Emily turns away from Hester, swimming over to collect the eels’ bodies before they can sink into the weeds below. She sends all of them into her storage except the last, which she keeps in hand, looking at it contemplatively.
How are they able to use lightning so well underwater? It didn’t feel hot at all when it hit me earlier, so maybe they just have a different mental image? Or are they just wasting extra mana to maintain their control?
Her focus is drawn to the spines lining their bodies and the glistening growths on the end. Emily takes one between two of her fingers, pouring in a spark of mana to try and understand them. The organic crystal crackles, resisting the external influence even in death, but she’s able to glean a pertinent detail from the interaction.
These crystals are lightning and water attributes. No wonder they’re able to use their spells underwater: they’re dual element. Why didn’t I think of that? I’ve used highly compatible elements to enhance certain aspects like piercing power in my spells before, and even elements with low compatibility to counter each other in my alchemy. Why didn’t I consider using low compatibility elements to remove negative aspects from each other? It will make the spell weaker in attack power, but it will be far more efficient than spending extra mana and processing power just to forcefully control a spell.
Mentally berating herself, she sends the body into her storage and starts one of her cores on quickly building a new spell as she gestures to the twins to keep going.
They continue swimming along the lakebed, following its gradual decline towards the bottom. They run into another group of eels in the reeds, sleeping in small burrows that they burst out of as Emily gets close. Luckily, the first attacks only target Emily at the front, and she simply absorbs their hits without flinching while throwing up a barrier as the first two slam into her chest, saving her friends from the three follow-up charges.
After the fish have wasted their first assault, Emily crushes the two that hit her and finishes off the other three with a water bolt each. They don’t run into another enemy before the plant life covering the rock below them starts to reduce in density.
The weeds slowly fade away until the rock beneath is fully exposed and, a few metres deeper, their goal enters their small area of light. A small, fist-sized hole in the rock, pitch black despite the magical light around them and seemingly leeching the light away, with dark tendrils reaching up into the water above.
Emily frowns slightly when she sees the hole, not remembering the small dark limbs trying to take apart her light. She holds up a hand to tell the twins to stop and focuses on her water detection spell. Unfortunately, everything around the hole is distorted in her scan, the tendrils seeming to pull apart her spell as it gets close.
Clicking her tongue in her mask, Emily swims above the hole cautiously, hoping her infra-sight will reveal any hidden enemies. She gazes in and sees nothing but darkness. Still concerned about the strange shadowy limbs, Emily swims down with her left hand resting at her hip on top of The Clock’s pouch, and a magic circle on either side of her.
The moment she touches the first tendril of darkness, her caution proves warranted. The tendrils all react, suddenly solidifying into pitch-black tentacles and wrapping themselves around Emily’s arm. Emily reacts instantly, kicking up and pushing herself away from the hole, ripping her attacker from its hiding place.
Her vision is instantly filled with darkness, as the flexible body pulled from the hole expands into a large, pitch-black octopus with six thick tentacles and a dozen thin tendrils. Emily’s eyes widen and she freezes for a moment as she recognises the beast.
Holy shit! What’s an archite doing here?
She quickly recovers her composure as she notes its size and counts the number of its limbs.
Ah, never mind. It’s only second circle.
With slight disappointment, Emily releases the two spells held at the ready beside her. One magic circle fires a teardrop of water through the archite’s centre mass, ripping through a few tendrils in the way and pulverising the giant octopus’ first heart. The other releases a cold blue beam of lightning that cuts clean through the back of the beast’s mantle, destroying the other two hearts held within.
It worked! Shame I already have a spell called water bolt. Maybe aqua bolt?
The remaining tendrils around Emily’s arm release their grip, slipping away and returning to their original form, melting into shadows for a moment before melding together into two half-destroyed tentacles. As the body settles, Emily taps it, sending it into her storage before floating down to the open hole below.
It appears the same as the last time she was here, so she gestures for the twins to approach.
“What was that?” Hester signs, most of her attention resting on the dark maw before them.
