Chapter 4: Roots of Grimwillow:
The sun hadn't even finished rising when the Mermaid Princess set sail again, the sea calm and the skies colorless. It was one of those days that felt like a half-finished thought,not warm, not cold, not alive, not dead. Just still.
The crew wasn't loud. No music played, no jokes rang across the deck. Even Talo and Demi were silent, which almost never happened.
Lumir leaned over the rail, his chin resting on folded arms, lips puffed out in a sigh.
"Is this what being a hero feels like?" he mumbled. "Kinda boring."
Kammy, sitting cross-legged nearby with her wrench in her lap, tossed a peanut at him.
"You punched a drug factory into a lake yesterday. Be grateful for boring."
Lumir caught the peanut in his mouth without moving his head. "But where's the chaos? The drama? The explosions?"
Ogun sat on a crate beside the helm, drinking from a bamboo cup of pineapple juice, legs crossed like a man at peace. "You sound like you're trying to summon bad luck."
"I'm just saying," Lumir said, stretching. "The sun's up, my belly's full, and no one's tried to kill me in hours. I'm not used to this."
Redda leaned against the mainmast, arms folded. Her scarred brow raised as she smirked. "Want me to throw you overboard just to spice things up?"
Lumir grinned. "Tempting. But I like the view."
Just then, a strange gust of wind cut across the deck,gentle but strange, like something massive had moved through the air.
WHUMPH. WHUMPH. WHUMPH.
A huge shadow passed overhead. Everyone looked up.
Out of the clouds descended a massive, round, pink bird,its body easily five meters wide, fluff puffed out like a living cotton cloud. Its wings were small, but each flap made a soft thwump like blankets being aired. Its beak gleamed in two colors,green and red, thick and smooth like polished jade and ruby.
Kammy stood up so fast she dropped her wrench. "Nope. That's too big. Why is it so big?!"
Lumir's eyes sparkled. "It's so cute!!"
He rushed forward like a kid seeing a magical creature for the first time, arms outstretched.
"Hey there, fluffball! Come here, buddy!"
The bird descended gently, flapping slowly until it landed like a balloon drifting to rest. Lumir reached out.
It pecked him.
Once. Twice. Then three times. Harder each time.
"Ow! OW! Stop! I'm a friend! I'm a friend!"
Kammy yelped and ducked behind a crate. "I told you it's cursed! That's not normal bird behavior, that's a feathered demon!"
The bird's beady eyes stared at Lumir, then it opened its beak and, in a cheerful, childlike voice, chirped:
"Oguuuuun! Orders from HQ! Chirp! Also, Lumir smells weird!"
"Why did it hit me...?" Lumir muttered, holding his head.
"Because you tried to hug it like a pillow," Jore said, shaking his head as he lifts the bottle of whiskey.
"And i do not smell weird!" Lumir argued.
"You kinda do," Kammy called out from cover. "Just saying."
The bird blinked and waddled toward Ogun, its body bouncing with each step.
"Alright," Ogun said calmly, untying the letter from its leg. "That's a Qupi. We use them for secret comms,specially trained, impossible to intercept, and loyal only to Gun and civilians. They're harmless. Usually."
"Usually?!" Kammy shrieked. "It has teeth in its beak! I swear it does!"
The Qupi turned to Kammy and said in its sweet voice:
"Kammy is scared of ghost birds! Kammy is scared of legends! Kammy jumps when crows cough!"
Lumir burst out laughing. "You just got roasted by a cotton candy."
"I'm going to melt that bird in a furnace," Kammy growled.
The Qupi turned and added: "Kammy once punched a pumpkin because it blinked."
"It did blink! You weren't there!Also how do you know these things!??!"
,,They are smarter than you think"
Ogun said and ignored the chaos as he read the letter. His expression darkened slightly.
"It's from HQ. Mission order."
Everyone turned.
Ogun read aloud:
Gun HQ requests Team Mermaid investigate abandoned town: Grimwillow. No contact for years. Nero influence unknown. Warning: path to Grimwillow is unstable. Expect aggressive tides, heavy fog, and possible presence of Nahl'gora, Proceed with caution.
