Thalric Deepcurrent's Arc

Chapter 8 of 11

He pressed harder, searching for seams or gaps, and found nothing. The wall was sealed tight. But the blood trail didn't lie — someone had gotten this far and marked it as the endpoint. Thalric pulled back and looked up. The wall rose higher than his glow could reach, disappearing into dark water above. He swam upward, following the stone surface, and the wall kept going. Fifty feet. A hundred. Then the black stone changed texture, became something else entirely — smooth obsidian carved with geometric patterns, crystals jutting from its surface in sharp angles. A tower. The council had built a tower directly over the location where the Tidecrown should be. Thalric circled the structure, all four arms trailing along its base where it met the carved wall. There had to be a way in. The tower wouldn't exist unless they needed access to what lay beneath it. He found it on the western face — a narrow entrance hidden between two crystal formations, barely wide enough for one merman to pass through. No guards. No barriers. They didn't think anyone would find this place. Thalric slipped inside and the water changed, became colder, heavier. The interior walls glowed faintly with the same crystal light. A spiral passage led down into the foundation, into the rock itself. He descended, following the pull in his chest that told him the Tidecrown was close. The passage opened into a small chamber carved from raw stone, and there, suspended in a cage of interlocking crystal rods, hung a crown made of coral and bone and something that pulsed with living light. The Tidecrown. He'd found it. But the cage wasn't just holding it — the cage was feeding off it, draining its power into the tower's foundation. The council wasn't just hiding the artifact. They were using it.