Siren's Reach - Fallen Lands Book 3

Chapter Forty-One

Between Breath and Darkness

Evelyn

I tried to focus on my [Levitation Aura], but it was like trying to grab a fistful of air. While I struggled to regain control of my magic, the others were already preparing for the impact. Alice managed to orient herself feet down and snatched Lilith close before throwing a shield of water around them. Amélie did the opposite, following her instincts and flexing her long mermaid tail and throwing her arms forward to force her head down and into more of a diving pose. I felt my own desire to do the same, but I was too lost in trying to grab back onto my magic. The water rushed up to meet us, and only just before impact did I finally manage to drag my mana into enough cohesion to cast a spell, barely managing to hit Sibylla with a quick [Slow Fall] before she impacted the water. She slowed, but I wasn't sure if it was enough to protect her. Hopefully, one of the many vaunted benefits of The Squid was impact absorption.

I had no time to worry about that just then, because I was nearly parallel to the water myself, and only had a blink to pull my arms up to wrap around my head. Alice and Lilith hit the water with little more than a ripple, followed immediately by Amélie spearing the water like a breaching orca. Sibylla hit the water just before me, surprisingly delicate, as if she were a child doing a cannonball. And then I hit.

The impact was… catastrophic. It was like hitting pavement disguised as water, all slap and no give. My entire front half went numb on contact. Every ounce of my mana, muscle, and dignity flattened against the surface. I somehow felt no pain, but my vision whited out, my ears rang, and for a second, I was pretty sure I'd passed out. But then the massive wave of water I'd displaced with my perfect impression of a meteorite doing a belly flop came rushing back in, tossing me up and nearly out of the water again.

I gasped, surprised to find I could still breathe at all, when Amélie's mad cackle broke the moment. Out of habit more than need, I wiped water from my face, then steadied myself in the waves—treading water as a mermaid was absurdly easy. When I turned, she was pointing and still laughing.

"What is wrong with you?" Alice shouted at her, suddenly beside me. She spun, looking me over like a worried mother hen, "You hurt? Don't try to move too much."

This only made Amélie bark another laugh before trying to get a hold of herself. "Sorry! Sorry. It's just.. her face! Oh, do not look at me like that! She is immune to damage from falling!"

"Good thing for me." Sibylla burbled from nearby. "I'd have been toast… or jam. Either way, not great."

"I… wasn't even thinking about it. I just wanted to keep everyone safe." I tried.

"Oh, that's great!" Amélie laughed again. "You forgot!"

"I didn't forget! I just wasn't thinking about it! That isn't the same thing!"

Sibylla put a creepy tentacle on my shoulder. "It's basically the same. So, thanks."

Alice nodded, "No wonder everyone's heard of Evelyn the [Hero]. You didn't even hesitate to save her first. I just hope I'll be able to do the same if the time ever comes."

My face heated. "Enough of that!"

Amélie shrugged. "They are not teasing you. But you are right, we have more important things to discuss while we have this chance. I think we were deposited in a random part of this maze, and that thing following us was thrown somewhere else. We need to figure out what we're doing about it. Did you manage to hit it with Lore, Evelyn?"

I shook my head slowly, "No, I didn't do anything to it… Which is strange. Why didn't I do anything to it? I definitely should have."

"It has a fear aura," Sibylla burbled excitedly. "Some kind of curse with a radius. It's powerful stuff! If we kill it, I call dibs on dissection."

I stared at her for a few seconds before asking, "Are you serious right now?"

She fluttered her arms in what I assume was a squid shrug. "No, not really. There's no time for that. I think you'll have to eat its soul, and we can see if it's possible to split that part off for me."

"Dungeon monsters don't have souls! Just some weird imitation of them. Haven't you looked at them in spiritual sight?"

She blew some bubbles at me. "Yes, obviously. And that's how I know this thing isn't from the dungeon."

"Oh?" Amélie asked. "You got a better look at it? What is it?"

"Very good at hiding," Sibylla answered a little dejectedly. "I think we're only seeing it because it wants us to. I doubt it knows what we really are, either. Its aura kept shifting—bruised purple one moment, then this weird phosphor blue the next. And the feel of it… oddly like a cat. Curious. Testing how a mouse will react."

Lilith slowly drifted away from us and toward a nearby island, calling back, "Let's just hope it isn't as good at tracking us in here as it was at stalking us. I'm going to see if I can get onto that island and get the fins back on." We all moved to join her, and she continued when we closed in. "What are we going to do if it comes back and isn't so content to just watch?"

No one had an immediate answer for that. We reached the nearby island a few seconds later, and the incline to the beach was incredibly sharp. It was nearly a perfect vertical incline of stone until only a few feet below the surface where it turned up to the island at a sixty-degree angle. Alice had to practically launch Lilith up when she kept sliding back down the loose sand.

