— CHAPTER SEVENTY —

  Not Wind, Not Earth, and Not Fire

  (Percival)

  On February 10th, the Vanguard finally reached a decision about how to tackle the four shrines. Based on the preliminary scouting reports, they were smaller in scale to the full Citadel wings, so we decided to temporarily break from operations within the Citadel and knock the four sub-objectives out.

  Rose's Thorns and Hermann Park took the fire shrine in the Line of Fire, Doughnuts Per Second and Ruin claimed the air shrine in Desert, and the dwindling number of guilds too small to mention even among the minor guilds were shuffled into Siegfried's command and joined Tempest in going to the earth shrine out in the King's Woods. That left Steel Rage and us FUN Rangers with the water shrine near Lake Florin in the Woodsea.

  Given that I was one of the few people with a pegasus, I was sent to scout ahead early in the day while the main force was waiting on trains and preparing to move out. Lucy came with me while Fritz stayed behind in Florin to, as he very generically put it, 'get supplies.'

  Trusting he wouldn't be able to get himself in too much trouble in the handful of hours he had, Lucy and I flew out from the resort city, skirting around the edge of the lake and into the dense forest. The trees weren't nearly as tall as the redwoods of the Heart of the Woodsea, which rose on the horizon like a mountain range, but it was a tangled jungle that'd be a nightmare to navigate on foot.

  That only became worse as we approached the position of the shrine specified by the Protectorate and the fog rolled in. It started as thin wisps curling around the treetops, but the further we flew, the thicker it became. By the time we reached the coordinates of the shrine, we were flying over a dense white soup.

  I brought Ashley to a hover, trying to get a better look at what lay below. The fog rolled and churned, occasionally parting just enough to reveal dark silhouettes of the landscape - a cliff face here, a small body of water there, but nothing clear enough to identify as a shrine or even a path.

  "Can you pull up the maps the Protectorate sent us?" I asked.

  Lucy went into her message menu. "Here." she said, opening a report with attached images.

  I used my UI to take a picture of her screen, then turned back to scan the landscape. The map showed a small plateau with a lake at its center, supposedly containing the shrine. But with the fog, it was impossible to match any landmarks.

  "I'm going to ask Fritz to get in contact with the Protectorate ground team." Lucy said, already typing out a message.

  While she worked on that, I guided Ashley in a slow circle, trying to find any break in the fog.

  "Have you heard back from Flora, by the way?" I asked.

  "She said that she cannot, in good conscience, lend us a pet to strap bombs onto."

  "That's a shame."

  "We should have told her it was for emotional support."

  "I don't want to lie to Flora." I said. "Maybe we should ask Excalibur for a black-market pet dealer."

  Suddenly, a bright red streak shot up through the fog, illuminating the white mass from within before bursting into a shower of crimson sparks high above us.

  "There's the ground team!" Lucy exclaimed.

  I immediately steered Ashley in that direction, descending carefully through the fog. The deeper we went, the darker it became, until finally we hit a flat, grassy plain at the base of a rocky plateau that rose sharply out of the surrounding swamp.

  "Ahoy!" a voice called out as we touched down.

  A figure came running toward us, waving enthusiastically - it was Lily, her black hair bobbing with each step.

  "Welcome to basecamp!" she shouted, slowing to a stop in front of us as we dismounted.

  She led us across the grassy area toward a small encampment nestled against the cliff face. It was a simple setup - a perimeter of wooden barricades surrounded a cluster of tents and storage chests, all arranged around a wagon in the center. I counted about half a dozen Protectorate personnel moving around, setting up equipment and unpacking supplies.

  "It's not much," Lily explained, "but this is the most open space available - there'll be plenty of room for you guys to come in. There are swamps to the sides of the cliffs, so don't go wandering around late at night."

  "Where's the shrine?" I asked, scanning the cliff face. "Hidden in the rock there somewhere?"

  "No, it's out on the lake." Lily replied with a shake of her head. She motioned for us to follow her away from the camp. "Come on, I'll show you."

  She led us away from the cliff, deeper into the fog. The visibility was better near the ground, but not by much - we could only see about twenty feet ahead. Following markers tied to trees and stakes driven into the ground, we soon reached the edge of a small, tranquil lake nestled in the swamp. Frogs croaked from somewhere in the murky shallows, and insects buzzed around our heads.

