The next island was northeast of us.
The Map UI showed it somewhere between "close enough to reach quickly" and "far enough that flying there with my reduced power would take an annoying amount of time."
The central islands, including the Forsaken Isle and the islands Mo Ko Tu'Aa had arranged around it, were farther south. The outer islands surrounded them like broken teeth around a mouth.
It was an unpleasant comparison.
It was also accurate.
I hovered about two meters above the sea while Kuu and the others moved through the water below me. I was the only one in the group who could not simply swim to the next island.
I refused to think too much about why that was embarrassing.
"Kuu," I called down.
Kuu surfaced with their fin-like ears raised.
"Yes~kuu?"
"Are we going straight to the next island, or are we stopping somewhere first?"
Kuu looked to the side, as if they had been trying to find the right time to tell me something.
"Actually, our commander wants to meet you first~kuu. They want to speak with you before we go to the next island."
"A meeting?"
"Yes~kuu. They want to speak with the one who destroyed the idol."
Kuu paused.
"The meeting place is not on land."
I looked at the water.
"It's at the bottom of the ocean, isn't it?"
"Our headquarters is in the deep~kuu."
Kuu's fin-like ears moved slightly as they watched my reaction.
"Is that a problem~kuu?"
"I can breathe underwater."
Kuu stared at me.
"I'm not a fish," I added, because I could already tell where their thoughts were going. "I have a spell for it."
"…You can breathe underwater~kuu?"
"And I can move underwater if I use the right spell. I'll cast it now."
[Aquatic Adaptation] was one of the skills I had bought from the Faith Shop during my first night at the estate. I bought it because the description said it provided full underwater movement and pressure resistance.
At the time, I thought it might be useful.
That turned out to be correct.
[Freedom of Water] was the movement skill. It allowed me to move through water in the same way I moved through air, so I did not need to swim.
Together, the two skills allowed me to move through the ocean almost as easily as through the sky. My speed was reduced because of the quest, but it was still enough.
I activated both skills and dove into the water.
The underwater world was beautiful.
Actually, beautiful was not enough, but it was the closest word I had.
The light from the surface entered the water in layers and became weaker as I went deeper. Below that light was another kind of visibility, made from living lights.
Bioluminescent creatures moved in the distance, leaving trails of light behind them. The water had a color I had never seen above the surface, somewhere between deep blue and a color that did not have a name in any language I knew.
There was also an army.
An actual army.
They were arranged in formations, and I could recognize the structure even underwater.
Octopus-like creatures stood in one group. Their arms moved slowly while they watched everything around them.
Fish-people stood in another group. They had human bodies from the waist up and fish bodies below, and they carried themselves like soldiers who were very good at their jobs.
There were mermaids farther behind them.
The part of my brain that had grown up with fairy tales had certain expectations, but the real mermaids looked nothing like them. They had the practical and serious expressions of professional soldiers.
Everyone was looking at me.
They were not hostile or afraid. They were looking at me like a large group of people who had already formed an opinion and were now checking whether the real person matched it.
That is a lot of fish, I thought.
I immediately regretted it because Kuu was beside me, and I had a feeling "fish" was not the preferred word.
"Kuu," I said through the underwater speech spell. "Why is everyone looking at me like that?"
Kuu swam beside me and looked at the army as if they had expected this.
"Because you destroyed the Disgust Idol~kuu."
"I know."
"No one has done that before~kuu. No one has destroyed it while it was active, and no one has done it for centuries."
Kuu looked at me seriously.
"They have been trying to reach those islands for a very long time. Every attempt failed once the idol's field affected them, but you destroyed it."
I looked at the army.
The army looked at me.
I felt something that was not quite pride and not quite discomfort. It was the feeling of being given a responsibility I had never asked for and holding it because it was already in my hands.
"Well," I said. "Take me to the commander."
The palace belonged to Rhea.
I could tell before seeing it clearly.
It had been built by something that understood the ocean as a home rather than as territory. It was large like a city, not like a fortress, and the whole place had the feeling of something that had been lived in for a very long time.
It had also been advanced in the way civilizations became advanced when they had enough peace to make things for reasons other than defense.
However, the corners were dark in a way that had nothing to do with lighting. Some parts of the palace were damaged and had never been repaired, and several doors had been sealed for so long that they seemed old enough to be sad.
The whole palace felt like it was still deciding whether it wanted to mourn or fight.
The throne room was at the center.
The throne was there.
The commander was not sitting on it.
They stood at the bottom of the platform, and when I entered, they immediately dropped to one knee.
I watched them for a moment.
The commander had a humanoid shape, but their features were clearly from the deep ocean. They looked like someone had built a person using materials that had never seen sunlight.
They looked strong.
They also did not look like someone I could identify by gender, so I decided that was not important right now.
"You can stand up," I said. "Why are you kneeling?"
"You are the one we have been waiting for," the commander said.
Their voice was not loud, but it carried like sound in deep water.
"You did what we could not do. Kneeling before you is correct."
