[text] there is water at the bottom of the ocean

[nonscriptum]

[Originally, it started out as a well-meaning adventurous foray for personal edification, yadda, yadda, yadda. Time moves so slowly in Hadriel that Nate has been clawing at ways to occupy it, and since he's exhausted the library of any texts that aren't in gibberish it stands to reason he might seek personal fulfillment elsewhere. After waking up with the usual restlessness he considered the wide expanse of lakeside real estate out his window and thought, yeah, a swim sounds nice.

The swim was less than nice.

Several minor explosions and some (honestly) impressive spell-work later sees him soaked to the skin but otherwise unscathed outside of minor lacerations on one arm - there's really only so much you can do when trying to evade a shark with two fucking heads - scribbling quickly in a notebook with the sort of fervor reserved for the truly mad. Lake-adjacent, blessedly on the shore with a towel slung around bare shoulders, he quickly snaps a photograph of his work with his phone and hits SEND TO ALL.

The message is as follows:]

does anyone know what the hell this is
i found it at the bottom of the lake

Attachment: [monster.jpg]

p.s. don't go swimming in the lake

Comments

-> voice

[nonscriptum]

well, maybe more of you should start introducing yourselves with your name and time spent here, like in an aa meeting

[Fuck this, he can't keep texting with one slashed-up arm and he doesn't like texting all that much anyway. Nate switches to the Regular Phone Call option.]

It's dark as shit down there and I didn't exactly have all the time in the world to hang out. I only went down about a hundred feet, might be deeper in some areas. As for the skeletons...I think they were attached to something? There was this settled impression in the sand, like they were previously leashed and the tether decomposed.

[circumitus]

that would get real old real fast.

[Rey is already arranging monthly dances at the Speakeasy. What more do you people want?!

[And okay, we're doing this voice-chat thing now.]

Huh. Good to know.

These decomposed things you found down there... Am assuming that they appeared to be older than five months? [Since that's around when the sharks appeared, meaning that Nate might've found stuff that were pre-sharks.]

[nonscriptum]

Ancient, for sure.

[If they were fresh, those bones would have been scattered everywhere after being picked apart by sharks. They don't mess around when they feed.]

Got a call from a really pissed-off god, too, so clearly I'm onto something.

[circumitus]

What you're probably onto is their previous hosts. Didn't know what they looked like, though.

...

Guess that'd explain why some of the things are so fucked up here. As in, um, not made for humans. [Pause.] Or humanoids.

[nonscriptum]

I'd talked to- uh, Mello? About that.

[Nate never followed up with Tranquility but that's because he thought leaving a god a voicemail message would be...weird, somehow.]

How the architecture looks like something inhuman looked at a book of styles and threw something together. It just feels off.

[circumitus]

It's been a subject of interest for some time. Just that the gods here don't like talking about their former charges in much detail.

[A fact that is really rather frustrating to her.]