Hermera

The 18th of Thargelion

The Year 4631 in the Era of Mortals

Many hours passed before Lyssa’s group had to stop. Grimmolt was sweating and shaking from exertion. His voice quavered when he spoke and he was unable to sing the path ahead of them. It was impossible to judge distance underground but they were headed toward Mount Hyperion. Their journey was at an incline, the goblins having tunneled up from below. They’d been lucky thus far, with Grimmolt’s song setting off every goblin trap that blocked their way.

“They’ve been planning this for a while,” Gigator said. “Months, I’d say.”

“You’re right,” Vik replied. “Goblins don’t have access to magic, generally speaking. This would all have to be done by hand. Carefully and quietly.”

“For what purpose?” Iosif asked.

“To attack the village, clearly,” Vik said. “Lyssa, do you hear anything from the passage ahead?”

Lyssa crouched low near the unsung tunnel, straining to pick up any sounds. After a moment, she shook her head.

“No – and that worries me. Arche suspected Hekáte’s Vivitorium had an enchantment that dampened sound from echoing off much of its tunnel network. If this dungeon is the same, then it will make tracking by sound nearly impossible unless we’re close by.”

“If we find one, we’ll find them all,” Eleftherios said. “One will sell out the others to save its own life.”

“Yes,” Vik agreed. “An excellent way to be lured into a trap and massacred. Quite brilliant, really.”

Eleftherios scowled.

“You have a better plan?”

“As a matter of fact—”

“Enough,” Lyssa said. “Grimmolt, are you recovered?”

“Partially,” the dwarf wheezed. “I can go a bit farther, but I am near my absolute limit.”

“We will take what you can give us.”

The dwarf stood and began his song anew. His voice faltered and it took three tries before the ground shifted. They made it another twenty meters, then Grimmolt’s voice spluttered and died. The dwarf sank to his knees, coughing and hacking. When he came up, blood speckled his lips. He tried to say something but the effort devolved into more hacking. A gob of his spit landed against the dirt.

“You’ve done your part,” Lyssa said. “We’ll just have to figure out a way forward.”

Gigator scratched his head and tapped the floor with a foot claw. He shuffled forward, then to the side, tapping the ground in each spot.

“What are you doing?” Elpida asked.

“The ground sounds strange.”

“Strange how?”

Lyssa tensed, but it was too late. The floor crumbled out from beneath them and they fell.

The tunnel had been dug over a larger, hollow space, through which they plummeted. Lyssa held her arms out to either side, trying to peer down at what they were falling toward. It was difficult to make out, but with the combined light from Elpida’s glowing pendant and Eleftherios’s torch, she could see something glitter below them.

“Water! Go vertical!” she shouted, rearing backwards herself.

She drew an arrow back and loosed it, breaking the surface of the water just before impact. It likely saved her legs, but twenty percent of her Health drained in an instant and the air punched free from her lungs. She struggled through the water, kicking and waving her arms, then broke through the surface just as her body forced her to take a breath. She gasped in air with deep, desperate gulps.

The water was cold and dark, untouched by the sun. Lyssa peered through the darkness as best she could, but to no avail. Though her dark vision allowed her to see well even in absolute darkness, she couldn’t make out the walls of the cavern around them or the bottom of the basin they were in. It was like they had been dropped into an underground ocean. All she could see was her companions and her arrow floating nearby. She grabbed the arrow and stowed it into her inventory along with her bow, then took stock of their group.

“Is anyone injured?”

There was a small chorus of groans, but no one responded significantly.

“Is everyone here?”

“We’re all here.” Gigator replied. “Stay together. I’m going to take a look around.”

Before Lyssa could say anything, the sauros took a breath and submerged himself. Lyssa frowned and shot a questioning glance at Vik, whose naturally calm demeanor was looking rather miserable.

“He swims really well,” Vik said by way of explanation.

“I wish the dwarf did,” Iosif grumbled.