She took in the beach before sitting down and pointing further inland, "There are a bunch of canoes up here." Looking around and shading her eyes from the sun, she continued, "I think all of these islands around here have them. It must be how people got through here before. Think we should take one?"

Alice shook her head. "The way this world works, soon as you touch one, it'll kick off somethin'. Best leave 'em be."

Lilith nodded, then caught the fins Sibylla tossed to her, getting to work suiting back up.

"That's a good call." I agreed. "I got a pretty good look on the way down. I think I have an idea of how to get closer to the center, but we weren't high enough to see the entire path… and I was a little distracted. Sorry."

Amélie splashed me. "We were all up there. Good thinking, looking around. I was mostly concerned with the fall! If Alice is right, this will not be nearly as hectic as the previous floor, so long as we are careful to stay away from triggers. Every little bit helps, but I think we will be okay."

Lilith stood, duck walking to the waterline in her Mermaid Boots. "I feel ridiculous. Let's hope these really work how we expect."

Alice grinned, "Reckon I ain't given you much chance to practice with 'em till now. These canals are at least twenty meters across and more'n twice that deep. No better time to get used to 'em."

"She was adjusting," I said a little defensive of my friend. "But, I agree. This is definitely a better place to practice. Before we do anything else, though, we still need a plan to deal with that thing."

Sibylla glided over to the shoreline before foxing to hop on top of the water and walk gracefully to the beach. Only when she was safely away from the waves did she shift back to her foxgirl form.

"I might be able to do something about it. Potions aren't really the best underwater, but we can surface to drink them easily enough here."

She began pulling out alchemy equipment, and I asked, "What exactly are you making? And how long will this take? What's your plan here?"

She didn't stop working, carefully inspecting her reagents. "Hmm. Well, I'm not sure how long it will take. I read about this in an old scroll. A potion to boost your curse resistance, though. I think it will give us an hour or two of protection before we need to drink another. And my plan is simple. Pretend we didn't drink them."

Alice cocked a brow. "And what? You think we should just play possum 'til that thing decides to take a bite? Sounds like a great way to end up as lunch."

Sibylla nodded enthusiastically. "Yes, exactly. Now you're getting it!"

I blew out a breath. "Alright. So we drink your potions, which you've never made or tested before and have no idea how long they last… Then we pretend we're still affected and can't see that monster coming. And when it finally tries something, we ambush the ambusher…. assuming that the potions actually work and we can?"

"Bulls-eye! Well, unless one of you has a better plan?"

Everyone's eyes turned to me, and I blinked back. "What? Don't look at me. I don't have any tricks up my sleeve for this one."

Alice grinned, "Oh, no, Evelyn. That ain't it. We're just checking if you're fine with playing the lure here. It's had its eyes glued to you since the start."

"Do I have a choice?" I asked, slumping in the water.

"Nope!" Sibylla replied without looking up from her work.

Rather than sit idle while Sibylla crafted our salvation, Alice volunteered to scout around the nearby waterways, leaving Amélie, Lilith and me to figure out exactly what we could and couldn't do in the water with our spells and skills.

I was surprised and excited to find that [Footwork] still worked with a mermaid's body, even if it guided me to move in ways I didn't expect. On land, it was all about steps, pivots, and lunges. Here, it became rolls, twists, and whole-body sweeps that let me brace against the water and use its resistance to drive my strikes harder. My tail would coil, then lash in tight arcs that spun me around an opponent, the way a swordsman might step inside their guard on land. Every motion kept my balance centered, letting me hit with the same precision I had on two feet, sometimes more, thanks to the momentum the water gave me. It felt strange at first, like learning to fight all over again, but once I stopped thinking about "walking" and started thinking about "circling," it became second nature.

Swinging my halberd in the water was slow and frustrating, but nowhere near as bad as expected. My thrusts were still lightning fast, feeling almost normal. Sweeps were different: it felt like slicing through thick rubber, the resistance growing sharper the faster I tried to go. I learned to roll each swing into the next before that drag could kill my momentum, keeping the blade moving on its narrow edge whenever I could. It wasn't perfect, but I was already sure I could hit hard enough to bite deep before the water stopped me.

My testing with spells was a mixed bag. First, I tried [Sun Ray] only to find the beam didn't slice straight like it did in the air. Down here, it became a column of white fire, exploding into steam so violently that I flinched back. In the first few meters, the beam stayed true, but beyond that, the light bled away into a shimmering haze. The water around me rippled from the heat, and my view was a mess of bubbles.

[Channel Lightning] was even more concerning. Normally, it crackled through me in jagged arcs, but here, the moment I called it, the entire canal thrummed. A bright nimbus burst out in every direction, racing through the water faster than I could blink.

