Chapter 167: Hunter, Hunted
The first to awaken was the tidewalker sprite.
Much like my other sprite evolution, it didn't wake up so much as coalesce, dripping back together from the cloud-dispersal it had been. My armoured jawfish was still watching over it, swimming in as tight of circles as he could manage with fangs bared and scarlet eyes furious, waiting for it to finish. And finish it had.
My stormcaller sprite took the form of a wolf, trading how many legs she had and how many teeth and whatever she wanted at the moment. The tidewalker sprite was… different.
It was entirely alien, no creature I knew—it was formed of globs of water, woven together like a solid thing but flowing like water, and in lacking limbs or eyes or mouth it appeared to be made entirely of fins. Some dorsal, littered with spines, some bristling out the sides, a few circling below—a twisting, writhing ball of water separate from the lake it was in.
Hells. It was a wonder elementals were even on Aiqith; they matched nothing else out there. At least I could understand the thought process behind my lovely stormcaller sprite; this was a monstrosity.
But a monstrosity with the power of currents on its side; already it began to swim, however odd that looked, and the water bended to its command. Propulsion, slow but increasing, as it skipped and pranced around the Underlake.
The armoured jawfish followed it, eyes wide. His salvation; his promise to the lower floors. To the Hungering Reefs.
Godsdamnit, I'd just closed all those auxiliary tunnels.
But as much as I could make Akkyst walk through the Jungle Labyrinth, I could not for my armoured jawfish. A small mercy was the weight of his armour; I could dig a tunnel straight down and let him fall through it, leveling out once he was on the level of the Hungering Reefs; which was what I did. Already I could feel Mayalle looking in, that star-burn awareness of change on her mana-filled floor, and I'd rather nip that in the bud before she had time to grow properly incensed I was removing the armoured jawfish from her floor. It was my plan to introduce new monsters anyway, once Abarossa delivered her promised schemas. A win-win.