Carrisa was aware that Matthias was fast. When they had first faced the pre-mutated scientist Hua Pengfei holding a taser he had moved quickly, fast enough that she had been surprised by his movements when he had pushed off his back foot and challenged the man with his sword.

Last time she had been able to see his movement, this time there was a flow of air past her as she blinked and the young man was suddenly in front of the woman in the robe. His sword was raised and already cutting past her robe and into the flesh of one arm which she had raised to block his blow.

Even though the coral blade had cut into her bluish flesh the woman smiled at Carissa before jerking backwards before Matthias could respond and with her free hand grabbed hold of him and lifted him up into the air with a hand on his throat.

‘Always the same. Player-candidates are developed fighters on their world or they’re granted boosts by the ocean gods and their tools and think they can fight. I wonder which confidence booster you faced on your way here. The oil rig scenario? The military outpost? The nuclear submarine scenario? You fought against heavily limited constructs with barely any minds of their own. No. Have another chance young Matthias. Please. This time try harder.’ said the woman as she threw him backwards releasing her grip on his throat.

When he landed back besides her next to the entrance to the room Carissa saw that Matthias had wisely used the grey suit to protect and cover the skin around his neck but there remained finger implants.

Carissa was satisfied with the result but a little surprised at the abilities of the woman. She was entirely unarmed but had made no attempt to hurt her and only responded when Matthias had attacked.

The young man put a hand behind him as he kept his sword facing outwards as he struck a combat position and moved again. This time Carissa saw him slow down as he leapt at the wall next to the bed and tried a diagonal attack against the woman before he switched hands with the sword as fast as he had previously moved.

Matthia’s coral sword struck almost the exact same spot on her arm which he had struck earlier, this time cutting deeper into the flesh of her blue skinned arm but this time the woman didn’t respond but frowned as sparks flew outwards.

She shoved Matthias back a short distance but didn’t make any further move to attack him only pulling an excess part of her robe down to cover the damaged area.

Carissa clearly saw from her position that the woman had been cut along her blue skinned arm but not a single drop had flowed.

With his sword prepared Matthias was breathing harder now and held his coral sword in both hands eyes fully attentive on the movements of the woman.

Carissa relaxed her own grip on her bone tooth club and let it dangle from her arm as it shrunk down to a cudgel sized weapon as she raised both hands and raised her voice as it echoed inside the small room.

The lights played across the face of the woman as she frowned and then smiled again. Her face had shown no visible signs of pain only annoyance at best. She was either a higher level-player as Mike had been, a construct despite her own words or something else.

‘Peace. I won’t fight as long as you don’t young Matthias. Be assured I have no plans for harm to come to the blessed one. I suggest you go to the other room and relinquish your anger and find peace in there. A little conversation, food and company will calm you down.’

The scent of the food was indeed delicious but Carissa put the thought aside for the moment. Her stomach could wait a little longer and the grey suit would sustain her for even more as it slowly degraded with usage.

There was a sense of familiarity about her. When Carissa had initial ideas for altering her own form to survive the oceans of her home planet she had considered entirely changing most of her form through technology rather than genetics.

When the woman’s arm had been cut, Carissa was certain that she had seen sparks. Combined with her own reaction speed she was augmented with technology or biology but the latter was unlikely.

‘Matthias. Leave her. She clearly isn’t looking for a fight or she would have snapped your sword in two. There’s something there, come back here. Something is wrong with her, at least in this place. If she agrees to help we stay, if not we leave and you try out the other room while I stand guard at the door to this one. Matthias. Trust me. If necessary you send me a message and I’ll be there immediately. The same for me. Trust me. Please.’ said Carissa.

Frustrated, Matthias lashed out with his coral sword towards the bed letting it slice through layers of sheets before he withdrew it and walked backwards not allowing his gaze to deviate from the woman. Only when he was closer to Carissa did he turn his back and gave her a deep look before nodding his head and raising his own arms in a gesture of peace before he formally bowed at the woman.

‘To the lady who calls my leader a blessed one. You are an opponent who I am clearly not a match for yet. Thank you for not breaking my sword in two. I have medicines and bandages if you need to apply them to your arm and I offer them freely in a state of parley between us. My leader has her own stock for your usage. I ask for no food off your table nor your service and thank you for telling me about the other room. I tell you though, if it a trap I will survive it and return and we will try a little combat once again and I will win. Carissa remember the dead sheep. I told you the story, remember the lesson.’ said Matthias as he turned his back and stepped past her into the open doorway as his feet splashed in the water outside.

