Emily flies into the centre of the cavern, surrounded on all sides by a formation of flesh and water. She twists to place her feet before her as the archite reacts quickly, lashing out with surprising speed with its thick limbs. Emily plants her feet on thin air, but instead of pushing off an invisible platform like before, this time the violently crackling lightning around her legs pours into it as she dodges, leaving a visible mass of buzzing electricity in her wake.
The tentacle aiming for Emily swipes through the residual lightning instead, twitching and smoking as it’s scorched by the high voltage. The water below shakes as the beast lets out a low, rumbling growl of anger, but Emily barely notices. Her focus remains on the threat surrounding her as she feels another mass of flesh sailing towards her following close behind the other.
However, as she plants her foot on the air and kicks herself sideways to evade it, leaving some of her charge behind once again, she glances back and doesn’t see a thing. Before she can question her senses though, she notices the first tentacle’s shadow writhing as a dark, smokey mass separates from it, whipping up from the water’s surface to slice through her second fizzling aerial footstep. The moment it makes contact, the mass solidifies, the blurred edges condensing to reveal another tentacle.
Emily glances at the other tentacles shifting as they try to surround her and only counts six.
It’s hiding some of its tentacles in the shadows of the others. How interesting. I wouldn’t have known to dodge that if it weren’t for my spatial awareness.
Carefully watching for vanishing tentacles, Emily dances through the air once more, playing a dangerous game as she weaves between the powerful striking limbs. The beast quickly realises the futility of its attempts to catch her with the slower tendrils of water, opting to drop the constructs and make do with launching fast-moving torrents of water at her instead.
Emily alternates between evasion and building charge, leaving sparking footsteps behind in the path of the tentacles, and slamming into them with a full-force kick to blow the limbs to pieces, enjoying her new spell. Each time a tentacle is destroyed, pulverised with a thunderous crash as Emily discharges most of the plasma coating her legs, it sinks below the surface before rising again like new a few moments later.
After a few minutes of playing with the beast, Emily finds it increasingly easier to read the titan’s next move and decides it’s time to end her fun, all her tests now completed. She stops discharging her legs, but continues to dodge without dealing any blows as she moves around the room in a hard-to-read pattern, forcing the archite to spread its tentacles as it tries to stop her. The moment she sees a clear gap opening near the centre of the lake, where she has noticed the tentacles reacting fastest to defend when she approaches, she releases the spells waiting in the ceiling.
Three beams of plasma streak down through the battlefield, vaporising the tentacles they cut through and slamming into the centre of the water, sending a cloud of steam into the air as the water flash boils.
A pained screech fills the cavern as Emily herself slams off the roof, discharging one of her legs with a loud thunderclap and sending herself rocketing down into the source of the screech, drawing a solid line of light as lightning trails behind her.
She tucks forward and spins head over heels as she falls, building up momentum in her outstretched leg, still crackling with power. She cuts with ease through the remaining water that tries to form into a shield to defend the beast, the speed of her assault making it impossible for the archite to deploy its other tentacles before her foot connects with flesh.
A thunderous roar shakes the cavern as Emily cuts through the giant beast, destroying all three of its hearts in one go and falling through to hit the lakebed beneath. Her leg cracks as she impacts the rock, her bones breaking under the force of her own blow as the rocks shatter, but she barely notices, her body flooded with adrenaline and excitement from the battle. The archite above her doesn’t have a chance to let out a sound as it twitches, lightning still ravaging its innards, before it goes limp.
Emily releases a satisfied sigh as she looks at the giant corpse surrounding her from inside the hole she has bored through it.
That was incredible! Sky step is so much more effective than I could ever have hoped. It’s a shame it requires three dedicated threads to control, but it was a good idea to make it a combat spell: especially when considering that the only time I’ll have enough mana regeneration to use a third circle spell constantly is when I’m in a mana-dense region. Using movement to build up charge was a good idea too, though maybe turning my own body into the medium for a ritual spell was a bit stupid. It gives the spell some amazing destructive power, but maybe a little too much. If I had forgotten the limiters on mana build-up, I would have blown my legs off.
She winces, activating all of her injectors as she lifts her leg from the hole she’s created, surrounded by a web of cracks, but her attention is quickly stolen from her healing by the sound of rushing water. Without a thought, she sends out a pulse of earthen detection to check the lakebed for the source.
She finds exactly what she was looking for, a hole in the middle of the lake a few metres away from her, buried beneath the archite. The hole is bubbling with water, flowing up to refill the lake Emily evaporated and seeping through the giant corpse, mixing with its inky blood and swallowing her completely.
