The Drowned Below: A Metalwood Adventure is an Adventure in the The Metalwood Saga.
Set approximately four years after the fall of Queen and Quynn in The Metal Wood, the story follows a more mature Phoenix as she navigates motherhood while raising her three-year-old son, Rylan, in the Under. When the city's water supply begins to inexplicably dry up, Phoenix must journey into a forgotten, deadly underwater city to save New San Francisco from an agonizing death by dehydration.
Synopsis
The Disappearing Water
In the Under, Shock Crew has relocated to an abandoned Water Processing chamber under the leadership of Dill. Phoenix has sworn off magic and fighting to raise Rylan safely, but Dill reveals that the city's water supply is critically low, threatening the lives of everyone in the flying city. A grizzled, amnesiac old man named Glint, whom Dill recently took in, claims to vaguely remember the source of the water: a place known as "the Below".
Determined to save her son's future, Phoenix insists on investigating. Unable to find a babysitter, she brings the toddler Rylan along on the dangerous journey. Glint leads them deep into the Under until they reach a massive, underground cavern containing a seemingly endless lake of poisonous, lead-infused water. To reach the Below, Phoenix is forced to break her vow and tap into her dark emotions, burning metalash to create a fiery red forcefield to safely carry the trio down through the suffocating black water.
The Secret of the Below
Interspersed throughout the narrative are flashbacks revealing Glint's true identity. Twenty years prior, he was Alluin, a Planner and mergemelder mage who was inexplicably demoted by Lorelei and exiled to manage the Below—a dripping, Art Nouveau-style city hidden beneath the lake. There, he fell in love with Glimmer (Allana), the High Priestess of the Wavelight Church, and the two had a son named Glisten.
Alluin soon discovered the horrifying truth of the Below: the city's water was not naturally sourced. Instead, thousands of enslaved, hollow-eyed mages were intentionally kept addicted to darkprime birch to transmute raw matter into water. When the Planners raised the quotas, the transmuters were forced to enact horrific rituals, transmuting living human beings entirely into water to keep New San Francisco hydrated.
Desperate to save the city without sacrificing human lives, Alluin discovered he was secretly a gatesender and attempted to forge a massive gate to the Sacramento River on Earth. However, his untrained magic failed, wiping his memory and teleporting him to the brutal Remnant city of Sacranub. He lived there for nineteen years as a fighter named "Gorgon" before a shard of metalwood finally triggered his memory, allowing him to gate back to the Under, where he assumed the name Glint.
The Broken Seal
In the present, Phoenix's red forcefield touches down in the Below, immediately drawing the attention of the fanatical Wavelight Church. When the guards open fire, Glint reveals astonishing combat prowess, brutally fighting back with his metal cane. Phoenix, terrified for Rylan's safety, loses control of her red forcefields and accidentally mutilates three guards by ripping their hands off.
She engages in a desperate magic duel with a Wavelight forcefinder named Flare. When Flare refuses to yield, Phoenix overloads his shield with a swarm of red bubbles, inadvertently destroying his seal node. With the node broken, a massive waterfall of poisonous lead-water from the lake above begins flooding the city. The dying guards tell Phoenix she must reach "the Machine" at the north end of the city to fix the seal.
The Mad Gatesender
When they reach the Machine—a massive, high-tech Planner facility—Glint's memories fully return, and he reveals himself as Alluin. Driven mad by the memory of losing his family and disgusted by the Planners' cruelty, Alluin decides to let the Below and the entire flying city drown as revenge. Using his mergemelding magic to walk effortlessly through Phoenix's forcefields and physical attacks, he easily subdues her.
Lorelei suddenly arrives via a gate with two mages, Celenor and Galan, intending to fix the leak. Alluin ruthlessly murders Galan, using his mergemelding to phase through a forcefield and hang the man with overhead wires. As Phoenix desperately reaches the Echo device to reseal the lake above them with her forcefinding magic, Alluin unleashes his gatesending power and teleports Lorelei and Celenor away to an unknown location.
Restoring the Flow
With the other mages gone, Phoenix pleads with Alluin to see reason, reminding him that even though he couldn't save his own son, he can still save hers. Seeing Alluin break down in tears, little Rylan steps forward and hugs the dangerous mage, echoing a phrase his mother taught him: "We're all a little broken everywhere".
Moved by the child's innocence, Alluin's madness breaks. He embraces Rylan and successfully executes the gatesending spell, opening a massive, permanent portal to the river on Earth and saving the city with a limitless supply of fresh water.
Alluin gates Phoenix and Rylan safely back to Shock Crew, then departs for Earth to start a new life, believing his family is dead. Moments later, Lorelei returns to the Under and promises Phoenix that the Below will now be properly managed. Shockingly, she is accompanied by Glimmer and a now twenty-year-old Glisten—revealing that Alluin's family survived. Upon learning Alluin was just there, Glimmer and Glisten take a gate to Earth to finally reunite with him. Phoenix, exhausted but relieved, sits down on the concrete floor to play toy cars with Rylan, grateful to simply spend time with the son who just saved the world.
Key Characters
- Phoenix (Megan): A former killgirl and powerful forcefinder raising her three-year-old son in the Under. She confronts her fear of magic and her own capacity for violence to protect her child.
- Alluin (Glint / Gorgon): A former Planner who lived a triple life: an amnesiac old man (Glint) in the Under, a brutal fighter (Gorgon) in Sacranub, and a powerful mergemelder/gatesender (Alluin) managing the Below. Driven mad by grief, he nearly destroys the city.
- Rylan: Phoenix's innocent, three-year-old son. His empathy ultimately breaks Alluin's madness and saves New San Francisco.
- Glimmer (Allana): The High Priestess of the Wavelight Church and a fallfoiler. She is Alluin's wife and survives the twenty years he is missing to eventually go searching for him.
- Lorelei: The Supreme Leader (Cundu) of the Planners. She exiled Alluin to the Below and oversees the horrific transmutation quotas, but ultimately ensures the city's survival.
Magic and Lore Introduced
- The Below: A massive, Art Nouveau-styled city built by the Planners beneath a suspended, lead-poisoned lake. It serves as the water-generation hub for New San Francisco.
- Human Transmutation: It is revealed that darkprime birch transmuters can change matter into water. To meet the massive quotas required by a flying city, the Planners addict the transmuters to magic, eventually forcing them to transmute actual human corpses—and sometimes living people—into water.
- The Machine & Echoes: The northern building of the Below houses "The Machine," a massive technological infrastructure containing "Echoes" (metal knobs). An Echo can capture and pin a mage's spell in place, sustaining massive magical constructs (like a lake seal or a permanent water gate) for decades without the mage needing to be present.
- Mergemelding: A darkprime oak magic that allows the user to phase through solid matter, including forcefields and attacks. It requires immense Will to determine which objects to phase through and which to touch.