"Mira! Mira!" Dala called into the hall, searching for her friend. 

The teenager was at Simone's massive home and searching for one of her friends of the family. A few days ago, Dala had found something that she needed Mira's help with. Only she would have the magical power to get them where they needed to go. Mira was renowned for her talents with water and was the only person Dala could think of who would be able to handle this underwater trip. After a little bit of searching, she eventually found her friend. 

"Mira I need your help!" Dala declared before pulling out a shard from her bag, "Have a look at this." 

The shard was bright orange and held little designs of waves and unique looking sea dragons. The body of the dragon was a serpent with multiple scales covering its body. The head of the dragon looked like a lion's head with feathers decorating its face. The whole creature was decorated in bright colors with bright greens and deep reds. The shard itself was aged and many of its colors seemed faded. There were parts where the paint had chipped off after years of water damage. The overall style was incredibly unique, something Dala had never seen in all her travels. 

"Apparently people have been finding little treasures like these in the Nyella Ocean." The blonde girl exclaimed, "You know what this means, right? There could be a city or a town down there! Imagine what kind of information we could find out about that place! What if they have an entire record on taxes? Or have a history I could look at to see how they handle things back then? It could reveal how I could handle things in the future with my own village." 

Dala had been fascinated with ancient cities and their information. It was one of the reasons she had been travelling around so much. She wanted to discover how each nation handled their own problems. History always revealed some sort of pattern and always told educational stories on how to handle problems. If she was able to learn from them, she could avoid the pitfalls that countries of the past fell into. 

"I met a girl named Briar, only a year older than me, who was planning to do a little investigation. She already knows a ship sailing past that ocean, all we have do to is figure out a way down there." Dala explained, "I was hoping that maybe… you would be interested in helping us out?" 

"Oh, let me see!" To Mira, almost anything from the sea was a treasure. Special seashells, pretty sea glass, and old things that had sat forever in the saltwater until it grew a patina were all things she called 'treasure'. It looked like an old piece of a pot, and she frowned as her purple-blue eyes stared at the faded pattern. "It looks like a feathery snake. There's waves around it." Dala was excited about what could be down there, and Mira was sure that they'd find more interesting things if they learned where exactly this piece of dried clay was fished from. "Hmm, if they recorded stuff on things that weren't paper I'm sure we can find something. Paper and wood turns to mush fast in water." Her friend already found somebody who could take them there, so Mira packed some things before getting ready to go. "I'm going to tell Mama and Papá first. Where are we going?" The Nyella Ocean was huge and she was interested in knowing where this was from.

If she was going to dive with two other people, she would need to give them a way to breathe down in the water. Most people weren't like her or Ezili and needed air after a few minutes. Actually, it was impossible for her to drown–since her real body was her orb. Stuffing her orb in a backpack, she slung it over her shoulder and put on her shoes. This was her first trip this far from home in a long time; there was that night when she helped Fiori get her shells for a last-minute homework project but she didn't tell anyone. Mira ran out to find Simone and asked permission, letting her mother know she was going on a short trip with Dala. Since it was Dala, it was ok. Her face was beaming with a smile when she came running back.

"Mama said yes! Let's go! Oh by the way, how did you meet Briar?" She wanted to know what kind of person this Briar girl was, where she was from, and what she liked to do. This was her first time meeting somebody totally new. A friend of a friend is still a friend, at least that's how it was in Mira's eyes. Her curly long hair was tied back so it wouldn't blow in her face when running and she wondered if she had packed enough stuff for the trip. Most of her past memories were around the Luna Sea and around Onnen. If she had been in the Nyella Ocean before, it was probably too long ago for her to remember.

Mira came back with Simone's permission and Dala was practically jumping up and down with joy. Going down to the ancient city would have been fun but it was better when she had someone she really knew. Their adventure together was going to be dangerous and though she liked Briar, she didn't know the girl terribly well. They had become fast friends but Mira was someone whom she felt would always be on her side. 

"Briar is a street rat I met recently. She's traveled a lot and has plans to win fame and fortune." Dala explained, "I think you'd like her. She's a lot like us in a way, always getting into trouble. We met when we ended up running away after insulting a nobleman. Then she showed me that shard along with a few other items and we started making plans on how to get to this underwater city." 

