Kairos 51: The Road to Atlantis

For a moment, Kairos thought he had misheard.

“Poseidon’s trident?” he repeated, shocked. “Mithridates is looking for Poseidon’s trident?”

“Not looking for it,” Aglaonice replied with a chuckle. “He already has a shard of it.”

“You lie,” Kairos said with a frown. “If Mithridates had the trident, he would already have sunk Lyce and Histria beneath the waves. If you want to see this weapon’s power, look out of the window.”

“I said a shard, manling.” The sphinx played with one of her pillows, sinking her claws into the soft silk and spilling feathers on the floor. “Unless… you do not know it was shattered?”

Kairos crossed his arms. The tales of the Anthropomachia were often vague and lacking in details. The Travian knew how Poseidon and Hades had perished, but the fate of their relics remained obscure. “I heard that the mermaid kingdom of Orichalcos kept some of Poseidon’s regalia,” he said. “And that they used it to sink an island that mistreated their merchants.”

It must have been the wrong answer, because Aglaonice smirked.

“Oh, you do not know?!” She asked, rubbing his ignorance in his face. “My, why didn’t you tell me sooner, you selfish manling? I should have asked that question during our riddle contest!”

“I was waiting for you to teach me, oh wise and mighty sphinx,” Kairos replied with false servility. “My knowledge of the world pales before your mighty intellect.”

“The words are music to my ear, but the tone is displeasing. Perhaps I should kiss you on the mouth and cut that vile tongue of yours while at it? My kiss will be the best you ever had.”

“I will pass,” the human replied. “I know from Euryale that Poseidon was slain by his own demigod children, when my ancestors climbed Mount Olympus to overthrow the old gods.”

“Indeed he was,” she said, disappointed that the [Rogue] knew that part of the tale. “But while the children had allied to slay the father, none wanted to share his throne. Poseidon’s body wasn’t even cold when his killers started fighting each other, but when the fratricidal melee ended, all were dead, and the trident had shattered. Perhaps the winners of the Anthropomachia, such as Orgonos, could have reforged the weapon and caused the ocean to recede.”

“And yet here the sea still covers the world. So what happened?”

“The nereids, Kairos,” Aglaonice said with a smirk. “The nereids.”

Kairos searched in his memory, and remembered his mother’s history lessons. The nereids were sea nymphs that represented everything good about the sea. They had served as heroes’ lovers, sailors’ friends, and Poseidon’s attendants.

“Though Poseidon and their queen Amphitrite perished in the Antrophomachia, some of the nereids survived the massacre,” Aglaonice explained. “Mourning their beloved Olympians but powerless to defeat the New Gods that murdered them, the nereids vowed that Poseidon’s flood would never be undone; that from now on, the sea would cover the earth forevermore. So the survivors each took a piece of his trident, and spread across the ocean.”

Kairos immediately noticed something wrong with the tale. “Why didn’t anybody like Orgonos try to locate the pieces and recreate the trident?”

“Even shattered, the trident’s shards house a dead deity’s power. The pieces cannot be detected through divination, not even by the likes of Orgonos… and this protection extends to those who carry them.”

“Then how do you know Mithridates has it?”

“Excellent question, and in answer, I shall regale you with the most extraordinary of tales!” Aglaonice put a paw on her breast, eyes closed. What a drama queen… “After you begged me on your knees to find information on your nemesis—”

“That’s not how I remember it.”

“I attempted to spy on this Poison King in Pergamon,” Aglaonice ignored Kairos, clearly in love with the sound of her own voice. “Imagine my frustration when my divinations came up with nothing? I looked into the entrails of goats, a water pond, the stars… nothing worked! A lesser oracle would have given up, but a genius like me easily figured out a workaround.”

“You spied on Mithridates’ allies, since you couldn’t target him directly?” Kairos asked.

Aglaonice glared at him. “I didn’t spy on his allies,” she said. “I scried on his aide-de-camp, the nymphblooded mongrel Absyrtus.”

“Completely different,” Kairos deadpanned.

“See, I have toiled for you out of the goodness of my heart, and I am met with barbed criticism!” Aglaonice snorted. “Though powerful magical wards protected him, I managed to overhear Absyrtus discussing the trident’s shard with the Orthian king Antipater, and how it would secure their victory against Lyce.”

