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

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

[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

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[It was a good idea, at first.

Indulge in professional curiosity while simultaneously taking a quick dip, maybe see how deep the lake stretched, find something to bring back - if there was anything to bring back. The water was clear and calm and the jeans he sacrificed for this endeavor were a little bulky, but bathing suits weren't exactly falling out of the sky in Hadriel so he'd have to make do.

More surprising was how cold it was while wading in, like a fresh spring that would feel crisp and refreshing were it not for the steep drop-off about twenty feet in, a vast expanse of black water. There were fish (small ones) and plants (similarly small, grass-like) peppering the shallows and all of it stopped abruptly at the edge. Aquatic greenery waving at the fringe of the void. He took a deep breath and slid in.

As a salvage diver he had enough confidence in his lung capacity to not overtly worry about getting stuck somewhere, or finding something interesting and lingering a little longer, but about thirty feet below the surface the lake floor was a misty mass of sediment, drifting, empty. Nothing. It wasn't until he swam closer that he realized the fog that stretched across the entirety of the lake, this far down, was a halocline. It settled like a puffy blanket beneath him, an unfortunate indication that if he was going to go any further he'd need a submarine flashlight and another lungful of air just to see beneath the dense swirl of saltwater meeting freshwater. As he turned about a dozen feet above the murk, he saw it.

A massive, bulky dorsal fin emerging from the cloud, followed by a caudal fin that would place the animal close to the length of a school bus. It lifted its head - heads, it had two, Jesus Christ - and while Nate had never feared sharks the size alone was off-putting. Another flicker of movement caught his eye across the lake and other appendages rose out of the dark, tentacles and gaping teeth, like something out of a horror movie and he felt himself expel a waterlogged holy shit while the fog beneath him roiled with new monstrosities.

Thirty seconds later sees him on-shore and panting, five minutes later sees him standing in front of an apartment door in wet jeans, furious no one is answering his knocks. Pawing for his phone Nate sends out a frantic text to one of the only two people he knows with experience in "blasting" things.]

taako where the fuck are you i need your help

oh yeah textbook stuff.

fantasy jimmy buffetts lost shaker of salt

i don't know that the crabs jimmy buffett was eating in margaritaville were this big

Edited (how could i misspell james buffett like that) 2017-08-01 18:49 (UTC)

[DID SOMEONE JUST POST A DRAWING OF SOME BONES.]

Fascinating. It looks almost prehistoric. Did you bring any of it back with you?

[Yes you were "married" a week ago, no she is not going to bring it up right now, this find is more important.]

[HELL YEAH THEY DID.]

too big to bring up, but i brought back a few glass shards that were scattered around them

i think the shards are pieces of shell, like exoskeletons

[Kind of weird that these things seemed to have an endoskeleton and an exoskeleton, but he's no biologist.]

you went SWIMMING in the lake??

look kid theres a reason he stays. i'm just saying maybe you found out why.

anyway nah never checked out a giant seabug world. thats some wild stuff. not as wild as the sharktopus. 6/10

[FINALLY.]

Glass is utilized in fiber optics in part because it is immune to electromagnetic interference. If your supposition is correct, then perhaps the glass exoskeleton is an adaptation against predators or even prey. Perhaps what you saw required protection from electromagnetic input from external sources.

[This is not a bug, but she still wishes Hodgins were here for this.]

yeah can't say it wasn't a mildly disappointing experience, but it's hard to do proper salvage when things are trying to eat you

electrified predators?

you ever heard of a crab with a ribcage the size of a volkswagon beetle? i've seen a fair number of skeletons in my line of work, but nothing like this

giant crabs forced jimmy buffett to live out his days on a beach. makes sense.

can't recommend avoiding the sharktopus enough, but i did have help there from some magicians

[Sorry, all of this is super intersting but she has a more important question.]

What do you think ate its head?

And it's hard to tell if those were just too many legs or just 'legs' part of a large moble fin, even snakes have 'leg bones' sometimes but they don't actually have more than stumbles actually visibile.

It would be the least alien possibility. Electrogenic creatures do occur naturally.

Of course I haven't, but this is an alien location, so encountering such dramatically different wildlife is to be expected.

Will you be going back to retrieve any of the bones?

['It was a good idea, at first' is the thought that gets Taako into 99% of the trouble in his life. Whether that's Lup busting his door down with some half-baked idea, or a joke gone wrong, or something just going very differently halfway through, Taako entirely understands the best laid plans going to utter and complete shit.

