Beware of the Depths

---

“Wow. That was fast.” He remarks as he gets out of bed, walking towards the table to get a towel to wipe the sweat from his brow with. He was surprised at how fast she could fetch some quests, thinking that she might have some secret connections that helped her get these clients. Then again, it might have just been Giselle who just stumbled upon a job posting while on a stroll. “I wanted to avoid picking missions that would require us to hunt down our targets because of the most recent mishaps concerning you, which is why I decided to pick out a job that doesn’t require any killing.” She says, procuring a bedazzled phone from her pocket and swiping on the screen, revealing the job description. She gave the phone to him to have him take a gander.

Reading through the job description, it is said that the client requests someone to find someone, or something, for him. The pay is not that big, but it’s a decent enough reward for finding something and it’s just enough for them to get by, not that they are in any danger of running out of jewels to pay for living expenses. He also understands why she doesn’t want to have him kill out of fear that the same mishap might happen again, and who knows what will happen if this goes on for so long.

“Yeah, yeah, I know the pay’s not that great, but at least we can try out some of your other armors!” She says with a sly grin on her face. She must have given him a surprise gift that he wanted for so long, and that’s exactly what she did. “Remember when you wanted to explore other areas of military expertise? You know, espionage, sabotage, etcetera, etcetera? Wait, no, of course you don’t. I’m so silly.” She says, pausing a bit before continuing, “Anyways, you should check out the other armors I gave you when we got there.”

At first, Michael didn’t want to take on this job solely because the pay is not that great. However, if she insists, he might as well take on this job. She better pay him the Jewels he needed to pay for his apartment. “Fine. When do we leave?” “Right now. I want to get there by nightfall. Let’s get packing.” She says, storming out of the room to pack her things. Michael follows suit and packs his things, and he helps her dismantle the equipment in his room and packs those as well.

Michael got himself dressed in his casual clothes - a white shirt under a sleeveless hoodie, a pair of blue pants, and brown leather boots. A golden wrist watch is worn on his right wrist, and a brown leather belt with a golden buckle secures his pants to prevent it from being pulled down. The two meet and he meets the blonde who just finished preparing herself for the trip. She wore a cyan colored blouse with red dot patterns, a pair of blue jeans, and white shoes. She wore a pair of golden earrings and bracelets, and a white belt with silver buckle studded with rhinestones secured it around her waist.

They then checked out from the hotel and got their luggage into his car. “So, where to? I assume we’d need to ride a ferry to get to Lavanitir.” “Obviously. How else are we going to get there? That, and it’s not part of Fiore so we’re fortunate enough to bring our passports and the essentials. Just in case we needed them, because otherwie, we'd have to fetch them from home.”

They drove past the security after having the car and luggages inspected, and paid the toll for the ferry to leave for the port city. He drove up the ramps of the ferry, the car parked with the rest of the people’s cars. The ferry itself is rather huge, accommodating more passengers than an average ferry, which makes it possible to fit cars in and has accommodation for the  passengers boarding the ferry such as a bed and buffet. It looks more like a ship, actually. As he got out of the car, he made sure that everything was locked before moving over to Giselle, who immediately took out her phone as she left and took candid pictures of herself, the gentle breeze sweeping across the ferry and blowing her golden hair. Her hair glimmered under the sun, and she made sure to get good photos of her hair and delete those that were ugly.

“It feels weird boarding ships.” He says, “This feels weird.”

“First time?” She asks. He nods, admitting that this was his first time boarding a ship, or rather, he thinks it’s his first time. With his memory all jumbled up, he never knew if he did board a ship prior to his amnesia. “I’m going to explore the ship. Are you just gonna stay here and take pictures of yourself?” “Yep, and I’m not stopping ‘till I got everything right. Do you know where your room is?” She asks, and Michael nods, “I know. Our rooms should be beside each other so I’ll meet you later around lunch.” He says and leaves to wander around the ship.

The ship’s foghorn bellows as the crew ceases accepting passengers. Eventually, the ship sets sail for the port city of Lavanitir. Giselle eventually took the most perfect shot she made and uploaded it to her social media, garnering a lot of likes and new followers flocking to her social media. She decides to enjoy the scenery and take a whiff of that fresh sea air. Michael, on the other hand, bumped into what looks like his brother - suspiciously short and has a gradient orange colored hair.

