Right below the two screaming gents was a floating island which was mostly made up of a lake. "Dive into the lake below us!" A deep voices shouted through the whistling of the winds, and Arthur turned to look at Niles. He seemed... normal. He was falling feet-first whilst positioned straight up like a log, it did not seem like this whole 'falling from the sky' ordeal was new to him. Jack screamed at the top of his lungs, throwing profanities at Niles. But him and Arthur listened to the boss' instruction and started diving downwards. They were still hundreds of meters above the lake, so after multiple seconds of diving through the air, they finally made contact with the water.
Jack and Arthur were in the water now, but again, it did not feel like water. This time though, it was as if the water was giving them energy, requiring no effort to swim through it. They swam up to the shore of the lake and pulled themselves up to solid ground. They could not fully admire the island as they were falling through the air, but now that they were still, it was beautiful. The lake seemed to reach the horizon, but weirdly enough despite the lake being completely smooth with nothing in the way of the horizon, there was no curvature. The horizon is not actually flat, but curved due to the roundness of the planet, so this spectacle was weird to Arthur. Jack on the other hand, just admired the beautiful lake in front of him, not knowing that the horizon is not meant to be straight.
"Beautiful right?" A figure said as it approached the two in front of it. They turned to look at Niles, and Arthur asked; "This is not Earth is it?"
"No not really. We're on higher Earth, a higher dimension connected to the normal Earth. This higher dimension is made up of fragments, and right now we're in one of those fragments, 'the Sky'." Niles took a deep breath and went to sit by the lake.
Arthur just now realised that despite falling into the pond on 'Mt Olympus' and also diving into the lake on the floating island, him and Jack were completely dry. Gravity was also stronger and the air was purer.
"This is not Mount Olympus," Niles pointed up; "That is Mount Olympus."
Jack and Arthur looked up to see a boundless underside of an island. Arthur didn't know how far above the island was, but it definitely spanned at least a couple dozen miles in both directions.
"We're on an island called 'the Land of the Naiads'. The water from the lake forms rivers that float through the sky to the other islands. You can go take a look later." Niles meant that when they get to the edge of the islands they can see these rivers, but the edge was a couple of miles away from them. Whilst falling it seemed that the lake took took more than 90% of the island, so the fact that just the ring of land was many miles in length left the new visitors to wonder how big the island really was.
"Explore the place if you want, we're going when its night time." Niles told them, and the weather looked incredible. There was a clear sky, if you exclude the big island floating above them, the temperature was neither too hot nor too cold, the sun was shining...
Arthur looked at the sky and came to a realisation. There was no sun. There were shadows that all went the same direction, but there was no sun that created these shadows, and this light.
"Uuuhh... Niles. What's going on with the sun?"
"Huh? Oh yeah forgot to tell you, there's no sun. Don't ask me where the light is coming from, I've got no idea either." Niles shrugged. "All I know is that the Sky follows a 24 hour cycle. Eleven hours of night, one hour of dawn, eleven hours of day, one hour of dusk and repeat. The shadows seem to move during the day as if there was a sun. I don't know what's going on there."
Arthur looked at him incredulously, and so did Jack who was now a couple of meters away from them. Niles chuckled; "Get used to it. You'll see weirder places in the future."
***
After twenty minutes, a faint noise came from the lake. Niles did not acknowledge the presence of the sound, but Jack and Arthur were on their guards. There were many creatures in the booklet that Niles gave them that lived in water, and all of them seemed dangerous. Waves were disrupting the crystal smooth surface of the lake, and the water started bubbling. Jack and Arthur were ready to brawl it out with whatever creature was coming out, and soon after, a creature did come out. They dashed forwards, ready to fight.
"Hold."
Niles put his hands on their shoulders, and they stopped. It was not out of free choice, no. Niles was so strong that he was able to make two grown men that were dashing forwards at full-speed come to a full stop, instantly. "It's not an enemy."