  Lily didn't hesitate - she waded straight into the water, which quickly rose to her thighs. "You have to follow the pockets of reeds." she explained, making a zig-zagging path through the lake. "They grow on the shallow parts."

  Lucy frowned, watching her boots disappear beneath the dark water. "I think we should invest in building a bridge - this is far too treacherous for the number of people we'll have coming through here."

  She pulled up her UI and quickly typed out another message to Fritz.

  As we carefully picked our way across the lake, following Lily's path, a structure began to materialize through the fog. It was a ruined stone building rising out of the center of the lake - small, square, and weathered by time. We could see broken columns and crumbling stairs leading up from the water.

  "Are you sure this is it?" I asked, squinting at the little structure. "The NPCs made it out to be some grand sacred place."

  "Yeah, take a look!" Lily said, climbing up the stairs.

  She snapped her fingers, summoning a small ball of light that hovered beside her head, illuminating our path as we followed her inside.

  The interior of the shrine was a single room - a stone cube with ornate reliefs carved into each wall. The carvings depicted various mythological scenes, worn by time but still discernible. The largest relief, directly opposite the entrance, showed a winged woman presenting eight orbs to a group of humans. Around it, smaller scenes showed the orbs being carried to different locations across the land.

  "Okay, yeah, this looks like the place." I admitted. "But where is it? The keystone, I mean."

  Lily pointed to the center of the room, where her faerie light hovered over a circular pool of water.

  I pulled out a flashlight and aimed it directly down into the pool. The beam penetrated only a few feet before the murky water swallowed it completely. Drawing my sword, I carefully dipped it into the pool, trying to probe for the bottom, but the blade disappeared completely without hitting anything.

  "What's down there?" I asked, withdrawing my sword.

  "We don't know - we haven't been inside." Lily said.

  I looked at Lucy. "Do we have anything to measure depth?"

  She thought for a moment, then suggested, "We could tie a heavy object to a rope, lower it until it hits something, then mark off the rope and measure that?"

  "Do we have anything heavy?"

  Lucy snapped her fingers, her eyes lighting up. She went into her inventory and dropped a massive ship's anchor onto the stone floor with a crash. It was something she'd picked up during her pirate phase. She'd wanted to attach it to the wagon-

  {L}?The landship, Mr. Percival! She be a landship!

  (P)?- But it was too heavy for the horse to carry.

  "I knew this would come in handy!" she declared triumphantly.

  "Sure you did." I pulled several lengths of rope from my inventory and began knotting them together. Once we had about a hundred feet of rope, we tied it securely to the anchor and worked together to slide it to the edge of the pool

  I positioned myself to guide the rope while Lucy stood ready to push the anchor in. With a nod from me, she kicked it hard, tipping it into the water with a tremendous splash. The rope slid rapidly through my hands as the anchor sank, faster and faster.

  I had thought a hundred feet would be overkill, but the rope kept slithering into the murky water. My confidence wavered as the coils rapidly dwindled. Then the final length slipped through my fingers and vanished into the pool with barely a ripple.

  We waited in silence, expecting to hear a distant thunk as the anchor hit bottom. But no sound came.

  Lucy and I slowly turned to look at each other.

  "Trevor has a water-breathing spell, right?" I asked.

  "Yeah." Lucy nodded. "Let's wait for him."

  Without another word, the three of us left the shrine.

  While Lily retraced her steps through the lake, I stopped on the weathered stone steps of the shrine.

  "What are we doing here? Ashley, to me!"

  The fog parted as my pegasus swooped down from conveniently just out of view. She landed gracefully on the sloped side of the shrine. Lucy and I climbed onto her back, and with a powerful leap, we were airborne again, gliding over the lake.

  "Oh yeah." Lily said, looking up at us with her hands on her hips. "Buzz buzz buzz!"

  A massive beetle, at least the size of a small car, descended from the fog and landed with a splash in the water beside her. Its iridescent carapace gleamed wetly as Lily climbed onto its back. The insect's wings made a deep thrumming sound as it lifted off, carrying her toward the shore.

  "That thing still gives me the creeps." I muttered as we flew ahead.

  "I think it's rather charming." Lucy replied. "In its own way."

  "Would you rather have that than the flying horse?"

  "Oh, no; I can't imagine it's comfortable to ride on. Though, what's the passenger limit on beetles? It would be convenient if Fritz could ride with us."

