I was ready to swim, but nothing could prepare me for the sheer power of the whirlpool. There was no control. My ears and nostrils sealed against the pressure as the fist of God caught my body and dragged us down in a tight, crushing spiral.
Explosions boomed distantly overhead, lighting the dark water in flashes. Angel and Lulu clung to me as we spiraled toward a black cave entry at the bottom of the lakebed. I angled toward it, streamlining myself so that I didn't catch a leg against the jagged edge as we were sucked into an underwater cavern.
It was warm down here - surprisingly warm. Freshwater corals grew along the walls, along with colonies of luminescent bacteria that resembled the ones in our under-tree home. The source of the whirlpool was a howling crack in the cavern floor. I saw it coming - and saw the way that the suction could rip my body to pieces if we got caught in it. Snarling a froth of bubbles into the water, I used all my limbs to swim forward, away from the funnel as it narrowed. It grew faster and faster... but then narrowed enough that I was able to burst free from the vortex. My lungs burned as I swam forward - until Lulu suddenly wrapped around my jaws and shoved a pseudopod into my mouth. She took my breath as I breathed out, then fed clean, fresh air into my lungs.
"Thanks," I thought to her. "Keep an eye on Angel."
Angel was bent over my back as I swam down into the dimly lit depths of whatever the fuck tunnel this was. It was wide, rounded with age. A lava tube, I realized, as we descended to the south – toward the coast, and another part of the Malhela Volcano that lay underwater. The water grew warmer as we went down - from tepid to the temperature of good bathwater. Ahead of us, dim shapes stirred - disgusting jellyfish-crab hybrids with transparent bodies and all their organs on display, their clawed legs trailing underneath them as they drifted to and fro.
"Don't worry. We can avoid them." I thought to Angel, powering toward them. "What's that ahead?"
Beyond the jellies was the dim outline of what looked like an ancient gate. It looked to be made of bronze, or some other metal. It was wedged in tight inside of a cave mouth, blocking it.
"Don't know. Hurry." Angel signed beside my head, and held out her nearly-empty air bladder.
The jellies lit up with arcs of electricity as we drew closer, causing the water to snap and tingle against my skin. One of them veered toward us, and ended up speared along a tentacle. It let out one final burst and a cloud of ink as I pulled on past it, letting it sag and drift away into the water. At the gate, I pulled up and floated, trying to figure out what the fuck we were supposed to do.
"There!" Angel pointed at a dim, half-concealed recess in the wall, at a half-hidden level. It looked too big for human hands. "There's one above and one to the other side. Let's pull them together."
"Got it."
Lulu detached, and we each swam to a lever. I took the largest; Angel had one that was sized for humans, and Lulu had to pull one that was in between. Angel and I signed at one another, then the three of us pulled. There was a dull 'thump' as something in the gate shifted, and then began to pull up into the ceiling.
"This makes sure anyone coming down here has a brute-and-cute pair," Angel signed, as she rejoined me. "Need to hurry. Only got one breath left."
"Save it as long as you can. I am." I hung in place so she could remount, then jetted off through the door.
The gate slammed down behind us as we began to rise. The rough cave walls gave way to tile as we entered a round, smooth tunnel, almost like a giant pipe... a pipe that terminated in a large, hot, steam-filled chamber. Me and Angel both gasped as I broke the surface and slogged a few steps up the ramp leading out of the pool. I didn't try and pull myself up for a minute: just gulped for air, and let my rider catch her breath.
"Are you sure Karkinos is the fire boss?" I asked once the spots at the edge of my vision had cleared, hauling myself over the edge and onto solid ground. "Because that was a fuckload of swimming for a fire boss, just sayin'."
"Technically, he’s the Fire-in-Earth boss. Whatever that means. This game has a whole lot of weird alchemical symbolism I don’t get." Angel's expression wasn't one of overwhelming confidence as she slipped to the ground, looking around the chamber. There wasn't much here. Stone pipes jutted from the walls, gurgling with unseen water. Across from us was another, much fancier gate-slash-door compared to the one we'd just used. It looked to be made of a gold-green metal, heavily engraved and embossed with the stylized image of... a crab. It was rendered like an ancient Aztec god, and wasn't the round, cute kind of crab: it was more lobstery, with long claws and arms that looked to be covered in spines or hairs. At the center of its thorax, balanced between the claws, was a flame.