He wore a black crop top over a black fishnet shirt, a pair of white pants with a black leather belt to secure it around his waist, and a pair of black luxurious shoes like the ones advertised by Mikey and Abibas. A silver chain necklace hangs around his neck, with an upside down broken heart as a pendant. He looked like he was holding hands with someone who is definitely bigger than him, and he assumed him to be his boyfriend. He was built like a brick, like those bouncers who wouldn’t let you into the club because you had a fake ID. He wore a simple black hooded jacket that revealed his pecs, a pair of khaki shorts, and white luxurious shoes with golden accents of the same brand.

The pointy eared lad turns around to find Michael, and his face was that of pure joy. “Michael?! Is that you?” He says, though something is off about him. He felt like this isn’t Cinna, that much is obvious with his violet colored eyes as opposed to Cinna’s orange. “Wait, you’re not Cinna.” He says, squinting his eyes as he noticed the difference in eye color. The orange haired dwarf laughs at his remark, “Of course, silly! It’s me, Zander!” The short man says as he walks towards him to lean in for a hug, and finds his head pressed against Michael’s stomach. “Tsk. How are all of you taller than me? I’m the oldest one!” He complained, letting himself go from his suspiciously younger step sibling. “I’m happy to see you too.”

“Ah, you must be Michael. The name's Ferdinand." He says, extending his hand for a shake. It'd be rude not to shake back so he reciprocated. "I’ve heard about what happened and I’m sorry for your loss.” the bigger man says. He felt his empathy genuine, but shook it off as he didn’t want to be reminded of it. “I know. Everyone does.” He spoke with a tone that seemed nonchalant, which is betrayed by a hint of irritability. He does not show this out of fear that it will trigger another mishap. “So! What brings you here? Are you on your way to Lavanitir?” Zander says to break the awkward silence between the two, knowing that his boyfriend’s sentiments must have struck a chord in his step brother. Michael nods, “Yes, for a mission, though the details weren’t disclosed in the job description.”

“Oh yeah, have you heard of the rumors?” The boyfriend interjected in their conversation, “I heard a rumor that there are sea monsters lurking around the coasts of the port city. It might just be rumors but there is reason to be cautious. I heard that one of the ships was attacked. You might want to be careful if your job involves venturing out into the open sea.” He said. “Noted. So, are you two uh…” “Boyfriends. Yes, I know, but I won’t let you stop me from getting one!” Zander spoke as if Michael had done something in the past. As always, he is clueless. He had no memories of Zander afterall. In his mind, though, he was thinking how Zander was gonna take his girth, but he dismissed such thoughts and snapped back to reality. “Did I do something wrong? Because last I remember, I lost most of my memories.”

“Oh.” Zander said, “By the way, since we’re going to be on this trip for a long while, why don’t we catch up? I missed you so much! Home hasn’t the same when you left and couldn’t visit. Well, not really, but just... REALLY miss you.” Michael didn’t really want to, but considering that this is his first time meeting his older step sibling ever since he lost his memories, he thought, why not? At least, he might be able to remember more memories. “We could do that, but I’m getting hungry. Let’s meet up at the buffet area for lunch, shall we?” Zander nods, excited to finally have the chance to talk and catch up with the brother he wasn’t able to contact for months. “Good idea! We’ll just unpack for a bit then we’ll head there.” He says, and the couple leaves Michael for their room with luggage in tow. As it was nearing noon, he decided to head over to the buffet area to meet up with Giselle.

Michael arrives at the buffet area to see Giselle sitting by a table of four, casually browsing through her phone and probably just checking out hot singles in her area. He noticed her wearing a white blouse, assuming something must have happened to make her change. He approaches the table and sits on a chair. Giselle notices his arrival but eyes on the phone. “What took you so long?” She asked, seemingly irritated at his tardiness. “I bumped into one of my step siblings. His name’s Zander, by the way.” Giselle stopped focusing on her phone and acted as if she recognized that name at one point. She paused and continued on her phone, giving up on trying to recognize that name somewhere. “Hm... that name sounds familiar, but I can’t figure out why.” She says.

Soon after, Zander and Ferdinand arrive at the table with their luggage on their back. Giselle leaned her head towards them and spit out her drink at the sight of the elf midget and the goliath, mostly at the sight of the big bulky man. “Hiya, Michael! Care to introduce us to your girlfriend?” Zander teases and Michael spat out his drink just as he took a sip of water, taken aback at the accusation of their relationship. She, of course, blushed. It took him a moment to collect himself and respond to his question. “No, she’s not my girlfriend. She is Giselle, and she is the magic engineer responsible for my… pseudo magic.” The two of them sat down while Michael responded to Zander’s question, and Ferdinand was interested about his pseudo magic. “Pseudo magic? What is that?”

