#ASWaM Chapter 9: The Mother Ocean

[tyrantisterror]

At Sea Without a Map Final Roundup

Read the Chapter 1: Deadset on Getting Fishy roundup here!

Read the Chapter 2: Tree Storks roundup here!

Read the Chapter 3: The Seaship Graveyard roundup here!

Read the Chapter 4: Tiger Boat roundup here!

Read the Chapter 5: The Madman and the Monster roundup here!

Read the Chapter 6: The Crocodisle roundup here!

Read the Chapter 7: Kiss of Life roundup here!

Read the Chapter 8: The Volcano God roundup here!

It took a while, but we finally made it to the end of this strange odyssey. Sailor, Calibani and Bob finally found their way to the depths of the Sea of Monsters, uncovered (some of) Spindle Inc.'s nefarious agenda, opened a portal to the "normal" universe, and confronted one of the true leviathans at the heart of the sea. Families were reunited, evil was vanquished, and a very important choice was made - our Sailor is home, if not perhaps the home we expected.

And that's it for At Sea Without a Map! Thank you for following this strange little tale, especially to those of you who engaged in the replies and reblogs! It was a very fun writing experiment for me, and I hope it was an entertaining one for you.

You can read up on At Sea Without a Map Chapter 9: The Mother Ocean in the links below. There will be some concept art after the cut, and I'll be posting a more in-depth post-script about the story later today (today being January 1st 2025, for those reading this after the fact). Thank you for reading!

Part 49

Part 50

Part 51

Part 52

Part 53

Part 54

Part 55

Part 56

Part 57

Part 58

Part 59

Part 60

I thought I was particularly clever making the sea station for Spindle Inc look like a literal spindle. At the very least it was a striking image.

Sycorax was somewhat easy to design, being one of many variations on Calibani's design - literally just her tail stuck on an eel's face. Most of my work on her was spent fine tuning that face a bit until it hit the right sea serpent sweet spot for me.

The true leviathan/Abyssal Mother had a bit of an odd development. Initially I considered making it just a big whale monster, since that was one sea monster archetype this story hadn't covered yet. But it felt a little underwhelming for that to be the "final boss" of the story, so I decided to go in a more Cthulhu-ish direction (and cover a different sea monster archetype in the process). I hit upon this look where the squid-head of the monster also kind of looks like a woman whose hair is obscuring her face - and, well, the visual similarity that had with our Sailor felt too juicy to ignore. The Abyssal Mother has no final design - I figured any inconsistencies between her depictions in the story would actually work in her archetype's favor, as a creature whose anatomy and nature is fundamentally unknowable.

[tyrantisterror]

At Sea Without a Map pt. 58

Even with home so close, with your window so slim, with your compass weighing so heavily in your pocket, you cannot bring yourself to abandon Calibani completely. As she looks around, you tug on her sleeve to get her attention and point down to the massive eel coiling below.

"My mom," she says quietly. "But don't we need to-"

One look from you is all she needs to get on the same page. If this is the last time you'll ever see her, you want her to have someone who loves her when you leave. With a sweet, sad smile, Calibani plunges down towards her mother.

Sycorax is far less human in appearance than her daughter - yet, even in those alien, eel-like features, bereft of the flexible skin of Calibani's human-like face, you can see the glint of recognition in the vast fish's eyes immediately. If a fish could be said to regard something with fondness, to have warmth in its expression, then Sycorax has it in spades as she surges through the water and brings her vast head to a stop just a few feet away from her long lost daughter.

"H-hi mom," Calibani says nervously. "I... I know we've never met, but-"

The psychic wave that blossoms out of Sycorax's head-fins washes over you like a warm summer breeze. You feel love - unconditional and overwhelming love, a tide of maternal affection. Sycorax cautiously moves closer and nuzzles Calibani with the smooth tip of her snout.

Calibani smiles brightly, her entire face lighting up with joy as she hugs her mother's snout back. You've only seen her smile like this a few times before - the way she smiles when she looks at you. "I love you, mom," Calibani says as she runs her head against the far larger skull of her mother.

The overwhelming sense of affection subsides a bit as Sycorax's eyes turn towards the sea below. You follow the vast sea serpent's gaze, and notices two things lurking beneath the sea station.

First, at the very tip of the Spindle outpost's strange giant needle thing, there's... well, if someone said the phrase "a hole in the fabric of reality," this would be like the most literal visual representation of that phrase. It's a jagged, nasty cut into existence itself, a hole in the Sea of Monsters that was torn open by that big needle. And though what sits on the other side is, visually speaking, hard to parse... it feels familiar. Like home.

Unfortunately, there's one other surprise right beneath it...

You remember how Calibani categorized the denizens of the sea of monsters for you, and how you've encountered almost all of them - serpents, fish, tangle-limbs, island beasts, shipbreakers, et cetera. But the largest and most dangerous had, till now, been blissfully unrepresented - the "true leviathans" that make all other monsters, no matter how nasty, cower in fear. And, unfortunately, that's almost certainly what you're looking at right now.

The crocodisle was big. Lord Ironteeth was enormous. Sycorax is tremendous. But this thing, this massive gyrating monstrosity covered in fins, this leviathan? It is unfathomably vast - so much so that you can't tell how much of it there is, for it stretches so far away from you that a good chunk of it disappears entirely into the gloomy of the ocean below. The front of its body sports a mouth with a huge, round jaw full of baleen, and is flanked by four squid-like tentacles. There's a... growth? upon its top jaw that is covered in a segmented shell, out of the top of which is a smaller mass of tentacles, which, as you gaze down upon this thing from the abyss, turn to gaze back at you.

SAILOR

SAILOR

ARE YOU LEAVING, SAILOR?

SO SOON?

DO YOU NOT BELONG TO THE SEA?

