Chapter Text
Only in its absence did he discover that his appetite for vermin of the water had made him dependent in turn. Sunless years passed in which his skin grew thick and tacky, his fingers would not grip, and his thoughts came slow as the drips from stalactites. Despite his need, he could not abide any affinity to the rain that brought fat harvests, nor the ocean currents that swelled his nemesis' coffers, and instead forced the domain of his water-witching wider still; thus it was in blindly crushing stone, deep below the notice of all men, that he first struck upon the wellspring of his power.