A startled squeak came from my side, followed by a cloud of bubbles. Amélie's hair floated around her like a halo, every strand sticking straight out as if she'd just seen a ghost. Even from a couple of meters away, she'd been jolted enough to spasm—and promptly gave me a lecture about warning her before turning the canal into a lightning bath.

A few more tests, further from the others, let me figure out the range of the perfect sphere it had become, and how to control it. In the end, the safest option was focusing it entirely through my weapon if anyone else was even vaguely close. It gave me a focus that made [Lightning Control] much more viable even if it was still a real struggle. When it came down to it, I knew it was it was off-limits in a real fight unless I was sure everyone was far enough away.

Many of my other abilities were very situational and not meant for the water. [Slow Fall] did nothing, [Levitation Aura] made me and Amélie both feel queasy and wildly disoriented as our buoyancy was turned to chaos. There was no wind to channel underwater, and I didn't have feet to take a [Squall Step] or [Heroic Leap]. People and things in the water didn't count as airborne, so unless we were fighting something that was breaching the surface or flying overhead, [Zephyr Charge] was useless.

Of course, Sibylla finished sometime while the rest of us were experimenting and didn't say a word, just watching us and trying not to laugh. We eventually noticed, and swam back to join her and her waiting stack of potions.

As she tossed one to each of us, she asked, "What were you guys doing when we were working on our forms in town? You didn't seriously play that entire time instead of testing this stuff out?"

My mouth fell open. "We needed to learn how to swim, and we were in a rush! Don't tell me you've already tested all your skills and spells?"

Sibylla shrugged. "The water is full of shadows, and there are only so many skills a squid needs to test. I'm good."

"Then I think we'd best get moving," Lilith said while eyeing her vial with suspicion. She glanced at Sibylla nervously, but then downed the potion, coughed, and began making her way into the water.

Sibylla stared at her as she passed, shaking her head with a look of disbelief. "Wow, rude! And after everything we've been through!"

I splashed at her, making her yelp and jump away. "Most of what you've been through is you giving her sketchy potions with ridiculous side effects!"

"That one isn't!" she returned, a little annoyed.

Amélie pulled the empty vial away from her lips, looking at it intently. "I really do not like how you specified that one."

"Enough, ladies," Lilith interrupted. "If you're all ready, let's get going before that thing finds us. Maybe if we get far enough into the maze, we can lose it and avoid the problem entirely."

I nodded, the only one who'd not downed their potion yet, and put the vial to my lips. Even braced for it, the rush of liquid down my throat sent a shiver up my spine. It fizzed like cotton candy and tasted like the color purple. I wriggled involuntarily at the sensation, pushing myself farther into the canal, which was apparently enough to get the others moving too.

"Lead the way, oh pink one!" Sibylla called out cheerfully before diving toward the water, shifting back into her cuttlefish form as she flew through the air.

"Huh?" I asked, looking around, and then with growing dread, down at myself. I looked... exactly the same.

Amélie covered her face with one hand, stifling a giggle. "Now I get it."

But, as I watched, Amélie's hair began to change, brilliant red bleeding into violet at the roots and cascading downward until only the tips still burned crimson. I glanced at my own hair, floating around me, now nearly a foot longer than I remembered. Dark fuchsia framed my face, shifting into a riot of pinks before fading to white at the ends. My jaw tightened, and I slowly turned to glare at Sibylla.

"What? Oh. I should have mentioned. The potion also has a minor, mostly harmless curse. You know, to help you boost the resistance skill."

"Mostly?" I asked, and she nodded.

"Yeah. It's going to keep growing. You should probably cut it once in a while. Uh, at least, I think in theory your claws should be able to cut it. It is a magical curse, after all."

"Sibylla!" Amélie yelled, the amusement of a moment ago gone from her voice, realizing she was in the same boat. She was interrupted when Alice rose up from the water, joining the circle we'd been forming. "Alright, y'all. I've got good news and bad news… hold up, why does everyone suddenly have different hair?"

I felt the water all around us move with Amélie's violent twist toward her, but I held up a hand to stop whatever she was about to say and answered. "Sibylla's curse resistance potions also include a weird hair color and growth curse to help us work on the resistance skill." I looked pointedly at Amélie as I continued, "It was a good idea, even if she should have warned us."

"Uh… huh. Well, that's fancy an' all, but this place ain't empty. Here's the deal. There's a few monsters and some big fish swimmin' about, but the real trouble's the giant crabs. I've only spotted two so far, but if there's two, there's bound to be more. One was hidin' in the sand on an island, the other was prowlin' the bottom of the canals."

I looked down, feeling a sudden need to make sure no claws were reaching up to grab me. "Well, at least that is a pretty good indication that this really is the second floor. I haven't seen a single dungeon notification so far." I looked around, getting my bearings, and started moving myself down the canal with a gentle sweep of my tail. "I'll lead the way. Let me know if I'm coming up on your monsters, Alice!"