With a chill running down your spine, you consult your compass.

[tyrantisterror]

At Sea Without a Map pt. 60

You feel the compass shudder in your grip as you make one last choice with its aid. Reflexively you press on it ever so slightly, and in response it crumbles in your grasp, its dust dissolving into the sea around you until nothing remains that you can see. Whatever course you chart now, you do based on your own sense of direction.

The portal home beckons to you in a soothing, seductive tone, its voice carrying through the depths and asking you to sink inside it. You know it's what you've been looking for since your memory began - the place you've known you have to go to. You also know that if you go there, you'll never come back here.

You take one last look at the portal, then turn to Calibani. Her eyes are wide and, if you were not underwater, would probably be filled with tears as her lips wobble in an attempt not to release the shuddering sobs she's holding back. She knows what that portal means too.

"Sailor, I - I want to say-"

"Let's go."

Your interruption catches Calibani off guard, shocking the turmoil out of her. "What did you say?"

"Let's go, you and I and everyone else. Let's head back to the surface and get away from here."

"But - Sailor, that's your home!"

You look at the portal again. It's smaller now - the threads of reality are pulling together, as if some unseen seamstress is mending the rip in her veil. "Maybe it was home, once," you say quietly. "But I don't remember being there. I don't know what it's like, what I was like, whether I was happy... but..." You look at Calibani and smile in the most genuine way you can ever remember smiling. "I'm happy here. I'm happy with you."

All the sadness Calibani had built up immediately melts into joy, and the sea monster lets out a squeal of glee as she pulls you into a tight and warm embrace.

She nuzzles you as she twirls around in the water with you in her arms, presses you close to her soft embraces, and lavishes you with kisses as the two of you float above a portal that quickly closes now and forever below. If there was any doubt in your mind that this was the right call, it evaporates the minute Calibani smothers you with her affection. The leviathan was right - you belong to the sea.

When Calibani finally relents enough in her affection to let you look beyond her, you see your other friends - your boat, Bob, Captain Peter and Dr. Neptune, the crocodisle and Sycorax, and even Lord Ironteeth, all gathered to make sure you survived your ordeal. They're a strange collection of friends - a motley crew of monsters, to be sure, but despite their strangeness and their differences, they all joined together to make sure you found a home.

And you have.

Together, you and your odd collection of allies make your way to the surface. The island Lord Ironteeth made waits for you, though you don't recognize it at first. In the hours you spent below the sea, the /mothman's pollination took hold, and where there was once a barren landscape of black sand, there is now a lush and verdant island filled with vegetation - the perfect place for a sailor to rest between travels.

It's not the home you sought, but it's the one you've earned.

~ ~ ~

~ ~ ~

~ ~ ~

. . .

You are lost at sea. The Atlantic Ocean, specifically, at least you're pretty sure that's where you ended up. Your memory's been getting... fuzzy, lately. The short term stuff is fine, but it's harder to make out the details of anything older than a few days now. Probably a symptom of starvation and thirst, you imagine. There's not much to eat on this boat you're on, and the fish you see look... weird.

It's not all bad, though. Last night while rooting around your boat you found a compass. You're not sure how useful it will be - compasses only tell you which direction you're heading, after all, not what direction you need to head in - but it's something. If only you could find some land!

It seems pretty bleak, but you've still got some energy in you, and you're determined not to die out here without a fight. All you have to do is-

"Hey, sailor!"

A voice! A human voice! You rush out of the captain's quarters and onto the deck to see... a boat? At least, you think it's a boat, but last time you checked boat's didn't have eyes.

Three... people? stand on its deck. One wears a heavy coat and floppy sailor's hat, their face hidden from view by the shadow cast by their hat's brim. The other is a large, plump woman in a sweater with... green hair and... turquoise skin? The last looks fairly normal at first, a short woman with a bob of brunette hair, but then a large fish-like tail flops up from behind her.

You think you might be hallucinating, until the person in the coat speaks up again.

"Hey, sailor! Need some help? We can give you directions, if you like - I've got a map and everything!"

...you feel like your trip is going to get a little stranger.

THE END

[tyrantisterror]

At Sea Without a Map pt. 59

"I mean no harm!" you shout out to the leviathan, not thinking about the importance of keeping air in your lungs when you do it - which, if you were in the mood to stop and thinking about such things, you might realize that your lungs should have run out of air a while ago. "I'm just trying to get home!"

HOME? ARE YOU NOT ALREADY THERE?

"No!" you protest. "I haven't been home for a long time, but that portal there, that will-"

IT WILL LET YOU IN. IT WILL MAKE A HOME FOR YOU. IT WILL MAKE YOU THINK IT IS WHERE YOU BELONG, AS IT HAS BEFORE. BUT WHEN YOU CROSS THAT THRESHOLD, YOU WILL NEVER RETURN. AND THE SEA, SAILOR... THE SEA IS WHERE YOU BELONG.

The monster shifts in its position for a moment, its tentacles sliding back to reveal more of its glowing eyes to you. It swims just a bit closer, not enough to make your heart lurch with fear, but enough to close some of that distance between you and it.

DO NOT LEAVE WHEN YOU'VE ONLY JUST RETURNED.

"...Returned?" you mutter. "What do you mean?" Have I been here before?"

The leviathan gazes at you for a moment, quiet, as if choosing her (yes, her, you don't know how but as you look into its eyes you realize it is a shed) words carefully. Then her voice sounds in your head again, but softer, sweeter, with a musical lilt to it as she speaks.

