Not much later, in Blackwater Estuary near Maldon
It starts, as a lot of things do, benign. The water in the harbor and the river outlet slowly rises a couple inches past the average high-tide, hardly concerning, weather and tides are not 100% predictable at all times. It's when actual waves start gently rocking the boats in the harbor that people take notice. The estuary and the bird sanctuary island within it usually provide a sort of natural protection against actual waves that break long before they reach Maldon. And then a veritable swarm of birds rises from Northey Isle, hundreds and hundreds of them taking to the air with protesting calls. And it's around this time that some of the more extra-sensate students at the University take note.
Wanda, innately in tune with the weather and natural order would feel something wrong, this early Saturday morning. Like a violent gust of air suddenly disrupting the flow of wind and plunging everything into momentary chaos...
Samantha, mind of Crows and Conflict, wakes in an unfamiliar bed with thick drawn curtains and a pale, unmoving figure next to her. The previous night is a bit of a haze of dancing, Tequila, blood and who knows what else, but what pierces through any hangover is the distant cry of countless birds that makes the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end. She can feel something ancient and not quite hers in her bones, the ill omen of circling birds...
Emilie wakes with a inexplicable feeling of dread, like the shadow of a forgotten nightmare just passed over her.
Natalie is disturbed in whatever she does when everyone else is asleep by Clarion receiving an increasing number of alerts. Increased water levels in the estuary. Not a big deal. A shift in weather towards a possible storm. Sudden but nothing too unusual on the coast of England. Then a high-tide warning from the Essex Weather Service, followed swiftly by a dormant node in her own system suddenly coming online.
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}} Anomalous Energy Signature detected
}} Approximate distance 2.3 miles and closing
From the cliffs by the University it's a clear view across the water and the small island to Maldon's harbor. On the horizon stormclouds are gathering, but of more immediate concern is the swell of water that has almost entirely submerged the Northey Isle bird sanctuary, it's inhabitants now circling in a large swarm above. From towards the open ocean a wave is travelling suspiciously steady and uniform, an almost perfect half-circle of water about ten feet across and as it hits the small island in the estuary it slows down and begins to rise. A large dome of water, undulating shapes vaguely visible beneath the water before the surface tension finally break and shedding the water like a cocoon is an enormous gelatinous dome. Within it a scintillating eye of some sort swivels along the entire circumference as if searching for something. A large, grey crab-leg breaches the water and pulls the creature onto the shallows of Northey Isles, followed by two more legs, rimmed with hair or strange baleens of some sort. Short, maybe foot-long tendrils hang from the big jellyfish dome, constantly shedding water from seemingly nowhere.
The creature rears up, more and more water sloughing off it's gelatinous surface as it stands a good 25 feet tall and again the scintillating orb within it's cap spins around like a restless eye. And every moment it sits there more and more water spills forth, knocking about the boats in the nearby harvor as waves begin to spill over the pier and into the streets...
