by G. D. Penman
A wall loomed up out of the brown waters ahead of him long before any sign of his companions; the same dirt as the walls that had marked the entrance to this swamp. He paused when he reached it, trying to make sense of the striations across it.
Different colored mud lay in lines across the wall, marking water levels from different times. He knew that water was constantly trickling down into this cavern from the tunnels and machinery that they’d just cleared out, but what was draining the water away with such regularity that it had created all of these watermarks?
“What’s up with the frogs-bodies then?” Lindsay whispered, right in his ear.
Martin almost lost his footing and ended up in the water. He’d forgotten she could do that.
With a shaking hand, he touched his guild crest and answered. “They’re scared of you. They’re scared of the lower deeps. They’re scared of their own shadows. No help at all.”
“Oh, no. What a shocking twist.” She spoke in a flat monotone. “I am so surprised that the random monsters you made friends with aren’t reliable. Tragic.”
“They could have been useful,” he grumbled back.
He could practically hear Lindsay’s grin. “Uh-huh.”
“Have you found the gate yet?” he asked, exasperated.
She let out a sigh. “Not a damn thing. Well. A few damn things. Some big fish. A lizard that looked kind of like a little crocodile. Jericho’s ass – I walked into that at least fifty times before I sent him off on his own since he keeps stopping in front of me for no reason.”
“I am trying not to fall in the water,” Jericho’s voice rumbled from behind Martin’s other shoulder. He was never going to get used to that. “We are not all little floaty birds.”
“Call me a duck one more time, you—”
Martin cut her off. “Ladies. Can we focus on the task at hand?”
Julia spoke up before the others could respond. “There is no sign of a gate on any of these walls. I’ve gone around the whole perimeter. Or as close as I can get.”
Her voice seemed to be coming from the opposite side to the other two, Martin wondered if the “whispered” messages were directional.
Regardless, Julia’s message was disappointing. If it had been Lindsay or Jericho, Martin would have discounted that as impatience, but Julia was nothing if not methodical. She would have made sure to look everywhere before delivering such doom-and-gloom news.
“Okay,” he said. “Let’s regroup and think of a new plan.”
“I brought you along to do the thinking so I wouldn’t have to,” Lindsay snapped.
Even Julia couldn’t keep herself from laughing at that particular piece of guild-master wit. Jericho’s rolling guffaws were loud enough that Martin could hear them echoing across the swamp.
They met up by one of the Anurvan fishing holes. Martin didn’t want to go back into the village proper without a plan of action in mind, otherwise Lindsay might just start swinging at anything that looked capable of fighting back.
Martin paced back and forth around the hole.
“The water level tops up constantly, but the cave never floods. So it is being drained somewhere. Water flows down, so it is probably draining to the next deep. Therefore, the gate has to be under the water somewhere.”
Lindsay rolled her eyes. “Of course it’s under the water, otherwise we would have seen it.”
Martin tapped pensively on his protruding front teeth. “Do we know what the deepest point in the swamp is?”
There was a long pause before Julia politely asked, “How would we go about figuring that out?”
“I have no idea, but I’d bet good money that the gate will be at the lowest point to ensure the maximum drainage every time it’s opened.”
His pacing grew more frantic. The solution was right there. Right on the tip of his tongue. He just had to get his brain to spit it out.
“Up in Beachhead, they called this dungeon an ecosystem. Logic has been applied to every bit of the design.”
Without even looking, he casually hopped over the leg Lindsay had extended to trip him up in his well-paced circle.
“They wouldn’t want a level that was completely underwater – not so soon in the game – therefore there has to be maximum drainage every time someone does manage to find the Gate, since it probably isn’t happening every day now that the bulk of the people racing to the lowest deep are past.”
“You have a point?” Jericho groaned.
“I’ve got something better than a point.” Martin pointed at Julia. “I’ve got a snake girl that can breathe underwater.”
She clapped her hands. “That’s right! Sythvan can totally do that!”
“So, all we need is for you to take a few quick dives in the places where we suspect the water is deepest.”
Lindsay stared at him incredulously. “And, uh, where do we suspect the water is deepest?”
“Well, you don’t go fishing in the shallows, Lindsay. You fish in the deepest water you can find, where you think the biggest fish are going to be.” He flashed her a long-toothed grin. “The little frog guys are helping us out again, even if they’re trying not to.”
Julia was a little reluctant to get into the water, despite her usual positive attitude. Martin remembered his initial terror as he splashed and waded his way out into the swamp; the lurking primordial fear that there was something hungry down there.
He caught her by the arm before she slipped into the water.
“Listen, I’ve been in this water a lot, and, as Lindsay is so fond of reminding us, I’m snack sized. If there was anything down there, it would have taken a bite out of me already. You don’t have to worry about a thing.”
She pulled her arm free as gracefully as she could. “Thanks for trying, but it isn’t that. I am just… not that strong of a swimmer.”
“Well, that’s all right. All we need you to do is sink. And you can breathe the water so... Yeah. You’ll be fine.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Thanks. I think?”