"Probably some weird ‘journey through the elements, get stronger, become a god’ shit that’s supposed to make us all feel better about being paypigs for the Mob" The metal door radiated heat, and as I got closer, I found myself feeling light-headed. My chest throbbed when I reached out to touch the surface - and then a flash of green light left me and splashed across the door, causing it to glow softly. "Uhh..."
We all jumped as a deep, reverberating tone echoed through the room, like one note of a monastic chant. The door crunched, shifting back, then split apart in a wash of scalding, rotten-egg scented steam.
[You have discovered: The Demise of Karkinos.]
"That FUCKING music." I growled, skin crawling with heat and humidity.
"Never bodes well when a place has its own theme song," Angel signed, just before she refilled her air bladder from the air of the room.
"Hah. That's what I said about Vanara's place, the City of the Apes." I waited for her to catch up before I stepped through the veil of mist. Figured the doors would snap closed once we were in… and sure enough, they did. They closed with a crunch and a boom behind us as soon as the end of my tail cleared the frame.
As the cooler air from the antechamber dissipated, the mist cleared and revealed the start of the dungeon: a multi-level sprawl of boiling mud springs. Hot water gathered and dripped off every surface. Vents belched yellowish gas into the steaming air. The pools, ringed by round crusts of minerals, burped sulphur into the air every time a bubble rose and burst. All along the walls were thick rectangular pillars set into alcoves overlooking the pools. They were carved into the likeness of the weird, hairy crab embossed on the entry door.
"Well here we are on Pismo Beach, with all the clams we can eat!" I chirped cheerfully. "This is just… lovely. Now what?"
"I’m trying to think, but I'm having trouble breathing." Angel was already the color of... well. A boiled crab. Her face was scarlet from the ambient heat, her lank white hair plastered to her face from the humidity. "Whatever these vents are producing, it's draining my HP."
"Well, shit." A renewed sense of urgency gripped my chest. I bounded over to the edge of the nearest mud pool, and experimentally dipped my toes in. Searing pain shot up my foot. I yelped and backpedaled. "Nope, nope, can't wade through the mud."
"If you use Inferno Ball, we could probably knock some of those stalactites down..." Angel trailed off, fingers poised as she looked around. "Oh, wait. Can you pull the statues over?"
I followed her line of sight. There was a statue to the right of me, looming crabbily over the poop pool that had just burned my foot. It looked heavy, but it had a narrow base.
"That’s a maybe." I wasn't sure of my own strength relative to twenty tons of rock, but Lulu and I definitely had the tools to try. "C'mon, Lulu. You push, I'll pull."
You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.
"Ooo!" Lulu slithered up my body, forming into a ball on my back, then hopped down to the ground. She bounced over with a series of small wet splats, coiling around the base of the statue curiously before bunching up behind it.
"Wonder why no one has thought of this before. Maybe the statues reset." I studied it myself, nostril-vents flaring, then wrapped my tentacles around it and gave an experimental tug. Lulu pushed a bit, and it wobbled like a bowling pin.
"As far as I know, the boss arenas reset every time they're vacated," Angel signed from behind us. She was standing well out of the way, her air bladder held to her face.
"Trippy." I rumbled aloud. "Alright, Lulu... one, two, three, push!"
Just like the trees, I wrapped the punch puds and pulled forward. At first, the dense volcanic stone refused to yield - but then Lulu had the bright idea to crawl up the wall behind the statue and push from the top. Even though she wasn't nearly as strong as me, the two of us working together got the statue to rock, then tip forward.
"Geronimoooo!" I leaped out of the way, ducking down as the shadow of the monolith fell over the pool. Angel ran, just before the statue hit the ground with thunderous sound that shook the entire room. Boiling mud flew everywhere. But once the statue settled, it formed a nice, sturdy platform.