Once everything was settled and packed, Dala said her goodbyes to Simone and the family then left for Sidhiel with Mira. The journey was fairly nice, as Dala was being very careful to make the trip as enjoyable as possible and they had some extra cash, mostly thanks to Simone sending them along with extra coin so her daughter Mira could be treated like a princess. Instead of walking or sleeping in tent, they were able to afford wagons and decent taverns. The weather had shown them mercy and been fairly warm with few storms to worry about. Eventually, they arrived at the volcanic city of Sidhiel. 

They arrived on the northern coast of the volcano where the high elves had their settlement. The southern half of the volcano was covered in smoke and ash while this half was practically a paradise. The gates to the city were open, as they always were. The high elves felt little fear to the creatures of the forest and worked with them to create their magical artifacts. They had so few visitors that the idea of having to worry about raids seemed ridiculous.

Next to the gates was a beautiful girl with flaming locks of auburn hair that could rival the sun itself. Her evergreen eyes twinkled with intelligence and her skin was as clear as they sky. Yet the girl's outfit consisted of a simple tunic and cheap trousers with a whole near the knee. Despite her beauty, it was clear she was born from the streets. She sixteen and had pretty little half elf ears sticking out from her bright red hair. 

"Hey Briar!" Dala called out. 

"You finally made it!" Briar said with a smirk, "I see you brought your water friend with you. Mira, was it? Pleasure's mine. Anyways lets get to work. The ships just about to head out so we'd better head to the dock as soon as possible." 

Briar seemed to rush through the introductions and began walking into the city, expecting Dala and Mira to follow. As they walked, multiple high elf eyes were looking down upon them with disgust. They never liked visitors and had a particular dislike for half-elves like Briar. They judged Mira, Dala, and Briar's clothes and posture, making snide remarks behind their backs whenever they looked away. Eventually they arrived at the ship and Briar invited them aboard. 

"The captain owed me a favor so he let me get a quick trip to the part of the ocean with the city." Briar explained, "Are you both ready for the adventure of your lifetime? Just imagine all the treasures and artifacts we can get! And just imagine the looks on those snobby elves faces when we bring back all this wealth!"

"Don't forget about all the stuff we can learn!" Dala said with a gleam of excitement, "Even if the paper's all soggy, they should have some pottery and other art pieces that tell the story of their city." 

"Yeah. Right. That too." Briar said. 

Dala turned to Mira with a big smile. 

"So what do you think of the trip so far?" She asked, "Has it been fun?" 

So the pot shard was found by her friend, not Dala herself. Mira wondered what Briar would be like as they made the trip, and the voyage to Sidhiel was smooth. She stared out from the deck as they took the ride across the enchanted waters to the island off the coast of southern Parvpora. Everything here felt magical in many ways. The plants were blue too, and if they weren't going to meet up with Briar–Mira would have dipped her toes in to see if the water here was any different. She remembered traveling before being adopted, especially how hard it was not knowing where she could stay to be safe. She was glad she had a family now, and Dala had her family too. They found Briar pretty easily as she stood out with her bright reddish hair. Not a lot of people had hair like that, and it was very pretty. Dala went to say hi and she followed only to be cut off when Briar wanted to get on board as soon as possible. Mira didn't really like that, but she figured it had been a long time to wait since Dala invited her to come along. Mira was tagging along at the back, busy looking around at the city and the people before they went to dive. The city was different, very neat and elegant. It reminded her of the castle back in the lake country, but it felt less warm. 

As they hurried along, the elves were acting really weird towards them. Fiori was an elf, but she didn't act weird. Were all the elves from other places like this? She would ask mama later once she was back from the trip. Briar and Dala couldn't wait to set out, and Mira was excited too. "I can't wait to see what the place looks like underwater! Even if it's old and broken down, there might be coral reefs and art that's left over. If we can find a pot that's not broken, that'd be good too." She couldn't help but notice that everybody here was interested in this trip for different reasons. Sure, treasure was nice and finding old stuff people left behind wasn't bad–but the last bit Briar said gave her a funny feeling. When Dala asked her how she felt about the trip so far, she gave a nod. "It's fun, but I'm sure it'll be better once we get ready to get our feet wet. I've never been in this part of the ocean before." She wanted to tell Dala about that funny feeling she had about Briar, but she wanted to wait until later. "Hey, Dala… The elves on the island were really weird. They kept looking at us and whispering." She wasn't trying to be mean, but they were acting very strange to her. Maybe Dala knew why.

