Explorer of Edregon

“It’s mainly more of those monster eels, as well as some annoying ball-like fish that swim at you and then puff up like five times their size, with spikes going everywhere,” Alka explained as they stood under the floating bubble containing the dungeon. “While the water is murky and dark, it’s not quite pitch-black. You can still see about a dozen feet in front of you, but no more than that. So yeah, don’t let the eels wrap around you, and don’t like the small fish get too close. Remember that and you’ll be fine.”

“Good to know, that’s for the scouting,” Vin said, turning toward his flesh-and-blood friends. “Alright, Replenishing Breath is nice in that I put it together to function similarly to Concealment. By that I mean it will last for a certain length of time before wearing off, so I don’t need to spend my own focus concentrating on the spell to keep it active. It will add a layer of magic within your lungs that will make it so you don’t actually need to breathe in while the spell is active. It’s probably going to take some getting used to, because you still need to breathe out. So again, let the spell inflate your lungs on its own, and then breathe out when you feel like you need to. Simple really.”

“I haven’t even tried it yet and I already hate this,” Scule said.

“Sorry, it was the best I could do,” Vin shrugged. “Ready?”

“Ready!” Shia said, waiting eagerly for the spell. Placing a hand on her back, directly behind where her lungs were, Vin cast.

“Replenishing Breath.”

“Oh!” Shia exclaimed, her eyes going wide as she let out a long, slow breath. To everyone watching, she seemed to breathe in totally normally, her chest inflating as she did so, before she breathed out again. “Yeah, that’s going to take some getting used to,” she chuckled. “Good news though, Vin, it actually works better than you thought. When I go to breathe in, the spell activates. Not only does it physically block me from actually breathing in, which should stop us from accidentally inhaling water, it fills my lungs with air at my discretion. Feels weird as anything, but it means we don’t need to focus on our breathing the whole time we’re in the water.”

“Well that’s good!” he said, smiling as he turned toward Scule. “Ready?”

“No, but I doubt that matters,” Scule sighed. “Hit me!”

Poking him in the chest, Vin cast the spell a second time, before turning his head to look at Reginald, waiting patiently on his shoulder. “Ready?”

A small squeak was all he got in return, and he nodded before poking the rat and casting the spell on him as well. Once all his friends were taken care of, he placed a hand on his own chest and finally cast the spell on himself.

Just like Shia had warned, Vin twitched slightly as he felt the cool magic lay itself in a barely noticeable layer within his lungs. Breathing out felt completely normal, but when he went to breathe in, the spell prevented air from entering through his mouth or nose. Instead, the air simply appeared in his lungs thanks to his magic, mimicking the act of inflating rather than appearing all at once. It was in fact strange as hell, but effective.

“Okay, the base spell should last for about an hour. I can make it last longer, but it increases the density of the magical layer within the lungs and would probably feel way more uncomfortable,” he explained. “One hour should be way more time than we need to get through this portion of the dungeon, so let’s go!”

None of them wanted to risk having the spell wear off while swimming deep within the murky bubble of water filled with monsters, so they all freed their feet from the roots Shia had grown to secure them to the ground before kicking off into the air. Hitting the bubble one after another, Vin quickly tried breathing now that they were actually submerged in water. Sure enough, he had no problem drawing air from his spell instead of water, and he grinned.

Lumel was going to be ecstatic when he revealed his latest trick.

New dungeon discovered! 5,000 exp gained.

Dungeon Type: Water

Primary Monster Type: Fish

Strengths: N/A

Movement: Fast

Grouping: Solitary

“Shame we still can’t talk all that well underwater,” Scule said, his warbling voice only audible thanks to Vin’s high focus and close proximity. “Though I guess it’s not too bad.”

“Focus helps a ton with that kind of thing, so we should actually be able to hear one another pretty well underwater unless we swim farther apart,” Shia said, holding her staff against her back and growing a few branches to secure it to her, freeing up her hands for swimming. “Alright, Vin, where’s the corridor?”

“That direction,” he said, pointing and letting Alka take the lead. Letting out a small cast of Sense Life,he pointed off toward their left. “Monsters incoming!”

Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

His spells, Scule’s darts, and Reginald’s tail-blade were all rather ineffective underwater, but Shia’s magic wasn’t hampered too badly. As the three small, spiny fish that looked like angry pufferfish swam toward them, she grinned and cast. “Rapid Growth!”

Three matching branches rocketed out of her staff, following her directions as they punched straight through each of the fish. The angry pufferfish rapidly inflated upon death, suddenly expanding nearly five times their size and showing off their hidden spikes, but they weren’t anywhere close enough to actually damage them.

“Damn, Alka wasn’t kidding. Those things are nasty!” Scule said, staring at the fish as Shia withdrew the branches and let them float, bleeding out into the water.

“Come on, the corridor isn’t too far!” Vin said, following after Alka and encouraging them to follow in his wake. Sending out repeated casts of Sense Life ensured that none of the monsters within the murky water got the drop on them, and Shia took care of whatever managed to get past Alka or attacked from a different direction. In no time at all they found the corridor leading to the Underside, and Vin couldn’t help but laugh at the silly sight.