But hey, this is unexpected.

As Taako currently sits, he's lying on his bed in the twins' shared bedroom in spire 4, the floating bunks keeping him high above the mess that litters their floor. He's been updating his spellbooks, piecing through memories he now has more clearly, thinking back to some of the more wicked things he managed to pull from a hundred years of study. Thankfully for Nate, one of them is going to be exactly what he needs.

He grins, texting back. He's already gotten the hang of that 'lay-on-his-stomach-and-type' thing. Look how modern.]

at home babe
whats up
sounds urgent whod you piss off

I think its head had an exoskeleton.

[Maybe it had a disgusting mass of eyes. Or no eyes at all. It was pretty dark down there.]

And look, I- I know what vestigial bones look like, this wasn't like a whale skeleton, they were legs. A lot of legs. At least ten, maybe more.

[He's frowning at his sketchbook now because what he drew, he had to come up with before he forget anything. He's going off of memory in a very high-stress environment.]

[Nate pulls a shirt on in the hallway and grimaces at the cling-film sensation of dry fabric on damp skin. Don't you hate the way the water makes your jeans all squidgy? is one Harry Flynn-ism he's never going to forget.]

first, i resent the suggestion i pissed someone off and not the other way around

second, did you move? i'm literally standing in front of your door on the third floor right now

[Nate isn't sure they have the luxury of assuming what's alien and what isn't. This place is both Jules Verne's wet dream, and Jules Verne's nightmare.]

yeah maybe once we've gotten rid of the kraken

[...sarcasm doesn't translate well in text.]

So both exo and endoskeleton? The closest I can imagine is some kind of sea turtle but- are you really telling me it'd have a case for all its organs... but not for the brain?

Anyway creatures from the depth often have shapes and sizes that may terrify us, if anything I'd like to see more...

[She is actually quite impressed by the sketches, the creature just doesn't seem to match anything she knows.]

[Wow if he'd had any interest in swimming in the lake in the first place, that would've killed it completely.]

Well that's creepy.

Are you okay?

[Lance is guessing that the PS, combined with the little sharktopus, indicates Nate also ran into some just as creepy things that are still alive.]

[He outright claps a hand over his mouth to stop a howling peal of a laugh from emitting over it, still snickering as he texts back.]

listen i know the company i keep and that company is "people who look before they leap and then i have to save them" its whatever

but also oh man
oh babe
i dont live there
im in spire 4 i just wanted to see if youd actually carry me all the way and tuck me into my fake bed
you got the fifth star for doing it btw i feel like i didnt mention that before

and hey! now im ordering delivery again
its still you!
congrats you were so efficient

anyway yeah spire 4 second floor room uhhhhhhh 201
i mean the room doesnt matter its the whole floor
cant miss it

[Oh hey! It's Mister "Henleys Are Garbage" FBI Guy. Don't think Nate has forgotten.]

creepy, but not life-threatening

i got a few love bites from the local fauna, but i'll live

[To be fair, his filter wasn't working all that well at the time due to nearly dying. Also Henleys are hideous; he doesn't make the rules.]

"I'll live" as in it's minor, or as in technically you'll survive but really should do something about it?

NO SHIT.

moreover how did you manage it?? that lake is fucking deep
even without the freak mutant sharks that are in there now.

[Nate can't argue that disaster tends to follow him around like a persistent shadow, because it does, but this new revelation feels like a real kick to the sack.]

ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME

[He doesn't bother adding anything else. It isn't worth it to argue over something that he'd volunteered for at the time, even if that act of mild heroism was pretty heavily abused, and Taako better pray he actually lives on the second floor of a building on the other side of the city or Nate's throwing him into the lake next.

When he arrives at 201 he's still damp, but at least he isn't dripping. Nate slams his knuckles against the door a couple times and tries to look Mad™.]

[This time he does actually just burst out laughing, openly, rapidly texting back.]

noooooope
see u soon bubbleh ;)

[He shuffles to the front of his bed, looking down to Lup on the floor.]

Hey Lup! Guess who just ordered a hot dude direct to our doorstep. Gotta say, didn't expect this place to have that kinda perk.

[The knock doesn't come too long after, and he starts shimmying down the rope ladder to head to the door.]

You want in on this you better come with.

Edited (I GOT AHEAD OF MYSELF) 2017-08-01 21:06 (UTC)

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