Mira started to take out her orb from her backpack once the ship left the docks. Once they got to the spot where the shard came from, it would be her time to shine. The purple-blue crystal orb was tucked under her arm as she began to float above the deck, looking around at the ocean around them. The water color was different when you got closer to Sidhiel, it was normal everywhere else. When they were done for the day she'd buy some presents for her siblings to bring back and maybe find a new plant friend for Shaya. There were plants here that weren't in the garden, and if she could get flowers for mama they could add them somewhere. Floating by Briar, Mira asked the older girl: "So how did you find that piece of broken pottery?" The question had been on her mind for a while now.

Briar's slight rudeness hadn't passed Dala but the blonde felt there was a reasonable explanation. Briar grew up on the streets and had been there far longer than even Dala had. Both her and Mira had found families and had spent many of their years with a comfortable home available to them. At the end of the day, Briar had no home and nobody to call family. Dala reasoned with herself that any rudeness was a product of her past and completely excusable. However, the high elves had little excuse for being so rude. 

"They're high elves. They have habits of thinking they are better than every other species." Dala explained, "That's why we call them high elves. Cause they're on a high horse and refuse to get off." 

Most of her information had come from books about the subject. It something different to see it in person. The way that they treated them reminded Dala of when she used to be a poor orphan scavenging the streets, looking for scrapes of food. People used to hate her and call her a rat. They whispered behind her back and used to treat her like garbage. It was only when she started to dress better, had more money, and gained her own sense of confidence that they stopped picking on her. She had made herself a harder target to torment. Dala stared out at the ocean, watching as the deep blue waves danced in the distance. 

Meanwhile Briar had been relaxing on a chair with her feet propped up on the rails. Ship sailing came easily to the young woman and she seemed far more comfortable than on land. When Mira floated over, Briar inspected her for a moment. The floating girl's unique orb had caught her attention. It was a unique item that would probably sell for a pretty coin. Yet, when she saw Mira, she looked away from the item, deciding against that line of thinking. 

"One of the men working on the ship found it in his meals. They'd gone fishing in the Nyella Ocean. Bobby over there almost broke a tooth." Briar explained, "He tossed it in the can and I dug it out. Apparently other folks have been finding stuff in the ocean, specifically around this spot. I figured we'd find an ancient ruins filled with relics. I met Dala and told her about it, she mentioned how you had talent with water magic and could get us down there." 

Eventually the ship came to a stop. The captain of the ship gave Briar a wave, signaling her that they were ready. Briar gave him a nod then picked up a few items stored on the ship. There were two grappling hooks with rope attached to it, water canteens, and some dried food. The supplies were given out to each of them with the grappling hooks given to Dala and one kept for herself. She didn't want Mira to be weighed down with metal. Dala looked over to Mira with a concerned look. 

"Are you sure you're up for this?" She asked, "I don't want you pushing yourself too much." 

"Oh she'll be fine!" Briar declared with an easy smile and gave them both a confident look, "Mira looks talented enough for any challenge!"

"Hmm, so that's why." So any elf who thought they were better than other people were 'high elves'. This was completely wrong, but it made sense to Mira. Was that why people called dwarves that? But if they weren't the shortest around, then it would probably be because the name stuck. She listened to Briar's explanation on how she got the piece of pottery. Bits like that could get swallowed by big fish if something they wanted to eat was on top of it. Sea creatures were pretty good at discerning the difference between food and non-food, since they had to rely on smell more than eyesight. "We'll see if there's ruins once we get to the bottom. Sometimes the waves carry stuff and the currents dump things when they swirl together." Mira replied to Briar's guess on what would be down below. They were far from shore and Sidhiel was a dot in the distance. While the other two older girls got their equipment, Mira brought her backpack and its contents. 