The woman smiled as she pulled out an unseen chair from under the table and sat down pulling one of the dishes in front of her. A type of deep-fried tentacle from a species Carissa half-recognised was dipped in a sauce as the woman took a piece and a swift bite.

‘Come. Eat, or stand there and guard for your comrade while I eat. These are local dishes which I had prepared from deep memory. I ate them as a young girl before the deluge came and the alien gods took the minds of the people and destroyed what survived in their failures. I believe you were a scientist, a technologist who branched into germ based genetic altering experiments on herself. Yes blessed one, I know a little of your brilliance, your vision. My parents were researchers. Don’t worry, you didn’t kill them. They died a long time ago before all the game began and their souls remain at rest. Please, sit with me and eat. In peace and trade of new friends, I ask you for nothing. Only the pleasure of your company blessed one. You only have a brief respite before a trial and I’ll even tell you a secret. About Laci.’ said the robed woman.

Carissa nearly froze for a moment. She had a limit and her personal memories were one of them. Two of the ocean gods had decided to enter one of the happiest days of her life with a friend who she deeply cared about and then cause alterations to her mind and body. Or at least attempted to.

She still held a spark of energy within for her inbuilt implants deep within her chest and abdomen and the grey virus sample from the Deep Water Purification Temple was dormant but had bonded with his own genetic structure.

Would it be worth to try and burn the water off her entire face? To raise the temperature of the skin of my palm to scalding levels just to shut her up?

Carissa let her fingers twitch on her palms as deep within her partially activated machinery came to life and began to regulate her internal and external body temperature on minute levels.

She didn’t have a lot of energy but by using the grey virus and her own altered genetic structure with enough time and materials she could find a solution or a workaround around the disabling power the ocean gods had applied to her.

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Her eyes narrowed and her lips pursed as she looked at the woman sitting down. From all appearance she was simply a mutated human form, designed by the ocean gods to better survive inside water. Bluish skin, slightly webbed hands, lack of hair on her scalp and likely the rest of her body and covered in a protective robe.

Carissa noticed that the woman had covered her injured arm and kept it hidden from her sight.

Interesting. Another abomination in the eyes of the ocean gods? The enemy of my enemy could be an ally. Or a trap.

‘Blessed one. I have made offence. I will not hold it back, your friend Laci is alive and exists as a memory construct. The one called Mike has a similar variant in a dead friend of his who was saved. Oannes instructed me to offer you a warning to avoid fighting if you are to challenge a demi-god called Jim do not fight him. Or you fight the one called Uxphin, injure only but do not try to kill.’

Making sure her bone tooth club was clearly visible and hanging from her arm Carissa walked to the woman and took a seat before she sent a fast internal group message to Matthias asking him the situation.

After receiving a response that he was satisfied and safe but he would return immediately she replied that he needed to rest when he could. As he had told her to do so regarding dungeons.

Carissa took a bite of the deep-fried tentacle which oddly tasted more like a sweet dessert than a savoury piece of protein and recognised a flagon on the table similar to the one she had seen inside the Driftwood Enclave during her meal there. Both Bonnie and Direk had been encouraged to drink from it but Carissa had refused.

‘Blessed one sounds like a title for a saviour. That’s not me. I’m simply trying to survive the insanity of this place and return back home. Let me guess, you want me to help you to kill the ocean gods? Also, you mentioned a gift. A weapon? A random artefact which I won’t use? I have a backpack with sufficient space to carry a large number of items which is bonded to me. Matthias is in my group. I’m not interested in gifts and interference in my life, in my business. There’s been enough of that already. What could you possibly offer to me? I don’t even know your name.’ said Carissa as she took a few more pieces from the various seafood dishes on the table.

One of them appeared to be a type of curled seaweed but tasted delicious and salty to her senses. She considered drinking from the flagon but opted to open her spatial backpack watching the woman for a reaction before she pulled out a plastic water sachet, ripped it open and poured it down her throat.

After reconsidering she took out another one and threw it on the table, indicating for the woman to drink from it. The woman didn’t respond but simply carried on eating until Carissa received a group message from Matthias.

He simply requested that he was finished with his rest period and wanted to leave this place as soon as possible. Carissa double checked his identity with another quick message before he responded and she agreed.

Time to press forwards.

