Always Ascending

[Nihtgenga]

"...Wow..." Retiaria gasped as the city came into view. It was... incredible. Beautiful, but still something about it made her feel uneasy.

"They haven't attacked us yet.  I think that's a good sign?"

"Not being attacked is always nice, yeah."

Retiaria put a protective arm around Oric, feeling her press up against her.

"I don't think they're hostile... we should probably try and get one of them to speak with us. I get the feeling we should go to the big building, but finding out more about this place first seems like a good idea."

Nodding her agreement, Retiaria said "Sounds wise. This place is pretty as fuck, but something about it's giving me the creeps all the same. better to get the lay of it first. Uh... cover us just in case they turn violent, yeah?"

She swam towards the nearest inhabited platform, waving at a mermaid as she approached. "Hey! 'Scuse me? Can we talk? We're new here!"

[Charisma 18+1= 19 to seem friendly and approachable and not at all a threat.]

[Alice]

Two mermaids with long silvery tails pause seeing your approach. They clasp their hands together and bow their heads in greeting. "Welcome." They smile, "You are expected. The queen told us newcomers would be arriving from the surface." One swims into a building and returns with a net basket containing several wriggling shrimp and some manner of faintly glowing pulseing sphere.

"Please accept these gifts. I'm Laruen, and this is Emile. If you see the queen please let her know that we are honoring our guests as we should."

[Nihtgenga]

Retiaria nodded and took the basket and sphere with a smile.. "Thank you. I'm Retiaria and this is Oric. Will do. So, um, what exactly is this ball thing anyway?"

"Now I could get used to this!" she said to Oric. "Being an honoured guest sounds great..."

[Ordos]

Well, this was surprising. 

Naethra kept her distance from the the woven basket with writhing shrimp.  Was this what they ate down here?  Would it be rude to decline eating still alive water-bugs?  She wasn't certain what the magic would have done to her diet, but the idea felt odd.

She cast Red a wary look.  The red shark-girl was, as always, too enthusiastic.  She turned to Lauren and Emile.

"Your... queen.  Is she from the surface?  We found a note on a beach, next to a number of potions..." as she said this, she began to wonder if she was divulging too much.  What if they had plans for surface dwellers?  Well, ominous plans at any rate.  They were clearly preoccupied with their queen... was that out of respect, fear, or slavish indoctrination? 

"Where are we, anyway?" she asked, hoping to steer the conversation towards more neutral waters. 

[Dichotomy]

I won't lie... I'm a curious soul. Were I not, I'd've never become a wizard. And this is a fascinating place beyond my experience, so I look around with interest, flitting about on my fins to get a closer look at things.

Then we run into these people and they seem... Nervous about their queen. I think I have sufficient reason to be suspicious at this point. "Do you know for certain we're the visitors who were expected? I would hate to take gifts not intended for me... What is the name of your city?"

[Alice]

They smile, "oh those are quite tasty. We grow them in the hot currents." She cuts one of the pulsing sphere with a finger talon and eats a slice before offering it back.

"Our queen came to us from outside, Our last queen was lost to us without bringing an heir so our new queen has been a godsend." They smile again looking at your worried expressions, "Is something wrong?"

Looking at the basket Lauren smiles, "Oh don't worry, the queen wants us to welcome all newcomers, but did make a proclamation that there would likely be five people in a very odd mixed company appearing here sooner or later."

Emile elbows her, "Oh right.. Welcome to Harasova! Do you need to rest or would you like us to take you to the palace gates?"

[Nihtgenga]

"Ooh, nice!"
Retiaria clawed off a couple of slices, popping one in her own mouth and offering the others to her friends.

"Hmm... so the queen knew it'd be us coming, not just some random folk. We lost a princess a while back, you don't reckon she... she got here before us, do you?"

"I'm good to go straight to the palace. What do you reckon, ladies?"

[darlingng01]

Oric:

I get a flutter of hope at Reds comment, but quickly squash it back down into healthy suspicion "I think we should go to the place. We wouldn't want to keep someone so important waiting."

[Ordos]

Naethra cast a dubious look at the glowing food.  She wasn't hungry enough to try something still squirming, however. 

