Hera held her breath as much as she could as the water swirled around her. She couldn't tell how long it's been since the whirlpool brought her under. Trying to open her eyes resulted in her being unable to see anything aside from the sand that was pulled from the beach. Luckily, she wasn't getting hit by any rocks or something else that was being dragged by the current, but she still could not move her hands thanks to Blue's binding cloud, or whatever she called it. More time passed, and Hera could no longer hold her breath. Her body moved on its own, and she took a deep breath, getting ready to taste the water and start drowning. She tried calling Nimbus, hoping the Sentinel could do something to help her, but she couldn't focus for long enough to do so. To her surprise, when her mouth opened, and she took a deep breath she felt air coming inside her body. Somehow, the water would change to oxygen the moment it went inside her body.
Trying to look around again, Hera couldn't even see the dirt and sand around her anymore. Everything was too dark, which could only mean that she was either dragged into a tunnel or she was too deep to be able to see the surface again. One more time, she attempted to call her court, but she couldn't reach them. The cloud around her seemed to be interfering with her legacy somehow, and right now, she didn't have a way to break free. More time passed, but at least she wasn't worried about drowning at the moment. Using a floodlight spell, she illuminated some of the area, allowing her to see a few other bodies being dragged by the tide. Her hope was that those were her friends, not the monsters who should be arriving with the storm.
Suddenly, she was pulled to the side by an even stronger current. After being jostled by the most unnerving water slide of all time for another ten minutes, Hera was spat out on a cave. It felt like an accident since the actual passage still kept going, but because of the angle she was in, the Empress ended up falling through that hole in a cave that didn't have that much water inside. It took her a moment to get up since the impact hurt her shoulders. The first thing she did after that was try to remove the cloud around her. It was surprisingly easy to do so. Not to the point where someone would break it by accident, but it was much less effort than breaking free from actual ropes. With the cloud out of the way, Hera called her entire court out.
"Hera!" Daskka wrapped herself around the explorer, rubbing her head against Hera's.
"Empress!" Nimbus took one look at her to be sure she was ok and spun around, pulling his tonfas and getting ready for any incoming attacks.
The rest of her court made a ring around Hera and did the same thing, getting ready for any threats. The Sentinel triggered his Frozen Ash aura and spread it to the other blades. Just like Hera, he could also trigger spells that affected the court, but, just like Hera, doing that took a toll on his mana. Until recently, he couldn't keep that aura up for long. However, things changed when Hera got the title. His mana pool also increased a lot. To help everyone, Hera made a few dancing lights spread around this cave. Just as she was doing so, Alex came crashing down through the same hole. As the assassin groaned on the ground and started to get up, the Empress could tell that the water outside seemed to be moving too fast for it to get inside this place. Or there was a barrier of some sort stopping it from crossing the threshold.
"Are you ok?" Hera turned to Alex with both Fang and Claw still in her hands. She wasn't sure this was a safe place, and the assassin didn't look injured, just dizzy.
"I'm o…" before Alex could finish her sentence, Helena came crashing through the hole and slammed on top of her.
"Shit!" the mage gasped as she landed ass-first on the ground with her legs kicking Alex's head, "Where are we?"
"Don't know. Do you need help getting out of that cloud?"
Helena groaned along with Alex, but she got up and got closer to Hera, "I would appreciate it."
Nimbus stepped forward, but Hera grabbed his shoulder to stop him. For some reason, this spell could block her connection with her legacy. It didn't seem to work when the court was already out since when Blue cast it, nothing changed, but she wasn't willing to take the risk right now. The Sentinel didn't say anything, but he could somewhat understand her worry and let the Empress do her thing.
Alex rolled away from the apparent landing zone while Helena was being set free, and one by one, the rest of the party started to arrive. First Blue, then Shane, Adriel, and lastly, Mylo. Everyone seemed to be mostly ok, aside from some bruises caused by the landing, not to mention that everyone was feeling dizzy and disoriented. On the other side of the cave, they could also see a passage that led to nowhere, just a flat wall. Before anyone could say anything, Alex walked over and started touching the surrounding stone in an odd and very specific pattern. At times, she would ask someone else to touch another spot at the same time as her, or she would stretch to hit one rock with her feet and another with her finger and stay like that for a few moments. After about five minutes, she jumped to a corner of the cave, and a pressure plate seemed to shift. A loud rumbling followed as the stone in the back shifted and opened, revealing more of the corridor and, illuminated by glowing moss, a doorway.
