Sylphe
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Do be aware that this is in no way comprehensive. It’s the little I know, the little I was able to find out through observing this place. It’s rough, it’s a mess at the moment, but if it helps someone, that’s all I could ask for. I’ll go into more detail on my findings in the following pages, but you can use this one as a very general guide on conducting dives into the Sunken City.
Make sure every expedition really is one. It is ill-advised to venture alone, or with explorers you don’t know well enough, especially if going deeper. The reasons are numerous— wild fauna, flora and buildings come to mind, but the City’s geometry changes in different eyes and points of view. A partner might just be the thing that saves you from being trapped.
Set a starting and ending time and set out in the morning. The shadows get more ravenous and restless in the evening hours. It’s when the cult’s activity spikes. Less time spent under, the less chance you’re found.
Lucien Vendel, comprehensive guide to Mu? The City? The Nefarious Sea? …none of this is working.
The sand underfoot made the quietest squelch. It was hard to hear this time, with their gaze fixed on the iron coloured sky. Any other day, they’d breathe in and out of the storm’s tension, hear the cries of gulls circling low, the brush of wind through their hair and sharp beach grass.
A shaky breath left the single quiet Seagull as they waded into the cold ocean.
They came to with a sputter, and a shaking hand clawing at a grassy bank. Had the clouds back at home not been as gray as they were they’d be convinced they had lost all colour from their vision. The sky above them was heavy and overcast, ambient light falling on inky black grass and vines. They stayed for a while, watching the silence, half sunken in a pond. Was this… a district of the City they have not seen before…? It did have gardens, once upon a time at least. Their life ancient and in some stage of rot borne by ages of waterlogging, and though they were otherwordly in their own right, they were not this.
A flicker of shining black caught the biologist’s eye, darting just out of their vision. Almost by instinct, they turned and scrambled themselves out, lazy light catching on a flicker of their own. Silver of a bug net swung through the still air with surprising accuracy.
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District ???
Area seems largely neutral. Entities aren’t hostile, though I haven’t figured out what they are, exactly. Air around here is strange, but it’s not unwelcoming? I have a feeling this place might be some kind of alive. Who knows, instincts are fried after so long.
It’s a crude drawing at best, but it details a large dragonfly with sharp wings and many-segmented eyes like shining facets of black quartz. Below that, a pond with many pen strokes to indicate that… this, please believe me, is also entirely black, and so are the flowers.
Water lillies appear to have petals made of sharp obsidian. Best not touch these.
A pitch black stain seeps into the page despite it’s supposed water-proofing, smudged.
I think the fruit off the vines is edible. In the very least, not poisonous. It’s been ten minutes and I’m fine! I’m probably not poisoned! Maybe!
There was a pervasive feeling that grew the longer they spent exploring the strange garden. One that told them they couldn’t stay. Longer they stared up at the storm-gray sky the easier the thoughts came.
What were you thinking? They muttered to themselves. Getting themselves lost in some wilderness in the reaches of the City they’d never been to, with no support. With no way to make it back. They stopped dead in their tracks when they spotted a… startlingly normal deer, curiously staring in the biologist’s direction. Their hand rested on their net, stance defensive. But… gently, slowly, they stalked forward.
“Are you… a shadow?”
It tilted its head to the side, several black eyes flickering in and out of existence upon white coat like scales. They felt stunned under its gaze, like it could see into untold depths. Eager to supply, they reached for their notes to show the creature what they meant, only for it to lean and… chomp a part of a page away with absurdly large teeth for a supposed herbivore.
<You seek.>
Book now stuck close to their chest with wide eyes, still they tried to understand, to communicate. The cold water and low-circling seagulls came to mind.
“I…Yes.”
They tried, really tried to put it into more words. They found little more than a gripping spasm in their chest, and mounting dread. They were seeking. Anything that could turn the tides away from their friends’ homes. Anything that helps.
<We know this ‘anything that helps’.>
“Please help me find it.”
