Chapter 46: Taking a Dip

It was another crisp morning when the team had gotten to the Seed. Travel, unsurprisingly, wasn’t without its challenges, but with Rosalyn added to the team, they had staved off the Twinwolf packs easily. They’d stumbled upon a nest of Chittering Crawlers, but had enough forewarning to skirt the mess of bony limbs and eyes. It had taken three days. Slightly longer than Bren had expected, largely due to having to avoid the Crawler nest, but they were still happy with the time.

Staring up at the nauseating wall before them, the four took a moment to prepare themselves. Rosalyn stood close between Kat and Ann, as had become a bit of a habit, while Bren stood off to their left.

“Ever been in a Seed Rosalyn?” Ann asked, glancing away before the oil slick patterns made her stomach worse.

“Nope. Seen one from a distance, but never went into one. I can’t imagine what we’re going to find. I’m excited, but nervous, and a little scared, but with you three, we should be fine, right?”

The woman rambled in the most adorable ways sometimes. Ann looked at Kat, giving her a grin, before they both patted the wooly hair atop Rosalyn’s head in unison.

“We’ll keep ye safe, little lamb,” Kat laughed, further digging her fingers into her hair as Rosalyn tried to dodge away.

“That we will,” Bren chuckled to himself. “It is the third time I have been in one. Katlyn and I entered one before we met you, Annita. It was with a larger group earlier on, but it was a formative experience.”

“No shit,” Ann laughed. “Seeing the source of those fucked up things we fight is interesting. Wonder what the Guardian’ll be like. My bet’s on some weird clam.”

“Nah, fish. Oooh, or some kinda lizard?” Kat pondered.

“Reptilian, fish, there are all kinds of insects around a lake as well. Maybe it’ll be a bird? It could be something that lives off the lake rather than in it,” Rosalyn proposed, finally winning her freedom from the playful hands messing with her hair.

“We will never know if we do not enter,” Bren sighed. “It will probably be frozen, though. For the record, my bet is on some amphibian.”

“Knowing these things, all of us could be right,” Ann shuddered as her imagination ran with the suggestions. “We keeping the normal order? Kat in the lead, me in back?”

“Aye, best way tae handle an ambush. Let’s do this!” Kat cheered as she held her hand out to Rosalyn.

Once they were all linked, hands held firmly, Kat led them through. Ann shut her eyes again, not wanting to test how awful that wall looked from the inside. A short walk later, and the pressure surrounding them faded, leaving the air crisp and clear once more.

Cracking her eyes open, then fully, Ann took in the view. True to its description, it was a lake. Smooth ice stretched out past the rocky beach they stood on, covered in a soft blanket of snow.

“This is kinda normal compared to the last Seed,” Ann commented, feeling slightly disappointed.

“Aye, tha’ probably means this is gonna be more complicated, an’ dangerous. The Core should be accessible, just gotta figure out a way tae get to it. Let’s check the shore around, see if we can find an entrance or somethin’.”

They walked, keeping an eye out for any signs of danger or ingress, but nothing came of the first half of the lake. It was slow going and surprisingly relaxing. Just a hike around a pristine, gorgeous lake.

“Have you all ever been ice fishing?” Ann asked as they walked.

“Can’t say I have,” Kat replied, never looking back as she tracked the horizon.

“It’s this thing, especially from when I was from. People probably do it here too, but not surprised you haven’t. Basically, you cut a hole in the ice and fish out of it. You can set up a little hut, bring some food and drink and hang out while you do so. There’s water under the ice, so you can just sit up here, while the fish looking for food hit your line. You have to be careful, though. Ice can be pretty thin sometimes and you don’t want to get trapped under.”

“No you do not,” Rosalyn confirmed. “We lost a villager last year to something similar. It was a frozen river that was too thin to cross. She decided she wanted to risk it and the ice shattered halfway across. Poor lady never came back up, and no one could see enough to try to help her. It was a reminder that nature can be as dangerous as any Warped.”

“Well, that certainly is a good reminder,” Bren sighed. “A little dour a topic, but such dangers lurk where we least expect them. I guess we should test the ice, though. I do not see any space out on the shore that indicates a way down.”

“Aye, time tae go an’ test it,” Kat decided. “After me.”

They walked out onto the ice, the first few steps tentative as they tested their weight. Fortunately, the ice seemed thick, and more than capable of holding their combined weight. Ann knelt and brushed the snow aside, looking down into the clear frozen depths. They were murky, distorted by refraction, but she could see surprisingly far down.

“Hey, I see it,” she called, waving the others over and pointing. There was a dim light deep underwater, shining like nothing else could.

“Awesome. Now how to get down there?” Rosalyn asked, casting her eyes around.

“Maybe there’s a tunnel or something?” Kat pondered, taking a few steps to her left.

“Or a door we need to open somehow?” Ann suggested, rising. “What do you think, Bren?”

A crack of ice sounded and she froze, listening for more. Had the ice been thinner than they thought? This was bad.

She waited a moment, no response. She looked around and didn’t see him. “Uh, guys, where’s Bren?”