The others moved to follow, and I stayed near the surface and kept an eye on them until I was sure of a pace that was comfortable for us all. The shallow depth had nothing to do with navigating; all of the islands rose at least ten feet above the water, and most had more features like trees or even steep rocky crags. The glare made it difficult to see above the surface, and the water was definitely more choppy, but it felt safer as we got used to this new form of travel.

It took Lilith some time to adjust to her fins. At first, she did the same thing I would have, swimming with a diver's flutter kick. The boots pushed her forward, but even with her magic ring, it wasn't too much faster than a normal swimmer. Amélie saw this too and pointed to her own tail, gesturing for Lilith to try them together. They were mermaid boots after all, and if we knew Sibylla, her silly name probably meant more than she was letting on. Lilith gave her a baffled look but straightened out, hips rolling in an awkward wave as she tried to mimic a mermaid's stroke. The boots surged, kicking her forward in a smooth, powerful glide. Her eyes widened behind the water shimmer. After that, she got the hang of it quickly, and we were all ready to make much better time.

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Amélie and I rolled into a back stroke, breaking the surface just long enough to get a fresh breath of air, and then we all dove several meters deep, getting away from the sun's glare and into the calm water below. The water wasn't empty of life or currents, but we quickly discovered that most of what we encountered weren't monsters at all. Part of it might have been the instincts of our forms, but I could see it in everyone's movements — we were having fun. Maybe not the playful, joyful kind, but at the very least the kind of fun that you can find on a relaxing hike.

From the first, the water was full of vibrant plants, colorful fish, and all the life you'd expect in the tropics. For the most part, they all ignored us if we didn't venture too close. I was a little envious that Alice could get close enough to touch the beautiful schools we passed without a reaction, even reaching out and plucking herself a snack that didn't object, but the world was full of enough breathtaking scenes that I couldn't complain.

Alice pointed out the few monsters she'd spotted among the sea life, and we steered clear. Nearly an hour passed before we finally ran into real danger: a school of level twenty-seven "Whip-Sharks." Six of them, each two to three meters long, wide-bodied and angular, armored in plated scales, with tendrils trailing from their faces as long as their bodies.

There was no standoff, no time to plan. We hit a crossroad, Alice shouted "Incoming!"—and then they were on us, darting in with terrifying speed, like they'd been waiting.

We weren't strangers to combat, only to this battlefield, and instinct took over. I knew what to expect from the others, and wasn't disappointed—magic flared behind me the moment I surged forward. It wasn't the rush of [Heroic Leap, but it was close. Even so, I could see most of the sharks ignoring me. I gritted my teeth, activated [Channel Lightning], and held it for a full second. That was enough. Every shark snapped toward me, their initial assault broken under the jolt.

A frenzy of tendrils and snapping jaws flew at me, forcing me into wild spins and dodges as I tried to orbit the monsters in a sphere. My halberd lanced out in flashing strikes, punching holes through scaled bodies as easily as lightning splitting a tree. Every strike slowed them down more, but I didn't escape unscathed. Their tendrils cracked through the water, too many and too fast to dodge them all.

Of all things, it was my cursed, seven-foot long hair that saved me from most of the blows, slowing them just enough to blunt their force. But the impacts were never the true danger. My tail flared in burning pain where they struck, muscles seizing in spasms as my [Poison Resistance] fought back against the venom.

We all turned back in, the sphere of bloody water churning under the weight of powerful sweeping tails, building magic, and blood lust. Jaws opened wide, poisoned tendrils snapped forward, and water flash boiled around a [Sun Ray]—

And the world roared with the vortex of Alice's [Whirlpool] ripping a shark out of the frenzy. Light and shadow flared in a hypnotic prism as another was snatched mid-lunge, dragged into grasping, cursed arms, crushed toward a beak screaming with otherworldly horrors. Lilith's runed spear erupted from the shadows of another, spearing the monster through and dragging it into the black.

Ignoring the chaos, three of the sharks still charged straight in. The jaws of the first ate the close range [Sun Ray]. It burned through teeth and flesh, erupting out the side of the monster's skull in a spray of boiling blood. I arched and rolled around the thrashing corpse. A brief flash of gold light was just in time to catch the snapping jaws of the second before it tore into my tail. My halberd crashed down just behind its head. It wasn't dead, but close—and its body blocked the strike of the last shark.

That one whipped its tail, circling for speed, too fixated to notice the blur from the side. Amélie slammed into it fist-first, divine power crackling through her blow. The shark reeled, and Sibylla's tentacles snapped out, dragging the monster in and wrapping it in her many arms. It thrashed, but the attempt to escape her beak was futile. It was like trying to fight a black hole, and had a disturbingly similar effect on the creature.