"Ok, guys. Don't touch the moss. It should be toxic, but that is the doorway to the 12th layer," Alex turned around, but as the rest of the party saw her face, they all froze, "What is wrong?"
"Your… your eyes… Why are they black?" Adriel asked.
Hera, Blue, and Helena already had an idea why. Alex used the curse to find all this out, and because of that, the curse grew stronger. The three looked away quickly, worried that if they stared into her eyes for too long, they might get infected by it too.
"They are black?" Alex blinked, but her eyes were still black, and as her eyelids closed, the inky black darkness that covered everything, from pupil to sclera, remained in plain sight. As if a light shone through a thin layer of fabric, "Ok, we don't have time to worry about that now. We need to move. If we stay here for too long, the mold could poison us. Bonnie, could you… wait. Where is Bonnie?"
Everyone looked around, but the researcher was nowhere to be seen. They rushed back to the hole where they had arrived, but nothing was there. Shane used gauntlet relic to scan the area where the water was still moving, and Hera threw a sensory net inside, trying to expand it as much as possible. No one had to say anything before starting, not just because they were worried, but because everyone understood what this should mean. It's been a while since they got here, and if she wasn't around, it was highly likely that she missed the hole and was dragged deeper into wherever they were.
"No… No… No, no, no, no, no. You told me everyone would be ok! You said that!" Alex yelled, but she was looking at a wall, not at anyone in particular, "Don't give me that crap. You said that the one who would be hurt was me. Not anyone else!... She didn't! I asked her not to, so she didn't! Blue!" Alex rushed towards the controller, "Can you tell if Bonnie is still bound by your cloud?"
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
"Hang on, and step back. I don't want to get whatever bit you," Blue pushed her away without looking at Alex directly and focused for a moment, "No, she isn't. It looks like she was the first to break free. Much sooner than anyone else."
"NO!" Alex punched the wall, "You said she would be safe. You said we would all be safe," she started to sob, and by all accounts, she should be crying right now, but no tears were forming around her eyes.
While that was going on, Hera pumped as much mana as she could inside her bracelet and summoned about a dozen snakes. She sent them all out, towards the hole in the wall and the current, telling them to find Bonnie. The snakes obeyed and started to move while Hera focused on their location. They spread out a bit, going in four different directions but after a few moments, three of those groups passed by the entrance once again. The last three snakes seemed to be getting closer, but it was hard to tell if they would also find their way back to this place. Suddenly, one of those three gave Hera a ping. She swapped her senses and managed to see Bonnie flailing around in the water, with one arm and one leg bent unnaturally.
"Grab her and pull her to the tunnel. The rest of you try to help them!" Hera said out loud in a rush to command the snakes.
"Did you find her?" Alex asked, but Hera was focused on the task at hand.
"Nimbus, I'm going to ask you something horrible," Hera said.
"You are saving a friend. There is nothing I wouldn't do to help," the Sentinel replied.
Hera gave a soft smile and pointed to the hole with a heavy heart, "Go in there. Stay with your lower half in here and the upper half in the water. When you see Bonnie, help her get inside."
"I'll hold your legs," Mylo said, getting closer to Nimbus.
"I'll help," Blue rushed over.
"Is she ok?" Adriel asked.
"Doesn't seem like it. Can your drones work as a gurney? I don't think she can walk to the doorway," Hera asked.
"They can. I'll set them up."
