Chapter 147: Arthur 49
293AC
The minute that the tavern wench was down the stairs, I rushed back into my chamber and slammed the door behind me. Quickly finding the chamberpot I rapidly emptied my stomach into it. Glad at least that it didn't add to the mess of spilled milk already halfway decorating my floor.
Unfortunately, while the vomiting slightly eased the motion sickness, it did not ease the ringing headache, the pain in my ears, or the stinging that extended out across my body, from the ends of my fingers to the core of my torso.
I had never let the lightning get so out of hand before. Let so much power come out to my skin at once. Even now it roiled in my core, forcibly suppressed, but lingering, blazing away inside of me a limitless well of lightning that rose with my fury and quieted with my calm.
"Storm king indeed…" I chuckled dryly to myself, falling backward onto my bed, away from the pot containing my emptied bowels, though the taste of vomit and ozone was still on my lips. The scorch marks decorating the room in jagged lines a testament to how overboard it had been before I reeled it in.
I ground my Palm against my face. My order to the woman had been stupid too, a product of my impaired state and addled reasoning no doubt. It wasn't too far off of what I would do normally, I was sure, but it had been too blunt, unreasonable. I didn't even know the woman's name.
And that wasn't even mentioning the other risks.
'I'll have Jaerys go out with a few men and arrest every mummer in this town.' It wouldn't be permanent of course, they would just need to be working for me before they could leave.
I didn't want to be burned as a witch after all.
Still, that could wait for the morning, as I settled down on the suddenly very inviting sheets beneath me, letting my fear sleep away into the long-delayed embrace of quiet sleep.
Unfortunately, my rest was not destined to be quiet.
I had barely laid down for a moment before I found myself standing once again in that great stone chamber beneath the seas, naked as either of the days I was born.
The ancient place seemed now more than ever a ruin, the ceiling had collapsed in part of the chamber since I had last visited, tons of rocks crashing down atop the statues of heroes and monsters in half of the chamber, the center held up only by the great copper globe of the world, which now seemed to be yet more corroded.
The great monster was there as before, stone scales covering his bejeweled form, lifeless statue eyes staring out at the world. His trident clutched in his hands.
I turned towards the globe, again marking it's various landmass to memory, I was sure Mt existing maps were erroneous, soon enough though perhaps I would correct them.
Whatever the great Fishman monster had to say, he moved not at all this visit, even as I journeyed forward to stand at the foot of his throne, calling out to him. His form remained unmoving, the jewelry decorating his scaley body and his trident the only parts of the seeming statue not coated in stone.
After a thorough inspection of the enormous creature, I decided that it was indeed unlikely to move or speak if it had not done so by now.
That in mind, I moved towards the stone door to his right, mirrored across the hall, which seemed to lead out of the ancient sunken chamber.
I found it led into a staircase, spiraling up through rock and water to the area above, so high that I could not see its end through the chasm at its center.
I began the climb slowly, gradually picking up my pace as I found that my legs didn't seem to tire in that foggy, dreamlike state.
Eventually, at the top of what might have been a mile of stairs, I stepped out into the open water.
Or rather, into the center of a temple exposed to it. The stairs deposited me behind a great altar in the great structure, easily dwarfing the Great Sept of Baelor in grandeur and magnificence, or it might have done the latter in its prime. Now it was coated in coral, barnacles, and other sea life, fish swam through the spaces between the ten great stone pillars which supported the enormous dome of its roof, and through those gaps I could see below it a vast city stretching out into the distance, similarly ruined, though nonetheless spectacular in its scale.
My attention was diverted from the beauty of the great ruin however as the sound of a harp turned eyes back into the central chamber of the temple, to a raised dais where a lone figure, inhuman in its shape, strummed at the strings of a harp.
I carefully made my way forward, stepping across the rubble until I could see the strange person clearly. The creature before me was a hybrid of fish and man, as I had expected, and his masculinity was abundantly clear by nature of his body clad only in some strange pearl necklaces strung around his neck in concentric circles. He stood around seven or eight feet tall, far larger than me, and two sets of arms hung from his shoulders. His hands were clawed and webbed, and his face was bulbous and honestly fairly stupid looking, like a grotesque fusion of parrot-fish and man.
He did not turn to face me as I approached, instead seemingly content to continue playing a somber tune on his harp.
After some moments of watching and listening, hearing his claws elicit soft tunes from the instrument, I raised my hand, trying to get his attention, and promptly found myself awake in bed, the morning of Grey Gallows coming to greet me with its odious light, my headache coming back in force.
As my mind slowly began to grind through the gears of the Lovecraftian dreams I was apparently having, I turned my eyes to my core where the power of lightning bubbled and roared.
'What… what am I dealing with here?'
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone