Shores of Our Imagination

Shores of Our Imagination is Ahpolki inika's entry into the Summer 2019 Writing Contest.

Story
When people think of the seas, a thousand things come to mind. For some, it was the colorful reefs and fish. For others, the darkest depths and the dreaded unknown. For certain youths, it represented an adventure in wait. There were surely other lands beyond their tiny speck in the endless ocean. And one young lass longed to see them.

She was of the native Okotans, her armor consisting of green-and-black. Emerald green eyes gleamed from behind her mask as they scanned the sands. She poked and dug at them with her shovel, hoping to dig up some ancient relic. Well, more like seashells, but a child could dream, right? Not too far from her were her parents. Her mother’s emerald armor designated her as a member of the Jungle Tribe. Her ebony father hailed from the one of Earth.

Her tool had bumped against something under the grains. The girl cast it aside and dug at the spot with her bare hands. To her disappointment, it was just a hermit crab. She did admire its shell, though. Black and white with hints of yellow. The crimson critter bearing it shuttled off before she could reach out for it. A chuckle from her father caught attention.

“Well,” he said with a smile. “There goes another treasure.”

Kripta pouted playfully. “There’s more valuable stuff than him,” She replied.

“True,” he noted. “There’s probably less gnarly seashells than whatever that thing carried.”

“I thought you liked the dark?” The mother chimed in with a smirk.

“Not what lurks in it,” He retorted. “There’s a distinct difference between the darkness and what lies within, you know.”

“So you’ve said a thousand times,” She raid.

The lone male crossed his arms and rolled his eyes. He turned his attention back to his daughter, still digging in the sand. “Kripta,” he began. “Instead of trying to find treasure, why not make your own?”

Her head perked up and turned towards him, tilted. “What do you mean?” She said with curiosity.

“Ever heard of sandcastles?”

She nodded.

“Good,” He said. “Because now’s the chance to build your own.”

Eons ago... In another time and place, there was a magnificent fortress on the coast. A great moat surrounded it while dragon-like creatures swam in its murky waters. The only safe passage over it was a simple wooden bridge, but the way was blocked by an iron gate. Beyond it were Okotans of various colorschemes and weapon loadouts. At the center of the courtyard was a massive castle, housing the ruler of the land.

She was a sleek figure, clad in jet-black armor with hints of blue. Sapphire eyes stared past a massive window and at the rising sun. A glorious wave of color bounced off the skies and sea, almost forming a rainbow from the two of them. She sighed to herself. Times like this she wished her King and husband were still standing with her. But the waves took him long ago. He took him.

A hunchbacked servant approached her. “Speak,” The monarch commanded.

The servant bowed. “I bring good news milady,” He said. “Ekimu has accepted your invitation to the palace. He is already making his way here as we speak.”

“When will he arrive?”

“By our calculations, two days from now,” The queen smiled. “Excellent,” She said. “Is there anything else to report.”

“Only that our mages expect fair skies and clear waters,” The servant replied. “Beyond that, little more.”

“Then you are dismissed.”

The servant bowed and left the throneroom promptly. The Sea Queen placed a hand on her chin and looked around the room. It wasn’t as grand as their original palace and many of its trophies were lost in their city’s downfall. So many lives were cut short on that day, so much of their culture was buried under the mud. It took years for them to build new homes on the surface. And it’s taking them even longer to adjust to their new lives here.

She sighed and rose from her throne. Her people have so far spent the majority of their time behind walls. They knew little to nothing about the surface world or who to trust. They were literally fish of the water. Ekimu is the only outsider she can trust for now.

She shook her head. Perhaps she just needs some fresh air. Yes… it’s been a while since she had some. She departed from the throne room and made her way towards the nearest watchtower. The guards jumped to their feet as she walked through, saluting her. She finally made her way to a tower and climbed up the stairs. When the finally reached the top, she was greeted with a glorious sight.

The sun hung over the seas and graced the surface world with its radiance. Warm rays ranging from orange to red fell upon the shores. She could make out her people’s makeshift village, still under construction. A monolith stood further away, left behind by some unknown civilization. Some Okotans were tending to the farms, teaching the amphibious newcomers the ins and outs of agriculture. Part of an agreement between the Mask Makers and her subjects.

