Ariqa's quest: Origins of Maria

Secret chapter 13

At the same time as secret chapter 12...

Deep underwater. Where Fish swim either alone or in typical schools of fish. Where coral reefs have bright and colourful looks. And where a variety of plant life and species living in a circle of life.

But within the twilight zone, a different environment lies near a seemingly unnatural city where two species as one live in large numbers.

One flesh. One fish.

The mermaids, or merpeople as the Animans, would call them.

Inside the marketplace...

Mermaid marketplace Owner's point of view

It has been sixty years since opening up my business of letting the stalls open up for business and throughout the years, it was uneventful, even the darkness enormity was too slow to reach the coral reefs, before it was blown away from the extreme amount of light bursting for several seconds.

So there I was, looking all around the marketplace, looking forward to retirement from running the marketplace. It was fun, but I'm an old male mermaid now, and with my white beard being as long as an eel, It made sense for my adult granddaughter, Kurage, to take over since she made her own stall here and became very popular, and even listened to criticism and adjusted it carefully.

So I was enjoying some cod in which it was cooked with charcoal being burnt by a nearby inactive underwater volcano, when I heard a crash somewhere in the rocks above me.

I thought it was the Victorian people dumping in the stuff again. The waste that they don't use.

So after I finished with my fish, I lay down, going to sleep with a weirdly shaped whale approaching me from above...




Clownfish therian detective's point of view

Here I am, to have two mermaid guards, one male and one female, both in gold armour suits with a shark therian guard captain consulting with another female mermaid.

I went over there effortlessly and spoke with her.

Me: "Hi, Detective Sebastian here, I work for the Whale council. Who are you?"

The sad female mermaid: "The name is Kurage. Means Jellyfish."

My shark therian colleague Captain Chris, spoke to me.

Captain Chris: "She called to the Whale council ten minutes ago, and we found this..."

Captain Chris showed me a giant, oxidised cog lying in the sea bed.

I investigated the cog and spotted something very unusual underneath.

Me: "Chris! You two..." I pointed at the two golden armoured guards. "... Help me lift this thing up!"

So with the help of Captain Chris, Kurage, and the two guards, we got the cog flipped over where after we got it flipped over, Kurage gasped.

An old male mermaid, with long hair and a long beard as white as a breeched coral reef, and as long as an eel was coughing out in pain.

A few minutes after getting the old mermaid, Issac, is what Kurage said that was her grandfather name, who was now in a sea of tentacles from a sea anemone in a nearby hospital.

After that, I wrote down the conclusion of the incident and sent it to the council where the foresight enhanced mermaid knights and dames of the Phoenix order analyse the incident and make recommendations to the council...