A CHILD OF THE ENDLESS SEA WAS BORN ON LAND, A TRAGEDY WITH LEGS WHERE FINS BY RIGHTS SHOULD BE BUT NOW YOU HAVE RETURNED TO ME

A SAILOR'S BORN ON LAND, IT'S TRUE BUT THAT'S NOT ALL THERE IS TO YOU YOU SAIL TO FIND WHAT'S STRANGE AND NEW AND MAKE YOUR HOME THE OCEAN BLUE

OH, SAILOR, I IMPLORE YOU, STAY AND DRIFT ALONG FROM DAY TO DAY WITH SUN AND SEA AND WIND AND SPRAY TO CHART YOUR COURSE THE SAILOR'S WAY

I BORE MY HEART AND SAID MY PEACE THE CHOICE IS YOURS, AND SO I CEASE

She finishes her song, then turns her tentacled trunk towards the Spindle Outpost. Vast tentacles stretch out from her neck and wrap around the vast machine, dragging it down as she begins to recede to the depths.

THEY WOULD PLUNDER MY HOME, AND THINK THE WORLD IS MEAT TO BE CHEWED. BUT WE KNOW BETTER, SAILOR. CRUELTY IS REPAID WITH RUTHLESSNESS, IT'S TRUE, BUT KINDNESS IS REPAID IN LOVE.

As the leviathan disappears into the gloom below, dragging the dying sea station with here, you are left above the portal, wrapped only in Calibani's arm. It's as the leviathan said - this is your choice now. And, as in all great decisions, you consult your compass.

The old girl has seen better days. As you hold it in your hands, you can feel the plastic tremble from even the slight pressure of your fingers on its sides. It's not going to last much longer - this will be your final question.

[tyrantisterror]

At Sea Without a Map pt. 54

"In the interest of weighing my options," you say. "Would you be able to just... send me home?"

Dr. Warefore glowers at you with supreme disappointment. "How pedestrian. Yes, if that's all your ambition can aim for, we can send you home. Outpost 851's Veil Needle Drive is already attuned to our home reality - all we have to do is lock in on one of the veil knots in a suitable intersection of ley lines and we'll be able to open a portal that you can ride straight back to our reality."

Her eyes flicker over Calibani before she smiles smugly at you. "But you'd have to leave behind your little girlfriends, of course. You might be able to take the boat, though if it survives the trip it'll return to being a normal, lifeless vehicle. Why give up what you've gained when you could keep them? We can fit up a nice little aquarium for your two lady friends here, keep your boat docked when you're not at sea. And you could visit home from time to time - there's a generous vacation plan at Spindle, you get one day off per month!"

You look to Calibani. "I can't take them with me?"

"Oh feel free to try - if they survive the trip, they'll likely just end up vivisected in a lab somewhere. And that's if the three of you even remember what happened on this side of the portal - I don't have authorization to give memory preserving drugs to non-employees." She smiles again. "I really think-"

A horrific sound tears through the air and more, for you feel it rippling through your skin and flesh, banging against your bones, and indeed sending shockwaves through the very fabric of your being itself. It accompanies a bright flash as a beam of light lances into Dr. Warefore and sets off a chain reaction that your brain struggles to fully witness much less understand, as in a matter of seconds the very atoms of her being tear apart and disintegrate into pure, true nothingness within thin air, leaving not a single trace of the scientist to be seen. With your ears ringing and your eyes stinging, you try to make sense of things by looking in the direction the beam came from.

Bob sits in her wheelchair with one of the strange needle guns the hazmat suit goons had been wielding. "Oh," she says quietly, "So that's what it does."

Calibani's ear-like fins pop up as her glamour completely fades away. "What the fuck, Bob?" she shouts as her tail slithers out from under her skirt. "Where did you get that thing?"

"Stole it," Bob says.

"...what," you say flatly.

"I wanted to know what it does!" Bob protests. "So I waited till one of those marshmallow guys wasn't looking and stole it." She looks at the spot where Dr. Warefore once stood, which, while bearing no physical trace of the scientist whatsoever, still seems to vibrate angrily from what just occurred there. "Do you think she's alright?"

You look at the spot where Dr. Warefore was. "No, Bob, I'm pretty sure she's dead."

"...oh." Bob frowns and looks down at the gun in her hand. "...whoops."

So, you've just disintegrated this sea station's boss. Whatever you do next, you need to do it quickly. You consult your compass.

[tyrantisterror]

At Sea Without a Map pt. 56

Calibani and Bob have this, you assume/hope. "Hold the line ladies," you say as you run over to the control console and begin trying to figure out how you can turn this situation to your advantage.

Luckily, the computer of this huge sea station is unusually intuitive for technology that was made specifically for a big corporation - you were worried the interface would be a lot clunkier and needlessly buggy than it is, but you guess you have to hand it to Spindle Inc. for making sure their personal tech works at the very least.

You have two main tasks you wish to accomplish: creating a portal home, and freeing Calibani's mom. As you try to figure out which to do first, you feel the weight of your compass in your pocket. Your hand touches it on instinct, and you realize it's changed. It feels... brittle, you suppose, like the plastic is degrading, and you can even feel stress fractures and cracks as your fingers run over it. It's gotten you this far, but it seems you won't have it much longer.

So you should make this count.

Warefore mentioned a Veil Needle, so you look for things pertaining to that. It doesn't take a lot of looking, thankfully - once you bring up the Veil Needle controls, you quickly spot ones about "opening transmission" with other universes, with your home reality being one of the quick-select options. It makes sense - if this station is owned by Spindle Inc, they have to have some way to communicate with home, for resupplying and whatnot.

A bit of clicking brings you to a set of options - apparently you can make some very big portals with this Veil Needle thing, and ones that last a long time, but there's a caveat. Right now the station is in crisis mode, and while it can still open a portal (escape routes would be needed in an emergency, after all), the scale and longevity of said portal is limited. You imagine they don't want the Sea's bigger residents to sneak through.