  "Hey, Lily!" I called back. "What's the passenger limit on beetles?!"

  "Three!" she shouted. "But there's only one seat; the others have to hang on!"

  I shrugged. "Maybe it'd be more convenient, but it's not as fast, and we wouldn't have discovered juggling if we had one of them instead."

  While Lily continued back to camp, we had another job to do. Now that we had the right location, we needed to signal the rest of the Vanguard team.

  We rose up through the fog layer, breaking into the clear air above. Now that we knew what we were looking for, the landmarks became easier to identify - the cliff face stuck out prominently where the clouds cascaded down its side, leaving it thinly visible as a dark blotch in the white expanse. And surrounding the shrine's lake, I could see the mist was particularly thick, almost as if it were being generated from that spot.

  Soon enough, we spotted another pegasus in the air - one of Steel Rage's scouts. They flew over to us, then relayed the coordinates to a group on the ground. Not long after that, the wagons started coming in. Fritz, Brian, the rest of FUN, and the more cool-headed administrative section of Steel Rage came trundling into the grassy field.

  Within minutes, the entire area was a flurry of activity as both guilds began unloading their supplies and establishing a proper base camp.

  Brian immediately started giving orders. "Let's get a cordon up around the swamps - make sure there's a clear safety boundary. Even a drunk should be able to see it. Drakkan, go out to the lake and find the best place for a bridge."

  The Steel Rage team spread out, unloading wagons and arranging supplies. Brian caught sight of our group and approached, nodding to Willard.

  "You guys brought your own supplies, right?" he asked. "Go ahead and claim wherever; we'll fit around you."

  "Carla, could you pick a spot?" Willard asked. "I want to see what we're going in for at the shrine."

  Carla nodded and began directing the unloading of our own, considerably smaller cache of supplies.

  Fritz wandered over to where Lucy and I were standing, watching the organized chaos unfold. "How's it going, kids? Give me a danger rating, 1 to 10."

  "10." I said without hesitation.

  "I'd give it a 4." Lucy said.

  We looked at each other, both surprised by the other's assessment.

  "It's a bottomless pool of water!" I said.

  "It's not bottomless, and there was nothing remotely threatening in there."

  Willard asked, "So we're looking at, what, average 7 danger?"

  I shook my head emphatically. "Way too low."

  "Why don't you see for yourself?" Lucy suggested.

  "Trevor, we need you!" I called out.

  Trevor, who had been nervously helping unload one of the wagons, jumped at being singled out. He hurried over, tripping once on a tent peg before reaching us.

  "Er, what for?" he asked.

  "You'll see."

  As we started to leave, Liz suddenly jogged up to us, goggles pushed up on her forehead. "I don't want to build a camp." she muttered, slipping off with our group.

  The six of us headed toward the lake, where Drakkan and a couple of Steel Rage hands were already surveying potential bridge locations. They nodded to us as we passed, continuing their measurements while we waded through the path to the temple.

  I summoned a faerie light as we entered the shrine, directing it to hover over the water. We gathered around the mysterious pool in the floor, staring down into its dark waters.

  "So it's down there?" Willard asked.

  "Yep." I confirmed. "You got any scuba cameras, Liz?"

  Liz shook her head. "Not that I've found. Even drones don't go underwater."

  Fritz stared into the pool, a familiar gleam of curiosity in his eyes. It was the same look he'd had before sampling 'probably not poisonous' mushrooms he found in the forest, or when he bought syrup of ipecac without knowing what an emetic was.

  "Well, it's not getting any fresher. Cannonball!"

  Before any of us could stop him, Fritz leapt into the air and tucked his knees to his chest, plunging into the pool with a tremendous splash. Water drenched us all.

  We gathered around the edge, waiting for Fritz to resurface. But seconds passed, and the water remained still. 10 seconds. 20.

  "Fritz?" Liz called, leaning over the edge.

  Nothing.

  I quickly opened the group chat interface and typed:

  [Percival]: Report in, Fritz; what do you see?

  We waited for a response, but the chat remained silent.

  "Alright," Lucy said after a full minute had passed, "I'll upgrade the danger to a 7."

  "I'll make mine 11." I said.

  I rolled up my sleeves and took a deep breath. "Trevor, water breathing me."

