The man or... merman in front of us was by far the most unique person I had encountered during my time here. Although, he wasn’t a merman in the way most would think. He did have fish qualities, but it wasn’t a clear half and half split. Sprouting from his lower arms were beautiful blue fins that glistened in the light. His feet were webbed and there were fins sprouting from the back of his calves as well. The only fish-like trait I had been expecting to see, gills, I didn’t.

Then I remembered something I had read. In the book on the successful trials of Project: Fusion, there had been a race labeled Potron. They were a race of humans that had been merged with fish. It was likely that this man was, in fact, a potron of some kind. This also would mean that I had now met someone of each of the different iluine races.

I realized that I was staring when the man, Amus he had said, meekly waved his hand. “Hello?”

I snapped out of my thought. “Oh! Sorry! I was just... thinking. Hi. I’m Avien.” I was so flustered the words tumbled out almost incoherently.

He nodded. “Right. Well, if I may ask, what are you four doing down here?”

Lilith took the initiative to explain. “Well, we’re on a mission to get to the City of Waves to speak with the commander of Camp II.”

“That’s very convenient, actually. I’m a member of Camp II! I was just coming out here on a quick mission for a client, but you’ve actually done my job for me,” Amus said, pointing to the mess of monster corpses behind us. He swam over to one of them, a large crab-like creature, and pulled of a piece of its shell before placing it inside of a bag which he then slung over his shoulder before returning to the group.

“Glad we could assist you in your mission.”

“Me too. And hey, since you’re looking to speak to commander Jace, I could always pass your message on and save you a trip,” he offered.

I shifted awkwardly in place, “Actually, we have some other business in the City, so we have to go either way. Although, if you’re willing to show us the way, that would be very helpful.”

He let out a hearty laugh. “Wait wait. You guys came here on a mission without knowing where to go?”

“I mean, yes, but we had a general idea of where to go...”

Amus shook his head. “You are really lucky you ran in to me then. You can sure try to find the entrance to our city, but it’s a little bit underground and damn hard to find.”

“What do you mean by “a little bit underground?” Julian asked.

“It’s kind of hard to explain and it’ll be easier to just show you guys,” he said, nervously scratching the back of his head. “I can explain some on the way there.”

We nodded and began on our way to the City of Waves, following closely behind Amus. As we followed behind, I was watching him swim, watching his fins shift and twist as me moved. It was quite remarkable to watch the way he swam and then compare it to how I had barely even been able to control my speed underwater.

“Do you know what’s wrong with my eyes?” I asked Amus, immediately realizing how stupid the question sounded without the context.

To my surprise, he actually seemed to know what I was talking about though. “Ah. I would imagine that the two of you don’t quite like it down here, do you?” He pointed to Lilith and me.

I understood Lilith, but it still didn’t answer my question as to why my eyes didn’t work. He must have seen the confusion in my face because he quickly decided to answer my question. “Right. Your eyes. Unfortunately, I can’t give you the technical reason for it, but the gist is that your eyes only work when there’s air. There must be some way to overcome this disadvantage because I’ve seen other wind apprentices use their abilities underwater.”

I nodded. I still hadn’t figured out basically anything involving this slowed vision power, but assuming we could make it out of this adventure alive, I would have plenty of time to train it. I could also probably practice in my sleep, but given the need for air, it may not work there.

Before I could ask any more questions, Julian spoke up. “So, you said you would do some explaining on our way to your city. Let’s start with where it’s located and what you meant with your earlier comment.”

Amus looked a little stunned by his tone although, looking at his face, it may have actually been Julian’s expression. “Right. Well, as you all know, the camps were all originally designed to be military encampments during the war and that meant that a lot of them are quite heavily fortified. Whether it be our architectural skill or someone’s eccentric tendencies, the entire city is in the center of a pretty dangerous labyrinth that has never been removed.”

“Alright. I supposed to make this labyrinth effective, the city is also undergound or at least in a part of this ocean where the labyrinth would be effective.”

Amus once again looked shocked, but also impressed. “Uh... Yes, that’s quite correct. It is off of an underground ravine, so it’s technically underground, in a sense. To prevent people from getting over the labyrinth, there are several dozen enchanted safe guards as well as many traps inside the structure to keep as many people out.”

