Cass blinked and read the notification in front of her again.
Demonic Possession Broken.
Everything snapped back into place, the world suddenly sharp. She lay in a pool of water, the surface less than a foot above her face. Blood swirled around her, likely her own.
A shiver ran down her spine. What the hell had she been doing?
Demonic Possession?
She could still feel that destructive desire bubbling in her core. It pulled and gnashed and grasped against her. It whispered in Salos’s voice to kill and kill and devour. But it was quieter now. More removed now that she was looking for it. Where these Salos’s desires? Or was this something the System was inflicting on both of them?
She could ask questions all she wanted, but she wasn’t going to find an answer now. Maybe Salos would know once he’d calmed down. Maybe he would deny any knowledge of this. Maybe she shouldn’t trust him so easily…
She shook her head. Again, not the time.
She needed to decide what to do next. The Caretaker was bad news. The fight so far was a hazy blur, but she knew she’d struck it with everything she had and more. Aided by Salos’s stats, she wondered? She brought up its information again from Identify:
Depths Caretaker
[Few training regions are naturally occurring, and even among those that are, some force is required to maintain those that survive for generations. The Caretaker is one such force.
As a construct left in charge of maintaining the Temple of the Depths, it is an avatar for its creators to use to address irregularities and issues.]
It didn’t have a level listed.
She’d yet to meet any creature without one. What did that mean?
Could it just be so much more powerful than her that she couldn’t divine its level with her skills? That hadn’t been a problem for the Centipede, and it had been over four times her level. How much stronger would this thing have to be?
But that didn’t really make sense. The Centipede had been strong enough to one-shot kill her, she could feel that in her gut. Yet, she’d survived several swipes of this thing already. It couldn’t be more powerful than the Centipede.
But then why didn’t it have a level listed? What else didn’t have levels? Objects, like her staff? It didn’t look like an object. Plants? It didn’t look like a plant either.
She shook her head, this wasn’t helping. It might not be as overwhelmingly strong as the Centipede, but it was still stronger than her. It had required Salos’s Demonic madness to hurt it, which she refused to willingly succumb to again.
If she couldn’t hurt it, she couldn’t kill it. Defeating it was out of the question.
However, she needed to kill the Lord of the Deep to get out of here. The Lord of the Deep was in this room somewhere. If she could kill it, they could run from the Caretaker. Killing the Caretaker was unnecessary, despite what the demonic compulsion was telling her.
But could she find the Lord while also avoiding the Caretaker’s attacks? They hadn’t searched even half of the room before the Caretaker had shown up. If only she had some way of picking it out of the crowd.
She skimmed through her skill list. There had to be an answer.
Most were useless here. But she had three skills roughly related to searching:
Foraging (lvl 5)
[Live off the land! No matter where you are, you’ll be able to scrounge up something to eat.
Adds nutritional information to plant or fungus Identification.
Heightens perception of edible entities.
Greatly heightens perception of a single valid target entity.]
Mana Sense (lvl 5)
[Through careful observation of the forces of unspooled potential, you have come to see it in all its glory.
Intuitively sense the position, type, and movement of mana.
Modified by Per. Modified by understanding of what is being sensed.]
Trap Detection (lvl 2)
[Through trial and error you have discovered the trick to spotting traps. No longer will you need to find them through error alone.
Passively increase your detection of presence.
Actively highlight areas with significant presence irregularities.
Actively highlight areas ideal for setting traps.]
The problem was none of them specifically looked for monsters. Rather they looked for plants, magic, and traps respectively.
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Cass paused, was that true? She looked at Foraging’s description again. The second line: “Adds nutritional information to plant or fungus Identification” primed the reader to only think about plants and fungus, but the third used a different language: edible entities. Edible included a lot more than just plants and mushrooms.
And what about the fourth line? What was considered a “single valid target entity”? Anything whose perception would be heightened by the previous statement? She hadn’t had a chance to experiment with that new functionality since it upgraded at level 5. But, if she could use it to find an enemy? That could open up all sorts of options in the future.
She needed to get moving. She had no idea how long she’d been lying underwater.
Was Alyx alright? Had she been pulled up in Cass’s wild attack too? Cass hadn’t checked on her once in that madness.
Slowly, Cass pushed herself up. Pain laced every movement. Was it willing ignorance or just recklessness that she didn’t stop to evaluate the extent of her wounds? Maybe both. There wasn’t anything she could do about it though. Not looking wasn’t going to make it go away, but maybe it was easier to pretend it wasn’t there if she didn’t know.
Her head broke the water’s surface and Cass found the room in chaos. Basins were shattered all around the room, water and plants and young lizards spilling over the floor.
The Caretaker and Alyx were locked in a fierce fight, Alyx’s sword flashing even as she grimaced, her wounds dripping blood into the dark waters around her ankles.
The Caretaker was injured as well. Purple ichor dripped down its arms and legs, though if that slowed it down at all Cass couldn’t tell. Sword met claws in clash after clash, a sea of sparks filling the dark with each.
Cass activated Stealth and slipped out of her pool. She hoped Alyx would forgive her, leaving the monster to her while Cass slunk around in the background.
Join her, Salos insisted. Kill it.