"This is the way to do it." I surveyed the results with satisfaction. "Alright... Lulu, me and you are gonna pull these down. Then we pick up Angel and carry her across."
"Hooruu!" Lulu gave a little fist-pump with a pseudopod, then jumped from the wall to land on the fallen statue with a heavy 'splat'.
There were five in total. By the time we pulled the last one down, Angel was in rough shape. She sipped air from the sack the whole time, pacing herself, but it was clear the intense heat was getting to her as she clambered weakly onto my back. Lulu crooned with concern, holding her to my body as I lightly jumped from plinth to plinth.
"Don't worry, sweetcheeks. Nearly out." At the end of the short corridor on the other side of the mud pools and vents was another gate, identical to the first. And like the first, it reacted with HRIDAYA, drawing a green light from my body that triggered the door to open. As the mechanisms rumbled and the door split and pulled away, refreshingly cool, clean air flowed in. I hustled through, and in the cloud of mist, nearly put my foot over the edge of a narrow stone walkway.
The door slammed behind us, leaving us inside of a massive cylindrical chamber. It was at least a hundred feet deep. The fence-less stone platform ahead had a ramp that went clockwise down the inside of this... tower? Cistern? that formed the core of the dungeon. It was pretty, all tiled in translucent blue and green mermaid scale tiles. When I looked down, it was into darkness. The tiles receded into shadow. At the very bottom, way too far down for comfort, faint red and orange light seethed. Lava.
"Huh. What is this, some kinda subway?" I lifted my head and looked across. On the other side of the cistern, completely isolated from us on its own narrow platform, was an elaborate door set with huge rubies. Like the others, it bore the likeness of Karkinos. It was fancy enough that I figured that was the entry to the boss arena.
"There's no way you can jump that far, right?" Angel asked.
"No. No way." I searched the walls for claw holds or any means of getting over the yawning abyss to the door, but there was nothing. Nada. Experimentally, I turned and pawed at the tiles behind us. They were slippery with condensation. "No grip on these walls. It's a puzzle. We have to figure out a way across."
Angel exhaled thinly through her nose, then sat back. I left her to drink water and think, and padded down the spiral walkway. About twenty feet down, I found a door with a switch.
"I… I think I know what we have to do." Angel stared into the massive cylinder to our right, leaning out so I could see her hands and face out the corner of my eye. "I can see outlines of portals on the walls. Call it a hunch, but I think those open and let water out into this chamber. If we fill the chamber with water, we can swim across."
"A water puzzle. This is the weirdest fire-elemental boss dungeon I've ever seen." I loped over to the gate, sniffing at the keyhole in the center of it. "This smells like poison, just so you know."
"Faaaantastic." Angel made a face. "Let's keep going down, and see what we find."
She got back on, sitting side-saddle with her rifle in both hands. Even going slow, I had to be careful not to tip over the edge of the narrow spiral ramp. Whoever had built this place did not have safety in mind. In fact, I was pretty sure it was intended to be the opposite of safe. Not to mention… the further down we went, the hotter it got. Yup, that sure was lava rumbling at the bottom of this hellish tube. But before we started baking in our skins like potatoes, we found another door. This one was unlocked.
Lifting the gate released a cloud of warm, foul-smelling air. I padded in ahead of Angel and Lulu, low to the ground, sniffing intently. "I smell dead humans and legions in here. Lots of them."
"Ooohh..." Lulu let out a tremulous, frightened sound, shivering as she rolled forward.
"Don't worry. It smells old... old and, uh, acidic." The room beyond resembled an old, clean sewer tunnel. Straight ahead was a rusted railing separating the upper platform from what looked like a dry canal. There were sluice gates at either end of the canal, gates that controlled the flow of water. Water which was currently absent anywhere in the room, by sight OR smell. There were a lot of pipes, though, some of them so large that I could have easily walked through them with Angel riding on my back. On a small ledge that jutted over the canal, there was a large, red metal wheel.