“It’s not the complete trident though?” Kairos asked for confirmation. “Only one piece of it?”

“Yes, though even a shard still has more power than all your silly magical items put together.”

Julia had informed her husband that Mithridates’ engineers worked on a secret project, though she couldn’t discover what. It didn’t take a genius to understand that both of these pieces of information were connected.

A colossal beast with oaken scales, sailing a sea of poison...

The titan Prometheus had warned Kairos of three calamities that would strike the Sunsea in his lifetime. The Travian could already see the writing on the wall, and how it all fit.

Mithridates’ assistant Absyrtus descended from a nymph, and probably a nereid. His ancestor must have left hints about her piece of the trident’s location, allowing the Poison King to claim it for himself.

“So this means that Orichalcos’ ‘regalia’ is another piece of the trident?” Kairos asked.

“Indeed, it is.”

And their shard could destroy an island, according to the tales. “How much power does Mithridates’ piece have? Could it cause another flood?”

Aglaonice shrugged. “Each shard’s power should vary, but I suspect Mithridates’ could easily destroy that little colony of yours... if your foe figures out how to use it.”

This caught the Travian’s attention. “Mithridates can’t access its full power?”

“Of course not, silly manling. A [Hero] cannot properly wield a weapon meant for a [God].”

So much like Kairos couldn’t unlock all of his [Anemoi Spear]’s abilities until he gained the rank of [Hero], the Poison King could only access a sliver of his secret weapon’s might. Was that why Mithridates sought to form an alliance with the [Demigod] Zama? Somehow Kairos doubted that his rival would let anyone but himself anywhere near his trump card.

Mithridates had no friends, only servants and foes.

“What else can you tell me?” Kairos asked.

“Oh, a minor thing, not truly interesting.” Aglaonice played with her hair. “King Antipater of Orthia is raising an army to avenge his city’s losses against your fleet, but is struggling against Queen Euthenia for control of the government. Families always squabble...”

Kairos remembered Queen Euthenia from his own wedding. There was no love lost between the Travian and the Orthian ruler, especially after his actions indirectly led to the death of her brother and nephew… but the enemy of an enemy could become a friend.

“I will inform my wife, and you will work with her in my absence,” Kairos decided, knowing Julia would find a canny way to exploit the situation. With Mithridates rapidly building up his strength, the Travian warlord had no time left to lose.

“And what about my pay, you greedy manling?” Aglaonice asked while Kairos had risen back to his feet. “A ‘loyal minion’ should be paid for her services, don’t you think?”

The Travian glanced at the sphinx, and realized that she was entirely serious. He couldn’t believe her sheer nerve. “How much do you want?”

“We will start with that guest room your wife promised, alongside a staff of servants. I am like a fragile flower, you understand? I will die if nobody caters to my needs. As for my salary…” She slouched on her pillow bed, a paw on her hindlegs. “I have a purse you can fill anytime.”

Kairos suppressed a wince of disgust. “I do not do bestiality.”

“Your wife is a werewolf, and your concubine is a squid. All you are missing to complete the set are a bird and a reptile. Unless you draw the line at felines, you speciesist? If you stop only at appearances, I could easily shapeshift into something you find more pleasant...”

“I would rather bed a snake than a traitor,” Kairos replied harshly. Even if an affair with the treacherous sphinx hadn’t been a bad idea in itself, Andromache hated Aglaonice with a passion. Sharing him with Julia already angered her, and Kairos loved the Scylla too much to wound her heart further.

Besides, he could see Aglaonice’s plan. She was treating Kairos’ family like her former lion mate’s pride, and if she couldn’t master him directly, then she intended to sleep her way to the top. No good could come out of this.

“You are no fun at all,” the sphinx pouted. “Fine. In which case, I want a statue as payment. Seeing your [Idols] filled me with nostalgia. I will settle for nothing less than colored marble, maybe with emeralds for the eyes—”

Kairos sighed, and wondered if he had just been short-changed.

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After being stranded ashore, the Foresight finally set sail again at dawn.

It had been fed the Nemean Lion’s bones before leaving the port, alongside a patch of the indestructible fur. The living ship’s scales had turned golden like Thunderclaw’s skin, and though they didn’t become invulnerable, the change greatly strengthened their resistance to damage. Spears and iron swords had broken or bounced off the hull when Kairos’ crew tested the new transformation.

