"Any idea how we find this castle?" Sieph asked. We had all decided not to discuss Bob and Gloria's recent activity. It wasn't that we were embarrassed, even Thutmose came from a stratum of Egyptian hierarchy where public nudity and sex was commonplace. We just had more important matters to deal with, and grading Bob on his technique was best left to the Goblins. They went in for that kind of thing.

"Where are we?" Gloria asked.

"Doesn't your System menu come with a mapping feature?" I asked. I wasn't certain she would have access to System, but it didn't hurt to ask. The rules for residents of dungeons were murky about that. In open-world instances, like this one, the people that lived here seemed and acted real, they didn't respawn when you killed them.

"Of course," she said sheepishly, interacting with her System menus to pull up her mapping features.

"Sunken Temple? How long was I swimming to wind up here?"

"You know where we are?" Thutmose asked.

"Vaguely," she responded, still examining her map. "We need to cross five zones to reach Grandfather's castle."

"Zones?" I asked.

"Yes.

"Lionfish Atoll, Laminaria Forest, Trident Abyss, Garden of Remembrance, and then Conus Burghal," she explained.

"And I would guess that each one of those zones comes with its very own danger and mini-boss that we will need to fight our way past," Thutmose quipped.

"They are dangerous," Gloria admitted. "It makes no sense, though. How was I able to navigate those waters safely enough to wind up here?"

"You must have been wounded along the way," Bob suggested, the effects of sexual stupor finally wearing off, "How else could a level five [Bell Spider] have captured you?"

"The only wounds I remember taking were light. I gained those from the people who were chasing me, but they seemed more intent on capture than killing."

"I wonder if the chase was the point?" Sieph suggested.

"Meaning?" Gloria asked.

"It's obvious they could have killed you at some point. But they didn't. Instead, they stalked you, herding you through each of those zones until they left you to your fate in this zone," Sieph explained.

"The question is why?" I asked.

"Either they wanted deniability, to be able to say they didn't kill her, or they just wanted her out of the way for a while," Thutmose asserted. "Do your people have ways spells or detection devices that can tell when a person is lying?"

"Grandmother has a knack for discerning the truth, but I don't know if that is a skill or something she has acquired by experience. Maybe she's just good at reading body language?"

This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

"For what purpose though," I wondered.

"Her grandfather is King," Thutmose emphasized. "What better way to get leverage over a King than to use his children or grandchildren?"

"Gloria?" I questioned. "Are you the only surviving member of your Grandfather's family?"

"No, of course not," she replied, "there's cousin Gui too. Well, he isn't a cousin by blood, but our grandfather adopted him into our family as a reward for his father's service.

"His father sacrificed his life trying to protect my parents when a ground tremor caused a building to collapse. He wasn't able to save them, but he did get me out just as the ceiling fell, trapping and killing him."

Sieph and I shared a knowing look. History was rife with political machinations from disgruntled family members or people who felt they had been wronged. An adopted grandchild who was raised to believe that his father died because of this young princess? And we were in a Dungeon. System tended to reuse tropes and storylines, a power grab for the throne would make sense.

I wondered if open-world Dungeons were created because of these storylines. The System borrowing the events the mermen were living in reality, instead of creating the standard kill, clear, and repeat instance. By opening this Dungeon, System had introduced a variable that would solve two problems. Gloria's mystery, and our need to close down a dungeon by claiming the core.

I couldn't decide if it was a smart use of assets by the System or sheer laziness. I hated to think we were being used to solve a problem, but even if we were, it didn't change our goal. The quests that System would generate would guide us to do what was needed, and in the end, we would have our dungeon core.

"It's going to be a bitch traveling through five zones, but I don't see an alternative," I announced. "Sieph, the masks, and breathers are working really well, it's hard to believe we can speak so easily with a mouth full of metal. It sounds as if we will need to descend into deeper waters. Will they stand up to the increased pressure the deeper we go?"

"They will," she promised. "I used enough Silinium in each mask to allow them a small amount of adaptability for the environment. Enough to repair any cracks or fissures that might occur."

"Why bother with the masks?" Gloria wondered. "Just take them off."

"We need them to breathe," Sieph explained. "We make our homes on land. Bob is the only one of us able to survive in both environments without mechanical or magical devices to allow us to function well."

"I don't think that's right," Gloria said in confusion, "we get visitors, we've even accepted ambassadors from the land kingdoms and they've never had a problem breathing.

"Have you tried?

"Maybe our waters are different than what you are used to."

Of course, we hadn't tried. There were certain truths that you just understood. One of them was that those born on land couldn't breathe underwater. As Sidhe, we couldn't technically drown, but it would still feel like we were. And no one wanted to volunteer to brave a dungeon believing you were drowning the entire time.

"What do you think?" I asked Sieph.

"It won't hurt to test," she admitted.

Sometimes it sucked to be the group leader. This was one of those times. If we were going to test our ability to breathe these waters, I was going to have to be the one to do it. Sieph would, but she had just been forced to confront her fear of spiders, I wasn't going to ask her to undergo the panicked reaction to the fear of drowning if Gloria was wrong.

I removed my mask and ventilator in one quick movement, happy that nothing happened. Until I realized I was holding my breath. I was going to have to stop doing that.

Any second now.

I never knew I could hold my breath so long.

1. Take a breath

No. This time for real.

I would like to say that I finally found the courage to take a breath on my own, but I couldn't lie even to myself. Sieph had used one of her metal constructs and punched me in the stomach. My involuntary reaction included a gasp and a lungful of water.

[You have gained [Water of Life] buff. Note: As long as [Water of Life] buff is active, you can breathe freely and move freely underwater.]