Kammy gasped. "Abandoned?! Nope! Nope! No giant monster ocean things! I told you all cursed missions are a bad idea!"
Talo's spoon clattered onto the floor. Demi stopped chewing, her face pale.
Lumir tilted his head. "What's with you two?"
Talo looked away. "Nothing."
"Yeah," Demi added, voice quiet. "It's not a good place."
Ogun narrowed his eyes. "You two know it."
Kammy's voice came from behind the barrel. "I swear if anything foggy, haunted, or ancient grabs my ankles, I'm gonna scream so loud it'll split this ship in half."
The Qupi waddled back to the center of the deck and flopped down like a giant pillow.
"Next stop: Spooky Town!"
"I hate this bird," Kammy hissed.
Ogun folded the letter and pocketed it. "Set course northwest. Fog's already forming. Everyone get ready. This one's different."
The crew started moving with new urgency. The quiet wasn't boring anymore. It was heavy.
As the ship turned, the Qupi pecked Lumir one more time just for good measure.
"AGAIN?! What did I do?!" Lumir cried.
"Maybe it sees your soul," Kammy said darkly.
Ahead, far beyond the horizon, the faint silhouette of Grimwillow waited,black willows rising from a drowned shore.
And the fog? It wasn't rolling in.
It was waiting.
The Mermaid Princess sailed northward beneath a sky of steel.
The excitement from Apple Village was fading into memory now, replaced by that peculiar stillness that followed every mission, like the sea had exhaled, and no one knew what to do with the silence. The deck creaked, the waves hummed, and the Qupi,a massive pink fluffball of a bird perched atop the central mast,occasionally muttered things like "DOOM'S EDGE APPROACHING" or "NO REFUNDS."
Talo sat near the edge of the ship, knees drawn up to his chest. Demi stood beside him, unusually quiet. Lumir hung upside-down from the rigging, humming a tune, and Kammy tinkered with the railing, occasionally glancing at the clouds with growing discomfort.
Jore leaned against a barrel,he was gripping his anchor like his life depends on it. Redda was on lookout,her giant spoon leaning on her back. Ogun stood at the helm, squinting into the horizon.
Then came the clouds, sudden, thick, and unmoving. The wind stopped.
And in that dead stillness, the sea changed.
No one needed a map to know they were entering it."The Abyssal Gaze," Jore muttered.
The crew fell into a hush.
The ocean beneath them turned slick and dark, almost mirror-like, but too thick, too heavy. The air was damp and cool, like it hadn't been touched by sunlight in years.
The Abyssal Gaze, a cursed stretch of sea said to be older than maps, where storms froze in place and stars wouldn't shine. Sailors called it the Eye of the Forgotten. No compasses worked here. No birds flew above. And ships that drifted in without faith or purpose were said to simply... disappear.
Some whispered that it wasn't a place, but a mind. That it watched you. That if you stared too long into its waters, you'd see yourself from behind, and that version would smile.
Lumir stared overboard, squinting. "So... no swimming?"
"DON'T YOU DARE," Kammy snapped, wrench clutched tight. "I swear if you even think of cannonballing"
"I wasn't! I just wanted to high-five the water gently with my whole body."
The Qupi tilted its head from above. "SEA IS DANGEROUS. IT WILL KILL US."
"See?" Lumir grinned. "We've been noticed!"
Kammy punched. "That's NOT a good thing!"
As they sailed deeper, the wind picked up. But it wasn't wind,it was breath. Hot and deep and coming from the sea itself.
Talo's hands tightened on the deck. Demi placed hers over his.
"You two okay?" Ogun asked, not unkindly.
Demi nodded slowly. "We've sailed past here before"
No one asked more. The air didn't welcome questions.
Then the sea broke.
Three twisted creatures erupted from the water, eel-bodied, tusked, their skin like cracked tar. One screeched, and waves surged behind it like a beast's tail.
"Contact!" Redda barked.
"Showtime," Ogun said, already moving.
