Water spun around me, a wheel of chaos that cared nothing for up or down. The cavern distorted everything, sounds stretched, light bent, even time seemed to slow. Ashekan's warning still rang in my helm, yet the echo darted unpredictably, bouncing off unseen curves of the gravity well. My left fin drifted toward what had been the ceiling moments ago, and the pearl at my chest flickered slate-gray, its pulse stuttering in confusion.
Ahead, Thalen tumbled, cloak twisting like shredded kelp. Behind him, a band of compressed water shimmered faintly, the kind that could crush his armor with a single heartbeat. My mind screamed to move.
I shaped a ribbon of water, coaxing it into a spiral that threaded the chaotic currents. It coiled around Thalen's cloak. Every muscle in my arms strained as I pulled, the pearl flaring briefly in protest. Fins cramped, vision swam, yet the current obeyed. Thalen spun toward me, panic flashing in his eyes as his body snapped back into safer flow.
A crystal shard hissed past our heads, carving the water with a sharp vibration that set my teeth on edge. Ashekan's silhouette surged into view. He struck the shard with a powerful sweep of his blade, sending it spinning into the void. Momentum flipped him, and as if answering his motion, gravity itself twisted. The entire field inverted. Debris, gear, and all of us slammed onto the floor that had moments ago been the ceiling. Pain flared across my ribs; the taste of copper filled my mouth. Lamps flickered like distant stars.
"Sound off," Yera's voice cut through the haze, sharp as a blade. Even here, her authority anchored us.
"Breathing," Ashekan grunted, kneeling to reset his frost-scarred glove.
"Alive," Veshra said, pulling Thalen upright. His hands still trembled.
"Present," Jori answered last, his voice weak but steady.
We drifted slowly to regain orientation. Only then did the runes catch my eye. They encircled the rim of the well, glowing lavender against the basalt. Curling lines connected in strange symmetry. Jori pointed, his voice shaking.
"These marks… they're from nursery drift-tiles." He tapped a pattern of three intersecting waves. "The same game we use to teach hatchlings balance."
Rejah floated closer, reader slate humming as it scanned the patterns. "He's right." Her fins quivered with a mix of awe and unease. "Toymakers copied these lines from salvage centuries ago. These symbols aren't for play. They tune the gravity here."
Before anyone could reply, the runes pulsed. Violet motes froze mid-drift, caught like insects in amber. The water thickened around us, turning syrupy. Sound died until only the thump of my heartbeat filled my head.
Then the visions struck.
Egg-pods shattered, spilling tiny bodies into an endless trench. I reached, but my hands bled against cracked glass. Screams without voices tore through my skull. My gills clamped, breath choking.
Veshra's hand seized my wrist, forcing the sharp taste of resin into my mouth."Hold to something real," she said.The resin cracked between my teeth, releasing mint-salt sharpness that burned away the illusion's grip. I forced myself to speak, naming what was real: "Candy resin."
Ashekan rasped, "Pain teaches," gripping the scarred glove that had saved him. Darun pressed his spear to his chest. "First hunt," he growled, voice steady. "The tide was red, but I lived." Thalen stammered the old hatchling rhyme of balanced waves, the words trembling but firm. Jori choked out, "My father's tiles, blue for luck." Rejah's voice was the last, shaking but fierce. "I name every life. None are forgotten."
With each word, the syrup-thick water peeled away, reality bleeding back into the cavern. With each word the hallucination peeled away, layer by layer. Currents loosened. Motes drifted once more. Gravity steadied, and the horror faded like mist.
We regrouped beside a fractured column, catching breath. Veshra passed the resin, and I let the brittle mint anchor me. The taste carried me back to childhood feast days when candy shards glittered in tidepools and laughter echoed off coral arches. For a moment, memory steadied me more than mana.
Darun settled on a slab, spear across his knees. His voice broke the silence. "When I was a shell-ling," he said, "I hid from nursery trials inside a filter vent. Thought I'd stay until lights dimmed. Vent reversed and launched me into the tide-keeper's lap."
Even Ashekan chuckled. "First spear lesson," he said. "I sliced my commandant's laces instead of the target vine. He made me keep the lace." His grin softened his usual granite face.
Thalen raised his mirrored plate, emboldened. "First balance-walk, I flipped tail over head. The nurse rewrote the rhyme to mock me."
I admitted, "My first planter trim ruined an entire kelp bed. Caretakers spent two cycles regrafting. Becoming a Watcher probably saved the plants."
Rejah tapped the urn holding the drained Lithari organ. "I once catalogued a motile sponge colony as non-sentient. They uprooted and wandered, searching for their missing kin. I write their names in every catalogue now."
A hush fell. This time it was gentle, not crushing. We shared oxygen canteens, traded resin, and for the first time in cycles, the cavern felt less hostile. The rune pillars glowed faintly, and I realized the patterns were not random. They mirrored childhood toys, hiding the memory of ancient builders in plain sight.
"If we survive," I said softly, "what tiles will hatchlings carve to remember this?" The thought warmed me.
Veshra smiled faintly. "Depends on who tells the story."
We lingered a while longer, the shared calm folding into something sacred. Then Ashekan's baton flared in warning.
A mirror flash cut through the haze, three pulses, Yera's code for help. The lull ended. Duty surged back into our limbs.
Rejah calculated the safe arc through warped water. "We need a straight lane. Three micro-vortices, aligned."
I closed my eyes, coaxed the pearl. Teal light bled faintly from its core. Enough. I shaped the first vortex, a cool spiral that slipped through bent flow. The second aligned pressure ridges; motes hissed and scattered. The third demanded perfect balance. I let it form slowly, guiding, never forcing. The lane smoothed like polished glass. We swam.
The basalt spire loomed, its base surrounded by crystal mesh. Yera's team waited inside, battered but alive. Rejah was trapped within the lattice, gauntlet fused to translucent bars. Shadow-kelp vines coiled over the mesh, drinking heat.
Darun raised his spear to smash, but Yera caught his arm. "Cut wrong and it ignites."
We worked with precision. I wove hair-thin streams, Yera mirrored from the opposite side. Veshra laced mirrored threads around our flows, the reflection repelling motes. Ashekan braced the footing. Thalen and Jori lit the vines with bouncing beams, burning their tips.
Rejah mouthed counts from inside. On three, the vines recoiled. The lattice softened. She wrenched free, one gauntlet lost to the crystal but the urn clutched tight. Her voice shook. "Thank you."
Then all motion stopped.
Currents halted. Motes hung suspended. Lamps dimmed to embers. Silence pressed so absolute every heartbeat echoed like a drum. Water neither flowed nor whispered. Even the pearl at my chest lay still.
For a single, impossible heartbeat the reef, the motes, and everything living seemed to forget how to breathe.
A faint tremor whispered through the basalt, so soft it felt like memory. The lamps flared, currents shivered, and distant runes pulsed.
We waited, weapons poised, Ready for whatever would come next.