The cave system was massive. It would seem that the entire island was nothing but an ants nest of tunnels. I found the cave that Adam had told me about on the first day.

What he hadn't told me was just how narrow some of the openings were and how it was entirely underwater for a good solid 30 minutes of swimming. Only to surface in a dark cavern with only three inches of air between you and the ceiling. There was a tunnel leading upwards from that cavern that had more space with air, but I couldn't lever myself up over the ledge to see what was on the other side.

I decided that this cave had been a bust. There was no way I'd be able to get Maize through it alive. No one could hold their breath for that long and fight to push themselves through narrow openings at the same time.

One of my grottos had a crack in the side of the wall. I spent a solid day chipping at the hole so I could see inside. No there wasn't anything further back in that crack. Just another shallow grotto.

It took me two more days to find the next cave. The entrance had been partly covered by a recent rockfall. Probably the earthquake from a few days ago. It took some maneuvering to get some of the larger rocks out of the way. I had to fashion a lever out of branches to move them. When I finally had enough room to wiggle into the hole I was both surprised and disappointed.

The cavern was huge. The size of three houses. It had a sandy beach area and seemed to be the favored home of what seemed to be the entire island's population of Goblin Crabs. I hadn't seen any of the crabs in the lake until this point. So that meant they were coming in from another place. So somehow this cavern connected with the ocean. I just couldn't ascertain from where.

It wasn't as if I could roll onto the sandy beach to flop about until I found it. I would be entirely at the monster's mercy on land. I wasn't sure if I wasn't in danger in the water too. I was certain I was faster than they were, but they had numbers on their side. No, it was best to leave them alone.

I did ask Aggie to give me a knife to strap to my wrist the next time I went into the lake. She seemed more than a little concerned about the Goblin Crabs and had to get my weapon approved by some higher-ups. Aggie said that they were concerned about my mental health and it went against their policy to give patients weapons. However, after a mental health check, I was cleared. I was only allowed to have it in the lake, but I was to give it to the lift attendant after exiting the lake.

Having the knife certainly made me feel better. I practiced slicing and cutting underwater. It was different than on land. There was the water-resistance to factor in. Stabbing was easy enough but the slicing motion took some time to get used to. The only thing I accomplished with my practice was to scare some fish and leave soggy trails of loose seaweed floating free in the water.

The knife was invaluable though. With it, I could slice away at thick areas of seaweed. In some areas, it was so dense and thick I had to gather up the floating bits and take them to the shore just to get them out of my way. This was how I found the cave I needed.

I was busy hacking away at a bit of seaweed in order to examine a suspiciously dark area that I thought was a cave when I accidentally scared some young turtles out of hiding. These turtles were, in fact, hiding in the opening of a very shallow crack in the surface of a large boulder that had been covered with seaweed.

I had to cut away a lot of seaweed just to be able to see inside the crack. I could just fit myself inside and pulled myself up onto a shelf that sat a few inches above the waterline. The ceiling was low but by belly-flopping along indignantly for a while I found myself on the other side of the stone shelf. Another water pool about five feet deep led into another series of caves.

One cave tunnel went to the left and up sharply. There wasn't any way I could explore that one since dragging myself uphill over jagged rocks wasn't appealing.

The second tunnel went down further into the water and turned sharply to the right. After following this tunnel for a while it came to a point where the opening was just too small to fit through. When I tried to turn around I had a bit of a panic attack since I was now stuck. I had to slowly push myself backwards through the tunnel until I had enough space to turn back around.

The last cave tunnel went to the left. There was only about seven inches of water but it was sandy enough that I could pull myself through. There were two more branching tunnels but neither of them went anywhere. The main tunnel though was open and seemed to continue forever.

In some areas it was wet and sandy in others it was completely underwater. My stomach was all scratched up from pulling myself across the sand for so long. I almost gave up and turned around a few times. The tunnel was widening though and I took that as a good sign. It would suck if this was another dead end where I just had to turn back around.

The tunnel went underwater again and I could tell there was something different about this tunnel because the salinity of the water suddenly increased. The tunnel opened up into a saltwater pool. I surfaced and looked around.

The first things I noticed were the waves and the sounds of them crashing against rock. Loud, it was very loud. The cave mouth acted as an echo chamber. But this cave had been worked on. Man's hands had worked at least part of this cave. Widened it and squared it off.

All so that row upon row of lifeboats could be hung up on the cave walls. There had to be at least sixty boats. Each of them probably able to hold a dozen people each. I hadn't realized there were that many people working on The Island.

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Even bigger boats hung from pulleys in the ceiling. Undo their ropes and the boats would fall down into the water. There were only four of the bigger boats and I had to only wonder at their purpose. They weren't lifeboats and had obviously been used a few times since they had scrape marks and old dried barnacles on their hulls. Lazy to not have plucked them off before docking, hanging, the boats back in place.

There was a huge double door made of metal at the end of the cavern. I wondered if it was locked. It would be counterproductive to a fast evacuation if the doors were locked. It would mean dozens of people milling around in the hall waiting for that one person that had the key. There had to be some sort of security though. I swam out towards the ocean.

The open ocean. I had a sudden urge to just keep swimming. Just to leave, but I couldn't just do that. I turned to go back into the cave where the boats were held and realized why they'd selected that area.

