230: Interlude: Banawa

After Trevor left the house, Sylverith dismissed her illusion. She’d need to alter it for the encounter with Banawa. Alira was still in the tree, preparing for the encounter to come.

Both Lily and Huling asked to come along, but this was far too dangerous, even for them. She hadn’t gone into much detail about this encounter, but she knew turning Banawa away wasn’t a sure thing, and wouldn’t be easy. He was a creature that made the very land these kingdoms sat on look young.

A true ancient.

And if she were being honest, one of the only beings in this world she was afraid of. If she failed in her task, it wouldn’t just be the destruction of the capital as she mentioned. It would easily be the destruction of the continent, and she couldn’t afford that, not when she was so close to reviving her species.

Forming her new illusion, rather than a humanoid, she went with her true form. It took a lot of mana, and she’d need a few years to recover, but it was a small price to pay to protect the seed.

Meeting up with Alira, they left the capital, both heading across the open sea. Sylverith could already sense the mana coming from Banawa as he moved beneath the water, even from a day’s flight away.

“So, what’s the plan?” Alira asked.

“We’ll need to convince him that there is no source of mana on the continent somehow,” Sylverith responded. Truthfully, she didn’t know exactly how she’d convince him to turn around.

“Well, this should be fun then!” Alira said happily.

The flight was long, but they could both feel he was ahead; the darkness in the water turning it from deep blue to black.

“Stop here,” Sylverith said, as they both halted above the water.

Sylverith rarely felt small ever in her life, but right now, as she looked down at the shadow beneath the waves that seemed to go on for as long as she could see, she felt small.

Sylverith attempted to reach out, to communicate somehow with the beast. She was sure it could talk, but whether it would was a completely different matter.

“Banawa, I wish to speak,” Sylverith conveyed as far as possible.

Nothing. The shadow continued to get closer, nearly directly below them.

She reached out again. “Banawa, the source of mana is gone now.”

Alira looked on with significant concern on her face now. She didn’t fear death, but she was at a loss for how she’d stop this being. Not only was it a being with water affinity, but it was clearly substantially larger and stronger.

The shadow came to a stop directly below them.

Sylverith hoped that was a good sign, but they were both not prepared when the voice came.

Deep, like the ocean itself was speaking, the voice came, the waves below them turning violent and chaotic.

“Pity,” the voice said.

“It was Oris accepting a offering that caused the pulse,” Sylverith explained.

She was happy it was willing to speak. She sensed the worry from Alira on how they would fight this, and she agreed. It wouldn’t be possible. All they’d be able to do is evacuate those who mattered.

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The voice came again. “I’ll take you two then.” That was all it said.

Both Sylverith and Alira didn’t react in time as the ocean below them exploded upwards, encasing both of them between two jaws. Sylverith only saw the teeth for a second.

She opened her eyes, back in the forest, the illusion having been destroyed.

“Frustrating,” she muttered.

She couldn’t do another illusion of her true form. It would leave her too weak, so she made the bare minimum for a humanoid illusion and started to walk her way out of the forest. She tried pushing her senses to see if she could feel Banawa still coming closer.

But she suspected after the drain of mana, she’d need to find that man, Morlin.