Chapter 167: Humanoid Road 32 – Deep and dark

“Stay close,” Aclysia warned, trying her best to make the Illumni spell glow as bright as possible as they advanced through the algae-covered temple.

The changes had been subtle at first. A few cobblestone paths between the dripstones, a religious symbol here and there, structural hallmarks inside the waterways, such and similar things mingling with the largely natural look of the caves. As the trio progressed, the deeper they got inside the Drowned Altar, the more that natural look made room for structures. Every slanted waterway, every cliff or drop in the caves, brought them into darker territory. The bugs that had dispersed the shadows with their glow became rarer and rarer until they ceased to be around altogether. Now it was just Aclysia’s spells and Apexus’ nails that allowed them to see.

Their surroundings contained few dripstones at this point and most of them hung from the ceiling. Everything else was cobblestone or brick, both usually covered in slimy algae or wet moss. The air was thick with humidity and the smell of salt. Some of the water condensed on the naked bodies of the three. With the number of times they had to swim, putting on clothes was a waste of time. They hadn’t worn any in three consecutive days, belts to hold the adventurer’s bags aside.

“We need to get done with this shit quickly or this map is going to be useless,” Reysha told them, currently on navigation duty. With one hand used to cast the Illumni, Aclysia could hardly do it and, for all of its inconveniences, at least the current layout of the dungeon was easier to read. Tunnels that were made to emulate a temple had a more organized structure to them than caves. “Humidity is seeping into the paper.”

“We shouldn’t be too far off,” Aclysia said. Even if she wasn’t holding the map, she had looked at it long enough to have ingrained much of it into her acute memory. “Darling, could you…?” She didn’t need to finish the question. Apexus was already walking toward the green carpet in front of them.

The layer of algae parted and rippled, as Apexus’s foot pushed through the surface of the water. He kept one foot on the solid stone until he felt the ground, then he slowly marched on. “They could have made markings how deep these puddles are,” he complained. Originally, every pond had been the entrance or exit to a tunnel. Now there were random gatherings of water everywhere in the wavy tunnels. Thanks to the algae, their depth was concealed. As was whatever may be lurking inside them.

“It may be that the depth of these varies with time,” Aclysia provided an explanation. “These tunnels have seemingly random depressions and rises that could be filled up and drained depending on the divine machinations that keep the dungeon operating. As such, drawing them would be a fool’s errand.”

“Could at least write that into the guide, if that’s the case,” Reysha chimed in and narrowed her eyes. “Maybe they did though. The letters are start’n to…” she had to quickly raise the map to save it from splattering water. “There goes our slime.”

Apexus didn’t struggle against the sudden pull that had yanked his leg off balance. The tendril sitting taught around his leg dragged him over the slippery floor and right to the Grapplegoo at the source. A second predator took the opportunity to deliver a bite to Apexus’ arm. Venom shot out of hollow teeth into Apexus’s thick membrane. Both the venom and the delivery of the Stalker Eel were rather weak, but it would have worked well enough to wear the average adventurer down.

The Grapplegoo was going nowhere, so Apexus took care of the eel first. Grabbing its elongated body was difficult, but Apexus’ had gotten a vast amount of experience in it over the past seven days. Stalker Eels retained their bite until their target stopped moving or they were threatened by something. Hooking a finger into their gills trapped them in that biting position. Not advisable for most people, but the slime could use that to ensure that he had the time to engulf and devour the eel.

After that predator was dead, he turned to kill the Grapplegoo. The oddity of killing a fellow semi-liquid being had dulled, but it never vanished. It never would vanish. Out of respect for the ended life, Apexus offered the nucleus to Reysha. He himself didn’t want to eat it, but he also didn’t want to let it go to waste.

“It gets pretty deep,” Apexus reported back.

“Can see that, moss hair,” Reysha giggled, her comment squarely aimed at the green Apexus’ black hair had gathered while wading through the saltwater. “If ya would take it, for a sec, Aclysia?” Reysha asked and folded the map together. While the metal fairy flew over the obstacle, Apexus carried the redhead through the water. It was an opportunity to touch her naked body. The actual reason was to keep her hands dry though. That way, she could take the map back on the other side without adding to its creeping water damage.

Past the wet obstacle was a circular hall. A stone bowl atop a pillar was at the centre of it, with five paths branching off in every direction. Reysha hastened towards the bowl and sniffed the clear water within. “Freshwater,” she said in a delighted tone and lowered her head further to drink from it.