When Carissa had eaten enough she turned her head and eyed both the bed and the smaller door leading to a bathroom.

‘Privacy would be nice. The suit takes care of most things but you know how it is, sometimes you need to allow things to work naturally. It is a bathroom isn’t it?’ said Carissa as she shoved her plate aside and the torn and finished water sachets and stood up pushing her chair under the table.

The woman simply nodded in response and laughed a little as she tugged her own robe down over her arm again where she had been cut by Matthias. She showed no signs of damage, pain or injury to the arm.

Her tattoos interested Carissa, the fact that they were entirely over her face were interesting, but the pattern was familiar in a way. There was something there at the back of her mind telling her that she had seen them before.

A part of her which had been limited by the Ocean Gateway System for having illegal implants and genetic upgrades meant that Carissa struggled a little to recall it.

‘You talk so much and then when we want to leave you say nothing. No gift and no name. Unless the gift is you giving us both a warning. Thanks for the food and rest, if you can leave me alone when we move outwards I’ll be great. Actually, one question. Do we need to touch the floating globe outside to activate our next task of fighting one of the demi-gods?’ said Carissa.

The woman put a finger to her lips and pointed to the bathroom door while inclining her head and also standing up before walking over to it entering. Then she shouted out and smashed the food off the table and grabbed the sheets of the bed pulling them to the marble floor of the room.

After sending a message to Matthias to come back to this room and not to touch the floating globe or approach it Carissa followed the woman to find a standard bathroom with shower, toilet and sink. All marble but shining bright green and blues from bioluminescent lighting, the woman in the robe closed the door behind both of them before she placed a hand on it and concentrated.

Electricity began to resonate from the tattoos on her face as her robe shifted and the lights inside the room dimmed.

‘Blessed one. My forgiveness but the Ocean Gods are watching, usually always watching, they know what you are and your strength with support with challenge them. But for me, I am more like a rare species. There are not many natives left and I have knowledge of hidden places where technology still functions. I would offer you my support as an ally. You have a few more friends than you think on this dead drowned world. More than a few, but most will be against you in their insane plan to reach the level of the so-called gods. We only have a short time so we need to leave here quickly. Please hit me, they saw that we fought and I humiliated your companion in front of you. You will not hurt me but the effect will be similar. Alternatively you can throw me out of the room and explain how I am not your type. We need a performance to distract them.’ said the woman as she watched Carissa carefully.

All Carissa had wanted was to use a toilet, have a quick shower and throw some water on her face. To clean herself up a little, run a comb stored in her spatial backpack in her hair and check her appearance.

She hadn’t asked for this situation, to be constantly thrown into events where something was either told at her or instructed her.

An itch came across the palm of a hand as the heat contained within activated in-built machinery deep within her body.

Perhaps burning those tattoos a little would be a good idea after all.

A message from the Ocean Gateway System interrupted Carissa’s thoughts.

[Player-Candidate Designates: Carissa Acqua, Matthias Fischer.

Group: Thassalaphobia

-Set Mission: Challenge a demi-god and survive initial trial.

-Trial Engaged by Player-Candidate Designate: Matthias

-Warning: Transfer to random Floating City Arena in progress...transfer in progress...

The Ocean Gods bless those with courage and skill to survive. Good luck young one. Ugly thing.]

A sensation waved over Carissa as her body began to shift in place and water flowed from the tap basin, the toilet and the shower. The rate of water increased in less than a second as the robed woman rushed forward and attempted to smash the wooden door to the bathroom open without success as splinters flew across.

‘Blessed, I will see you in the Floating City. I will meet you at the entrance gate. This I promise. You must remember, do not try to kill Jim. Do not try to hurt him! Pity him, pity poor lost Jim! And only injure the body of the other, you need to aim for wounds only!’ said the woman as the level of water had reached up to both of their chests.

Her next words were literally drowned out as Carissa quickly willed the grey suit to cover her face, nose and mouth enabling her to breath underwater as the marble walls around her disintegrated and broke apart covering her in a cloud of silt and dust.

Despite her view being entirely obscured she was certain of a strong arm with fingers grabbing around her own pulling her in an unknown direction before it became loose and eventually disappeared.

At least this time I’m not falling unconscious.

Carissa willed the suit to cover her entire eyes blocking the dust, broken flecks of marble and silt in the watery cloud around her as she clutched both hands to her chest trying to remember the sensation of pure heat which she had once entirely controlled.