“Very well, we shall teach you our powerful mermaid song, but be warned, for our music is not to be taken lightly. Our secrets are stronger than regular bardic magic!” said the seaweed-wearing maiden.
“Of course,” Van said, “I shall treat it with utter respect!”
The Mermaids all began to sing together, spinning in a circle as they chanted in unison:
Hear our call! One and all!
Come to the water and you will find
Joy, love, and peace for all mankind.
Hear our call! Hear our call!
The beauty of the siren songs
Will right all of humanity’s wrongs...
Sang sat in quiet contemplation as she listened to the melodic tune come from the hypnotic women. It was such a nice song, she almost felt an urge to walk into the waters, but she was too tired to walk. Van was happily singing along to it, as well, and she could see a skill meter above his head, indicating that he was learning the music for his bardic skills. No wonder he had been so excited, as getting a hypnotic singing spell would come in extremely handy when they were surrounded by people who were trying to kill them—which was an occurrence that was happening far too often for her taste.
As she hummed along to the song, a word stuck out to her: Siren. Why did they use the phrase ‘siren song’ if they were mermaids? She quickly checked the stats of the creatures, and indeed saw that they were called Sirens.
“Van!” Sang cried out. “Van!”
“I did it!” Van said, looking back at her. “I learned their song!”
“Van, those aren’t mermaids, they’re sirens!”
“Oh, I know, but they’re the same thing; Siren is just a different way to say it. Kind of like how people say pop instead of soda?”
“No, Van! Not even close! Sirens are entirely different from Mermaids!” she replied.
“How so?”
“In Greek myth, Sirens lured innocent people to their waters and then devoured them,” she said, even as she realized that he was standing ankle deep in the water.
“Oh,” he said. “Then I think I’m in trouble.” As if on cue, the waters erupted around him and he was pulled into the water.
“Crap! Van!” Sang shouted as she rushed toward the waters. The water was violently splashing as she heard the Sirens cackling and laughing before vanishing into the deep blue water. Sang ran to the edge of the lagoon and looked down, but she couldn’t see her companion. “Ah, come on!”
It was a tough decision. Should she leap into the water and look for Van? If the Sirens were waiting for her, they’d easily be able to fight her. Yet, she couldn’t just abandon Van and wait for him to die. She didn’t have time to go searching for him wherever he would respawn. Growling, she pulled out her dagger, kicked off her boots, and took a deep breath. With a running start, she dove into the waters and began to swim.
The water was cold but somewhat refreshing, as the humid temperature of the lagoon had been drenching her in sweat earlier. As she swam, she searched around, but didn’t see any signs of Van or the Sirens. She had to surface for air a few times, but regardless of how long she searched, she couldn’t find any of them. She tried sending a few messages to Van, but didn’t receive any kind of reply. His corpse definitely wasn’t at the bottom of the waters, though, which was somewhat of a relief.
Sang emerged from the lagoon soaking wet. She walked over to her bag and opened it up to find Jet eagerly chewing on some beef jerky that she had thrown in there. She wasn’t exactly sure what it ate, so she’d just been throwing meat in there on occasion and hoping that the contributions would help the creature grow.
“Can you find Van for me?” she asked as she pulled Jet out of the bag. He growled a little, unhappy to have his lunchtime interrupted. “Come on, please? He’s in trouble and he needs our help. Again. This is kind of going to be a running theme for us, by the way.”
Jet hopped out of her arms and began to sniff around. He began to crawl alongside the ground, moving up toward the rocks that were overlooking the alcove. Once he reached the top of the rocks, he started pawing at the ground, growling loudly.
“Did you find something?” Sang asked as she climbed up the rocks and stood where Jet was clawing away at the ground. She knelt down and pressed her ear to it... she could hear a rushing sound, as if the ground was hollow. “A cave maybe?” she guessed as she grabbed her sword and began to shove it directly into the ground. The stone wasn’t well-made, and gave way as she dug into it with her sword over and over again. As the rocks crumbled out of the way, they revealed a hollow entryway into a cavern.
“Aha!” Sang said as she knelt down and began to pull the rocks apart, making a wide enough hole so that she could fit though. “Nice work, Jet!”
Jet puffed a little snort of flames at her and nipped her on the boot. She grabbed some more jerky out of her pockets and threw it to the dragon. Jet caught the food in midair and began savagely chewing on it.
Sang climbed down the hole, keeping her sword pressed against her in case of some kind of attack. She had no idea what this secret cavern would lead to, but she had a hunch that it belonged to the Sirens. They probably took their captives back to their lair before devouring their victims. If that was the case, then there was some time before Van was killed.
She landed on the ground and crouched down. She could hear several ethereal, melodic voices echoing throughout the cavern. Van’s words were echoing throughout the cave, as well—she could hear him singing the same lyrics that he had been taught before. The words made Sang feel a little dizzy, so before she continued moving through the cavern, she knelt down and began to rummage for something that she could plug her ears with. There was some seaweed growing in between the cracks in the dank cavern, so she plucked the dark green plant and tied the strands into little balls. These would hopefully block enough of the Sirens’ music to where she wouldn’t be entranced by their words.
The cramped cave slowly grew less constrained as she continued following the echoing voices of the Sirens. The seaweed was helpful, but it didn’t entirely block out sound, allowing for her to still hear the voices. It appeared as if the Sirens were in some sort of song battle with Van, given the way that their voices were trying to overpower his. He wouldn’t let up, however, and would sing loud enough to overpower them. This continued as Sang searched for them.
Sang poked her head from around a corner to see that Van was in the center of a large cave, tied to a pole. The Sirens were walking on the land, and Sang could see that they didn’t have tails like mermaids at all. The three of them were crouched down around Van and were hissing, but unable to get close to him due to his singing. It appeared as if his magical singing was strong enough to repel them, which was an impressive feat.
“Hey!” Van said in between verses, “A little help here!”
The cavern had grown wide enough for Sang to be able to draw her bow. She aimed her weapon at the Sirens and tried to figure out which one would be the toughest to beat. The one in the center, wearing the crown of seaweed, had the highest amount of Hit Points at nearly 700. Sang released an arrow, sending it into the back of the singing Siren. The Siren’s song turned to screeching as it hissed and whipped around.
“Awwahhhhh,” it shrieked as Sang felt a powerful blast of sonic energy crash towards her. The sound was strong enough to knock her onto her back.
“Take courage, Sang!” Van shouted as he began to sing his song of bravery. She saw the words IMMOVABLE appear above her. This status meant that she would be immune to knockback spells. She leapt up and drew her sword right before one of the weaker Sirens tried to tackle her. This Siren had begun to transform from a beautiful, pale woman into a hideous, scaly humanoid. It had bulbous, yellow eyes and razor-sharp claws.