It was her time to shine and impress the two of her knowledge. As soon as he finished asking his question, Giselle put down her phone and faced his direction. “Well, Pseudo Magic is not true magic, per se, but an artificial magic implanted unto a person. It was invented by the magic engineers to train soldiers of warfare. Regardless if you are a non-mage, the system implanted onto a soldier allows them to instead utilize the magic around them, with the added drawback of not being able to make their own spells, which we magic engineers have to make.” She says, pausing for a bit to take a sip of her water, and continues, “I’m the best of the best, and I single handedly rewrote his entire pseudo magic which doesn’t use ethernanos, but instead uses his psychic energy. Or whatever he calls it. He's a psychic.”

“Psyche.” He corrected, “Psyche.”

Ferdinand was surprised and looked interested in his pseudo magic, his mouth agape in awe at the brilliance of their ingenuity. He is more interested in the fact that Michael is a psychic. Zander was surprised that he was able to use magic, but he already knew that Michael was a psychic. “So can you like, read minds or something?” Ferdinand said, his tone out of enthusiasm but had a hint of fear, afraid that his secret might be known to him. Thankfully for him, he can't read minds. “No he can’t. I’ve tried before but all he does is make stuff float. He used to break a lot of antiques back when we were children. Our father kept telling him not to use his powers on them. Fun times.” 

And then, everyone heard everyone's stomach grumble.

“Oh man, I’m starving. We should go get something to eat.” Ferdinand says. Everyone seemingly forgot that they were hungry in the first place. Otherwise, why would they continue to linger around by the buffet. “Oh, shoot, yeah, I’m hella hungry. Let’s head over to the trays.”

---

Seconds become minutes and minutes become seconds. Seconds become hours and darkness looms over them. The ship’s lights illuminate the dark corridors within. The four had a fun time conversing about their life, Michael excluded, as he had no recollection of his other memories. They made him float stuff with his mind, which he was most proficient of, and Zander had him try and levitate the suspiciously small elf, which he successfully did. He did the same for Frederick without success, and has duly noted that he can only move creatures of lesser weight. And then it was almost time for them to disembark. “Bye little bro! See you soon! I think.” Zander says as he departs for the lower decks to prepare to disembark, leaving Michael and Giselle in the lot. Giselle waves at the couple, and was glad she got to meet one of his step siblings, though she still can’t figure out where she heard that name before The both of them entered their cars, as did everyone else, preparing to disembark the ship.

The ramp descended and the ship’s staff soon allowed them to disembark, a few people glad the seafaring trip had come to an end. One by one, the cars drove out from the ship to the mainland, and eventually it was Michael’s turn to disembark. They presented their passport and left the piers to drive to the hotel Giselle booked in while she was in the ship. “Aw man, I didn’t get a selfie back there. The ocean looked amazing under moonlight!” She was completely distraught at her inaction, but this act of vanity is nothing to Michael, and paid no mind to it. He never really understood why a social media following is important nowadays, and he prefers not to get involved in it.

The trip to the hotel didn’t take long as it was a few kilometers away from the docks, and Giselle was once more complaining about a rather insignificant thing. “Ugh, why did it have to be so near to the docks… I wanted to feel the wind on my face a little more.” She muttered under her breath as the both of them got out the car and took out their luggage. He paid no mind to her complaints and focused on getting their luggage to the lobby where the bellhop awaits. “Hi yes, we’re here for our rooms.” She says, procuring her phone from her pocket and swiping it on to show them her reservations. “Two rooms with twin XL beds, and they must be beside each other.” “Of course, ma’am.” The hotel attendant says as she orders one of the other employees to procure a pair of keys. She hands them over to them and politely tells them, “Your rooms are on the third floor, rooms 305 and 306. Have a good evening!”

With the bellhop assisting them with their luggage, they took the elevator up and went to their respective rooms. They thanked the bellhop for his assistance as the both of them brought their own luggage to their rooms. Michael wondered why Giselle brought so much of her stuff in, because they could just as easily store their items into the Cyberspace. “You know, I’ve been thinking. Why can’t we just bring them into the Cyberspace you so proudly created?” This didn’t get Giselle thinking because there was a solid reason why, “Because I don’t want them to be messed up in there. They are important tools that I can’t just put them in some pocket dimension.” Michael nodded and understood her reasoning, "Oh."

They called it a night as they needed to be awake in the morning.

