Some time later I woke up to find myself nested in a small underwater cavern. I could tell that we weren't very deep underwater because there was still a lot of light illuminating the water around me. About 10 feet away floating in the water facing away from me, was the merman from before. I could hear him talking to himself, but couldn't quite make it out.
"Could it be that I was too forceful, ahh no it's supposed to go like that right? I guess I do feel bad that it had to go that way, but at the same time I had no choice. I wasn't about to just let him drown like that, neither of us deserve that... No matter what I do or say he will still be hard to win over, especially now that the transformation is complete."
Wait... transform...oh my. I looked down to see that my legs were gone and instead I had a long slender indigo tail that seemed to dance with light when I twitched and twisted around as I pondered about how I would escape. This might just be a smidge difficult to manage since I have no prior experience with swimming. Especially since I'm an Arachne, even on land I stayed away from lakes and ponds. One might call it an irrational fear of fish.
So I haven't the slightest idea how to swim effectively with my tail, I don't know how to shift back, and even if I escaped I would have no Idea how to get back home. If that wasn't enough, I have to find Dean and make sure he's safe, he better be safe. I was so lost in thought that I didn't see him start swimming over to me.
"So, you're finally awake. You didn't hear any of what I've been talking about over there have you?" He asked, scratching the back of his head awkwardly.
"I sort of did but it was muddled, maybe there is too much water in my ears. Either way I'm certainly ready to go back home."
"Well too bad you're meant to be with me, besides these waters are dangerous for mermen. Your only option is for you to let me take you back to the Cradle, It is the will of the Crucible's guardians. You will learn how to adjust, and of course I'm here to help you. Come on, I will help you take in the beauty and Intensities of your new world. My name is Nicodemus, what's yours?"
"My name is Valacorum. I hate this whole situation, but I'm trying not to dwell on it too much in order to develop much needed boundaries between us."
Nicodemus swam up to me and put my arm around his waist and his arm around my shoulder. He proceeded to gently rock his tail in a fanning motion behind us, signaling me to copy and we were soon swimming into a strong current. It seemed like eons past as we swept past caves littered with an array of rusted items covered with seaweed, crabs, and starfish that seemed to glow a bluish lint with bioluminescence. After a while we stopped and sank in front of a small tunnel lit by torches that had the same glow as the sea life that we had passed to get here.
"You know we're not as bad as you might think we are and I'm not a monster that permanently takes away what you grew up as, now you just have the gift of being 2 different supernatural species. Mermen are what is called a duality, we are both or not at all. No shifter species would be whole or even sane if your other shifting half of your soul was completely stripped away from you that they had lived their whole lives with, and then replaced with both a new one and a mate.
We live in the Cradle, a massive underground set of caves with a central capital ruled by the Duad councils. The higher council is made up of the leaders of each cavern city, and the second is made of their children being raised to take over. Of course that isn't going well, but you'll find out why later. We better keep moving, I'm really excited for you to see your new home!
Hey, before I enter that first cavern I need to ask an important question. I need to ask if you saw my best friend Dean who was on the ship with me when it crashed into something? Now that I think of it, I don't know what we crashed into.
I'm sorry about your friend Dean, but I have no idea what happened to him. To be honest I was too preoccupied saving my new Bond from drowning to think of looking for other people in the water. Hopefully some other shifter came to help him like I did for you. I'm also sorry for sounding a bit creepy earlier, I guess that I have a bit of a possessive side, but so do most other mermen shifters. Although you weren't born as one so it seems only fair to you to explain some things to you.
Now as you already know we have an underground society, it is made up of a myriad of large caverns called Branches that each have a unique environment suited to quite a few different types of shifters. You see each shifter that becomes the mate of an original Noble denizen of the Cradle gains a second form upon meeting their mate. Therefore both biologically and magically, you still require the environment that you were born into, otherwise both them and their mate would slowly die from being cut off.
So in truth everything comes with a price, there must be balance. We may have the gift to transform our mates, hence the added second form. For now you won't be able to use your Origin Form for a while in order for your body to fully adjust to its new form and abilities. So to recap, at the top of our society is the Crucibles. Serving under them are the heads of the noble families of each branch's shifter species. The Crucibles haven't been seen for quite some time, so long in fact our parents believe they are not coming back. In addition to that are their children which make up the second part of that dual council such as myself, my brother Callux, and by default yourself.
So your brother, what is he like?
"Well let's just say he's a lot more possessive than I am," he said with a small sigh... We should keep moving.
We came to a tunnel that curved upwards so that we ended up breaching into a stalactite filled cavern. I was shocked to see Dean leaned up against a stalagmite, and a male Arachne standing next to him.
I struggled to pull myself up into the cave, not being used to the extra length of my tail. Usually when I'm shifted I have six legs on my lower end to offset the weight between my upper body and thorax.
"Well this is embarrassing and awkward, " said Dean.
"Dean, why haven't you shifted into an Arachne?"
He proceeded to stare at the ground for a moment before telling me, "It's because I'm actually a werewolf, their magic doesn't work on us anymore."
Choosing to temporarily disregard his almost unbelievable disclosure. I proceeded to ask Jacob how I was supposed to travel on land like this, as well as why his brother was an Arachne and not a merman as well.
Simply in regards to Callux, he isn't blood related to me. As for us traveling, all of the ground in the Cradle is smooth and sleek as it is wrought out of the obsidian from the Plume. In a way we can slide around like snakes everywhere."
Well I suppose this could be kind of interesting I suppose. At the far end of the cave was a gigantic set of obsidian doors that had grand images melted out of it, each one looked like some sort of crest.
Jacob spoke up as we approached them. "These represent each of the great races, and just inside you will find the epicenter of the Cradle. It was carved out of a titanic piece of obsidian that was pushed up from a long extinct magma plume from the planet's core about 3 thousand years ago. It is the reason all of us are so attracted to this place. The first to settle here were the elders, they alone used their combined gifts to carve and melt it into the grand civilization it was until around a millennium ago. Despite the fact that the Crucible's have currently vanished, we know that they can't be dead either, otherwise none of us would still be here. You see they are the Primordial Beast men, the Crucible's, the first of each race.
"Due to living in these caverns for so long we have almost next to no resources left. In fact werewolves were the first and only species of shifters to leave completely to live on the surface. This is most likely why they made legends to make future werewolves hate the ocean, only the Crucible's know the complete story of their departure. Just because they can blend in so well doesn't mean we can just take resources from the humans, we have rules set down. We have followed sparse monitoring of the werewolves. Which is why both me and Verodax ended up near the surface in the first place, and gained you two."
"I think It's about time you took the next step of your life, Valacorum, he said with a smirk and sly wink."