They considered themselves someone adept with creatures of all kinds, and yet it took them a whole… unknown amount of hours to realize the dragonfly they attempted to catch was now a permanent rider on their shoulder. The forest gave way to pristine tiles broken with blooms like an ancient, beautiful chaotic flood. Something about finding vacant houses of marble so overgrown filled them with an emotion they could not name. It was most of the reason they near sprinted, strangely silent on alternating grass and marble, when they spotted a person. They’d never seen someone like that, even down in the depths. Large brim and peacock feather, some kind of… knight? Didn’t seem like a cultist to them. Cultist or not, the man’s blade had seamlessly bounced from their victim to them, and the seagull stumbled back, squinting at the silver of a rapier entirely too close.
“Ah, my pardons good sir, if that… was yours; it gave me quite the fright. Pray tell, could you tell me where we are by chance? Ah! But where are my manners! The name is Giles, pleasure.”
What they expected was not a polite greeting. As polite as you get after just slaying a mechanical creature and threatening someone. They opened their mouth to speak, but got betrayed with the proximity of a weapon and a voice dry from hours… days… of misuse.
“Ah— I—- Lucien. It is a pleasure, sir. I—I’m sorry, I’m afraid I don’t know much more than you do. I… kind of just woke up here? These two have been following me around since.” The two, of course— the not-deer that bared all its fangs and the more docile dragonfly.
“Hm, suppose that makes for you and me both, two strangers lost in a city that by all accounts is stranger still.” The rapier moved from their throat to that of their automaton company. For all the flight or flight their little body commanded, the threat of hurting them called the warlock into a proper, if shaky, action. Their palm rested on the deer’s snout hoping to calm the creature, and in turn, themselves.
“I wouldn’t dare say they are ‘mine,’ but if it helps anyhow, they aren’t hostile. Neither am I.”
For all their distaste for the weapon that could have ended up plunged in them, they’d never seen one up close. And this… knight, surely, was not just someone who’d come down to swing a blade around and mess around with costuming. If he was not that, or a cultist, then who was he? Did this place swallow people from the past? Now that was a thread they’d follow.
“Giles, sir, if you don’t mind? Is that a rapier? I’ve never, um… seen one before.”
It seemed to… work. The blade had finally left them, and they took a breath one bit too loud, letting the swordsman muse about their inexperience as they took a moment to absorb yet another possible near-death, quickly glancing at the deer that had rested its head on their shoulder as if to help.
“Never seen… A rapier before? What a peculiar thing to say. So you are not a fighter then, I assume?”
The knight— Giles, yes? Was twirling his mustache. Suppose among all this chaos it was the startlingly normal thing that gave them pause. They’d never considered that was an actual activity not constrained to movies. His words, though, made them think. They searched in their mind for the answer that felt right, for muscle memory of holding on to their net, bruises and tumbles. Bites of things dark and tendrilled. It was easier than thinking about fighting people, locked behind masks and robes they were. Voice growing quiet, they pivoted, both in person and words.
“No, not a fighter… It’s certainly not something I’ve been taught. I’m… a researcher. I think that’s a way to say it. This place is quite fascinating when you, um... aren’t thinking too hard about being lost and all alone in there?”
Something resonated within the older man as he sheathed his weapon, they couldn’t help but take notice. Their comment of loneliness was just a ramble of theirs. It… should have been, anyway.
“Hmm. I suppose I might have been much too occupied trying to figure out where this is and how I got here to really worry about the fascination of this place. And it is best to not try to think too hard about one's loneliness at the best of times. It will do one even fewer favors to fall into that mire when in dire straits.” It was strange to see him fall so quiet, voice lower in colour than the tiles around where there’d been peacock feathers a moment back, a kindred in that shared feeling. Their thoughts, too, had wandered. To those left up above, waiting. Their voice fell, yet held a sort of spark. He was right, and there was no falling into that mire. Trying, at the very least. Finally, they found their words.
“…I do fight. But that’s by necessity.” They whispered, hoping to break Giles out of his thoughts in time as the creature he slew began… reassembling? They took a defensive position best they were able, watching as their companion turned over to possibly feel the consequences of his action. Their net wasn’t much against marble, but it’d just have to do. Their heart heaved at the ease the swordsman chose instead to protect them. They could not fault him, awful as it felt.
“Wait, Giles. It... it might not strike back?” They could still be useful, through observation, through an outstretched hand. They heard the knight’s voice, refusing to look down from featureless marble. “Safe guess to say you are correct; so far they have not done much of anything…” The mechanical being lifted its heavy arm, pointing at them, at itself, at somewhere beyond.