The Anurvan had disappeared seamlessly into the water, but Julia seemed to be devoted to doing the exact opposite. She splashed and flailed until eventually Lindsay crouched down and dunked her under the water. Julia hung there for a long moment, then one hand extended up through the surface, led by an upturned thumb.
Martin caught himself holding his breath while Julia was under the water, a weird instinct that he’d picked up from years of gaming when the visual display for oxygen was too often a distraction from the task at hand. He deliberately took a deep breath of the moist air, but his eyes never left the surface of the water.
Time seemed to stretch out as they waited for her to resurface. Every bubble and ripple became an omen. When she did finally pop up, they all jumped. Even Jericho. Which probably made the wait worth it.
Julia spat out a mouthful of water then gargled out, “Nothing but mud and weeds.”
Lindsay grumbled, but Martin just held out a hand to the lizard-woman. “No worries, there are plenty more fishing holes to try.”
Patience had never been Lindsay’s strong suit. Normally that burning impatience was the fire that kept the engine of the Iron Riot guild turning, but now Martin was starting to grow weary of it.
“Can’t you just go shake one of your frog-boys until they tell us where it is?” she crowed.
“No.” Martin took a calming breath. “They’re still in hiding.”
“Hiding, eh?” Jericho grunted.
“Yes. Hiding.” It was difficult not to grit his teeth. “Because they’re scared of you.”
“So, they hide, probably in the last place we’d look?” Jericho asked. “Safest, deepest place under the water, yes?”
Martin opened and shut his mouth a few times before Lindsay let out a hoot.
“Not just a pretty face, are you, Jericho! Watch out Martin, you’re going to get replaced if you can’t keep up.”
She was probably prodding at him for a good reason, to try and force
him to rise to his potential or whatever, but at that moment, Martin really could have done without it.
“The Anurvan didn’t appear until we got to their village. The gate is probably right underneath it. Damn.”
Lindsay didn’t waste any time, even once they’d made it back to the village. She started ripping through the huts, searching for anything resembling loot that the Anurvan might have left behind. Martin couldn’t even muster the energy to argue with her. He eased Julia down into the water and gestured to the guild-sign emblazoned on her robe.
“If you run into trouble, you should be able to talk to us using that even if you are underwater. Just take a quick dive, see if the gate is there, then come back.”
“All right, Dad.” She flashed him a nervous smile, then she was gone.
Jericho sat down heavily on what was probably meant to be a table for the Anurvan. The root structure creaked under his bulk. “She’ll be fine. You worry too much. It is only a game.”
“Spoken like someone who hasn’t drowned yet.”
Jericho let out a little hiss. “Unpleasant. Very unpleasant. But she breathes the water. No problems.”
Julia’s voice passed into his ears. It sounded echoey, as if coming from the bottom of a well.
“There are a lot of frog people down here. The roots go all the way down, and they are hiding in amongst them, and I can’t count them because they keep moving, but there are a lot.”
“They’re pretty peaceful.” Martin smiled, hoping that his calm would travel down to her. “I wouldn’t worry about it too much.”
There was an edge of tension in Julia’s voice, something Martin really wasn’t used to hearing from her.
“They don’t look very peaceful. They’ve got a lot of spears.”
He slipped his hand off the guild-crest.
“Lindsay, get out here! We might need to get down there fast!”
She came skidding out of the farthest hut with her arms full of fish-skins and what looked like bamboo. “Do we finally get to kill some froggos?”
“No,” Martin barked. “Yes. Maybe.”
Julia’s voice bubbled back through to them.
“The gate is here. I can see it down at the bottom. Just the same as the last one.”
Jericho slapped his own chest with a meaty thump. “What about the frogs?” he asked.
“They’re moving into my path,” Julia muttered. “ I… I’m going to come back up.”
Martin drew his sword with a snarl. “Don’t move. We’re coming to you.”
Lindsay was already at his elbow before he made it more than a step towards the edge.
“Hey dude, is this a good idea?”
“They might not attack if they see me. Either way, we need to get through them. Get the key ready. If we can get past them without fighting, we can get through to the next deep. Even if we still have to fight them after that, it won’t be on their turf.”
Jericho shrugged. “Makes sense.”
“Thanks for the vote of confidence.” Martin rolled his eyes. “Let’s go.”
Water swept over him in a lukewarm rush and it brought all the memories of his drowning flooding back. Time was their enemy. Time was always their enemy in Strata, with every moment they wasted giving their competitors an ever-greater advantage, but down here in the swamp the hostility of the place was amplified threefold.
The water was thick with silt and debris, and only the faint glow of Julia when he brushed his paw over the guild crest convinced him that he was still headed in the right direction.
The impact when Lindsay and Jericho dove in behind him had echoed down to him, but there was no way to see them down here in the swamp water.
Trusting other people did not come naturally to him, and trusting in the competence of other people came even harder, but out of all the people in the world, these three were the ones he knew he could rely on. Jericho and Lindsay would be there for him. They would. He was certain.
Murk and blindness may have interfered with seeing enemies or allies in the water, but his Swamproot Sight laid out his course. The roots of the village stretched down in a great corkscrew spiral to anchor the whole village and they were as clear as day. Clearer than anything else thanks to the thick stew of muck and mulch all around him. All he had to do was swim as hard as he could and let the shape of the trees guide him down.
