CHAPTER 38: AIR? AIR IS FOR SUCKERS

I accidentally suck down river water as I try to gasp for breath in surprise. Once water enters my lungs and nostrils, I fall into a panic, choking, sputtering, coughing worse than I already was. I’d been coughing just from being run ragged for so long, but now my lungs are trying to expel extra moisture. This is one of those times where I’d dramatically assume I was dying, and resign myself to death. I mean, the nearest exit is literally hours away, unless we’re near one of the secret exits that doubles as a water lock that lets the river in.

Somehow though, I need to save all these idiot beavers, from the other idiot beavers that flooded them, now that the deed is done. Ugh, one or more copies of Gae Buidhe are out there, probably washed away, floating around. If I survive this, it will always be a nagging fear in the back of my mind. How should someone feel, knowing that an insanely deadly, magical spear is just traveling around somewhere. Maybe it’s floating around the dam I’m about to swim through, maybe it’s drifting downstream, to one day be picked up by bullies or angry beavers or otters.

When I realize I’m not swimming, but walking, and I’m not having to fight back against a river current, I get a might bit confused. Snapping to my senses, I take off as much gear as I can, including the blindfold, so that I can see what I’m doing, and move about more freely. I’m not even coughing up my lungs anymore, what on earth? Or well, what on whatever my planet’s name is. The wall of water that slammed into me is being held back several feet ahead of me, as if by invisible force, but swirling around a sphere, as if I were in an air bubble that’s constantly pushing outward. Is this why Sylphie stayed? Is she saving me?

How long can she manage this? Should I try to rescue as many beavers as I can, with her help? Should I head straight to a known exit? Should I try to find a closer exit? Ugh, I feel so guilty, I know the western tunnels have several beavers tied up. Some of the rooms have different elevation, so it will take a while for the water pressure to build so much that those ones are completely flooded. The beavers who live here would know them best. It’s likely that none of them have died yet, unless they were abandoned while unconscious or tied up.

Yeah, that guilt is the last straw, I have to go on a rescue mission. Sylphie I hope you know how much I appreciate this. “Sylphie, I can’t thank you enough. I don’t know how long you can hold on, I know you can’t understand me, I don’t know why I’m rambling. We have a rescue mission to commence.”

I test out marching around, and sure enough, Sylphie keeps in lockstep with my stride, moving the mass of swirling air forward with me. I try to take a long, slow, calm breath. I vaguely know what to look for, rooms that are dead ends, I need to check their roofs. I still haven’t had a real sleep, and I just did something that, that I can’t think about. I gulp, accidentally sucking down air as my thoughts drift back to mere moments ago. I need to be careful, I don’t know what sustains Sylphie, and she has no way to let me know she’s weakening. In that case, I’d better sprint.

I’m definitely not a marathon sprinter. That much is obvious as my loping pace is more of a jog with a long, slow stride. Regardless, it’s not long before I come upon confused beavers that are swimming near room ceilings, trying to suck down the last of the air in the room. It’s almost comical when they fall through the air to the floor as Sylphie pushes the water out from under them. I motion for them to follow me, and make a motion to indicate the word all, and I point at their tails. Hopefully they get that I mean to rescue all beavers.

It doesn’t take them long to figure out that following me means being able to at least scrabble into an air pocket once in a while. Some of the braver ones break off down hallway offshoots, and return with more of their friends, thankfully. That means I don’t have to do all of this alone. I lead my current swarm of tenuous allies to the room with the deer skull. I still can’t tell if it’s bone or wood, but I can tell that water is coming in from this room’s roof. When I spy where it’s coming in from though, I’m fairly disheartened. There’s a massive boulder with a long chip through it, like a drain spout, not enough room for anyone to fit through. It seems like it was shoved down to smash out the hidden door. Do I dare risk using energy? I have no clue if Sylphie is somehow relying on my energy to keep me alive. I still don’t know if Teuila and Luni are safe. I gulp back a sob as I think about Teuila, and I shudder. I can’t help but be scared for her, and by her, and of her, right now.

Shaking my head vigorously, I commit to helping this particular flock of beavers from the colony. I take another gasping sigh, and regret it, worrying that I’m straining Sylphie. I try to motion to Sylphie that I want to swim, that she can rest, and she seems to understand, since she moves back, allowing water to cascade over me. I swim up and immediately claim the stone blocking the entryway. There’s no way they maneuvered multiple of those, to multiple sections of this lock, right? In fact, it looks like all the doors are smashed open from maneuvering the boulder through these secret tunnels. It feels like there’s enough water pressure to swim against, that this probably leads straight out to the river bed, hopefully.

The boulder basically took up every last ounce of my remaining inventory, so I expel it at the base of the wall near the exit in the roof. I can let the beavers climb up it, getting one last breath from Sylphie before they swim.

Swimming back down, I step into the air bubble once more, and I try to play charades, motioning for the beavers to swim up. I also plea for one or two brave ones to stay with me, to help rescue more of them, by making pleading gestures, and once again trying to gesture all, or everyone, and pointing at their tails. Sylphie’s bubble shrinks slightly, and I hope that’s just because several beavers are leaving, so she doesn’t feel as great of need to be as large. If she’s weakening, I have no idea how long she can last.

