Okay, he keeps swimming towards that group of whatever. Likely just another school of fish.

As he gets closer, it does not appear to be a school of fish. It appears to be a group of humanoids with blue skin, and a single humanoid with brown skin.

One of the blue-skinned humanoids moves in front of the brown-skinned humanoid and says something he can't understand. She waves her weapon through the water, letting it come to rest with her arm extended, so that the weapon is in her hand, but pointed above them and not at the newcomer.

People!

Areus approaches the humanoids, deliberate telegraphed movements that signify he has no hostile intentions. It soon becomes clearer that he is about eight feet tall, but otherwise looks human. Carefully he unsheathes his sword (to him, it's more like a large knife) and mimics the gesture and the word.

This doesn't particularly seem to help, although no one makes any moves against him. Without turning their head away from him, the one who stepped forward speaks.

One of the other members of the party, the only individual who seems to be of a different species than the rest, steps forward. He keeps his hands in the air, palms facing Areus. He twists one hand towards himself to point at his mouth as he speaks the same foreign language as the others. Then, as he continues speaking unintelligibly, he points at the left and then right side of Areus' head.

"Sorry, but I don't understand." Areus says, shaking his head.

He rolls his eyes, continuing to speak. He barks something at one of the other figures-

-who swims forward, towards Areus. Slowly, cautiously, so as not to scare him.  Another of them follows shortly after, when this doesn't provoke a violent reaction. They both hold tridents in their hands, but take care not to point them at the stranger.

The one who initially spoke says something else, now. The others start to look nervous, but no one changes position.

He is mindful of any possible vectors of attack, but he is always mindful of those things. Areus tries his best to look disinclined towards violence, and tries a few greetings in languages he knows. None of which work.

The two figures who have approached closer now stand at his side. They point their tridents back towards their group, looking at him.

The group begins swimming away, with one of them doing so slowly and with her eye on him. She gestures with her hand for him to follow.

He gives everyone, including the people by his side, a winning smile and starts following.

Although the group does not make much effort to slow down for him, Areus is easily able to keep up with their swimming speed. They converse amongst themselves, except for the two swimming next to him, who have all of their attention focused on him. They do not seem aggressive, but are clearly prepared to react poorly to anything that looks threatening.

Doesn't sound unreasonable. He will pay attention to the words, figuring out if he can pick anything from context. But otherwise he is glad to just observe.

Two of them are clearly talking about him, from their frequent glances back at him, but he isn't able to gather much from tone of voice or facial expressions.

They seem to incorporate hand signs in their speech, or have a habit of gesticulating common to them both.

After some time, the same figure who previously tried miming something makes a second attempt. He points to Areus' head and to his chest. Then he tugs on his own ears, ending on a shrug.

Areus guesses that the brown stranger wants to know what Areus is.

"Giant," he replies, which isn't wrong. He is half sea-serpent, but let's stick to simple answers first.

Eyeroll.

"Giant," the brown stranger repeats. He points at several of the others, indiscriminately: "Tritons."

He points at himself. "Human, orc, half-orc." He smiles; it's not pretty. He doesn't seem interested in continuing the conversation further.

Finally, they begin to approach some kind of domed city. The group begins to speak more intensely and more rapidly.

Okay, Areus keeps following the Tritons and the Human-orc-half-orc whatever those are supposed to mean.

Nice, civilization! He wonders if they can find some translation solution in there.

The party detours slightly; rather than approaching the dome itself, they approach a ball of seaweed drifting about the ocean.

One of the tritons grabs it.