Assignment 7

Vath and Icemingl (Book I of the Latimerius Trilogy) Outline

Prologue
A. Scene I: Iris Havelock is at the Dover Academy on the Mainland, where Ms. Morgan is teaching the popular legends about the formation of the world. The legends are based on the Four Moons, which hang motionless in the sky. Legend says they used to revolve around the planet, but one day they all collided and sent bits of themselves falling to earth. Some moon shards turned into water, and some turned into Latimeria, creatures with godlike properties. The Latimeria came to love water and began to produce more and more of it themselves using moonlight. Iris cannot see the chalkboard because, as of the week before, she has been extremely nearsighted. She has glasses, but they do nothing for her vision.

B. Scene II: After class, Iris and Ms. Morgan talk about the recent death of Iris’s grandmother and Iris’s family’s plans to move to the secluded island of Drepha for the summer, where her parents just opened an inn.

Chapter One
A. Scene III: Flash forward nine months. Iris has been on Drepha for six months. She is collecting crabs along the beach. She heads back across the beach toward the marketplace, walking backwards and counting her footprints (a habit she developed shortly after she became nearsighted.)

B. Scene IV: Iris goes to her stand in the Drephan marketplace and decorates the shells of the crabs she collected. Varick shows up, asking if there’s anything she needs his help with. He helps her set up the bowls the crabs would be put into. Then, vacationing Mainlanders begin filling the marketplace. A woman appears in front of Iris’s stand, and Iris starts talking to her even though she’s not facing the stand and is actually talking to someone else, thus betraying her nearsightedness (which Varick already knew about). The woman ends up buying one of Iris’s crabs, and her husband accuses Iris of stealing the gold and jewels she used to decorate the shells. [Drepha is rich in jewels and pearls and gold, but if the Mainlanders found out, they would destroy the island in search of those things.] Varick invites Iris on the glass-bottom boat tour he is giving the next morning. Iris accepts, and the two spend the rest of the afternoon helping other merchants in the marketplace.

C. Scene V: Iris heads back to her room in the Treva Inn, the inn her parents opened six months earlier. She speaks briefly with the innkeeper, Edyth Meyer, then heads to her room, where Edyth had left her dinner. She eats and contemplates a necklace with her family seal on it. Every time she sees it, she is glad she stayed behind on the island while her parents went back to the Mainland three months prior. Her brother’s reputation caused her trouble at school and at home, her parents didn’t understand her, and her favorite relative (her grandmother) is now dead. She sneaked off the boat back to the Mainland right before it left, and she gave Edyth a letter with the forged signature of her father that said she was being permitted to spend some time on the island and that she could have a room in the inn. Edyth apparently knew the letter was fake, but she didn’t say it out loud and has taken good care of Iris ever since. Edyth is an old family friend and realizes that life with the other Havelocks is probably not easy.

D. Scene VI: Iris climbs up onto the roof of the inn through her window. She looks out over the island and sees blurs of colors. She sees the east-west division of the island clearly because the native Drephans’ side has many more trees and less buildings than the west side, which Mainlanders bought from the Drephans two generations ago. After experiencing the sunset, Iris goes to sleep.

Chapter Two
A. Scene VII: Iris wakes up early to collect crabs. She finds two, and when she is about to head back to the marketplace, she spots two more. Strangely, they are already decorated with pearls and jewels. She wonders what they’re doing out on the beach and puts them in her basket. She begins to walk backwards and realizes she’s not making any footprints. Bewildered, she trips over a piece of driftwood, and the crabs scuttle out of the basket. She doesn’t think she has time to catch them all again, so she starts walking home again, and this time she is making footprints. She is very confused.

B. Scene VIII: Iris goes back to the inn, grabs a clean skirt from her room, and goes to the shower room on the first floor. The room has glass panels in the ceiling and is brightly lit, and a thick tree with a broad canopy grows in the middle of it. Faucets are arranged around the trunk in a circle. Since rain does not exist to moisten the ground [the Latimeria keep close tabs on all the water in the world, keeping as much of it as they can in the ocean], all trees have taproots that go directly into the ocean, and they continually take up and filter water. People can tap into them and use the water- and if they don’t, it just seeps out of the trees’ leaves anyway. Iris turns on one of the faucets, closes a curtain that is hanging from one of the tree’s branches, and takes a shower.