“He was right… where the feck is he?” Kat gasped, looking around.

“Over here!” Rosalyn called, waving frantically.

She stood next to an opening that was not there before. It led down into a smooth, icy tunnel that curved off into the unknown.

“Bren, ye down there? Ye all right?” Kat shouted into the opening.

“Yes, I am alright for now, but would appreciate some assistance!” the cry came back as a strange burbling joined his voice.

Kat was already jumping by the time Ann decided to move, the warrior disappearing quickly around the bend. Shrugging to Rosalyn, Ann let her go first, following quickly after. The tunnel was essentially a big slide, curving twice before spitting her out into a cavern. It was dimly lit by what sun poked through the snow covered ice, about fifty feet across and ten feet tall. Not cramped, but small.

The fish made it smaller. Or at least they were partly fish. Scales adorned their piscine bodies, and their bulging eyes were pretty normal, but these things got around on crab legs. The crustacean limbs burst out of the sides of the things at odd angles, not all of them touching the ground as they scuttled to and in the chaos of the melee. They bore distended gills which pulsated raw and irritated as a viscous white fluid dripped from the frills. The things were big for fish and crabs, too. Each one was about three feet long, and their legs were probably that long again. They swarmed the party like insects, trying to poke and stab with their legs as they grappled.

Ann fired off a shot at one that was latched on to Bren, a bloody leg poised to strike once more. It was knocked off by the impact, but the squirming legs told her it hadn’t been a lethal shot.

“Rosalyn, better or worse than the Chittering ones?” Kat laughed as she bashed one to the side, cutting a leg off another.

“Worse!” Rosalyn cried, flinching as one of the fish was caught on a spike of thorns, stopping it in its tracks from hitting her.

Ann was having a bit of a time of it. With so many of the things, parrying thrusts with her falchion and dodging what she couldn’t turn away. One of the fish came at her from the left, swinging a spined leg into her side. Her armour held, but the spines found a gap and dug into her flesh.

Cursing, she spun, using the thing’s grip in her to its disadvantage as she pulled it closer, impaling it through the bulbous eye. A gurgling hiss escaped its flapping lips as white pus-like blood gushed from the wound and over Ann. “Why do they have to pop?” she groaned, wiping away some of the blood.

“Isn’t it disgusting?” Kat cackled as she split the body of one in two, the pieces falling to the floor as the guts slowly oozed out.

“Absolutely vile!” Bren huffed. He’d made his way back to the entrance to the cavern, staying behind Kat and Ann as the fight progressed.

Tearing the leg from her side, Ann threw the dead creature at another, tangling it in the limbs of its own kind. “Not the worst, though.”

“Are you trying to ask the Seed for worse?” Rosalyn asked with utter disbelief as another spike of thorns erupted from nowhere, skewering two fish at once.

“No, just, not a bad warm up,” Ann said defensively.

Quickly, the team whittled down the creatures before the last remaining three turned and scuttled off into two tunnels surrounding the room.

“Oh, we’re not gonna be safe down ‘ere,” Kat gumbled as she watched them go. “No way’re they gonna leave us be fer long if they run like tha’.”

“I agree,” Bren said, taking a deep breath to settle his nerves after the fight. “We will have to be careful if we need to rest.”

“We’re probably going to need my camouflage spell for that,” Rosalyn advised, wiping away blood Ann couldn’t even see against her skin save for it looking slightly wetter.

The party took a moment to catch their breath and survey the room. They had choices on where to progress. Four tunnels led off, each with a slight downward slope. One to the north, one to the east, and one to the west, or as best as Ann could tell.

“So, what do we want to call these things?” Kat huffed, as she stood and kicked one of the crab fish over, its randomly placed limbs flopping awkwardly.

“Ooh, ooh! I’ve got this one!” Rosalyn cheered, raising an oddly enthusiastic hand. “Scuttlefish! Cause they’re fish and they scuttle around on those weird crab legs!”

Ann couldn’t help but laugh. It was way too perfect. The more she thought about it, the better it fit, and the more she laughed, the sound echoing through the cavern of ice. “Yeah,” she gasped. “We’re going with that one. Oh fuck me, that’s funny.”

“I absolutely agree,” Bren laughed, wiping a tear from his own eye. “I hope the Association shares our humour. Oh, Gods.” He groaned, feeling his chest where the Scuttlefish had stabbed him, apparently not entirely healed as he channelled magic into himself.

“So, they left down east an’ west,” Kat said, bringing them back on task. “I hear more of ‘em down the western tunnel, fewer down the east, an’ none up ahead.”

Ann paused, perking her own ears, letting them swivel freely as she listened in all directions. Like Kat said, she could hear the clicking of chitin coated legs down the west and east tunnels.

“I’d rather not run into those things again,” Ann said with a grimace. “Only thing is, we might run into something worse. Yay more monsters! I vote north. See what fresh hell awaits.”

“I would prefer the known against the unknown,” Bren muttered before making his choice. “I vote east. Fewer enemies sounds preferable.”

