Chapter 21: 20 – Bee Gees

The bedroom door bangs hard against the wall as it is thrown open.

"Lia! Ailine! Wake up! Come look at this! I did it! I finally did it!" Bursting into the room in the middle of the day was our little red headed fairy. 

I yawn, still half asleep and not amused by her antics.

"Good evening, Navi." Ailine says.

"What the fuck are you yelling for so early, you little moth?" I shoot back.

"Yes, yes, snappy retort right back at you. Now come on! Get up you wannabe walrus! Hurry to the lab!" Navi yanks off the blanket, exposing Ailine and I, before she zips out of the room, leaving us to collect ourselves after such an abrupt wake-up call.

"Well, Ailine? Should we go see or just go back to sleep?"

"Let's go, Lia. If you don't want your face drawn on again, we should see what she came up with."

I cringe at the memory. "Fuck, you're right. Let's get dressed and head down."

It's been about four months since Navi has been working on enchanting armor and finding an underwater solution for us. She had to restart multiple times, and go a few different directions with her research. The armor was much more straightforward. The plate has a strong earth enchantment to strength it, as well as a combination of different water enchantments. 

The water enchantments are nearly useless on land, but in water, the best description I have for it is a movement-assisted power suit. As we move, it moves the water around us to increase our movement speed in water. Our movements are still severely reduced compared to on land, but we'll take any advantage we can after looking at the potential monsters.

The final addition she made for our armor was what I could only describe as water-jet thrusters. It's a pack that has enchanted tubes coming out, that when mana is channeled to a specific one, shoots a jet of air, propelling us in the opposite direction. Cool, but extremely hard to control. This will mostly be limited to evasive maneuvers. We tested all this armor in the very beginning of the level where we could still hold our breath and before any monsters.

When Ailine showed us some of the potential monsters to remember, it really came down to the biting type or the grabbing type. For biting types there were various types of fish, sharks, crocodilians, even dinosaur looking fuckers. For the grabbing, it was types of octopus, squid, and even some freaky tentacle monster straight out of a hentai.

The best part? Through all the books, we couldn't find a single reference of an underwater dungeon level. All the monsters in the past were from reports from the ocean. Yup. We're that fucking lucky. First fully underwater level we could find reference of. Dammit. Navi had said that dungeons change their setups, and floors can be almost literally anything, so long as it has the possibility of being beaten. I get that, but come on!

Sure, we could technically swim and fight while treading water, but who the fuck would? Even a boat against some of these monsters would be near pointless with a high chance of us ending up fighting in the water anyway.

Fine. Whatever. Fuck you too, dungeon. I'm erasing this floor when we finally beat you.

Heading down the large staircase, we go to the room we've been calling 'the lab' because of all the experiments Navi does. We find the door open with Navi laughing while looking at a tied up goblin, chained to the bottom of a giant ass stone tank with a glass window.

The goblin was struggling while wearing a helmet that looked like it came almost straight from a Fallout game mixed with a clear glass face shield from Halo.

As usual with Navi's experimental goblins, it had its dick cut off and healed over. Sometimes Navi makes me glad Chaos changed me into a woman, or else Navi might've done it herself. Scary fairies.

Hearing us walk in, the fairy looks away from her test subject and over to us. "Check it out Lia! Two days! It lasted the whole two days!"

"Damn, Navi." I was actually impressed with that. "What'd you end up coming up with?"

"Haha! Well listen to this!"

Then the smug little fairy describes what she eventually came up with. 

She had a hard time with no plastics or usable rubber, which limited what she could use for tubes to allow us to move our heads. She also hit a snag on getting a mask to affix onto our face. She used beeswax, but if we moved our mouth too much, the seal was broken and water rushed in. What she ended up creating is a combined jumble of different enchantments all packed together into a helmet.

Without explaining all of the different enchantments, there's a mask with beeswax with a leather air valve inside that leads to a small, metal tank that we exhale into and that has enchantments on it. That tank is connected to another tank we breathe from with a metal pipe going around our head. The helmet going around the entire contraption holds it all in place on the head, and has an enchantment with water and air to make it dry inside.

It essentially works as a rebreather, with some enchantments removing carbon from our breath  and others creating other elements in miniscule amounts. Yet another enchantment blows lightly to create positive pressure on the entire system as we breathe. She ran into issues with just using a helmet with these types of enchantments and had to go the tank/valve route with the helmet enchantment focused on making sure that if the seal on the wax is broken, the system doesn't fail.