“It was a baby archite,” Emily responds calmly, her eyes flashing with amusement as Hester starts in surprise.
“That was a titan of the deep?”
“I know right? Didn’t look much like a titan, did it? It’s only a second circle baby. It takes them tens of years to grow to full size.”
Hester nods in understanding, turning her full focus on the hole leaking mana below them as Emily floats a metre away to allow them access. She summons the Diver and presses the release latch, opening the access to the internals. She pulls a winding key from her storage and presses it into an empty slot to start winding the internal springs.
This should give it enough power to move itself for a few days as long as it doesn’t need to use the course adjusting propellers too much. After that, hopefully it will continue moving with the current long enough to find the end. I’m not sure I can make a more self-sufficient drone that’ll fit, so we’ll have to search blindly if it doesn’t.
As she prepares the Diver for release, the twins both inspect the hole in their own ways. Tom repeatedly dips his hand in and out, like a curious child, while Hester sits on the lakebed beside the hole, her eyes shut as she probes the leaking mana with her own.
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Emily finishes winding the Diver, the internal springs pushed to full compression, locking the key in place. She wraps the internals with her machina, holding them still as she removes the key. She closes the drone’s body and approaches the hole, lightly pushing Tom out of the way.
She lowers the Diver into the hole, pointing down into the darkness, and releases her hold. The moment her machina inside it dissipates, the propeller facing her whirrs into motion, churning out water and thrusting the machine down and out of sight.
Emily moves back after the Diver vanishes, letting Tom play with the hole again as she pulls out the receiver tablet. She connects to it, not engaging the virtual display and instead just reading the output directly.
The signal from the Diver holds strong, quickly spiralling down below them, passing thirty metres while bouncing side to side.
It’s still narrow. That’s promising. If it opens up too much before reaching The Abyss, my Diver will probably get lost.
She watches the signal moving down for a short while before it starts to level out and move along sideways. Satisfied that it’s working for now, Emily breaks the connection and puts away the tablet, turning her attention back to the twins.
I’ll wait for Hester to be done. This is a good opportunity for her.
She floats down to the lakebed and settles against the rock, using a small twisting of metal mana to keep herself anchored down with ease. Time slowly passes and, after ten minutes of sitting with her eyes shut, Hester opens them, looking at Emily and giving her an appreciative nod.
“You done?” Emily signs.
“Yes. Thanks for waiting for me to finish.”
Emily waves off her thanks and releases her mana, letting herself drift up from the lakebed and gesturing for the twins to follow. She kicks off, rapidly rising towards the surface.
They burst out of the water without meeting any resistance, popping up on the opposite side of the cavern to their friends. Emily reaches up, pulling her Gills free from her face and sending it into her belt as Tom and Hester rise through the surface beside her. They both copy her, removing the masks from their faces and holding them out to her.
“Keep em,” she says, conjuring a current to push them back towards their friends on the shore. “You’ll probably need them again.”
“Thanks,” Tom says cheerfully. “That was so cool! It felt like my arm was vanishing every time it went in the hole.”
“Wait. Felt like, or looked like?”
“Felt like. Why? Didn’t you get the numbness when you put your arm in?”
“No, I didn’t,” Emily muses, glancing to Hester with a questioning look.
“I didn’t get full numbness,” Hester says, answering Emily’s silent inquiry. “I did get a strange tingling feeling though.”
“Interesting.” Emily nods thoughtfully.
I didn’t get that at all. Is it a difference in circle? I didn’t get it last time either, so mental resistance maybe?
“Hey!” Dante calls out as they reach the shore, moving to help pull the twins from the water. “Did it work?”
Emily pushes herself out with ease, rising from the water in a single unnaturally smooth motion while answering his question.
“For now, yes. The Diver is heading through the tunnel connected to that hole, now we just have to wait and hope it leads us to the right place.”
“Are we waiting here?” Juliana asks as Emily dries herself with a quick cast of cleanse.
“Yeah. We’ll wait here for a day, then follow the Diver afterwards if it stays on course.”
“Great! I want to see the writing on the wall,” Tom chirps as Hester dries him off.