A head peaked out of the water, and neither of them recognised it. It was not in the booklet. It was a human, but not quite human. It gazed at them with glowing lilac eyes, pupils which were like that of a cat's. Its long, smooth hair was black with a tint of dark green, and the skin was closer to grey than it was pink. It moved its mouth, revealing white straight teeth and a raspy voice that contrasted the beautiful visage of the creature. But the sound that came out of its mouth was not comprehensible. It sounded like Greek, but at the same time it did not. She was speaking to them, but they did not understand what it was saying.
After a couple of seconds of awkwardly looking at each other in total silence, Niles spoke, in the same incomprehensible language. Arthur and Jack stayed in silence as Niles and the humanoid went back and forth. After some time, the creature turned to face them, and fixated her eyes on them. She wasn't looking at them, but rather their souls. She resumed her conversation with Niles as she brought up her arm out of the water and pointed it at Jack.
"What does she want?" Jack asked, confused. Niles put his hand up, signalling him to stop talking whilst still conversing with the humanoid. After a couple more minutes, the creature went back in the water and Niles faced them; "That was a Naiad, or a mermaid I guess. I was trying to see if we could go to the lakebed where the Naiad settlement is, but she seemed wary of you Jack."
Jack was confused and started ranting in a defensive tone; "What did I do!? I've never even seen her before!"
It seemed like that struck a nerve, so Niles tried to calm him down. "I know I know, relax. It's just that Naiads can see souls, and souls can tell a lot about what you've done in the past."
Arthur had no idea what he meant by that, but Jack quieted down, and took a couple of steps away from the water. He was visibly in a bad mood now.
"What do souls look like." Arthur asked. He has always been interested in philosophy and the existence of souls. Niles looked at him as if he was looking at an idiot and said in a satire tone; "How am I meant to know. Do I look like a merman to you?"
Arthur stayed silent and just studied the lake. The water was a bright azure colour, like that of cartoonish water. It was beautiful. Nothing could be seen underneath the surface, so all Arthur could tell was that the lake did not have normal water.
Suddenly the water rippled and bubbled again, and this time two Naiads came out instead of one. It was the same mermaid as before accompanied by another, serious looking one with the same features. The first mermaid spoke to Niles and went back below the surface along with her partner. "Let's go." and right after, Niles dived into the lake. The two left on the surface looked at each other and also dived in.
Now that they were in the lake, everything was clear. They could see Niles, and by his side two mermaids. Now that the whole body was in view, they could see that it was indeed a mermaid. The torso was that of a human female, covered by a thick fabric and the legs... the legs were not there. Instead there was a fish tail made of black scales. There was no doubt that they were extremely beautiful. Now the old stories of sailors leaving everything behind to chase mermaids made sense, Jack couldn't blame them.
Niles looked at them with a straight face, as if telling them to snap out of it. There were small bubbles coming out of his nose periodically, he was breathing. With no hesitation, Jack started breathing, and to his amazement, it was as if he was on the surface. It seemed like a barrier was there that prevented the water from entering his nostrils, or his mouth. He opened his mouth to test out if he could also breathe with it, and he could, but he looked stupid. He tried to say something to Arthur, but instead of words there was a muffled noise instead. It did not seem like they could speak underwater.
The two beautiful mermaids spun around and swam downwards at an angle. Niles signalled them to follow. They did, but it was hard. The mermaids were way too fast and it was almost too hard to catch up to them. Niles looked comfortable, but the other two were struggling. They had an ugly expression on their faces from exerting themselves, which Niles found amusing.
After a couple minutes of swimming, they were finally slowing down. 'They' as in Niles and the two mermaids. Jack and Arthur were still behind by multiple meters. They were sweating profusely, but all the sweat was taken away by the water that surrounded them, paradoxically leaving them completely dry. As they caught up with the three they were following, they gasped, but instead of a noise, only bubbles were formed. They were at the bottom of the lake and a massive, underwater city was now visible, ahead of them by a couple of kilometres. They were finally at the Naiad city.