Considering the critical nature of the trip, Kairos had exceptionally reorganized the crew to include captains such as Cassandra and Agron. Chloris the amazon also joined them as an interpreter, as she could speak multiple languages… though not always well. Besides soldiers and raiders, the Travian also took with him a small group of savants, including interpreters, engineers, astronomers, naturalists, and other scholars. Since Thales couldn’t join the expedition, Julia had insisted on having intellectuals record discoveries and bring knowledge back home.

Thales would stay behind in the colony with Julia and Aurelia, while General Petra took over the colony’s defenses during winter. “Return home, husband,” Julia had said to Kairos while bidding him goodbye on the docks.

“I will,” he had replied before hugging her. Andromache had watched on from the Foresight’s deck without a word. “We will stay in touch through my [Idol].”

“A piece of stone does not replace a man in my bed and a beating heart,” she had replied, joining her hands. “Return at least before the birth. I want our child to see his or her father when they come into this world.”

No force on Earth would prevent Kairos from witnessing that. Not even Mithridates. “Julia, about the trident—”

“I will get to the bottom of this,” she had interrupted him with a smile. “Focus on your trip husband, and leave the matter to me.”

And so, Kairos looked on from the Foresight’s bow as the ship left Histria’s shores behind. His family and Thales waved him goodbye on the shore, alongside the crew’s loved ones. The sight filled Kairos with melancholy.

It would be months before they saw these shores again.

The Travian warlord glanced at his troops, watching on as Cassandra and Tiberius reviewed the ship’s defenses. Though Nessus had taken over as Kairos’ first mate, Cass had spent years sailing on the Foresight, and old habits die hard.

As for the satyr, he took some time to continue teaching Agron the art of music. The minotaur had integrated his part of the Nemean Lion’s pelt to his helmet, the fur covering his back, chest, and shoulders. It made Agron appear even more fearsome than usual, though the silver lyre at his belt contrasted with his barbarian look.

“You have gathered fearsome followers, my love, and well-armed ones,” Andromache said while joining her companion at the ship’s bow in human form. “I remember the day when you raided my shore with barely a shirt on your back.”

And now, his entire crew wore steel armor, and almost all his officers wielded magical items. “We worked hard for this,” Kairos said as he moved behind his concubine and put his hands around her waist. Her back lined up against his chest, and she smiled. “You most of all.”

“The crown was my proudest work,” Andromache said as she trailed a hand against Kairos’ face, and the fanged diadem he wore. “It looks good on you.”

Kairos kissed her in the neck, before looking at the ocean. Clouds obscured the sun and moon, while Rook and a small group of Stymphalian birds surveyed the skies. The open sea looked peaceful so far, but his [Seamanship 3] Skill warned the Travian captain of an incoming storm. “Anxious?” he asked her.

“Excited,” the witch replied. The [Rock of Theseus] waited in the cargo’s hold, alongside gifts for the officials the crew would visit. “Though the journey will be long. Orichalcos alone might prove a difficult threshold.”

“You have already been there?”

“No, but I exchanged stories with merfolk in the past.”

“Did they truly sink an island?”

“King Triton the Fifth destroyed the island of Minoan two centuries ago over a trade dispute, and turned the sunken ruins into a leisure palace. Surface-dwellers have given the merfolk a wide berth ever since.” Andromache locked eyes with him. “You want to interrogate them about the trident.”

“We need to figure out its power’s limits,” Kairos confirmed with a nod. “While it is probably a state-secret for Orichalcos, it costs us nothing to ask.”

“Or, we could find our own piece to counter that poisonous worm.”

Kairos frowned. “And how?”

“You took the titan’s map with you?”

“I did.” Kairos had intended to use Prometheus’ map of the old world to locate sunken cities and pillage them. They probably housed a wealth of items and riches, waiting beneath the sea.

“Orichalcos is said to be located near the ruins of Atlantis, which Poseidon destroyed,” Andromache said. “If I were a nereid looking to honor my fallen lord, I would entomb a piece of the trident there as a memento.”

“A plausible ploy, but in this case, it could be the piece already in Orichalcos’ possession,” her lover pointed out.

“No,” Andromache replied firmly. “The royal family of Orichalcos descends from one of the nereids that survived the Anthropomachia. She gave her piece of the trident to her husband as a bride price, alongside other artifacts from her fallen master.”