It's fine. You can open one more than big enough to let your boat through - you just have to get there within thirty minutes. Easy.

As you order the Veil Needle to open the portal, the control console fills with windows describing various functions that you don't know enough about to understand. You feel a sensation similar to that horrible feeling you got when Dr. Warefore was disintegrated, though it's a bit more subdued while also a lot larger - if Dr. Warefore's death was a horrible screech, then this is more of a big rumble of thunder, low and terrifying yet somewhat gentle by comparison.

Thirty minutes on the clock now. You have to free Calibani's mom.

Figuring out phrasing proves to be the biggest hurdle here. Unfortunately, there's no "free the big sea monster" button, so you end up using the search function and typing in the word "release." A dozen or so options are brought to you - "release docking bays," "emergency release docking bays," "release umbilical station," "emergency release umbilical station," and on and on it goes. You attempt to release the docking bays first, but get an error signal - apparently the station can't do it when in crisis mode, which it currently is in. Well, a crisis and an emergency are the same thing, right? You hit "emergency release docking bays."

Above, you hear the sound of screams as several thousand tons of water begin to pour into the space station's upper floors from all directions. That... well, you can deal with that in a minute.

You try to emergency release the "umbilical station," but are hit with another error message, although this one is different: "Umbilical station nonresponsive." That'd probably be ominous if you knew what an umbilical station was.

You press several more emergency releases until, finally, there's a hiss and a pop as the outer shell of Sycorax's cage slowly dislodges from the sea station. The massive serpent cocks her head towards the walls behind her and realizes her freedom has arrived. You watch as she gleefully uncurls her coils and slithers out into the now open sea, turning her head back to regard you, Bob, and Calibani with concern. After all, you're still trapped inside this sea station.

But that's fine! You've got thirty minutes to go back the way you came, get into your boat, and sail away! So long as there's no other surprises, it should be a breeze!

You grab your compass, ignoring how worn and fragile it feels in your hand, and figure out how to go about making this final escape.

[tyrantisterror]

At Sea Without a Map pt. 55

"That awful woman said Sycorax is psychic," you say to Calibani, deciding to just memory hole the fact that Bob has lived out a "Keep Your Guns Locked Away From Your Kids" PSA. "Shouldn't that mean you're psychic too?"

"I've never heard that word before today," Calibani says.

"It's - like - you can put your thoughts in other people's heads, basically," I say. "And maybe read them too?"

"Like your creepy compass?"

"Like my helpful compass, yes."

Calibani frowns. "I don't think I'm like your compass."

"Maybe just try it?" you suggest. "See if you can call on one of our friends for help?"

"How?"

"I dunno, I'm not psychic," you sigh. "Maybe just... think at them really hard?"

Calibani looks around the lab for a moment, takes a deep breath, and says, "Ok, I'll try." Then she closes her eyes and concentrates as hard as she can, thinking at the one person she knows who might be helpful in this situation.

Elsewhere in the sea, Dr. Neptune suddenly feels a thought inside his brain that's not his own, spoken in a voice that is very much not his.

"Hey, uh, Dr. Neptune? Did this go through? It's me, Calibani!"

"Calibani! How fortuitous - I didn't know you were psychic!"

"Neither did I until today. Um... so, we're in a situation-"

"It's really quite lucky that you called me, so to speak! I've been trying to catch up to you and Sailor for a while now - they're still with you, correct?"

"Yeah, Sailor's here. Listen, we're-"

"A few hours after you left I detected a signal from some awful ne'er do wells I've run into before. They're called Spindle inc., and they have this enormous underwater sea station that moves around the Sea of Monsters doing all sorts of nefarious things, and-"

"Yes! That's what I'm trying to tell you! We're trapped in their sea station!"

"Oh, that simplifies things then."

"It does?"

"Yes, my dear. You see, we're going to help you."

"Who's we?"

Outside of Calibani's brain, you and Bob watch the monitors as sirens begin to blare throughout the sea station. Two of the monitors display the words "IMMINENT THREAT APPROACHING - TAKE BATTLE STATIONS!" before showing a very familiar, but now heavily modified, pirate ship plunging into the ocean's depths, as well as two sea monsters that you saw up close not too long ago.

The cavalry is arriving, and it's time to pick how you fight. Consult your compass.

[tyrantisterror]

At Sea Without a Map pt. 49

"What - err, who are you?" you ask the flying creature, making it grin wider.

"Thank you for dialing back the rudeness," the monster says. "I'll answer the second question first. My name is Iriel."

Shuffling a bit on its perch, the creature repositions its wings behind its back, giving you a better look at its furry torso. "As for what I am, well, your kind has a name for mine, though I suppose you forgot that, if you ever knew it at all. You call us Mothmen." Indeed, you feel a flicker of recognition at the term, though of course you can't recall when you heard it before or in regards to what.

"You might just as accurately call us mailmen, though. My kind travels between worlds, you see, and ensures that the lines of communication stay open between them." The mothman shakes more glitter off its wings, and once again plants grow where it falls. "It's a much healthier world that way, you know."

"So that's what you're doing here, then?" you ask the mothman. "Keeping this world healthy?"

"In a general sense, yes," the mothman says. "But right now, specifically? I'm here to watch you."

A chill runs down your spine. "Oh."

"Yes, you're very interesting," the mothman says. "Most humans that end up here don't last too long - they wander, meet something nasty, and get eaten. But every now and then one comes along to break the mold, and the way they do it is always interesting." The mothman's multi-colored eyes glow intensely as it gazes at you. "Making friends with monsters - I haven't seen one of you do that before. And look how far you've come doing it - you're almost at the finish line!"

You're not sure if you should feel flattered or worried. "You said I have a few critical choices to make yet. What did you mean by that? Can - can you see the future or something?"