She sighed and rested her head on the rail. She missed living under the sea, swimming without the concerns of gravity. She missed diving into the trenches to battle whatever beast dwelled in darkness. It was a sport she and her late husband partook in. And tragically, it was also the last place she saw him.

She reached for her Mask of Power. Despite the locals’ belief, this wasn’t actually her Mask. It was passed down from one monarch to the next. Before her love was dragged into the abyss, he was able to fling the Mask to her before it was lost. Sadly the very notion also signaled that he had little faith in his chances of survival. And when he did come back…

Her claws dug into the rail. Memories of a city under siege ran through her mind. Memories of rotting beasts crushing everything they built. Memories of citizens fleeing and soldiers firing bolts of energy at the undead. An image of her late love- reanimated- slaughtering those who once would’ve laid down their lives for him. And the laughter of the defiler echoed in the back of her skull.

How long would this beauty last? How long before he returned to this land to claim the prize she and her lover denied him? An answer came as her eyes caught something in the distance. It was difficult to make out in the light, but she could see them now. Grey clouds at the edge of the sea. Didn’t the servant say that there was supposed to be clear weather? Perhaps they meant for the day only. It didn’t appear as though that it wouldn’t arrive until-

Wait… the clouds were moving. Rapidly. They were changing too, swirling about a child’s spinning top. She ran to a nearby mounted telescope and peered into it. She could see lightning crackling in the grey mass and something at the bottom. There were black shapes moving just above the seawater.

One shadow rose above the rest and had a rather distinctive silhouette. It possessed many tendrils and claws, resembling a cross between a squid and a crustacean. She recognized that shape anywhere. Where that abomination swam, its creator was not far behind.

“Prutela,” The Sea Queen growled.

She grabbed a horn from her satchel and blew it. All around the castle her guards and troopers ran to their battle stations. Many of them grabbed bows and arrows, others manning cannons. She ran to the battlements to join her men, grabbing a trident along the way. By the time she got there, one soldier was already holding a telescope for her. He bowed to her as he handed it to her.

“Grab a steed and head to the Capital City,” She commanded him. “Warn them about the Stormcaller and gather their sages. We’re going to need all the help we can get.”

The man nodded and speed off. She placed the scope over an eye and peered through it. Sure enough, an undead army of the sea’s bests was closing in on them. The storm bellowed above as it shadowed them. If she knew Prutela, those clouds would serve as their blade and shield. A naval battle against that would be suicide.

“Shall we send out the armada?” One warrior asked.

The Sea Queen shook her head. “Even if it were in tiptop shape, our warships stand no chance. He’s in his elements out there. Let’s not waste lives and resources when we can take the fight to here.”

“A sound strategy,” The soldier noted.

She held up a hand in the air. It remained in the air for the next few minutes, everyone’s muscles tensing up with each one past. Eventually, she waved her hand and cried out “Fire!” Cannon fire rocked the castle while arrows silently flew towards the seas. The larger projectiles blasted at the larger behemoths while the arrow pierced the smaller undead. The archers didn't have to reload like the cannons and provided covering fire for them while they did.

Suddenly a blast of thunder struck the battlements. Many of the men screamed in agony as the bolts leaped from one victim to the next. Her armor was resistant to the electrical current, but the soldiers weren’t so lucky. She could smell the ash and smoke from the fallen, even hints of molten metal.

She looked down to see more of the fortress’s walls coming down. A number of bipedal undead stormed the fortress and she could make out swords clashing flesh being torn about below. Soft moans caught her attention and she spun around to see her warriors, now shambling profanities of their former selves. She achieved her Mask of The Seas to spawn a tornado of water and hopped into it. She turned around and summed a wave of icicles, impaling many of the zombies.

She turned her attention towards the enemy armada. As long as Prutela stood, he could just reanimate the fallen and overwhelm the living. She had to find him and finish this before any more of her soldiers fell. She dissolved her whirling pillar and dove straight into the waters below. She found a number of rotting sharks, octopi, and other manner of creatures waiting for her. She smirked. He had been waiting a long time for this.

A mangled fusion of shark and angelfish charged at her, jaws a gap. She willed the waves to swarm around it and tear its dead flesh off its bones. More of its kin joined the fray and she swam under them. With her Mask, she willed one current to push the horde to the surface of the water and unleashed a cold blast underneath. The whole group was reduced to a giant ice cube and she leaped on top of it. A towering mix of squid and shrimp snapped its prongs at her. She danced around like some novice at the ball and twirled her trident about. The motions tore up its claws and she charged forth, slicing it in half.