Angel slung her rifle over one shoulder so she could sign. "I'm guessing we have to get water into that canal. Can you turn that wheel with a tentacle? I don't think I’m strong enough."
"Mechanism Turner Noodles to the rescue." I followed her suggestion instead of trying to do it with my clawed feet, coiling the narrow end of two tentacles around the wheel and twisting. With some effort, it budged, then turned with a dry, rusty shriek. Angel, unable to hear the screeching as I twisted it around, watched the sluice gates expectantly. But they didn't budge. There was no rushing or gurgle of water through the pipes, either.
"Nothing's happening. So that means there must be pumps that feed water into those pipes. We'll have to find them and turn them on first." Angel paused to rub her chin, frowning. "I can feel you turning the actuator through the floor, but the valve isn't engaging... so it doesn't open the gates directly. There's a hydraulic system."
"Or it's just broke as fuck." I left the wheel and jumped neatly over the railing to land in the dry canal. I nosed over to inspect one of the gates. It looked almost rusted in, and no amount of pushing, pulling, tugging or pleading managed to get it to move. But as I turned, I spotted something on the ground. Parts of an old human corpse - nothing more than a ribcage and some stringy vertebrae. But inside of the ribcage was a dull bronze key on a chain, pitted and streaked with green.
"Well, this room's got one use, at least. Pretty sure I just found the key for the door we passed upstairs." I put a paw down on the ribcage, crushing it, and hooked the key on the end of one tentacle.
[You have found Demise Cistern Key.]
Before I left, I looked up, just in case there was anything lurking overhead. The acidic smell was stronger down here, but all I could see was a dark maze of pipes. With half an eye on the deeply suspicious lurking gloom, I slunk back over to where Angel waited at the railing and lifted the key up to her.
"Brilliant." She took it and hung it around her neck. "Let's go back up and find those pumps."
As we backtracked, I had the feeling that this place wasn't so much designed to be hard as it was to wear out a Gladiator and their Legions. Everything from the heat, to the steep spiral ramp, to the attempted poisoning of Angel as she unlocked the first door seemed purpose-made to tire us out and piss me off. The game didn't want us to be too fresh when we went in to fight Karkinos.
"Hey, coach: any hints you can give us about this place?" For the first time in a while, I reached out to Chorus. "Given how many views and patrons and shit we have now, seems like you could throw us a bone."
[The terms and conditions of Survival of the Fittest are not within my powers to change, darling. However. Perhaps I can give you some information.]
Chorus paused for a moment, as if gathering its thoughts. Given it could compute information about a million times faster than I could, I was pretty sure it was just for effect.
[Despite the water theme, Karkinos is the Daeva of Fire-in-Earth. His demesne gives hints as to what his strengths and weaknesses are. Take heed of your environment.] [There are three minibosses to contend with. You must defeat all of them to advance.]
"Got it." By the slightly uneasy tone in the AI's synthesized voice, I could tell he was pushing the limits of his programming. It was all we were going to get out of him. "Thanks."
[My pleasure. Oh, and darling, I strongly suggest you reply to your private messages. It increases viewer engagement and results in greater patron retention by a factor of 64.7%.]
"If I want someone to count my beans, I'll go find a proper bean counter," I retorted - freezing in place as a scuttling sound crawled to my ears.
Chorus withdrew without so much as another word. The dingy, fungal-smelling corridor fell silent, and I heard it again: the sound of hard-clawed feet scrabbling across tile.
"What? Hear something?" Angel's pale fingers flashed by the side of my head.
"Yeah. Behind a door, by the sound of it." Nostrils flaring, I oriented on the noise. It was coming from around the bend of this corridor, but sounded slightly muffled. "When we pull around the corner here, there's a room to our left."
"Ooh!" Lulu bounced forward past me with a determined little hup, and landed on a patch of floor that clicked under her weight. She paused for a second - then squeaked in alarm as an interlacing grid of spears shot out from hidden holes in the tunnel and pierced her from every angle.