Thankfully, the majority of the beavers that were following got the message. There’s a line of them swimming upward and outward. I just hope the exit to the river is close enough that none of them drown on the way out. They can hold their breath even longer than otters if I recall, due to the way they construct their dams, needing to spend more time under water.

Everything begins to blur together in the monotony of this rescue mission, endless tunnels with endless water, and dozens, maybe hundreds of beavers, this colony is so much more massive than I could have hoped for. If we can be allies when my family finally makes it to our pond, then it will have all been worth it. We occasionally find a room that can’t fill with water just yet, due to the elevation differences, or pressure difference, something or another. When we’re in one, Sylphie seems to disappear for a while, hopefully resting. Thankfully in these rooms, I often find a brave soul that has been rescuing his or her compatriots that were tied up or knocked out, bringing them to a location with air.

There don’t seem to be any hard feelings, as most of the beavers seem to understand the extenuating circumstances. First, they were the aggressors, and I didn’t kill any of them, second, I’m returning to rescue them, third, I happen to bring magic along with me. Well, Sylphie does.

At one point, I notice several beavers nervously gnawing on the wood that seems to decorate the walls, and it finally dawns on me. They didn’t go collect the wood from anywhere. It’s their food source, it spawns here. That explains why there’s some wood furniture floating around, but nothing in the way of food storage, or stored food. I had a suspicion they were herbivores, but I couldn’t remember for certain.

As my compatriots, and I, the brave few that continue to remain behind with me, reach what I think is the final leg of the journey, or wing of the colony, the worst happens. Sylphie’s bubble begins to sputter, falter, and disappear. It manages to return erratically for a while, but I can tell she can’t hold on much longer. I figure we’re half an hour, to maybe an hour from finally completing this and getting to the last exit, one I know for sure exists. We marked off the main exit as not needing to head towards it, since anyone over there would have taken air in the pockets along the way and just left the dam complex. Right now, if I dashed straight for the exit, I could probably make it in half an hour, but I’d be abandoning an entire hallway I know I filled with unconscious beavers.

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I try not to panic as my heart races, I need to conserve my breath, slowly taking more sips of air every time Sylphie reappears, gradually filling my lungs to their fullest. Normal otters in my memories can hold their breath for five to ten minutes. We of the Shellcracker clan can hold our breaths for about fifteen minutes. These beavers can probably hold their breaths for double that, which I think is also twice what I recall beavers being able to do. But they can only do that if they’ve had adequate air to prepare their lungs with. I know I just implied I’m an otter, and we all know I’m not an otter. I’m some weird human goblin pixie something-or-other.

Okay, I’m not giving up, and I’m not dying here. Each room we enter, we manage to find more beavers holding their tied up brethren aloft, helping them to breathe, or undoing their bindings. I try to charade which direction the exit is, but then I remember it’s probably blocked by a boulder. Razzlefrazzle. I can’t keep bumbling back and forth between beavers as we undo their bindings, now that there are no more pockets of air in any of these rooms on this leg of the journey. Sylphie hasn’t come back in several minutes. I just feel a slight tickle in my nostrils, which seems to be at least keeping water from flooding my lungs. Tearing my hair out metaphorically, I start gesturing wildly for the bravest to split up, fan out, and meet up at an offshoot ahead when they’re done.

It takes a bit of energy, and a few precious seconds, but it’s worth it to delegate right now, as my vision starts to blur. My eyes feel as if they cross and I’m starting to see double. I need to make it to the hall with the hidden door, and the water locks before I pass out, or we’re all going to die. If I can at least get the boulder dealt with before I pass out, maybe, just maybe one of the beavers will be kind enough to drag my body out of here.

When I made my estimate of how long it would take me to get to the exit, I was counting on being able to sprint on land, not swim against a current, so even though we made progress before Sylphie vanished, I’m starting to panic, as my lungs begin to burn. I hope I don’t frighten the beavers, but they’ll just have to learn to forgive me. I start using my tendrils to simultaneously push downwards, away behind me, as well as to reach out, claw into the walls and drag me forward. It takes a lot less of my physical stamina, since they don’t require energy to operate. Thank all the heavens for magic. It’s also far faster than swimming was.

I think up ahead is the last bend in the tunnel, then a long stretch before the dead end. A pressure behind my eyes that has been building feels like it reaches a breaking point, and bursts. My vision clouds with red, which causes terrifying flashbacks of the time I thought I went on a rampage, and it turned out to have been a nightmare. No, no, this isn’t like that time. This is more like the Night of High Water. Well, at least I have magic, and practice being blind. That’s all I can think of as the image of the corridor ahead burns into my eyes, coated in red, then it washes over in white.