Instead of diving back into the water she conjured up a wave to ride on. Many of the abominations leaped from the water at her, but they never reached her. Some were bombarded with icicles, others sent flying by blasts of water. She rammed through some of the opposition, causing many of them to explode into gore and bone. At last, she made her way to the largest of the horrors.

It was a heavily armored parody of all aquatic life. Its main body consisted of a squid or octopus but bore the chitin-armor and claws of crustaceans. The electrified tendrils of a jellyfish lunged at her, but she surfed to the side and froze them. A claw reached for her but she leaped over and landed on it. She ran across the limb as more tentacles and pincers lunged forth. She coated the top half of her trident in a curved blade of Ice, effectively turning it into a makeshift scythe.

She spun around a maelstrom, cutting her way through the defenses of the stitched-up experiment. As she bounced from one massive limb to the next, she saw her target. Up head was the head of a many-eyed whale, fused to the tip of the squid-head and perpetually facing the skies. The back of its skull was adorned with dozens of eyes, each collected from a different creature. She immediately fired upon with a wave of ice, stabbing into each and every reanimated visual sensor. A zombified screech of a whale was emitted from its many pores as she blinded it.

She was about to finish it off when the storm suddenly closed in around her. A great bolt of lightning sent her flying all the way back to shore. She as they lay there dazed, she could hear a familiar laugh and saw the yellow currents taking shape. Before the queen was an undead bipedal entity, adorn in ancient robes. The cloth was dark grey with intricate designs of yellow and white, though the tears indicated that they had seen better days. She could also make out navy-blue armor underneath the cloak.

What caught her attention the most was his Mask. While her Mask was modeled after a sea dragon, his resembled that of a bird of prey. The sun bounced off its golden surface, concealing the decaying face and metallic skull behind it. She could see the ends of a cruel smile forming just past the edges of the Mask.

“Nymfia my dear,” Greeted the lich. “It’s been a long time! My oh my have you grown... How is my little teenage daughter of the abyss?”

The woman growled as the unliving warlock placed a clawed hand on his rotting chin. “Say, there’s something different about you,” He noted. “Did you cut your tentacle-hair thingies? Trim your claws? Rebuilt yourself?”

He playfully facepalmed with a dark laugh. “Of course, silly me,” He said. “It’s the Mask, isn’t it? So, what… you’re Sea Queen now?”

Her response was to simply punch him. The lich recoiled in pain from the uppercut and glared back at her. A smirk crept across his withered face as he rubbed his chin. “Touched a nerve, didn’t I?” He said.

The woman lashed out at him, swinging her trident at him. The undead sorcerer telekinetically called forth a spear from a dead soldier and blocked the blow with it. Prutela sent a burst of wind at the Queen to give himself breathing space and threw the spear at her. A wall of ice prevented that from happening and she shattered it into a thousand pieces afterward. With a flick of her finger, she sent those shards flying at the lich. A tornado spawned around the undead man and caught those them. He repaid the favor by sending them back to her. She converted them to a more liquid state and they splashed into her harmlessly.

Unforntanly, they made her more vulnerable to his next attack. A thunder cloud spawned above her head and a jolt of lightning struck her trident. It traveled through it and into her body before she could do anything and she screamed in agony. Prutela chuckled as he levitated towards.

“Quite lousy weather ain’t it?” He mocked.

He stretched out his hand towards her trident and pulled it towards. He gave it a brief twirl before aiming it at the Sea Queen.

“So is your prowess,”

Then he heard the strangest sound in the world. He looked up at the battlements to see a sage holding his own trident. And he was dancing with it. More chanting surrounded him and he spun around to see more them. That wasn’t the weird part though. The strange thing about it all was the glow at their feet…

..and at Nymfia’s. Prutela fired bolts of Lightning at the sages and burnt them to a crisp, but it was too late. Nymfia charged at the madman as he fired the Elements at her. Neither wind nor rain nor thunder could slow her down. He had to convert tamed lightning just as her claws reached for his Mask. She rammed through one several pieces of debris and hardly seemed phased by it all. When Prutela reformed, he summoned a massive storm around the castle. Tornados ripped the makeshift village to pieces, tsunamis crashed against the cliffs in the hopes of bringing it all crashing down. The Sea Queen resisted as much as she could, but she ended up being sucked into the storm.

