Legend 3: Corruption in the Sea

*OPTIONAL: Listen to this video of wave sounds to go along with the story. It will not change with the story as the previous songs have aimed to do.

Deep in the center of the world, about 50 miles deeper than Agartha, there lies the Lidenbrock Sea. Many creatures call this sea home, and with that, there are many unique creatures about it. In the deepest parts of the sea, there is a rumor of an evil manipulative giant squid named Taurus. Rumor has it that he can manipulate and even control the mind of a creature if the creature swims through Taurus's ink. Remnants of his ink are spread through the sea, so his corruption is likely much more widespread than many think. No creature has told the story from personal experience which makes it all the more intriguing.

Another interesting creature is Magnifica. She is a hippocampus (a water horse, with an upper body of a horse and a large fish-like tail for the lower body) that is well known for her philanthropy work throughout the sea.

Swimming back home after participating in a volunteer event with Magnifica, a dolphin named Aurea decides to go on a nice swim in the warm sunny water before it gets dark. She passes by a beautiful coral reef with massive corals like skyscrapers rising through the water. Many of the citizens come out to greet Aurea as she passes by their homes.

Getting sleepy, Aurea begins her trek home, but she notices a sea turtle trapped in seaweed. The sea turtle was swimming in murky water, which is likely from the turtle wrestling with the weeds. Aurea frees the grateful sea turtle, who strangely enough has white eyes.

"Such pretty and unique eyes you have," says Aurea curiously.

"Aw, thank you. It is a rare birth defect that runs in my family. We call ourselves the white-eyed snappers."

After the strange encounter, Aurea travels home and rests. The next few days, she progressively has trouble sleeping. She wakes up and tosses and turns in the night.

Sixteen days have passed and Aurea is not herself. She sluggishly swims to work and her volunteer events and acts with little energy. More and more people notice something is wrong with Aurea. A group of coworkers is meeting with Aurea, encouraging her to take a few days off and get some rest. She snaps back at them! She declares that she is totally fine but she'll take time off because she "hates her job."

All of a sudden, Aurea is starting to do terrible things. She is stealing from businesses, picking people's pockets, vandalizing a coral reef, and worst of all, she has just knocked down one of the tallest corals in the reef, destroying hundreds of small homes and businesses.

Weeks later and on the run from the otter police, Aurea comes crashing into a water spirit. The womanlike spirit notices that Aurea's eyes are white and that she is under the control of the evil squid Taurus! The spirit places its hands on Aurea's head and begins removing the corruption and fog from Aurea's mind. Soon, she is free from the control of Taurus and she instantly gives thanks to the spirit for freeing her.

With great speed and determination, Aurea darts through the ocean searching far and wide for this so-called Taurus to end his corruption. She begins diving deep. As the light becomes lesser and lesser, Aurea can no longer see. She has to rely solely on her echolocation to guide her through the deep.

After hours of swimming in the deep, she starts to feel extreme fear kick in. She has no idea how to escape, or even how deep she is. She is lost.

Wait, the water is moving. Is it Aurea or something else? She echolocates and senses several objects around her. "WAM" a long arm slams into her. Recoiling she begins echolocating constantly as she lunges after the body of something large. She stabs into some creature, and she detects that whatever it is, it has many arms. Trying to escape, Aurea swims as fast as she can in the direction she believes is up. She twists and turns and evades large rock formations as she navigates toward a dim light. A tentacle grazes her tail and sends her spinning in circles. She comes about as light grows stronger, and she just makes out how big her adversary is. Racing closer to the light, Aurea spins around and swims through the tentacles, and avoids getting hit.

It's Taurus. The number of tentacles, the shape of its core body, and the sheer size and ugly color of this creature must mean it is Taurus. He furiously swings his tentacles around, only grazing Aurea as she continues to avoid a devastating blow.

Aurea notices a gigantic rock arch not far in the distance, and she has an idea to crush him. Carefully keeping his attention while dodging his attacks, she backs up to the arch and starts swimming circles around the arch. Taurus does not notice her plan, as he continuously strikes the arch until it breaks. In seconds, the massive rock, now in pieces, crashes down onto Taurus as he releases his ink one last time.

Aurea defeats Taurus! A shockwave radiates out from Taurus's body spreading through the sea as his corruption ends. All the sea creatures start swimming with a little more joy. Especially the white-eyed snapper tortoise family who had been under Taurus's corruption for some time. Now new tales will be written about the hero who saved the day, Aurea.

Author's Note

Inspiration for this story came from Creation of the World by Katharine Berry Judson (1917). Creation of the World is a creation story about a group of people called the Wyandots who, according to the story, came down from the sky and are a Native tribe currently headquartered in Wyandotte, Oklahoma. One day, a Wyandot woman falls through the ground toward a vast ocean. She is saved by a group of swans who cushion her fall. Then a leader, Big Turtle, orders other animals to swim down to get some earth so that it can be formed into an island for the woman to live on. Eventually, a toad is able to swim deep enough and get some pieces of earth that are made into an island for the woman to live on. The island grows and grows as it becomes "as large as the world is today."

I draw inspiration from Creation of the World when the characters go swimming down into the deep water, the use of water animals, and the leadership of the Toad and the Big Turtle. I originally had Aurea as an assassin for Taurus that was turned to the good side by Magnifica, but instead, I wanted to have Aurea start as good and then go bad and then be healed.

Aurea is a blue legend largely due to her confidence, her intelligence, and her connection to the sea and its creatures. Her confidence is shown initially by rescuing the sea turtle, but most of her confidence is shown when she dives deep into the darkness to find Taurus. Aurea shows her intelligence by outsmarting Taurus by taking advantage of her special skills of echolocation and then by using her surroundings and his aggression against him. She also shows leadership through her volunteer work with Magnifica and just her being friendly to everyone. In this story, Aurea does not hold a leadership position, but she does have the qualities for it and if I were to continue her story she would arise to some form of structural leadership. Her connection to the sea is presented through her bond with the other sea creatures.

Bibliography:

Creation of the World by Katharine Berry Judson (1917).

Image Information: Dolphin via Pixabay

Inspiration for Lidenbrock Sea