Nimbus jumped inside the water and held on. Hera could feel how much that hurt. It was like the Sentinel was being ripped apart by the strong current. While Blue and Mylo held his feet down with all their might. In a way, it looked like an old punishment where someone was killed by having their limbs attached to different horses before telling them all to run in opposite directions. Yet, he endured. The snakes approached fast, and a couple of the ones that were dragged to different tunnels managed to connect with Bonnie. By wrapping themselves around the controller, they were able to change her course, even if it was painful for her since the snakes were grabbing her broken limbs. After a few tense moments of struggle, with Helena joining, using a spell that took away one's sense of pain so Nimbus could focus on the task at hand, Bonnie was grabbed by the Sentinel, who jumped back into the cave. His form only lasted long enough to place her body on top of the drones that Adriel set up before he couldn't hold anymore. Hera could see that a large part of his lower back was gone, and he was hemorrhaging mana.
"I… need a break," he managed to say before vanishing back to Hera's legacy.
Hera couldn't even reply as she was already on top of Bonnie, trying to heal her. The researcher was alive and awake but covered in cuts and bruises. Daskka also turned into her healing mist form and started working. Even Shane used her legacy to enchant her body to heal at a fast rate. Hera also did her best to make a couple of splints for Bonnie's left arm and leg. The problem was that she had no way of telling if the bone was in the right place or not. Alex stepped in to help, using the same thing she used to find this place to confirm the location of each bone and how it had to be set up so she would heal as quickly as possible.
When that was over, Hera took a deep breath, but she started to feel a bit dizzy, "What is going on? Do we have problems with the air here?"
"No… Crap, the mold. We need to move to the doorway. Bonnie, please tell me you can, at least, accept the notification," Alex asked.
Bonnie nodded weakly, and they all rushed to the newly discovered doorway. Hera didn't even take the time to look at the symbol on top of it and just touched it as soon as she could.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Would you like to be transported to
The Abyssal Deep - 12th Layer
[Yes] [No]
Or press the button below for your private room:
[Enter your Private Room]
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Hera looked back and waited for Bonnie and Adriel to pass through before pressing the button to transfer to this new room. Since it was on the 12th layer, the monsters should be anywhere from level 5 to 36, which shouldn't be that bad.
She felt that familiar feeling of being dipped into warm water, but it was quickly replaced by a cold wind and raindrops that almost felt like small ice cubes hitting her skin. Currently, there was a storm in the Abyssal Deep, and they were out in the open. Everyone came out of the doorway, with Alex being the last one to pass through. Bonnie was still in bad shape while being carried by Adriel's drones. His relic allowed him to keep the drones out and let him cross with them without any issue to him or to those who were being carried by them.
"Guys! I think I can see some houses over there!" Shane called. They were on a small island that was completely devoid of any protection. It was just a large circular piece of land made out of stone with the doorway in the middle. The explorer was pointing to a place beyond the water, where some structures could be seen, and there was even some light over there.
"How are we going to cross this?" Blue asked. She wasn't going to try to cancel out the storm again, and flying under these conditions was a no-go. Not to mention that they had to carry Bonnie through the water, which could prove to be a problem.
"Hang on," Shane grabbed her handheld grenade launcher and quickly made a projectile with a light blue glow. She then shot it into the water, and a large part of the water turned into ice. Following that, she touched the frozen water, and the surface changed. Instead of a smooth area, everything now looked like blades of grass. Stepping forward, she walked on top of this makeshift iceberg until reaching the middle of it, "Come. This will work as a boat for a little while. And I can make us move too. Helena, can you use your shadow tendrils to keep Bonnie secure while we do this?"
Helena nodded, "If anyone else wants a better footing, I can hold you. Since I won't be carrying anyone, doing that with this many people is not much of a problem."
With care, they brought Bonnie over. She was still struggling to stay awake, and Daskka was still continuously using her healing mist. When everyone was on top of this ice slab, Shane enchanted the water around them to push the 'raft' to the houses in the distance. The rain wasn't letting up, but compared with the hurricane they faced in the Seven Islands, this felt like nothing. Soon, they arrived close to the structures, which were actually several rafts connected to each other. The lights were small rocks that emanated light. The small houses were, in fact, the cabins of the boats. Hera looked back toward the island they just came from, but she couldn't see it anywhere. Looking to the sides, she could only see water and rain. There wasn't a single large structure, a landmark, or anything, and looking at where the horizon should be was like staring into nothingness.
"Where the hell are we?" the Empress gasped before going inside one of the cabins with the rest of the group.