  Trevor stepped forward, his hands already tracing the patterns of the spell. A blue aura enveloped me briefly, then sank into my skin, leaving a slight tingle and a small buff icon in the corner of my vision.

  I stood at the edge of the pool, staring down into the dark water. But... I couldn't do it. I couldn't make myself jump.

  Hell of a time not to know how to swim.

  You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

  Suddenly, Lucy's arms wrapped around me from behind. Before I could react, she propelled both of us forward, launching us into the pool. We hit the water with a splash, and then we were falling, tumbling through the darkness.

  For a moment, I couldn't see anything - just a haze of bubbles and foam swirling around me like a living thing. The force of the water ripped Lucy away from me. Then I was alone, floating in the dark, a perfect blackness stretching in every direction. I reached out, but my fingers touched nothing - no walls, no floor, no surface above where we'd entered. It was as if the pool had swallowed us and ?expanded into an infinite void.

  Panic squeezed my chest as I tumbled through the darkness. I couldn't tell which way was up anymore. My lungs burned with the instinct not to breathe underwater, despite knowing I had the water breathing buff. In desperation, I finally took a gasping breath.

  Water rushed into my mouth and nose, but instead of choking me, it felt... normal. Like breathing air, just a bit thicker. The buff was working. Taking several deep breaths to calm myself, I tried to assess my situation more rationally.

  This wasn't the time for panic. Half an hour of water breathing meant I had time to figure this out. Lucy and Fritz had to be somewhere nearby. I closed my eyes, focusing on steadying myself. It was all under control.

  Then I felt something solid beneath me. I'd landed on a floor.

  Opening my eyes, I pushed myself into a sitting position, my movements sluggish in the thick water. As my vision adjusted, I realized I wasn't in an infinite void after all. An ethereal blue-green light illuminated the space around me - a sealed stone cube of a room. The walls were rough and worn, coated in splotches of algae that swayed in the water's current. Looking closer, I could see that the only opening was a jail cell door on one side.

  I was in some kind of underwater prison.

  I pushed off from the floor, my body drifting upward before I caught myself on the bars of the cell door. Outside, I could see another stone room filled with the waterlogged remains of wooden furniture - tables and chairs now reduced to rotting frames. On a broken wooden post in the middle of the room hung a keyring with a single key dangling from it.

  The obvious solution would be to reach through the bars and grab it - if it weren't a good ten feet away. But I had options. I made the hand sign to cast Telekinesis, then beckoned toward the keyring, focusing my will on it.

  The keyring twitched, then lifted off the post. It sailed through the water toward me in a lazy arc, drifting into my outstretched hand. I caught it, then reached through the bars to fit the key into the lock. With a muted click, the mechanism released, and I pushed the door open.

  I stepped into the larger room, lumbering in slow motion like an astronaut. As I moved further in, something clattered noisily nearby.

  I turned to see Trevor rattling the door of another jail cell. His eyes widened when he spotted me, and he smiled, waving enthusiastically. He tried to speak, but all that came out was a burst of bubbles that quickly dissipated in the water.

  I nodded and held up the key, then walked over to his cell. The lock clicked open, and Trevor practically burst out, swimming a quick circle around me. ... And while I was at it, I went down the line and unlocked the rest of the cells, leaving them wide open in case someone else got thrown in with us. Then I put the cell key back on the post.

  Next goal: find the rest of the group. I opened the group chat and typed out a quick update on our situation. No immediate response. So I pinned the chat window on the side of my UI, then took another look around the room.

  There were three hallways branching off from the prison room. Picking one at random, I began walking toward it. Trevor quickly overtook me, disappearing around the corner. He reappeared almost instantly, swimming backward in panic and taking cover behind me. He pointed frantically down the hallway.

  In the hallway was a creature made entirely of water - which is a strange concept given we were already underwater. It was like an envelope of crystal-clear, slightly glowing liquid slithering toward us, extending tendrils to crawl along the walls. It reminded me of an elemental, though I couldn't see a core. Then again, the faint glow emanating from its body was usually the giveaway of the core's location, so maybe the water was the core.

  I made the hand signs for a fireball spell. A small orb of flames appeared, but immediately fizzled out, extinguished by the surrounding water. So much for that approach. I tried an ice spell next, sending a frozen spike toward the creature, but the thick, viscous body of the elemental simply slowed the projectile until it stopped completely, suspended in the gelatinous mass. Fighting clearly wasn't an option here, so I took the next best course of action.

