Snatch and Larya stood side by side on the ledge, Mylio floating in the water behind them.
Before them, in the middle of the deep Slick Trench itself, thirteen gorgeous mermaids watched them with eyes glowing of rose-pink and emerald-green glee. Their large breasts bounced lightly in a faint undersea current. They were smiling at their three targets, and their leader, a redhead with a long eel-like tail, had the biggest smile of all.
"You did very well," she said, her voice as sweet and smooth as warm milk. "You defeated Chrysa and Nerka.
Very
well done!" Her solid green eyes glinted with amusement. "But this was always a trap. We were always waiting for you. We knew the merfolk would bring in humans to solve their little slime problem. They're so ... predictably selfish."
"You talk like you aren't merfolk," Larya said. The dark-haired druidess was still completely naked, and she felt painfully vulnerable—even more exposed than the mermaids, who at least didn't have groins to place on full display before a sea of greedy eyes.
"Oh, we are." The eel maid giggled. "And we aren't! Isn't that silly?" Her eyes glimmered, and Larya felt a curious sense of deja vu. Her mouth went a bit slack as she stared into those beautiful eyes. So green. So pure. "Aren't you a silly, silly girl? Walking around with no clothes! You must be such a slut!"
"I ... yeah ..." Larya shook herself. She wasn't
that
susceptible, not now, with fear-borne adrenaline coursing through her veins. "No, okay, you know what?
Fuck
you." She grabbed Snatch's arm in one hand, Mylio's in the other. "Guys, let's—"
The mermaids struck with terrifying suddenness, bolting towards them like predatory sharks.
A brunette bore Larya to the ground. She was laughing like mad, panting with unconcealed desire. Larya struggled for a moment to find purchase as she was knocked off her feet and away from solid ground, and the mermaid took this opportunity to pin her arms against the ground. "I'm gonna drink you," she cooed, eyelashes fluttering, "and then you're gonna drink
me
, and we're gonna—"
Larya kicked the mermaid in the stomach. "Your hypnosis technique needs work!" The mermaid's mouth opened in a silent wheeze as she fell back.
Larya somersaulted back onto her feet to face away from the battle. Before she could turn, though, something else impacted the hollows at the back of her knees, causing her legs to buckle in tandem. She fell backwards and found herself staring up at a haze of pink and green eyes. Intellectually, Larya recognized that one mermaid had pink eyes, the other green, but to her conscious mind at that pain-stunned moment, it was just four glimmering orbs watching her with ... promising interest. Clearly sensing her disorientation, the two mermaids smiled and leaned in, making it even harder to get a grip on a solid reality. "We all want you," the green-eyed mermaid cooed.
"Don't you want us?" asked the rose-eyed mermaid, her eyes seemingly pulsating as their lashes fluttered.
"I ..."
Larya blinked rapidly. Their eyes were inescapable. Their technique was better, she dimly had to admit. She felt the one she'd kicked grab onto one of her legs, stroking her bare skin. "So smooth," the unseen brunette whispered.
Without warning, a wooden shaft shot into view and clocked the green-eyed mermaid above Larya right in the head. She slumped back, and those emerald orbs winked out of Larya's world. "Hey!" the pink-eyed mermaid protested, glaring up at the attacker.
This snapped Larya out of it. At least enough for her to lunge upward, headbutting the pink-eyed fey right between the eyes and again kicking the one holding her leg—this time in the face, she was pretty sure. Head spinning from her own blow, she rolled to the side, avoiding another diving mermaid, and sprang to her feet.
The ledge was too small to fight on. Out of the corner of her eye, Larya saw Snatch fending off three mermaids. A fourth lay to the side, the tip of her fish tail bloody from a spear wound. But he was surrounded.
The diving mermaid Larya had just dodged flicked back around to face her, and Larya realized
she
was about to be surrounded, too. A ring of fey was forming, slowly pinning Larya to the one spot. This particular mermaid was the green-eyed leader. Her shining scarlet hair swam around her like a red halo as she slowly advanced, eel tail swaying sensually to either side, drawing Larya's eyes in like a lasso. "Silly girl..." she whispered.
"Uh-huh!" Fighting the urge to stop, to stare into those pretty eyes, to submit and be a good, silly, horny—fighting the urge to keep thinking thoughts like that, Larya turned and dove between two mermaids as they lunged to close ranks. She crawled, then sprang to her feet on the other side of the ring, ramming straight into Snatch.
The impact took them both clear over the ledge.
For a moment, they drifted. Snatch stared at her with wide, panicked, infuriated eyes. Larya felt soft fingertips
just
graze her heel, about to grab on.
She connected herself to the World Base, ignoring the brief rush of pleasure, and called the waters to take them—not up, she realized, as a shadow fell over them. She looked up for a split-second and saw three mermaids slowly swimming toward them, breasts hanging down straight towards her, big smiles on those empty faces. They were taking their time. They were playing with their food. They knew there was no escape.