I turned back just in time to see Lilith already finishing the second, her spear a blur of rapid strikes through its half-limp body. Spinning for more threats, I found only Amélie closing in, her healing warmth flooding through me the moment she reached my side.

We regrouped, drifting away from the current that carried away the shark blood and scraps, then surfaced to check each other over.

Sibylla, fox-shaped again and perched lightly atop the water, chirped first. "That was the most disturbing and delicious experience of my life." She blinked a few times and shuddered.

I nodded slowly, "Yeah. That was a little horrifying in hindsight, but admittedly very effective."

Alice glanced between us. "One of these days, y'all are gonna sit me down and teach me fox, or I'm liable to start makin' up my own."

I couldn't help but laugh. "Yeah, okay. I promise."

Lilith was more focused on the water around us, though, and asked, "Alice, do you sense anything else coming? That's a lot of blood in the water."

Alice shook her head. "Ain't nothin' but the world doin' what it does. We're safe enough for the moment."

Amélie let out a sigh. "Could you imagine normal people in a canoe trying to get through here and running into those? They would have been devastating to small boats. I wonder if we are going to start seeing more as we get further in… I was almost hoping that we managed to bypass the dangers with our attempts to avoid triggering any events."

"Maybe we did," Sibylla chirped with a foxy shrug, motioning her nose to the air behind us. "I think the thing hunting us is getting frustrated."

I followed her gaze to see plumes of smoke rising towards the sky in the distance. "That thing is smart enough to trigger monster spawns? It was creepy enough as it was!"

Lilith nodded, "It seems so. But from the direction of the smoke, it isn't very adept at labyrinths. If it isn't a dungeon monster, I expect the creatures it spawns will attack it as readily as us. We just need to stay ahead of whatever it's flooding the water with."

As we spoke, another trickle of smoke began to rise, and Alice let out an amused huff. "Looks to me like it's throwin' a tantrum, torchin' everything in sight. Smart or not, if it keeps pitchin' a fit like that, might be it'll overwhelm itself."

Sibylla answered using illusion magic this time, "If we were right and every island it disturbs triggers more monster spawns, maybe, but only if they can overcome its curse aura. If not, they're more likely to rush in our direction."

My eyes flew out to all the growing pillars of smoke. "Right! Let's get moving. I don't want to wait and find out."

"Wait, wait, wait," Amélie said before we could move. "What if its plan isn't to use the monsters to attack us? Those sharks charged right into us like they knew where we were. How far away can they sense us from? If it just hides and then follows the monsters…"

The image of that thing using a swarm of giant sharks like hunting hounds filled my mind, and I quickly turned toward the center of the maze. "We need to move."

I didn't wait this time, I just took a deep breath and dove. The others were right behind me and moving with as much urgency. It was a good thing they were. We only made it another mile before a trio of squids twice my size darted around a corner behind us and jetted in our direction. Alice threw a whirlpool in their path, and they changed direction to go around it, nearly breaking the surface near one of the islands.

A pair of claws snapped into the water, each grabbing a squid near its head and snatching them out of the water. The third panicked, throwing itself into the whirlpool. It flailed, trying to escape, but we didn't slow down to see its fate. The slowly growing burn in my chest clawed at me, reminding me that Amélie and I were already overdue for air, but we needed to get clear of whatever ambusher was waiting above first. The others were keeping up, so I picked up the pace, and I felt magic from Alice speeding us along even more—before suddenly yanking us all downward. Following her lead, I dove to the bottom of the channel, the others right on my tail.

I glanced toward the surface, vision swimming with the ache in my lungs. For a heartbeat, I thought the water itself had curdled, a sheet of pale muck hanging above us. A second glance, then a third, forced the truth into focus. Hair-thin tendrils dangled from that shifting ceiling. The surface was smothered by a massive bloom of jellyfish—an impassable minefield, reaching down to just feet above our heads.

The forest of death stretched on for what felt like forever. It split ahead at a T intersection, and who knew how far beyond that. Passing a side passage I knew would only lead us back in a circle, I caught sight of creatures less fortunate. Among them was what had to be a sea serpent, now lifeless, melting into the tangle. I didn't want to imagine what toxins could do that. What I did know was simple: we needed air soon. And there was no way we'd find it through that mess.

Just as I had the thought, a camouflaged octopus burst out of the sand, sending arms nearly half as long as me darting in my direction. I didn't think. With one hand, I cast [Sun Ray], and with the other, I struck out with my halberd. The blast of steam and heat threw the attack off and severed an arm, and the spearing weapon took it in its body, but another of the arms immediately grabbed onto the weapon, and it tried to drag it and me away. I lashed hard, my tail hitting the bottom for leverage, throwing up a storm of sand and raising the octopus into the hanging tendrils above.

