Nonsense

'Who gives a shit?' was all Axio thought off as the blobfish vanished in the distance, he didn't care about their sufferings and it was clear for all to see on his face.

Which visibly crunched up in disgust as the blobfish had tried to plead with him to play the hero, were they really so desperate as to dump all of this information into any new face that showed up?

'Why didn't the freaking knights do anything about that snake or your king? That crap is fishy...' he scratched his chin, ignoring the pun he had unintentionally made as he began swimming around.

Now that he paid closer attention, it was true that the water here was much less 'corrosive', it was clear and clean, he hadn't immediately noticed the difference but it was well appreaciated.

The knight's and people swimming around weren't aggressive in the least, however, they all appeared fairly out of it, constantly staring ahead of themselves, few even noticing the wretch even as he waved his hand right in their face.

He could also see that the knight's here and those that he had met before were different, not in gear but in behavior, he hadn't paid much heed to the fact that the knight's he had encountered seemed a bit feral and were making odd sounds.

Simply believing that it was just how they were in general, but that was far from the truth, now it seemed obvious that the knights on the outside were completely mad, though, they hadn't forgotten their duties.

Over the course of a few days, Axiolypito observed and saw the frenzied knight bringing food from the outside but never entering the clean dome, as though fearing to soil it with their mere presence.

'Perhaps those outside knights did go in search of the king and simply stayed in the stagnating water for too long?' Axio was hoping to learn some information by staying around here, the blobfish had said many things.

But it wasn't like he was to be trusted in any capacity, not to mention the fact that he seemed to be the only one of his sort in this city, everyone else had the same physiology as the knights, no other speaking fishes were to be seen anywhere.

The blobfish hadn't reappeared either, something was definitely off.

His abilities were still being suppressed by that strange, dark blue hue, even though he was no longer in the filthy water.

'Huh, the blobfish mentioned something about a dark blue thing, didn't he? The thing that their king encountered when he was still fresh from grieving or something...' thinking about this, Axio began to seek something ressembling that and tried asking the few people here that had enough wit to hear him.

No matter how many he times he asked or how he put it, the answers they gave were always the same and nonsensical.

The tone, the way they moved to adress him, the patrol of guards, the position of Nartak, everything was always the same!

'Hold on a minute...' Axio narrowed his eyes suspiciously, swimming back to the place he had encountered the blobfish and then back to where he had been, not speaking a word, just making a vague, 'Mmh' noise the entire time.

He turned to one of the denizens that retained the ability to speak and asked a question:

"Hey you, do you know what a tree is?" he said seriously, waiting for the citizen of the ocean to respond.

"Faithful Nartak still looks splendid today, doesn't he?" the usual answer came, he hadn't even spoken of anything mildly related to the serpent.

"What's your name?"

"Faithful Nartak still looks splendid today, doesn't he?"

"Alright then" without bothering any further, Axio switched to one of his needled monster in his castle and approached good old Asshole.

"How many days since I left?" he asked immediately, noticing the confusion on the goblin's ugly face.

"Days? It hasn't even been one my lord, you spoke with sir Faceless Lord a few hours ago-" Axiolypito was already gone from the mind of the monster, a deep frown on his face, a dangerous expression.

"Just my luck" he said aloud, ignoring the guy repeating his single line again, he had no idea if that was truly the case but after hearing what he had heard from the goblin and the fews days spent watching the city, it seemed like everyone were stuck in loops.

Most were in near catatonic states, the guards repeated the same patrols without end, Nartak kept hunting the same beasts in the same places and others were most likely repeating the last thing they had said, which explained why it all sounded like unrelated nonsense and why some referred to Axio by other names or took him for a family member.

He was just doing the equivalent of prodding them with a stick, 'awakening' them for a moment.

It wasn't just the dome either, since Nartak seemed to also be affected, the knights on the outside, were probably part of this cycle as well, only that they had more complex loops and also ran the risk of encountering the Lost Hunter, who was most likely not affected.

Or perhaps he was but he had interacted fluently with Axio, just like the blobfish had, either he was also spared, or his loop was simply to welcome and speak to any newcomer, light up the city and try to push them to do something.

In any case, it seemed like time was also being messed with here, he had fallen here for much longer than what the outside seemed to believe, but how did this all work?

Axiolypito had no clue but he was determined to getting back out, so after one last search of the city that amounted to nothing, he decided to follow what looked like an ancient path that led out of the dome.

There were a few like that but this one had seemed like the most important, so he was starting from there.

'I guess I'll have to find this king after all'