"I hit a statue with a sword."
"With a burning sword," the commander said, correcting me.
"You suppressed your presence, passed through the outer patrols, attacked the variants from higher ground, and coordinated with the Shallow Court forces in a way the idol could not track properly."
The commander paused.
"We were watching."
Of course they were watching.
Apparently, the whole ocean had been watching.
"Stand up," I said again. "If you want to thank me, do it while standing. I need to look you in the eye, and this position is starting to hurt my neck."
The commander stood.
They were taller than I expected. Their body was broad and heavy, probably because their kind had developed under high water pressure.
Their eyes were pale and glowing.
"You know the situation," the commander said.
"Kuu explained it."
"Then I will not—"
The commander stopped and looked at Kuu.
"You explained everything?"
"I told her about Rhea, the idols, and Mo Ko Tu'Aa~kuu."
"And the seal?"
"And the fleet~kuu."
"The ritual?"
"And the reason for the attack on the coast~kuu."
The commander was quiet.
"…I prepared a speech."
"I'm sure it was good," I said. "But what I need is a map."
The map was more useful than the speech would have been.
There were six outer islands, not five. I was glad to learn that before making an important decision based on the wrong number.
The Map UI updated as soon as the commander placed the chart on the table. I compared it with the quest markers and filled in the missing information.
Six islands surrounded the Forsaken Isle in a rough arc.
Each island had an idol.
Each island had more Moglo than the first one.
"The idols," the commander said. Their voice changed into the tone of someone beginning a serious briefing. "We have identified five types among the six islands. The one you destroyed was the Green Idol."
"What did it do?"
"It made movement unreliable," the commander said. "When someone tried to dodge, their body moved too early or too late. When they tried to attack, the attack did not arrive when they expected it to."
"So it interfered with their timing?"
"That is the closest way to explain it. The more skilled the fighter was, the worse the effect became. People who had trained their movements until they were automatic were affected the most."
I looked at the map.
"And the others?"
"The Blue Idol affects movement in a different way. A person can run toward something, but they will not always end up where they meant to go. They may move too far, turn too much, or lose control of their direction. The faster they move, the worse it becomes."
That sounded troublesome.
"The Red Idol returns the damage it receives. If someone strikes it or the creatures protecting it, the same kind of pain will eventually come back to the attacker. The stronger the attack, the worse the return. But defending for too long is also dangerous, because the idol starts sending the damage back even when the attacker is only trying to hold it off."
"So there is no safe way to fight it."
"Not one that we have found."
"The White Idol changes what people see. Distance becomes difficult to judge. An enemy that looks close may actually be far away, and one that seems weak may still have plenty of strength left. Even the result of an attack cannot always be trusted."
I looked at the map again.
"And the Black Idol?"
"It makes things disappear for a moment. A movement may begin, then part of it is gone. An enemy may look as if it is preparing to attack, but the preparation disappears and the attack arrives immediately. Even your own actions may fail to happen when you expect them to."
I stared at the map.
"So each idol makes one basic part of fighting unreliable."
"Yes," the commander said. "The Green Idol makes timing unreliable. The Blue Idol makes movement unreliable. The Red Idol makes attacking and defending dangerous. The White Idol makes sight and judgment unreliable. The Black Idol makes actions disappear."
"That sounds worse than simply fighting strong enemies."
"It is," the commander said. "The idols do not only make the enemy stronger. They make the person fighting them doubt the things they normally trust."
I was quiet for a moment.
"And the sixth island?"
"We have not identified its idol."
The commander's voice became more careful.
"We know the island exists, but it cannot be reached through a normal route. There may be something hiding it."
I looked at my Map UI.
It showed six outer islands.
The sixth marker was gold, but it looked different from the others. Its color was slightly wrong, and its outline was unclear.
Interesting.
I saved that problem for later.
"If all six idols are destroyed, what happens?" I asked.
"We believe they will combine, but we do not know what they will become. The only example we have is the earthquake that happened after you destroyed the first idol."
"The Forsaken Isle reacted?"
"Yes. It registered the loss and compensated for it in some way."
The commander looked at the map.
"If each destroyed idol strengthens the others, the final island will be much more dangerous than the first."
Great.
"We also believe the final combination will fully release Mo Ko Tu'Aa," the commander said.
"So destroying the idols is necessary, but it also moves the revival closer?"
"Yes."
I thought about that.
"We have to destroy them quickly, before the revival gets enough time to benefit from the gap between the first destruction and the last."
"Yes."
"That is why the fleet attacked Marisport after the first idol was destroyed?"
"Yes. The revival ritual requires many deaths near an active idol. The fleet is feeding the ritual through the attack on Marisport."
The commander looked at me.
"Every hour your wall survives is an hour the ritual does not advance. But every idol we destroy also brings the revival closer to its next stage."
So we were trying to outrun a ritual that we were also advancing ourselves.
That was a terrible design.
"The seal was damaged before the idols were made," I said. "Someone partially broke it."