C. Scene IX: Iris meets Varick at his boat in a cove on the southeast coast of the island. Varick informs her that the usual route he takes people on his tours is rough and stormy today, so they’ll be taking a different route. Three couples, including the couple who bought one of Iris’s crabs the day before, board the boat. One couple comes near the boat, sees that Varick is a Drephan, and they change their minds about going on the tour. [Drephans are dark-haired and have impossibly pale skin, and stormy gray-blue eyes. Most of the time the Mainlanders and the Drephans get along fine, but a few people are still nervous around them because they’re different. Varick doesn’t understand this. The Drephans were Mainlanders four generations ago- they’re really not that different.] Since Iris cannot see the whales and birds that Varick points out on the tour, she lies on her stomach on the floor, with her face pressed to one of the glass panes, and stares at the ocean floor as it scrolls by under the boat. For some reason unknown to her, she can see incredibly clearly underwater, even better than she could above water before her eyes went bad. Varick steers the boat and narrates about the history of the island, the Drephans, and their legends about the sea. [The legends are basically the same as the ones heard on the Mainland, but a little different. One big difference is that in the Drephan legends, the Drephans have a close relationship to the Latimeria. According to the legend, four generations ago a boatful of Mainlanders saved a Latimerius from a fisherman’s snare, and the Latimeria thanked the people by letting them live on the tiny island of Drepha, which is the only other landmass on the planet aside from the huge continent of the Mainland.] One of the Mainlanders on the boat sees a whale in the distance, so everyone looks at it. Iris is still staring into the water, and she sees a cavern in the coral reef that is lined with purple jewels. She had no purple jewels for decorating her crabs, and she does not know of anywhere else to get them, so she decides to come back to this spot and investigate later.

D. Scene X: Varick ties up the boat and the two have lunch at Varick’s house. [The houses on the east side of the island are built in tiers into the cliffs that ascend to the tree-dense plateau in the middle of the island.] Varick’s mom Morwenna serves lunch, and Iris tells them about her plan to go back to the spot where she saw the jewels in the cavern. Varick agrees to go with her. [Morwenna isn’t worried because she knows Iris is as good a swimmer as any of the Drephan children.] Varick’s dad, the leader of the Drephans’ primary fishing party, still isn’t back from the day’s fishing trip, so Varick has to stay home for the afternoon and help Morwenna with chores. Iris volunteers to stay and help too.

E. Scene XI: The festival of Ardo’s Cycle starts at sundown. Drephans display their mystical ability to manipulate water in a tribute to the Latimeria. Mainlanders gather around and watch. One Drephan man causes fireworks to erupt out of the ocean. Varick performs his water-juggling routine. The festival ends by the Drephans lining up rows of coins on the beach and watching the tide carry them into the sea.

Chapter Three
A. Scene XII: Iris wakes up and heads out to collect some more crabs. She sees the two already-jeweled crabs again and captures them, along with a few others. Again, when she begins walking home, she is not making any footprints. She lets the crabs go on purpose this time, and she is able to make footprints again. As she is wondering what is going on, Varick runs up to her and informs her that he can’t go with her to the cavern because his mom is making him help prepare the load of fish his dad brought back the night before. He still wants to help her get their rowboat ready.

B. Scene XIII: The two go back to Iris’s room, and Iris grabs the underwater gear the Drephans made for her that allows her to breathe underwater for a short time. They go back to the east side of the island, where the boat they made together the month before is tied up in a cove. Varick explains exactly the tour route as precisely as he can so Iris doesn’t get lost at sea. She has a good sense of direction though. Varick watches her as she rows out of the cove.

C. Scene XIV: Iris follows Varick’s directions and finds the cavern in the reef. She jumps out of the boat and inspects the jewels that line the walls. Then, she feels herself being pulled farther and farther into the cavern. Before she knows it, she is being carried through the tunnel by the current. The tunnel is so long, the Drephan equipment she is using eventually runs out of air. She holds her breath, and she is about to pass out when the current stops abruptly and she washes up in a shallow pool.

