The water’s sharp, freezing fingers were no longer tugging on her hair. Movement was harder, more painful as it yanked her hair, scrabbled at her clothing, and tried to pull her in as many different directions as possible. Ace still didn’t mind—this was better than facing Dan. On the other hand, the big gulp of air she’d taken earlier was bubbling out, which meant she needed to surface soon.
Kicking off her shoes would be the smart idea; it was hard to go up when weighted clothing dragged her down, but her feet twitched from phantom pain at the thought of hiking anywhere barefoot again, and there was no trust that the stream wouldn’t steal her gear from numb hands. She also didn’t want to remove any of her clothing, either, since that could at least be wrung out and dried for the future. Especially the +2 bonus to Opportunities vest MS5 had gifted her with. Which meant that the only option was to kick fucking hard and hope she was aiming in the right direction.
She positioned herself toward what was possibly up, then pushed down hard with her hands splayed open, feet churning the water below. Once. Twice. Nothing much changed. Ace was still underwater, with yet even more bubbles escaping her burning lungs. Then her hand hit a patch of no resistance. Air. She concentrated on lower body movement, using her other hand to tightly cover her mouth and nose. A pop, and then she was free to cough on the small rivulets of water snaking their way down her throat.
Air never felt so good! Well, apart from the burning, scratching sensation at the back of her throat, but the pleasure of being able to breathe again certainly outweighed the pain. Ace took another gulp, trying to calm herself and figure out what to do now. She needed a place to rest, to regain her wits, and... a smile grew on her face. The current was rounding a tiny bend in the cavern, slowing because of a rocky outcrop that was, at a good guess, as long as she was tall. The ceiling was shaped a bit like a W. Two sections jutted downwards, and in between the bottom two points was her little island, the edges trailing off into the water long before anyone could get a grip to rock climb. It wouldn’t be a good place to stay for long, since the middle section wasn’t even high enough to sit on, but it would be a blessing for now.
She waited for the water to bring her closer, then grabbed hold of a rock, using too much energy to pull her water-logged body out of the stream. This wasn’t the muddy area that had been with the mint plants. No, this ground was made with tiny sharp rocks, each one doing its best to rip her skin open.
“Fuck.” she said, laying on her stomach. With a grunt, she turned onto her back, making it easier to breathe since the pressure was off of her chest. There was just enough light, thanks to two cracks in the too-high ceiling, that she could see around the area. High walls. No holds to climb. And the only way out wherever the water was going. “This sucks.”
All her collected items, the food she’d hoarded, the water purifier systems she’d gotten going... everything she’d done during her testing period was back at Briny Breeze. And her staff! She’d had to leave it in the town, knowing that it was impossible to carry a staff while carrying a body. Even if Saul had done most of it.
“At least it’s in a safe place,” she reassured herself. She hadn’t known about the lake, and there was no way she would have been able to keep hold of the staff throughout her water adventure. She would figure out how to get it later on. For now, all she had was her vest-poncho from MS5, her backpack, and whatever bits and bobs she’d squirrelled away in her pockets.
“Great. I might as well be a level fucking one scrub again,” she grumbled, wiping water from her eyes. Tom was going to turn the community against her with his regained memories, if he hadn’t already. And that didn’t matter, because having Dan loose and flying around meant that this entire region had upped its PvE level for her. Or, now that they weren’t NPCs, did that make it PvPvP, testers versus testers vs. the non-NPCs?
“This disaster is giving me a headache.” She stretched her neck and groaned in relief at the echoing crack. “Ahh, I needed that.”
She scrunched up to conserve warmth and started pulling things out of the vest’s pockets. There was the flashlight she’d used earlier, the map she never went anywhere without, and an apple. After an inner debate over eating it now so she didn’t lose it in the water later, or eating it now and possibly throwing it up later if she also swallowed too much water, she crunched into the green fruit and examined the map.
The black tower was slightly to the top right, and she was smack dab in the middle of an unlabeled section called “CAVE.”
“Useful.” Another bite took the taste of lake water out of her mouth, and since it wasn’t telling her anything she didn’t know, she pulled her soaked backpack off, rolled up the map, and shoved it in there. As a bonus, whatever made the map do its magical flowing ink thing also made it impervious to fire, acid, and water. As long as she didn’t lose it, she didn’t have to worry about it.
“Fine. Map’s silent about what’s going on.” She finished her food and set the core aside. “While I have some time without a pissed-off dragon ready to set fire to my ass, let’s confirm a few things. VICA!”
Ace waited for the Virtual Intelligence Community Administrator to begin its hazing procedure.
“VICA, show xp!”
And waited. And waited. Nothing happened.
“Fine, that’s clearly offline.” She’d known that, and hadn’t really expected her command to work, but better to cover all the bases than to miss something obvious and easily fixable. There was still the heaviness on her head, and touching the inside of her mouth proved that her fangs were in place. “Still have my mutations, at least. I just can’t fucking check the details of them anymore.”
She tried to remember everything she had. There were three categories... there were three categories... she shook her head as her thoughts seemed to slip away.
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
“Physical at least included horns, venomous fangs, and bristles.” Ace eyes the tiny hairs on her hand. “Huh. I bet that’s how I felt the current, even though it wasn’t that strong at the beginning. You little fuckers came in handy, didn’t you?”
Now, what else did she have? Images of everything she’d joked about with MS5 came to mind.
“Prey scent.” She shivered even as she let out a slow hiss of displeasure. “That’s going to be annoying.”
Not as bad as the cold was turning out to be...
“Shit, the cold!” She started rubbing her hands and arms, trying to get the blood flowing back into her chilled body. “I’ve gotta keep moving.”