Dala was worried about her pushing herself too far, but like Briar she felt she was ready to go. Putting her hands on her hips, she smiled confidently. "I'll be ok! But let me think about how I'll get us down safely." She could move large quantities of water, but parting the ocean was too much. There was much more here than in Jasumin Lake. Instead of moving the waves, it would be easier to make a big bubble to carry them down until they found a spot that was dry. "I got an idea." Her orb rose into the air and began to glow as a stream of water swirled upward. More seawater started to gather until it formed a large translucent, rippling sphere like a giant drop of water suspended above the ocean's surface. "We can go down in this, like a bubble. Swimming will be harder the further down we go, so with this we won't need to go up for air as often." Fish and animals liked being closer to the surface or in the middle when it came to the depths of the sea. Fish could do it because they had gills, but animals still needed air breaks from time to time. She didn't need to worry about the water pressure or drowning, so this was more for Dala and Briar.

Mira's purple-blue orb entered the hollow water sphere and she opened it up to let the other girls join. When they were all inside, she would close it and the encapsulated space would descend. The water barrier was dense enough to ensure they wouldn't fall out when they stood on the floor, but it was like they had a window to an underwater world. Fish swam by in groups while everything was tinted in blues. Below the water's surface there were mountains and valleys that went unseen by the world above. Strange plants attached to rocks swayed like they were blown by a breeze, while corals clumped together to make big hills of unusual and bizarre shapes. Mira moved the bubble around so the other girls could see if there was anything they wanted to look at up close. "If you see something, tell me which way to go and I'll move us there." She said to Briar and Dala. "This is what fish get to see everyday, isn't it pretty?"

Dala and Briar both entered the hollow water sphere. Briar seemed slightly concerned at the bubble's stability but Dala seemed completely unbothered. The teenager trusted her friend. She knew that if Mira thought this would work, then it would work. The bubble descended into the watery depths and into a new world. The land in water was a mix of sand and stone. The colorful coral grew like any plant on the rocks and sand. One coral was like a pink ball of hair, only with the strands of hair being much bigger. Orange fish with stripes rubbed itself all over this coral. Another one looked like a blue fern and swayed in the power of the waves of the ocean. When Dala looked upwards, she could see the white sun and the crystal blue waters above, sparkling.

A nearby passing school of yellow fish caught her attention. They moved as a group and reacted as a unit. If something scared one of them, it scared all of them. Yet there was something about the way that they moved that made Dala think that they were doing this as a way to protect each other. The school of yellow fish surrounded them then swam towards a purple coral that looked like a bunch of sticks growing out of the ground. The teenager's eyes were wide with amazement as she gazed at the ocean around them. Everything was so alive! Whenever Dala ever thought about the ocean, she imagined a bunch of water with fish swimming around, like one of those aquariums that Mira always love. But this was far grander and held so much beauty.

"I've never seen anything like it!" Dala exclaimed, "It's like a different world down here."

Meanwhile Briar had been focused on looking for a sign of ancient ruins or some sort of place where the pottery piece could have been from. Her eyes scanned the ocean floor until she spotted exactly what she was hoping to find. An small building covered in seaweed and coral lie in the distance. The building was made up of stones and was partially built into the hill at the bottom of the ocean. If they swam closer, they would find multiple buildings with a pyramid type of temple in the center of the city. Fish swam in and out of these buildings, treating it like it was just another rock or cave that occurred naturally on the ocean floor. 

"Over there!" Briar said, "That's what we're looking for." 

The walls were covered in graffiti in a language from long long ago. A silver eel slipped out from one of the doorways and slithered onwards while tiny little fish followed and started eating the dirt on the eel. The strangest thing Dala noticed was the piles of items left outside of each house. Every single house had a small pile of relics sitting outside the door, covered in algae. The teenager wasn't an expert on ancient ruins but she had a feeling that the relics should have been inside the ruins, not sitting outside the ruins in an orderly pile. Dala looked to Mira and gave her a quick nod, as if to clue her in to the strangeness of the relics. 

"So much stuff to collect." Briar said with a smirk, "Lets get started." 

Mira moved the water around them so the three would drift closer towards the old sunken buildings. From above, she could see that there were many buildings past it, almost like a city. Any decorations that had been on the outside were either overgrown with coral, mollusks, or algae. This place felt…familiar somehow. She had played in sunken ruins a lot when she was little before she became part of the Terrowin family, so maybe that was why. But these ruins were comforting in a way she couldn't explain. It would've been a pretty place back when it wasn't underwater, and it was still pretty now. "Hey, there's a bunch of stuff outside already. There's a lot of stuff growing on them too." Dala's comment didn't go unnoticed as Mira realized how unusual this was. "Is it just me but…doesn't this stuff look like they were moved out by something or somebody?" Ocean currents couldn't pick things up and pull them out of holes to drop them in neat piles. While Briar was getting ready to start collecting, Mira was feeling uneasy.

