Merfolk
The morning after, the Tinx, Chloë, the Rangers and Flora gather again at the mysterious cave. Also, and much to Nyx' chagrin, Flora brings along Tecna but not wanting to risk a confrontation with a Faerie as powerful as the Oracle, keeps any protest to herself.
"We need someone with Tecna's technical expertise," Flora argues.
"Yes," agrees Tinker Bell. "There's no one among us Tinker Talents who would have the slightest clue about what we have discovered so we need her," while Nyx shoots her a hot and angered, "You would just have to agree!" look.
Nyx brings Tecna and the others into the cave, which is now brightly lit thanks to Iridessa's recharging of the cave's light crystals, and shows her the suits of armor aligned against one wall.
"So, can you tell us something about these?" Nyx asks her.
Tecna walks past each suit of armor taking scans then runs several programs on them.
"This is not Faerie armor," she concludes.
"How can you tell?" asks Nyx.
"The proportions are all wrong and the helmets are designed to fit over a totally different type of skull," explains Tecna.
"Then what kind is it?" presses Nyx.
Tecna thinks on it a moment. "Yes, I think I can answer that but, Flora, I'll need your help. These suits look well preserved and might contain some DNA residue."
"Sure," replies the Faerie of Nature. "What might I do?"
"I need you to pass some of your energy through this suit," Tecna explains, "but I need it as raw and as unstructured as you can manage."
Tecna has Flora stand about two wingspans from the chosen suit then start to bathe it with a ripple of green mist. When Flora's energy has covered the armor, Tecna holds up her palmtop that is radiating a different type of energy. Slowly an image begins to form within the armor then snaps into crystal clarity. There is a loud, terrified shriek from Silvermist as she buries her face in Tink's shoulder, Iridessa faints, Tinker Bell and Chloë stand stark still in shock while Nyx, Fury and Chase quickly ready their spears for a fight. Tecna has the presence of mind to take several scans of the snake-like creature before them with scaly deep-olive skin and red, vertically-slit eyes that radiate pure evil, hate and malice before the image fades away.
"Easy, guys, easy," soothes Flora, "it's not real – only a harmless image."
"Are you sure?" asks a still trembling Silvermist who has left Tinker Bell's side to hold onto her. "It looked awfully real to me and snakes think of Faeries as snack food and well…"
"Yes, Silvermist, it's been dead and gone for a long, long time," Flora reassures the frightened Water-Talent. Then to Tecna she whispers, "You could have at least warned them."
"I'm sorry, guys," says Tecna, contrite. "You see, there was only the slightest chance that this was going to work and I had no idea how badly this would scare you."
Vidia, who was outside doing sketches at the time, rushes in and soon has Iridessa sitting up and encouraging her to breathe deeply as the others gradually get over their shock.
"Not a word of this to anyone," warns Nyx.
"Who would ever believe us?" replies Chloë.
As the group leaves, Chloë is inspired to try something. She takes a bit of the dirt that was just inside the doorway sniffs at it and puts some on the end of her tongue then repeats the process with dirt from about the uncovered plaques.
"There is a tremendous difference between the age and the composition of the dirt inside and outside the entrance," she announces. This area was once all under a salt sea while the dirt covering it has come from elsewhere and has no trace of seawater but contains a lot of quarts, marble dust and flint. But the only place with this composition of rock is fifty nauts from here so I'm thinking it took years and a lot of labor to bring enough to cover this site up."
"She's exactly right," seconds Tecna who has done her own scans of Chloë's samples. "Whoever brought it in wanted this area buried and forgotten no matter what the cost."
"Something for sure scared the petals off of them," adds Chloë.
Later in Flora's chamber within the Pixie Dust Tree, she and Tecna are pouring over the images of the creature inside the armor.
"I enhanced these scans," says Tecna, placing several hard copies on the table before them. "Have you noticed something strange about the arms? And also look at the neck."
"Gills and fins," responds Flora. "This must mean an undersea civilization once existed in Pixie Hollow and one far more technically advanced than the one at Mermaid Lagoon. That would bear out Chloë's and your observations. You know who else we are going to have to bring into this," she adds.
"She's our only expert and there's no need to tell Nyx until we absolutely have to," agrees Tecna.
Shortly after, Aisha has joined them. "What's up, guys?" she asks.
Without any discussion, Tecna places one of the images before Aisha.
"A deep sea dweller. So what's the big?" she asks.
"Are they native to Andros?" asks Tecna.
"Yes," replies Aisha. "Okay, what about this has you two so agitated?" she asks, seeing her friends' worried expressions.
"It's where we found him," replies Tecna, giving Aisha the short version of the discovery.
"But you're so beautiful and he's so ugly!" shivers Flora. "He's not like any of the gracile merfolk we have met like Tressa, Nereus and their parents."
"Well, Ugly here comes from the deep seas. Tressa and her people are near surface people. There are also two other races of merfolk you have never met," explains Aisha. "Yet we all come from a common ancestor. Tecna, do a deep scan of my arm and compare the underside of the radius with Ugly's."
Tecna makes a quick scan and soon has an image before them.
"I have adjusted for the difference in size and bone mass but see here where Aisha's radius has these nubs, Ugly has fully developed bone structures supporting his fins which are in the exact same position and number as Aisha's residual ones," points out Tecna.
"This, in any case," asserts Aisha, "requires an in-depth investigation. I say that we now have all the more reason to visit the mermaids of Mermaid Lagoon to find out what they might know."
"Aye!" says Flora while the other two look at her and groan.