Loyal Riptide

Part 2 Chapter 10

       Asa made her way over to the old mermaid kingdom that was beneath the giant water falls that circled their kingdom, but there was no kingdom or water falls. There was only a tall stone cliff that only had the water seeping under the seer rocky surface where the waterfalls used to be. She guesses this was both Taura's way of preventing the mer-people from returning and a beautiful trap set for the Aenon princess. It was so obvious it was a trap since the plant life and vines were strung together to create a ladder to the top of the cliff.

She began to ascend the vine ladders despite knowing this was a trap and that her friends warned her about going, but she is counting on them to blow this thing to its core with or without her on top of it. She made it to the top to see nothing more than a grassy field with dandelions starting to sprout and Taura fitted in sleek fighting attire, but the seethes used to hold various weapons were empty.

"I am glad to see you received my letter, it was hard to try and find a clean surface to write it on." Taura said as a greeting before dodging a rock being thrown at her face. "That wasn't very polite." Asa went to throw another, rage burning her throat but a shard of grass cut through her wrist making her drop the small rock she held in her hands. "I was also afraid where I left the letter for you it would get dirty as it was expensive parchment paper." Taura explained, sending another shard through Asa's other wrist. 

"She was your fault," Asa screamed, summoning Loyal Riptide to her shaking hands, "it was your fault she turned into a blood thirsty tyrant! You are the reason why she's dead!" She lunged at Taura only to miss her and get her trident stuck in the dirt, but she did manage to pull it out quick enough to snag Taura in the knuckle before being struck to the ground by a vine hanging off the cliff. 

The vine coiled around her ankles and began dragging her over the edge before Taura replied, "but I guess the dominoes leading up to that started to fall after you left."

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       Dorian swatted away the skinny branches of low hanging trees and brambles as he led the way through an uncharted forest with Hizashi tailing behind. They were going to go find Shiro and Gordy to go help them but he felt as if getting to Asa quickly was priority. He has yet to tell Hizashi that, though as right now she is thinking they are on their way to the Main Lagoon.

He pushed through some more brambles to reveal the rocky cliff of the old mer-people kingdom and Hizashi's eyes widened from the sight of it and where they were. "You lied to me." She simply said. "I had to," Dorian started, as he began to heave himself into the cold water that went up to his waist, "you are still mad at Asa and no matter how hard I would have tried to convince you to come here in the first place Asa would be dead, so I only lied to protect Asa from her fate."

He offered his hand to help Hizashi down only to have it be swiftly swatted away as she heaved herself into the water. From what she has heard from hushed conversations in the palace corridors she heard that this cliff was created by Taura with her inside it, so she figured if they swam under the water there should be some sort of tunnel leading inside of the cliff where Dorian can then use the Heart of the Fire to blow it from the inside considering how unstable his new powers would be.

Except that Dorian was not an Aenon so trying to get under the water for a longer period of time and getting out before the whole thing explodes would pose as a problem. "Take a big deep breath in because that might be the last one in a while." She ordered before taking his hand and diving deep into the water. Despite there being a disruption in the water currents the water didn't seem to flood the area so that was another reason why Hizashi believes those rumors of the cliff's creation to be true.

Once they made it closer to the cliff the current began to suck them under and Dorian lost concentration of his breath and he started to take in some water. She quickly studied the area under the cliff before finding the entrance to the inside of the cliff and hauling them both inside before Dorian had the chance to drown.