Saydie Shultz opened her eyes and inhaled sharply, where was she, what happened? As she drew in a breath, she exhaled in pain. She was not entirely sure what the extent of her injuries were, but she estimated that she had at least a few broken ribs. As she looked around, Saydie saw a giant mound of dead fish, a fleshy hole right above her and a pair of glowing green eyes staring down at her. Upon instinct, she sat up and reached for her longsword, which always hung over her shoulder, and was shocked to find that it was not there. Saydie went to her backup combat style, that being her skill.
Saydie pushed out her hand toward the creature looking at her and it went flying across the lumpy ground.
"Ahh!' The creature exclaimed, Saydie was perplexed at this, as she had never encountered a monster with vocal abilities.
"Hey why the Hell did you do that, what are you crazy?" The monster asked as he stood upright, clearly upset by Saydie's actions. It suddenly revealed two long spikes from its arms and looked at Saydie with determination, sizing her up. After a moment, the creature retracted the huge spikes and walked over to the giant pile of fish in the corner.
"Um, why do you know how to speak?' Saydie asked genuinely curious as to how a monster was talking to her.
"Because I am smart, how do you speak?" The monster asked with a twinge of sarcasm in between bites of fish guts.
Saydie took stock of the monster's appearance, it was short and lean, covered in scales, had a long fin running down its back and had webbed hands and feet. It was not intimidating, but it was off-putting enough that she did not want to go near it.
"What are you, where am I, and where is my sword?" Saydie demanded as she tried to speak with authority through her injured ribs.
"Well, I am a race known as a Merrow, you're in the belly of a giant creature, and I didn't see any sword when you arrived unfortunately, anything else?
Saydie was dumbfounded at the cooperation of the monster, especially after she had deliberately attacked it. Because it did not feel like it harbored any ill intent towards her, she decided she would indulge in the company until her wounds healed.
"I think some introductions are in order, my name is Caspian Munro, and I am member of the Merrow race." the monster said proudly.
"You're a Merrow?" Saydie asked, she had been hunting monsters all her life and never heard of any "Merrow".
"Yes, basically, I am a fish person. But we can exchange pleasantries later, right now, we need to get out of here. If you help me, I know we can make it out together."
Saydie was dumbfounded at the nerve of this monster, giving her, a member of the Holy Court Allegiance, orders as if she were a common piece of trash. She had no interest in helping such a creature escape into the world if she could help it. She should have just ended the poor thing at the start, which is what she intended to do now. Saydie moved to stand up but instead made a grisly discovery, her right leg was a twisted, mangled mess. As soon as she tried to move it, Saydie howled on pain.
"Hey, you should really try not to move that leg, it looks pretty bad, if we can get out of here before we get swallowed up by the stomach acid."
"Stomach acid, what are you talking about, monster?" Saydie asked, spitting in Caspian's direction at that final word.
"Let's get one thing straight lady, my name is Caspian and I have been polite and truthful with you until this point, you will refer to me by my name. Furthermore, as I said before, we are inside the belly of the actual monster here. So, unless you want to die, we only have a limited amount of time to make nice and escape." Caspian ranted as he could not believe the disrespect of this girl who could not have been older than sixteen or so.
Saydie suddenly remembered how she ended up in her current state, she had just been assigned her first mission by the Holy Court. Her mission was to find out what was causing a shortage of fish for the villages in the area. After exploring the waters with her small team, they encountered the legendary monster known as Serpentina, The Chaos Bringer. None of her team had been prepared to meet Serpentina because she was not native to this climate. It was general knowledge that legendary monsters were not nomadic by nature, they had a territory and if anyone entered their sacred space, they would die. While the rest of Saydie's team was able to escape the wrath of Serpentina, she was less fortunate, having been caught, and subsequently eaten.
Saydie saw two roads in front of her, the first option was to die here inside of Serpentina and let her legacy become the girl that was killed on her first mission. The second option was to aid this Caspian in escaping and return to the Holy Court to report the news of a legendary monster showing a difference in behavior. She might even get a promotion due to being able to escape and report the existence of a new race living below the waves. Saydie decided she was going to learn everything about these Merrow beings so that she could report as much to her superiors as possible.
"Alright then Caspian, my name is Saydie Shultz, I'll cooperate with you for the time being, but after we get out of here, our time together ends, I am a monster hunter, and you look like a monster to me." Saydie lamented.
"Great, I am on a mission of my own anyway, I have a plan, and with your ability we might actually be able to pull it off." Caspian said.
"Okay then, let's hear this plan and I will see what I can do to lend any aid." Saydie prompted, wanting to gage the intelligence of Caspian.
So, Caspian began to loosely go over the main points of his plan, leaving out the details of extracting Essence and his system. As he did this, Saydie thought about any implausible details in the plan. When Caspian finished his explanation, he asked if Saydie had any questions.
"My only concern is that you don't know what you are going to do once we get to the mouth." Saydie said, trying to figure out a way that she could help in her crippled state.
"Actually, I may have a strategy in mind, how does that ability of yours work?" Caspian asked with a sly grin.