“Wait a moment,” Apexus demanded and stepped up besides her.

Reysha obediently backed off. A little jab would be the least she would have done normally, but the banter would have delayed their progress. She was on her seventh day of high-degree horniness and she used every bit of that torture to spur her along the path. Her eyes darted between the arches along the curved wall. The tunnels extended into the innards of the earth, swallowing all light with their depth.

By putting his hand inside the bowl, Apexus absorbed some of the water into his membrane. When he failed to detect any magic or poison, he nodded. “It’s safe,” he confirmed and Reysha took a few hearty gulps. “The salt is bothersome,” he said. Not even Apexus could drink water that was this filled with the mineral. “Makes the water dehydrating.”

“That way,” Reysha dictated after she was done. With the map, she waved at the leftmost tunnel. “One more dive and we should be there.”

Her fingers jittered with excitement, claws extended to slice open anything that stood between her and the muscles of her beloved. The excitement spread to the other two and Apexus quickly took the helm. As much as Reysha may have wanted to stride ahead, now that she was carrying the map, she had to be more careful.

Apexus kept a hand raised, as if he was holding a torch, illuminating the path before them. Like always, the changes were crawling, but the slime noticed it anyway. How the walls turned less and less green. How he could walk faster on the less slippery floor. How the smell of salt grew so intense that it hurt his eyes.

Coughing, Reysha tried to repress the urge to breathe through her mouth. “What a torturous arrangement,” Aclysia complained, looking at her suffering companion. “The guide ought to warn of this circumstance.”

“Maybe ya should file a feedback form, or something like that,” Reysha suggested with a grin, despite the unpleasant taste that left on her sensitive tongue. Wise would have been to keep her mouth shut, but the tiger girl would rather be sassy than wise. “Swing your butt, bubble butt, we’re getting there. Just stick to the left wall.”

“Roger,” Apexus obeyed. The gaps between the bricks, and even parts of the bricks themselves, were covered in a white, crystalline crust. Stagnant air, saturated with water and salt, clung to Apexus’ skin. He hastened his steps further, hearing the shallow breaths Reysha took. This was not an environment for a human to thrive in.

The tunnel soon opened into another cave. Dripstones were replaced with salt pillars. There was nothing but darkness around. Although the group stayed wary of snakes, there were none to attack them. Not even the dungeon monsters could stand the hostile air.

Eventually, something glittered in the darkness, reflecting the moving lights they carried. A body of water peeled out of the bleached surroundings, a lake whose surface was perfectly clear. An unwelcome sight, given the promise it entailed. “Welp, here we are,” Reysha said and stowed away the map. “Let’s hurry up and get out of here before I become another one of these salt pillars.”

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“You might be more correct than you think…” Aclysia said, glancing at a pile of crystals that remarkably resembled the shape of a lying human. Her intuition, in this case, was correct. The air in this room had spelled the end for several adventurers that, exhausted from the rest of the journey, managed to stumble their way there and collapsed. Ultimately, their bodies would be dissolved by the dungeon itself. Until then, they were buried under the growing white. A fate better than ending as monster food, many would claim. Trember, the God of Death and Decay, saw no difference.

“I’ll see to it,” Apexus announced and jumped into the water, leaving the two girls to stand there and wait.

‘So close, so fucking close,’ Reysha thought, feeling the excited shivers all over her body. As bland as standing there was, she still couldn’t help but jump from one foot on the other. “Abs, Aclysia,” she giggled. “We’re getting abs.”

“I am aware,” the metal fairy said, sparing herself the pedantic correction. As well as she carried herself, she too was excited at the prospect. Keeping the desire bottled up until the appropriate time just seemed more beneficial to her. Instead, she gave the calm surface of the lake a worried look. “Will you be able to dive through that?”

“It’s going to hurt like a bitch, but I can deal with that,” Reysha stated.

“We could guide you,” Aclysia offered. “If you keep your eyes closed, it shouldn’t be too bad.”

“Appreciated, but I’ll get through it,” the redhead insisted and repressed a cough by gulping heavily. ‘I wish I could scratch the back of my throat,’ she thought.

About thirty minutes later, Apexus resurfaced. “It should be safe now,” he said. “It’s a very long dive though.”

“How long?” Aclysia asked.

