[Indigo]

Also, he could probably raise her corpse in an emergency, even at sea. But he wouldn't have liked that suggestion either if she'd made it ahead of time.

But here she was, alone in the middle of the ocean—well, not really the middle, but close enough as to make no difference. And...there was a rowboat off in the distance. Not her boat, more was the pity, but certainly a boat, and maybe that boat would contain someone who could get her back to shore and away from potential boat-eating sea beasts.

[Indigo]

As Glory neared the rowboat, something odd happened: she felt a large presence under the water. Not the presence of a sea monster, thankfully, a stationary presence that felt artificial somehow. She'd learned to detect things like this under Brine's tutelage but she wasn't very good with it yet, and usually she could only pick things up if she was concentrating. So this thing must be very big or very magical, or possibly both. She briefly ducked her head under but saw nothing, only the underside of the rowboat.

[Indigo]

Two things happened very quickly then. One, Glory saw the occupant of the boat, which appeared to be some sort of lizard—hydrolisk maybe—but it was hard to tell for sure because they were also covered in oozing black slime. And two, she was suddenly standing instead of swimming, her paws touching down on a smooth curved surface that felt like glass, which she found herself walking along until she reached the side of the boat.

[Indigo]

The hydrolisk looked as surprised as Glory felt, even accounting for how hard it was to read emotion on that drippy reptilian face—on closer examination they were not just covered in the slime, but made out of it. Which was...not something Glory had ever seen before, but she elected not to worry about it just now, because they acted like a person rather than a sea beast on first encounter.

"Uh, hi," Glory said. "What are you doing out here?"

[Indigo]

"I..." The hydrolisk had a surprisingly clear voice given, again, the fluid state of her head region. But then she'd probably had a lot of practice. "I'm lying in wait for a sea monster. You're not a sea monster, are you?"

"I'm not really a sea anything," Glory said. "Well, I guess I'm lost at sea, now, but that's not even close to the same thing."

"It is not."

There was an uncomfortable pause.

"My name's Fex," said the hydrolisk. "Do you want to wait with me? I have to stay out here until the job's done, but I can take you back to land afterward."

"That seems like the best offer I'm going to get," Glory said, and got in the boat.

[Hunt Complete]