"Now bow down to my genius!"

"Good job, Navi!" Ailine gives her a few small claps.

I joined in, clapping a few times as well. "Yeah, damn good job on this fucking thing. The goblin is going on two days? Does that mean you're ready to try testing on us?"

"Yup! I just need to make molds of your heads and then a couple days to build your helmets!"

Not long after, Ailine and I both had tubes in our noses and mouths so that we could breathe as Navi covered our heads in dirt to mold our heads. Once done, she got to work making our helmets, fitted to our creepy stone heads. A couple nights later, Navi called us back with the completed helmets. 

Looking at the two helmets, I ask, "I was thinking earlier, Navi, what're you going to do? I haven't seen a fairy sized one of these."

Her usual exuberance was blown away and she looked slightly dejected. "... That's the thing. I can't find any possible way for me to join this one… a helmet for me would be too small for the enchantments, and anything that wasn't a helmet is either too heavy or too buoyant."

Well damn. That all makes perfect sense, but after about six years of always having Navi with us in fights or riding as a head parasite, it's a little sad.

"Don't worry, Navi." Ailine grabs both of Navi's hands with a thumb and forefinger. "I'll take care of Lia. We'll come home as soon as we possibly can."

"We'll keep you updated with telepathy too." I add.

"Thanks, you two." She returns to her normal, cheerful self. "Now! Hurry up and get your armor and helmets on! For two days I want to have you in the tank to make sure it all works."

Shortly afterwards, Ailine and I spent two exceedingly boring days in full plate armor, submerged in a tank. When we slept, we had to sit down with our head on our knees. However, it worked! We tried testing, moving as much as we could, and shaking our heads all around. We broke the wax seal, and tried breathing hard for a while. All to try to make sure we wouldn't drown while out there. This was probably the two most boring days I've had since I came here. Besides playing with water magic, there wasn't really anything else I could do. At the end of the second day, Navi came to check on us, and we exited the tank.

"Yay! You actually made it!"

"Good job, Navi," Ailine said.

I put a finger up to give her a high-five. "Yeah, this was a lot of fucking work. Good job on this. We miss anything on the outside?"

"Nope! Talon's been practicing flapping her wings now that her feathers are in! It'll probably still take a bit of time for her to fly freely though. She's no fairy." Navi said, looking smug.

"Well that's good." I take some towels from a lab table and Ailine and I start drying off. "Lala out practicing magic while Talon sleeps?"

"Yup! Those two are inseparable during the day. Talon's all tuckered out now."

"How do you think Lala will do when we all leave?"

Navi squints her eyes in thought. "I think she'll be alright. She hit level 29 with Ailine, so almost anything that comes to the walls, she can handle."

"Damn, already?" I say, a bit shocked and a touch jealous. "Fuck. Being able to power level with a single escort on a floor suited for you is insane. Well, should we wait a day, or go now?"

"Let's go meet with her to say bye, and armor up. She knew we're going to head out soon. No use in delaying!"

(Lala, could you come over to the castle?) I ask telepathically.

(Sure, Aunt Lia! Be there soon!) she replies.

Ailine and I talked about what to do first, while underwater. One more hydra run should be enough for Ailine to level up and out-level that floor. Plus, we haven't fought hard in months. We want to knock off the rust before trying floor thirty-nine. Navi was also going to come with us as well. This was going to be the first time we've all left Lala in charge. It's a two day trip to defeat the hydra, and we wanted to make sure she would be alright when we would have to be gone for longer times on different levels.

Navi had already talked to her and told her what to do and not to do while we're gone, and to always check in with us using telepathy. Including informing us immediately if there's trouble. It really reminded me of any other parent leaving their kid at home for the weekend for the first time. When Lala arrived, she was flying with a goblin cloth.

Curious, I ask, "Hey, Lala. What you got there?"

Landing, she opens up the cloth to show us three flower crowns.

"Um… I know you will have to put on your helmets, but I wanted to make you these. To wish you luck and to come home safe."

The embarrassed young fairy immediately got tackled out of the air by her mom.

"Oh! You are just the sweetest and best daughter ever! You're just too sweet, I'm gonna get diabetes! Mommy loves you so so so much my cute little Lala! I'll keep my crown safe forever! I'll finally work more on the time stopping enchantment and this'll become the official crown of the fairies for all eternity!"