“Too dark to tell properly… five to seven minutes of swimming?”

Reysha grimaced. She had never dived that long before in her life and doing so inside a lightless tunnel didn’t tickle her fancy at all. “Seriously, where are the dungeons were we just murder things to get through?” She complained and walked towards the water.

“There is the long way around,” Aclysia reminded them. They would need to backtrack a day’s progress and then go for a route that would take them another three days at best, but there was a route with shorter waterways. It would also have no salt, albeit the group wasn’t aware of that bit.

“No delays!” Reysha declared. “Only direct route to handsome slime!” She took as deep an inhale she could off the air, ignored the scratching and the burning of her lungs and then dove under the surface. Aclysia and Apexus followed her quickly. ‘Probably shouldn’t have led the charge,’ it occurred to her, but she refused to waste breath or time on turning away now. There could have been a monster down there which Apexus had missed. It would have been a proper assumption. ‘I’ll deal with it, if it comes to it,’ she thought. That was the last thought of the dive she had.

It only took a minute for dread to settle into her brave soul as she advanced away from the light of her companions and ever forwards into the pitch black. She was a faster swimmer than they were, but she couldn’t afford to wait for them to catch up. Darker and darker, it got, the craggy walls of the underwater passage narrowing or widening randomly. No state of space was good. Feeling enclosed in water and stone, looking up and knowing there was no air to be had, or being surrounded on all sides by nothing but lightless water, none of it was a hopeful visual. Her eyes burned, the raw amount of salt torturing her. She could taste it, small droplets making it into her mouth when she let out some of the held air.

The pressure on her body increased. Her heart drummed in her chest with desperation. Most of her instincts screamed to rise to the surface and the rest screamed back that there was no surface in reach. Her body revolted against the position that it had been put into. It wasn’t made for this. She wasn’t made for this. Reysha tried to stay in control of herself, even as the panic settled in. Helpless, uncontrolled panic, a hand clutched around an infernal gem, energy searing her flesh away, melting her bones and leaving her shouting with pain and confusion at her own action.

It burned. Her lungs burned. Her eyes burned. Her skin burned. Her legs kept kicking. Her arms kept moving. Visions of hurt and panic kept rising. Reysha concentrated solely on the one instinct that was useful to her: the will to survive.

Every fibre of her being struggled on. She had no way of knowing how far in she was. All she knew was that her companions were far behind her. A strange calm set in. The burning ceased. Her body seemed to accept its fate. Desperation and relaxation mixed into a tranquil state. A state too effective. Instinctively, Reysha snapped for air. Her lungs filled with a mouthful of water. Coughing threatened to follow. Her muscles tensed, some of them cramped, absurd pain shot through her body, worse than the burning, not worse than the memories. She pushed herself along the ground, crawled along, swam, tried to move.

Light.

Reysha pressed herself off the rock with all the might she could muster. All instincts locked together, giving her a spurt of power, and she broke through the surface. Barely she managed to grip the edge of the pool and pull her upper body over the ridge. She spat out water, then the panic still pumping in her veins made her empty her stomach on the stone. Tears ran down her face, a natural reaction to the fear and an attempt of her body to wash the saltwater out of her eyes. The tiger girl was effectively blind, confused and trembled.

When Apexus grabbed her, she first went rigid and growled like a wounded animal, then she recognized his scent and relaxed.

Hastily the slime carried her out of the pool. The salt crunched under his feet, as he hasted towards the door. The air cleared up, by magical forces, smelling oddly sweet and becoming filled with warmth. A circular pond sat in a square room, humidity rising from its hot, clear water. It was the first room in over one and a half days they had been in that had light, stemming from crystals covering the walls.

Reysha jumped from the pain, as the water of the healing fountain touched all of the bruises and scrapes she had covered herself with during the dive. It closed them slowly. A modicum of thought returned to her, and she washed out her eyes with the clear water. Her breathing slowly calmed down.

“Are you alright?” Aclysia wanted to know, her and Apexus too worried to notice anything else. The lungless pair had been slower, but they hadn’t been bothered by the distance at all.

“I know I say it all the time,” Reysha croaked, trying her best to form a smile, “but why, the fuck, can’t we have more dungeons that’s just MURDERING things?!” A sudden shudder overcame her and she hurried to the edge of the healing fountain to spew more bile into the drainage. “And underwater dungeons SUCK.”

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