A Gate & A PinWhaler

We described what we needed to find and the water baby knew right away what we were asking. The portal was at the base of an underwater mountain seven hundred miles southeast of the Florida Keys. It was the northeastern most corner of what is called the ring of fire a series of underwater volcanoes leftover from the last drift of the upper Earth's plates.

At the base of one of these mountains is a realm gate leading to the Gods realm, where they all lived or at least the main version of the aspects. Zeus and Odin took the shape of Odin, Aphrodite or Venus was more on the Venus side of things but in the male aspect of Eros. Hestia was mostly the mother aspect of the Gods, so it went with all the Gods, some had two representatives among the deities that were brothers or sisters or one of each. Some were twins, and others hated to be related. They all lived here together detached and removed from the mortal realm, where prayer became Ambrosia and fed the Gods. Now they fed on the hopes and dreams as they floated up and out into the universe. No longer feasting on an unlimited supply of prayers the Gods had lost the potency of their powers but none of its flare or nuance, the Gods knew that the power wouldn't go on forever and made plans to store and save the potential of their essence and magics away in totems, expressions, and amulets. All of them stored magic and essence in different ways. We first needed to prepare for an underwater trip and make sure that we all had what we needed for a trip to the realm of Gods.

" Pogs, Boggart, can we trust you two to watch over Houses healing and repairs while we are away?" I asked the two of them, I knew that it meant that we could be away for a long time. All the realms ran on their own time, the Gods realm however ran on subjective time. A week could go by in a year in the realm or five minutes could pass while there, it depended on what you were doing, how you felt, and who you talked to while you were there. Time was like time in a dream, again highly subjective. We are going to meet the father of the Old Gods, the defeated Gods, as well as any others that might have answers to our current situation. Why was the face or mask sent to us, what does it have to do with the Pogs, the strange sisters and our lives? The rest of the night we slept and in the morning we prepared for our trip. I called on all of my expressions and made sure that they were in order in my satchel from most needed to the last that I might need to summon. I called on a nag of holding I had made and packed it with enough food for us. I had no idea how much to pack but the essence to keep them fresh was costly so I only brought enough for a month. In other areas my brothers and my sister made their own preparations. Larry and Steven debated over weapons and expression for defense and for attacks. Robbie and Karen were in the greenhouse collecting herbs and mixing potions to duplicate our powers and others for healing and replenishing. David and Mathew, well they were making preparations in their own ways. Knowing them,their preparations would be some kind of entertainment for the road. With any hope it was books and maps, and I pray for some defensive measures of their own, not every problem could be fixed with a joke and some cheap laughs. The evening grew deeper and we all settled in for some sleep. I was testing an expression for light, the candle that cost itself no wax and the candlestick of crystal that split the light into colors as it passed. I had experimented with it and the different colors could be chosen by turning the stick and each light had different qualities. Green for healing, red for strength,yellow for seeing truths or hearing truths,indigo created a protective bubble,blue soothed, soothed pain,burns, and wounds. Finally indigo spread an unknown effect over a couple hundred meter distance, whatever the effect was it was a perfect circle and dome of it. Clearly it was meant to be shared whatever the effect might be. With each color a different vibration and sound could be heard by everyone affected by the light it cast. It had a number of benefits but the least of these effects was light on a candle that doesn't need to be replaced or replenished that alone would be valuable. Before dawn we all woke up and were as ready as we could be for as many situations as we could think of.

As the sun broke over the hills and forest of our land we stepped up to the banks of the river and called up an image of where we wanted a portal too. Karen cast breathing spells over half of us while Robbie covered the other half. As the spell took hold of us we grew into our true selves. Growing a couple of feet I let my hair down from its tie and stretched my fingers and arms to adjust to the new length. Everyone else made simulare adjustments to cuffs and hems, clubs, swords and staffs. .With the bluish white halos the spell cast over our heads we plunged into the watery picture of the mountain base.

