Unda da Sea - sorta
You instinctively hold your breath as you sink to the bottom of the pool, which seems to be little more than a large water-filled room on the level below the one you came from. As you reach the bottom your reason kicks in and tells you merfolk must be able to breathe under water, so you give it a try.
It works, sort of. You can feel water passing in through your open mouth, but rather than fill your lungs it comes out again in an unexpected place. The choking feeling subsides, and you realize you've got gills.
Your lungs are still there, and filled with air. As you start beating your new tail experimentally you do not just move forward, you also start floating up again (once you lose the inertia from falling into the water), and soon you are back at the surface and breathing air again. It's a bit tricky because you start sinking every time you exhale, but you soon figure out how to keep stable by beating your tail at the right time.
Okay. Obviously you have to empty your lungs to get the right buoyancy for deeper exploration, but you are not quite ready for that yet. If you get too heavy you may never reach the surface again!
So you stay vertical, concentrating on breathing air and keeping afloat by beating your tail while you turn slowly around by paddling sideways with your hands.
The room above the surface isn't much to speak of, there is no floor on the upper level, just walls that go straight into the water. The door you came through is still open, but it's about a foot over the water. It would take a lot of effort to drag yourself back where you came from, and there's no guarantee you would be changed back to either a tiger, a human or any other land dweller. Just crossing the room to one of the other doors would take forever with just two arms and a tail.
Looks like you'll be better off exploring the deep, but remembering the symbol on the door you realize there's one thing you have to find out first...
Written by Won-Tolla on 07 December 2007