Gasping would have been a very uncomfortable experience, but Martin still let out a mouthful of startled bubbles when an Anurvan darted across his field of vision, as graceful in the water as they were clumsy on land, gone in an instant.
He was almost as startled when Julia loomed up out of the brown silt ahead of him. She was surrounded by a cyclone of particulate filth, churned up as she spun on the spot trying to keep her eyes on the frog-men as they darted back and forth.
If he could feel pain, Martin suspected that his lungs would be burning by now, and a quick blink confirmed his suspicions. Between the hard swim and holding his breath, his stamina had depleted to just a few points. If he didn’t get to air in the next few seconds his health bar would be gobbled up next, then death would follow soon after.
There would be no return to the surface. Either they made it through the gate or they all drowned here in the swamp, in the dark.
He caught Julia’s hand and pointed down when her wild eyes finally focused on him. She nodded, but she still wasn’t paying attention to him. He could feel the water churn behind him as another Anurvan shot by.
No wonder they got slaughtered all the time, if this was how they harassed every adventurer trying to get through the gate.
What could be so important about keeping Martin out? They’d already declared themselves as allies; why would they keep working against him like this? What could they hope to gain? Unless their personalities were only surface deep, just waiting for their primary programming as defenders of the dungeon to kick back in.
Shimmering in the ever-deepening darkness, Martin could see the Deep Gate beneath them. It looked just the same as the one before, albeit a little bit smeared with swamp mud. They landed on the top of the closed iris of its surface and started to search by touch for the keyhole.
“It’s here! I’ve found it!” Julia called out through the guild crest, just as Jericho descended out of the dark like a falling star, with the tiny, immobile body of Lindsay cradled in one of his arms.
Her knave’s stamina must have burned out faster than the more martial classes. Now that they were close enough, the alerts started appearing in Martin’s field of vision.
[Tesra suffers 1 water environmental damage]
[Tesra suffers 1 water environmental damage]
[Tesra suffers 1 water environmental damage]
His own drowning notifications began to flood the screen not a moment later, but he ignored them entirely, prying apart Lindsay’s cramped fingers to get the key. It was in the lock and turning when Speckles hit him.
The impact wasn’t hard enough to do damage in itself, but in the untethered world down here beneath the water it was enough to send him drifting away.
There weren’t many creatures in Strata that a Murovan could expect to wrestle with and win, but these little frogs seemed to weigh nothing at all. Martin tossed Speckles away and swam back towards the gate. The key was still in the lock, glinting behind the flurry of notifications.
[Skaife suffers 1 water environmental damage]
[Tesra suffers 1 water environmental damage]
[Skaife suffers 1 water environmental damage]
[Tesra suffers 1 water environmental damage]
Julia was wrestling off a frog-man of her own, and Jericho swept an entire crowd of them away with just one of his massive arms. Martin’s fingertips brushed the key for an instant before Speckles jerked him back by his ankle.
This time, Martin wasn’t taking any chances. He took hold of Speckles’ rubbery wrist and dragged him forward until they were eye to eye, then flashed a furious grin, feeling the water flo
oding into his mouth between his jagged teeth. Apparently, he was getting his guide after all.
With one hand locked around the frog’s wrist and the other on the key, Martin twisted both.
The gate opened like a drain, dragging every one of them off their feet into the roiling furious white-waters that suddenly surrounded them. He bounced against Jericho, then Julia, then into the silvery rim of the gate. A second later, he was falling through the open air, tumbling down into the pitch darkness. Again.
Nineteen
The Great Divide
A flat surface caught Martin before he could fall any real distance. Speckles landed with a splat beside him. It shouldn’t have been surprising, but somehow it was.
The water from above them was pouring down in a tempestuous waterfall, smashing into the stone beneath them and around on either side.
They were on a rock shelf, protruding from a great waterfall. Beneath was an open expanse, so deep that it turned Martin’s stomach just looking down.
Even with his enhanced low-light vision, he couldn’t see even a hint of the plunge pool at the bottom. Just the wall of water and the scattered rock sheets jutting out, making a haphazard staircase down into the gloomy depths.
But to his delight, he did see the others on the next rock shelf below. Jericho lay cradling Lindsay and Julia on the spit of protruding rock, reeking of wet dog and glowering up at Martin with unabashed fury in his eyes. He growled, sarcasm dripping from his words.
“’They are friendly’, he said. ‘Do not hurt them’, he said. How friendly were they when they tried to drown all four of us?”
Martin ignored Jericho and cast a glance up to the circle carved into the roof above them, barely visible through the mists and spray that the falling water was conjuring up.
“Hardly surprising they didn’t want us to drain their swamp. They do have to live there.”
Jericho growled his disagreement. “Slimy runts. Next time I see one, I will –”
Speckles’ head popped up over the edge of the stone beside Martin’s and the Anurvan blinked down at Jericho with his huge golden eyes. Martin wondered if the patented pathetic puppy stare was an actual racial ability for the Anurvan or if it was a unique talent held by Speckles alone.