Once Ruby walked into the shallow of the small goon, she dipped to the side and Nerice flopped pyfully from Ruby’s back and left a lip print on Ruby’s neck as she did so. Watching as Nerice’s blue form disappeared from view, Ruby took a second to completely change into her mermaid form and then with a flick of her wide red tail, torpedoed through the water, catching up to her dymate within a few seconds.

  {“What happened to not wanting to leave my side, Nerice?”}

  {“Tanya, don’t be so melodramatic. I was in flipper distance. I could have spun around your heavenly red form and taken my liberty with you. It was really sexy to kill those frogmen.”}

  {“Nerice, you sound a little too happy that you and I killed those two things.”}

  Ruby let the issue drop and grabbed Nerice’s hand as they reached the edge where the nd fell away to deeper waters.

  All around them were the remains of ships that ranged from simple fishing boats to the rgest of Spanish galleons.

  -All of which have a mountain of treasure, I just need to get past that damned squid.-

  Ruby thought to herself and quietly swam with Nerice trying in desperation to not alert the kraken floating nearby.

  {“You know I heard that. You can’t hide your thoughts from me Tayna.”}

  Nerice chimed in and then squeezed Ruby’s hand as they swam deeper as the shelf fell into yet deeper water.

  {“We can’t get that treasure with that kraken out there, and we will need it. However, we will deal with that after we deal with the fact that frog people came on shore and …”}

  Ruby stopped swimming and pulled Nerice to her in a small swirl.

  {“Nerice love…they had to have followed us on shore. They were hunting for something and it must have had a mighty big reward to not come with a rge force.”}

  Ruby swam to the surface and saw that the couple were well off the coast from just a few minutes of twin tail swishes. “Something isn’t right.” She held Nerice close to her while she thought. “This is just like how I have seen Jaques hunt and carefully sneak up on a merchant ship..almost like stalking it.”

  “I don’t understand what you mean, Tanya.” Nerice offered and clicked to get her bearings. “Humm, there is something below us. Then the kraken by the harbor.”

  Shaking her head, Ruby twisted once and dove the couple back into the water and headed to the bottom of the ocean floor. Coral and stone stagmites reached up from the floor like giant spikes almost like they were begging for sunlight and air. Swimming closer to the rge pilrs, Ruby enjoyed all of the silvery fish and did her best to recall their names. A mid-sized fish and plentiful, Ruby knew to be a croaker since its entire body was covered in shiny scales that she’d cleaned many times when the chef acquired them for the crew. Intermingled with the croaker were a brown and metallic-scaled fish she knew from her time in Engnd as cod. The bigger fish like tuna and Blue Marlin circled the tops of the stagmites in an endless circle of life feeding on life. With their slight disturbance of the sandy floor, Ruby scared a greenish-brown delicacy that had both its eyes on one side of its head and swam sideways called a flounder. Coupled with the sheer numbers of lobster and crab that picked the remains of the dead from the sea floor, Ruby admired the way life seemed undisturbed as compared to the huge ships and bustling cities she came from.

  {“Its beautiful, Nerice.”}

  {“Nothing is saying we have to go back up there, love.”}

  Nerice offered a little too quickly for Ruby not to inquire further as they swam and weaved between the pointed coral.

  {“Why don’t you want to be on shore? It’s great. Gambling, dressing up and dancing, spending other people’s gold, getting drunk and completely losing yourself…in a woman’s arms…”}

  Ruby trailed off with a sigh and the memory of some woman she’d met while dancing and their subsequent sex in an alley afterward.

  {“Tanya. You held that woman on your shoulders as I recall.”}

  {“Yes, I did.”}

  Ruby spun her dymate into her arms and gently touched Nerice’s blindfold.

  {“Nerice my heart…I had that woman’s pussy all over my chin and I loved it…and by the way you are shaking in my arms, you like the memory.”}

  Nerice moaned a little more and then pushed herself out of Ruby’s immediate enchanting influence.

  {“Yes. Caught by my dymate’s ever lustful lewdness. I was there when it happened, you just didn’t see me.”}

  Intent on responding to her partner, Ruby had begun thinking about how that woman tasted when a soft light blue and pink light emanated from a dozen holes purposefully carved into the sides of the continental slope.

  {“It’s beautiful.”}

  Ruby gave up any pretense of her sexual conquest and darted her eye across the little holes and occasionally witnessed an air bubble escape and float to the surface.

  {“I bet this is where they came from, Ner-Ner.”}

  It was easy to see that the holes and subsequent lighting were meant to outline a small vilge of some kind, and Ruby took in the scene the best she could. Illuminated by little balls of algae the spheres were affixed to seaweed and agitated until the bioluminescence created a light simir to a rge mp. Smaller balls of pink lighting outlined most of the holes that Ruby suspected were simply entrances for the frog-people as they went about their business. Rising up through the center of the shelf wall was a huge tower of coral that gave off a deep purple that subdued the structure. Where there was once a point, it was easy to see the outline where the top and subsequent forks had been sheared off and the inside of the structure open for all to see. Swimming a little closer to the coral tower, Ruby surmised that it used to be some study or boratory based on the items that were still hanging by carefully woven pieces of seaweed.

  {“I can’t figure out what that gemstone is on the far side wall, it’s a very light blue. Lighter than any aquamarine that I have seen.”}

  Ruby pulled Nerice to her and focused her mind and gave Nerice a clear picture of the gemstone.

  {“Tanya, that’s kyanite. It’s a very rare and power-rich stone and is pretty valuable to certain people above.”}

  It was as though Ruby’s pirate side took control of her spirit and she held onto Nerice while speeding toward the huge opening. A few swishes into her dash for glitter, Ruby deftly dodged an incoming trident that she noticed was made of the same bonelike material that the ones Nerice and her were currently carrying.