“Go ahead,” Emily says, pulling the barrier disc from her belt. “We’ll set up camp here, so you’re free to roam the cavern as long as someone else goes with you.”
Tom expectantly looks at his sister, but she shrugs him off.
“I want to digest my gains from looking at that hole’s mana. Ask someone else.”
“I’ll take you,” Enzo offers, standing up and walking over.
Tom and Enzo separate from the group, the way lit by the light pack still clipped to Tom’s chest. Meanwhile, Emily sets up the barrier disc, turning the dial in the middle a full turn this time and watching as it stabilises mid-air at an odd angle, firing its anchors into the wall and the floor by the water’s edge.
Satisfied with the barrier, Emily joins Juliana and Dante in setting up the group’s bedrolls and a campfire while Hester meditates at the water’s edge, ripples occasionally spreading from her across the water’s surface as she plays with her elemental comprehension.
Emily positions her spiders by the cavern entrances leading to the section of lakeshore they occupy, with her boat floating stationary a little way off the shore, and settles down beside the fire with Juliana and Dante. She takes out the Diver’s tablet and activates the visual display, two small dots of wind swirling into life above it, before placing it down. She then takes out the materials to continue work on the final set of Gills.
The two rotating motes of purple wind slowly move apart in an unpredictable path as the day goes by, the Diver treading its lonely journey down into the depths. A single small group of piranhas swims past Emily’s boat’s detection during the day, but she chooses to ignore it since they don’t come close, diving down into the middle of the lake quickly after she spots them.
Early in the evening, an hour or so before the light in the tunnels should fade, Hester approaches Emily.
“Hey, Emily?” she asks tentatively.
“Yes?” Emily responds, pulling her attention away from Juliana’s head in her lap.
Hester shivers slightly when Emily’s warm smile immediately drops into a neutral stare as she looks up, but she continues unperturbed.
“Could you take me back down to look at that hole again, please? I think I’m close to something.”
“Oh?” Emily raises a curious brow, a small grin creeping up slowly to join it. “In water or ice? I haven’t noticed you make any attempts at an ice manifestation yet, only water.”
“Both? I’m sure I’m close to something new in my water manifestation, and I believe that will push me over the start line with ice,” Hester answers, gaining more confidence in her words as she goes.
“I see, I’ll make you a deal then,” Emily responds, catching Hester off guard.
“A deal?”
“Yeah. I’ll take you back down if you show me your manifestations before and after.”
“What? Sure,” Hester agrees, relaxing at the simple request.
Emily slides out from under Juliana, replacing her legs with a pillow and noticing a small pout following her as she does. Chuckling, she leans down and plants a kiss on Juliana’s head before she stands up.
“I’ll be back in a bit,” Emily says, catching Juliana’s eyes and receiving a small smile in response.
She and Hester head for the water’s edge, pausing before they step in as Emily turns to Hester with expectation clear on her face. Hester closes her eyes, raising her hand before her and whispering: “water.”
At first, nothing happens. Then, with no warning, a sudden burst of blue particles washes out of her palm. It disperses slowly into the air as a second wave rushes out. The pattern repeats a few times until Hester lets out a breath and opens her eyes.
Interesting. She seems to be viewing water as waves. I wonder if that will give her spells a different effect than my calmer, more malleable image. Maybe more power?
Emily nods for her to continue, so Hester shuts her eyes and whispers: “ice.”
A few seconds of silence pass once again, and then a few faint, pale blue whisps of mana shimmer to life before her hand. The effect is so small Emily can’t recognise any discernible pattern that may suggest the direction Hester’s mental image is taking.
She’s certainly not close to achieving a manifestation. But, it’s not far off her initial manifestation of water. If she can refine her image a little I’m sure she’ll enter the ranks of dual elementalists.
Hester drops her hand and opens her eyes again, finished with her demonstration. Emily nods, summoning her Gills from her storage and placing them to her face.
“Thanks,” she says, stepping out over the water. “Now for my end of the deal.”
She plunges into the icy drink below.