"The future isn't set in stone," the mothman answers enigmatically. "But let's say I'm a pretty good guesser. As I've said, you're close to the end - the way home is so close now, just a drop down and a few final trials to go. And when you get there - well, I think we both know now what choice you'll have to make. Though I don't know where you'll land on that coin flip - as I said, I've never seen a human make the choices you've made before. It should be very interesting."

Unfortunately you do know what choice the mothman is referring to, and like it, you don't know what you'll decide when it comes time to make it. You look about for something to distract you from that conundrum, and your eyes fall upon the plants growing beneath the mothman's feet. "I haven't seen a lot of greenery here - the last trees I saw turned out to be birds."

"I remember, I was there," the mothman says.

"Oh yeah." You smile as if this was a fond memory - maybe it was? "I didn't think plants grew here."

"Of course they do," the mothman says. "The Sea of Monsters safeguards the conception of seas, but a sea is not water and monsters alone. It needs to work with the rest of the world. There must be islands, there must be open sky, they must be flora for the fauna. This is why my kind's job is so important - we make sure places like this know how to work with places like your home." It looks down at the grass growing on its perch. "Would you like to add to it?"

"What?"

The mothman grins and winks. "Come on, add a little spice to the island - a taste of home, before you leave us."

Your eyes go wide. "Spices!" You rush below deck and grab some of the spices from your ship, then hurriedly bring them back and sprinkle them over the ground on the island. Sure enough, new plants begin to grow where you set them.

Calibani, who till now had been content to let you talk to the mothman alone, watches you dump the spices with mild panic. "Why are you throwing those out?!?"

"Look!" you tell her, pointing to the plants growing on the island. "Now whenever you want garlic, or paprika, or any of the other spices I showed you, you can just go to this island and collect them!" You smile at her. "It's a taste of home."

The mothman watches you closely. "Time's running out," it says. "You can fit in a few more questions, but soon you'll need to leave."

Your heart races. "Where do we need to go?" you ask.

"Deep down. You'll know when you've gone far enough."

Enigmatic, but workable. "What problems will we face on the trip?"

"A shipbreaker, a true leviathan, and worst of all, human ambition." The mothman shifts on its perch. "Time's almost up."

"But I've got so many more questions! Where are there others like Calibani? What's up with Spindle Inc? Is there any way a human can survive out here without cutting their brain out of their skull?"

The mothman opens its wings. "You'll find out below."

"Wait!" you shout as it begins to take off. "Can I ever get back once I leave? And if I do... is there a map I can use to find my friends?"

Despite how alien its facial features are, you detect pity in the mothman's glance as it looks at you while spreading its wings. "Can you get back? Perhaps, but unlikely. As for a map... none exists." With a beat of its wings, the mothman takes to the air. "But perhaps you could make one. Depends on the choice you make, doesn't it? Time's up, Sailor. Go take the plunge - home is waiting."

As the mothman flies away, you take a deep breath and consult your compass.

[tyrantisterror]

At Sea Without a Map pt. 52

"My questions are pretty simple," you tell the scientist lady. "Probably really easy to answer, so why don't you ask yours first instead?"

She cocks her head and scrutinizes you closely for a moment. "Fair enough," she says skeptically before taking a page from the middle of the stack on her clipboard and moving it to the top. "State your name, please."

"Um... Sailor."

She stares at you. "Your full name."

"...that's as far as I got," you admit sheepishly. "I, uh, kind of don't remember what my real name is. Is... is that normal for people who enter this place?"

The scientist continues to stare at you until you almost prickle at the heat of her gaze. "It's unusual," she finally says, "But not unheard of. Normally the stress induced amnesia is induced on the return trip from the Sea, but there we have a few cases on record of it occurring at the entrance as well."

"We?"

"Spindle Inc," the scientist says. "The company I work for, which made this marvel of modern science you're currently standing in. We've been researching these alternate universes for many years now." Her eyes flit to your companions. "And what are your names, ladies?"

"Calibani!"

"Bobbulynne, but you can call me Bob!"

You wince in frustration, though more with yourself than with your friends. How did you spend so much time disguising their appearance and fail to think to tell them to pretend to have human names? It doesn't seem to escape the scientist's notice, either, as she arches an eyebrow at the two responses before jotting a note on her clipboard.

"Fascinating. I suppose since we're doing introductions, I should be polite and do the same. My name is Dr. Antonia Warefore, head researcher of Outpost 851. Her eyes roam over Calibani and Bob before returning to catch your gaze. "Tell me, Sailor, what strange phenomena have you encountered on your trip here? You must have seen at least a few things that are, well, to put it simply, monstrous."

You can feel the tension in the air. While this woman looks human, she's setting off the very finely tuned fight or flight responses in your brain with every second of this interaction, and you can't stop yourself from wondering if the answers you give her may bite you in the ass later. Then again, anything you could do to secure her trust could be what you need to save yourself should things turn hairy. You decide to split the difference with a partial truth. "Well, I was attacked by these big storks that disguise themselves as palm trees, then a monster that was like a big glob of rotting faces and tongues, there was a giant killer dolphin, an island that turned into a crocodile, and a big shark with molten lava for skin."

"Interesting," Dr. Warefore says as she jots down a few more notes. "How did you survive encountering such horrors, exactly?"

"Oh, luck and quick wits, I suppose," you say humbly before hastily adding, "And thanks to the help of my friends, here."

"Your friends Calibani and... Bob?"

The two fish girls look at you, both now aware that their cover may be blown. "Yep! Couldn't do it without them!" you say with great enthusiasm. "They're real friends, tried and true!" Remembering that one of your most valuable friends isn't in the room with you, you speak up again. "And so is my boat! Please don't hurt my boat!"

