*( mood song: "Iron Maiden - Fear of the Dark")

Back at the secret room, Erik had finished conveying the idea that they needed to hunt more food, in order for the sick to recover they needed, to the mutant leader.

With scenes of him eating and feeling great, and others of him not eating and feeling weak.

The small scaley mutant seemed lost in thought for a moment, before hitting the floor with her spear in realization, motioning for them to follow her.

Erik looked at Rose, and they both shrugged as they followed after her along with the others.

They followed her down a dark hallway and to another puzzle, this one a puzzle of a square that had to be ordered using the space of a missing piece on the top left corner.

It was clear it wasn't her first time, as the gates soon emitted a dozen of clicks, gears were then heard as the door opened to a dark room.

Rose: "...nice..." the first to see the insides was Rose, thanks to her increased senses, a low humming sound coming from her mouth, as she used a sonar o scan the room.

But that soon changed as a bubbling sound was heard and transparent tubes glowed as hot water heated the algae inside, making the glow in an orange color, the light revealing a room full of a dozen sets of armor and weapons, and in the center of the room a gear supported on a stone carved pedestal.

The mutant readily picked it up and turned around, guiding them down yet another tunnel.

Erik: "that seemed like... a guard room maybe?"

Timberly: "seems like it, but what did she pick up?"

Inky: "it seemed like a key to me" the others looked at her "what? I saw something similar in an old movie, an archeologist searched through ancient tombs, and then he had to avoid traps that were hidden on the walls, floors, and almost anywhere, *swhoosh swhoosh* and he could be dead just like that, and then he gets a skull made of glass that among other things, its a key to a big door and so-"

Rose: "attention, metallic structure ahead"

They were then impressed as they arrived at a pair of twelve meters tall metallic doors with an octoperson surrounded by gears.

Erik: "who is that?"

Jennifer: "no idea..."

Shana: "actually... I know who that is, it's a friend of mom, she sometimes brought gifts and small toys that moved by themselves, but you were all really young, I myself barely remember her"

Erik: "hmmm... guess we will see now"

As they were talking, the doors opened downwards, with loud creaking noises, and revealing a pitch black tunnel.

The mutant leader stopped and listened carefully, and after it made sure it was safe, it motioned for them to follow.

The tunnels went deeper and deeper as they followed, getting wider and wider, as the walls were now made of roughly carved stone, glowing algae and biorganisms growing wildly and scarcely through the dark tunnels.

More than thirty minutes seemed to pass as they followed after the mutant leader, but just as they were starting to wonder about where she was taking them, clicks were heard ahead.

The mutant leader stopped and they all did the same, stopping behind them as the tunnel was now not much more than a cave. They slowly approached the origin of the sounds and finally saw it behind a big rock cropping. Two creatures were tearing and eating the corpse of a third one, their figures were slightly humanoid like a crab man, but with a pure black exoskeleton and no eyes.

Erik: "...disgusting..."

Rose: "well, due to the evolutionary laws of this world-"

Erik: "it doesn't make it any less disgusting..."

Rose: "wait..." [they stopped eating].

Erik: [true... they couldn't have heard that whisper right?]

Rose then looked around and frowned: [sneaky crabs... we are surrounded! (╯°□°)╯︵ ┻━┻ ]

Erik nodded as he readied his weapon, the other's imitating his and checking their weapons [seems like they heard us since long ago... let's attack first then] he looked around and could see movement in the shadows around them, and whispered to the others "we are surrounded, circle formation, blow up any cover first, Timberly you will be the vanguard to cover the rear, Shana you cover her, all others shoot from the middle"

Inky frowned: "then who will cover the front?"

Rose smiled cheerfully as she took a mace from her back, softly caressing it as electric arcs jumped around it, even affecting the lights on their suits "I'm glad you ask, the one with that role... will be me~"

Erik nodded and they all did as they got in position, with the small mutant leader protected in the middle.

Erik: "3, 2, 1.... FIRE!"

*BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!* explosions filled the cave as the waters churned in sodium bars, exploding all around along with plasma bolts and poisoned spear bolts, the deaf crabs became disoriented as they attacked anything near them, boulders, the waters, and even their own brethren as they tore each other apart.