She nodded agreement with Red and, to her credit, only winced a little when the missing princess was brought up.  "That... sounds good.  If we're expected, we shouldn't keep a monarch waiting.  And if it isn't us she's waiting for, well, then postponing things would only make it worse." 

As they began swimming, Naethra drifted over towards Lou.  She still couldn't believe how colorful and pretty the wizard had turned out.  It rather made her more conscious of her own paleness. 

"I've tried advocating caution with this group from the beginning.  Believe me, it doesn't work," she told Lou, her voice cast low enough that the others shouldn't be able to hear her, "the best you can do is just sort of... manage their eagerness, I guess.  You have to choose your battles with this lot, Lucious.  This audience is happening, one way or the other, so the best we can do is prepare.  Keep your wits about you, and try to think of what we'll do if things go tits-up." 

[Ryuforce]

The whale of a fix looks curiously at the offered spheres and smiles, giving a bow and after seeing one of the greeting fish girls try one, she curiously takes a bite herself. They seem pretty and the offering was quite nice. Surely it taste at least half as good as they say. Regardless the once dragonborn paladin mostly follows everyone else's lead as she takes in the sigh of the underwater city. "I'm tad curious what kind of place you got here.. but yeah, we shouldn't keep a Queen waiting right?"

She's not too familiar with royalty herself as there was no king and queens within the temple she grew up in. Perhaps they are like the Head Priest and are simply in charge of things. Do they too follow a deity like Aircame? Or would it be the Fish God instead? The curiosity peaks but she doesn't pry just yet, she'll ask the Queen.

[Alice]

The dark fortress looms ever larger as you swim to it. The Columns of the fortress light up with an internal luminescence casting the bare courtyard into dark blue relief. Their is a statue of abstract shapes that gives the impression of fish swimming in a circle.

The door opens and swimming in you cross past bulky mermaid guardians, but they do not give off a sense of menace, only that they are prepared to act in whatever way is necessary.

Finally you all come to a grand audience chamber.. Swimming down the chamber you see in her own pool of light a mermaid in the style of a great white shark. She smiles showing all of the points of her tooth jaw and looking over you all. "Welcome my friends.. I've waited for you all.. Welcome to my kingdom."

The voice cannot be mistaken.. This is princess Aerin!.. Queen Aerin now..

[Nihtgenga]

"Aerin!" Retiaria yelled, a huge grin on her face as she swam at full speed towards the shark queen, slamming into her with a massive hug.
"I'm so glad we caught up with you! We were worried. Nice place you got here though!"

[Alice]

As red slams into shark queen she laughs. She pats Retria on the head, she seems to have grown as a shark.. Not quite a big as Duran the whale, but with a clearly powerfully musscled body, unlike the paladins more blubbery one.

[Ordos]

"Aerin!" Naethra cried.

She was torn between a desire to rush towards her one-time colleague, and an equally strong desire to stay away from what appeared to be a giant, lean, and predatory mermaid.  Ultimately, she moved closer, her enthusiasm carrying her to juuust outside of striking range.

"We were so worried!  We looked everywhere for you!  We even attacked a gnoll-queen's fortress, just on the hunch that you might be one of her prisoners!  What happened?  One moment you were right with us, and then... how did you end up here?  What..."

She paused for a moment before continuing.  "What did the Mistress of this Realm do to you?  To bring you here?"

[Ryuforce]

The whale could not believe what she saw after passing the guards. Right before her was some strange shark girl who's voice had that as the princess who mysterious vanished from their group. "Aerin?" She smiled and floated closer. "It's good to see you. How did you manage to get pass the gnolls? Heck, the forest? The goblins...ogres, up that hidden path.. in the water.... pass the jellyfish... yeah just.. how did you get by all that?" She asked, quite curious even as Naethra hints that it could been the Lady's actions. "And... how did you become a ruler of this place? Did they need someone to lead that badly? Or where you just naturally fit for the role?" Again she asked more questions, swimming bit around Red and Aerin as she grins happily.

"Bah, regardless. One thing's for sure. I'm glad to see ya still breathing!"