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You swim out to the open ocean, some distance away from the City of Glass. You've always thought that the whales would want to host the party on the surface so they wouldn't have to hold their breath, but their antihuman paranoia long ago settled on a spot deep enough to be safe but still shallow enough to be lit by sunlight, although not at the full color spectrum. The depth combined with the smoke from the nearby sulphur vents dulls visibility into a mysterious sort of dusk.

Dark, enormous whale silhouettes dip and swim in the distance as merfolk distract themselves with trays of floating food on miniature crystal ballasts or with the sulphur vents below. As you approach, you can feel the electricity of many more merfolk bodies than you can actually see. Almost all of their electric signals feel guarded or nervous. Nobody really likes having the whales this close. Toward the center of the festivities crackles a nervous clump of guards around what you can only imagine to be the Eternity Orb. The council must have heightened security and left only a skeleton crew back at the city to watch over Cinza. You know that Estre pulled that unenviable second-shift guard duty.

Your body feels like a bundle of nerves, and you're not quite sure why. This party feels like an opportunity to get something important done, but you don't know what. You shake the feeling off and join the rest of the partygoers.

As you get closer to the center of activity, you're greeted by some merfolk offering you a slice of acid-cooked eel. You don't need to eat very often, so when you do, you enjoy savoring delicacies like this. You nod in thanks, which frees you both up: them to offer the same dish to other arrivals behind you, and you to decide where you want to be spending your time.