Waterdeep was under attack. The serpents had come out of nowhere, and started to randomly slaughter and consume the mareghar. Fortunately, the Sealords had responded fast by creating an impassable barrier around the city, made of sort of water, thick and heavy. The serpents circled around the city, shadows that stalked it. Their numbers were only few, fair couple hundred, but almost none of mareghar's weapons could penetrate their hide. The largest of them were almost fifty meters long and three meters wide. Fortunately only two or three of them were that big. Others varied from six to twenty meters. Someone had also reported of a one that was almost hundred meters long, but the scout had obviously been lying, and had been ignored. Their hides color was a mixture of blue and gray. They were covered in large scales. They had not yet found the other cities, thank goodness.
There were also some sort of lizards among them. They were relatively small, only five to six meters long, and were apparently some sort servants to serpents.
Dareos stood near the barrier. He studied it with care. It reached all the way around and over the city. It's substance was not hard; it was rather flexible than anything else. If the beasts would try to break it with force, it would give in a little, just enough to make their efforts useless. Unfortunately it also held the mareghar inside, effectively making the situation a draw.
Even Dareos himself had gone through some serious changes during his 'adoptation to the current environment', as the Sealords called it. He had supervised his own transformation with extreme personal interest and intensity. His body was covered in tiny, silvery fishscales, and he had highly advanced capability to swim. Meaning he had a fin in his back and loose layer of skin between his fingers and toes. His hair had been replaced with a sort of mane that would help to balance his swim. Recently he had started to focus on controlling and communicating with the life in the sea, but not all of Sealords had shared his interest on the subject. Some had started to study the essence of sea in an intense way that had not seen before. It had affected even their bodies, giving them slight touch of transparency, and skill to feed on plancton and such. They didn't even have to really move to feed.
Something woke Dareos from his deep thoughts. Was something moving in the other side of the barrier? Was there a shadow, that was approaching? No. It couldn't be, it was too big. It propably was just a cloud that covered the sun from the spot, and created the shadow.
Soon Dareos couldn't support his illusion anymore. His head was five meters wide, and his body vanished to the shadows behind him. And he was staring directly at Dareos. The Waterlord took one careful step back. He wasn't sure if even their mighty barrier could stop that beast.
Fear not, small man. I will not kill you. I am here for a bargain. Now Dareos could feel the intelligence and spark radiate from the serpent. It's powers were mighty, stronger than anything he had ever felt, but highly unfocused and undirected. The serpent had a big club but no hands to use it with, so to say.
It is obvious that we have ended up into a situation that neither of use will benefit. But now that we are awake, we are forced – by hunger – to hunt, and kill. Somehow his words came in to my mind, never touching my ears. ”What if we -”
No need to speak. Just think. Now that I've established the connection, you also can use it.
They began the negotiations of an alliance.