Dr. Warefore gives you a look that's both apologetic and patronizing, like a parent who's decided to humor a child's delusion is a very sympathetic way. "We won't hurt your boat, Sailor. I imagine it must have served you quite well, given how far much it seems to have transformed. You did notice that it has eyes and a mouth, correct?"

"Yeah, it, uh, didn't always have those," you admit.

"Then you must also realize you are not in the normal world anymore," Dr. Warefore says. "You're in-"

"The Sea of Monsters, yeah, I know, I've been told," you say. "Dr. Neptune gave me the whole monologue - oops." Roses bloom in your cheeks as you realize you accidentally let something slip that you'd tried to hide.

And, sharp as a tack, Dr. Warefore caught the slip. "Dr. Neptune?"

"Um, yeah, he's a - a guy I met out here," you stammer. "Gave me some directions, but didn't come with me. Guess he likes it here."

Warefore's eyes grow wide. "Dr. Neptune is alive?"

Oh no. Oh you really shouldn't have said that. "More or less?" you say with a wince.

The Spindle scientist looks away from you and drums her fingers on her clipboard. "Ironteeth, the island crocodile, the corrupted custodian, the storks... easy enough to figure out where he could be hiding from those details..." She jots down a note. "Thank you, Sailor, that was helpful."

"You're - you're not going to hurt him, are you?" Despite the... let's say mixed bag of an encounter you had with Dr. Neptune, you don't actively wish ill upon him. "He helped me."

Dr. Warefore laughs. "You make me feel like I work for the CIA! Spindle Inc isn't in the business of hurting people, Sailor. We're trying to build a better future, that's all. Here, let me show you."

Without so much as waiting for you to agree, Dr. Warefore struts out of the laboratory and into the hallways of the sea station, leading you deeper into its bowels with each step. "Dr. Neptune no doubt explained the nature of the Sea of Monsters to you and its relation to the universe we hail from - or, well, the kind of universe you and I hail from, I can't take for granted that you aren't a human from one of the many similar yet different universes out there."

"A - wait, what?"

"I'm saying humanity is not a rare commodity, Sailor, keep up," Dr. Warefore says. "There's every possibility you and I are from different universes despite all appearances to the contrary."

A pang of existential dread hits you at that concept - that humanity might not be unique in the multiverse - but you think of something that might allow you to subdue the thought. "Is Spindle Inc like that, too? Because I have vague memories of a Spindle Inc in my home."

The smirk that appears on Warefore's face sends a shiver down your spine. "Very smart, Sailor. No, Spindle Inc is unique to our home reality. There's only one Spindle out there that matters." She looks ahead as she leads you down a winding stair. "While the rest of humanity struggles to so much as reach another planet, we at Spindle Inc have realized that there are far greater frontiers to explore, ones that, ironically, are far easier to reach. The Sea of Monsters is but one of many that we've begun to explore on behalf of the human race."

She turns head head as if to look you in the eye, but instead her gaze falls upon Calibani. "Do you know, Sailor, how life in this reality adapts? It's very quick compared to our world - no trial and error with random genetic mutations, but quick, decisive reactions to dangerous stimuli. Where our reality's evolution is cold war arms race, here in the Sea of Monsters they progress from bronze age tools to industrialized societies in a span of a single generation - sometimes within a single individual."

"Stress-induced adaptations," you say, remembering Dr. Neptune's words for it.

"Exactly," Dr. Warefore says with a smile. "Imagine if humans had that ability! Imagine how easily we could traverse our world, our solar system, our galaxy! Imagine the frontiers mankind could reach, the disasters we could endure and survive, the heights we could achieve!"

A door opens before you as she steps through it into an enormous chamber, the left side of which casts an eerie blue glow over the rest of it. "That is why we're here. The Sea of Monsters holds the key to the next step in human evolution, and we aim to find it."

You step into the room after her and are greeted with a sudden shock.

There, behind a large window, is a massive sea serpent. The enormous eel coils around itself, trapped in the glass and metal cage that surrounds it on all sides. As the colossal fish turns its yellow eyes onto you, Calibani reaches out and squeezes your hand.

"Sailor," she whispers, "I don't know how I know this, but... I think that's my mom?"

Slowly you recognize the family resemblance - the veiny fins, the armored scutes and spikes, the teal scales, the natural eyeliner. It's Calibani-adjacent, that's for sure, and as the serpent writhes in its prison, you realize that your daring escape from the Sea of Monsters has a new wrinkle. You consult your compass.

[tyrantisterror]

At Sea Without a Map pt. 57

"Calibani, I think we're going to need to swim out of here," you say as you hear more and more water burst in from above. "Just a hunch, and, well-"

Without a word, Calibani grabs your arm, smiles, and nods before dashing forward as fast as her legs can carry her. Bob grabs her undulating tail with one hand while rolling her wheels with the other, doing all she can to keep up as the three of you head through the hallways together.

The sea station is in chaos. Hazmat suit-clad goons are running in all directions, some with purpose and others in panic, most of which pay no attention to you as they focus on surviving an increasingly dire situation. The few that do try to stop you find out that Bob has developed quite a trigger finger, which, combined with the fact that you three are heading towards the flooded sections of the station, provides enough danger to keep you safe from the rest.

The water, however, quickly proves to be a problem. There's lot of it pouring in, and the current is moving in the opposite direction you want to go. On the plus side, Bob is able to cast off her wheelchair and start swimming alongside you, and Calibani's movie much faster now that her tail can propel her forward instead of acting as dead weight, but the further up you get, the harder it is to fight against the current.

"Sailor," Calibani says as she fights to move forward. "I'm going to... I'm gonna grow. You meant it when you said you didn't find me ugly when I was big, right?"

"Of course," you tell her before bashfully adding, "...it was kinda hot."