“I’m still doubtful the merfolk would leave a trident piece so close to their realm without claiming it for themselves.”

Andromache shrugged. “Even if I am wrong, we should check on the ruins. If I study the magic that destroyed Atlantis, perhaps I could find a way to protect us from the same fate.”

Kairos could only agree.

Rook and the Stymphalian birds returned from their scouting, making circles in the skies. “Black clouds coming from the south, Kairos!” the griffin shouted.

Kairos had expected as much. “Return to the ship,” he ordered the flyers, “we will start the descent.”

No sooner did Rook and the birds land back on the deck, that the Foresight began to sink into the sea. The deck and the mast produced a bubble of translucent slime enveloping the ship. The crew watched on in silence or surprise as a dome formed over them, shielding them from the rising waves. All holes between the oars closed, making the Foresight impervious to flooding.

Within minutes, the Foresight had dived beneath the sea’s surface. A ceiling of water reflected the dim sunlight above the crew’s head, while schools of fish floated next to the deck.

“So pretty,” Rook said, while Nessus whistled.

“Sea is beautiful,” Chloris noted in amazement. Cassandra and Tiberius observed the turbulent waves give way to calmer waters in respectful silence, while [Crafters] among the crew hurriedly took notes. Even Agron looked at the dimming light of the above with longing.

The descent left no one indifferent.

“The membrane produces air by separating it from the water,” Andromache said after magically examining the process. She briefly touched the membrane, her hand phasing through the substance without breaking it. “Like a frog’s skin.”

“So we won’t risk asphyxiating at least,” Kairos noted as the Foresight approached an undersea reef. To the Travian’s amazement, the area seemed volcanic in nature. Thermal vents propelled streams of brine and sulfur into the sea, to the point that the captain could feel the heat through the translucent membrane.

Yet even in this semi-hostile environment, the ocean teemed with life. Forests of colorful anemones had made their lair on the reefs, alongside bioluminescent algae and crimson coral. Banks of clownfishes fled to the safety of this strange forest when the Foresight approached, while curious hermit crabs looked at it with confusion. Banks of fish followed the living ship to feed on the sea parasites covering the hull, like camp followers attending to a wandering soldier.

“Beautiful, isn’t it?” Andromache said, moved by the sight. She removed her hand from the membrane without leaving a hole behind.

“I could transform into a shark,” Kairos suggested, imagining himself holding hands with the Scylla in this underwater paradise. If only he could breathe underwater… “And we could swim through these waters together.”

“We could,” Andromache replied with a smile. “We will.”

The Foresight continued to move deeper underwater according to the navigators’ information, until the sunlight started to look like twilight. Kairos estimated they had reached around one hundred fifty meters below the sea.

“Oh my captain, I see movement to our left,” Nessus declared, his [Darkvision 2] Skill allowing him to see in the dark.

Kairos glanced in that direction, but the lack of sunlight made it impossible for the Travian to distinguish things clearly. All he could see were a wall of anemones and colossal shells carried by seah—

There.

To Kairos’ astonishment, a strange chariot emerged from the anemone forest. The device was a carved pink seashell as large as a cart, carried forward by three golden seahorses as large as warhorses. A woman with a human torso and a fishtail drove the vehicle thanks to a coral harness binding her to the shell, and kept the animals under control with an organic tendril. A male merfolk held onto the chariot by the rear with one hand, while wielding an obsidian spear with the other. Both humanoids wore armor and helmets of carved turtle shells.

And they came with reinforcements. Two other seashell chariots appeared after the first, each with a similar pair of female-male warriors riding them. A group of four white sharks as big as oxes followed the merfolk like a hunting pack. The charioteers observed the Foresight with suspicion and curiosity.

“Kairos, what are your orders?” Cassandra asked. “Do we repel them?”

“And how, lovely Cassandra?” Nessus asked. “Can you fight underwater?”

Unfortunately, though the Foresight could defend itself, only Andromache could credibly fight underwater among the crew. Even Kairos was limited to transforming into a seafaring animal or possessing one.

A merfolk chariot moved closer to the Foresight’s deck, the male soldier at the back appraising the translucent dome protecting the crew from the waters outside. When he realized the surface dwellers wouldn’t attack, he gestured at the reef. Realizing that they wanted the ship to stop moving, Kairos had the Foresight freeze in the waters.