Grimmolt clutched onto the larger man, clearly uncomfortable in the water. Lyssa laid eyes on them just in time to see Grimmolt backhand Iosif.

“Oi! Watch it!”

“Quiet,” Despoina hissed. “If we are truly in a dungeon, I doubt we’re alone.”

“Well, you’re the elf,” Iosif said. “Do you see or hear anything?”

“No, so you should be even more cautious.”

Lyssa peered upward, trying to make out the ceiling, but it was too far away to see. Vik followed her gaze then shrugged at her.

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“A hundred meters is my guess,” he said.

“I can see a hundred and fifty in the dark. I don’t see the ceiling,” Lyssa replied.

Vik’s eyebrows shot up.

“Your Perception must be higher than I realized.”

Lyssa glanced at the moon elf but didn’t say anything. Gigator chose that moment to resurface among the group. The non-elves of the group muttered foul curses in their surprise.

“There is a light and a current. It will be a long swim but it’s the only promising thing I found.”

“Did you find something unpromising?” Eleftherios asked.

“Yes.”

When no further answer was forthcoming, Eleftherios continued.

“What did you find?”

“If you knew,” the sauros rumbled, “you would not want to.”

“What direction do we go?” Elpida asked.

“This way.”

Gigator surged forward, the water around him seeming to bend out of the way without rippling. The others were not nearly as graceful, splashing about as they dragged themselves along after the sauros. After ten minutes of swimming, Lyssa saw the light Gigator had mentioned. Considering he had been gone less than five, his skill in the water was clearly unparalleled. The light came from below the surface, but the water was too murky to make out details.

“There’s something below us,” Despoina said.

Lyssa looked down. Three soft, blue lights shone in the depths. Lyssa submerged her head, trying to get a better look. The lights swayed side to side, growing bigger and brighter. Something glinted behind them, a reflection caught at the perfect angle for a single moment. Lyssa felt cold fear grip her stomach. She surfaced.

“Brace yourselves! Foes below!”

She dove again, pulling out her bow. Her archery was less effective in the water but the arrows would still travel farther than her swords could swing. The creatures were close, revealing the horror of them. Haunting, dead eyes inlaid above a gaping mouth of huge, sharp teeth. The bodies of the creatures were russet and bulbous, with spined fins and a massive tail propelling them through the water. At a glance, each creature was about half the size of the village hall and any one of the three could easily fit their entire group into its mouth, which made up the majority of its body. Between the dead eyes of the creature was a single, fleshy stalk that held up a glowing bulb.

Despite their massive size, the creatures moved swiftly through the currents. When they were inside of thirty meters, Lyssa readied a Penetrating Shot. She’d never had cause to use maneuvers underwater and she struggled to hold proper form while aiming. When the closest monstrous fish was twenty meters away, she loosed the arrow. It tore through the water, leaving a trail of bubbles behind it.

The creature did not move to dodge. Whether it understood the threat or had simply dismissed it was unclear, but there was a strange lack of reaction even as the arrow tore through its eye. The monstrous mouth opened and Lyssa stared at the approaching abyss. She floundered , trying to push herself sideways through the water, but the creature’s maw was too large and she was too slow. The only saving grace was that she was far enough away from the others that none of them would be swallowed up with her.

Something huge and solid impacted Lyssa’s right side, practically shoving her through the water and out of the path of the huge fish. Once she was safe, for the moment at least, the thing detached from her and launched itself toward another of the monsters that aimed for Eleftherios and Grimmolt. Despite the intensity of the situation, Lyssa was taken aback.

It was Gigator, wielding a trident easily four meters long. He had doffed all clothing and armor, anything that would slow him down as he propelled himself into battle with terrifying speed. He impacted one of the monstrous fish with enough force to crush bones, pushing it off its path. That wasn’t the end of it, however. Gigator worked his trident in a devastating display, carving and tearing whole chunks out of the monster’s head. It twitched, but did not recoil or react in a way Lyssa would have expected, given the damage it was sustaining. But she did not have the luxury of time to wonder at it. There were three monsters and only one Gigator.