The deck exploded into motion.
Kammy sprinted across and launched herself with her wrench, smashing one monster's eye clean out. It screeched and writhed.
Lumir bounced off a rope, spun in midair, and kicked another in the jaw. "HELLO, SEA DEMON!" he laughed, flipping backward.
Ogun dropped from the rigging like a meteor and punched a third through the waves, sending ripples across the unnatural stillness.
The Qupi flapped above, bobbing slowly. "FIGHT LIKE SONG. BEAUTIFUL. TERRIBLE FORM."
The creatures twisted back for retaliation, jaws unhinged,but the Mermaid Princess lifted.
A wave,not water, but something beneath,rose and carried them upward.
The ship was tossed like a toy and then caught. Not in a crash, but a cradle.
They landed with a whomp onto something vast and living. Not water. Not wood.
The surface was pulsing with coral veins, smooth like glass, but warm like breath.
"Are we...?" Kammy started.
Demi stood slowly. "She came."
Talo whispered, "Nahl'gora."
They all looked up.
The creature beneath them stretched wider than the village of Apple. Its body was coated in deep blues and violets, studded with barnacle spires and glowing coral patterns. Two massive fins extended from her sides, and a single slow eye peeked from the side of her rounded head, ancient and calm.
"Are we dead?" Redda said.
"This is bigger than Apple village," Jore said not believing on his eyes.
"Do you think she knows we're up here?" Lumir asked, petting the coral.
"She definitely does," Ogun replied. "I think,the legends says that she guides the lost through the Abyssal Gaze."
"Or she mistook us for a snack," Kammy muttered.
Qupi let out a low, happy chirp. "NAHL'GORA. ANCIENT FRIEND. FLUFFY SOUL."The Nahl'gora's massive tail had flung the Mermaid Princess straight toward Grimwillow's shoreline, tossing the ship like a feather caught in a hurricane's breath. Yet, somehow, they landed safely. The sea calmed the moment they passed the threshold of the Abyssal Gaze, as if the dark eye in the ocean had accepted their passage,or simply didn't care.
What greeted them on the other side wasn't peace. It was silence.
Grimwillow stood crooked beneath a gray sky. The trees bent low as if weighed by secrets, and the stone path leading into the town was cracked like old bone. Charred signs of life,abandoned carts, collapsed rooftops, a windmill missing half its blades,gave the town a ghostly stillness.
The crew disembarked slowly. Kammy immediately hugged herself.
"I don't like this," she mumbled. "It's like the air is watching us."
A sudden burst of wings startled everyone—crows launched from a rooftop in a cacophony of grating screeches.
"AHHHH!" Kammy yelped, leaping behind Redda. "Ghost crows! Cursed ghost crows!"
Ogun and Lumir burst out in laughing. "Kammy, your fear of birds might actually kill me."
Lumir had stars in his eyes. "Crows are cool! Can we keep one? Please? Name it Beaky or something!"
"Please don't take a crow for a pet," Redda sighed.
Jore's eyes scanned the rooftops. "Focus, people. This town may be dead, but we're not."
The group moved through the broken streets, stepping over dead branches, rusted signs, and grass that had grown long and wild. Each step echoed like a whisper across forgotten cobblestone.
"Feels like someone's still here," Redda muttered.
"Maybe someone is," Jore answered.
Demi and Talo slowed as the group passed a narrow alley. Their eyes flicked to a collapsed shack with a broken chimney. Something about it made their shoulders tense.
Then Demi stopped altogether.
"This used to be our home," she said softly.
Everyone turned.
Talo nodded slowly. "Grimwillow… we were born here."
Kammy's expression softened. "You two...? This is..?
Before she could finish, Demi fell to her knees.
And the past rushed in like a wave.It was 4 years ago,Talo and Demi were only 8 at that time.
Grimwillow had always been a place that lived outside time.
Nestled between crooked hills and the sighing shores of the northwest, the town breathed with an old, stubborn kind of life. The cobbled streets were narrow and overgrown in places, as if the forest itself had begun reclaiming them. Moss clung to wooden signs. The shutters on the homes creaked in the wind. A small church with a crooked steeple rang its bell every morning, not because anyone told it to, but because the old man inside still believed in rhythm.