The stone frame, complete with a seemingly endless tunnel, was simply floating in the middle of the water bubble, not attached to anything at all.

“I don’t know what I was expecting, but it definitely wasn’t that,” he laughed, motioning for everyone to go in ahead of him. Now that the others all had artifacts to access the Underside, courtesy of Lumel, they didn’t actually need him to activate the frame with his Dungeoneering skill, but old habits died hard.

The corridors themselves were blessedly free of water, and they all let out large sighs as they entered dry land once more.

“Yo, Vin, can you end this thing early?” Scule asked, clambering up onto his shoulder. “Can’t say I like the feeling of my lungs filled with magic all that much.”

“Yeah, I think so,” he said, poking Scule in the chest and dispelling his spell. It was a strange sensation and not something he’d really thought about much before, but it felt like he was disrupting his existing spell by plucking one specific thread in the magic and causing it all to vanish as one.

“Thank you,” Scule said, taking a deep, regular breath and letting it out. “Gods, that’s good stuff.”

Vin repeated the action with Shia and Reginald, before realizing Alka was staring at them a tad unnervingly. Granted, her staring was always unnerving, seeing as she didn’t have any facial features other than her two burning green balls of energy for eyes, but it seemed even more noticeable than normal for some reason.

“Alka, you alright?”

“Yeah,” she said, jerking as if she only just realized what she was doing. “Sorry. Something about seeing you guys all taking such long, heavy breaths just stirred something within me. It’s been so long since I actually breathed, I just realized I couldn’t remember exactly what it felt like.”

That doesn’t sound great… he thought, thinking back to something Shia had mentioned long ago. She’d confided in him that her master had theorized Alka might slowly lose her humanity and become little more than a killing machine, on account of her no longer having such simple things as a flesh-and-blood body and the biological components that came with it. Vin had done all he could to try and keep the Slayer grounded and human, but maybe it hadn’t been enough.

“Well that’s super weird,” Scule laughed, hopping onto her shoulder. “What, are you fully turning into a puppet now? I don’t see any strings dangling off your back!”

Vin could only sigh as he just then recalled that Scule had been off visiting his family during that conversation he and Shia had had, meaning the petian wasn’t aware of their concerns. Thankfully, before Shia could flick him off Alka’s shoulder, Alka began laughing.

“It really feels like it sometimes, you know? But don’t worry, if I ever turn into an actual puppet, I’ll make sure I’m the one pulling the strings!”

She and Scule began heading down the corridor to the Underside, and Vin and Shia exchanged looks. Shia merely shrugged before heading off after them, and after a moment, Vin followed in their wake with Reginald snuggling back into his pocket.

Shia’s master had suggested that they simply continue treating her like a person and, more importantly, like a friend. He supposed making fun of the root issue itself might not be the world idea when it came to someone as direct as Alka.

To Vin’s surprise, once they entered the Underside proper and made their way over to the portion mirroring the Earthers’ fragment, they found Lumel waiting for them. The pulmon was sitting in one of her fancy chairs she’d taken from her father’s palace, flicking through a large book. She was distracted enough with her reading that she didn’t actually notice them until they’d gotten pretty close, but upon hearing their footsteps, she glanced up, her eyes going wide as she spotted them.

One flash of purple later, and Lumel stood right before Vin. Throwing her arms around him, she gave him a super quick hug before stepping back and tugging her hood over her head a bit more as if only then remembering she and him weren’t alone. Vin didn’t miss the fact that she was wearing her gloves again for some reason, which wasn’t something she normally did when she was alone. Eyeing them all up, she spoke.

“What happened to you guys? It’s been a whole day longer than what the plan was! …And why are you all wet?”

“After retrieving Alka and running from the warana, we ended up in the neighboring fragment,” Vin explained, giving her an apologetic smile. “It didn’t have any gravity and was filled with these weird, floating bubbles of water, not unlike those from Aqua Sphere. We went to use the dungeon to come back, but discovered it was full of water. Rather than try to slowly drift home, we hunkered down until I could learn my newest spell.”

“If you ever decide you want to try going home, let’s just say Vin can accompany you now,” Shia grinned, gently squeezing Lumel’s shoulder as she headed toward the corridor leading up to the Earthers’ dungeon. Scule and Reginald hopped over to Alka’s shoulders as the Slayer nodded and followed suit, quickly leaving the two of them alone.

“You managed to learn a spell for breathing underwater in a single day?” Lumel asked, her eyes going wide as she bit her trembling lip.

“It wasn’t easy, but I had the perfect spells to work with, and I just snagged Spell Builder for my level 45 passive,” he said excitedly. “So yeah, I’ve got Replenishing Breath now! I know you’re banished and all, but like Shia said, if you ever want someone standing by you when you go back to argue that out, I’ll be there!”

Vin wasn’t entirely certain what reaction he thought revealing his newest spell was going to get from the pulmon. A tight hug. A loving kiss. Maybe just a watery-eyed smile and a firm squeeze of the hand.

What he wasn’t expecting was for Lumel to break down sobbing right in front of him.