Scaled oblong shapes floated half submerged in the water. The mouths were propped open and from the ones she could see that were open, a lighted and dry interior lay inside them. The water was blocked from coming in by bone hatches that seemed to be fused with the surrounding flesh at the bottom, preventing most of the water from getting in.

  It would be a tight fit, but not unmanageable. Most of the buildings were made from the carcasses of large fish. The largest she could see was clearly made from Magnate fish. As they got closer, she sniffed the air experimentally.

  Sure enough, it stunk, but not nearly as much as she was expecting. She wondered how such a thing was viable. They would have had to develop methods to keep the corpses from rotting, the air sacs full and air-tight, and the conditions livable. Much could be done with the abilities of an Apex holder of the Biotic Domain, but this was still impressive.

  When she thought it out, she could see why they might have opted for this over living on land or making wooden houses. The Domain creature corpses were durable and protected. Threats from the surrounding land became a non-issue, for the most part.

  They mostly would have to watch for dangers from the surrounding lake, and perhaps occasionally from the sky. Maybe a large land creature could threaten them, but with the home advantage, they’d be able to fight off most anything. As for the lake, Harper guessed they wouldn’t be living there if a Potentate creature or an excess of Magnate creatures roamed the surrounding waters.

  Still, she found it odd. To give up the solidity of ground and live in fish corpses in the water. They would no doubt have to be constantly maintained, in addition to just being... gross. Not to mention all that big. Domain fish were a decent bit larger than their mundane counterparts, but the average house did not have enough space to stand up in.

  Instead, structures made of wood had been erected above the carcasses. Harper saw efferans staring back at the raft from these platforms. As she watched, a young woman lifted a ramp that had been attached to the side and set it onto a neighboring platform, moving over to it.

  That was the less common method though. Most of the efferans she saw moving between dwellings did so by swimming. These people were expert swimmers, and it showed. They leaped into the water and swam to their destination, hauling themselves up on protrusion that had been built into the structures for the purpose.

  Some went inside the long-dead fish, opening a hatch and sliding in. Smoke coming from the top of several of the structures revealed that there were openings other than the mouths. All in all, it was an utterly foreign way to live.

  Harper was fascinated. Not enough to want to go into one of the repurposed carcasses herself, but still fascinated. Hopefully they would be spending the time on the raft, or at least on somewhere more pleasant than the once living hovels.

  The young woman scanned the village, trying to determine the population. From her low vantage point, she could not see to the end of the floating structures. There could easily be thousands of people living here.

  Most of the structures were tied together with a rope-like material that she thought were sinew. They floated peacefully, occasionally bumping into each other and going in the other direction. They seemed most interconnected towards the center, the outermost buildings floating further away.

  She realized that the village could be moved. It was very possible that these people were nomads of sorts, traveling the various parts of the lake. A lake that she knew to be quite sizable, spanning a couple hundred miles across at its widest.

  They navigated between the unconventional homes, sometimes lifting tethers between them over the raft so as to not get tangled within. The efferans stared at them from their perches, watching them as if eyeing a dangerous, but contained and interesting animal. Few fully gaped at them though, most of these people had to have seen the colonials at least once every few years.

  To her displeasure and worry, Harper noticed that she was stared at the most. It didn’t take long for her to realize what made her stand out. It was the same thing that usually did, her hair.

  The metallic platinum color of her hair was something she doubted these people had ever seen. The majority of the colonial population in the Quilish colonies was from Quilen itself, their eastern neighbors, the tetran Empire of Destone, and the atorans from Canjor.

  Metallic hair originated from the ranva people far to the north. It had been introduced into northern Magnon after the fall of the Empire of Tavenoc. The devastation had led to the vulnerability of the coastal areas; something the ranva clans had taken advantage of. They had taken what they wished during the raids and forcefully left behind their genetics.

  While most of the other traits tended to disappear after a few generations, their hair was dominant enough that it stayed, even if only in color. Harper had only seen about a dozen others like herself, including her mother and brother, with such a trait. None since she came to Vanax. They were likely more common in the Skjoldr colonies, along with actual metallic hair itself from the ranva colonists.

  Harper was tensed up, feeling threatened by the attention and surrounding watchers. Amelia noticed and bumped her with her shoulder. “Don't worry Harper, we are completely safe. Just keep your head down and ignore the attention.”

  She whispered back, still looking around paranoidly. “How can you be sure?”

  “Because of the governor,” she stated proudly. “If anything happens to us, he will come down on them hard, likely personally. They wouldn’t dare try anything; I’m sure you noticed, but while they are protected well from land, and have ample power in the water, their options for the sky are much more limited. Governor Tebour hasn’t gone to combat in years, but I doubt he’d have much trouble flying over and sinking their entire village. It was why they took our side during the last war. They have no counter to a roc, especially one as powerful as the governor.”

  Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  This did reassure the young woman somewhat. Tebour was one of the most powerful people on the continent. With a threat like that, and their particular vulnerabilities, these people would not dare attack them. She straightened, less cowed by the pressure.

  After an hour of careful navigation, the delegation arrived at their destination. In front of them floated two structures, all significantly larger than their surrounding neighbors. They were clearly fashioned from the corpses of bahamuts, the Potentate versions of fish.