The labyrinth did sound like a fantastic idea, but it also seemed a bit excessive since the people of the city already had the advantage of being underwater. It was never really a bad thing to be too careful though. We continued on in silence for a while before we finally came to the ravine that he had spoken of. We looked down in to it and found nothing darkness below.

“Alright, everyone, here we are! Let’s go!” Amus said before shooting downwards in to the ravine. We looked at each other before quickly diving down as well, knowing that if we were to lose sight, we would be totally in the dark.

Thankfully, for the rest of the group, Lilith’s scarf did provide us with some light. It reflected off of Amus’s fins so we were able to keep up with him the whole way. After swimming down for about ten minutes, Amus stopped and we quickly caught up to him. Where he had stopped, there was a large opening in the side of the ravine. From inside, there was a faint green-blue glow from an unknown source. However, once we got inside, I was quickly met with the beautiful answer.

Above us, lining the top of an enormous cavern, there were thousands of glowing plants attached to vines. The vines looked like thousands of hands holding out small suns to the world. It was an absolutely beautiful sight and the light it cast was amazing. It did raise the question of how they slept with such bright lights beaming down constantly. Maybe there was a way of dimming them or shielding the city from a portion of the light.

Speaking of the city, laid out in front of us was the massive labyrinth I could only assume contained the city. We had entered just a few feet above the massive entrance. The walls were easily several hundred feet tall, so we couldn’t see over them. According to what Amus said, going over them to try and get a look at the city also wasn’t a good idea. I was imagining massive spikes shooting up from the walls, but it was probably something a little more serious and effective than that.

Amus turned back to us. “Usually I would just go through like normal since the defenses almost all don’t work and don’t even activate for water apprentices, but since we have you here, I’ll need to take you through to make sure you don’t die. Usually, the camp has someone out here as an escort, but since we received no message, no one was deployed. Thankfully, you ran in to me, so it’s all fine. Now, let’s go!” He turned back to the labyrinth and slowly headed in.

The labyrinth was just as imposing on the inside as it was on the outside. Not only were the walls in amazing condition, something you wouldn’t expect from something so old, but they were all completely solid in color, so any hidden traps would be invisible to the naked eye. Along with that, the layout of the maze already seemed to be exceedingly complex. Assuming the structure was a full circle around the city, the ability to build something that was hard to navigate would be quite easy.

For a good portion of time, we simply floated through the maze behind Amus with little to no trouble. Occasionally, there would be a few jets of boiling water or a blast of ice, but nothing too dangerous yet. Then, Amus stopped dead in his tracks, holding out his arm for us to do the same.

“What’s happening?” Viktor whispered.

Amus placed a finger over his mouth to quiet him before closing his eyes, seemingly to listen closely to something, but even I couldn’t hear anything. He then pulled a small red chip out of his pocket and whispered, “When it happens, swim as fast as you can.”

Before we could ask what he meant, he tossed the chip in front of him and from the ground a creature erupted, consuming the coin and quickly burrowing back down. Once it had gone back down, we began swimming as fast as we could across the newly opened chasm in the ground. Once we reached the other side, I watched in awe as the chasm quickly filled back up with sand like nothing had even happened.

“There are about fourteen of those scattered throughout. You only run in to one of them on the correct path, but even that is far too much,” Amus said, not looking back as we continued through the labyrinth.

It took us about twenty minutes to get through the whole maze and the giant ground serpent was easily the most exciting one, aside from Viktor getting one of his shoes frozen in a block of ice. Once we reached the end, we were met with a set of giant doors made of the same stone as the rest of the labyrinth. On the door was a water sigil surrounded by a crescent and what looked like small waves. The middle part resembled that of the crest of the Lumun City, so I could only imagine that this was the crest for the City of Waves.

Amus swam over to the massive door and placed his hand directly on the large water sigil in the middle of the crest. It glowed blue briefly before the doors began to slide open, bathing us in more light.

There were two guards on either side of the door that glanced at Amus and nodded to the four of us behind him.

“Right, these four, they are from...”

“Camp VII,” Viktor answered.

“Ah. They are apprentices from Camp VII. They have business in both the city and at camp, so I led them here.”

The guard nodded again and motioned for us to enter. We thanked the guard and made our way inside, the giant doors slamming shut behind us.