Calibani smirks, takes a breath, and begins to swell. She doesn't get quite as enormous as last time, but she becomes big enough to tuck you under her arm. To your amazement (or at least confusion), her sweater seems to grow with her this time - you guess Dr. Neptune didn't want her to have to go through the trauma of losing it again. As her tail becomes longer and stronger, she forces her way through the current, carrying you and Bob through the docking bay and out into the open sea once more.

You decide to just quietly memory hole how you kinda sorta accidentally caused an enormous sea station to flood while it's being attacked by sea monsters, quite possibly dooming hundreds, maybe even thousands of people to a pretty grisly death. Some memories maybe don't need to be revisited.

As you, Calibani, and Bob swim free, you consult your dying compass on how to proceed.

[tyrantisterror]

At Sea Without a Map pt. 53

You subtly give Calibani's shoulder a reassuring squeeze as you ask Dr. Warefore, "Why do you have a sea serpent in your underwater laboratory?"

Dr. Warefore grins. "Ah, yes, the Psychorax specimen I knew she'd catch your eye. We keep her to study, of course. There are lots of adaptations she sports that we're trying to replicate - I know she may look like a dumb animal, but do you see those fins on the sides of her head? They're psychic receptors. If it weren't for the dampening field we built into her tank, she'd be able to call out for miles and miles till one of her kin heard her message, and we might be none the wiser."

The scientist jots another note on her clipboard. "But it's her size that marks her as a real prize. Creatures here do not attain that size without surviving a long, long time. Oh, sure, some can have temporary growth spurts brought on by extreme emotional responses, but to maintain it they have to have survived a great deal of hardship. Such power is hard-earned - well, if you're content to play by the Sea's rules, anyway." She places her clipboard on a desk and regards the captive sea monster.

"Nature plays the long game, but Spindle isn't content to wait for results. Even with the differences between our realities, there are rules that can be followed - everything is reducible to chemical reactions in the end. By studying this creature's biochemistry, we can learn to unlock the adaptations it gained from its long life and grant them to our own custom made organisms. Why climb a mountain when you can just take a helicopter up, eh?"

The gaze of the serpent moves from you to the scientist, and as it does you see anger creep into the massive eel's face. She opens her jaws in a silent snarl, and Dr. Warefore laughs.

"It was quite a spectacle, you know, the day we brought this monster to heel. She fought hard, but we have weapons no creature here is prepared for. Capturing her alive was the tricky part, really - there were several moments we feared we'd killed her." Dr. Warefore laughs again, a cruel, mirthless sound. "I suppose she feared it too - do you know that many creatures here will reproduce if they think they're dying? Most of the natives can do it asexually, you know. It's the final gasp of their Lamarckian need to survive at all costs. She laid an egg as we were subduing her, and despite our best efforts we weren't able to recover it." Dr. Warefore shakes her head. "A shame. I would kill to see what adaptations the child had in response to our attack on its mother. How would it try to counter the ingenuity of human beings?"

You can feel Calibani trembling beneath her arm. This is why she grew up alone, without a mother, without any sense of community. This is why she was built to prey on humans - so she could defend herself from them. Everything that led to her isolation began right here - with human ambition.

If Dr. Warefore notices your companion's emotional turmoil, she doesn't mention it, instead strolling calmly to a wall of monitors in the room. Each one displays a live video feed of different creatures - some lurking in the sea, some in holding cells like poor Sycorax here, and some... well, some appear to be outside the sea itself.

"Establishing this base has been one of Spindle's crown achievements. We have your friend Dr. Neptune to thank for it - he was a contractor working for our R&D department, and the first to figure out how to facilitate purposeful travel to this universe by utilizing the Veil Knots on the corners of the Bermuda Triangle. That's why I'd really like to bring him back into the fold - we could learn so much from his brilliant mind."

She turns to you with a smile that almost seems comforting, if she wasn't clearly some sort of sadist with delusions of grandeur. "And we would be happy to add you to our ranks as well. Gifted field agents are a rarity - there are few people who could survive the Sea of Monsters on their own, much less tame two of its residents to serve as their henchmen."

Oh fuck. She knows.

"So what do you say, Sailor? I could send you back home right now, if that's really what you want, but think about what I'm offering you. It's a steady paycheck, a resources to explore this Sea to your heart's content, and the prestige of contributing to the bright future Spindle is building. Are you bold enough to take it?"

You consult your compass.

[tyrantisterror]

At Sea Without a Map Pt. 51

You look around your boat to see if there's any way to communicate with the sea station - a radio, an intercom, anything. Obviously they used some sort of psychic mind whammy thingamajig to get your message across, and you're pretty sure you don't have that on your boat, but you might have something. Eventually you find something that sort of looks like it could be a microphone of some sort and, with nothing to lose, grab it and hold it to your mouth. "Um, hi. We mean you no harm either. I'm just trying to get back home, that's all."

There's a long silence, and you worry that your efforts may have been in vain, only for a voice to sound off in your head again. It's not the same as the first message that was projected into your mind - there's none of that fake, canned enthusiasm you get from an advertisement, but instead the weariness of someone who's been working too many hours with too few breaks. "It's not often that we get visitors, much less human ones. But we can get you home. Do as our instructions told you and head to the docking bays on the upper level - the big circular ports with x-shaped doors, if you can't suss that out."

"You won't hurt my friends?" you press the voice. "I want assurance on that. My boat and my friends will be safe?"

Again there is a pause before the weary voice answers, "That's fine. We're not in the business of hurting people, anyway, or boats for that matter. Come aboard and we'll get you home, alive and unharmed. You have my word."

You don't know how much their word is worth, but you've had less to go on in the past and made it out ok, so with a sigh you steer your boat to one of the ports on the station's upper level and wait for it to open. Once you steer your boat inside, the doors close behind you, and the water level drops significantly. A door on the other side opens in turn, revealing that you're now level with a dock inside the station.

