[001 ★ voice]

[guiltapalooza]

So... my world's been destroyed. Yeah, not buying it. It's been tried before, by bigger and, well, probably better than whoever's behind this. In fact, I was sort of in the middle of the whole preventing the apolocypse game show right before I got zapped here, so if I could pretty please go back to that...?

Yeah, didn't think that would work. Well. Hi, everyone? I'm Willow Rosenberg, witch extraordinaire. At least they were nice enough to send me here with clothes and magic supplies. No way am I staying in the white phallus suit.

If someone could fill me in on the features that are not as advertised, I'd appreciate it. I'm sure there's all sorts of stuff to know about this place.

A tour might be nice, too. This is a lotta floors.

Comments

[wwaterboy]

[Huh. This is a bit of a roadblock he's not sure how to circumvent. He swims closer and catches onto the side, pulling himself up a bit more out of the water]

Trolls havve gods. [He says this in a cautious manner] But I don't believve in 'em. They're fakey fake and land-glubber deities, anywway, and so they wwould probably spit in my eye if I tried to invvoke them, as it is. No god's evver done anyfin good for a sea dwweller.

[guiltapalooza]

I wouldn't be surprised if all the land dwelling trolls suppressed the myths about sea gods, because we have tons of them. [She can't imagine a culture not having some, especially one that had actual sentient beings that lived in the water. Religion always got targeted during any kind of oppression, so Willow was pretty suspicious about that.

But it wasn't really relevant right now.] We'll lend you some - trust me, they won't mind. They're all about protecting things that live in the sea, and I think you qualify.

[wwaterboy]

[He perks up at this. The last thing he'd do, even if assured that the gods were real, would be to start praying to the Sufferer or the Mirthful Messiahs, but a human god would be different]

Wwell, I could livve wwith that. You lendin' me a god wwouldn't be so bad. And they're real, too? I mean, it'd be a wwaste a time invvoking them if they wweren't real so I'm assumin' that's wwhy you're tellin' me about this.

[guiltapalooza]

They're enormously powerful beings that live in different dimensions - they just used to be religious figures. But they still pay attention when you use their name. I met one of the bad variety once.

Anyway, water deities come in two varieties: the angry, vengeful type, and the benevolent saves-lost-sailors type. We want the second one for me breathing underwater.

[wwaterboy]

[Eridan was rather curious about both types, but he nodded] Definitely wwant the second one for somethin' of this nature. So wwhat noww?

[guiltapalooza]

We pick one. I'm partial to Amphitrite, the old Greek goddess that was queen of the ocean spirits. [Or nymphs, whatever. And she'd also been Poseidon's wife, but that had come later, and Willow doesn't feel she needs to marginalize the poor lady from her prior fame any more than she already is.]

Then I make up a spell. If I were having you do this there'd be supplies and spellbooks and scripts, but once you have more practice you can do it on the fly.

[Short pause.] Ready? I think that's all the intro we need. [And she might be a little impatient to try underwater cave exploration, but just a little.]

[wwaterboy]

[Eridan kicks back, swimming a few feet away without losing sight of Willow. He's not sure what to expect, but so far her magic hasn't involved much fanfare.]

I'm ready.

[guiltapalooza]

[This spell will be a bit different, considering she needs to maintain the result consistently or risk drowning. Living physical transformation is difficult work no matter how you slice it, anyway; Willow's going to try to get around that.

She closes her eyes and takes a few quick moments to compose her thoughts, reorient her breathing. She's done this enough in far more dire circumstances that it doesn't take long. For anyone else, they might feel awkward making a dramatic invokation of a goddess pool side, or at all, and several years ago Willow felt that way, too. But it's just been too long now; her voice is level and confident, and carries easily across the open acoustics of the room.]

Amphitrite, elder of Nereids, the one who encircles the sea: give me your blessing, a gift to explore your realm. [The water ripples faintly, almost unnoticeably--] From water to air and back again, life is one.

[Willow's eyes snap open to a short breeze that appears out of nowhere and curls around her, ruffling her hair. That's all she has time to notice before she's gasping and pushing off from the ledge, plunging herself into the water.

It probably would've been a good idea to think of the fact that if it worked, she wouldn't be able to breathe open air anymore, but oh well. It had worked, and she was underwater, still disoriented by the change. She breathed normally, and somehow... the magic did its thing. That was the nice thing about goddesses: they took care of the details for you. Willow spared Amphitrite some mental gratitude and tried to suppress her natural instinct to head toward the surface or hyperventilate.]

[wwaterboy]

[The moment Willow begins to gasp, Eridan knows it has worked.

As Willow plunges, desperate, into the water, he pushes forward immediately, stroking over to her with two kicks and wraps his arms around her. He draws her close, holding her steady]

Swwalloww the wwater. [He speaks urgently into her ear] Stay calm, swwalloww it, and push it out your gills. You'll be fine. You're amazing.