“I think it wants us to follow it?” The warrior continued with quite the puzzled look. But they… knew, somehow. Sensed it in the slight buzz of the dragonfly clinging to their shoulder, in the nudge of the deer’s too dry, too cold mechanical snout. Quick nod, and the warlock wove between the marble paths and black leaves, always nearby to the strange company and Giles. The trek was not too long, of course. None could have been. But they spoke, perhaps entirely too much to fill the still quiet. Of their notes, of the similar things they’ve seen. Of the flowers that resembled so much of what they knew, yet never enough. Of the lack of birdsong in such a place, of the overcast sky and the spires. There was experience in the knight’s words and movements they so envied and wished to explore, perhaps he’d understand how to better wield the net they used. Sadly it was advice that would not be given.
“Well. End of the line, it seems, or perhaps the start of a new one.” Whatever they had spoken about— the life possible in branches that choked a grand spire and the makings of a proper sword, last thing they remembered— was drowned out as Giles spoke. “I know not what is on the other side, but I have this feeling in my gut that it is something grand. So, regardless of what transpires beyond, let us meet on the other side. What do you say, old chap?”
“It’s already been grand,” they corrected. A warmth was unfolding somewhere in their ribcage like a lost bird at the thing he called them. Not a stranger, a brief nothing; an old chap. If that is what he had named them, they would take it, shaking his hand with all the strength they held, which was… very little, all things considered. Their gaze seemed to altogether grow still as they met Giles’ own, even as light as their voice was. “I’ll hold you to that. Just—okay, other side only as in behind that door, alright? Not that other side. Neither of us.” A tap of insistence before they let go of him lead to boasts, or perhaps, reassurance. Their attentions wandered to elsewhere, to the dizzying, cold path.
“I wouldn’t worry too much about me; nothing has managed to kill me yet; this will not be my end. We will meet again, in this life.” They looked up from a marble tile just to catch Giles flash them a smile full of confidence. All they could do was nod to the hopeful; they believed the swordmaster truly was unmatched, his movements springloaded and words like towers above. They chose to trust so, their voice growing soft. Hey, nothing’s killed them either. Yet.
In this life… In all of the strangenesses they’ve encountered, meeting a man displaced from time in a district stranger than any before felt like an one of a kind occurence. Still they held on to the hope of meeting him again, if with a warning.
“Best of luck wherever this goes, Giles. Maybe— maybe don’t stab the next thing that startles you right away, though? Give it a good second look first. Could be a bear. You never know.”
A warning delivered as a joke. Mostly. It seemed to have hit the mark, the swordsman muttering in response as if the seagull’s squawk did confuse him a little.
“Well… In my defense, bears tend to stay down when stabbed. But, the advice has been noted.”
Did this man fight bears? He threw that out so casually! Perhaps then he’d really be alright whatever this place had in store for him. Maybe it was just the sea salt that kind of whittled them down, made them unsure about the fates of new friends. They crossed their arms as they fired right at that swordsman’s pride, though they weren’t in any way dishonest.
“I’d love to hear more about your adventures, alright? You have to stay in one piece for that!”
In that shadowed glance from under his brim, in that sudden depth from a stranger, the seagull couldn’t help but feel a fleeting flicker of connection. They stayed quiet with a longing shared as the man disappeared with a final line.
“Who knows, maybe this one will be the adventure with a satisfying ending.”
And then all was suffocatingly quiet, save for their breath. Maybe it was why the automatons had lead them here. He, too, seemed to be seeking something.
They only wondered what kind of help was there to find in a place so lifeless.
The threshold before them shimmered silver like a water surface. Lucien took a step back, and then another. It would not be getting any clearer, the fear any easier. They couldn’t help it, giving the majesty a good last look and a wave to the automaton trio. Alright. Now.
Deep breath.
With their heart beating up a storm, they jumped in.
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The first dive can be disorienting. It gets easier to catch your breath eventually. It gets easier to right the vertigo. You’ll get there.
It never got easier to hear the visceral snap of bone under pitch-black jaws. Noise gave way to a blistering radiance that left their eyes with burning afterimages even as they brought up inky feathers to protect themselves. There was nothing they could do to pause the freefall, not even with the wings fully outstretched. They were shadows, dreamed up forms of an inner flame. They could never catch a gale like this one.