Chapter Four
A. Scene XV: Iris looks around and realizes she can see perfectly well. [She is in a huge cave with high ceilings. There is a hole in the middle of the ceiling with a chandelier of mirrors that scatter light and shadowy, moving images throughout the cave. Little houses are built in tiered levels in the cave, made from the wreckage of ships. A river leads from the small pool Iris is in around the entire cave.] A group of people comes up to her, and they ask if she is “the only one.” She says yes, she is the only one coming, but she doesn’t know exactly what they mean. One of the people in the group is Sconey, who was captain of a fishing vessel that sank. He and his first mate Bilagan take Iris and show her around the cave. They explain that this place is Astrangia, the den of the Latimeria, and that the people that are down there are being held prisoner for offending the Latimeria in various ways. They do not know what Iris is doing down there, but they are determined to make her comfortable while she waits for one of the Latimeria to come back so she can ask them. They also explain that there is a legend that someone is going to come save them from the Latimeria, and for a minute they thought Iris might be the one.

B. Scene XVI: Bilagan takes Iris to meet Captain Moss Murdoch and his crew. Moss is a pirate ship captain. He gives Iris a tour of his ship, and Iris sees a giant wooden clock with a map carved along the bottom. The map is much more elaborate than the ones on the Mainland; it has many more details filled in, whereas the Mainland maps have large, blank areas. Iris meets Copero, a lensmaker on Moss’s ship, and he promises to make Iris some glasses that will actually help her eyes.

C. Scene XVII: Moss takes Iris to meet the Daffingtons, a wealthy couple from a sunken cruiseliner. They have an elaborate dinner, but the food is so old it’s inedible. They explain that they don’t really eat, they just have meals because it’s the sociable thing to do, and their cook keeps cooking meals from the enormous store of food on the cruiseliner because he has nothing better to do. Moss explains that his cook does the same thing. And he explains that they don’t need to eat because they technically aren’t alive. They are souls that are trapped in Astrangia as punishment for offending the Latimeria. They don’t know if they’ll ever be able to get out, and they expect that the light coming from the hole in the cave ceiling is from a place of eternal rest and peace. It is their aspiration to get up there. But for now, the Latimeria control their fate. Iris explains that she is pretty sure she’s still alive and cannot stay down there if there’s no food. Moss runs home and makes her a salad from the vegetables in his greenhouse. Iris spends two nights in Astrangia, waiting for a Latimerius to walk through the cave so she can ask it why she was brought there.

Chapter Five
A. Scene XVIII: Iris is finally summoned by Zedryo, one of the primary Latimeria of legend. Bilagan brings her the message and takes her to the edge of the river, where they wait for Vemicrol, a narwhal Latimerius who paddles a raft around and around the river using his detached horn as an oar. Vemicrol takes them through a small opening in the east wall of the cave to another cavern, where he drops Iris off. Zedryo appears and explains to Iris that the Latimeria have been watching her ever since she decided to make Drepha her home. Overestimating Iris’s bravery and loyalty to the sea and to the Drephans, Zedryo gives her a mission: to venture to the middle of the Mainland continent and open Thalweg’s Portal, and to find the Fourth Moonstar so it doesn’t fall into the hands of the Baudamal, the evil Latimeria that live in the depths of the ocean and thrive on darkness. Iris accepts the mission, still in shock that the Latimeria, and probably the rest of the legends, are real. She wants to take this opportunity to become part of the legend. Zedryo tells her to make a rubbing of the map from the clock in Moss’s ship; it is the only accurate map the Latimeria know of. He tells her to give her swimming equipment to the people from the oceanliner because they have tools to refill it with air so she will survive the long trip out of Astrangia. Zedryo says Iris should meet Panelico, another Latimerius, at the cove where she and Varick keep their boat the next morning. Vemicrol reappears at the opening of the chamber and takes her back to the main chamber. Iris follows Zedryo’s directions, gets her new, working glasses from Copero, and Bilagan sees her off at the pool through which she entered Astrangia.

Chapter Six
A. Scene XIX: Iris goes to Varick’s house and tells Varick about her adventure and he agrees to come to the Mainland with her. They have lunch with Morwenna so they can ask her about the validity of some of the other legends they’ve heard, but they do not let her know they’re going on an epic journey. The two part to get ready to go, agreeing to meet at the cove at sunrise.

Chapter Seven
A. Scene XX: Iris gets up in the morning after almost no sleep, grabs her pack, and runs to the spot where Zedryo said she should meet Panelico. She realizes it isn’t sunrise yet, but she can wait around until Varick shows up. He’s usually late anyway. When she gets to the cove, there are two boats in it, the boat she and Iris made, and another bigger one. It is full of provisions and tools. A seagull with transparent feathers and skin and a glassy beak sits on the bow. He explains what all of the tools are for and how to operate the boat. He talks a lot, leaving no room for Iris to ask questions. So she does not have a chance to inform him that she invited Varick. Panelico wishes her luck and tells her she will have their protection the entire journey, and he leaves. Then Varick runs up and gets on the boat and they depart.