As has become normal, Ailine and I watch as the overly doting mom overwhelms her poor daughter. While one fairy cries and the other's mouth opens and closes like a fish, Ailine and I pick up our crowns. They're actually really well made. The flower garden has really grown over the recent months with all their attention. My crown has white and silver flowers with some red added in. Ailine's has yellow with some red. And looking down at Navi's, she was able to somehow make it out of very tiny red bunching flowers. 

I eventually have to interject. "Navi, her mouth will foam if you don't let her breathe."

"Oh! Right!" Releasing Lala, Navi waits a moment until her eyes focus. "Thank you, Lala, this is so very sweet of you."

"Ya, thanks, Lala. You did a really good job on these." I said.

Ailine also chimes in, "Thank you, Lala! It's so cute, and matches us perfectly."

Blushing at all the praise, she looks down and twiddles her hands. "You're welcome. Come home safe, Okay? Talon and I will watch over things here, and I'll check in every now and then with you. We'll be fine here, so don't worry about us."

Seeing her off at the dungeon entrance with waves and smiles—some tears from Navi—we went down to the thirty-eighth floor again. During the two days the dive took, everything seemed to have gone well. Lala always checked in with us. We saved our crowns in storage before fighting the snake, gorgon, and lamia monsters on the floor. Sometimes, I'm really glad that the magic of this world follows some rules. Like the gorgons being able to use earth magic to shoot stones and things, but can't turn people to stone with a look. After finally beating the hydra again and Ailine leveling up, we returned to our home. It was still day, thus Ailine and I had on our shadow cloaks like normal when we needed to be out late or early.

Lala and Talon were at the entrance. "Welcome back, everyone!" They were jumping or flying around the corpse of a dead goblin.

"Lalaaaaaaa!" She was tackled out of the air by her doting mom.

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"What's this, Lala?" I ask, pointing to the goblin.

"Um. Last night when I was patrolling the wall, there was this goblin by it. After I killed it, I thought you and Aunt Ailine might be hungry coming back. So, um, I grabbed a belt pouch and stored it for you both. I hope that's okay?"

Ailine smiles at the cute gesture. "That was so thoughtful, Lala, thank you."

"Thanks, Lala. I was getting a bit hungry." I say, picking the goblin up.

Ailine and I bit into the goblin. Still tasted like warm and stale Coke, but when your cute little fairy niece does something like this for you, it makes the taste a whole lot better.

After spending the rest of the day and most of the night with Lala, Ailine and I got all of our equipment together. We put alternate weapons in storage, along with a jankity metal jon boat we had previously made in case of an emergency. Finally, we went to sleep, ready for a new floor. 

The morning was a pretty quick event. We all knew we were going and the fairies were staying, and with only a few goodbyes and fairy face hugs, we made our way to floor thirty-nine.

Stopping by the door, I squeeze Airline's hand. "You ready, Ailine?"

"As I'll ever be, Lia."

Taking a final drink of a blood bag and putting on our helmets, we activated the enchantment. Navi, being the insane enchanter she is, had tied all of the enchantments for the helmet and armor into a single focus. That way, besides our thrusters, we only had to focus on keeping one enchantment going and it activated all the rest. While at the same time keeping the armor and helmet separate just in case the armor enchantment gets damaged and becomes unusable, the helmet still works.

For weapons, we both had spears made entirely of dwarfsteel, and enchanted shields. In storage, we had spare spears along with tridents, pikes, and two giant jousting-esque lances that just screamed 'fuck off.' along with a couple daggers placed around the armor. We were fully loaded and as ready as we would be.

Walking into the water was a very interesting feeling. The armor enchantment wasn't made to be waterproof, so immediately all but our heads were wet. We could feel our bodies in the armor have a touch of buoyancy, but we were more than heavy enough to stay on the ocean floor. 

(You holding up, Ailine?)

(I'm alright, here.)

(Then let's test the thrusters,) I proposed. (Front, right, left, then up.)

As we tested the enchantments for our thrusters, I was glad that all enchantments convert any mana into what type is needed. I really wouldn't want to have to have left Ailine and come to this floor alone since she can barely use air magic. After testing, we continued down the path. It was actually closer to a road, but as always with dungeons, we didn't stray from it. 