Meanwhile, Rose moved around them like a dancer, skilfully avoiding the explosions, as the glow of her mace left a trace in the waters, only dimming as it went through yet another crab.

Poison darts and makeshift arrows then fell on them from the sides, but that only gave more targets to the elders to elders, as their armors protected them, and those without armors were safely protected in the middle of the group.

Timberly on the other hand just used a combination of brute force and precise attacks that along with her spear, easily cutting them along with rocks that were on the way

A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

Before long, the waters became increasingly muddied, forcing the group to stick close together as they shot to anything that moved around them.

Erik: [How many are left Rose?! I can't see anything!]

Rose: [don't worry, they are running away with pieces of fellow dead crabs (✿◠‿◠)]

Erik relaxed: [good... that's good to know, without visibility we could have suffered injuries from surprise attacks].

Erik then said out loud: "they are running away, relax!"

They all sighed relieved. Meanwhile, the mutant leader in the middle looked at them in awe, something that could exterminate her entire group had been dealt by them in seconds, and different from the monsters outside that she only knew to avoid, these ones she knew, and that only increaser her awe.

Erik looked around, and only then noticed bloody water flowing in one direction. Erik looked back and noticed the others were now picking up crab pieces, so he called "hey, I think I've found something!"

The elders gathered beside him while the battle bots and octopeople soldiers kept picking up provisions, and with Amelia giving them orders. That was the biggest problem of fighting using explosives, everything blew up all over the place.

Shana: "what is it Erik?" she looked around "I don't see anything..."

Erik held her left shoulder with his right hand and pointed at a nearby crack on a wall "see the bloody water.. it's seeping through the stone" they got closer and could see a symbol carved into the wall like that of the first door.

Shana: "oh! that gear from earlier!"

Erik smiled "interesting right?"

Timberly: "so we take that gear from her or what?"

Erik shook his head: "no need for such a thing, if we ask her to do something, then she will do so willingly" Erik then went back, and squatted next to the mutant leader and to her bewilderment, Erik held her hand and lead her in front of the wall, he then only needed to point at the engraving for her to understand.

The mutant leader then took the gear from inside her leather robe, and put it on the engraving, twisting it to the right.

A deep *clack!* was then heard as the walls slowly opened. Once it did, they saw a hallway with a thick layer of mud covering the floors inside as they entered, and by the faces that the octopeople surrounding him were making, Erik deduced it probably smelled as horrible as it looked, with even the mutant leader stepping back in disgust.

Megan: "ugh..., if we are gonna go in let's do it fast, it's so disgusting it's making my stomach churn..."

Erik, Rose, and Amanda went in first, after six meters the hallway opened up to a thirty cubic meter room. Thanks to the muddy waters, Erik was able to easily see the water flowing towards the top of the ceiling and seemingly to another room.

Erik: "quite the intelligent design, like a cyclone vacuum cleaner, by the looks of this floor..., it gets rid of quite a bit of mud"

At the other side of the room, they saw another room, but this one started opening by itself once they stepped on a stone slab in front of it with a slight delay, but the process was extremely slow.

Erik observed the mechanism and theorized "this slab is probably a switch that lets steam through, pushing a pair of pistons to open the doors"

Jennifer: "I can picture something like that..., it would be a cool addition to the city, and a way to keep water at bay"

Erik: "indeed, but remember that constructing something like that in the city, would slow down traffic a lot, all when the siphon passage and armoured door system used right now, can achieve a much better result"

Jennifer: "then... what would you use it for?"

Erik: "if I only had steam and no way to create a turbine... then maybe I would use it then, or if i lack materials to make gunpowder steam cannons are a good source since there's no ignition though, you would need a wooden stick crossed at the entrance to hold the pressure"

*(steam cannon by Archimedes: https://youtu.be/bN2pn6uzW1I )

Jennifer: "oh.. then that could-"

Erik: "no, maybe at short distances it could reach lethal damages, and for long distances, it would need a huge cannon, and if enough pressure is stored inside then it could become a fearsome weapon, but it would also need to be ridiculously thick, so it would be a stationary cannon that would just always remain there, with almost no way of moving it."