Jackpot! Please lead back to the upper layer.
Pulling out her Gills and pressing them to her face, Emily swims out of the centre of the corpse and around to the side, where she sees the edge of the hole under the light of a new orb of light, the last having been cancelled as she performed her finishing blow. Only a sliver of the tunnel is visible, so Emily swims forward, pushing against the surprisingly gentle current flowing out of the opening which is partially blocked by the smooth black flesh of Emily’s vanquished foe.
She fails to find purchase on the slippery body so, with a small frown, she pulls back and casts several spells, conjuring a strong current to shunt the corpse aside. With the hole clear, Emily cancels her spells, letting the three blue magic circles behind her disperse with the current, and swims down. She ignores the aching pain in her leg and sinks into the hole that’s wide enough to fit three people at a time while dropping straight down into the distance.
Emily swims down in a small bubble of light for a few moments before the tunnel starts to curve, slowly levelling out and continuing in the opposite direction of The Abyss. After a few minutes, she comes across a small hole in the tunnel wall. She pauses, floating in the middle of the water and staring at it for a moment before a bundle of black tentacles bursts out.
Emily calmly snatches the small archite, letting its tentacles wrap around her arms and squeeze, fruitlessly trying to crush her.
Looks like this is where it was storing its young.
Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.
The small creature’s main body appears to be the size of her fist, so Emily simply squeezes, crushing the life out of it. She drops the corpse and pours mana into the orb of light floating behind her, revealing dozens of similar beasts ahead, some slightly larger, oozing from the walls. Unconcerned, Emily casts arc, forming a large ball of lightning in front of her before the creatures can reach her.
Power flows out of the orb, filling the water with uncontrolled charge and stunning everything in an instant, leaving everything but Emily in a twitching mess. She calmly swims on, the crackling orb floating along behind her until she’s past the nest.
She doesn’t run into a single creature after that and, a few minutes later, the tunnel curves up again. Emily follows it, rising towards clearer water far above, bursting from the surface in a small cave with glittering white crystals overhead, mist covering the floor, and only a single path out, away from The Abyss.
“Finally!” Emily cheers with glee, relaxing and floating on her back as relief washes over her.
After enjoying the feeling of satisfaction for a few moments, Emily reaches down for her belt, a familiar blend of several-month-old emotions returning to her heart as she considers meeting her friends again, and her hand slips into The Clock’s pouch.
“At least I think I can make this bearable for Jules now,” she mutters bitterly as she turns back time.
***
Emily turns away from The Abyss, heading back through the cave to reunite with her friends. Before she reaches them or their detection range, she settles down in the pitch-black and meditates to create a slightly more reasonable time frame for finding an exit. A few days later, she steps into the sound barrier around her friends’ temporary encampment, looking forward to seeing them again.
“I’ve found an exit,” Emily says the moment she sees them huddled around a campfire, receiving looks of surprise and relief.
“Already?” Enzo questions dubiously. “That was fast.”
His words give Emily a strange sense of dissonance, her feeling of separation from before the time loop coming back in full force and only growing as she creases her brow in frustration.
Why does our differing perception of our time apart get to me so much? I’ve never cared about spending time in frozen time before, why is it any different now? Why do I feel so… distant?
“Yep,” Emily says uncomfortably, quickly shifting into a cold mask. “There’s another underwater tunnel that links back to the level above us. It’s much calmer though. And wider. It’s only a few days walk from here.”
She doesn’t miss Juliana flinching in response to news of more swimming, but she simply flashes her a reassuring smile, thinking about the new idea that came to her in frozen time. Juliana seems to relax slightly, smiling back and helping to dull some of Emily’s discomfort.
“What are we waiting for?” Dante asks, interrupting their silent exchange and standing up. “Let’s get going.”
The group gather themselves and set off back towards The Abyss. It doesn’t take long to return to the gaping maw of darkness, and they pause at the edge of the cascading river that pours down into it.
“The path we need to take is a little way away, so I’m going to carry all of you across,” Emily calmly informs her friends, a hint of mana in her voice so she can be heard over the sound of rushing water.
They nod in agreement, no one showing even a hint of hesitance to putting their lives in Emily’s capable hands. Emily smiles at their immediate trust, feeling her perceived distance from them shrinking, and steps towards Dante to pat him on the shoulder.
“Try not to squirm too much,” she says before carelessly grabbing him and tossing him onto her shoulder.
He lets out a grunt of discomfort, but quickly relaxes, grabbing hold of Emily’s side to stabilise himself. Emily does the same with Enzo, throwing him onto her other shoulder before turning and stepping towards the edge of the platform.