They’d have hoped, expected, to find some peace in the end of it. To go gracefully when there was nothing they could do. Instead, it was a whole lot of screaming and aimless flailing, paused in soundless wonder as the darkness split and became colour.
Where the pawn expected death they instead found their footing. They landed in water, enveloped without sinking. The ground below their feet was solid concrete, the everpresent coldness nowhere near the tune of their oceanic currents. Lucien opened their eyes to the blare of countless neon signs, to a relentless rain, to the familiar flash of lightning and the howl that followed. As much as the sights enticed the seagull, as much as they waited for another thunder to rattle their bones and another flash of purple to cleave through the sky, the relieved exhale that left them was shaky, and bittersweet in tune. Not yet gone, but…
The storm followed me here.
But then, where was here? The rain, the neon crisscrossing the darkness, the skyscrapers towering in the distance… They let their hand move from their temple and find their notebook. Lucien couldn’t help sketching the skyline they didn’t recognize, even after nights spent living in a city almost like this one. The streets below were all foggy, gone in the gloom… did the folk living down there know there were people up on this rooftop?
Fighting?
Possibly to the death?
Symbols flashed behind their eyes, two circles. Stark white, a snowflake almost. Theirs and of two others, they realized as their gaze whipped back to the illuminated rooftop. Was… Hello? Is that a robot? Here? Wow! Okay. The vortex of black, then belonged to two other folks, one of which made Lucien quiver with a growing chill. For all the times their anxiety constricted their chest and made it hard to breathe, at times, it knew.
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Quick doodles of the symbols glisten under the light, magnified by the raindrops, etched near a foreign skyline.
What do they mean? Sides? Some shared trait? It’s not strength, that’s for sure?
Never in their life could Lucien match up with a robot, best they could do was sketch their likeness under the symbols. They couldn’t help a growing curiosity even as the anticipation urged them to hurry with their notes. They could ask it so many things. Who are you? How do you work?
Their gaze snapped up as they searched for the source of the sudden voices in the storm. They found no direction, instead lightning paling the gray clouds in an unsteady rhythm. Then came a challenge, a threat, a name-
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The field of Neon.
And finally, with one of the eldritch signs crashing down and zapping the water with golden sparks, a hint.
The machine turned to them with a featureless stare, and they cautiously lifted their gaze to meet it.
Can you… see me?
It stayed only a short moment, yet they reached out their free hand anyway, as if trying to say hello, ask to cooperate, anything. The words grew heavy in their throat and would never be spoken. The automaton wasted no time leaping forward with a gargantuan blade, its might cleaving through the rooftop’s bright night. It was then that they moved, swift steps rippling through the water. To where, they did not yet know, but the voices had been clear and so was their unspoken promise to Giles. So was the unspoken promise under the heaving storm when nothing else felt real.
Thunder cracked atop the city in tandem with a gunshot, forcing Lucien’s attention to its source. The moment their eyes met the elf’s was brief, howling laughter mingling with distant thunder. Searing pain struck just below the seagull’s collarbone, stealing their breath. They near fell over from the impact and disrupted pace, but refused to slip.
N-No. Not yet. It’s too soon.
Moonscar was already looking away, and Lucien’s gaze flared in pain and annoyance. Warmth flared in the warlock’s center as they reached for the worst battle weapon of all, a simple bug catching net, just reinforced. It was all that they could find. But their partner wasn’t without its dents, without battles survived. They weren’t without battles survived, they reminded themselves. They spared the new, polite opponent a smile as soon as they were able.
“Ellian!” They called out into the night. “Was it?” And though their eyes nervously flickered around them to seek advances from the elf or the other vortex-marked man, there was a glint to them, a shine that wasn’t just reflected neon lights.
Excitement, that they could do.
Heat surged from their palms into the net’s steel as they closed the distance. Breathe in, breathe out, ease the pounding knowledge that this could well be the end. Droplets of rain rose off their net in tatters of steam as Lucien swung the weapon at their new opponent. Easy to start, and though they knew they could not afford to test a doubtlessly more experienced fighter, the light in their eyes and desire to return the other’s respect was brighter.
“Lucien. I’ll accept your invitation.”
How will you react, Ellian?
If they are to die here, paying for their recklessness— their breath caught badly with an ill-timed exhale— please, please let it be on their own terms.
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