24th of Saun 720
Time passed as Pygmalion took his body, and crossed into Emea. How much, he couldn't say. Yet it didn't take long at all before he found his bearings, and discovered a breach in the Veil that he could use to traverse the world of Idalos.
And the part of the Untold he was deposited in afforded him a chance to test his borrowed traits of water-breathing, and resistance to water pressure. This place resembled some form of a cistern, possibly the armpit of the Untold. He was under mirky water, in the midst of a maelstrom, roiling turbulence that led him into a shining abyss. Was this Chrien's realm? Or just another oddity of the landscape? He couldn't say. Perhaps it was close to a place important to Chrien, for as he dove down he could've sworn he saw tentacles peeling back portions of the stormy walls of the tunnel.
Whatever the case, he used his webbed hands and feet to kick and stroke his way through the heavy waters of the Untold, diving deeper and toward that distant light. He knew in an instant that the light was not any beacon he'd set. His senses returned no opinions or thoughts on that far source of illumination. There was nothing to tie him to it. It was yet another portion of the Untold to be explored, and discovered. With that thought in mind, Pygmalion found the current surroundings interesting enough that he determined he would brand it. It felt... important somehow. Like a proving ground he might like to return to with potential initiates.
Food for thought, anyway, Pygmalion thought. And then he remembered he was a bit famished.
So as he branded the location to his dreamwalking soul, he dove deeper into the abyss, until he came up against the walls of the vortex at the side of it. There, arms and limbs of various configurations grazed against Pygmalion's form. At first they merely caressed, then they became more insistent in their ministrations of his body. They left slime, some even scratched portions of his hide, causing him injury as he swam as swiftly as he could toward the bottom.
His gills vacillated as he got deeper, and though the pressure of the waters around him might've been enough to crush any ordinary mortal, he was held together by a combination of his borrowed ability of the mer to sustain in depths unknown to ordinary mortals. His webbed hands and feet kicked and swept the fluid aside as he swam deeper, suffering the assault of those unseen limbs at the edge of the trench. Sometimes a craggy rock jutted up to pound him in the side, or the stomach. There were cuts forming on his torso and limbs. Yet as he exerted his strength, he managed to make some comfortable distance between himself and the edge of the vortex.
The water, as it filtered through the gills in the side of his mandible and neck, had a taste to it. A bitter tang that reminded him of coffee and sour milk. He wondered what manner of water it was, if it was something he could drink. He also wondered if other dreamers had come to this trench in time, only to drown and be drawn into the outer edges where the limbs grasped and clawed and held the bones of the dying. As he got deeper into the trench, the area immediately around him became dark, although he was seemingly getting closer to the end of the tunnel, which was the source of light. As it brightened and got closer, it seemed the abyss around him was eclipsed by its light.
He became disoriented at times, lost in the growing current drawing him toward the outer edges of the tunnel. He swam furiously, using all of his strength to avoid the edges, but it wasn't enough to resist the power of the emean riptide. He was drawn out into the walls of the vortex, where he was embraced by a pair of clammy arms. Pygmalion furiously fought against the pull of those arms, drawing him under the roiling surface of the vortex, but was unable to break free and brought into the dreamscape of the one whose arms they belonged to.
Yet this dream was not unlike the portion of the Untold he'd traversed. Like that previous locale, this was underwater, in a shimmering pond. Fronds of kelp grew out of the bottom of a freshwater lake, painted in many colors. They brightly shone as the sunlight from above the pond shone on them. As he swam through the floor of this pond, he tried to locate the dreamer that had pulled him through.
There, at the other side of the dreamscape lagoon, he found him. At first he confused it for a female, and almost dared to think it might be Cirrina. But no. It was a category 1 mer, but no female. It was busily weaving fronds and strands of aquatic weeds and kelp into... something. A blanket? A shroud? A cloak? Pygmalion couldn't say.
Yet as he neared, he saw that the male was utterly absorbed in his task.
Pygmalion made sure to stay out of range of his sight, kicking up a plume of aquatic dust from the floor of the pond as he made his slow approach. He didn't wish to alarm the mer, lest he wake him on emerging from his dreamscape. Mer, as he'd found, could be formidable foes in combat, especially combat unarmed. They were strong, ferocious, with wicked teeth and sometimes other hidden weapons.
The gestalt of Lotharro and Mer slowly crawled along the bottom of the pond.
He slinked along the bottom of those brightly shining fronds and vegetation until he was within diving distance of the mer. Once there, Rakvald steeled himself, storing what strength and stamina he could. He waited for a few bits there, breathing deeply of the sweet yet brackish pond water. His eyes shone with intent as he looked upon the mer. He wasn't without power in this place, as one marked by Unity.
He could call upon the power of sanctuary in this dream, so as to bar any interruptions to his actions here. There were many lurkers within Emea, some that might well follow him into a dreamscape such as this. Yet he didn't feel as if he was being followed. And as he readied himself to pounce upon the mer, he didn't think his stay in this dreamscape would outlast the need for sanctuary.
There was no reason as yet to think that there might be a sudden intrusion. Pygmalion thought more of the crust forming in the corner of his eye, which would put the dreamer into a formless sleep. As he dove in toward the mer, his hand grazed the crust at the corner of his eye and swept it over the mer's mouth. At first, there was a brief struggle, but its tentacles soon went slack. Just before the Dream collapsed around them, Pygmalion emerged out of the other side of the dreamscape, from the dreamer themself.
Upon waking...
He found himself in a pond much like the one he'd exited, yet this was far less vibrant and impressive than that had been. It was an ordinary pond, by all accounts, with aquatic and amphibious life surrounding, and green pond scum floating at the very top.
The creature of Pygmalion rose to the surface, breathing deeply of the air of the swamp. It was humid beneath the midday suns of Saun, which had persisted for near half a season now. A mist obscured much of the area around, but he found a spot he could emerge not too far ahead, where a sycamore tree rose above the surface of the waters. There, he sought solid ground and found it for a time. There he could take on a form more pleasing to mortals living upon the surface.
Pygmalion looked around and saw a settlement or signs of a settlement not far from where he was. That was where he would go. He searched his totems, trying to identify one that would be less obtrusive to those living within civilization. There was the monkey. It would be simple to go unnoticed in the guise of that creature, yet it didn't come without its perils. Then there was the old man, and the dubaebo. They wouldn't do at all. They would result in too many questions. Then he remembered Jim Fino, the young healthy man he'd assimilated in Quacia. While the younger man was still mutated as Rakvald had been, he could pass for human, given a few alterations to his face, and maybe after pilfering or begging for a robe.
Thus, his form was chosen.
