Dust doesn't settle the same way underwater as it does in air. Though it was slowly growing easier to see through the cloudy water, much of the dust stubbornly lingered above the floor and moving too quickly through the water would cause dust that had settled to swirl back up and just make things worse. Amidst the dust clouds were the occasional sparkle of pink or blue confetti that went unnoticed by the adventurers as they assembled between the throne and the impaled corpse of the lobster shark.
"Status report," Victoria ordered, floating just above the floor in spectral form.
Autumn, once again clad in stone armor to weigh herself down against the floor, held out a flat hand and waved it slightly in either direction. Titus stood next to her, clutching his neck as he titled his head to stretch. Much of his armor was dented and misshapen, and the beginnings of bruises were visible on the back of his neck. None of that stopped him from raising up a weak thumb in response, however. Cameron and Eli both nodded that they were fine, and Iris soon emerged from a hallway with a very frazzled looking Milo, giving a thumbs up that they were both okay.
"Good, at least that's everyone that matters," Victoria said, "has anyone seen--"
Her brow furrowed at the conspicuously drifting pieces of confetti. At first she was confused by their presence, then by the way they were all slowly but surely converging on the same location. She blinked and activated her auravision, noticing the faint but distinctive aura that each piece shared. The adventurers watched as the confetti pieces began to meet and swirl around each other until they formed a vortex of sparkling particles that soon formed into the silhouette of a person. Seconds later, the silhouette solidified into Jacquie. He immediately began to talk, but water quickly rushed to fill his mouth instead.
Instinctively attempting to hack and cough, he grabbed the medallion hanging around his neck and activated it. A bubble expanded and covered his head as it had before, and he coughed out the water before immediately continuing his words, "-- that's why I think we all did a wonderful job. Great work, team."
Victoria glared at him for a moment, but decided not to respond. Instead she pulled out the pocket watch to check the time, "we've already been in here for over twenty minutes, there's no time to dwell. Did you find anything in the dungeon?"
Autumn shook her head.
"Then the rest of you should stay here while I scout the towers, they’re the next logical place to look."
Autumn waved her hands to stop Victoria, then pointed towards the throne. Next, she placed her hands together next to ear and tilted her head.
"You... want to take a nap on the throne?" Victoria asked.
Autumn shook her head in frustration, then repeated the motion.
"I think she means the king's chambers," Jacquie offered.
"I don't need your help," she snapped at him.
"Apparently you do,..." he trailed off.
Victoria ignored him, "that makes sense, Autumn. This whole castle seems abandoned, but if there's one place the Fish Wizard probably uses I'm betting it's the king's quarters, maybe he has Gerald chained up in there."
"Can you chain up a fish?" Jacquie asked, curiously.
"Would you shut the fuck up?" Victoria shouted, "fuck, I wish someone else could talk instead."
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The others looked on with various expressions ranging from awkwardness to empathy.
"Alright, you guys stay here, I'll go scout for the king's quarters."
"Actually, I think I can handle this one," Jacquie said.
"I'm gonna--" Victoria wheeled on him.
"I've seen the inside of many castles," Jacquie continued quickly to catch her intrigue before she started hurting him, "this one's a bit fairy tale-esque, like a peasant child's idea of a castle, but a few things are the way they should be. I'd guess the king's chambers are somewhere on the third floor, away from any other chambers and likely sharing a wall with the great hall for eavesdropping."
"Eavesdropping?" Victoria asked.
"Kings like to think they hear every conversation that happens in their castles, though in truth that usually only really extends to the great hall-- that's this room, if you couldn't tell -- the sound is carried up by the shape of the walls and the ceiling, towards a small hole in the wall of the king's chambers where he can listen to what his lords and servants have to say in his absence."
"For a low level thief, you know an awful lot about kings and castles," Victoria narrowed her eyes as she launched the accusation.
"For a ghost you know a lot about being a bitc--"
Victoria flashed towards Jacquie and shifted into her human form with hands outstretched for his neck. Titus and Autumn intercepted her as swiftly as possible underwater, holding her back as she reached for the thief. She shifted back into spectral form to pass through them and close in on her target
"Okay, okay! I'm sorry!" Jacquie leaned away and shielded his face with his arms.
"Shut up and take us to the king's chambers," she snarled, stopping inches from his face.
"Fine, okay," he straightened up and dusted off his clothes, a pointless gesture in the water, "I wouldn't have said anything if I'd known you'd overreact like that."
Victoria started towards him again, but Eli held out his staff in front of her. She could, of course, pass straight through the staff, but she stopped anyway and met his gaze. They'd known each other long enough to not need words for her to understand what he was trying to tell her. She was letting this man get under her skin, and he was doing it on purpose. She knew that, but that didn't mean it wasn't working, and Eli was cautioning her to tighten up and get her shit together. She nodded silently, and he nodded back.
Eli swam up to Jacquie and motioned for him to lead the way, intentionally placing himself between Victoria and the thief. They bypassed the stairways and second floor entirely, instead swimming up towards the top of the large room and onto the third floor mezzanine. From there, they swam to the back wall, behind the throne, where a nondescript but sturdy door led them into a narrow hallway that abruptly turned left. They followed the hallway to another sturdy door, this one iron. Victoria drifted through the door and unlocked it from the other side, letting in the rest of the crew.
To everyone's surprise, the room wasn't full of water, and when the door opened, it didn't flood. Instead the wall stayed suspended in place as if held back by an invisible barrier, and one by one they stepped out of the water into their first breaths of air in almost half an hour. Each one of them instinctively gasped for air, repeatedly filling their lungs with as much as they could get. Magic gills or not, their bodies merely understood that they couldn't use their lungs before, and now they could.
"Fucking finally," Autumn gasped, "I never want to go that long without talking again."
"That was the most frustrating half hour of my life," Cameron sighed.
"Focus on the mission," Eli ordered.
The interior of the room was nothing short of lavish. Shaggy red carpet covered the floor and elaborate, ornate molding trimmed the walls. A massive bed with crimson sheets and an abundance of pillows took up a large portion of the room, and above it hung an expertly painted portrait of the Fish Wizard wearing a shining golden crown. The far wall of the room had large curtains drawn closed with shimmering light spilling around the edges.
"Well, this is definitely his bedroom," Autumn said as she looked up at the portrait.
Jacquie immediately opened the doors to a wardrobe and began searching through the contents while Victoria watched him like a hawk. Iris found a small hole in the wall, which -- when she stood on her toes -- she could peek through. It angled down through the bricks, providing a pinhole view of the throne room below. Eli crossed the room to the curtains and pulled a string to draw them open. Light filled the room as a huge glass wall was revealed. Behind it was a large fish tank filled with rocks, glowing coral, and a scale model of the castle in which they stood. Eli stared into the fish tank, and staring back him was a huge golden fish.