Mermaid, Board 1

[battleshipmod]

By the light of luminescent seaweed and lichen, you look around and realize you're in a vast underground grotto—and you're not alone. In the water and on the rocks are mermaids with hair and skin and scales all in shades of white and gray and black, blinking at you in the light. You've never heard of monochrome mermaids before, and you try not to stare as you thank them for their help.

The mermaids ask where you're from and where you meant to be going, and you explain about the quest, the fog, and the fall. "Oh," one mermaid says, "I know where the crystal caverns are. I can tell you how to get there."

"But while you're here," another says hastily, "could you help us, since we helped you? Mermaids are supposed to be very colorful, you know, but the water here is so inky black that it sucked all our colors into itself and left us looking like this. We keep diving to look for them, but we never find them. There are so many of you, and you're so well supplied—surely you could put together a magical net or something that could strain the colors out?"

Seeing the wary looks on your faces, a third mermaid glances around at their friends, then pipes up. "You're adventurers, right? The waters are so dark that we haven't used it as storage for ages. There might be a few dangerous things down there as well, but if we've left any treasures from our travels, maybe you can take them for yourselves?" This elicits some somber murmurs from the other mermaids, but they nod in agreement.

The situation still sounds like nonsense to you, and you're eager to get back to your friends. But a wizard in your party says she's heard of things like that before, and a librarian has a book of spells that might tell you how to make the net, and mermaid treasures do sound appealing... Before you know it, you have a new quest: find and disarm whatever traps are lurking in the depths, strain rainbow colors out of the water, and get some treasure while you're at it!

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Grid and list of goals

Mermaid collection | Requests | Prompts | AFIRB search

Thanks to karanguni for the Automagic App and notearchiver for the AFIRB search sheet!

Each square on the 10 x 10 grid hides something. It might be treasure, or it might be a trap. Here is what the traps look like:

The traps are:

Old propeller: plus sign, 5

Mysterious golden orb: square, 4

Eel pit: line, 3

Sharp shells: diagonal line, 3

Fishing net: L shape, 3

Crab trap: line, 2

Each trap shape appears once. Traps may be rotated 90, 180, or 270 degrees from how they're displayed here.

Each square is assigned a goal. The list of goals is displayed below the grid. A goal consists of a number and two tags, such as "16, Enemies to Lovers, IN SPACE." Meet the goal by posting works that claim one (or both) of those tags. Each work must fulfill one of this year's requests in the main collection or prompt collection.

In addition, there are board-wide goals for six AO3 labels, such as "Major Character Death" or "F/F Works." You must collectively achieve these goals to complete the board.

Claim relevant tags in your author's note—the mods will only count tags claimed this way. Fic and podfic may claim 1 tag per 100 words. Art may claim all tags that are clearly present in the work. Work labels such as ship type will be claimed automatically.

Team Mermaid members (and only Team Mermaid members) should post works to the Mermaid collection. Each team member is capped at 7 works per board.

The collection is moderated, and works will be approved as the mods count them. Once enough works have been approved to clear a square, it will be marked "pending." Call the shot in the Mermaid Shots channel in Discord to unlock the chest and find out what's inside—trap or treasure!

Treasure squares have a value between 400 and 1000 gold, and will be applied to bribing the boss who lurks deep in the pool. The collective value of all treasure squares on the board will not equal more than half the boss's hit points.

When all the squares of a trap have been found, the mods will announce that the trap has been deactivated. Once all the traps have been cleared and the board goals have been met, the team will collectively decide whether to keep hunting for treasure or dive down and fight the boss. When you've decided, announce in Mermaid Shots that you're ready to begin the boss battle.

If you're on the Mermaid team and haven't already joined the Discord or claimed your Discord role, now's the time! Your team members there will share the team coordination sheet and cheer you on.

Good luck! Watch out for the eels!