  Both shared similarities to the catfishes she was becoming familiar with, having long and sharp barbels and ribbed sides. They also boasted scales like armor, fin bones as large as she was, and a beautiful mixed coloring, one of green and gold, the other of red and gold.

  The structures adorning them were only slightly less impressive. Towering constructions, like fortresses on water sat atop them. A well-lit and wooden interior was visible in one’s open mouth. No hatch was emplaced in the frame. Harper wondered how they kept water out.

  The rafts butted against the green and gold colored one. Their accompanying efferans began tying the raft to the structure on a hook meant for the purpose, bringing the rafts close enough for them to step directly on the massive carcass.

  Harper breathed in and out slowly, trying to calm her increasing anticipation and trepidation. They would be heading inside. Still, it was far better than squeezing into one of the smaller hovels.

  She stepped onto the wood platform that had been built over the ‘floor’ of the fish, which was really its side. In death, it floated not upright, but with the broader surfaces facing up and down. Harper followed her mentor and the rest of the party in, inspecting the surroundings.

  Little flesh was visible. Some bones remained on the walls and wood was built or grown around them, serving as the floor, walls, and ceiling. Carvings depicting events and entities that were likely important to the tribe were gouged into the wood in various places. A wooden staircase was set into one side and allowed access to the fortress above.

  Other than where it had been purposefully altered, the wood itself was smooth and unblemished. Someone with the Apex Domain of Nature had to have spent months at the minimum to create such a place. Quick and rough would have been easy, this took time and patience.

  A group of efferans stood nearby, waiting for them. Behind them, a feast of sorts had been laid out. Tarps of leather were hung between four pillars, each filled with a different type of food. In the absence of tables and chairs, piles of animal skins covered the floor.

  Several efferans climbed up out of the water behind them, one of them the Magnate who had pulled their raft. As they walked into the large mouth, the water they were soaked in slipped off, forming into a small puddle on the floor. The water gathered against an obvious barrier. Harper looked around curiously, but did not see the artifact that enabled such a thing. It was likely built into the floor or up above. It must have been a totem, no other type of artifact worked in such a large area.

  Turning, she inspected the receiving party. A dozen people, most of them elderly, stood there. The only notable exception being what she thought was the chief and a young woman next to him. She was unable to differentiate the efferans’ facial features very well yet, but with other clues, Harper guessed that she was the chief’s daughter.

  The man stood out in two ways. In addition to a more ornate skirt, one woven with images of fishes of many colors, he wore a headdress that was distinctive in appearance. It was cinched around his forehead and extended above his head, like the plume of a peacock. But no feathers adorned it.

  The closest approximation she could compare it to was a bat wing, a dark leathery surface with rigid edges. Unlike a bat’s, it was much thicker and had pale-blue colored veins running throughout. Those who were familiar with certain creatures would be able to tell its origins immediately. This came from the wing of a dragon or wyvern, if a very unique one.

  That was not what made this piece so important, though. For those who were familiar with the legends of the efferan people, they would recognize it as something much more. The headdress was not just valuable for its premium material or doubtless extensive enchantments. No, it was even more valuable as a piece of history and a symbol among the native people.

  This came from a creature that was called various names by the native people dependent upon the language used, but they could all be translated to mean the same thing.

  The Tyrant of Endless Night.

  The humans of Magnon had known it by a different name. The Ebon King. Dragons of the Domain of Dark were rare and feared. Unlike the dragonfire of the other Domains, the Umbral Domain affected not the fire breath, but the accompanying smoke.

  Their smoke left concentrated pockets of darkness that could take hours to clear. Umbral Dragons often spewed their smoke around them generously, hiding themselves and throwing the battlefield into confusion. You were in almost as much danger from your allies than you were from the dragon itself.

  And the Ebon King was no regular dragon. He was a Sovereign.

  One of those rare creatures that had broken the chains of birth and claimed another Domain, something usually reserved for humanoids. Rarer still, a naturally born Potentate creature that had done so. It gave them great power, and each known Sovereign creature was a walking calamity.

  The legendary dragon had appeared to terrorize Magnon for a period of several years. The monstrosity had laid waste to villages, towns and cities all the same. It was unknown why the Ebon King was so much more aggressive than other Sovereign creatures, only that its capability was nearly equal to its bloodlust. Its ability to hide its massive body ensured that it almost always escaped retaliation. Almost.

  Queen Astrella the Great had risen to prominence and slain another Sovereign dragon, claiming its core. She had become the world’s first humanoid Sovereign, and with her newly gained power she fought off the terrible beast and wounded it gravely. She went on to throw off the grip of tetran occupation from west Magnon and founded her home nation of Quilen.

  The grievously injured Ebon King had vanished; its fate unknown for centuries. It was only when a group of Magnon explorers had met with a chief and inquired about the material of the headdress that a connection was found.

  The efferans had dealt with a crippled monster for decades, one that was portrayed to be even more devious and hard to pin down than before. The legendary four-winged dragon had eventually been slain by a great coalition of tribes that suffered massive losses.

  The body had been harvested, but the core was deemed too dangerous to be given to anyone. According to the tale, the ravaged tribes had agreed to be rid of it and a number of them flew into the atmosphere and launched into what they described as the Spirit’s Realm, or as most everyone else knew it, space.