Down.
Down.
Down,
she compelled, and let the waters take them.
~~~~
Snatch felt the waters gather around them, and felt gravity suddenly ... shift. Suddenly, they were plummeting. Suddenly, the mermaids who had been about to grab them were ten feet away, then ten meters, then little blots up above. And then he couldn't see them anymore.
"Hey!" he tried to shout, but no sound came out. The waters were rushing too quickly, he supposed. Another limitation of the spell. He looked at Larya, whose green irises were especially prominent as she concentrated on the druidic magic. She gave no sign of having heard him. "Hey!" he shouted, but again got no response.
He waited a few minutes, watching her in the gloomy light. She was very concentrated, and never looked his way. Her arm was hooked under his shoulder, keeping him close—probably so he wouldn't drift away.
Or, he supposed, so he wouldn't abandon her. Again.
"Larya," he said, chewing on his cheek, "I shouldn't have run." The words were actually quite easy to say when he knew no one would hear them. "I got stupid. We were—I was waiting at the entrance, but I'm fucking
done
, Larya, we can't go fucking dying for these assholes. I'm weaker than I've ever felt before. She drained me." He rubbed his eyes. "I couldn't really fight, you
know
I couldn't fight, but I know I still should've stayed."
Silence hung around his words. For once, Snatch felt uneasy with the silence. Usually, silence was a friend, one of his only friends. Now, it felt oppressive, even heavier than the hundreds of tons of water up above.
"I'm ... I'm sorry, alright?" These words didn't come any easier, heard or no. Snatch supposed it was as hard to hear it himself as it was to let others hear it, too.
The waters grew darker and darker, and soon, the adventurer found, he couldn't see Larya at all anymore. He was left alone in the darkness. Like the silence, darkness was an old, cheap friend that today seemed hostile.
A few minutes passed by.
Shit,
he thought,
how deep are we even going?
At last, the descent seemed to slow, then halt. At least, it felt like it did. Snatch couldn't see anything. Maybe there wasn't enough light for even the spell to work with.
Larya let him go. For a moment, Snatch was totally alone, drifting in shadowy waters. Then came Larya's voice. "We're at the bottom," she said. "The ... the
very
bottom. I think this might be the lowest point in the whole ocean. This is the Abyssal Zone."
"Huh." Snatch looked around. "Kinda dark."
There was a pause. "Is it? I can see okay."
"Oh." Snatch blinked. "Wait, is my spell failing?"
"Probably."
Snatch waited for her to follow up. For a few seconds, she didn't. Snatch's heart pounded with paranoid ideas of being abandoned, of being punished for his cowardice—
And then her fingers came to rest on his shoulder, and he felt the magic flow within him again. His vision gradually returned, and with a deep gulp of air, he realized just how little he'd been ... breathing.
They were in an expanse that was essentially empty—all he could see was dull gray-brown sand in all directions, surrounded by curtains of darkness. Larya was looking at him with a strange, sad look. Snatch wasn't great at reading people. Was she still angry? "It failed in you early," she said. "I wonder why. Maybe the jelly maid's ...
attentions
have other effects. Maybe she fed off the magic on you."
"Great," Snatch muttered.
"Hey, but you seem to be feeling better." She shrugged. "Not leaning on the spear anymore."
"I can't even feel the ground, Larya." He looked down and realized that the ash-gray ground was mere inches below him. "But ... yeah. I think it's starting to wear off."
"I wonder why she did that," Larya said. "Aside from the, uh, obvious reason." She gave a nervous giggle. "Maybe they just wanted you weaker, but ... with all the talk about drinking ...oh, I don't know."
"We do," hissed a voice from the shadows. "Would you like us to tell you?"
"Mm, yes," hissed a second voice, "would you like us to
show
you?"
Snatch and Larya turned to the source of the voices, but saw only darkness. It couldn't already be the mermaids, surely—though those
were
feminine voices.
"Who's that?" Larya asked, her voice sounding clipped.
There was a pause. Then, two slim woman swept into view.
They were incredibly pale, Snatch saw, even by the standards of this light. Their hair was lustrous and hung low, like blankets over their shoulders. Their eyes were wide and pale, gleaming with twin rosy lights. Their lips were bright red, but their mouths were just a little bit too large, their teeth just a little bit too sharp.
They were still beautiful, though, and their large breasts, barely concealed by slim gray dresses that hugged their bodies like paint, jiggled slightly as they swayed forward.
"That's close enough," Snatch said, raising his spear. His last one, he realized. More than ever, he missed his scythe.
The women stopped and smiled.
"But of course," the first said, with a patronizing smile.
"We wouldn't want to frighten you," said the second, with an identical smirk.
As they said this, their lower bodies came into view. They had dark-scaled, almost emaciated-looking fish tails. They were mermaids. But ... not.
"Deep Merfolk," Larya whispered, taking a step back.
