RE: Grand Battle (S?) (Round 1: Matmor Atoll)
06-15-2013, 09:11 PM
(This post was last modified: 06-15-2013, 09:54 PM by Elize.)
There was a hidden world beneath the blue sea beneath the blue sky. Proud spires of woven coral held aloft majestic arches and pillars. Scintillating towers of multicolored coral wove around one another in elegant helices. Vast flowers of outreaching vaulted corridors turned sharply upwards into a forest of mazing halls. There was architectural prowess on display that would make the designers of the loftiest gothic cathedrals weep, if they would only peer into the blue depths. The architects of these wonders, however, always knew they could do better. To them, it was the transience of these fragile structures that made them beautiful. The capricious whims of the wind and waves would bring down their marvels from time to time, and the shoalweavers of the Matmor merfolk relished the opportunity to reclaim the shards of their shattered masterpieces and re-forge it into something even more awe-inspiring.
And that was exactly what they were doing, when one of them took note of a strange flash of blue up above.
Sari peered curiously at the thing she had just created. A lattice of woven blue crystal glowed and bobbed gently in the air, casting Blue light over the surrounding area. Sari turned her head to one side, then the other, the light reflecting in strange patterns across her mask. She made a curious-sounding chime, then cast her gaze around the rest of the space she found herself in.
The coral floor was woven into a delicately patterned mat atop a sheet of crackled mica, but it wasn't quite horizontal. In fact, the whole room was tilted a bit to one side, dipping down into the water where the previously-elevated entrance hall had once connected to the city proper. The shoalweavers knew what they were doing well enough that the walls were airtight, leaving this bubble trapped in the room, even as the tower that had previously housed it had fallen. The vaulted walls and ceilings were mostly made of towering coral columns spaced apart by a delicate mosaic of transparent colored crystal and glass, and Sari's upward gaze lingered long on the streams of sunlight piercing the water's surface above her. As if reaching a sudden decision, she turned and leapt through the air, arcing gracefully down under the water's surface with hardly a ripple.
The merfolk, winding their way up the sides of the atoll to investigate, now saw an unfamiliar blue-and-silver form bob through the water, then suddenly jet up to pierce the air. It didn't hold their attention for long, however, as a massive sphere from one of their towers crashed into the water above them with a massive splash.
And that was exactly what they were doing, when one of them took note of a strange flash of blue up above.
Sari peered curiously at the thing she had just created. A lattice of woven blue crystal glowed and bobbed gently in the air, casting Blue light over the surrounding area. Sari turned her head to one side, then the other, the light reflecting in strange patterns across her mask. She made a curious-sounding chime, then cast her gaze around the rest of the space she found herself in.
The coral floor was woven into a delicately patterned mat atop a sheet of crackled mica, but it wasn't quite horizontal. In fact, the whole room was tilted a bit to one side, dipping down into the water where the previously-elevated entrance hall had once connected to the city proper. The shoalweavers knew what they were doing well enough that the walls were airtight, leaving this bubble trapped in the room, even as the tower that had previously housed it had fallen. The vaulted walls and ceilings were mostly made of towering coral columns spaced apart by a delicate mosaic of transparent colored crystal and glass, and Sari's upward gaze lingered long on the streams of sunlight piercing the water's surface above her. As if reaching a sudden decision, she turned and leapt through the air, arcing gracefully down under the water's surface with hardly a ripple.
The merfolk, winding their way up the sides of the atoll to investigate, now saw an unfamiliar blue-and-silver form bob through the water, then suddenly jet up to pierce the air. It didn't hold their attention for long, however, as a massive sphere from one of their towers crashed into the water above them with a massive splash.