The chance of developing hypothermia from the water was high, and she wasn’t a scientist, but it was simple enough to connect that with frostbite. She moved her legs as much as she could, wincing a little as her right knee hit a rock.
“This isn’t working.” Which was no surprise; there was no warmth from the sunlight, she was in sopping wet clothes, and didn’t have any other source of heat nearby. For a brief second she envied Dan for his fire breath, but chuckled at the reality. “Give a person fire, they’ll be warm for the day. Set a person on fire, they’ll be warm for the rest of their life.”
Which she wanted to be much longer than it currently was. Stopping the ineffectual calisthenics, Ace rolled onto her stomach and looked around the area. “Not even sure what I’m searching for...” Or even if Opportunities was still working like her mutations were. Nothing jumped out, though, at any rate. No grand ideas or last minute “screw the system” thoughts. Fuck.
There was an unclimbable ceiling. A too-strong current to swim against. And wherever the stream wanted to take her next.
“Even if I wanted to go back, there’s no way to do it, which leads me to go off into the wet unknown,” she muttered, eyeing the dark waters with suspicion. There was no visibility, which meant she did not know what was down there. Her mind suddenly conjured up images from Forever Night. She’d turned down testing for that one, choosing Assassinating Allies instead, and from what MS5 had told her, it was better that medieval politics and violence had won over a cave diver simulation. One of the devs had scared the hell out of a tester who hadn’t been prepared to find a bloated, nibbled body “waving” at them from the bottom of the river they were exploring.
“That will not happen here,” she tried to tell herself. Immediately, her brain bombarded her with every watery death she’d seen in the past, from movies, video games, and news reports. Jinn rubbed her eyes hard enough to blur her vision. Then she sneezed.
“Come on. Sooner out, sooner you can figure out how to get out of this game...” a grin grew on her face as a thought occurred to her. “And murder LMFS again. That fucker’s responsible for this. If he hadn’t murdered me earlier in the cave, then MS5 and I would have been getting drunk and enjoying ourselves before all this shit happened.”
But the game still would have been corrupted. She took a deep breath.
“K52…9... Shit!” Jinn punched her thigh. She didn’t remember the rest of Kay’s private number, and it wasn’t like she could look at her stored information. Her eyes lit upon the core and she snatched it, hurling it into the water and cursing up a storm.
It bobbed from the middle of the stream until it almost hit the wall. Then it disappeared from sight. Her thoughts combed through all the likely explanations of where the apple had gone, and finally landed on the simple truth.
“... oh fuck me.” The words were so soft, they didn’t cause an echo. “The current’s going through an underwater hole.”
She had to return to the mint garden and the purple crystals section. Dan had probably retreated after not being able to find her, and Saul... Well, if Saul was still alive, he’d be kind to her. If he was dead or injured, that was the dragon’s fault, not hers. And his too, since he’d been an idiot when she’d told him not to trust something with sharp claws.
It took more effort than it should have, getting her backpack on and sliding off the rocks into the water. Part of it was her not wanting to lose what meager heat she’d gained, but it was obvious she couldn’t stay here. That would be a guaranteed death, either by being weak enough not to make it out or succumbing to hypothermia. Or hunger.
Somehow, the water was even colder the second time around. It crept up her calves, her thighs, her waist, her chest—as soon as she could Ace turned to swim against the current, but for every stroke she gained in distance, she lost two. It was too strong.
When it grabbed her again, she expected it and leaned back, floating so it would take her feet first. It was a good plan, and working, until an eddy spun her and turned her position head first. Ace felt her heartbeat quicken. Her breathing became shallow, more rushed. She was panicking, and that was going to be more dangerous than the current. Dying underwater, of being caught between stones and the current, never to be found again, and other stupid ways to die here engulfed her thoughts.
No. She knew better than to let this happen. Ace clenched a fist and grit her teeth. Damn it, she was stronger than this! She was smarter than this! And like fucking hell was she going to let a fucking video game permakill her!
Ace mermaid-kicked to the left, and the current was kind enough to drag on her legs. It turned her around just enough that when she hit where the apple had disappeared, her body was spread across the wall, rough feelings of water gushing past her waist to enter the hole. Carefully, she inched herself backwards. Better to go head first, right? And get air when she could?
She breathed deeply, then let the current take her. Almost immediately, her head exploded with pain, small black spots dancing in her vision, and she had to resurface, spitting out all the water she’d just involuntarily inhaled. What had... Her horns! All those worries came flooding back. The mouth of the tunnel wasn’t as long as her body, and now it wouldn’t even fit her fucking horns. Was it going to be wide enough after this section? Or would it only get more and more narrow before she jammed it like a cork?
Pressure was building around the suction. That type of pull must mean there would be more room. Ace almost wanted to hit the damn wall again. Her thoughts were going in circles. There was only fear now, and no matter how much she didn’t want this to be happening, no matter how much she wished she was facing down an enraged Dan instead of this, there was no other choice.
She screamed, pushed away from the wall, and leveled her head with the hole. This time there was a feeling of crumbling, and then the dark spots didn’t go away as quickly as last time. Ace shot forward. After a few meters, the current popped her up to the surface again, letting her breath. A brief glance through watery eyes showed that the danger wasn’t over yet. There were more rocks in the passageway here, and the current was threading her through them as well as an old man taking up sewing. The first few times she cursed, but then she bit her tongue at every collision. One smashed against her left shoulder and there was a blossoming of warmth there as the pain took hold. Another hit her right knee, but neither of those compared to the massive rock that hit her chest; if it wasn’t for the water rushing in her ears, she would have sworn something cracked.
Ace kept going forward, though, and injuries were easier to heal than death. That was her last thought as her horns hit something, and then she knew nothing at all.