The commander's expression changed slightly.
"You know about that?"
"I know it happened. I don't know who did it or why."
I looked at them.
"Do you know?"
There was a short pause.
"We have suspicions, but we do not say their names."
The commander glanced toward the deep water outside the palace.
"The people responsible are connected to forces that should not be named while we are this close to the ocean's depths."
They looked back at the map.
"When the seal was damaged, Mo Ko Tu'Aa's consciousness began leaking through in pieces. Those pieces attached themselves to the idols the Moglo had already been building for generations."
"The worship was already there," I said.
"Mo Ko Tu'Aa found it and gave it a purpose."
I looked at the map again.
"The Moglo did not ask for this."
"No."
There was something in the commander's voice that was close to grief.
"They were worshipping the place where Rhea used to be. It was like caring for a shrine after the person it belonged to was gone."
The commander paused.
"Mo Ko Tu'Aa took the empty place and told them it had always belonged to it."
"They believed it because they wanted to believe there was still someone there."
The room became quiet.
I placed that thought with the other things I would have to process later.
"What is the plan?" I asked.
The commander looked relieved to return to logistics.
It was a good plan.
The commander had been developing it for a long time. They knew the islands, the Moglo patrols, the range of each idol, and the distance between patrols.
They knew things I did not know.
I knew how to fight inside the idol's field.
Together, we had a better plan than either of us would have made alone.
I would strengthen the aquatic forces and deal with the idol.
The army would handle the Moglo.
Then a messenger arrived.
It was a small, fast creature that entered the throne room with enough urgency to make the message clear before it even spoke.
It reported something to the commander in the aquatic language.
I could not understand all of it, but I understood enough from the commander's posture.
"The Moglo from the Forsaken Isle have started moving toward the other islands," the commander said.
"All of them?"
"All of them and at the same time."
I looked at the map.
They knew.
The idol had been destroyed. The earthquake had happened. Anyone with a functioning command system would have understood that someone was attacking the outer islands.
So they had reinforced every remaining island.
"How many?" I asked.
"Enough."
The commander pointed at the map.
"The outer islands now have the main Forsaken Isle population as reinforcements. The regular Moglo, the Mogloko, the variants, and whatever the Mogloko become after staying inside an active idol field for too long."
They looked at me.
"Please, Josephine. Do whatever you can. The ocean has suffered under this for a very long time, and your wall will not hold forever."
"If Mo Ko Tu'Aa rises, it will not stop at the coast."
"I know," I said. "That was already my plan."
The commander looked at me.
"Then we will follow your lead."
They said it simply.
They had been waiting a very long time to say it.
I left the throne room while the commander began arranging the forces.
In the corridor, I sat against the wall and opened the communication channel to Jane.
[My Lady, speaking.]
Jane's voice came through clearly. She sounded calm, which meant she had been watching the situation carefully.
[I was wondering when you would contact me.]
"Status?"
[The Moglo are still attacking the wall. They have tried the secondary beach entrance three times. We stopped all three, but the third attack reached farther than the first two. They are testing for weak points.]
She paused.
[The evacuation from the outer residential districts is about seventy percent complete. The harbor district is still partly occupied because some people refuse to leave their ships. I have not found a way to convince them.]
Another pause.
[At the current rate, I estimate the wall has around three days before the important sections begin to fail. It may be sooner if they find the main weak point.]
"Three days?"
[That is my estimate, my Lady.]
"Keep watching the wall. If something new arrives that was not part of the original fleet, tell me immediately."
[Understood.]
Jane paused again.
[Are you alright?]
"I'm at the bottom of the ocean in an underwater palace," I said. "So 'alright' is relative."
[I understand.]
Jane said it in the tone of someone who had accepted that her lady's life had become this kind of sentence and had decided to monitor it carefully.
The channel closed.
I sat with my back against the stone and listened to the quiet of the deep.
The wall at Marisport was holding because of enchantments I had put on it while bored.
Jane estimated three days.
Between me and the Forsaken Isle were six islands, each with an idol.
Mo Ko Tu'Aa was sealed in the deep, and its consciousness was leaking through a crack that should never have been made.
How did I end up here?
It was a rhetorical question.
The answer was obviously a chain of events that began with a banquet I had not wanted to attend and ended with me at the bottom of the ocean, in the palace of a dead ocean ruler, planning an attack on six islands before a three-day deadline.
One thing at a time.
Each one had seemed manageable when it happened.
That was the answer.
That was always the answer.
I stood up, fixed my dress, and went back to find the commander.
There were five idols left.
The clock was running.
Apparently, I was the only person in range who could do anything about either of those facts.
Great.
Fantastic.
Exactly what I had wanted from my vacation.
I opened the throne room door.
Forty-three water spirits, several hundred aquatic soldiers, and one commander who had been waiting for centuries all turned to look at me.
I raised one hand, hoping it looked like, "Yes, I'm still here. Let's move."
The army was ready in less than a minute.