“See you guys in a second,” she says as she crouches her legs and kicks out into thin air.
She feels the hands clasping her clothes tighten their grip and ignores them as she simply pours extra mana into the Air Walker, using the artefact to form footholds as she makes her way over to the exit tunnel. Dante and Enzo relax as Emily runs through the air, the initial shock of the experience fading away as they stare down at the coiling black expanse below.
“Is there really nothing else you can do here?” Enzo asks as Emily deposits the two men back on solid ground again.
“Not really,” Emily says with a shrug, glancing over the precipice. “I don’t think it’s safe to go down there, so the only other things I can think of would be analysing the mana here for elemental understanding like Hester did earlier and looking around these tunnels for natural resources. But I’ve been looking at the darkness mana down here since we got onto this layer and it hasn’t helped me at all, so I don’t think staying close to this pit will make any difference.”
“Why don’t we look for resources then?” Dante asks. “I get not wanting to go down there, but what’s the harm in hanging around down here to gather materials? You’re strong enough to defend us and you found the exit quickly, surely you can find loads of magic crystals down here too, right?”
Emily opens her mouth to argue it would take too much time and freezes.
Am I stupid? I was so focused on finding The Abyss to complete my quest, and then finding the exit to get out in a reasonable time, that I stopped caring about gathering materials. I guess spending so long focused on one goal leads to tunnel vision. Ah well, I’ve already mapped loads of these tunnels! I know exactly where the valuable herbs and crystals are. Who cares about how long it takes? I can move fast enough to reach the exit in half a day on my own and know there aren’t any third circle beasts, or large groups of enemies, between here and the archite. Why don’t I send them off without me and I can spend a few days filling my spatial storage?
“I can,” Emily says with a nod, stepping out into thin air. “I have an idea. Move further in while I go grab the others, then I’ll explain.”
She heads back over and quickly picks up Tom and Hester, carrying them unceremoniously over her shoulders too before returning for Juliana. She sweeps Juliana up in a princess carry before strolling through the air with her at a leisurely pace.
“Don’t worry about the swim back too much,” Emily reassures her, whispering into her ear as they walk alone through the darkness above The Abyss. “I have a plan to make it more comfortable for you. I’m working on the spell for it as we speak.”
Juliana quietly nods, leaning her head against Emily’s shoulder and staring into her eyes to avoid looking down. Emily smiles at her, but a slight discomfort squeezes her chest at the lack of a proper response, and she doesn’t push the issue anymore.
After dropping Juliana off with the others, Emily returns and grabs Ivor before starting to explain her plan.
“I’m going to make a quick communication system that works down here, then I’m gonna stay here while you guys head towards the exit.”
“What?!” Juliana cries, panic flooding her eyes instantly as she grips Emily’s sleeve.
“Don’t worry,” Emily says, taking Juliana’s hand in hers and giving it a reassuring squeeze. “I just want to search some of the nearby tunnels for herbs and magic crystals. I move fastest alone, and I don’t think it’s a great idea to stick around here for too long, so I think it’s best if you guys head straight towards the exit.”
“Isn’t that dangerous?” Hester asks with a frown.
“A little, yes.” Emily nods. “Hence why I want to keep in contact the whole time. I’m going to repurpose the Diver’s receiver: it should work despite the interference from the dense mana down here.”
“We’ll be fine!” Dante says confidently. “We can handle ourselves for a few days. Hell, we may actually get a proper fight in now.”
Emily scoffs and pulls out a few light packs, handing them to Hester to distribute.
“You guys set off now. I’ll draw up a map and quickly make our communicators then catch up before the first split in the path.”
Juliana looks unconvinced, so Emily sits down and gestures for her to join her as the others prepare to leave. She wraps Juliana in her mana to help fend off The Abyss’ pressure and pulls out the Diver’s tablet, setting it down on the stone beside her before pulling out a lesser space crystal, some white iron, and some engraving tools. Juliana watches her quietly as their friends vanish into the darkness, waiting until they’re gone to speak up.
“I didn’t think you’d take my words as a sign to separate from us completely,” Juliana grumbles unhappily.
“It’s not because of what you said, don’t worry,” Emily says, pulling her into a side hug without looking away from the white iron as she moulds it to fit around the crystal. “I just keep getting a bad feeling when I think about staying here for too long. I was planning on leaving with you guys, but Dante pointed out it’s a waste of a trip to come down here and not gather resources.”
Juliana remains silent for a few moments before letting out a tired sigh and nodding.
“Okay. It’s probably the best choice if you don’t think it’s safe here. Just... be careful.”