to the ground. Tide paused for a moment, processing what had happened.
Suddenly, he sprung to his feet. “You are invisible!” he shouted, pointing at the space that logically must contain a curious invisible whale that was watching him. Not breaking what he hoped was invisible eye contact, he grabbed his lasso and advanced on the whale. He’d wrangled beasts this size before. The bicorn being invisible might make things a bit more difficult, but that wouldn’t stop Tide. This whale even had two horns! That was twice as many invisible targets to lasso. Most dragons probably couldn’t use a lasso underwater, but Tide wasn’t most dragons. (In that the reason he had little magical skill was probably because it was all being subconsciously funneled into making his cowboy antics work underwater.) Unfortunately, he barely got to swing his lasso before he was sent tumbling by a sudden powerful current.
“Whale! Get back here!” That could have only been the force of the bicorn swimming away that had hit him. Tide grinned. Finally, he’d get to chase something. Twirling his lasso overhead, he swam after the whale. It might have been invisible, but it did leave a whale-sized rush of water in its wake. Tracking this creature would almost be too easy.
Within minutes he’d lost the whale. Well, not completely. Tide knew it was around somewhere. Watching him. Like a curious hatchling watching a particularly unusual bug. And yet, no matter where he looked, there was no trace of the invisible whale to be found. Truly a mystifying situation.
Knowing that more than just the Tidelord statue’s eyes were watching him, Tide approached the largest ruined building with an intact roof he could find. He tried to act casual while doing so. Maybe, if he looked non-threatening enough, the whale’s curiosity would outstrip its timidness. Then the gentle creature could learn how threatening he actually was. Tide was starting to feel bad for the bicorn, but he set those thoughts aside. He needed to figure out some way of preventing it from escaping again. If he could convince it to follow him into here, maybe it’d have trouble escaping. Or maybe it’d panic, crash into an eroding pillar, and bring the whole building down on Tide’s head.
With that weighing over him, Tide got to searching this ruin for anything of use. He’d chosen it not just because of its size, but because he’d noticed air bubbles escaping from cracks in the structure’s roof. That made him think it might have been a temple at one point. Bubbles were often related to prophecy and the Tidelord. Supposedly the bicorn liked virtue. And the temple types liked to go on about virtue, right? So if there was anything that might attract his quarry around, it would be in here. He entered, looking for anything Tidelord related.
He was momentarily surprised by how dark it was inside. But of course it was dark. Why would the lights still work after all this time? He drew his blaster. Not because he expected to need to shoot something — the weapon also had a light function. That revealed exactly what he had expected. A room barren except for a layer of silt and sand covering the tile floor. Searching various rooms, he picked through ancient bits of carved shell looking for anything of use. Nothing but dust and algae. His frustration was rising, his blood starting to boil with anger. Or no, it genuinely was warmer here. That was odd. One nice thing about being underwater was that the temperature was nearly always constant. Cautiously, Tide swam to where the water felt hotter.
There was a lot of rubble here. One of the walls had caved in, yet miraculously the ceiling still held. Tide floated over the debris of what might have once been a beautiful mural into a huge open room. A forum of some sort? Bubbles rose from what Tide assumed must be a hole in the centre of the room. Where the prophets did their work, perhaps? The heat was odd, though. Carefully, he approached the hole. It quickly became clear that the hole wasn’t an intentional part of the building’s design. The floor had collapsed, revealing underground rooms whose floors had collapsed as well. The heat was only slightly painful, so Tide leaned over the hole and took a look straight down.
The ground hadn’t suffered a mere cave-in. The hole in the second floor went down farther than Tide could see. He doubted he could have seen the bottom even if there weren’t endless bubbles in the way. No wonder this city had been abandoned. It was a miracle it hadn’t been obliterated by a volcanic eruption yet. Although, it did mean that the fleeing residents would’ve had more than enough time to take all their things with them. This search was a dead end. Or…
If there was one place that nobody might have attempted to salvage before leaving, it was the rooms overwhelmed by heat and bubbles full of toxic volcanic gas. Just the sort of place Tide liked to spend his vacations. It’d be like a hot tub, he told himself. He almost believed that as he covered his face and dove through the rising flow of bubbles.
At least being underwater meant that this hot tub couldn’t set him on fire. Didn’t really help with the minor scalding, but swimming quickly, Tide made it through the column of hot water before it could do any real damage. There wasn’t much ground left down here, but there were a few things that hadn’t fallen down the volcanic abyss. Like a toppled cabinet full of old robes, and a basket with a few sashes. Was this the remains of a laundry room? Tide looked across the endless bubblestream. The other rooms looked even more damaged — almost certainly devoid of anything useful. He was swimming towards the bubbles, ready to go back upwards, when something caught his eye. His blaster’s light reflected off of something deeper down the pit. Through all the bubbles, he couldn’t identify what it was, but odds were it was more exciting than old clothes. Tide gnashed his teeth. This was going to hurt.
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“Hear me, all whales!” Tide stood in front of the Tidelord statue, shouting at nothing in particular. “This particularly virtuous representative of the Tidelord has come to take you to a sanctuary for your kind, and away from the old city that our prophecies say will surely be destroyed by a volcano in a few years!”
Dressed in ill-fitting robes, Tide brandished a spear he’d found stashed in the back of the cabinet. A crown gleamed atop his head, some sort of minor enchantment having prevented it from becoming tarnished in the endless stream of hot water. His fingers still burnt from picking it up, but he ignored them for now. He needed to be fully focused to watch for any hints of an invisible whale.
Yet there were no invisible whales to be seen. What there was was a long, deep,
OoooOOoooOOo, and a very visible bicorn when Tide turned around to see what in the ocean that noise was.
Tide and the bicorn just watched each other for a while. The whale was huge, and clearly quite old. A few bejewelled rings shone upon its horns, the only remnant of whatever relationship it had had to whatever dragons once lived here. The whale watched Tide, unblinking. Usually, this was where Tide would lasso a horn, hop on the bicorn’s back, and ride it around until it got tired. That… didn’t seem like the thing to do here. What he needed to do was contact the ship. He reached next to his head and fumbled for a few moments until he realized that the crown didn’t come with an inbuilt headset. Shaking his head, he grabbed his hat, held it next to his mouth, and awkwardly spoke into it.
“Okay Phidi, I’ve got the target. Have the captain bring the ship down, and lower the aquarium to my location. Don’t need anything else, the bicorn should be willing to follow me into its temporary home.”
The bicorn continued to watch Tide as he reported in, patiently. Tide eventually realized what it wanted. He swam forward and gave it a few scratches on its head, near the base of the horns.
Still wearing the robes and crown for now, Tide entered Star Station. Behind him, a massive and seemingly empty aquarium followed behind on a hovercart piloted by Phidi. While presumably few others could see it, Tide knew the whale was watching him. And it felt betrayed. Tide hoped it would be happy once it had been transported to the bicorn reserve, but for now he withered a little under its constant gaze.
“One bicorn, safely recovered,” Tide announced at the bounty board, handing Ria the datapad they’d been using to monitor the creature’s health. “It may or may not be invisible to you, but trust us, it’s there.”
Tide slumped over and rested an arm on the counter before continuing. “Make sure they take good care of that bicorn, okay? I know we all do a bit of grifting now and again, but uh, maybe deceiving a whale is taking it too far.”
“And a set of unyeilding chitin armour for our reward!” Phidi added, before Tide could leave to put normal clothes back on without remembering to ask for the payment.