The octopus thrashed, hauling my halberd with it, and the tug nearly dragged me up into the jellies. A thin stream of bubbles slipped from my clenched teeth as I fought the pull, every ounce of air too precious to lose. Every violent jerk of its arms tore more of the jelly's poisonous curtain down, and my weapon became the anchor in a tug-of-war I couldn't win.

I slapped the bottom again with my tail for leverage, twisting with the pull, a gasp tearing loose before I bit it back, more bubbles rising away as I let the shaft spin in my grip. The sudden slack gave me the opening I needed, and I wrenched it free just as another coil brushed the edge of my tail. The sting seared like fire, but I lashed away, managing not to scream and using the recoil to shove myself out of reach as the octopus was lifted bodily into the waiting tangle above.

Its camouflage flickered uselessly across mottled skin as the venom did its work. The arms convulsed, first with frenzied violence, then with twitching weakness, until the whole mass sagged and began to dissolve into the gelatinous curtain. I sagged too, chest burning and bubbles leaking from my clenched jaw. If not for needing to get the others out, I wasn't sure how much longer I could force my lungs to hold.

Alice floated nearby, lips curled in a wry grin as she pressed her healing touch to my injury. "Guess that's one way to tenderize calamari."

I managed a nod, chest tight and aching, and pointed up. She gave a quick shake of her head.

"Not too far, but there's more than one of those suckers hidin' in here. I'll lead us through. So, left or right at the fork?"

After a moment of thought, I pointed left, and she nodded and took a sharp turn, leading us on in a seemingly random pattern. The idea of just shifting to match Sibylla again echoed in the back of my mind like a terrible temptation, but I could see Amélie struggling beside me, and I didn't want to leave her to it alone.

We were all careful to follow her exactly, and I saw more than one eye open on the sea floor as we passed just out of reach. Something about the way she moved through the water left its own little current that made it easy for us to follow her exactly.

Her final turn led us into a lagoon of sorts that I remembered from above as having large lillipad-like leaves across its surface. The jellies made it right up to the edge of these before stopping as if they were an impenetrable wall.

I knew the direction we needed to head once we cleared the lagoon. Our fall into this level had given me a view of at least that much. But the lagoon was the last landmark I'd clearly seen during our fall. Not much further beyond, my memory of the maze blurred into a mess of murky, indistinct channels. That worry was already gnawing at me when we slipped past the wall of lillies and into their shadow—only for it to vanish as something else stole my attention. A notification I had only seen once before flickered to life beneath the others.

Entering: Safe Refuge

It was the first dungeon notification we'd seen in this place, and it shocked me almost as much as it relieved me. Still, it meant safety, and I was desperate. I shot upward, forcing myself through a gap between two leaves hard enough to breach the surface. I collapsed onto a giant lily pad with the bounce of a waterbed, hacking in lungfuls of air that burned going down.

Amélie burst out right behind me, hitting another lily in a spray of water. She looked over, wild-eyed, and the relief of seeing she was okay tipped us both into breathless, hysterical laughter before we sagged flat against the pads.

The others surfaced moments later, calm compared to us, but I barely noticed. I was still shaking. When I finally managed to lift my head, the lagoon revealed itself: high rocky walls rose ten feet around us, cutting off any view of the maze beyond. The mountain at the labyrinth's heart loomed far closer now, water trickling down from unseen streams. The air buzzed with frogs, turtles, birds… harmless things. Almost too harmless, after what we'd just come through.

When everyone was out of the water and sprawled across the lily pads, Amélie started gathering up her hair, which was longer than her entire body now, including her tail, and sighed.

"Are we there yet?"

I smiled, extending my claws and taking the heavy bundle she offered. With a few careful snips, I trimmed it back to a reasonable mid-back length before answering.

"I think we're getting very close. We're going to leave through the east side, but I don't see a path that way. It might be underwater. The other two exits just connect to each other."

Alice nodded. "Yeah, I can feel the current slippin' along the bottom there. Looks like you called it."

I smiled at her. "Thanks, Alice. You really saved us back there. I'm really glad you're here."

She snorted and waved me off. "Aw, shucks. Don't go makin' me blush. Y'all've pulled my hide out of trouble plenty. We don't need no scorecard. And yeah, I'm glad to be here too."

Lilith watched the horizon behind us. "Finding a refuge is very fortunate, but these walls are making it impossible to tell if there are more fires, and if they're getting any closer. Let's hope that coming in here broke off any tracking the creatures outside were doing."

I gathered up my own ridiculous length of hair, pulling it behind my head. Unable to see what I was doing, I just quickly cut it into a messy bob.

"I think it must. The monsters can't get in here anyway. Maybe if they can go on land, there is a way through, but I have a feeling the dungeon is splitting these two sections in half for a reason."

Sibylla, now back in her foxgirl form, let the bundles of hair disappear into her inventory and sat, waving for me to cut Alice and Lilith's as well. I blinked at her, and she shrugged.

