"Hello." A male voice interrupted Soren's train of thought and the moment Soren turned around, he saw a merman who was wearing a black hood, a blank white mask and is tail was also pure white, unlike all the other tails that he had seen. Although there had been some people with white tails here and there, he had never seen anyone with such a pure color. In the end though, he decided to return the greeting back, with a slightly nervous expression:
"Uh... Hello, sir."
"So, you must be one of the Sprites that joined us recently? Why aren't you with the rest to your briefing?" The hooded man asked slightly curiously.
"Uhhh... I'm actually lost. I don't know where the briefing room is." Soren quickly decided to play along, as he asked nervously.
"Hmmm..." The man then suddenly came right in front of Soren and he looked like he was staring at him from all directions, before continuing:
"Doesn't seem like you are lying, but I can definitely feel something inside you. I'm deeply intrigued about the man who scouted you..."
As the man uttered that last sentence, he suddenly put his hand on his chin and pushed his face close to Soren's.
'Damn. What kind of mess is this now? I was literally here to meet with some weird stranger and now, I have to basically bluff my way out of this mess.' Soren's thoughts, once again, have gone haywire and he feels like his heart is about to jump out of his chest. Despite that though, he quickly answered with a cold expression:
"Don't know sir."
"What do you mean by that?" The man asked with a cold voice as well.
"I never saw his face, hair or anything that could help me identify him." Soren answered similarly as before.
"I see... For now, just go and attend the rest of the briefing. Also, the room is called: Beneath the Abyss, Everything Flows." After that man provided that bit of information, he left as he had appeared. Soren though to go after him, but he decided that it was a terrible idea, mainly because of the fact that if he stayed any longer with him, his cover and lies would have been revealed.
With a bit of relief in his heart, he decided to check the spot he had appeared from and the only thing he noticed, was the smooth stone floor. The were no markings of any entrances or anything else that would suggest that there was some sort of secret passageway.
"Guess there's no way back. Only forward now." Soren couldn't help but mutter helplessly as he slowly rose up. With no other option, he decided to swim through the hallway and get to the briefing room. Although he knew the name of the room, he still had to find the room itself and the fact that there were still no rooms or doors on the hallway didn't help either.
After spending a couple of minutes swimming down the hallway, the first point of interest appeared. It was a crossroad with a sign, as well as a lone hooded man, leaning against the wall. The first thing he did was to check the sign:
{Hall of Empty Voices -->
Hall of Marching Blade <--
Hall of Everlasting Passing ^
Hall of the Kingmaker v}
'Well, I guess this is better than nothing...' Soren commented helplessly in his mind before asking the nearby hooded man:
"Sir, may I ask where the room, Beneath the Abyss, Everything Flows, is located?"
The man only pointed towards the Hall of Empty Voices before he raised three fingers.
"Thank you..." 'I guess...' After he got the information, he slowly made his way towards the Hall of Empty Voices. The hall itself did have some doors, but those didn't appear until after swimming for around a couple of minutes, at least. Another abnormality he noticed, was the lack of personnel, not that there wasn't any, but for a secret base of this size, it would definitely have more people around, than a couple of a guards per door or crossroad. In the end though, he decided to put those thoughts behind him, as he was getting close to the first door.
As he looked at the first door that appeared in front of him and read the title on the door, he couldn't help but sigh. 'Advent's Call, Ender's Birth. Can these names get any weirder?' Soren couldn't help but comment inwardly with a disappointed expression, as he looked at the door sign in front of him.
'Living Call beyond the Limits. Another weird name. What's up with these guys?' Soren was starting to only feel sheer disappointment, instead of nervousness or fear, as he was looking at the door right next to it.
'Beneath the Abyss, Everything Flows. This is the room.' Soren thought to himself, as he was staring at the door in front of him with a hint of nervousness. In the end, Soren quickly calmed himself down, put on a serious expression and slowly entered the room. The interior of the room was essentially one big room with dozens rows of chairs and all kind of mermen sitting on them, and another hooded merman standing on a podium at the other side of the room. As he saw some seats that were completely free at the back rows, Soren decided to sit on one of the empty chairs and wait for the briefing to end.
"And with Gula's introduction being over, we shall commence towards the last General's faction, Ira. Even though his name is that, everyone calls him Heiran no questions asked. Anyways, Ira is the leader of the mercenary and adventurer groups that are affiliated with us and not only tasked with managing them, but also to nurture and train these teams, so the second blade of Forgotten Godhome, similar to Superbia's Military groups. And with that, that ends the introduction of the 7 factions of our organisation. Do you have any questions?" The man on the podium asked with an expressionless face as he looked around.
Soren thought for a moment to ask about the way out, but he decided to refrain due to the fact that he appeared right almost at the end and the last thing he wanted was more attention, lest he wanted to invite more trouble. Although he was a bit intrigued of the reason of the name for Ira's faction, he felt that would be pointless and that it's better to not get discovered and focus on finding a way out.
"Since there are no questions, let us commence forth with your registration. Just swim up towards the podium, write your Code Name you want to be called from here on out and the faction you wish to join. Do not forget that you can choose only one faction and you can not change that, no matter what." Once he said that, seven boxes had suddenly appeared right next to him and everyone had some sort of blue tablet right on their laps.
Even Soren had one of these, despite joining at the end of the breifing, but before he could spend a lot of time examining it, he saw a lot of the mermen to rise from their seats and put the tablets in the boxes. With a quick examination, he found out that this tablet only had a keypad and a symbol chooser with the name of the symbol under it. Since he didn't have a lot of time to write a name, he decided to use one of his videogame nicknames and pick Ira's faction, since he had no idea about the other ones and even if he had heard about the other's factions, he would have still picked Ira's, since he was an adventurer and he didn't know much else, aside from a bit of cooking and cleaning.
After putting the nickname, he rose from his seat as well and decided to put his tablet in one of the boxes. Surprisingly, the boxes also had symbols in front of them, but he didnt bother much with them and quickly found where Ira's faction box was.
[Welcome to Ira's Faction, Sprite Sky. May the Creator flourish and the Seven Gods perish.]
That was the message he got from the tablet, once he inserted it into the hole at the top and taking it out and he couldn't help but feel unnerved from this message.