Lyssa surfaced with a gasp. She stowed her bow and tried to get a sense of her surroundings. To her right, Eleftherios swam desperately for the light, Grimmolt holding to the man’s back for all he was worth. Elpida and Despoina sank their spears into the side of one of the monsters and held on as the fish surged through the water, dragging them along with it. Iosif, however, was the worst off of all of them. Lyssa’s fish had swerved and reoriented toward the man, approaching from behind.

“Iosif!” Lyssa cried out, but it was too late.

The man twisted and tried to bring his axe to bear, but there was no use. He disappeared inside its mouth and the monster dove beneath the water. Lyssa dove as well, trying desperately to reach the creature, no idea at all what she would do if she caught it, but it was far faster than her.

It was not faster than Gigator.

The sauros abandoned the fish he’d been filleting and focused all his efforts on tearing a hole into the side of the new monster’s mouth. With a few dexterous swipes, he made an opening large enough to get through and disappeared inside. Lyssa forced her arms and legs to work faster, trying to catch up and help, but it was no use. She wasn’t a fast enough swimmer. The fish dove more quickly than it had risen, and with its bulbous mass hiding the glowing stalk on the front of its face, it was soon gone even from Lyssa’s enhanced sight. She let out a frustrated cry that only served to blow bubbles in her face and waste her air. No choice left but to surface and focus her efforts where she could actually make a difference.

Elpida had somehow worked her way onto the forehead of her fish and stabbed at it with a spear. It took half a dozen strikes to break through the creature’s thick skull but, once she did, the whole fish twitched violently, throwing both Elpida and Despoina free, the latter of whom had clung to a spear in its side. The fish thrashed violently for a few moments, creating huge waves that crashed down on their heads. Then a notification appeared, followed immediately by a golden flash around Elpida.

Your party has slain a Managorged Deep Angler.

You gain 490 experience.

It was a hefty amount, given the size of their group, but there was no time to delve into more details about their foe. There was still one fish attacking them. Attacking Lyssa, to be precise. The angler broke through the surface and closed its gigantic mouth around her. Her kopides were in her hands in an instant. As the amorphous inside of the fish tried to crush her, she drove her blades into everything she could reach, paying special focus to the roof of the creature’s mouth, trying to carve upward through the bottom of its skull to attack its brain.

The race was on. For as much damage as she was doing to it, the pressure inside the mouth increased constantly. Lyssa felt herself squeezed from every direction. All she could do was point her swords and push. At last, her blades penetrated the bone and she felt them sink into the squishy mass of the fish’s brain. The pressure abated immediately. She stabbed upward three more times before the fish spasmed and she was thrown from its mouth. A notification showed the extent of her damage.

You have slain a Level 55 Managorged Deep Angler.

You gain 3,850 experience.

Lyssa nearly choked and it wasn’t from the water. The monster was over twenty levels higher than she was. Lyssa broke the surface once more, gasping for wonderful air.

Your party has slain a Managorged Deep Angler.

You gain 480 experience.

A few moments later, Gigator surfaced with Iosif in tow. The human was limp, but the fact he was still recognized as a party member by her interface told Lyssa that he was merely unconscious, not dead. Gigator once more proved his mastery over the environment by wrapping Iosif in a hug from behind and holding him out of the water. The sauros squeezed a few times in quick succession and Iosif convulsed. Water expunged itself from his lungs in a coughing fit that would have put Grimmolt to shame.

“No more dallying,” Gigator said. “We need to leave before more come.”

“There’s more of those abominations?” Eleftherios demanded.

“And probably worse.”

No one wasted any more time on words. They swam as hard as they could for the orange light in the distance. Lyssa’s only hope was that it wasn’t another lure.