[He pauses. He didn't mean to say that last bit]

[guiltapalooza]

[The physical contact would ordinarily seem too forward to her, but in this context she grasps onto him as she gets her bearings, frantically following his instructions.

But it is working, and she isn't afraid.] This is totally amazing! [she agrees excitedly, the most animation she's shown since arriving. The thrill of working complicated magic successfully, and something totally benign, rushes through her, as well as the more simple thrill of breathing underwater. She coughs a bit in her excitement, but hurriedly recovers.]

I can't believe I'm doing this -- and talking! You have to show me everything that's down here.

[wwaterboy]

[Yeah, it was probably a little forward, but Eridan was too excited to care, and concerned about her wellbeing. He had promised her he wouldn't let her drown.

As she recovers, he draws back, grabbing her hand and looking her over, trying to see if she put her gills in the same places he had them, and whether she had any fins, webbed feet or anything like that]

I'll showw you wwhatevver you wwant. You'll havve to come dowwn, wwith me. There are all these tunnels dowwn at the bottom.

[guiltapalooza]

[The only physical difference in her was a line of small gills running along her neck; they flashed visible every so often as her hair drifted behind her, a dark red. For the actual swimming, she was on her own, with her own human ability: not fantastic, just decent.

None of that seemed to matter to her, though. She was positively beaming, ecstatic to finally be doing something fun, to be allowed to do something fun with a minimum of guilt. She grasps his hand tightly and kicks her feet a little in the water.]

Then let's go! This was a great idea, Eridan. I'm glad you convinced me. [Maybe that was preemptive to say, but Willow was pretty sure she wouldn't end up regretting this. Even if they encountered some creepy sea monster down in the tunnels, which she wasn't discounting.]

[wwaterboy]

[They're pretty little gills, even if she looks so alien otherwise. He squeezes her hand, beaming]

Then let's divve.

[Suiting action to words, he twists and swims down towards the darkness in the deepest part of the huge pool, dragging her down with him]

[guiltapalooza]

[Definitely a lot faster than she could swim on her own, that's for sure. The water starts to get murkier, more green than blue, and dark as they get deeper near the bottom. Rocky outcroppings spring up here and there, brown and slick with moss in some places.

Willow tries to take it all in instead of overthinking her breathing, because whenever she does that, her breath hitches. The water stays a warm, pleasant swimming temperature, thankfully.]

This is wild, [she says softly, feeling like she shouldn't speak too loudly down here, where there's nothing else alive.] The ocean must be incredible to see like this.

[wwaterboy]

[He glances at her, excited to be showing her something that she really appreciates]

This is nothin'. The ocean is far more alivve and has a lot more to see. A' course in my wworld the ocean is pretty polluted close to shore, but out wwhere my hivve is, it's clear and clean and full a cuttlefish and other colourful fauna.

[guiltapalooza]

I can only imagine. I wish I could see it with you.

But this is pretty great, for now. It feels like a different world. [And it's taking her mind off of everything she left behind at home, and that niggling doubt that everything really was destroyed, that her friends are all dead. That's too much for her to comprehend, now or ever. She's incredibly appreciative of this distraction.]

[wwaterboy]

You don't wwant to come to my wworld. [He says quite firmly] It's full a trolls wwho'd probably wwant to hurt you. Wwe're a vviolent race.

[guiltapalooza]

... Yeah, you're probably right. But you can at least tell me about it? [Squeezes his hand in hers.] If we're going to be friends, I should know this stuff.

[wwaterboy]

Oh, wwell sure, I'vve already told you some things about it. [He squeezes her hand back, and draws her further down, into a tunnel with rocky walls]

[guiltapalooza]

[Bracing herself on the rocks with a free hand and suddenly distracted with a thought.]

In the meantime, want to learn your first spell? I don't know about you, but I definitely won't be able to see down here without some light.

[wwaterboy]

[Oh would he ever! He perks up and nods quickly, his eyes narrowing with interest]

Sure, I'll learn a spell. Is this one to givve us some light?

[guiltapalooza]

[Yup, that'd pretty much been her expression when first learning magic. For all her reservations and misgivings, she finds herself smiling a little.]

Yup, it's pretty basic. I'll do it with you at first so you can see what it feels like, okay?

[wwaterboy]

Okay. [He releases her hand and turns to face her, sculling a little with his hands to keep himself steady and releasing a bit of air from his air bladders until he remained hovering in the water without rising.] Wwhat do I do?

[guiltapalooza]

[Willow hasn't gotten the hang of that yet, but she watches and tries to emulate as she explains.]

So to do any spell, you need to get energy for it from somewhere. That can be yourself, someone else, a deity, or the planet. It's kinda hard to explain how it works, so in this case I'll draw some from you to do the spell myself, and then let you try it on your own.

Sound good?

[wwaterboy]

So I don't havve to invvoke any deities for now? I can just, uh, invvoke my own supernatural powwer?