Chapter 17: Wet New World

Much time passed since what many called ‘The Great Sink’ or, as others called it, ‘Drowning Day’. Alurel preferred the latter term, as she considered the day a celebration.

The entire planet was undersea now. Entire continents existed beneath the salty depths. Humans no longer existed as they did before. They were called gilledfolk now, and looked like fishier versions of their old human forms. They were adapted to live in the new world.

Alurel’s world.

Alurel had given up the idea of being a queen, or even an empress. Now, she called herself what she knew she was: a god. She declared herself the divine rule of her domain.

Her eyes were everywhere. They were on rocks, the underwater mountains. They were in the caves of the sea as well as pretty much any terrain worth noting. They came in all sorts of sizes: large as buildings or even a few near big as mountains.

Those green-irised eyes glowed with her radiance. The looming eyes were the chief sources of light in her new world. Sunbuds were extinct. They were no longer needed, so Alurel did away with them. She liked the idea that people were dependent on her for light. They were dependent on her powers to warm the sea now, too, as the sun’s warmth didn’t reach well enough on its own.

The eyes watched over her people of course, which numbered in the billions: the original seafolk and the newest and most populous entry, the gilledfolk.

Of course, the eyes weren’t even needed to see. Alurel's consciousness sufficed the sea as much as the salt itself did. She was in every breath of water her people took, and in every current they swam in. She felt them, heard them, and even smelled them at all moments. There was no privacy and, if she willed it, she could kill any of them in an instant.

Anyone could be slain with a thought on her end. She could simply increase the water pressure around them, selectively, until they burst into red mist. Or, if hungry as she often was, she could simply digest them on the spot. The sea was an extension of her power and being. All in it belonged to her divine self.

Of course, Alurel herself was huge. She never stopped growing, though she did slow it down. Her tentacles spanned over the entire world. The thick, looming limbs served as borders of sorts between areas of her queendom. They were lined with her eyes too, of course, and those eyes were the biggest. The tentacles moved still of course, often to permit her people passage about without them needing to do the effortful task of swimming above the limbs’ bulks. Every motion of them sent ripples throughout the sea, though, and her people often dreaded when she moved her gigantic body about.

True to her word, she brought much of what the land had to offer down to her new world. The continents that used to be on land were all tugged down to the depths, but they were there and retained much of their hills and mountains.

There were trees underwater now, and many sprouted fruit. Entire underwater forests where the sea urchins and anemones were interspersed between berry bushes, flowers, and cherry trees. Of course, that life needed to be changed to adapt too. There were cherries, yes, but they were misshapen, bulbous: bigger and sweeter. That was fine, as Alurel enjoyed them just as well that way.

People lived in a variety of settlements. The seafolk expanded as the ocean became all encompassing about the world. The gilledfolk were actually able to rebuild some of the land cities underwater from the debris and wreckage resulting from the Drowning Day. New homes were always being built, too.

Of course, the most lauded, protected, and exclusive city was Atlantis itself. Alurel considered it her home, even though the city, now out of its protective bubble, rested beneath her rather than she in it. Its pearl-stone and golden edifices were the source of envy for the gilledfolk, who typically weren’t allowed to live there, even as that city expanded.

Every day, sacrifices were gathered from across the undersea globe and fed to Alurel near that city. It was a daily ritual of supremacy and indulgence. The offerings, mostly gilledfolk, were set upon a sleek black-stone ‘plate’ just outside Atlantis. It was so massive, that Alurel had to make it herself. She could change anything in her waters, after all.

Once many thousands of morsels stepped on it, she brought it up to her mouth. So large was Alurel that her open mouth was all the offerings could see. Her light still glowed bright, brighter than the shimmering Atlantis itself. They saw the light of her mouth and throat as she swallowed people whole en masse, every day.

Alurel didn’t actually need to eat anymore, but it was an indulgence she enjoyed.

The giant great merfolk were considered the elites of her society. They tended to her personally, massaging the expanse of her fair-skinned upper body and her many tentacles. They transformed to carry her eyes upon their bodies, which they considered a great honor.

The great mermaids also brought to Alurel the most beautiful people of her realm, two dozen twice a week, of which Alurel would select a subset of to toy with more intimately. It was another ritual of hers. Those chosen were worthy of joining her body much as Ethan did, and as many, many others had done since then.

They were gulped down whole, and Alurel’s body brought those lucky seafolk to her treasure stomach. They fused into the walls, absorbed, and became like pleasure batteries to her. Her treasure-stomach teemed with these living treasures of hers.

Though she devoured swaths of her own people, it mattered not. Her queendom was always growing in population and territory. The sea levels only ever rose. Alurel’s powers grew with her. In the Trident, the power only had so much space, but Alurel was a much more suitable wielder of such power than a rigid artifact. She could always expand her form after all.

Her power expanded to the point where she sensed not just everything about her own world’s ocean, but bits and tidbits of oceans far away. She sensed seas of other worlds. She was able to call to them, manipulate them subtly.

It always started slowly. She would whisper from the waters of these distant worlds, urging the mortals listening to increase her connection to their worlds in different ways. Sometimes, she had entire cults worshiping her name before she opened the first portal there. Other times, she was ignored, or even reviled.

It didn't matter, fast or slow, she inevitably built a strong enough connection to distant waters to open a portal. None could stop her once she sensed another world to dissolve into her queendom. With the portals, she reached in with tentacles of hers, helping to drag other worlds into her own.

One could tell when a new portal was opened, as her delighted invariably giggle echoed across her entire domain. It meant an expansion of her world: the planet essentially a giant sphere of water with some undersea ground as seafloor. The seas from other worlds flooded in, greatly expanding her domain.

It also meant more terrain, more features and more people. If the denizens of the claimed realms were already aquatic, they stayed as is. Otherwise, they were changed much as the humans were, though never exactly. They usually became more of the mortal gilledfolk which made up the most populous and expendable of her queendom’s citizens.

“Come welcome our new treasures!”, she would say as she finished engulfing another realm into her own.

With Alurel’s powers, she knew that one day all of existence would be hers. Every day that passed, she felt her powers growing. Her body always grew so that her tentacles could stretch across the globe. Her domain, too, grew with time.

There was always some new people to bring into her rule, to treasure. All in her domain, living or no, was a treasure to her.

Alurel viewed those not in her domain as simply those soon to be, and she always kept her powers scrying for any more treasures to collect.

Alurel did so love her collection.

Fin