Swimming past another floating bulb, her scanner was held firmly and providing a few moments of clarity…
But it didn’t matter, she was safe and her mind was on autopilot.
At first the green lightbulb looking plants scared the hell out of Iva, but now even she was navigating through them, and despite the waters cooling and becoming colder by the day, Sera was liking the change.
Mostly because it meant two things; fewer fish and clearer waters.
“If the schools of fish were still at the entrance we wouldn’t have come close huh Iva?”
Hearing a small happy squeak echo through the water, Sera relaxed her tense expression and continued onwards, it was down here after all.
This cave was also not like the others, where the ones near her makeshift shelter were either small or tunnels going straight down, this was almost the complete opposite.
Walls weren’t seen since the entrance and the water despite being clearer had a faint green tint to it, I hope this doesn’t affect me breathing…
If I feel lightheaded, I’ll let Iva know to turn back or try and find a way up.
The second feature that made this cave different was it went almost all the way horizontal, occasionally the ceiling dipped, but Sera still felt that beating her way through the rock was more feasible than swimming back.
Bringing out the compass, Sera saw the hand was still pointing East, which meant almost everything matched what the PID had mentioned.
The memory hadn’t aged a moment since she left the shelter earlier in the morning.
“Should I just… kill myself?”
The knife suddenly felt a lot heavier in her hands.
A cold sweat came over her back as she could still feel the whirr of the weapon.
“Keira killed hundreds of people and… was the one who kidnapped Loretta. She’s the one who wanted to start the war-it-it wasn’t me.”
Eyes blinking, Sera stared at the knife waiting for it to plunge into her stomach, but her arms listened to her, her body wasn’t the same one that would act on a thought like before.
“It… wasn’t.”
Sera dropped the knife and stopped moving her limbs.
Her body began to fall to the floor instead of float to the surface, but Sera wasn’t focused on it.
“I killed people,” Her eyes began to moisten before they burned in the salty waters.
In the dream from before, Keira had also killed someone, but it was an obvious scumbag… Sera herself had punched of the more wandering hands at a thought back in the ward.
But the people from the caravan… from the academy.
They were innocent.
Keira was dead, but she was her now.
She had her body, her memories were played as dreams, and she could feel her body slowly moving like-
“Like a killer.”
The words sank as she realised even though she didn’t remember her previous life, her body certainly did.
Hands still holding her face the tears stopped, but Sera tried to will them to sting, to burn, she didn’t deserve to-
A small wave of water swiftly pushed against her body, she could feel her cute and caring companion try and gently make its way between her arms, but it found no purchase.
Instead, Iva floated to the top of Sera’s head and gentle lay it's soft belly onto her head, with its small scaled wing gentle resting on her ears.
For minutes, Sera was left with her thoughts and Iva’s reassuring ear pats, question after question came and left, doubt after doubt tried to leave its mark.
But eventually she knew.
She knew that she wasn’t crying for their deaths, or for Keira’s bluntness and lack of empathy of murdering groups of nerieads.
She was crying for herself.
“I…”
Coming to the thought, Sera stopped trying to cradle herself and began focusing on the why.
Why am I crying-Because I don’t have a perfect start for my new life?
Her body stopped shaking.
Just because this body was from a murderer doesn’t mean I have to be one!
Her hand stopped tensing into a fist and slowly reached behind her head, grasping her long hair.
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She pulled it out.
It’s ponytail that she had long since stuffed in her academy wear and now her light armour came pouring out, the band holding it in broken.
Leaving the floor, her hands were already grasping the PID as Iva came to her side.
“Iva… Let’s get stronger, this means no holding back anymore okay?”
Rolling her shoulders back the knife that was still falling through the water was pulled back to the pouch as Sera navigated to the map section and looked for modules.
PID Interface
Module visualising…
Failed.
No active map visualiser found.
Loading textual description.
Organising list based on location.
Module within The Temple status… assimilated.
Module brought towards The Temple… lost.
Module cache… secure.
...
Other modules locked until others are assimilated.
[Would you like to track a specific module?]
It works even without the visualiser? I’ll try the module brought towards The Temple for now.
Clicking the track option Sera focused on the second closest module.
PID Interface
Module brought towards the temple…
Scans indicate this module is likely a dwelling module, it was last located 350m South East from the Temple before a large energy signature went off in the area.
The module has likely been destroyed or has moved out of range due to the energy signature.
“A dwelling module? The last module I found was the recipe module, and it was useful…”
Sera looked to Iva who took one look at her before, excitedly swimming to the entrance, “Well I was going to ask if we should go, but this does bring us closer to fixing the PID, surviving the winter and saving Loretta.”
Swimming over to her pack Sera dumped the items on the ground.
Which meant they were all slowly falling onto the seafloor, Sera could see a small flask and the journal flop around between the ores, coins and other materials.
Specifically the ”Compass, I knew I brought it with me.”
Pushing the metals and knick knacks away Sera gave the compass a quick test and it still worked.
