Ryzen slammed into the icy cold water headfirst. Had she been warned before going on this insane mission that she would’ve been dunked into near-freezing water, she would’ve thought better of coming on this stupid trip. But nope, here she was, floundering in the dark and ready to murder Wolf-boy for pushing them headlong into this mess!
But she needed air. She could feel Wolf-boy and Fig struggling too but she failed to grasp a limb to help orient herself in the dark. Her only thought was of not being able to find a pocket of air and drowning in the dark underground pool. When after a minute had passed, she began waving her arms even more frantically, hoping to find the air her lungs so desperately needed. Her body began to buck and jerk as the urge to breath consumed her.
This is it, her mind thought though a panic haze. This is how I’ll die.
Suddenly, something grabbed her around the waist and began pulling her in the opposite direction she had been trying to swim. Not caring if it was Fig or Arclin, she changed direction and tried swimming the way she was being dragged. The limb around her waist let go as a hand grabbed her wrist, pulling her the rest of the way to the surface as fresh, beautiful oxygen hit her cold face. Coughing and spluttering, Ryzen sucked in wonderful air, greedily filling her lungs until she stopped coughing.
Fig’s voice carried through the darkness and he pulled her close against his chest, saying something in his Mehlri tongue. “You were gone for so long…” he confided into her ear, switching back to Drahl so she could understand.
If she hadn’t been battling for her life, she would’ve thought this could have been a romantic moment for them. “We’ll it’s a good thing you pulled me back out,” she breathed heavily back to him. “Where are we?”
“Some underground lake, I think. Though it is hard to tell with no light.”
“Wolf-boy, are you here?”
“Yeah, I’m here,” he responded sounding just as breathless. “Though I’m starting to rethink my choices in life that have led me here.”
“We need to find a way out,” Ryzen said, ignoring his comment and hoping she sounded calmer than she felt. “Do we want to try splitting up and scouting around to find a shore to crawl up onto?”
“No!” both of the men shouted, their voices echoing off the stone walls.
“No,” Wolf-boy said calmer, but still forcefully. “Let’s swim together and see if we can find a way out. That way if one of us does find a place to climb we can do it together instead of alone.”
“S-sounds good t-to me-e,” Ryzen said, unable to stop her teeth from chattering.
“Let us be quick then,” Fig said, and she felt him give her a tug to follow after. “The sooner we are out the sooner we can warm up.”
They all swam together, and Ryzen hoped the movement would keep her warm enough until they found a way out of the icy water. Without knowing how far they needed to go they pressed on, praying to whatever gods they could they weren’t swimming in circles.
Fig navigated the darkness the best out of the three of them and was always able to find her or Wolf-boy without help.
“Watch out,” Fig called out to them as he swam ahead. “There is a stalagmite here in the water. Reach out your hand to avoid running into it.”
“Is that how you found it, you ran into it?” Wolf-boy asked from somewhere behind Ryzen. “And what is a stalagmite? I’m guessing it’s some kind of rock?”
“No I did not run into it,” Fig answered in an amused tone. “And yes it is a rock that sticks out of the ground like a spear so be careful, I do not know if there are more below, ready to skewer us should we make the wrong move.”
Reaching out with a hand, Ryzen waited expectantly until the cold stone brushed up against her fingertips. “I found it,” she called to the others.”
“Good, now swim around it,” Fig said encouragingly. “We’ll gather on the other side before swimming again.”
Gripping the slick stone the best she could, Ryzen half swam, half pulled herself to were Fig waited.
“I am so sick and tired of being grimy and wet,” she mumbled.
Fig chuckled and he wrapped an arm around her as he nuzzled his nose close to her ear, making her skin tingle and reminding her what it had finally felt like for him to kiss her before Wolf-boy had ruined it with his “discovery”.
“Well hopefully we can find dry land soon,” Fig said so quietly in her ear that only she could hear what he had said.
“What in the world could you guys be whispering about?” Wolf-boy asked, sounding annoyed, his arms splashing loudly in the water as he came around the side of the stalagmite. “Also, does it look like there are stars above us, or is that just me?”
Looking up, Ryzen was startled to find that there were in fact tiny pinpricks of light coming from above. “There is,” she said breathlessly. “But they don’t act like stars. Some of them seem to bend around something.”
“Those would be stalactites, I think,” Fig said. “But I do not know what is making those lights.”
