"So, after you, Llyr." Razvan smiled pleasantly as he turned towards the aforementioned undersea-walker. The ex-Foreign Minister took a deep breath before nodding more slowly.
"Yes." He said in a measured voice as he started to turn towards the city wall. "Come this way, please." He added, which made the team follow him.
So the surface team, with the Cold Sea undersea-walker at their head, set off towards the city's main gate. The capital of the Warm Sea Association had no name for a long time, only referred to as the Coral Empire. As for the city itself, the fortifications were only the result of the last fifty years.
Before, when someone came on a diplomatic visit, they found a simple undersea-walker settlement here. Of course, the number of residents was much higher than in an average settlement, but no one could have said that the place was special in any way.
The real changes happened when a young man took over the leadership of the city fifty years ago. It could be said that the wall was built around the city almost overnight and the previous buildings were transformed into huge coral houses. The vendors on the streets no longer randomly unpacked their wares, but had a market. In fact, the ideology of the city slowly changed too. The place that previously condemned all eccentrics and outsiders has now become a stronghold of diversity.
However, its name was in sharp contrast to the warmth of the place. When travelers first hear that they are going to Deadworld Trench, almost everyone's reaction is astonishment and shivering. They think they are going to some dark and gloomy place, but when they set foot behind the almost black walls that truly do not inspire confidence, their thoughts immediately change.
Behind the black walls, the city glowed with light and warmth. And now the surface team found themselves confronted with that warmth as they entered the Deadworld Trench behind Llyr. The hegins looked around curiously, observing the structures of the undersea-walkers themselves. None of them had ever encountered undersea-walker architecture like this before, so they found it very exciting.
To the hegins, accustomed to yurts, even the high-rise houses of Floating Barracks were strange, but down here it was as if they had entered a completely different world. The houses were all different shapes, flat, pointed, round, conical, and strangely sinuous. Most of the surface team had seen coral for the first time when they reached the edge of the Warm Sea Association.
But those corals were much smaller, most of them could have fit in their hands if they had really wanted to take them. These, however, were four or five times as tall as Tele Tete, who was the tallest member of the group present. The coral houses were connected by streets paved with carved stones instead of the mud roads that the surfacers had seen before.
If one approached Deadworld Trench through the main gate, as the hegins had done, then the first thing one would find oneself facing was the city's main square. A vast empty space, from which roads led off in different directions, with a statue in the middle, at the foot of which, as if there were a small pond, the water shimmered greenly in an indent. The statue towered above it, one hand raised to the sky, its gaze looking down at the ground.
"This is like the blacksmith in the Floating Barracks!" Citar was astonished at the sight of the statue, and the others slowly nodded in surprise.
"Ah, Ambassador Llyr and his guests." An undersea-walker rushed towards them, wearing the same loose clothes that the Athamanas were wearing now thanks to Marianne.
"Ambassador Kiwa." Llyr nodded in greeting.
"We are pleased to have you visit us." The undersea-walker named Kiwa began. "However, since your guests have not been to our place yet, I must ask you to follow me. The President would like to personally greet his guests." The Warm Sea foreign minister explains.
The team just silently watches the exchange, so they immediately noticed when Llyr's face turned grim for half a moment. It seemed that the ex-foreign minister was not very happy with this development, but it was also clear that he could not come up with any sensible excuse, so he had to give in. No matter how much he did not want to do what the other foreign minister asked.
"The honor is ours for being received by the President. Please lead the way." The undersea-walker ex-foreign minister finally said.
"Magnificent!" Kiwa almost clapped his hands in joy, and a broad smile spread across his face when Llyr agreed. "Here you go, dear guests. Just follow me. I promise it will all be quick." The man explained in a honeyed voice as he turned his back on the group and started down one of the streets leading to the left.
"What could that President want from us?" Kamu asked under his breath, and luckily he managed to be so quiet that the undersea-walker leading the group didn't hear him.
"I don't know, but I don't feel that something would be wrong. And you know I always sense when something is wrong." Came Ajtony's soft voice next to Kamu's ear. The sword spirit disappeared from the sight of the living as the team entered the city. However, this did not mean that as Kamu's sword spirit, the ghost-man did not hear his voice when he spoke.
"I advise you not to start getting your intuition wrong now." Ishán of the Immortal Mist muttered as he folded his hands behind him and began to poke at the golden bracelet on his forearm, preparing to pull out his chakrams at any moment if he needed to defend himself or the team.
"If the President has released you, I would be honored to show you around our humble little town." Came the happy voice of the Warm Sea foreign minister from the head of the team. "It's been a while since we've had surfacers visit us." He added as he turned down a small street.
However, this only made the hegims involuntarily start paying more attention to their surroundings, lest they be led into a trap. Llyr was the only one who followed his fellow minister with the same bored expression as before. Which helped the tense nerves of the group to relax a little. If the person who had already been here wasn't nervous about their surroundings, then they didn't have to be either. At least that was their logic.
Finally, Kiwa stopped in front of a door carved into the side of a huge multi-branched coral and opened it without hesitation. Then he stepped to the side, holding the door open and motioning for the group to go on inside. Thus, Llyr with the surfacers in his heels entered the coral house, which was just as strange on the inside as it was on the outside. Stairs jutted out of the sides of the walls, there were doors here and there, and the whole place had a strange gravitas. Then the door closed and Kiwa started toward one of the stairs.