My muscles falter, and I can’t bring my arm forward anymore to even direct my tendrils ahead, I can only push off from below and behind me. This is problematic, since it’s easier to claim things when touching them with my hand. Oh well, I think, as my face smashes into where I believe the boulder to be. I claim the boulder to my inventory, with my face, and, as I’ve been doing with the others, eject it into the hallway below. When Sylphie was around, it helped the beavers climb up before they had to start swimming, now it’s a mild inconvenience for those that are already swimming. Sorry folks. I try to wave the others ahead, in a panicked motion. It seems everyone has caught up. I’m really thankful as my muscles go completely slack, and I can’t hold my breath anymore, as bubbles start exiting my mouth and nose en masse.

In probably the strangest communal effort ever, each beaver that passes me embraces me for just an instant to pass on the slightest bit of breath. Eventually, as I slowly pass out, those bringing up the rear, the stronger swimmers, grab me, dragging me upwards and outwards.

At first it feels as if perhaps I enter a dreamless sleep. Then the nightmares revisit me. All the times I’ve failed, everything that’s ever incited panic in me, including quite recently, some manner of doppelganger, brain blaster. Sobbing quietly in terror gives way to screaming fear.

My danger wraps tell me that there are a lot of individuals standing around me, most of them holding their ears. I realize I’ve been screaming as I come to consciousness. My face flushes with embarrassment. It probably has to be pretty understandable though, right? I did just drown, once again. Not that they know that. Well okay, I think drowning is technically fully dying, but what else would you call being knocked out by asphyxiation from being under water? I’m so grateful they saw fit to save me, since I both hurt them, and failed to save their dam.

By my estimate, if all that happened around noon, and it was several hours per wing, at least six hours have passed, so it’s somewhere between six and nine pm. Luni and company can’t even exit the pyramid until midnight apparently, based on her message that stated they’d been in there for almost twelve hours, around noon. At least I figure that’s what that must have meant. Timewise, they had to have entered at midnight, almost exactly, for some reason.

I get to sit around blind, panic-stricken, in the company of no one that can understand me, many of whom I’ve recently attacked, tied up, or knocked out? Nah fam, no thanks. Standing up woozily, I immediately fall back on my rear. That’s unfortunate, my limbs don’t want to listen to me. I have mostly been awake for several days straight, generally only checking out very shortly from extreme physical or mental duress. I guess I can lay here for a little while longer. May as well eat something too.

I grimace as I touch the wound on my side, thankfully the smaller potion managed to knit it most of the way, even after it had been reopened a bit. I’d better dress that, then gear up. So I pack and wrap the wound tightly, then don the usual gear. After which I summon some fish. I’d offer some to the beavers, but, again, I found out, or remembered, they are herbivores. That’s probably also why there was so much of the luminescent lichen.

I sniff around, and take a few practice breaths. I try to wave my hand around in front of me and above me, trying to catch the breeze that would signify Sylphie’s presence, to no avail. That’s disheartening. I hope she’s not dead. I hope Lu doesn’t blame me. As I worry and fret over whether or not Sylphie is gone for good, and if Lu will hate me for it, I start to panic, and suck down air in gulps before hyperventilating slightly.

Keep it together, keep it together. The last thing you need right now is this colony assuming you’ve gone crazy. I really don’t want to have to fight off an entire colony in this state. Oh, right, they’re leaderless, and aimless right now. I could at least reunite them with the sane faction.

Standing up, I cough lightly, clearing my throat, trying to garner attention without demanding it. I point vaguely in the direction that would be away from the river, upstream, that is, northwest. I don’t intend to command them though, so I start marching in the direction I know the cabin to be.

My heart feels like it’s bound in razor wire that’s being squeezed. It’s an intensely uncomfortable, downright painful experience. I think that’s Teuila’s tether though, and until she makes it out of the pyramid, I don’t dare risk dropping it. I have no idea what dangers they face within. I grit my teeth as I begin to panic when my thoughts hover around Teuila. Please, please let me just forget about what I experienced below.

My hand quivers, and I suck back a ragged sob, trying not to cry aloud while leading these beaverfolk on a march. Lil isn’t tethered right now, Sugar and Spice are hidden somewhere, probably hungry and alone, Lao and Agwai are looking over Mat and the Mana twins, none of them know how to get here. I can’t reunite with most of my family for quite some time.

I kind of can’t believe I suspected Luni of being changed, or corrupted by power, and that I let that fear convince me of, well. I let it convince me that the thing below was speaking truth. That Lu had somehow hurt Te, and scared her away, or changed her into the thing that. That. I gulp. I’m trying to talk myself out of this memory, to discredit it, but I can’t face it. My faith in my loved ones faltered, and I paid dearly for it. I’m emotionally scarred. I’m terrified to see them again.

I want nothing more in the world than to be held by my closest loved ones again, and yet when I think of half of them, I flinch, I shudder, I’m terrified. I gulp back a sob as tears roll down my cheeks.

Finally reaching the cabin, I pull the staff of thunder out of my inventory. I only say thunder since that’s the only thing I know I can use it for. I thump the ground lightly. This causes a slow rolling thunder, rather than the massive crack when I swing at something. Hopefully the sane beavers get the message that it’s me. I don’t wait for them to exit the cabin though, and I don’t really care what they do with the other faction right now. I’m so emotionally drained, and physically exhausted, that I just walk up to the cabin wall, set my back against it, slump down and let myself pass out.