A dock that's swarming with guys in white hazmat suits.

Some of them brandish strange weapons that look sort of like small waterguns with giant seweing needles jammed through them, but the apparent leader of the group holds up his hand and gives you a friendly wave. "Hey there! Welcome to Outpost 851! Come aboard, the boss wants to talk with you!"

"That's great," you say before looking at Bob. "But, um, my friend here can't walk?"

"We'll bring a wheelchair down," the leader of the Spindle workers says. "Don't worry, we're gonna get you all home!"

"I don't trust these guys," Calibani whispers to you.

"Neither do I," you admit. "But let's play along for now and keep our wits about us."

"What's a wheelchair?" Bob asks.

After a short explanation and wait for them to return with the mobility aid - and more than a little subterfuge on your part to keep them from realizing the nature of Bob's disability - you, Calibani, and Bob follow the hazmat suit-clad workers through the many halls of the Spindle sea station, until you arrive at a laboratory that puts Dr. Neptune's to shame with its vast array of sleek and terrifying looking scientific machinery, most of which incorporates some sort of sharp needle as a key part.

In the center of it all is a severe looking woman in a trim labcoat. She wears a sort of coif over her head and neck. Two large, round devices sit over her ears, with the left one sporting a strange sort of monocle device that hangs over her left eye as well as a microphone that extends over her mouth. "A human visitor," she says aloud while looking over some papers on her clipboard, not deigning to look at you yet. "Fascinating. It's been years since we last spotted a non-Spindle human out here. And one that actually managed to reach our lab without our aid? Never happened before." She finally looks up from her clipboard and stares intensely at you. "You're quite the outlier. But I suppose I should let you sate your curiosity before I sate my own. So, what brings you to my outpost?"

As this woman's gaze bears down on you, you feel a dread rise inside you beyond any of those caused by the monsters you've met so far. And so you consult your compass on what to say.

[tyrantisterror]

At Sea Without a Map pt. 50

As the mothman flutters away, you turn to Calibani and Bob. "We're going straight down," you tell the two fish ladies. "And I guess there's going to be some monsters there, including at least one of the human variety."

"I'm with you all the way," Calibani says without hesitation. "No matter what it takes, I'm getting you home."

"Ditto," Bob says.

You nod and give them a grateful smile. Their support isn't surprising, but you don't want to take it for granted either. Still, the mothman's words resound in your head, and you can't help but fear there's some angle you haven't considered yet. It takes almost tripping over bob's mermaid tail for you to realize what it might be.

"Um... so, here's the thing, ladies," you tell your friends, "Not all humans are as, um... accepting as I am, and if we meet some more..."

Bob stares blankly at you as you trail off. "If we meet some more then... what?"

"They might get scared," Calibani says, anticipating your thoughts before you even say them. "That's alright, I can deal with that." She closes her eyes, and slowly her body begins to change. Her scales thin out until they blend almost seamlessly with her skin, which changes in tone from teal to a blue-green that's so pale it could almost pass for a human skin tone, albeit if that human was feeling very ill or cold. Her hair darkens until its green sheen is lost, and her claws retract until they look at a glance like very long nails. Finally, her ear-like fins fold in on themselves until they're hidden in the locks of her hair, while she slides her tail into her skirt and wraps it around her legs to keep it out of sight. "Tada! I'm almost human, right?" she says with a smile.

You nod. "That's really impressive, Calibani. I didn't know you could do that."

"Really? I did it when we first met, you know," she reminds you. "To hide the fact that... um... I guess we don't need to dig up the past, do we?"

"It's pretty cool," Bob says as she sits on the deck of the ship. You and Calibani watch her expectantly, and she stares blankly at you for a long while before saying, "Oh. Yeah, no, I can't do that."

"Shit," Calibani says. "How are we going to pass you off as a human, then?"

Luckily, you get an idea. You quickly raid the closet below deck, finding a number of things that could help. You pin another blanket into a makeshift skirt, then tie two spare boots to the ends of a rope before tying it around Bob's waist. Adding one spare t-shirt to the ensemble, and you've got your mermaid friend passing for a human.

Seriously, who would be able to tell the difference?

With that settled, you, Calibani, and Bob pile into the captain's quarters above deck. As you grip the steering wheel, you will the ship to dive, and your boat lets out one last howl before obeying your command and sinking deep below the surface of the sea. A vast underwater world rushes by you in your air-tight captain's cabin, with all manner of strange fish passing you as your ship plunges deep, deep into the belly of the sea.

Eventually you spot something massive and shining below you - a huge, spherical object lurking in the gloom below. The closer you get, the more massive it appears, until eventually you make out just what it is that you're approaching.

It isn't a fish.

What it is, exactly, isn't fully clear to you, as you've never seen anything like it before. But if you had to hazard a guess, you'd say it's some sort of sea station - the fact that you spot two strange submarines buzzing around it adds fuel to that theory's fire, in fact, though a number of oddities in its design, particularly the huge sewing needle that's bolted into its underside, muddy the waters a tad.

Your head aches slightly as a voice shouts inside it, "DO NOT BE AFRAID. APPROACH THE DOCKING BAY ON THE UPPER LEVEL. YOU ARE WELCOME, YOU ARE SAFE. THIS MESSAGE BROUGHT TO YOU BY SPINDLE INC. SPINDLE - WEAVING A BETTER FUTURE ONE THREAD AT A TIME! DO NOT BE AFRAID. APPROACH THE DOCKING BAY ON THE UPPER FLOOR-"

You will the voice to stop, and it complies. As the massive sea station gets closer and closer, with its two submarines lurching towards your boat out of the gloom, you consult your compass.