Jennifer: "that's a pity..."

Erik: "Yeah, it would need pressures equal to those of a volcanic eruption to be deadly"

Then the doors finally opened and revealed a football field sized room, this time with an almost clean floor, and as they entered, tubes lit up over the entire room and soon engulfed the room in warm orange light.

Rose couldn't contain herself from whispering then: "This is... unexpected...."

The room not only contained metallic contraptions, and automatons in the shape of octopeople, but also what seemed to be scrap from ancient alien spaceships, including turrets and busted pieces from engines.

Rose: "...seems like they collected the debris from the space flight, but..." she examined the parts carefully "they are rusted and broken by now..."

Erik examined a turret cannon and even observed the remains of dead organisms that had accumulated between the seams of the machines along with rust and other debris "yeah... these ain't gonna work-"

But, just as they were examining the machines, one of the automatons moved *Greetings, this is the lab of Antalya, the greatest scientists of the oceanic race! see the wonders of water bubble technology! and the wonder machines recovered from the deepest ocean wrecks, we still don't know what they are and how they work, but it's a matter of time so- THWANG!* a loud metallic noise was heard at the end, as the automaton slumped to the floor.

Erik observed it, it was almost completely green from rust, with some dark golden areas, with some organism growing over it, Erik opened the automaton's chest and quickly saw the problem, the remains of tons of sea animals covered its internal parts, causing its precise clockwork component to either break or come off.

Erik whistled: "that's actually quite advanced... a pity, it would be nice for a museum but..."

Rose: "yeah, it has no value for us, we can always relocate it in the future so-"

Jennifer: "I found a book!"

They turned and saw Jennifer coming with an opened metallic box, inside it was a book formed of parchment leather, with golden inscriptions on its cover saying "records of the great Antalya"

Erik passed it to Rose as she started translating: "This is a record with all my knowledge in water bubble technology, and automation, by reading this you will become my student, and so you will be tasked with protecting and maintaining these machines, they are the future of our people!" *chuckle* "sorry, sorry I will continue... ahem! And so my apprentice, in here there are machines that normal scouts wouldn't even dream to see. First, we have..." Rose stopped reading "and then she starts explaining her machines but... this is all really outdated..."

Erik: "we will take at least the book back, they could use it for study material for the teenager octopeople, we will be needing a museum soon"

Rose: "i believe a farm floor, and living spaces would be much more important, the amount of eggs that will start hatching... they will require food and accommodation..."

Erik: "Yeah, of course, but a museum is also important, as only through realizing we stand on the shoulders of giants can we reach higher, and become giants for others ourselves"

Rose: "...okay, fine but it's gonna take some months"

Erik: "don't you have a lot of workforce now?"

Rose: "...and that's why I said months and not years..."

Erik: "...right, thanks"

Shana: "yes, I believe that's really important too, our connections to our ancestors are what gives us strength when we are in distress, that push forward when we wanna give up, the sense of unity when we can't see each other face to face, it's what makes us... a family..."

Erik: "Shana... that was beautiful..."

Amanda: "ahem! so what now?"

Erik: "now we will take food for those mutants and maybe then... climb back?"

Jennifer was tapping an automaton that then fell to the floor breaking into pieces.

Jennifer: "I... sorry but, can't we go to the royal palace first?"

Timberly: "yeah I agree, mom always kept her armoury full of weapons, maybe we could pick some?"

Rose: "was your mother's body proportional in size to the statue head we recovered?"

Timberly: "...I guess? why?"

Rose: "her weapons must have been enormous then, we would be able to just carry a dagger at most..."

Erik: "don't be so calculative, truth is... we don't know what we might find in there, but if there is something useful in there we would regret not going"

They all then looked at Rose, but she shrugged.

Rose: "don't ask me, I'm immortal, it's you who would die in case something happens"

Erik: "...okay, it's decided then! we will heal the mutants and then make them take us to the royal palace, its always better to have guides"