  I turned and began walking away as quickly as the water's resistance would allow, heading for one of the other hallways branching off the prison. Trevor swam ahead, his kick-propulsion much faster than my lumbering walk.

  This new hallway opened into a massive vertical shaft - a cylindrical tower extending far upward toward glittering lights and downward into pitch darkness. Several more hallway openings dotted the walls at different levels, but from where we stood, I couldn't make out any distinctive features to point us in the right direction.

  And worse, as I stood there, trying to decide which way to go, the darkness stirred. Something massive was moving down there - a great shadow shifting and rising toward Trevor as he obliviously started swimming upward toward the lights. I grabbed his ankle before he could get too far, yanking him back into the hallway with me. We pressed against the wall, watching as the vast shadow sank back into the depths.

  So running was off the table.

  The problem was the water elemental was still slithering down the hallway behind us, closing in slowly but steadily. Once again, I took a fighting stance. I had ideas, but I was having trouble remembering the hand signs shortcuts to cast the spells. Was it the one with the ring finger swirl?

  I experimented, tracing several patterns through the water, producing small magical effects but not the one I wanted. The elemental was now just a few yards away, its tendrils reaching toward us.

  Finally, I got it right - a shock of lightning arced from my fingertips. Magnified by the water, it filled the hallway with sparks and washed back at me. My entire body seized as electricity coursed through me. My muscles locked and spasmed. Trevor drifted to the floor like a statue, and I struggled to keep my balance.

  But the attack did have the intended effect - the elemental creature receded back, drawing itself into a tight sphere and drifting to the floor.

  As the electricity dissipated, I fought to relax my muscles, forcing my limbs to respond. The water elemental remained in its ball-like state, drifting slowly toward the floor. While it was contained, I quickly cast a ground-targeted ice spell that froze the floor beneath the creature. The ice spread upward, encasing the spherical elemental and locking it in place.

  With the immediate threat neutralized, I helped Trevor to his 'feet'. He was shaking but otherwise unharmed and able to keep swimming. We hurried back to the prison chamber and approached the third hallway, only to see another water elemental slithering toward us from that direction as well.

  We had no choice but to run down the hallway where the first elemental had come from.

  {Lucy}

  When I splashed into the pool, Percy was ripped away from me by the impact. I tumbled through the water for a moment before dropping into empty air and hitting something hard. Finding myself awkwardly twisted into a ball in a bowl-shaped pit, I groaned and reached up to grab the rim, but my hands met solid resistance. I was completely encased in a small, teardrop-shaped capsule made of ice, barely large enough for me to untangle my limbs.

  The capsule was translucent, allowing me to see lights filtering through from below. I shifted into a better position, curling my knees to my chest to gain some leverage. With all my strength, I pushed upward against the top of the ice prison, then tried stomping on the floor. Neither yielded any results.

  This called for a more direct approach. I drew my pistol. Turning my head away and closing my eyes, I pulled the trigger.

  The gunshot was deafening in the confined space, but instead of breaking through, the bullet ricocheted off the ice wall and struck me in the stomach. A sharp, burning pain spread across my abdomen as my health bar dropped slightly. Not the most pleasant sensation, but the real disappointment was that the shot had only left a small crack in the ice - nowhere near enough damage to break free.

  Not wanting to riddle myself with more bullets, I consulted my inventory. I had a sword, but there wasn't enough room to spawn it properly, let alone swing it effectively. But you know what I did have? A second anchor! I originally wanted to put one on each side of the wagon - I mean landship - for aesthetic symmetry, but then we figured out even one was too much for the horse.

  Perfect for my current predicament, however.

  I selected the anchor from my inventory and dropped it. The massive iron object materialized in the cramped space with me, its weight immediately too much for the weakened floor to bear. The ice shattered, and I plummeted downward, landing with a thud on a cold stone floor.

  Rubbing my shoulder, I sat up and took in my surroundings. The room appeared to be some sort of medieval torture chamber - there was an iron maiden in one corner, a screw-based head crusher in another, and directly before me, a stretching rack occupied by one Fritz Carlton. He was tied up and spread eagle.

  (P)?"Nice of you to drop in." he said.

  {L}?Please, unlike you, the two of us had class.