The whole, getting lost, space warping nonsense of dungeons isn't worth risking. If there's a clear way to go, you fucking go that way and don't try to be clever. After nearly twenty-five minutes of walking, we found our first monster.

Sharcuda - level 51

This was one of the monsters we looked up previously. With a body resembling a barracuda, and a head of a hammerhead shark, it made little sense anatomically like most of these fantasy combo creatures, but it was fast. It came from above to the right, and immediately bolted at us.

Preparing our spears, there really wasn't much of a battle formation. These fights were going to be 'dodge and stab' or 'block and stab.' Ultimately, that's what the fight came down to, as dull as it may have looked. It reminded me a bit of the first time I fought the horned fluffy bunny years ago. The sharcuda would take large turns, gather speed, and charge straight. With its head, I suspected it couldn't turn very easily.

To counter it, we stayed next to each other, and whoever it went for dodged to the side so that we were on both sides of it, and we both thrust our spears as it passed. We didn't try to do anything cool or fancy. Just safe and controlled. After a few charges like this, it was struggling and bleeding heavily. Its skin was hard, but the dwarfsteel spears and our strength was enough to penetrate. 

Once it started trying to just bite us and not charge, it was able to be blocked with a shield and stabbed, even being the size of a damn tiger shark. When it died, it left its core and its hide, which seemed extremely aerodynamic. Like the banned Olympic shark skin looking swimming suits.

Tossing it in storage, we continued on. After almost eighteen hours of fighting like this, we finally reached the boss door.

Feeling relieved looking at the door, I said, (I'm so fucking glad this floor is short. How long has it been since we got to the door in a day?)

Ailine thinks about it. (I would say at least ten floors. After floor twenty-five, they just got longer and longer.)

Making it here, the hardest fight we had to face was a fucking giant octopus thing. A decapus. Guess how many arms it had? Seems naming skills are just as good on Erald as Earth. 

That fucking thing made both of us draw daggers with our pikes to handle the arms. We stayed together so that when it would grab at one of us, we would stab into the arm while keeping the pike pointed at its fucking beak in the center of the arms. I lost a piece of armor on my left arm from an arm crushing it.

With us both hungry and ready to beat this fucking floor. It seems like Erald and the gods' obsession with balance helped us this time. The difficulty of being an ocean floor level balanced with a short single path and one-dimensional attack pattern monsters. Opening the boss door, I was both relieved and incredibly tense.

I was relieved that it wasn't the hentai monster. No fan service for us, thank you very much. We had talked about strategies about different monsters before, and it was almost impossible to come up with a counter for that thing. I was tense, because the monster in front of us was right with the hentai monster in terms of potential difficulty. Even if the [system] gives it a silly name.

Paddlegator - level 55

Call it whatever the fuck you want. I'll call it a god damned mosasaur. Because that's what the fucking forty-foot alligator with flippers looked like. One look at the jaws and it could bite us in half.

(Lances!) I shout in our minds. We need to keep those jaws away at all costs, and it could most likely bend the thinner pikes.

Taking out our fifteen-foot, thick, all enchanted steel lances, we got as ready as best we could. These lances had no use except being wickedly sharp. Being large, they required two hands, even with part resting under an armpit. It flared out to at least protect our hands and give a bit of leverage to push against when thrusting. 

From reading about the strength of its skin, and seeing how tough even the sharcuda skin was, the strategy we came up with was to use our back thrusters to help while stabbing with our lances. All while trying to dodge it, or at minimum, keep the lance pointed at its mouth. 

Lances at the ready, we waited for the prehistoric looking bastard to swim at us. It charged at me first, but unlike the sharcudas, its head swung towards me. It bit down on the side of my lance and swung me, lance and all, to the side. Ailine, meanwhile, thrust forward with her booster and stabbed into its neck. Even with that, it went in less than a foot, but it was something. 

As Ailine boosted to the side to avoid the head, I boosted forward before even landing and thrust into its side. Without being close to start, it didn't do more than just poke through the skin after losing momentum. For a dozen more seconds, we played this game of dodging/being tossed while the other stabs.

Then a chance opened up. Instead of grabbing Ailine's lance by the side, it grabbed the lance with the tip in it mouth. Immediately Ailine boosted forward, shoving the lance partway down its throat while I stabbed its jaw muscles. It swam off to get distance to the far side of the cleared ocean floor. Blood coming out of its mouth, it began making a hacking motion like a cat with a hairball, until the lance finally came out and floated through the bloodstained water to the ocean floor.