Ryzen watched in silent wonder as the star-like-lights above her seemed to switch between waxing and waning in their light. Holding onto both Fig and the stalagmite beside them she stared in wonder as the glow grew in brightness. Eventually, black shapes and outlines began to form and take shape in the darkness. The pillar like stone she held onto was soon revealed to be reaching over a dozen feet above the water and nearly as wide as she was tall. She could see Wolf-boy’s head turning this way and that, his eyes wide with wonder and amazement as the glow continued to spread.
When his eyes fell on her and Fig, he pointed a finger at them. “Hey, I can finally see you guys again.”
Both her and Fig laughed and she gave Wolf-boy a playful splash, “About time. We’ve been able to see you for a minute now.”
“Look!” Fig exclaimed, pointing up at the ceiling.
Glancing upward, Ryzen saw what had caught his attention. The millions of lights were no longer just getting brighter but were spreading, changing their brilliance of a night sky to the soft glow of a pale moon. All around her, Ryzen made out the various stalagmites and stalactites above and below. Best of all, she could finally see the edge of the underground lake not too far away, not to far from where Fig had been leading them. Her teeth began to chatter again from the cold but she still managed a smile as she saw the shoreline lead to a tunnel continuing further into the mountain.
“C-come on, b-boys,” she chattered, grinning madly as she pushed off of Fig towards the shore. “I j-just found our w-way out.”
Swimming as fast as she could, she swam until her feet brushed up against the bottom of the lakebed. Then, carefully, she found her footing before walking the rest of the way to shore. By the time she reached dry ground, the walls were no longer pinpricks of light, but were vast swaths of light that pulsed in waves and ripples across the sky.
“It’s so b-beautiful,” she whispered as Fig and Wolf-boy came to stand beside her.
“Indeed,” Fig said softly, wrapping his arm around her.
She wasn’t sure what it was that had changed, but something had come over Fig since their fight with the octilids, and he was no longer the timid man she had known.
About damn time, she thought with a smile. Grateful for his warmth she nuzzled in closer to him.
“Okay, so um, I have a question that has been gnawing at me,” Wolf-boy said awkwardly. “But do either of you still have the Soul Gems?”
All the joy Ryzen had been feeling dropped like a pit in her stomach. Letting go of Fig’s hand she did a quick pat of her clothes. Gone. It was gone. Her whole body started shivering again and she quickly wrapped her arms around herself to try and keep warm.
“I-it’s g-gone,” she whispered into the dim room. “I must’ve d-dropped it while I was…”
“S-swimming for your life?” Arclin finished for her. “Yeah, I figured as much. Can’t say I-I blame you. I would’ve p-probably done the same thing.”
“The other is gone too,” Fig said flatly. “I remember dropping it when we first began sliding.”
“Maybe I d-did drop it when I was s-swimming?” she admitted. “But it c-could’ve also s-slipped from my hand when you p-pulled me around my w-waist to the s-surface.”
Fig’s expression changed from one of sadness to confusion. Probably thinking of how I keep messing these things up, she thought dejectedly.*
Turning around, she looked over the cold dark water. Somewhere in its depths lay the two things that they desperately needed. We can’t give up now, she thought, glancing around to see if there was anything else they could try to recover the gems. She tried thinking of what supplies they had brought them when her gaze settled on the glowing moss.
“What about the moss?” she said, her excitement growing. “It glows in the dark. What if we use some to look for the gems underwater?”
“That is worth trying, I think,” Fig said, moving to stand by the wall. As he grabbed a handful of the sparkling stuff, the moss’s light died instantly the second it was pulled.
“Well, that was—” Wolf-boy began, only to be cut off as the darkness spread from where Fig had pulled on it, casting the whole place into shadow once again. “So that’s why the room was dark when we first came in,” he said in understanding.
“What are we going to do?” Ryzen asked, grateful for the darkness as she wiped her face with the back of her hand. “We can’t dive down and look for them because it’s too dark, and—”
“Shh,” Arclin said, cutting her off. She growled at him but he did it again a second time. “I said shh!”
She paused in the dark wishing she could see so she could give him a good punch in the face. Then she heard what Arclin must have before her. A slow slithering, bubbling sound could be heard making its way across the floor from the water. Her body stiffened and she tried to figure out what was coming for them.
“Princess,” Fig hissed at her. “You said something grabbed you around your waist?”
Her spine went cold at his question. “Yes,” she hissed back. Every instinct she had told her she needed to run from this unknown creature. But where could she run to? Everything was shrouded in complete blackness, and if she ran she would only risk hurting herself.