  (P)?Oh, really? Then what'd he say?

  {L}?... His eyes went wide and he stuck his hands up as best he could in the restraints. "It's not what it looks like!"

  I blinked at him, then calmly picked up my anchor, which disappeared back into my inventory.

  "Is it just you in here?" I asked.

  "As far as I can see." Fritz said. "There wasn't a key up there with you, was there?"

  "No, but there's that one by your hand."

  Fritz turned his head to look where I was pointing. A large iron key hung from a hook on the side of the rack, just inches from his restrained hand.

  "Oh, thanks." He twisted his wrist, stretching his fingers to grab the key, then maneuvered it around to unlock the cuff. "Good thing I've got some practice with this."

  "I don't want to hear any more of that story."

  Pushing himself off the rack and rubbing his wrists, Fritz shrugged. "Suit yourself. So, who came in with you?"

  "Percy and I dove in together, and I hope the others will follow."

  I glanced around the chamber. A thick layer of ice coated the walls and ceiling. The entire room glittered with an ethereal blue light that came from small faerie lights embedded within the ice itself. The effect was rather beautiful, scattering the illumination throughout the chamber like a natural crystal chandelier. I wanted one for my room.

  Anyway, several hallways branched off from the torture chamber, each one similarly coated in ice. Without any clear indication of which way to go, Fritz simply wandered down one at random.

  The hallway terminated at an ice shelf that hugged the wall for a short distance before arcing through the center of a tall, cylindrical chamber. The entire space was coated in thick, pristine ice that reflected and refracted the light, creating dancing caustic patterns across its surface.

  "Woah, cool place." Fritz remarked.

  I nudged him with my elbow and carefully stepped out onto the ice bridge. It was solid and thick enough to support our weight without concern. Below us, perhaps 50 feet down, was the surface of a pool of water that occupied the entirety of the chamber's ... 'ground floor' wouldn't quite be an accurate term, would it? We should have been underground. Looking upward, though, I couldn't see any kind of entrance - just more ice-covered walls stretching up to a ceiling covered in large icicles.

  "How do we get out of here?" I asked.

  "Your guess is as good as mine." Fritz shrugged.

  Scattered throughout the open space were pathways of ice that curved through the air like frozen rivers, connecting various doorways at different levels.

  "Perhaps we should wait here." I suggested. "This feels like a centralized location; everyone will probably cross by one of these other paths eventually."

  "Sounds good to me." Fritz agreed, lowering himself to sit on the edge of the bridge, his legs dangling over the water below. He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a joint of dreamleaf, lighting it with a snap of his fingers.

  He offered it to me, but I shook my head. "We're on the job, Fritz."

  Fritz took a long drag and exhaled slowly, watching the smoke twist and curl in the frigid air. "Yeah, everyone works differently."

  In the strange blue light, he looked haggard - the shadows under his eyes deeper, the lines around his mouth more pronounced.

  (Percival)

  I stood in a room in the underwater prison, staring up at a hatch in the ceiling. Trevor swam nervously around me, watching the surrounding doors as I considered our predicament. The hatch was locked shut by a rusted chain with a padlock. It was the only way up that we'd found, but we couldn't find the key - or anything directly useful beyond the cell keys that were lying in front of every prison cell.

  A commotion from one of the hallways caught our attention. Trevor immediately swam over to hide behind me, peeking cautiously over my shoulder. I expected another water creature - we'd occasionally had to kite them through the halls and loop back around to continue investigating.

  But when I turned to look, no - it was a gaggle of Steel Rage's musclemen swimming toward us. At their head was a man I'd know anywhere - the shiny bald head, the leather straps and fur trim armor leaving his chest exposed, the massive axe strapped across his back. Rex Basilikos, leader of Steel Rage.

  Rex spotted us and pounded his chest with one fist, a cloud of bubbles streaming from his mouth in what I assumed was a greeting. Despite not having the water breathing buff that I'd gotten from Trevor, he and his guildies seemed to be doing fine underwater. Maybe the standard breath mechanics weren't in place in the shrine - it would've been rough throwing players in an underwater prison if they didn't have any way to breathe.

  I waved back and pointed upward at the hatch, then mimed turning a key, trying to convey that we needed to find something to unlock it. Rex seemed to understand immediately. He swam closer, then picked me up like a baby and set me aside. Then, he unhooked the massive axe from his back.