“Alright Iva, I think we’re ready to-”
A low roar came from the cave.
Iva froze and so did Sera.
They looked at eachother and then slowly looked towards where the noise came from.
Sera stared down the culprit in question, her stomach.
“...eat. We’re ready to eat then.”
She was nearly around 300m away from the temple.
Of course her measurements weren’t exact, hell she was more or less relying on seeing what caused the module to go missing to find the missing module.
The more I think the plan over… the more I think it sounds dumb.
Pushing past a crusty bulb that seemed to be reaching the end of it's life cycle, grey particles began leaking off the plant but Sera swam under it.
“I’m finally getting used to all this,” Sera checked on Iva as she continued breaststroke with a slight flutter kick.
It wasn’t something that she had planned but the more she swam with her armour the more it feels like she needs more of a push, her swimming technique wasn’t bad but she couldn’t hope to mimic what Keira did.
Swimming higher Sera kept following the ceiling of the cave as she tried to replicate the movements but ended up kicking herself in the thigh.
Again.
“Shit. I feel like… like my body knew what to do but I’m just not doing it.”
Giving a small sigh Sera tried to shake off her frustration as she put twice as much effort in her strokes, that’s when she noticed the cavern began to look a bit different.
“Iva!”
She shouted towards the direction of a dead bulb before her seal popped up.
“Stay close. I think we’re nearly there.”
Sera could feel a small bit of water pressure come from her flank as she made sure her scanner was still ready to work as her light and as a way to blind any monsters.
Her eyes picked up the change first however.
It was in the colour of the water.
“It’s… clearing up?”
The deeper she went inside the cavern, the greener the water was. So why had it begun to clear up when she was more than halfway in?
Sera began to tense as she saw a bundle of bulbs bunched together ahead of her, they completely blocked what was ahead of her.
Swapping out her compass for her Knife, Iva noticed the change as well, Sera could see her normally wide curious eyes squint, changing her from a cute pet to a tense predator.
Slowly swimming forwards, Sera decided to swim under the bulbs and check what they were swarming from below rather than push past them.
Halfway there Sera noticed the difference immediately this time.
There was light, rays of sunlight, which could only mean one thing.
There was an opening in the cave.
Pushing past the hanging vines Sera could see a vast cave opening unlike any other she had seen before, not only that but the opening seemed crude and the edges were darkened.
Almost as if something had torn through.
Swimming upwards Sera slowly made her way to and past the bundle of bulbs hungry for sunlight and into the open waters.
She was staring at an open flat sandbank.
The waters were calm and far enough downwards to avoid the reaper, they also seemed strangely familiar.
Her eyes scanned the surroundings until she stopped and saw it.
That’s when Sera realised she had been here before, just not when she was in control.
Two lone tents stood a way off, collapsed but unmistakable.
“This is the expedition’s camp, where Keira…”
Looking down, Sera was hovering above a massive crater with her and Iva in the middle of it.
The energy signature last detected here must’ve been the weapon.
Her left hand went over her heart as she slowed her movements unconsciously.
To her left Iva noticed the change and began floating up to her head before a hand stopped her.
“Don’t worry about me Iva. I-I’m not the same person.”
Looking back at the tent Sera pushed away her doubts and began swimming towards what was left of the campsite.
She made it halfway across before a new obstacle bared it's teeth.
PID Interface
Warning:
An energy weapon has been used in this area, the surrounding area has been contaminated with radiation excluding the site of the blast.
This is due to the unique nature of energy weapons and it is strongly recommened to turn back or risk permanent health issues.
Sera almost did a double take as she reread the message.
“Radiation? Wait but only the surrounding area… so not the crater itself.” Sera looked back at the collapsed tent and the cave where Wined stayed hidden from the expedition.
The tent could’ve held clues or blueprints or even a bed.
Her lower back already felt relaxed at the thought before she looked back inside the crater.
If there was anything that could’ve survived it would be the PID module, a quick look couldn’t hurt, right?
“Come on Iva… We will come back soon.”
Looking back at the tents Sera swam back down into the hole, her gills shrunk and her face grimaced as she swam past where she imagined the tents would’ve been.
Had Keira not killed them.
The bulbs which looked magical and new now looked like withering plants trying to cling to the sunlight, then Sera past the last rays of the sun and focused her scanner downwards.
She was so deep even if the sun was facing straight down into the crater Sera doubted the bottom would light up.
“We are getting really deep, Iva if it becomes too much to handle,” Sera tried to get her mind off what she might find and hoped that there was nothing to see.
Or if there was an artefact it would hopefully stand out enough that she could leave in seconds.
That was the plan.
Until Sera found it.
Dwelling Module
Capable of repairing PID by 10% and recovering dwelling recipes!
“The module!”
Off to the side of crumbled rock a small orange crystal cube was glowing.
But the second Sera came close enough to grab it another message came up.
And with it came a new set of challenges.
Aquatic Dungeon Found!
Congratulations you have located a dungeon.
Would you like to [Enter] or access information on [Dungeons]