Luneth's point of view
For the past year I have served the mermaid queen Gwen, I was born as a gift from the gods when she discovered the first minor religion, the moon. Being so I was born as a high priestess of the moon.
The moon is the primeval oracle, the all-seeing and the mistress of the tides, being a great choice for my mistress.
Thanks to my status as high priestess of the moon, my queen always kept me by her side, becoming closer and closer, little by little and because I had the power of the oracle of the moon, I also ended up becoming her advisor.
Every now and then I got a little feeling about the future, this could help me to guide my lady Gwen, the sensations were not at all accurate and not always activated when we needed it, earning me the hatred of some of the nobles who flattered and served my queen, including General Leva, the right hand of the queen and her former advisor.
But even so, Queen Gwen never took me away from her side, we became very close and in time we became friends, I remember one time when we escaped to explore the sea and returned to the nation in chaos for a week, that time my premonitions were especially useful to avoid the patrols.
These premonitions are usually just a few words, like: nuisances are coming, the north is dark, the shells annoying. Things like that, but a war with a large faction of the dreamers was considered a nuisance, but about 3 weeks ago a new premonition came to me.
After hearing it I swooned, not because of the content if not the meaning.
"Bifurcation to death", that was the content.
After waking up I saw myself in my bed with a dozen guards stationed, a couple of priestesses and the queen by my side, in tears I explained the result of my premonition, the queen's face changed from surprise to fear and then to resolution.
Once we were able to escape from a demon class that sailed the seas near us, when we went to plunder a dreaming territory, the premonition called it: "dangerous encounter".
In that case we were going to encounter something worse, much worse than a demon class.
Since then the guard has been doubled, we have scouts in the ocean and our allies have dispensed with their usual looting and harassment attacks, to stay in the city, to avoid causing panic and doubts in the population, as well as feeding our citizens.
Still we went through the weeks as usual, still busy preparing for whatever was to come, but I never again had any new premonitions. During this time, becoming more and more nervous and so it was until this morning, a premonition came. while eating with Gwen as we always did, telling each other what we planned to do during the day or the whispers of the priestesses and the women of the service, masters at learning about every movement that happened in the city.
The answer of the premonition. was only "Crossroads."
And at that time a guard came running in, saying that an immortal wanted to make a request to join the queen, according to the guard they were some strange guys, with some magnificent quality clothes, plus they came with Gong.
Everything seemed pretty good, getting a new ally was something to celebrate, knowing that they have good clothes means that they have a high technological or economic level, in both cases decent, but in this world there are no coincidences, premonition and these newcomers have something to do.
That being the case, we accepted the meeting and called all the leaders, normally only a small group would be present for this type of meeting, but it was too important to leave them aside.
Before long all the leaders of Gwen's faction entered the throne room, each close to their nearest and dearest, they all seemed to wonder why they were gathered, but before long the door began to open.
The first to appear through it was the guardian of the wall on the surface Gong, I have not talked much with him, but in short the oceanic Bulls are kind, muscular, they love to fight, but hate the traps and pompous, they are really nice, they have defended me a couple of times from some stupid who wanted to get inappropriate, when I went out in the market area.
I could see the curiosity of those present, although as Gong was so big I could not see from my position, although Gwen could not either, she did nothing to remedy it.
Instead it was General Leva who gave her an eye gesture, Gong seemed to understand and stepped to the side and then I couldn't help but scream in terror.
One of the abilities of the religious branches is to see inside the soul of beings, it is like seeing the reality of beings, it is similar to those who can read the aura, or magical sensitivity, but this one shows the most hidden truth of one's existence.
My priestesses, who could not see it, could feel it and it was enough to make them tremble, they all looked at us and those beings too.
Their white clothes were beautiful, their horns stood out, but the most disturbing thing were those masks that did not allow to see what was hidden behind, although this was not the worst, it was what only I could observe.
Above them, being the vision of their existence, you could see shadows full of smoke, all of them trapped in cages made of chains, only a pair of white eyes could be seen from their body.
These souls were furiously attacking their cages without any mercy, but without success, they gave an overwhelming pressure, I could not stop shaking....
Gwen looked at me strangely and put her hand on my shoulder.
I looked at her and only then could I stop shaking a little.
The other beings in white began to look at those present, but I could notice the look of the one who was in the middle of everyone, only then I could realize several differences and a strange abnormality.
Among the souls there were 3 who were doing different things and I could tell that the pressure received came mostly from two of them.
One of them, on the side, instead of hitting the chains, seemed to extend a claw trying to touch the runes and inscriptions on the walls, she could never extend her claw very far, but seemed lost in interest towards the inscriptions that protected the room.
The second one was in front on the left, she was one of the two souls that gave almost all the pressure, her soul was even more savage than any other, but still she seemed to be always hitting the side facing the soul that scared me the most.
The being that kept looking at me, the one in the center, his soul was calm, not moving at all, as when a beast prepares to pounce on its prey, from him seemed to exude a majority of the pressure.
The shadow seemed to notice me, this was the first time this had happened, I should be able to see them but not the other way around, this should not happen.
The pressure began to take the shape of a mouth and prepared to swallow me, but then a scream echoed through the room, it was Leva.