Chapter 4
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An Unexpected Opportunity
“Daia! We’ve been searching for-ever!” Penni cries out in exasperation.
It’s nighttime now, and Okipo City is completely illuminated in shades of red, purple, pink, blue, and green. Strips of light running along the buildings and floating lamps of various sizes aid the signs in giving the city its glow. The bustle of the city has changed from a lively buzz to a cool murmur.
Daia puts her hands out for the umpteenth time, muttering, “Wait, wait, I think we’re almost there…” Her eyes light up. “for real this time! Look!” She points at a squat, old building. It’s engulfed in plants and houses one dimly lit purple sign above the entrance. “But there’s a problem…” Daia looks around anxiously. “I won’t be able to go home anytime soon. The water’s too dark.”
Penni rushes to the entrance of the Kotalek. “Oh, come on,” she says over her shoulder to Daia. “I’m sure you could do it in the dark. Just sing to one of your spirit friends!”
“Oh, ha ha. Very funny,” Daia says sarcastically as pushes past Penni into the Kotalek.
“What? It was supposed to be a compliment,” Penni mumbles.
The two mermaids enter the ancient building. The floor immediately drops off, causing the room to be much larger than it appears on the outside. Purple lights shaped like strange seashells are hung up on the walls, casting a dim glow throughout the towering shelves that fill the room. Some of the shelves have large pieces of curved stone attached to the side. Daia swims up to the nearest shelf and enthusiastically examines its contents. Penni follows her and discovers that it looks like a bookshelf, only instead of books the shelf houses tall, slim, book-shaped stones. Each stone has words of the same foreign language as the signs outside carved on it, like the spine of a book would. Daia pulls one out, and it’s revealed to be a stone tablet with carvings on the front and back. She puts it back, pulls out another one, and gently floats down into one of the curved stones.
“So… is there a specific tablet you were after?”
Penni runs her hand along the thin tablets, feeling the words carved into them. “No. I don’t know what I’m supposed to be doing here.”
“You’re supposed to be finding information.” Daia looks up from her reading. “You were sent to the hall of tablets for a reason, right?”
“I guess so. I can’t read any of this stuff.”
“Oh, yeah. Sorry about that. The renderance spell currently only works on tongues and ears. Eyes are… a lot more complex. I’m still working on it. We might be able to find something that’s in your language here, though.”
Penni rolls her eyes. “I doubt it. Can you just help me read these?”
“Sure, as long as you stay in here with me while I read up on some stuff.”
“Deal.” Penni pulls out a random tablet. “This one feels right. How about it?”
Daia takes it from Penni and reads the markings on the side. “Beginner’s Guide to Brisinology: How to Get the Perfect Starfish Garden.” She raises her eyebrows. “You sure this is the one you need?”
Penni snatches the tablet away and shoves it back on the shelf. “No, obviously not. I have no idea which one I need! Let’s keep looking until I find one that…” She pauses. “I don’t know. Let’s just keep looking.”
Daia looks up at the words carved into the shelf. “Do you think we need to be searching through the gardening section?”
Penni purses her lips. “Probably not… Where do you think we should look?” she asks Daia.
“Well, we could try looking at some maps, but I don’t know where that section is.” Daia winces as she swims out of the chair and begins wandering through the shelves. Her injury must still be hurting her. “I think I remember where the help desk is, though.”
Penni follows Daia lower into the mystical building. All the shelves have complex, abstract designs carved into them, like mermaids wielding fantastical weapons, or giant sea monsters with multiple heads, or graceful fish swimming through underwater jungles. Penni is entranced by every one of them. She feels at home in this building, like she could trace her fingers over these artworks forever and never want anything else.
“Hey,” she pulls her mind out of the art’s hypnotizing pull, “how did you do that earlier? The singing.”
“You don’t know anything, huh?” Daia says in disbelief. Her gills flare out with a sigh. “Okay. Like I said earlier, I’m a balaena,” she explains. “We’re not like sirens or anything. At least, I’m not. My voice isn’t that pretty.”
“I disagree,” Penni interjects.
Daia blushes and continued speaking. “Okay, anyway, balaena are able to understand and sing whalesong.”
Penni’s expression doesn’t change. “I don’t know what that means.”
“We can communicate with whales.”
“Is that what you got to help us, a whale?”
Daia’s face screws up in astonishment. “What? No. That was a spirit. That’s the thing, I can communicate with spirits by singing. That’s how I did it earlier. I don’t know any other balaena that can do that.”
“Singing… to spirits?” Penni’s mind is so overwhelmed by new information that she doesn’t ask any more questions.
They reach the desk, which is burrowed very low in the building in between several shelves. There are dark, pink lanterns strung up above the desk, filling the area with otherworldly light. Behind the desk resides an old mermaid with eight large, red tentacles in place of a tail, three of which are organizing the shelves around her. Her long, pink hair dances with the water. Tiny fish dart back and forth through the pink locks, like they live there. She looks up from whatever she’s reading and addresses the young mermaids.
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