Shush, Cass admonished, though she was certain that he didn’t hear her. Or, if he did, didn’t have the presence of mind to process it.
She activated Forage, targeting the Lord of the Deep. The color drained from the world around her. Her head snapped back and forth as she searched the room for a splash of color in the grey. There wasn’t anything.
But it had to be here.
Error: Target “Lord of the Deep” has not previously been Identified, unable to target.
Cass’s heart sank. No good then. What now? Go back to searching manually? How long would Alyx be able to keep the Caretaker at bay?
No, there had to be a better way. There were hundreds upon hundreds of tanks. The Lord of the Deep could be in any of them. There wasn’t time to search each one individually.
What else did she know about it? It was one of the lizards. She hadn’t seen any other animals in here and the chances it was any of the aquatic plants seemed low.
Would it be one of the larger lizards? Didn’t that depend on how the title was handed out? It could be that it was assigned to any promising lizard from hatching, then it could be any of them anywhere. Or it could be earned at some point in their lives, making a larger, stronger lizard more likely.
She reviewed what Salos had told her, but he hadn’t elaborated on the process and she hadn’t thought to ask. His ravings continued in the back of her mind. There was no way to ask him now.
What else did she know? It was, or would be, very strong? But it wasn’t like she could search for strength. Could she? She focused on Mana Sense. Mana wasn’t the same as strength, but wouldn’t the boss of the area have some significant magic advantages over its siblings?
Her sight sparked with color. She’d never been so inundated with mana everywhere around her. The brightest source was the Caretaker, burning a brilliant purple. Alyx glowed too, a soft amber, flickering valiantly before her opponent. The rest of the room was alight with specks of color, every tank had something, glimmering like fireflies beneath the water.
Was this useless too? Would the Lord be lost amid the countless other lights?
No, it had to work. There were concentrations of greater light. She could start there. She scurried silently toward the concentration furthest from where Alyx and the Caretaker were fighting. It was a large pool, unfathomably deep and as wide as an Olympic swimming pool.
She stood at the pool’s edge, looking down into the inky waters. Lights, both true and from Mana Sense, danced in the deep. She could feel the hypnotic pull tugging at her mind. It suggested she jump in. Play with them. Forever.
She blinked the influence away. There wasn’t time for a distraction. There were hundreds of lizards in the pool. Using Mana Sense to look into the depths was like staring directly into a lightbulb. Something powerful was down there. Which one was it though? She couldn’t tell.
She activated Identify again. Scanning more than one thing at once was possible, but she’d never pushed it this far before.
Abyss Salamander Young…
Abyss Salamander Young…
Abyss Salamander Young…
Abyss Salamander Young…
Abyss Salamander Young…
There was no time to look at their levels or reread their descriptions. She just needed to know if the Lord was here or if there was some other monstrosity lurking. Quickly.
The sounds of Alyx clashing with the Caretaker echoed behind Cass. Was the clash becoming more frantic? How long would she last?
There was no time for worry. Just scanning. More. Faster. Deeper.
Abyss Salamander Young…
Abyss Salamander Young…
Abyss Salamander Young…
…
Identify has increased to level 4.
She had never pushed the capabilities of this skill. Rarely tried to scan more than one thing at a time. Had never tried to scan things from particularly far distances. She was doing both more and faster now.
Abyss Salamander Young (Lvl 3) x12…
Abyss Salamander Young (Lvl 4) x19…
Abyss Salamander Young (Lvl 5) x11…
…
Identify has increased to level 5.
Abyss Salamander Young (Lvls 3-10) x48…
Abyss Salamander Young (Lvls 11-15) x4…
…
With every level, she could scan more at once, the information becoming more compact. The skill whispered she could expand the compact information if she wanted, but there was no point now. The range was also increasing. She could feel the skill penetrating deeper and deeper into the pool. Just as she was sure the Mana she sensed was still further down.
Behind her, Alyx screamed. A war cry? Pain? Both? Cass couldn’t tell.
…
Identify has increased to level 6.
…
Uncountable lines listed the Abyss Salamander Young. They ranged in level from 3 to 18, and the further down Identify scanned, the higher that upper level seemed to grow. Would she even be able to kill the Lord at this rate? If he was some level 20 or higher beast would she have any more chance than she’d had against the Caretaker or the Centipede?
But she needed to know. She needed to know if this was possible.
…
Abyss Salamander Young (Lvls 3-19) x106…
Abyss Salamander Young (Lord of the Deep) (Lvl 23) x1
[Nothing in the Uvana Valley is as powerful as the true Lord of the Deep. This both is and is not it.
Though young, this amphibian is a powerful predator. In the wild reaches of Azorth’s oceans, it would have caught and devoured hundreds of lesser creatures every day, luring some in with its brilliant display of colors, snapping up others unsuspectingly with its powerful jaws and silent movement.]
Her breath caught in her throat. There it was. At the edge of what Identify Lvl 6 could reach. Impossibly far down that inky abyss. Below over a hundred other monsters.
She couldn’t kill that. Not with her piddling power. Not that far underwater. Not quickly so she and Alyx could run right after.
This wasn’t going to work. They needed to run. There had to be another way out of the Temple and the Deep. They didn’t need to throw their lives away fighting the Caretaker.