B. Scene XXI: Meanwhile in Astrangia, Zedryo is explaining to a mysterious figure [Glyphis, the head Latimerius] that Iris accepted the mission and is about to depart. They discuss the fact that they don’t care whether she survives or not as long as she carries out the mission. She may sympathize with the Drephans, but she is still a worthless Mainlander, who are all evolutionarily incidental, in their opinion.

Chapter Eight
A. Scene XXII: Iris and Varick are steering the boat through the calm water. They discuss Iris’s feelings about returning to the Mainland and Varick’s feelings about leaving Drepha for the first time. They discuss some of the other legends they’ve heard and wonder if they’re true, like the one about the Stilted City, where the people just kept building their buildings higher and higher as the water rose around them, and now a single spire sticks out above the water where the city used to be. They see an enormous sea bird, and it’s acting strangely. They shrug it off but can’t help wondering if it’s a Latimerius.

B. Scene XXIII: The bird goes to Astrangia and alerts Zedryo that Iris took Varick with her. Since the Drephans are the Latimeria’s cherished possessions, they are very mad and send forces to the boat to bring Varick back. They want to try to salvage Iris though, not let her die. There is no one else to carry out the mission. It's too dangerous for a Drephan.

C. Scene XXIV: Storms, waves, and giant sea creatures accost the boat. Iris and Varick are terrified and don’t know what is happening, since the Latimeria told Iris they would protect her. Then, more forces seem to come and fight against the ones trying to sink the boat. Two giant sea creatures come and fight the ones sent by Zedryo, and Iris and Varick get away. They wonder if those were the Baudamal, evil Latimeria that live in the depths of the sea and feed on other Latimeria.

Chapter Nine
A. Scene XXV: Iris and Varick get to shore after sunrise. There is a town [Apseras] nearby. They tie up their boat and walk to town, but they get weird looks from the townspeople, having come right out of a rare ocean storm in their little boat from who knows where. Most of their food and tools got damaged or lost in the storms, so they go to a store to get more. The shopkeeper is suspicious of them. He sends them to get supplies down the coast in Xyza, which is a bigger city. He says they’ll know it because it’ll be the only one with the lighthouse lit; most of the other towns gave up on fishing because it has become too dangerous. Everyone gets their fish from Xyza now. Iris and Varick have dinner in the town. They pay with a combination of money and sea jewels from the Latimeria. Then they get back in boat and head down the coast toward Xyza.

Chapter Ten
A. Scene XXVI: They dock the boat north of Xyza to ward off suspicion and wander around to the road that enters Xyza from inland. The Havelocks own an inn in Xyza, and Iris knows some of the people including the manager, so she has to be careful not to get noticed, because the people will send her home if they know she’s been missing. There is a memorial in the town square, dedicated to "the Lost City." The two wander into a museum that features the Lost City. A curator tells them the story of the Lost City people, who disappeared a few hundred years ago, leaving behind a ghost town, and legends about the people’s supposed relationship with the Latimeria. Stories come from the people that visit Drepha, tales of a strange culture there who are probably the people of the Lost City. Many parts of the legend the curator narrates does not match the versions Iris and Varick have heard, but they don’t correct him; they don’t want to draw attention to themselves. The curator realizes that Varick looks a lot like how people that have been to Drepha describe the Drephans. They take this as their cue to leave. [No Drephan has ever been back to the Mainland before, supposedly.] They buy supplies, and trade some of the sea jewels for more money. They stay the night in Xyza. They tell people they’re on a shopping trip for their parents who live in a nearby town. During the night, Xyza gets drenched with a torrential rain that comes from huge waves splashing the cliffs along the shore and disintegrating in the air. It does NOT rain on the Mainland, EVER, so this is odd and terrifying. [The Latimeria are furious that Varick is gone and are just raging about.] In the morning, they head out the city the way they came in. Zedryo had told Iris the Latimeria would take care of the boat for her while she was on her journey so she’d have a way to come back to Drepha. [That was a lie.]