You couldn't see the cave approaching it. It had to be magic. Where there should have been a large gaping cave mouth, was just a bunch of large rocks. No one would dare sail their boat close to those. With the current as fast as is was swirling around the head of The Island it would mean getting your boat bashed against those rocks and sinking. An illusion to keep people away.

That same current would be beneficial in getting the boats off The Island. Once caught up in that current the boats would be pulled out and away from the cave mouth making room for more boats to exit. Though I'd hate to see what the currents would be like in a storm.

A pigs tail is what the sailors called it. Essentially, a whirlpool. I could feel the makings of one deeper down in the water, but fifteen feet near the surface it sort of petered out and became like a normal cross current. Boats bashing against the cave walls and sinking would be a very real possibility during a storm.

I needed to get back. I would take time to work my way back through the cave and into the lake. I'd found my boats. It had taken me a week but I'd found them. Now to meet up with Maize and discuss what we were going to do about it.

There were sections of the tunnel that were underwater. Not for any extended length of time, but enough for me to be concerned about how long she could hold her breath. There were places where we'd have to go through one at a time and that would mean even more time for her to hold her breath.

Another issue was sight. The caves were dark and had no light. Something about my transformation had made it possible for me to see in the dark. After all, oceans and lake bottoms were dark places. With my secondary eyelid in place, I could see fairly well in the dark water. Out of the water, was a different story since the eyelid distorted my vision. But since I was mostly going in a straight line I didn't have to be worried about getting lost.

It might be more disturbing for Maize though. Not being able to breathe or see. Hopefully, we'd be able to work something out.

Goblin Crabs might be an issue too. On the way out of the cave, I came upon a small one unexpectedly. I'd startled it just as much as it scared me. I had grown overconfident knowing that the entrance to the lake was just ahead. I was just going out as it was popping in to explore.

It attacked as soon as it got over its surprise. Goblin Crabs in the water were a lot more dangerous than they were on land I discovered. It shot some sort of water projectile magic at me. This missed but stirred up a lot of sand. I wasn't going to be drowned twice in the same week.

The magic it used propelled it backward and it tried to ready itself for another attack. Before it could I used my knife and sliced at one of its standing eyes. Then the other, I hoped to blind it. Instead, it lashed out at me with its claws trying to clamp down on my arm.

If my arm got pinched between those claws it might break. Fighting in the water was a lot harder than I'd expected. You have no stabilization. No ground to brace yourself against. The cave wall was behind me and it was the only thing that saved me. I had just enough space to push away from the wall using my tail and just barely missing those claws. I found myself lying on my side looking up at the underside of the crab. Pushing up from the ground I stabbed upward and somehow got lucky.

My knife slid into the soft carapace. This crab must have molted recently and its shell wasn't as hard as they normally were. If I would have attempted an underbelly strike on a hard shell the most it would have done was shove the crab away from me. Everyone knew you had to take out the eyes and head of the crab first. Trying to attack it by piercing the shell was just asking for a broken weapon.

But my knife sank in. It thrashed around a lot trying to dislodge it but since I was still holding the hilt just dealt itself more damage. I finally let go and just watched as the crab tried to swim away. It didn't get far and soon fell to the seaweed-covered lake floor.

Well, that had been surprising. It was a smaller crab. If it had been a full-grown Goblin Crab I would have been in serious trouble. I'd been underestimating how dangerous they were. My stomach dropped as I thought of that cave full of Goblin Crabs. Hell, if they hadn't ignored me and attacked instead I'd be dead.

I'd gotten cocky. I'd assumed that since I could take care of a Goblin Crab on land I could do it just as easily in the water. I was wrong. Fighting off a monster in the water was very different than on land.

Shit. I needed a bigger knife.

I poked at the crab a bit just to make certain it was dead. Then I grabbed it by one of its legs and swam back to the lift chair. I didn't want to leave the dead thing at the mouth of the cave. Goblin Crabs would consume their own and I didn't want to be surprised by a nest of crabs feeding on the carcass of this one the next time I went back.

Besides, they were edible and even if I was ambivalent towards the taste of crab other people truly enjoyed it. Aggie would most likely love the idea of fresh Goblin Crab for dinner. Even this small one would be enough to feed about twenty people. I just hoped they had enough butter. Goblin Crab had to have butter.

Name- Rille

HP 2145

MP 7894

Level- 13

Age- 19

Race/Species- Human Altered Aquatic

Gender- Female

Occupation- Freelancer

Exp- 297

Physical Power- 392

Stamina- 483

Defense- 598

Agility- 10 (on land) 546 (in water)

Intelligence- 123

Magic Power- 875

Water Magic- Lv 2

Skills

Knife Work Lv 1

Dual Wielding Lv 1

Swimming Lv 2

Fishing Lv 2

Net Lv 1

Rod Lv 1

Pain Tolerance Lv 7

Deception Lv 2

Etiquette Lv 1

Appraisal Lv 1

Harvesting Lv 1

Cooking Lv 1

Cleaning Lv 2

Sewing Lv 1

Knitting Lv 1

Dyeing Lv 1

Soap Making Lv 4

Extraction Lv 3

Dancing

Singing

Leatherwork

Shearing

Spinning

Weaving

Pottery

Painting

Special Skills

Luck Leech

Telepathy Block

Titles- Dedicated Cleaner

Enemy of Sheep

Lover of Baths