"Kitsune hair is a rare reagent. Alice is the only Naiad we know of, so even more rare for her. Besides, now we're leaving no evidence that we were here for our pursuer."

It made a weird kind of sense that was hard to argue with, so instead I asked, "Do you have more of the potions? This one feels like it's wearing off."

She pulled a small basket of them from her shadow, and then a picnic basket to boot. "Yes. Might as well refresh them after you eat. I think they should last a bit longer, but it might feel like they're wearing off because you're getting better at resisting the curse. That's a good sign."

I checked my notifications, filtering out kills to find the most recent entries, and was rewarded with one for improving my [Curse Resistance] to level thirty-four. My face lit up, "It is! I missed the skill up in all that mess! …Wait, after we eat? You're not joining us?"

Sibylla looked at me like I was crazy, then glanced down and poked her belly experimentally. "Wow. Well, maybe you forgot already, but I'm pretty sure I never will. I just ate probably more than two thousand pounds of giant monster shark, and I'm not even sure where it went. So, I'm definitely not hungry. Just.. Proud."

I grinned, "Yeah, okay, that's fair. Then, let's eat, and keep going. Now that you've mentioned food, I could definitely eat, but nothing says that thing can't follow us in here if it's on the way, so let's be quick."

Of course, it wasn't nearly as quick as we expected. First, Amélie and I both found many of our stored food to be unpalatable. Fortunately, we had plenty of fish and an unreasonable amount of crab in storage, too, and it was fantastic. It was so good, in fact, that I found it suspicious, but it gave me an idea of what the highlights of mermaid culture… if that was a thing… were about.

We polished off more than anyone could justify calling a healthy-sized meal for an adult, and that only made us even more hungry. It took four plates of food before I felt somewhat satisfied, and even then, we only stopped because of time. I knew I could eat more, and I really wanted to… and that was kind of terrifying.

As we rolled off the lilies and back into the water, Sibylla started our illusory chatter again.

"You two really should have just foxed before eating."

I only froze for a moment to glare, but turned away and began swimming. Slowly at first, unsure how activity might affect me after so much food.

"Why didn't you say something sooner?"

"For real? It was honestly impressive to watch. I mean, I shouldn't have been surprised. You're what? Ten feet from head to tail? You two are probably something like eight hundred pounds of densely packed predatory muscle. Of course you need a lot of food."

Amélie looked mortified. "I think we should keep our weight to metric in these forms."

Sibylla grinned, "So, what? Something like four hundred kilos?"

Amélie slumped a little. "Okay, that really does not sound any better. Let's pick up the pace. I need to work off some of that meal."

The need to hold my breath was the only thing that kept me from laughing. I knew they were only teasing. "Yeah, okay."

I had an urge to snatch a fish on the way, and not just for the humor… only there seemed to be far fewer of them than when we'd arrived.

"Do you think we've scared away all the fish? A little surprising from atop the lilies."

Alice spun in a quick circle before swimming on, taking in our surroundings but still keeping pace. "It's the scent of death in the water. Monsters might not be able to follow us in here, but the currents carry it just fine."

Lilith bubbled something, and Alice translated, "She says we'd best stay sharp. That smell might scare some off, but it'll draw others."

We quieted after that, all on alert and a little concerned with the changes in the environment. The current led us toward the only break in the rock, but the opening was half-choked with kelp and mats of algae that clung like curtains. We had to rip and shove them aside to squeeze through. The tunnel beyond was no more than a few feet wide and utterly black, though mercifully only a few feet below the surface. Even so, I couldn't help imagining the adventurers who'd come this way before us, forced to abandon or sink their boats to make it through.

As we entered the cave, I noticed that there was no message for leaving the safe refuge. I wasn't sure if it was the odd nature of the broken dungeon we were in, or something worse. I only knew that something sent a chill up my spine, and I was glad to be moving on.

We crossed the tunnel single file, and it only took a minute to fully traverse, even with the limited movement we had in the confined space. Starlight taking over the ceiling the moment I entered really took away a lot of the doom and gloom of the tunnel and made it feel far less claustrophobic.

Of course, when we exited on the far side, I didn't even need to open my mouth to taste the wrongness in the water. At first glance, it was just another canal: The same width, butting up against steep walls and plenty deep, but everything about it was lifeless. No darting fish, no weeds brushing our skin, no ripples but our own. The few scraps of plants drifting in the water looked like they'd been dead for weeks, brittle strands clinging on only because the current was too still to finish them. The canal wasn't just empty — it was as if something had scrubbed all life out of it, and left the husk behind.

We darted to the surface, all of us eager to get a breath of fresh air, needed or not. The sight that met us was bleak. The islands were larger, and the hollow shells of what used to be life scattered among the rocks and sand were sparse. Dead algae and moss gave the illusion of plants in places, but even a brief inspection showed that they were long dead and dry. It was as if something had happened to drain this place of everything. Even the rocks seemed somehow brittle in a way I didn't want to test.