We came out so deep underwater the sun couldn't reach. A mountain range sat before us and a crack deep down into the Earth was behind us. Somewhere deep down an orange glow filtered up into the base of the range, a river of fire and lava flowed deep below. "We might have been able to use brute force our way into the realm." Larry said as we floated a meter above the oceans floor. "No, no, we shouldn't even if we could. I think it's best to follow the rules and be polite." Steven answered him. He was right of course, the realms had rules of politeness and engagement. We may live forever but the Gods are older than we are and will always be older than the sum of us."Besides, we need their help if we want to learn the last part of the secret." I said pushing with essence to cast my thoughts to everyone in our closed circuit of telepathy, we may have a filter for breathing, unfortunately it didn't allow us to speak to one another. We summoned witch fire for light, it didn't cut through the gloom of the bottom of an ocean so I called out the Candle and its Crystal Stick. I hoped that it might do better than our witch lights. In the murky, dim waters with its floating bits of animals, plants, and indescribable matter the beam of light of the flame cast a glow that cut through all of the gloom and brought the wonder of the world to life. We could see for hundreds of meters around us, above us and the floor below. "Well it's time to make our way to the gate." I had a smile on my face, proud that the candle worked. So we swam to a rock formation that arched at the bottom of the mountain. The peak of the giant hill wasn't tall enough to breach the Ocean's surface. "I hope their realm isn't underwater or this will take much longer than we thought it might." As with all gates this had a set of ruins around it and needed to be pressed to open the portal to the realm of Gods. David and Mathew floated up to the ruins and with essence lit the sigils in order. Energy flowed from the ruins and raced around the arch, then like lightning struck at its center. A small spark of light pulsed like a beacon in the waters, then the spark exploded outward to fill the archway. "I honestly thought we would have more issues, maybe it would be harder." Larry sounded almost disappointed that we didn't have any problems."Getting to the bottom of an ocean, not being crushed by the weight of the water, maintaining a breathing spell and opening a gate wasn't hard enough for you?" Steven raised an eyebrow at him while turning to face him. "Never say that, you never say it was too easy brother!" I scolded him. At that moment, the waters around us became void of other life, schools of fish darted away into the depths and instead of the open gate we faced a monster of unbelievable size. "Great, just great! A PinWhaler! Get ready!" My mind was screaming out to everyone. PinWhalers, creatures from the depths of the deepest deel. They have tentacles a thousand meters long and the width of an oil tanker. Not to mention three eyes bigger than a whale and a mouth with sharp jagged teeth, like stalagmites of a cave. The biggest problem we faced were the spikes that can shoot out of its tentacles. It helped them hunt for their favorite food, whales. They were also painful to touch, being full of venom, hence the name, PinWhalers. "Spread out! Don't aim to kill it, PinWhalers have as much right to life and a part of the balance as we all do." I made sure that everyone understood the plan before we attacked. We had to trap it somehow, an essence trap of some kind, what that trap would be, well I had no idea. The battle started with attacks from the many arms of the massive creature, some of us used charms to block, some of us used expressions to deflect the arms that reached for. When they made contact with a weapon or a charm, powerful waves spun and crashed outward with every blow. My bow staff is strong but I don't know that it can take this level of abuse. With a thought it flashed back into my satchel and a new expression took its place. Instead of an ivory staff I was now holding the hilt of an Odachi sword. I hadn't trained with it as much as a katana but being similar, but a much longer version it should do the trick. It had a special ability, when held at a right angle it cut, slashed, and hurt. When held at a forty five degree angle to the ground it produced a shield stronger than titanium, tougher than diamond. Strong enough to repeal any attack this mighty beast could produce. I stole a moment to see how my family was doing. Karen dodged one of the long arms and its spikes, with her hand and an amulet at her neck she pushed with essence and the pink and purple tentacle bent and broke away. It fell into the crack and the lava below. It wouldn't take long for the PinWhaler to regrow that weapon. David and Mathew raced around an arm trying to grab and stab at them. Flowers, vines,grapes the size of a VW bus sprouted. The vines wrapped and pulled the arm to the ground, pinning it below. The mighty creature pulled away and the arm fell off, eaten up by the greedy plant then they both arm and vines withard. Larry had two short blades with sharp teeth, they were a pair of airship cutlass swords. With his weapons Larry struck at the beast's arms removing two of them as they tried to trap him in their grasp. With five of its arms missing and not yet regrown we had a moment to think, I felt their minds racing like mine. We were all searching for an idea to trap this beast to the ocean floor or bottle it up in a spell large enough to contain it. David and Matt came to the same idea at the same moment. "Brother we need a moment to summon it and a clear shot to its forehead." I felt them saying to all of us. It was a silly plan but it just might work. I danced around one of its last arms as it tried to crash down on me and floated up and away from the group. As I swam away my sister and our brothers did the same, splitting the attention of the PinWhaler. David opened his pouch and Mathew reached in, summoning the Dart. It was an expression that had transmogrification properties.The only drawback to the dart was its need to make contact with the largest surface of what it was going to transform and the change it made depended on the emotions of the one aiming it. It also had luck changing ability. Flipping the poles of chance in favor of the wilder. Floating further away and upward I looked back. The body of the beast was in plain sight. I was surprised that David and Matt held the dart together, each of them pushing essence into it. The mass of the monster's body was as close to them as it was going to get, the candle lighting the world around us was floating in the water. It illuminated one of the great eyes. The dart was full of essence and shot out from their joined hands, it flew straight to its target.

The head of the dart bit deep into the flesh of the mad looking beast. Its arms were growing at an alarming rate. For just a moment nothing happened, the essence that fed the magic of the dart spread out, it rolled over the beast and Mathew and David started laughing so hard that they just flipped head over heels over and over in watery circles. I looked from my insane brothers to the PinWhaler just as the essence finished its journey over the monster and in a blink, the space it occupied collapsed in on itself and water rushed in to replace the mass of the beast. In its place was a cuckoo clock, ticking, and springing out into the water. I was shocked for the first time in a few thousand years. I was dumbfounded by what I saw. It couldn't be any more unlikely if it tried. Larry formed a bubble in the water and placed it around the clock, as it floated down to the ocean floor it was locked in its form for as long as the bubble lasted. The path to the gate was open now, we rushed to it and each placed our hand in the shimmering light. The clock rested on the bed of mud and muck, the sediment burst the bubble as we vanished from this realm and crossed into the realm of the Gods. We fell from mid air down into nothingness below us, a cliff face in front of us. We reached out our hands with weapons and they clawed into the rock face stopping us before we broke through the layer of clouds below.