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The back of the contraption-for like Drollo's gnomish vermin catcher, this thing had never truly lived-was decorated with scrawls of red and blue. Various sized circles of green and yellow were clustered beneath its wings. The hooves were painted a bright red and edged with a light green trim. It was garish. And inside, visible through its rounded glass eyes, Galvin saw the grinning face of a little girl. Like a manta ray, the device glided over the sea fronds, then stopped to uproot a row at the end. The bulbous spider's head turned from right to left, then stopped, spotting the dolphin. Galvin swam behind a clump of seaweed as questions danced in his head. Is Isabelle controlling the thing, or is it running away with her? How am I going to bring it to land? How do I... He paused and let the sea current wash the tumultuous thoughts away. I meet it head on, he decided. Determination showing in his black dolphin eyes, the druid shot out from behind the seaweed-then stopped short. Galvin wasn't the only one to notice the garden-wrecker. Swimming rapidly toward the sea fronds and the spider-bat was a quartet of sahuagin, gill-men of the deep. Roughly humanoid and exceedingly muscular, they had scaly green bodies, long pointed ears, and webbed hands and feet. Each hefted a trident in one hand and a weighted net in the other. The contraption and its passenger seemed oblivious to the threat and concentrated on dislodging more plants. Its bulbous spider head only turned toward the sahuagin when a hurled trident landed in the sand next to a cloven metal hoof. Panicked, the druid propelled himself forward and willed another transformation to take place. His skin took on a darker shade of gray and expanded outward to accommodate his growing body. The dolphin fin atop his back enlarged and became more angular. His head grew thicker and flatter, his lungs swelled with water, and his once bottle-shaped mouth stretched and filled with a double row of sharp teeth. The shark sped toward the sahuagin, who had already reached the spider- bat. The gill-men were circling the thing, three of them jabbing at it with their tridents while the fourth retrieved his weapon from the sand. Through the water Galvin heard their odd battle chant, a singsong drone. The chant rose in volume and culminated in a whoop when one of the sahuagin was victorious in thrusting his weapon through the spider-bat's wing, pinning the construct to the sea floor. The contraption began to circle madly, like a buzzing, wounded fly. Galvin saw the frightened face of Isabelle through the spider-bat's bulbous glass eyes. He reached the nearest sahuagin just as it slammed the butt end of its trident against the contraption's head. Wincing inwardly, the druid watched a glass eye crack. This instant of delay gave the gill-man an opening. The sahuagin whirled on the shark, leveling the barbed trident in Galvin's face. The druid found himself oddly transfixed by the sahuagin facing him, and the creature began moving its trident from side to side while mouthing something that was audible, yet foreign to Galvin's ears. It was a variation of a battle chant, perhaps. Whatever it was, the sound comforted Galvin's jangled nerves, and the

druid felt himself growing sleepy. The sahuagin continued to drone, lulling his foe into a dreamlike state while the current nudged him away from Isabelle and the contraption. The shark felt the water play all about its skin. It was so restful, so... Kchink! Through the water came the muffled sound of the tridents striking the metal of the construct. The noise roused the drifting shark. Forcing his tired eyes open, the druid watched the sahuagin hammer away at the spider-bat. A net had been placed over the thing's head to prevent the pincers from reaching out for them. Kchink! Kchink! Kchink! Galvin fought off the effects of the sahuagin's sleep spell. His mind began to clear, and he once again saw the gill-men as a threat to Isabelle.