“I only grabbed your hand. Neither Arclin, nor myself, dove down to get you,” Fig whispered.
“But, who…?” her said, her voice trailing off as her eyes remained fixed in the direction of whatever was slithering closer to them.
Reaching out for where Fig last stood, her hand met his and she gripped it as hard as she could, wishing she could see him in the glow of the moss again.
“Thëk althl srëk thal,” a deep voice said, its words clacking together in an unfamiliar way to Ryzen’s ears. “Thal althl srëk, Thëk rak. Ëtl thal Kelrok Rak’al, thëok zëkl.”
Thing that had approached them in the cover of darkness was now slithering and slinking its way back into the water, its limbs splashing into the cold abyss that even the moss’s light could not touch.
The three of them remained silent for so long that when Ryzen had found her voice again the moss up above had started to sparkle and shine again.
“What…was…that?” she said in a whisper that echoed across the cavern.
“That… was incredible!” Fig exclaimed, a smile spreading across his face.
“What was it though?” Wolf-boy said softly, and Ryzen noticed he was shivering more than they had when in the water. “For a moment I thought it was another octilid that we were going to have to fight, until it started—speaking? If you could call what it was saying words.”
“Sounded like gibberish to me,” Ryzen admitted, and at her comment Fig gave her hand a squeeze.
“It is much more than that! Do you know what language that was?” Fig asked, still excited.
Ryzen shook her head. “I’m sorry, I really don’t.”
“It was the dead language of Tharaxic,” Fig said, his eyes wider than Ryzen had ever seen them. Letting go of her hand he began to pace back and forth in the small space they had. “Based on what we know—”
Fig had unconsciously switched to his native tongue, continuing his rant in his local Mehlri. Ryzen smiled, crossing her arms over her wet clothes.
“Is he okay?” Wolf-boy asked coming closer to her.
“He’s just excited. He didn’t think we’d actually find something for him to do scholarly things with besides those ruins up above.”
“And he regularly starts speaking gibberish when he gets like this?”
“It’s not gibberish,” she said, her tone cold. “That his native tongue, Mehlri.”
“Oh, right. Ow!”
Ryzen rubbed her fist as she moved away from Wolf-boy who was rubbing his shoulder where she had punched him. Fig continued to talk to himself, despite the commotion she had made, but with the light growing in the cavern she knew they really should figure out what just happened and what they were going to do to get the gems back.
Reaching out she tapped Fig on the shoulder. “Pig?” she said gently.
“Hm?” he said, stopping in his tracks with a question in his eyes.
“We should really get going, and you know, neither of us understand Mehlri…”
“Oh, right. Sorry.” Fig’s face fell and that excitable manner that Ryzen loved seeing so much disappeared. She knew she shouldn’t have said anything. Despite her saying that she likes hearing him speak in his native tongue, Fig was always sensitive to being called out when he switched languages.
“Hey, it’s alright. Don’t worry about it,” she said dismissively. “We’d still love to know what it is you were talking about.”
She thanked the one true god that Wolf-boy didn’t reply to her comment. Either he really wanted to know what Fig was going on about, or he had finally learned to keep his mouth shut. Either way, it warmed Ryzen’s heart to see Fig’s smile return, even if just a little bit.
“I do not always know when I switch languages. Where should I begin?”
“Just start at the beginning,” she said with a smile, turning to look at Wolf-boy.
She froze as something bumped into her foot the sound of something solid rolling across the ground. In the ever growing light of the moss, Ryzen saw two crystalline orbs on the ground by their feet, the one she had inadvertently kicked slowly making its way to Wolf-boy who bent over and picked it up. A soft inner glow of red light flickered from within and Wolf-boy’s head snapped up to look at her and Fig in amazement.
“It’s Drahlros’s Soul Gem.”
Her eyes shifted from his World Gem to the sphere lying by her feet. Bending down, she picked it up and immediately felt that same warm energy flow from the gem into her hand, up her arm, and through the rest of her body like she had twice before. A sigh of relief escaped her lips and her face broke into the widest smile she had ever had before.
“He’s right,” she said, turning and showing Fig her now glowing yellow orb.
“But, then who…?” Fig’s question died as his gaze shifted from Ryzen, to the watery lake beside them. A rock near the middle of the lake submerged itself quickly, sending large rippling waves across its clear glassy surface.