Suddenly, I was engulfed in a tempest of crushing waves and howling winds. The roar of the ocean filled my ears, a deafening cacophony that drowned out all thought. The sky above was a swirling mass of dark, menacing clouds, lit occasionally by jagged streaks of lightning that painted the scene in stark flashes. Heavy rain began to fall, each drop like a needle against my skin, and the ocean roared in response, its ebony waters churning violently as if trying to swallow me whole. Cold seawater slapped against my face, the salty tang filling my mouth and stinging my eyes.
I flailed, my arms and legs thrashing as the waves crashed over me, pulling me under. I tried to scream, but my voice was lost beneath the roar of the storm. Water flooded my throat, filling my lungs with each desperate gasp. Panic surged through me, a cold, clawing fear that gripped my chest and made every breath feel impossible. My arms ached, my legs felt heavy and useless. I couldn't keep my head above the surface—every time I managed to push up, another wave struck me down, dragging me deeper.
I wasn't going to make it. I was going to die.
The waves battered me relentlessly, and I couldn't tell which way was up anymore. My vision blurred with saltwater and rain, lightning flashing overhead in bursts of white light. The sky was a writhing mass of clouds, the storm pouring its fury into the sea below. My heart pounded wildly in my chest, each beat reverberating in my ears like thunder.
I inhaled sharply, but instead of air, more seawater flooded in. My body convulsed, coughing and sputtering, but the water was relentless. I was sinking.
In the chaos, I reached out, searching for anything—something to hold on to, some way to survive—but there was nothing. The ocean stretched endlessly around me, a vast, merciless expanse of black water and unrelenting waves. My limbs felt like lead, and the cold was seeping into my bones. There was no escape, no way out.
That was it.
Just as I was about to give in to the exhaustion, a voice cut through the storm, faint but clear.
"To survive at sea, become one with it."
My father's voice. His words echoed in my mind, but I couldn't grasp their meaning. I was too panicked, too desperate to breathe, to fight the water. Another wave slammed into me, driving me deeper beneath the surface. My chest burned, every muscle in my body screaming for oxygen. The cold water enveloped me, pulling me further down into its depths.
"Struggle not against the waves, but against despair. Fear most the magic of the depths, for it can consume you."
His words fought through the haze of fear clouding my mind. The magic of the depths—the same magic that felt like it was dragging me down, consuming me, pulling me under. But his advice—become one with the sea—lingered. Was it possible? Could I survive by letting go, by trusting in the very thing trying to kill me?
"Let yourself float; trust the ocean to carry you, and you will survive."
I didn't want to trust the ocean. I wanted to fight it, to claw my way to safety, to get back to air. But what I was doing wasn't working. I was sinking. I was losing.
With what little strength I had left, I forced myself to stop struggling. I closed my eyes and allowed the water to carry me. My arms stilled at my sides, and I let my body go limp, despite every instinct screaming at me to fight.
At first, nothing happened. The waves continued to thrash around me, the rain fell in sheets, and lightning lit up the sky in violent flashes. But slowly, the current began to shift. Instead of pulling me down, it lifted me. My body rose with the swell of the waves, and for the first time, I wasn't fighting against it. The water still filled my lungs, but my head broke the surface just enough for me to cough and sputter, gasping in tiny breaths of air.
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The sounds of the storm dulled slightly, the thunder becoming a distant rumble behind the steady rhythm of the waves. The ocean's icy grip loosened. I wasn't safe, not yet, but the panic had lessened, the fear ebbing away with each passing moment.
As I floated there, letting the storm rage around me, I realized that survival wasn't just about battling the forces around me—it was about battling the turmoil inside. Just as I needed to find harmony with the sea to stay afloat, I needed to reconcile the conflicting emotions swirling within me. Maybe Blake's actions weren't so unwelcome after all. Or maybe I was just afraid to admit how I felt.
Blake, the dungeon, my forgotten past—they were all part of a tempest I had to navigate. But perhaps, like my father taught me, the key was not to fight against the currents but to find a way to move with them, to understand them. One thing at a time.
I found my rhythm with the waves, but even as I glided along with the water's push, I felt a gnawing sense of aimlessness, an itch under my skin I couldn't scratch. What was I even doing here? I was moving, yes, but toward what? The storm raged ahead, and I let it pull me forward, conserving my strength, careful not to fight too hard against the current. I didn't want to waste energy—I had no idea how long I'd be out here.
But then it hit me.
The storm wasn't just a storm. The waves propelling me forward weren't natural, but weren't random either. They were deliberate. I was being pulled, lured deeper into something far worse than I had anticipated. And the storm itself? No, it wasn't just any storm. I was in the Book of Typhoons. The realization struck me cold. Of all the books The Protector could have chosen, it had managed to be the worst one possible, the one Blake had warned me about. A cruel twist of fate or just my own rotten luck?
Panic began to claw at me again, my thoughts racing ahead of me. I was in danger of losing everything I owned. And maybe, in the grand scheme of things, that wasn't much. I hadn't managed to gather much loot on the third floor. But the checkpoint tickets, and the golden pages—those mattered. And if I lost them, with the Protector lurking in the background, I might as well consider myself done for.
I cursed under my breath and immediately tried to change course, but it was no use. The waves surged harder, the wind picking up, howling in my ears. The storm wasn't letting go. It was pulling me deeper, dragging me toward the eye of its fury. I was losing ground—no, I was losing the fight entirely. Each stroke of my arms felt heavier, the water becoming a vice around me, sucking me down.
My heart pounded as fear took hold. I wasn't just drowning in water; I was drowning in uncertainty, in the sheer fact that I had no idea what to do. My father's voice—his wisdom—was gone, faded to some wasteland of memory. All his lessons, all those things I should've learned... where were they when I needed them? Why couldn't I remember?
"Crystal!" I shouted into the storm, my voice barely audible against the roar of the waves. "Any ideas here?!" I was desperate, and I hated how it sounded. But there was no room for pride when you were sinking beneath the ocean.
Crystal took a long, almost agonizing pause before responding, her voice dripping in that odd tone she had adopted lately—like she wasn't fully present. Or worse, like she was an Old crackpot fool.
[The cleric class... it bends like water. Or... perhaps it breaks? No, it bends. Yes. But bending is breaking, isn't it? The sea holds many secrets, most of them slippery.]
"What?" I felt my frustration spike. It was like she had learned how to be cryptic just to mess with me. What the hell was she even saying? I needed direction. I needed help.
"Crystal, I don't have time for this—how do I get out of here?!" I yelled, half-wanting to throw something at her if she were even a physical entity.
Her response came slower this time, each word dripping like molasses, as if she were trying to be poetic or wise but didn't quite know how.
[Spells are like nets... catch the air, and perhaps you catch yourself. The cleric knows. The cleric always knows. But does the cleric... remember? The wind remembers you, even if you don't remember it.]
My anger flared. "You're not making any sense!" I shouted, though part of me knew she wouldn't care. Maybe she couldn't. Crystal had been off since the beginning of this run, and I'd let it slide, thinking it was some glitch, some temporary quirk. But this? It wasn't just weird—it was dangerous. What am I going to do?