Talo and Demi's house sat beside the clinic, where their parents tended to the sick with calm hands and tired smiles. Their mother, Merel, had silver,streaked hair and always smelled faintly of thyme. Their father, Jorn, was built like a tree and laughed with his chest. They were the kind of people who stayed behind during plagues. Who boiled water for strangers. Who stitched the wounds of the ungrateful without ever once asking for gold.
Every morning, Talo would wake before the sun and watch it rise over the hills with sleepy eyes, while Demi chased the cats away from the herb garden. The town slowly came alive: the fishmonger dragging crates to the docks, children hopping over puddles, and a group of old women spinning wool under the central willow, humming ancient lullabies.
It was quiet. Peaceful. Forgotten, maybe. But alive.
Grimwillow was the kind of place that smelled of sea salt and pine. Where time passed slowly, and change felt like a rumor.
Then came the crows.
They gathered first on the rooftops. Silent. Still. Watching. Not the usual half-dozen who nested in the steeple, but hundreds. They sat shoulder to shoulder, wings tucked, eyes fixed. The townsfolk joked at first, said they were expecting a storm.
But then the air grew thick.
Heavier than it had ever been. Like breathing through wool.
It began with a silence so complete it rang in the ears.
No birdsong. No footsteps. No laughter.
Just... stillness.
Then, a low pulse.
Like a drumbeat deep in the belly of the earth.
The sky dimmed, not from stormclouds, but from something stranger—slow, bleeding crimson that stretched and folded across the sky like skin turning inside out. It wasn't just color. It had depth. Texture. Like veins pulsing through clouds. The red spread like fire in oil.
And then the whispers came.
Not through the air. But inside. Curling into the skull like smoke under a door.
Talo dropped the bucket he was carrying. His knees trembled. Demi clutched her head, eyes wide with terror.
Voices, layered and overlapping. Old. Young. Male. Female. Familiar. Alien.
"They hate you."
"They've always lied."
"You're not safe."
The townspeople began muttering. Muttering turned to murmuring. Murmuring to accusations.
Eyes filled with suspicion. With fear.
"They brought this down on us," someone said. A trembling hand pointed toward the clinic. "The doctors. They knew. They planned this."
Talo backed into the doorway. "Mother... something's wrong."
Merel closed the shutters. Jorn locked the front door. He held his children tight.
Outside, the square had erupted. A woman collapsed, screaming that her baby had been replaced. A boy threw rocks at his brother. The old bell,ringer howled that the gods had come to punish the impure.
Then, fire.
A single torch, thrown through the window.
Flames caught on the curtains, climbed the walls like angry vines.
"Talo, take Demi. Go through the garden," Jorn coughed, voice strong even as smoke filled the room. "Don't look back."
"But!"
"Go!"
Talo grabbed his sister's hand and ran. Behind them, their home screamed.
From the alley, they watched as their parents were dragged out, bound to the roots of the central willow. The villagers circled them, chanting, crying, laughing, screaming. The red clouds pulsed above.
"You fed us poison," someone spat.
"You cursed the children!" another wailed.Merel met her son's eyes across the square. No words. Just a soft smile, even as flames kissed her feet.
Talo wanted to run to her. Demi sobbed into his shoulder.
But they ran.
The screams echoed as they slipped through the forest path, branches clawing at them, the sea drawing closer.
At the cliffs, they collapsed, breathless and hollow.
The red clouds still hovered.
And then, sails.
Gun's ships sliced through the waters. They had seen the crimson sky from far off. Thought it was Nero again.
But it wasn't.
They found only ashes.
And two children, staring at the sea, with smoke in their lungs and silence in their hearts...The crew continued their cautious advance through the crumbling, haunted streets of Grimwillow. The air hung heavy with silence, broken only by the distant caw of crows perched on half-collapsed rooftops and moss-covered chimneys. It was the kind of silence that pressed on the ears, made every bootstep feel like a thunderclap against the stone. Even the waves from the nearby shore were oddly muted,as though the very sea held its breath.