Too far away to grab, she took out a pike. With an all but mortal wound now inflicted on the boss, it was certainly going to bleed out, but a cornered animal is always more dangerous. Without much thought for its own protection now, it barreled through the water towards Ailine again. Intent to kill her or die trying.

Completely ignoring the pike that Ailine just shoved in its mouth and is poking out of its neck, it gets close enough to snap and grab Ailine's right leg. I see Ailine scream out in pain inside her helmet as the bastard begins to thrash her around.

Being weaker than at the start, it couldn't bite all the way through the leg armor. Just crush it and puncture its massive teeth into her thigh as it shakes her like a ragdoll. It would've almost been better if it severed the enchanted plate and her leg cleanly.

Unable to do anything else, I stabbed my lance into its neck as hard as I could while thrusting forward, but it still wasn't enough. Taking Seren out of storage, I boosted forward once more and aimed as best as I could for the spine at the base of its neck, at a point that wasn't shaking as much as the head, and thrust down with both hands into its spine.

Finally, after what must have only been a handful of seconds, but felt like hours, the thrashing stopped with a final twitch. I yank out Seren and store it once again.

Level up

Not wasting any time, I boost to the mouth and had to use my legs and arms to push the jaws apart. Inside was Ailine, with her thigh armor stuck on the bottom teeth. Not moving. 

Freaking out inside, but needing to act, I yank her leg off of the teeth along with a large cloud of blood now coming out of her wound, and cradle her as I focus as much magic as I can into the enchantment on my back. 

I launch upwards through the water. I focus enough magic into the booster enchantment for us to just breach the water, even with Ailine in my arms. I take the jon boat out of storage just in time for us to slam into the floor of it.

Yanking her helmet off, water pours out of it around an unresponsive Ailine.

"Fuck!"

Tossing my own helmet off I can only repeat that over and over in my head as I try to think as fast as I can where to start. Deciding time is of the essence and any action is better than inaction, I choose to address her severely bleeding leg first.

With her not breathing or conscious, all her enchantments are off. With metal from her plate puncturing through her trashed thigh armor, I take Seren, lift her leg in the air, and slice her leg off above the damage at the weak spot where her armor attaches. Immediately I begin applying healing magic to close the wound, as the bottom of the small boat is stained red. I don't have time to regrow it.

With the bleeding stopped and leg capped off in a few seconds, I started on the buckles of her chest plate. As soon as I get it off, I try to remember anything I knew about CPR. With no idea if I was doing it right, I could only rely on vague memories of a CPR class an ex had me take almost two decades ago.

Remembering cracking a terrible joke about a 70's band, I began CPR. Along with it, I had no idea if it would do anything, but I focused any mana I had on the image of her heart starting, lungs inflating, and her coughing up whatever water was inside. I kept channeling this as long as I could.

I only remembered the simplest version of what they taught in the class. Do compressions at the rate of that stupid song line's beat continuously. No breaths, no stopping, just do compressions over and over. Blocking everything out, that's what I did with trembling hands and tears running down my face.

'Ah, ha, ha, ha, stayin' alive, stayin' alive'

'Ah, ha, ha, ha, stayin' alive, stayin' alive'

'Ah, ha, ha, ha, stayin' alive, stayin' alive'

Again and again I did this. I couldn't tell for how long, or anything else. It could have been one minute, or a hundred. My mind was a mess and the only thing I focused on was singing that line in my head, doing compressions, and channeling magic into the image of her breathing again.

If I stopped, my precious Ailine would die. 

If I stopped, I wouldn't see her again.

Ergo, I sang. My mind could only focus on doing these few things.

Finally, after however much time had passed, she started coughing up water. Immediately I turned her to the side as she heaved it up, and then laid there unconscious.

But she was alive.

I collapsed on my ass right there in the bloody boat after confirming she was taking her own breaths and her heart was beating. Like a dam breaking, my tears started to pour and I cried while thanking everything I knew for saving Ailine.

I thanked Order. I thanked Chaos. I thanked any and all Earth gods. I thanked my ex. I thanked the CPR instructor. And I thanked the Bee Gees. For having that damn annoying but catchy and easily remembered song line that gave my mind something productive to focus on.

Head in my hands and more tears falling, I thanked the Bee Gees.

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