"What happened here?" Lilith asked, just as baffled as the rest of us.

I looked at her and then back to the nearby islands. "I was really hoping you might know."

Sibylla glided past us all, wiggling her arms for our attention. "Didn't we just decide we need to move fast? One way or another, we're about to find out. Let's get going! This water sucks."

Alice floated toward the center of our group and said, "One sec. I got an idea."

She hummed a quiet song, almost like a lullaby, and from the cloudless sky above, a light rain began to fall. It started just above us, but quickly spread dozens of meters in every direction. I could feel the magic in the song and knew the rain must be a spell. It didn't seem to have much of an effect at first, but after a few seconds, the tension in the world around us seemed to ease. It was as if something had been weighing us down, and the rain had done away with it. It felt like her summoned rain was rejuvenating even the water around us, counteracting the influence of whatever had drained the life out of this place.

She stopped humming, but I could see the concentration written in the lines of her face. She gave a small nod and said, "Alright. I can keep this up for a while. Let's get a move on."

Rather than let us debate the issue, she led the way, diving back into the water. We all followed, but I was a little worried about her needing to focus on maintaining her spell while helping keep an eye out for our pursuer and watching the currents for clues to the end of the maze.

We swam unimpeded through the canals for another twenty minutes before Alice stopped, looked around a little confused, and then continued forward slowly. I could feel the difference, too. It was as if we'd swum past the end of a river. The water had gone completely still, losing what little movement it had. We reached a crossroads a hundred feet on. At first, I thought it was an odd T intersection, continuing on into a dead end a good twenty feet on. Only, when we reached it, both side paths ended in a collapse a bit further on as well.

"Dead end," Alice said, seeming a little disappointed in herself.

I took in the odd way the walls looked, sloped, and uneven — more like the remains of a landslide than the dead end of a maze. The others were moving to turn back, but I pointed up and shot to the surface. It was enough of a rush to rise past my waist above the water, and I got a pretty good look around. The islands here were gone. The hills and rocky rises had collapsed, the walls of the canals with them, and the whole area looked like a long, wet stretch of sand. There was enough of the islands left that I couldn't see a direct path to the mountain we were closing in on, but they'd collapsed enough that I had no doubt we could walk the rest of the way there.

"This place really is falling apart," Lilith said, looking across the lifeless sand.

"Who cares about the sand, what the heck is that?"

We all looked up at Amélie's words. She was the furthest from the group, off to our right, and we had to swim closer to see what she meant. Barely visible around the rise of rock and sand was what looked like a black tear hanging in midair. I had no other way to describe it. It wasn't a portal to another world, or some shadowy place beyond—it was just a slowly shifting rip. Stranger still, if you changed the angle you looked at it, the whole thing vanished, as though it were hiding behind a corner in the air. You had to look from exactly the right direction to see it.

"That doesn't look good," I said and immediately regretted the obvious statement, but no one called me out for it.

"How many more do you think we've passed where we couldn't see them?" Sibylla asked.

Alice actually had an answer. "Two, maybe three. And I think more ahead." When we all looked at her for an explanation, she looked behind us and then back to the rip. "My spell was being eaten away as fast as it landed. Has to be those things."

Lilith hummed thoughtfully and said, "If this dungeon is collapsing and leaking mana everywhere, maybe that is how. I doubt anyone knows what that really looks like in practice. We should hurry. Who knows how long we have left?"

"No," I said, looking back toward the refuge that was still full of life. "I don't think this is a fast process, or, if it is, I think it would have to be speeding up over time. That tear or whatever reminds me of the corruption on K'thralis. I think that might have something to do with how he escaped."

"Yeah, but we still need to move," Alice said, interrupting my musings. "We might have lost that thing in the maze, but if it finds the path through, I don't want us sittin' here waitin' for it."

That settled it. We didn't really have time to wait around and make guesses about the dungeon's future. We all swam forward toward the land, with Sibylla, Amélie, and me shifting and getting up on the "beach" to help the others over the broken, uneven ledge. The whole place felt like the wet sand at a beach, right where the surf is crashing in, and in places, the sand looked loose enough to make us paranoid about quicksand.

Walking in a mostly straight line instead of following the long winding paths of the canals really shortened the trip, even if our actual pace was slower. When we passed one of the large piles of sand and stone that had previously been a towering island, I gave what looked like granite a probing poke, only to have it crumble like ash under the pressure. I jerked my hand back, brushing it off as I rushed to keep up with the others.

We continued on like that, avoiding spots where too much water was still mixed with the sand, avoiding any questionably solid stones, and slogging through the sticky, wet surfaces until we came around the final mound between us and the sharply rising mountain that had to be the end of the floor.