Chapter 15

Girl, Meet Fishbowl

I closed my eyes until the time finished and I opened them again, catching one last blast of light.

"Fuck! I am sick of these light shows," I said.

Stephen ignored me and greedily peered into the chest. The light dimmed so I did the same, finding an amazing sight: a giant fishbowl. It was outlined in a bright pink, almost neon. The rest of it was a lighter pink tint. Tucked underneath it was some weapons, a sniper rifle, a pistol, and the hilt of an energy sword.

I ignored the weapons and went for the fishbowl. But Stephen groaned and violently slammed the chest shut.

"Hey! Why did you do that?" I asked, barely getting my fingers out of the way in time.

"It’s trash. We are doomed." He held his head in his hands.

"What do you mean?" I reopened the chest and hauled out the fishbowl. "This thing is sick! But, uh, what does it do?"

"You've really never seen that before?"

I shook my head.

He groaned again. "It’s the worst helmet in the Interverse. It’s noob equipment. Same for the weapons, too, complete trash."

I stared at the fishbowl. "A... helmet?"

I tipped it over, onto my head. The hole expanded and sucked me into it.

"Whoa!" Once on, the hole somehow rotated around, back to the top of it, making it look like I was inside of it, right side up.

[ Alert! Fishbowl equipped!

You will receive 20% less experience until removed

Health is limited to 100

100% headshot resistance ]

"What the heck?"

"See, pure garbage," Stephen lamented.

"The first two things are bad, yeah, but... 100% headshot resistance? That's... really good isn't it?"

An awesome sounding perk with demoralizing drawbacks. Now why did that sound familiar?

It was just like me and the Jack of All. I decided then and there that it was coming with me. Yeah, maybe I would be written off a noob and yeah maybe I would fall behind and die a lot... but I felt attached to it. Like if I abandoned it here it would be like giving up on myself.

I looked around from inside the bowl. It gave the whole world a pink tint. It made my vision a little, uh, rounded I guess the word was? But the more I looked around the more I got used to it. And that 100% headshot resistance really made me feel nice and cozy inside the bowl. I wondered how my goldfish at home would react to me wearing it, definitely had to get Sam involved to translate that.

"I love it," I finally said.

Stephen raised an eyebrow. "You serious? You can't wear it. You'll be taken down in no time with only 100 health."

"Not if I dodge!" I pretended to do the Matrix bullet time move.

"Do you not remember how clumsy you are?"

"It's rude to point that out." I wagged my finger in his face. "I bet you wish you could do that back to me but, uh, nope! Helmet." I tapped it and grinned.

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"You're impossible sometimes. Only you would find pleasure in this epic looking chest being filled with beginner loot." He shook his head.

I reached inside the chest and threw him the sniper rifle. In both hands I held the pistol and the beam sword.

"Which one of us gets the sword?" I asked. "Wanna rock, paper, scissors for it?"

"It's not that serious or that good, you just take it." Stephen looked through the scope of his rifle. "Ugh, this thing is terrible."

I closed the chest. "You're no fun, dude. I wanted to show off my rock, paper, scissors skills."

"If we ever get lucky enough to find some good loot then we can do it then."

I looked back at the chest, where its light remained diminished. "That really was a beautiful looking chest. Why do you think it just had Beginner stuff in it?"

"Just a joke from the developers. They must have put in a random chance of bad loot. What I would like to know is how often this cave spawns and what the percentage is of that chest being bad. Then we would really know how sadistic they are."

"Maybe what we got isn't even the worst. Maybe there's a chance of a monster jumping out or the cave collapsing."

Stephen's face went white. "Couldn't you have waited to mention that until we were outside already?"

"Hey, I thought of it now, I didn't want to be alone in worrying about a cave in."

He didn't actually look mad... but I could tell he wouldn't be forgetting my words until we were safely back out.

I led the way forward, swimming back toward the tunnel. Not at all looking forward to our trek back. Stephen grabbed my shoulder as I passed.

"Come on dude, we aren't racing anymore," I said, not looking back.

Stephen said something but it was muffled and panicked. I whipped around to see one of the vines over his mouth, both preventing him from talking and also pulling him back, attempting to take him to the depths.

"Whoa!" I rushed to him and turned on the beam sword, severing the vine.

He spat it out and shouted, "Swim, hurry!!"

I pulled him in front of me and wrapped one of my arms around him. "You do the swimming, I'll do the cutting!"

He understood and swam while I did my best to not be dead weight while also still holding myself up to fight whatever was brewing down there.

More vines came for us, in waves of two. I sliced them all with ease, cutting back three or four of their joint attacks. I risked a glance over Stephen's shoulder. We were almost to the shallower section of the cave and then the tunnel was just beyond that.

When I looked back three vines were already there, they wound around my sword hand. It took all my feeble arm muscles had to stay above the water and not be completely ripped out of its socket. I stayed calm though, and wiggled the blade, managing to cut the main vine that held onto it. With my free hand I yanked it out of my bound one and set it free in one slice.

But all of that had just been a distraction to buy time for their real goal. The vines gathered and grew in number, becoming a literal living wave of green, whipping all around, and coming straight for us.

"Stephen," I said as calm as I could muster.

"Y-yeah?" He said, spitting out water, so focused on getting us to safety.

"Just keep going, okay? I'm gonna buy you some time."

"What?" He risked looking back and his eyes went huge. "Holy shit!"

I let go and pushed off of him, forcing him forward and getting me to the vines faster.

"Darcy! What the fuck are you—Darcy!"

I connected with the vines, taking one huge slice out of the leaders of the pack. It was like cutting water. More vines took their place instantly and came down all around me, dragging me under.

At first, I caught myself holding my breath. But I quickly realized I was inside a fishbowl. I took a hesitant inhale of air and, sure enough, I could breath no problem. So, I wouldn't die from drowning. Strangling though? That was still in the cards.

I swung the sword like mad, cutting around me in an arc. I did it so fast that the vines didn’t have a hold on me anymore. But they kept coming, trying to overwhelm me with sheer numbers. Which they most definitely could do. I didn't know how long I could keep up the swinging—my arms were already getting pretty tired.

But I couldn't give up. I probably wouldn't survive this but every vine cut was, hopefully, giving me some experience. It just wasn't in the cards for me to kill some Users this match, I guess.

My arms started to give out and my swing slowed the tiniest bit. That's all they needed. A vine got through and wrapped around my hand, putting an abrupt end to my swings. More followed and wrapped around both my hand and the hilt of the sword so completely that it would be impossible for me to move the weapon to my other hand.

I figured the vines would overwhelm me and make me their new show piece, but instead they toyed with me. Let me struggle more. Sadistic green fucks, I can't believe I thought they were pretty...

I pulled against them, at least attempting to get my arm free but, like I suspected, it was no use. Every other second that passed, a new vine grabbed onto me. Ever so slowly pulling me into their depths.

I didn't know what the end game for them would be. With my helmet, they couldn't kill me easily. Even my neck might have been safe because of the fishbowl. So I could only assume they would just hold onto me, their new prize, until the match's victor was decided.

I closed my eyes. Accepting my fate.