As she flew around, she spotted the Skull Priest at the eye. She would’ve thrown her trident at him then and there, but he had already taken that from her. A bucket bumped into her head as she circled around the lich.

Well, its better than nothing. She thought to herself.

She flipped the pail around and pointed its bottom towards the warlock. She fired a jetstream of water into the opening, the force propelling it from her hand. It flew like an arrow and smashed into the lich’s face, knocking the Mask of Storms off fo his rotting face. The storm dissolved all around them, the waves receding and the tornados vanishing.

The two of them fell to the sands below, but they each had their own landing strategies. Prutela still had levitation while the Sea Queen called upon the seas to alter her trajectory. As they landed the Skull Priest attempted to pull his Mask back towards him. Yet it flew into someone else’s hands instead. Someone small, clad in blue-and-gold armor.

Prutela snarled at the sight of him. “You…”

Everyone had heard of Ekimu the Mask Maker. Everyone knew of his signature artwork, the Mask of Creation. Today it was handing on a belt, though. Today Ekimu was wearing a Mask of Magnetism. Before Prutela could react, he felt his arms fold up againist his chest and his legs clasp together. He tried to move, but he couldn’t. He was effectively paralyzed. And he was helpless as Ekimu switched to his more iconic headwear and built a makeshift sarcophagus around him.

Nymfia finally caught her breath. “You’re late,” she sarcastically noted.

“You didn’t exactly send out the best guide to escort me,” Ekimu retorted. “Besides, I figured that you had everything handled.”

“Hardly,” She panted in frustration, pointing to her castle and village. “You do Creation, right? Can it do restoration?”

Ekimu drew out his hammer, crackling with blue energy. “Architecture isn’t a field I visit often,” he confessed. “This should be an interesting challenge.”

Present-day...

In the present, Kripta and her mother were rebuilding the sandcastle. The father was by the shore, rubbing his hand over a fresh bump on his cranium.

“Was it really necessary to throw the bucket at me?” The woman asked.

“No,” the girl shrugged. “But it was funny at least.”

“Oh sure,” The man sarcastically retorted. “All fun and games until someone gets hurt.” His voice dropped to a sotto tone. “I’m gonna need a month’s supply of ice.”

Kripta giggled under breath and she gazed up at the sky. The sun awas already setting. The blue was already sinking into the background, being steadily replaced by reds and oranges. Her mother noticed this as well and frowned.

“Alright kids,” She said. “Time to head back home,”

The father had an offended look on his face, but everyone knew that wasn’t really the case. It’s just in his nature to act like a child. As they grabbed their things, he did notice something missing.

“Where’s the shovel?” asked the man.

The woman paused a moment.

“You lost it didn’t you?” Kripta noted.

“Lost, no,” Her mother retorted. “Forgot about, yes. I recall planting it near the shore.”

Kripta sighed. “I’ll get it,” She said as she broke off into a sprint.

It wasn’t hadn't to find. It was just sticking out of the sand by the water. As soon as she got close to it, though, the waves washed away the sand holding it and grabbed the instrument. She growled under her breath as the ocean stole her spade. Yet a few seconds later those same waters threw it back at her. She yelped as it impaled a mound of sand beside her, splashing her with the grains. The confused girl turned her gaze back toward the seas again and saw a haunting sight.

There, standing out in the ocean, was a navy-blue specter. It appeared to be bipedal, with some reptilian features. It easily towered over the tallest of her people and held a trident in its hand. The armor’s design suggested it to be female, and it had the most unique mask she had ever seen. It looked like a dragon, with horns attached to it. It reminded her of… No… no way.

She shook her head. The ghost was gone. She heard her mother calling out to her, and she turned back to her parents. Reality sank in and she grabbed her shovel, returning to her family. As they departed, the ghost had reappeared. She was smiling as she crossed her arms. They would see each other again. She was certain of it.

Characters

 * Kripta
 * Kripta's parents
 * Prutela - (Imagination only)
 * The Sea Queen - (Presumably imagination only)
 * Ekimu - (Imagination only)

Trivia

 * The dancing sages near the end of the battle is a reference to the Channeler's Trident dance from the first two Dark Souls games.