Chapter 11
A. Scene XXVII: The coast is lined with a thick band of forest, and they begin the two day journey through the forest. Along the way, they hear voices coming out of a plant. [It’s a Latimerius talking by putting its mouth on the taproot of the plant; most plants on the Mainland have taproots that go all the way down to the ocean, which flows underneath the giant landmass because the mantle is porous with tunnels and passages like swiss cheese, and the water fills them- many Baudamal live here because it's dark.] The voice tells them not to believe everything they hear- there is little respect for the line between truth and lies.

B. Scene XXVIII: Varick finds a secluded pool off to the side of the path. These are very rare on the Mainland, where water is scarce everywhere, and Iris finds it very odd that there isn’t a town or any sign of civilization around this oasis. Varick convinces her to take a swim with him. They sit in the water and talk about the seaside cottage Iris inherited from her grandmother when she died. Finally, they realize why no one is around this pool: Iris lifts her arm, and a giant leech is sucking on her elbow. They realize they’re both covered in leeches. They peel them all off and run away.

Chapter 12
A. Scene XXIX: They reach the town called The Last Turnaround. These people are even more suspicious and xenophobic than the people in Apseras. Beyond this town is nothing but an enormous dry desert that covers the entire interior of the gigantic landmass. The Havelocks have an inn here too, so Iris has to stay hidden again. The only people that go farther than this city are the camel herders and crazy nomads. Iris and Varick stay the night here and eat a lot. Iris and Varick tell people they came to the city to buy the city’s rare desert herbs. These herbs have really long roots and grow in a far-away circle around the middle of the Mainland They are extremely rare and hard to find among the other plants that grow around the outside of the desert – the people in the city grow them in greenhouses. They end up buying some herbs to complete the ruse. They sneak into the desert the next night, so as not to attract suspicion for journeying out into the desert alone. They don’t know, but someone Iris knows does see them, and they send word to the Havelocks to inquire about Iris, whether this was her or just someone that looks like her, and whether she was supposed to be running around in this city or not. [When they get no word back, they will wonder what’s wrong and try to detain Iris the next time she comes through town, especially when she’s telling an insane story about Latimeria and the end of the world.]

B. Scene XXX: A messenger Latimerius comes back from a journey into the deeper chambers of Astrangia, and he informs Glyphis that a ship called “Iris” is in another chamber with a whole bunch of people. Glyphis goes there to see for himself, and he finds out that three of the people there are Iris’s family. Glyphis figures he can use them as leverage if it ever comes to that, but he doesn’t expect it to because Iris was so blindly obedient to Zedryo.

Chapter 13
A. Scene XXXI: The first part of the desert has small, thin plants called drywillows. They can grow with very little water. It’s hot and dry, and Varick is especially uncomfortable because he has never experienced drought. Varick has to take the herbs they bought, because they make you less hot and thirsty. The Latimeria gave them a jug with a shrimp Latimerius in it that will keep the jug full of water as long as the jug is unscrewed at night so the moonlight can get in, so they don’t have to worry about water. They look for the Fourth Moonstar where Zedryo said it would be, near a stone house out to the left of the path out of The Last Turnaround, but it’s not there. Iris can't decide whether they should finish the rest of the mission, but she thinks maybe the Portal will give them a hint to where the Moonstar went.

B. Scene XXXII: They wander the desert through the night, using Haia, the East Moon, to navigate. They get another message from a plant- this one more malicious. They think it's from a Baudamal, but it's actually from Zedryo.

C. Scene XXXIII: In the morning, they find an underground tunnel system, made by some mysterious animals. They follow it to within a few miles of the Gaara Mountains, huge mounds of sand in the very middle of the continent. Then, they get chased out by the creatures that made the tunnels. The tunnel system has its own flora, because it goes down deep enough that plants can grow and reach the water, and they don’t need sunlight; they’re the foundation of the desert life food chain.

Chapter 14
A. Scene XXXIV: The Gaara Mountains are short (for mountains) and made of loosely packed dry sand that acts like quicksand. This is where Zedryo said the Portal would be. The Portal is in a cave in a valley in the middle of the mountains, which proves to be very hard to get to. They keep sinking when they try to cross or climb the mountains. They have to find the lowest pass and cross there. They walk south along the mountains for a day and finally find a sturdy place to pass. They start heading north between the mountains. They finally get to a low solid rock outcrop in the valley that leads to a cave sheltered from the sand, which is moving and swirling with a life of its own. They get into the cave, which turns out to be just a tunnel, and it leads a short, twisted way to the other side of the rock face, where a giant stone tree stands. Thalweg's Portal turns out not to be what Iris thought it was (what the legends said it was), it turns out to be a big tree. A small stream flows from the foot of the tree back under the rock outcrop and disappears under the mountains. When she sees the tree, she finally realizes why Zedryo had a giant, gilded axe in with all the tools he gave her, and what will happen when she “opens” Thalweg’s Portal: the entire world will flood. They decide to camp in the tunnel for a night and figure out what to do the next day.