"Maybe we should check to see if anybody's home? How about we toss a rock inside and see if it comes back out?" Old ruins were basically cave houses for sea creatures. No matter what was living inside, they were technically trying to enter their safe space without asking. Finding a good home wasn't easy either, so she didn't want to force something to leave after settling in. Life under the sea was colorful but also dangerous. The friends she brought back home in her room were living the best lives any fish, turtle, or crab could. No worries about being eaten, no worries about finding food, and a safe home that would always be clean. She started to wonder if they ever missed their life in open waters, just like how she would miss swimming in the ocean from time to time. Were they really happy? She'd come back to those thoughts later. First she needed to see what Briar and Dala wanted to do next.   

"Sometimes animals get nervous if strangers come close to their home." She added. There was also the unspoken worry of it being a predator that liked to wait for its food to come to its door. Even if she could never drown, Mira's orb was why she hadn't gotten eaten by a big fish or sea monster. She hoped they wouldn't go in and just move on. She didn't want the other two girls to get hurt. Since these relics weren't disturbed and overgrown, they could always come back another day if they didn't finish seeing everything.

Dala finished staring at the beautiful ocean and listened as Mira pointed out the stuff looked like it had been moved. Her brow furrowed as she realized her friend was right, there was something strange about this. Mira was their current expert on the oceans and everything in it. If she thought something was strange then there was a problem. Meanwhile Briar seemed to be focused on the relics laying outside of each home, her eyes narrowing as Mira continued talking. 

"Maybe if we just take the relics from the outside then? We don't have to go into the homes if the relics are already piled outside." Briar suggested. 

"I don't think that's a good idea-" Dala was about to say

"Look we want to get this stuff as soon as possible, right? How long until somebody else takes this chance away from us?" Briar quickly argued, "You grew up on the streets Dala. You know what people are like. They'll take everything and leave you with nothing. If we don't take it now, then somebody else will." 

"Mira, what do you think?" Dala asked turning towards Mira. 

Dala never liked the idea of jumping into things but she knew Briar's words held some truth to them. It would be only a matter of time before other people came flocking in to gather everything and leave nothing behind. Yet, the teenager was beginning to wonder if they should even be here. These ruins were once somebody's home, these items were once somebody's stuff. Did they really have a right to just enter and take whatever they want?

"If you guys are really that scared, we can always just go into that temple instead." Briar huffed, "It's probably sealed so we won't have to worry about dangerous animals." 

Listening to Briar, that feeling in her stomach was getting worse. Mira let out a small huff as the others decided to look elsewhere for now. Shifting the water around them, she moved the bubble towards the center of the ruins where there were more buildings arranged in a sort of pattern. From the layout of the stonework that remained, this could have been a central hub of some sort. The temple Briar mentioned was a building that stood higher than the rest, yet still covered by the waves as the aged structures formed artificial valleys on the sea floor. The buildings here were in better condition than the house they saw earlier as the strength of the currents was dispersed by their close placement. A ramp of stone steps that were almost completely worn down led up to what they assumed was the temple, the highest point of this sunken city.

There were no doors blocking their way in, and looking in from outside there was a long corridor that stretched far back to who knows where. Unlike the house from before, the open architecture was free from clusters of coral and mollusk colonies. There were fewer nooks and crannies for things to hide in. "I guess it's good that everything's underwater. It'd take us a long time to walk up the stairs." Instead they could just drift along until they were in front of the temple's entrance. If they wanted to find anything, they would need to go in. There weren't any signs of creatures that Mira could see, so they were going in blind this time. She looked at the two older girls as if asking what they wanted to do, but she felt she could guess what Dala and Briar were thinking. 

"If it's too dark inside, I'll light the way with this." She added, making her orb float towards her. Hopefully they wouldn't get into a fight with anything. She had a few spells for breathing underwater in case they did though. The atmosphere in the center of these ruins was quiet and peaceful. Schools of fish passed over them instead of darting between the pillars and supports. If they had been swimming, they'd notice the water was colder here as well. It was like this moment had been frozen in time, or trapped in an unchanging bubble beneath the sea.