Talo's gaze was distant, drawn toward a street corner he hadn't seen in years. He walked a few paces ahead of the group, his steps faltering. Demi walked beside him, not saying a word, fingers clenching and unclenching as if trying to hold back memories that fought their way to the surface.Lumir followed quietly, his usual brightness dimmed. He had listened intently as the twins shared the story,how their hometown was consumed by madness and blood, how the skies turned red and the people they knew and loved lost their minds. How they were the only ones left untouched by whatever darkness had rolled over this place like a storm.
And when they finished, when the wind had carried their final words into the ruins, Lumir remained silent for a long moment.
Then, in his mind,a certainty,he thought:
Could it be? Could they have it? The Whisper of All…?
He didn't say it aloud. But his eyes narrowed just slightly. Something shifted behind his gaze. The others noticed,how still he had grown, how his usual joyful bounce was missing.
Ogun caught his look but didn't press. Kammy glanced between them, trying to shake off the chill crawling up her spine. Even Jore stopped humming under his breath.
Redda broke the silence. "That church… up ahead. Looks intact."
Everyone turned. Through the broken town square, across a cracked cobblestone path lined with skeletal trees, stood a tall, looming structure. Its spire stretched high into the grim clouds, casting a shadow that felt far colder than the rest of the town.
As they approached, the old wooden doors creaked open with a groan like a ghost waking. The air inside was colder, heavier. Dust floated through dim shafts of light seeping through cracked stained glass.
At the far end of the church stood a statue. Massive. Carved of pale stone, arms outstretched in a welcoming gesture. A hooded figure with serene features, a faint smile carved into its face.
Talo's voice was barely above a whisper. "Abyrion... That's him. That's the merciful one."
Demi nodded. "Everyone here believed in him. They prayed to him every day. My mother said his kindness shaped the world."
Kammy walked slowly. "He looks… different from what I imagined."
Ogun stayed at the entrance, arms crossed.
And Lumir… didn't move.
He stared up at the statue. His face, which had been cheerful just minutes ago, had grown unreadable,quiet and closed off, like a locked door. His golden eyes didn't blink.
No one said anything, but they noticed.
Kammy tilted her head. "What's with that face, Lumir?"
"I'm fine," he answered, brushing past them. "Just… thinking."
He walked slowly around the church interior, eyes scanning the carved walls. The others followed, until Talo gasped.As they explored the shadowed corners of the ruined church, Talo suddenly stopped.
"Wait... look," he pointed.
At the far end of the stone wall, hidden beneath hanging vines and cracked brick, was a carving. Ancient. Long. Worn by time but still clear enough to make them all pause.
It was a sword, engraved from hilt to tip. Its blade was wide, balanced, crowned with the rising emblem of a burning sun. Beneath it, carved in letters none of them had seen before but somehow still understood, was a single word:
Sunreaver.
Demi stepped closer, wide-eyed. "The sword of the first king of Solharbor…"
"Solharbor?" Redda asked, folding her arms. "Where's that supposed to be?"
"No one knows," Talo said. "At least... no one alive. The elders used to tell stories about it. A kingdom of golden skies and glass towers. Ruled by a warrior who fought the darkness with a blade that glowed in his hand."
Ogun crouched to inspect the engraving. "So we've got a myth, a sword, and a lost kingdom."
Kammy whistled low. "That's three out of three on the 'we-should-go-look-for-it' checklist."
Jore tilted his head. "You think it's real?"
"Doesn't matter," Ogun said, standing. "If it's got history, and if it could help us fight what's coming,we follow the trail."
Demi looked toward Talo. "You remember what else the elders said?"
Talo nodded. "The sword would only shine in the hands of someone worthy. Someone who fights not for glory, but for the people."
That got Lumir's attention. He smiled faintly, still quiet, but something lit behind his eyes.
"Sunreaver, huh?" he said. "Sounds cool. Let's go find it."