B. Scene XXXV: While they’re sleeping, they shrimp from the water jug comes out and whispers in Varick’s ear that he should take the axe and chop the tree down. Varick sleepwalks over to the tree and does it. Iris wakes up to the sound of the chopping. Iris shakes him and he wakes up, and he is horrified at what he has done. They don’t know what to do; if Iris’s theory is correct, the Latimeria will soon realize that the Portal is open and they’ll all meet at the tree’s enormous root and begin pumping water out at an incredible rate, flooding the continent in a matter of days. Iris decides that maybe if they get back to the ocean in time to warn the Latimeria that they haven’t found the Moonstone yet, they won’t flood the world yet. They go back the way they came, out of the mountains and to the underground tunnels. Through one of the plants in the tunnel, Iris gets the message that her mission was a success and that the world would be cleansed because of her. Iris tries to think of a way to send a message back to them. She takes the shrimp out of the jug and forces it to convey the message that they don’t have the Moonstone yet. It wasn’t where it was supposed to be. The Latimerius on the other end says that the Baudamal have devised a way to come on land and get the Moonstone themselves and will be attempting to do so soon, so either way, if the Moonstone isn’t found SOON, there will be slow doom for all Latimeria because the Baudamal will be more powerful and able to catch and eat all the Latimeria. If the Moonstone gets into the ocean, the Latimeria will be able to fill the entire ocean with light and thus confine the Baudamal to caves and other places where they won’t harm the Latimeria. Iris begs them to just let her talk to Zedryo before they flood the world, but the Latimerius informs her that a messenger is already on his way back to Astrangia to inform Zedryo of her success. In a few days, all the Latimeria would be convening at the root of the Portal and creating a torrent of water. Iris decides go South to the ocean, a slightly shorter way than going all the way back through the towns to get to the ocean [she just needs to be near the water], to see if she can catch the Latimeria before they destroy her world. The Latimerius at the other end of the plant agrees that he will inform Zedryo of her wish for a meeting.

Chapter 15
A. Scene XXXVI: Iris and Varick go south to the ocean without sleeping and barely stopping to take rests. The underground tunnel system goes about two-thirds of the way, then they have to walk out in the desert. When they get to the shore, a storm brews, and Glyphis himself appears in the torrent. He towers over everything, he is an enormous sea creature. He tells Iris that she did well to open the Portal, and that she needs to give Varick back to the Latimeria, and that the Moonstone must be found. He gives her a few clues as to where it may be: he heard of a man who bragged that he had found it, but the Latimeria didn’t believe him at first. Perhaps the Latimerius who had hidden it in the first place didn’t actually hide it where he said he did, or maybe he just didn’t make it all the way to his intended destination. Either way, Iris needs to keep looking for it. In the meantime, the Latimeria would begin flooding the continent. Everyone on Drepha would be safe because Drepha is a floating island, the only one in existence. The Latimeria do not care to save any lives other than those of the Drephans, who are their cherished pets. Iris is informed that she is just a pawn. She says that she will not find the Moonstone for the Latimeria. Then Glyphis informs her that her parents and brother have been in Astrangia since the day they left Drepha, and that if Iris finds the Moonstone, she can have them all back if she wants them, and they can try to find a way to survive on their own. Iris agrees to look for the Moonstone and tries to get them to let her take Varick with her, but they refuse and try to sweep him up in the current, but two Latimeria (Vath and Icemingl) save him from the others and Iris and Varick run inland. They watch the Latimeria battling, and Iris asks Varick who are the ones trying to help them. He says they’re Vath and Icemingl, two Latimeria that can purportedly shapeshift. They’re the spirits of the footprints in the sand. Then Iris realizes that Vath and Icemingl have been watching over her since shortly before she was given her mission. Iris and Varick climb up to a cliff where they are safe in case the Latimeria return. Iris stares out over the sea, trying to figure out how to find the Moonstone, save her parents, AND save the world.