In Pursuit of Kronos' Scythe (Completed)

IX - The Underwater Palace of Nerocust - Part I

Princess Tharalea

Proseous Daemons? Who the heck were them? Tharalea had never heard of the name.

She felt like they were little dices being chucked by the gods. It wasn't long when they were being tossed into the sea from the clam portal. Now Triton had used magic to rebuild their boats that were being chewed by the shark daemons, and they had to be transported to an island that they didn't want to go. Why couldn't the divine take "no" for an answer? Not even once?

Reluctantly, the quest seekers scrambled into their boats.

"Oh no, I look even worse than Circe." Cytherea brought out her mirror and moaned over her tangled locks. She'd lost her luggage, left only her bag pack. "Luckily I still have my make-up pouch." Sitting on the boat, she drew the lipstick on her lips. A wave washed over them as if planned by some invisible spirits, and the lipstick smeared Cytherea's face.

"We don't need these artificial thingies, and we still look adorable than her." A foreign voice rang beside them, followed by a burst of rapturous laughter.

Tharalea looked to her left and startled as she saw nymphs in grey attire bobbing in and out of the water. At first, they kept their distance, only surveying the party with discreet eyes. Slowly, they gained bolder and began scrapping their nails along the boards, creating eerie noises.

"They are the prisoners that Aegaeum talked about," one of the nymphs mused.

Piotr ignored them and attempted to navigate the oars to sail to a different direction, but the oars kept yanking themselves out of his hands. The nymphs giggled at the frustrated look on Piotr's face and they approached him. Still giggling, they plucked his hair but when their fingers landed on his trench coat, they hissed. The smell of smoke stanched the air.

"How could he let the mortal wear such precious!"

The nymphs pulled their singed fingers away from the coat given by the Ichthyocentaurs and thinned into the air. Though Tharalea couldn't see them now, she could still feel their silhouettes following them like ghosts. The silhouettes whisked around them, making their already drenched skin wetter, magnifying their coldness.

"Let us help you with the make-up. We will make you a pretty ghost.

The nymphs' voice reverberated around Cytherea. Hearing these voices from these imperceptible speakers intensified the creeps. The invisible fingers snatched at Cytherea's make-up pouch and Cytherea pulled it back, like playing a hostile tug-of-war game. Koby and Calyssa swiped their claws in the air, and the nymphs dropped the pouch into the water.

"Fine. If we can't have it, so do you." The nymphs cursed and then all went silent.

The air blew colder, the water flowed swifter, and the sky turned darker. An island appeared before them. Tharalea had no idea how these daemons would look like, but the mere look of the surroundings - the nothingness and the emptiness - made her shiver. She couldn't see any sign of life on the island, less only a ring of fruitless coconut trees and a cave.

"I don't want to die without make-up." Cytherea hugged over Koby, her teeth chattering.

The wind howled, "Hu! Hu!" Tharalea's mind had helped her to translate the message into, "Oh yes, you will certainly die an ugly death." A splurge of wave pulled over them, tossing their boats to the shore that squelched like a swamp. The Symphony wriggled, trying to free themselves from being pulled under the swamp when suddenly a wide fishnet fell over them.

"Aha! I got them!" A merman clawed at the net and steered them towards the island.

He carried them in a way like he was carrying a sack of battle loots. Through the gaps of the net, Tharalea saw the man had charcoal dark hair and eyes. Instead of human ears, fins sprouted out of his head. His mermaid tail morphed into human feet as he traipsed the shore, leaving trails of irregular marks. On his neck, was a necklace with a pendant of a certain design.