Abyssal (ManxMan)

The Baths Part 1

The Baths Part 1

They'd led him through the portal to a bath alright, the handsy bastards. And what a bath it was, so much so that he couldn't help but gape with an open mouth. It was a feat of superior architecture and engineering that the collective talent of humanity was not capable of yet, perhaps not ever. He knew a couple of architects and interior designers who'd kill each other with butter knives just to get a glimpse of something like this. 

It was the type of splendor and extravagance that one never got used to; at least not someone who wasn't born to it. The baths were the size of a baseball field, making him momentarily question if this was a communal bathing area for armies before concluding it was too grand for that. Golden stairs descended into multiple mini-pools separated by -that's right, you guessed it- golden columns. The water in the pools -six, eight, thirteen, oh he he was losing count how many they were- was so clear, Kai could see the white marble floor beneath as if the water was not there. 

It wasn't lights or braziers lighting the spacious baths, but rather the luminescent, arched ceilings. They were completely covered with bioluminescent blue-green fungi like that type that covered the walls of caves. It was breathtaking. 

But the true marvel of the baths wasn't a waterfall. 

That's right. 

A goddamned waterfall. 

The arched, glowing ceilings gave way to a tiny, gentle waterfall at the center of the baths whose sparkling water spilled into a small lake-sized depression. He could only assume that the waterfall's water was coming from somewhere on the floor above them, but figuring out how that worked was beyond him.  

"The water in the pools comes from a hot ocean-floor spring. The waterfall is the ocean's water being channel into the palace," One of the triplets said, answering one of the questions crowding his head.

Ocean. 

"You mean... we're not in the Black Sea anymore?" 

"Yes."

He closed his eyes and waited for the roaring in his ears to subside. 

"Please step into a pool so we may begin assisting you." 

Kai opened his eyes. "I can do it myself." 

"Out of the question."

They wrestled some more. If he was to be coerced into having something be done to him that he really didn't want, he was not going to make it easy for them to do it.  

"How are you so freakishly strong?" The triplet shoving at his back in the direction of a pool grunted from behind him. 

Kai didn't feel strong at all. 

Eventually, they managed to herd him into one of the pools. He nearly slipped on the third stair and would have fallen straight onto his ass and broken his spine if it weren't for the three pairs of hands keeping him steady.

"Please be careful. If any harm comes to you, then we will suffer gravely for it." Genuine fear flashed in the triplets' eyes, and for a moment, their stoical masks fell to reveal the terror hidden beneath. 

He'd suspected it upon meeting them, as if a part of him had sensed it, but he'd had no way of knowing for sure, so he kept his mouth shut. Now that they were standing so close, he took the time to scan them one by one, taking note of everything.

Their hair and eye color was... normal. Most of the merfolk he'd seen floating outside of his cage had vibrant or flamboyant hair colors, and all of them had those unnerving shark-like eyes. The triplets, however, had normal eyes. Human eyes.