Chapter 10: Regicide

Alurel had the weapon to kill a great merfolk in hand. She was thrilled, but she also had a bit of a problem. She needed to get King Poseidon alone. She elected to return to her home to think of ways to do that.

It was on her way back to her home that she paused, shocked at a curious sight. It was King Poseidon, swimming with his back turned towards the entrance of the cove. The Trident was clutched in his left hand.

“No.”, she said quietly to herself. “Why is he here? He’ll discover my chamber.”

The thought occurred to her of Poseidon finding her collections of human bones and other knickknacks of the land-world. He’d know at once that she had been going to the surface, violating his decrees.

Her frown turned to a smile. She begin to think that, on the other hand, he was alone. No matter the reason for coming to her home, he would be isolated.

This wasn’t a threat to her plans; it was a lucky little gift.

He disappeared into the entrance on the underwater mountain. She swam in after him, darting through the short sunbud-lined hall to her more well-lit central chamber.

There he was, back turned, looking up at all the things and bones she had gathered.

“What in the-Argh!”

Alurel hadn’t stopped swimming. She had dashed right towards him, dagger pointed out, and stabbed him clear in the back.

“This pain, w-what is this?!?”

His skin began to crack and dry, starting at the wound and spreading out. He turned around to see Alurel’s face.

“It is done, Poseidon.”, she said.

She pulled the knife out from his back, not wanting to risk him pulling it out and having it in his hands.

“It’s done? What do you mean? What have you done Alurel?”

“Dayshade.”, she said proudly. “It’s infused into the blade. Your wound is fatal, Poseidon.”

“B-but why? Why do that. Why do all... this horror?”

He pointed to the impaled torsos on the stalagmites. The pirate from the other day had lost even more of his flesh, though his eyes still bulged a bit silly. It made Alurel giggle to see it again.

“Ah, do you like my collection?”

Poseidon felt weak, his arms went limper as the withered spread as tones of sickly brown, like a dying flower on land.

“You and Orabelle hadn’t returned with your survey report. I was worried something happened to you two. I checked where you usually swam, then came here, just to see if you were ok.”

Alurel laughed.

“Poseidon, my sweet silly king. You don’t have to worry about Orabelle anymore, and I’m more than ok. I’ll be the new queen. The Trident is at last mine.”

She watched it fall from his withering hands. It drifted to the floor of the cove.

“Is that why you’ve done this? You’ve killed me so you could talk to the humans, sample their baubles and stories?”

“Oh I’m going to do more than that. Their world will be part of ours growing forward: my world. The undersea kingdom is mine. You are king no longer!”

She swam towards the Trident.

Poseidon’s body was near entirely withered away. Bits of him already started to float off, dissolving into the nearby waters.

“Stop, Alurel. It’s too powerful. You won’t know how to wield such power.”

She laughed, taking it into her hands and smiling as she felt its sea-magic fall into her sway.

“I know *exactly* how to wield this.”, she said. She pointed the dagger his direction. “Unlike you, you silly, old, dried-out merman.”

Poseidon was dying. His arms were mostly gone. The poison reached up to his head. With his last bit of strength, he spoke.

“A-A-Alurel...”

“No.”, said Alurel. “More like a *washed-away* merman. Enjoy having the first look at the sea’s new queen before you die.”

She dashed the Trident to the side, following her instincts and trying to use it. Poseidon was near-lifeless, what was left of his body was flaking away.

Alurel’s gesture swirled a current around the great merman’s dying form, just at the moment of his death. It hastened the dispersion of his wilting body into the ocean. Once that little torrent finished, he was but brown, wilted flakes of merman that quickly dissolved in the sea.

Poseidon was dead, and Alurel was alight with joy. The Trident was hers. She felt its power as she clutched its shaft tightly with her left hand. Her green-irised eyes twinkled with wonder and delight.

“Finally.”, she said. “It’s finally mine!”

She raised the Trident upwards, willing a little whirlpool to swarm around with her at the center, safe. The swirling currents knocked all the ‘treasures’ she pilfered from the surface off their shelves, sending it crashing and thrashing around. The skeletons bumped into one another, cracking and snapping. Bony little limbs fanned out. Crates of cargo cracked with soaked fruits spilling to the floor.

Alurel didn’t care. All that was trash now, especially compared to what she’d soon have. She’d have access to all the surface did soon.

‘Very soon.’, thought Alurel.

She ended the whirlpool and swam out of her cove. Once outside the entrance, she tested the Trident further.

Closing her eyes and focusing, she felt she could move her awareness through the seas. She expanded this awareness all the way to the surface, where, focusing, she managed to conjure up a small little rain cloud, trickling down over a small area.

“Yes!”, she said.

She dispersed it with a thought, then looked forward at a large undersea boulder nearby. She pointed at it with the Trident, and willed the waters to swarm the large rock. She willed the pressure to mount, and saw the rock crack, then crush beneath the focused might of the sea.

“Yes!”, she shouted.

Alurel looked at the dagger in her other hand. She set it on the ground, then used the Trident’s magic to levitate it in a bubble of current. Focusing, that current began to squeeze in on the dagger. She pointed the Trident at it and blasted it with lightning.

The focused sea pressure crushed it while the Trident’s blast completed obliterating it. The weapon was no more, and Alurel wouldn’t have to worry about it being used against her.

She had the Trident’s power now. It was all the weapon she needed.

She started swimming back towards the witches grotto. They had to help her with one more task. Along the way, she spotted a lone surveying little merman, a rare sight in the area.

He saw her, shocked to see her wielding the Trident. She didn’t want to seen by anyone of Atlantis, not yet at least.

So, she tested the power of the Trident once more. Pointing the prongs the way of the comparatively tiny merman, she focused and sent forth a beam of lightning his way. It zapped him to the point that his body exploded in a flash of light and gore.

“Yes!!!” rejoiced Alurel. “Such power, soon to be completely and thoroughly mine.”

She zapped a few random parts of the seafloor, reveling further as the Trident’s power could scorch even underwater.

“Just one more little step before then.”