Once the vessel was immobilized, the chariots and sharks surrounded it. The merfolk soldier exchanged sounds with his female partner using strange, whale-like sounds that even Kairos’ [Beast Tongue 3] couldn’t translate.

He did understand what the sharks said though. “Are we eating them yet?” one of the carnivorous beasts asked one of its kindred.

“Doesn’t seem like it,” another said, inspecting the ship. “It’s not a Cetus.”

“No, it’s not,” Kairos replied, his words reverberating through the translucent membrane and water. The sharks immediately looked in his direction. “This is our ship, the Foresight. We are surface-dwellers coming in peace.”

“Your ship looks pretty alive, surface-dweller,” one of the sharks replied with skepticism, before glaring at Andromache. “And that one… she has two legs, but she reads as a Scylla to my Skills. These waters belong to the sea people, not to monsters.”

The mermaid kingdom of Orichalcos was constantly at war with the monsters known as the Abysseans, which included the Cetae, for control of the ocean. No wonder they saw a living ship like the Foresight with suspicion.

“We understand,” Kairos replied with diplomacy. “We hoped to establish a friendly embassy in your kingdom, and bring gifts to your rulers.”

The sharks exchanged glances, before moving away from the deck and reporting the surface-dweller’s words to their merfolk allies. One of the male soldiers visibly frowned, left his spear behind, and started making hand movements towards the Foresight’s crew.

“Sign language,” Cassandra recognized.

“Oh, I have awareness of that!” Chloris said, making hand movements to the merfolk soldier.

“Tell them we come in peace,” Kairos ordered. “That we bring gifts and friendship, not war. This ship is my Legendary Item, not a Cetus.”

Other soldiers joined the merfolk chariot-rider, the sea people exchanging with vocalized, dolphin-like sounds. Their leader exchanged more signs with Chloris, causing the amazon to nod. “They say, we must go after them to a great city, or they will hunt us,” she explained to Kairos.

“They won’t let us turn away?” Cass asked with a frown.

“They gained great worry of big ship. They have curiosi—” Chloris corrected herself, trying to find the right words in the Travian tongue. “They are curious.”

The sharks approached the deck again with similar demands. “You’re coming with us to the capital,” one of them told Kairos. “You do anything funny, and we’ll see how well you can breathe without that bubble of yours.”

“We agree to your terms,” Kairos said, telepathically ordering the Foresight to follow the merfolk scouts. The sea chariots surrounded the living ship from all sides, escorting it south.

The journey lasted for roughly an hour, leading them deeper into the sea. But although the sunlight above dimmed, light increased in this area of the Sunsea. The sun contended with phosphorescent fish and flowers. More merfolk patrols joined the Foresight’s escort, until a full school of chariots surrounded it from all sides.

The descent ended when they reached a deep sea crater so wide that Kairos estimated it at around thirty kilometers in diameters, with thousands of lights coming from within it.

The Foresight’s crew gasped in amazement as they got used to the lights, and witnessed the shape of buildings within the crater’s edge.

A gargantuan, underwater metropolis slowly came into sight.

The city was unlike anything on earth. Towers of coral larger than any building Kairos had seen cluttered like spikes next to stadiums made of the bones of colossal sea monsters. Rows of gigantic crab shells and oysters formed colorful suburbs, while enormous whales and massive angelfishes carried anemone houses on their backs. Shining jellyfish as tall as trees provided the city’s lights, each of a different color.

Kairos could only gasp at the place’s splendor, and even Andromache held her lover’s hand tightly; Rook looked almost hypnotized. They witnessed wondrous sights everywhere they looked: nacre streets and iridescent pearls as big as houses, magnificent kelp forests and seagrass meadows, even a large bubble dome near the city center.

And the population… an uncountable number of merfolk, fish, sharks, and other creatures floated around the metropolis’ wide streets and structures. They moved as swiftly as birds in the sky in a marvelous ballet.

A single building dwarfed all other structures, a dorsal spine-shaped palace of coral, nacre, and salt. Its surface shone with all the colors of the rainbow, while its transparent windows thrummed with the song of whales.

Few surface-dwellers had visited the kingdom of Orichalcos… and Kairos’ crew had now joined this select group.

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A/N: chapter made possible by you, dear patrons. We're finally into the Atlantis arc ;)