Book 3 - The Merchant from the Depths: Chapter 14; Morning Heat

The screen turns on as the chapter title card plays "Chapter - 14; Morning Heat".

Yuu had just laid down to go to sleep when something strange happened. She felt herself being pulled through the school, although not in a physical sense but more she felt the pull of the mirrors and saw the land as she found herself back in Ramshackle dorm and her room in front of that mirror again.

Yuu knew that this was most likely another type of lucid dream, this was made especially clear as she looked down and saw that her body was more of a soul and almost see-through. She then looked back up to the mirror, as that is where she was brought to in the first place.

The mirror once again sucks her in as it ripples and glows.

At first there is a white flash but then all that she can see is darkness with a faint white fog around the edges of her vision. Yuu gets slightly nervous as she states "It's so dark…" Then an opening with light appears on her left side, except due to the shape of the opening it looks kinda like a rib cage of a huge animal. Along the bottom a bunch of strangely shaped beings are seen. They have eyes and mouths but they are about 4 inches tall at most. The same mermaid from before starts to hesitantly go inside as a voice calls out "Come in. Come in, my child. You're here because you have a thing for this human." It then switches back to darkness as the voice says "Now here's the deal." Before it finally shows who was talking. It was one of the great seven, the sea witch, or rather Ursula. She has shorter white and gray hair with purple skin and her black dress seems to just be part of how her species looks with the tentacles feeding directly into the fabric of the dress. She has make-up and nail polish but the other main thing about her is the nautilus shell necklace around her neck. Ursula states "I will make you a potion that will turn you into a human for three days. Got that? Three days." One of the rather ugly eels from early shows up next to her as she continues "Before the sun sets on the third day, you've got to get dear ol' prince-y to fall in love with you." The other eel appears next to her as well as Ursula says "Oh—and there is one more thing. We haven't discussed the subject of payment." It seems some of the conversation is skipped over as a scroll appears in Yuu's line of sight as Ursula states "What I want from you is…your voice." The contract starts to glow as the mermaid looks away as she signs her name on it with a fish skeleton writing utensil. Ursula shouts "Now go ahead and sign the scroll! I'll help this poor, unfortunate soul!" and laughs as the mermaid signed the contract.

Yuu gets pulled out of the mirror and gets pulled straight back over to where she fell asleep in Savanaclaw.

Yuu blinks her eyes awake as she thinks 'Another mermaid dream?' but then shoots up as she reevaluated what happened in the dream and quietly shouts "Really? Making deals in my DREAMS now?!"

She puts a hand to her head, having both just woken up and now being irritated by her own dream.

She's about to hit her hand to her side in frustration before she hears Grim's snoring from there.

Yuu takes a couple of deep breaths to calm herself and make sure nothing irrational is done.

Just then Ruggie busts the door open shouting "Heya, g'morning!"

Before walking up to Leona's bed and shouting at him "Leona, it's time to get up!"

He then looks over to the side and spots Yuu and Grim, with Yuu wanting more sleep due to everything even though she's aware that will never happen, and Grim still sleeping.

Ruggie makes a head motion at them as he tells them "Up and at 'em, Yuu and Grim. Let's get those mangy faces washed."

Yuu shakes Grim awake as he grumbly looks around saying "Mrah? Morning already? W-wait, it's barely six!"

Ruggie pauses from trying to wake Leona as he shrugs and tells Grim "We do morning Spelldrive training here at Savanaclaw. Since you're part of the dorm for the next few days, you'll be joining us."

Grim is still out of it as he asks confused "Muh? Morning training?" Ruggie answers "Yup. We've been at it since the last Spelldrive tournament."

Leona then seems to just barely be waking up as he complains "Mrrrgh, lay off…" as he grips the blanket around him tighter. But Ruggie struggles trying to pull the confider off as he shouts at Leona "Leona! Don't just roll over and go back to sleep!" as his ears flatten against his head.

Grim stares, now fully awake as he says "Whoa. Ruggie's draggin' his own boss outta bed feet-first."

This gets another slight reaction out of Leona, as he groans and just lets the blanket go.

Yuu looks at their struggle and shakes her head as she says "That goes to show how tough it is to get him out of bed in the morning." as she walked off to get her basic stuff done for today.

One thing when she stepped back into the room to grab something is Ruggie putting Leona's hair in a low ponytail. He always had it set that way for P.E; she just had no idea Ruggie was the one who did it.

Time until Azul's contract expires: Three days

Yuu walks into the Spelldrive stadium last, as Jack sees her he calls out "Oh, hey. You're joining us for morning practice?" Yuu nods with a slight smile as Grim just complains "I coulda used several more winks, but Ruggie wasn't havin' it."

Ruggie instructs the team "Since we've got these freshmen crashing with us, let's make today a light game. Go easy on 'em." Leona yawns as he tells them "All this standin' around is gonna make me fall asleep again. Let's get on with it." Before they start the game.

But the game isn't seen as the screen fades to black and "To be continued" plays before it fully turns off.