Sorry for the delay! I'm just a slow fool. And it's okay, I tend to forget... You shouldn't take on so many threads at once, woman!


Azzurro cursed his hairpin trigger. Sometimes it got him into the most distasteful of situations. Perhaps, he thought as he returned to the city, he should have brought that scale along. The loss of one of his scales wouldn’t be the end of him, they grew back, and he didn’t specifically adore his color. If anything he would have enjoyed being black and white, so he could easily slip away from certain situations. Still, it was what he was born with. Azzurro considered his brother much luckier in that case. Many cases, really.

As he reached the entrance, an armed guard approached with a flick of his sea-green tail. His hands were grasped around an especially sharp spear tipped with obsidian, durable and not entirely crude. “Prince Azzurro.” He said with a slight bow. “How far have you been? You know it’s dangerous nowadays to travel far off without an escort.”

Azzurro rolled his eyes. “Yes, Wren, I know. I haven’t been too far, and trust me, I’ll take care of myself. Okay? If I need a sitter, I’ll come to you personally.” He raised a brow, and Wren nodded his head in slight defeat. He was young yet, the guard, yet he tried to make himself appear much more intimidating than he really was. It was a sad sight to see, and to others, rather laughable. Azzurro had heard other, more experienced guardsmen talking about the boy in various areas of the palace, and not in particularly flattering ways. It kept Azzurro from putting him down more than he already was.

Lokio was most likely in the palace archives. They held a wealth of knowledge from above and below the water, written on special paper-like sheets with inks that never faded with the water’s influence. When he entered the archives, he found Lokio, staring at the golden item they had discovered. “Brother.” He nodded to Lokio and looked at what he had been reading about. A few words rang a particular bell. “A gun.” He said. “I remember those... Or, I’d heard explorers talking about them, not long ago. Several decades I think, when they managed to get on the surface and meander about the human cities and towns.”

He took a place beside his brother and lifted the gun to inspect. “They’re used to kill from a distance, using powder and a lead round. The adventurers say they’re pretty strong, and hard to handle. Stole one, so they say, but once it gets too wet, it won’t fire anymore. It’s definitely unique for this location.” He held it out. “If you want to keep it, you can. Just don’t let anyone else know... They... might try to replicate it so it fires in water, and that wouldn’t be good.”

Azzurro recalled the adventurers talking about the use of the gun. Mainly, it was used to kill others. Usually out of malice or spur-of-the-moment reactions of anger or fear. He didn’t even want to think about what it would do if a marine version were created.