“Didn’t think they were too bad,” Kat said, pacing back and forth as her energy got the better of her. “West is my vote.”

“Then I get to be the tiebreaker,” Rosalyn sighed, looking up from the corpse she was prodding with a stick she’d pulled out of her bag. “I vote north as well. These are a nuisance, but not too threatening unless we’re separated. Even if they join a fight somewhere else, I think I can tie them down with Entangle pretty well. Didn’t want to waste the Mind here. If we can use a tunnel as a choke point, it would be even more effective. Hmm, yeah. Definitely north. Something new and interesting to see and study.”

“North it is, then,” Kat declared with a grin. “Bren, mind markin’ the wall so we don’t lose our way down ‘ere? Who knows how loopy this place is.”

“Ah, good point,” Bren said, taking out his knife and carving a rune into the ice about four feet up the wall.

“Good, let’s go.”

The light was, thankfully, still bright enough that they could see without a torch. None of them had brought a light crystal, but that was definitely on the short list of equipment when they got back. As they walked, Kat and Ann heard things moving in and out of tunnels they couldn’t see.

The tunnel they walked in was rounded, almost like it was bored out of the ice by a worm of some sort. It made walking a little awkward since the floor itself wasn’t flat, and the fur between Ann’s pads interfered with her grip, but she kept her balance largely thanks to her high dexterity. A couple times they came to tunnels that branched out in odd directions. One was up in the ceiling and curved off upward, possibly to the surface, the other was to their right, but kept to the current path.

“Hold up,” Kat said, raising a hand for the party to stop as her pointed ears twitched, listening. Ann, taking up the rear, stopped just behind Bren, trying to figure out what Kat was hearing.

“Is that water?” Ann whispered, knowing Kat could hear her clearly.

“Aye. Doesn’t sound like it’s flowin’. Splashin’? Maybe a pond o’ some sort.”

“That’d make sense for a Seed based on water. I guess with the lake frozen, there must still be unfrozen water. Maybe the seed is incorporating that for its natural features? We should be ready for an ambush, though. Things could be in the water. Maybe more Scuttlefish?”

“I do not think those things could swim, much less breathe water,” Bren disagreed. “Those gills were not functional. I have a feeling we will be meeting something new.”

“Think it’ll be the amphibian?” Ann asked, elbowing him.

“Only one way to find out,” he sighed back, gripping his wand in one hand and his knife in the other.

Kat nodded and moved forward. They entered another cavern. Much like the first one, it was entirely made of ice, bluish light filtering and rippling across all surfaces. The difference came in the pools of water. There were three around the outskirts of the floor, four on the walls, and four on the ceiling. Fascinatingly, no water fell out of the pools on the walls and ceilings. The water was dark, and Ann couldn’t see anything past the surface.

“Are you ever grateful when a Seed just screams ‘fight’ with its design?” Ann asked, glancing between the pools, searching for any movement.

“Sure is nice o’ it,” Kat mumbled. “Though I’ve got me a bad feelin’ that the announcement means the Warped is gonna be tougher.”

“Not a Guardian, surely,” Bren posited. “Not yet, at least. Possibly just a tougher enemy, if not a common one that requires water.”

“Do we want to go in?” Ann asked, finger twitching against the cylinder of her revolver, rotating it slowly. The clicking of the weapon helped her focus, grounded her.

“Aye,” Kat decided. “Keep tae the walls. Careful when we cross the path o’ one o’ the pools. We’ll figure it out from there.”

Following her lead, the four of them skirted the side to their right, keeping one shoulder touching the ice as they made their way around the room. A couple times, a soft splash could be heard, ripples seen in a pool, but they could never catch what was making the noise. They came to a pool set on the wall. All four stopped short of it, looking at each other.

“’Ere goes nothin,” Kat grumbled, putting her sword out in front of the water first. When nothing came flying out, or grabbed her arm, she let out a breath, walking forward cautiously. After she passed the water, she turned back and motioned for Bren next.

He eyed the pool, and took a few ginger steps, but eventually passed unmolested.

Next, Rosalyn stepped forward. She tapped the ground with her staff, trying to bait anything out that was waiting, but nothing responded. She took a tentative step forward, then another. Gaining confidence, she strode forward.

As Rosalyn reached the center of the pool, the water burst. A surprised scream echoed through the room as she was pushed into the center of the cavern. Soaking wet and winded, Rosalyn scrambled backwards, trying to gain distance from the dark shape that now curled in the middle of the room.

It was sleek, long, and leathery. Beady eyes glared at them from a triangular head, hydrodynamic and built for swimming. Whiskers dotted the cheeks, as its enlarged throat bulged with a breath. Smaller, dextrous arms made up the forelegs of the creature, while its hind legs were massive, webbed, and insanely muscular. A long greyish green tail extended from its rear, and swished across the floor, balancing the creature. The best Annita could use to describe it was a cross between an otter and a toad.

As they recovered and shook themselves into action, it opened its mouth unnaturally wide, splitting its cheeks to do so, and let out a bassy croak. Then it lunged at the Druid.