---

Michael opens his eyes to find him floating in the void. He surveyed his surroundings, everything seemling in complete darkness until he looked up. The blackness around him started to be filled with the blue colors of the sea. Beams of light penetrate the ocean’s surface, lighting up the unknown depths. He saw ripples, as if it was the ocean itself. As sudden as he realized he was deep underwater, he soon started to struggle to breath, wanting to reach the surface for air. He was starting to drown. As a soldier, it is important for him to keep calm in situations like this, and he calmed himself and started to swim up to the surface. He swam upwards, eager to breath, and he just a few meters away from the surface when he felt slimy tendrils wrap around his leg. It grabbed hold of him and pulled him deep towards the depths. He used his other leg to try and kick the thing away from his leg, and then both of his legs were restrained by these tendrils. He panicked, and with no other choice left, he tried to summon his weapons. Nothing happened.

He just stared into the abyss and thought of the futility of his actions, and tried to remember how he got himself into this predicament. He recalled the events that transpired. He recalled going to Lavanitir for a job that doesn’t involve killing anyone along with Giselle. He recalled bumping into one of his step brothers, Zander, and his larger boyfriend, Ferdinand. He recalled driving towards the hotel and checked in with Giselle, and then it hit him. This must be a dream. It is a dream. How he got here is a mystery, but one thing’s for sure - that bastard is gonna pay. With the power of his psychic energy, he forced the tendrils to release their grip of him. His awareness of his power and his environment has allowed him to breath, at least, in this dream.

The dark void of the depths was soon filled with a menacingly yellow flash of light, revealing a pair of orbs larger than him. These weren’t just orbs - those were eyes, eyes of a creature so massive that’s as big as a small village. The tendrils reveal themselves, and soon, the entire creature’s head was visible. It resembled an octopus, with the exception that it had a humanoid body with crab claws for hands. It looked like a monster you’d expect to see from those grimoires detailing the accounts of occult sightings of monsters, and this very creature fits the description of a ‘god’. You’d think that the mere sight of him will drive you to new heights of madness, but Michael seemed to be unaffected. “You are unafraid… how curious…” The creature says, its deep voice bellowing across the ocean depths, unnerving him, “Then you are just like me, a creature of unknown horrors.” He noticed the creature’s mouth unmoving the entire time when it talked to him, and realized the creature must be communicating with him telepathically.

“What are you?” He communed, telepathically, to the creature. He felt like this dream is no dream at all, and it more or less felt like visiting a strange and foreign territory with nothing to guide him with. “Who are you?”

“To think that a mere mortal would not succumb to madness is surprising in itself. Very well.” The creature spoke out in his mind, and Michael saw him sink into the darkness until only his bright yellow eyes were the only things he saw, and that too disappeared into ocean depths. Darkness looms over around him, the beaming light from the ocean surface disappearing. He once more found himself in an endless sea of void. “I am what you mortals would refer to as the sleeping god of eld. I believe your kind named me Cthulhu. I can’t recall, I was busy relishing in the madness of my worshippers and feeding off their psionic energies. I must say, your psionic energy seemed… delectable. But there’s something off about you, as if I’ve seen you somewhere.” The creature said. Michael was more concerned about the fact that the creature was at psionic energies. “Then did you lure me here to absorb my energies, too?” Michael said in his mind, with the creature simply laughing at the thought of it. Silence filled the void until the creature spoke once more. “Originally. I was feeding off the psionic energies of the pitiful creatures in what they called ‘Lavanitir’. I enjoyed seeing them being mad with delusions of the end of the world, spouting nonsense. It was fun while it lasted, for I, Cthulhu, the sleeping god, shall awaken and lay ruin on this world.” The black void was filled with the creature’s glowing eyes, and Michael felt immense power from it and was pushed away from it. He suddenly felt like falling, and as he hit the ground…

...he woke up.

---

A new day has come, and Michael woke up gasping for hair and he found himself sweating from the entire ordeal. Was it a dream? Was it a nightmare? If not, what was it? These were the questions he asked himself, and it was strange that such memories were most vivid, and he felt like he really was drowning in water in that ‘dream’. Perhaps he unlocked some sort of psychic power over the course of one night? He isn’t sure about it either, but one thing is certain - Cthulhu will wreak havoc unto Lavanitir anytime soon, and he doesn’t know how to stop it. He could always leave it up to the mages with the fancy and destructive magics. He knows his attacks wouldn’t budge against something as big as him. Maybe it could, maybe one his armors would help in fighting back against the beast. He leaned over to the clock on his left. There’s only a couple of hours left for him to get ready with his meeting with the employer, and Giselle mentioned she wanted to join in on the meeting too. It’s not very often that Giselle gets to meet his employers.

He leaves his room, wearing a white tank top underneath his red shirt, its sleeves rolled up and unbuttoned to reveal the tank top. A pair of khaki pants is worn with the same belt, and he wears the same brown boots he wore to get to Lavanitir. He walks up to Giselle’s room and knocks on the door. It swings open, and he finds Giselle still on her night gown. “Oh. Are you feeling under the weather?” He asked the sullen blonde whose movements befit the description of someone who doesn’t look very healthy at the moment. “I don’t know, do I?” She responded with sarcasm, as that much was obvious in her current predicament. “Yeah, this is really unfortunate, but I trust that you can go meet up with our little employer of ours?” “Yeah, whatever. Just get some rest. I’ll be back shortly.” He walks away and enters the elevator and hears the door closing. He is genuinely concerned for her well being. A sick magic engineer will do no good at all. What if she sabotages her work with the constant sniffling of her nose? What if she makes a typo in his code that’d lead to his cause of death? These are just mere exaggerations, but the point stands that it's important for her to be hale and healthy.

He leaves the hotel and starts walking towards the rendezvous point with his employer. The sun was shining so brightly, and he did not think of bringing with him his pair of shades. Whatever, he thought. It’s not like the sun will impair his vision, though it’s becoming more of a hassle to see in a bright environment. Even with a vision impediment that resulted in slowly losing his ability to see colors, everything was still a little too bright. So it was going to be that day where everything is hot and the cool gentle breeze of the ocean and the A/Cs can help beat off the heat. At least the breeze felt cool and refreshing, especially since they are near the shore.

Before he continued on his way to his employer, he went to a cafe that serves breakfast. He didn’t want to jeopardize his mission just because of an empty stomach so why not? From the inside, the smell of dishes being cooked was absolutely divine, had he bothered to really care for what food smelled like. Thankfully, he did not need to wait that long as he came up to the cashier and ordered his meal. “Good morning, sir! What can I get for you today?” The attendant asked. He looked at the menu, deciding what to eat. Looking at the pictures of the meals didn’t help him much due to his vision impediment. The dull colors make them seem less appetizing. Regardless of his circumstances, he decided to get what he usually ate for breakfast, “An Eggs Benedict, two hotdogs, and a cup of garlic fried rice, please.” He says, observing the attendant punch in his order. He doesn’t eat outside at all from what he knows. He might have eaten outside at one point before, which is most likely considering that not all of his memories are back. “Alrighty, here’s your number plate, so just sit back while your meal is being taken care of!” The attendant gave him a small metal plate with a number on it, and he proceeded to walk towards one of the few empty tables in the cafe. It was rather crowded today.

As he sat down on his chair, he overheard a conversation between three teens - one male and two females, all dressed moderately and appropriate for their age group. “Hey, did you guys hear what happened last night?” The red haired girl asked the two, “Why? What happened?” The male responded, “Yes, what happened? Spill the tea already!”, the blonde said. For some reason, this has piqued Michael’s interest and he decided to eavesdrop, doing so without being noticed. “Well, I heard that a cargo ship was attacked by a long ass sea monster. Believe me. I heard it from a very reliable source.” The both of them gasped not out of horror, but of intrigue. “Oh my gosh, whaaaat?” The blond exclaimed at the news, “That’s literally tear jerking. I can’t even. I’m just, like, glad my dad is a lawyer.”

Michael can’t help but join in on their conversation, mostly to acquire more info about the sea monster. It doesn’t really seem relevant but it might be at one point. Some useless information may be useful when the time comes. “Excuse me, how big is this sea monster?” He says to the group of teens. He expected them to scorn him for joining in on the conversation, but they told him what they knew. It’s not exactly reliable information but he can always cross reference with Giselle. “Like, waaaaay big. And it’s, like, very long, around 100 feet long.” The red haired girl replied, “And I even heard from the sailors who catcalled me earlier that there’s something twice as big as the sea serpent.” The others gasp in horror after learning this information. “I know, scary, right? Like, I would be scared going out to sea on a beat. It’s, like, not very cash money to be unalive. I heard there that there were no survivors from the attack. Must have been, like fish food or something. So not cash money.” “Yas, so not cash money.” The blonde said.

“I see. Well thank you for humoring me. I hope I didn’t disturb you.” He says as he goes back to sit on his table, patiently waiting for his meal. It didn’t take long for the meal to arrive as the waiter arrived at his table, placing his ordered food in front of him as well as his cutlery. A complimentary glass of orange juice was set down beside him. “Thank you for waiting! Enjoy your meal.” The waiter left him to tend to the other customers. He picked up his spoon and fork and proceeded to indulge himself with his meal. It tasted ok, but he knows he could cook better if only he was home.

Finally finished with his meal, he paid for his meal and set out to get to his employer.