  Flipping upside down so that his feet anchored against the ceiling, Rex wedged the shaft of his axe into the loop of the chain. Two of his musclemen immediately swam up to join him, grabbing the weapon and adding their strength to his. Together, they wrenched the axe with such force that the rusted metal chain snapped with a muted crack that rippled through the water.

  The Steel Rage members let out cheers, bubbles streaming from their mouths as they celebrated this simple solution. I stood there, slightly dumbfounded. For all the bluster I'd put on getting around mechanics with unconventional solutions, I hadn't even considered that. That's why I like Steel Rage - they covered the things I missed.

  Rex pushed the hatch open, and his guild members began swimming up through the opening. Trevor followed quickly, clearly eager to escape the underwater section. I jumped up, grabbing the rim of the hatch, and pulled myself up using the rough, algae-covered wall for footholds. The shaft extended upward for about fifteen feet before breaking the surface of the water.

  I burst through into air - thin, mercifully breathable air. One of Rex's musclemen reached down and plucked me out of the water with one hand, setting me firmly on solid ground.

  "Great timing, guys!" I said, summoning small flames around my hands. I used the heat to begin drying my soaked clothing.

  "Any time, Percy-boy!" Rex boomed, his voice echoing in the chamber. Water cascaded off his muscular frame as he pulled himself up without assistance. "Now what way do we need to go? Keep goin' up?"

  "I think we should get everyone together first." I said, looking around at our new surroundings. "How many came in with you?"

  We were in a room made of pale green-blue bricks, worn smooth by time and moisture. The architecture was different here - less prison-like and more ceremonial with weaving patterns carved into the stones. Before I could examine them more closely, a series of shouts and war cries echoed from somewhere nearby.

  Without hesitation, Rex and his team charged toward the sound with Trevor and me following close behind. We twisted through a couple of narrow hallways before emerging into another chamber, this one considerably larger than the first.

  The room was already a battleground. Willard and Liz stood back-to-back, surrounded by several of Rex's guild members. They were fighting against the same water creatures we'd encountered below, though now that they were on land they held themselves up on multiple tentacles, scuttling like spiders. They skittered around the room, throwing globules of water that exploded into miniature geysers upon impact and lashing out with whip-like appendages.

  Liz had drawn a pistol-like gun from her belt and fired it at one of the creatures. A stream of bright blue energy shot out, coating the water elemental in a rapidly expanding layer of ice. The creature froze solid, its tentacles still outstretched in attack position. One of the Steel Rage fighters immediately followed up with a hefty axe swing that shattered the frozen monster into a million glittering pieces.

  With Rex joining the fray, the battle was quickly decided. His massive axe cleaved through two elementals at once, dissipating them into harmless puddles on the floor. The remaining creatures were dispatched, and soon the chamber fell silent except for the victorious whoops of the Steel Rage members.

  Willard broke away from the group and approached us. "Hey guys. Have you seen Lucy or Fritz yet?"

  "No." I shook my head. "And why isn't anyone using the group chat?"

  Willard pulled up his interface, swiping through several menus before shaking his head. "I haven't gotten anything. We must be in an instance - that'd explain how this place is so big."

  "Group chat doesn't work in instances?" I asked.

  "No. I thought you'd have known that - you guys seem pretty comfortable with dungeons."

  I shrugged. "We're usually so close it's easier to talk, I guess. So, what have you found?"

  "We woke up in cells on this level." Willard gestured to Liz. "You?"

  "Underwater prison."

  Before we could exchange more information, another series of shouts echoed from somewhere nearby, this time from a different direction than where we'd come from.

  "More company." Willard muttered, already drawing his sword again.

  The group collectively followed the sound of combat, moving quickly through the ice-lined corridors until we emerged into the main shaft of the tower. The Steel Rage boys were already making use of the ice bridges, using the greataxe's leap skill to hop between platforms.

  However, several of the musclemen had misjudged their jumps and fallen into the well of dark water below. The water itself had come alive, thrashing about like an enraged beast. It wasn't just a pool anymore - it had taken on a form resembling a gargantuan version of the water creatures with serpent-like tendrils rising up to smack at players on the lower paths and trying to grab those swimming in the water itself.

  "Trevor, follow me!" I shouted, rushing forward to the edge of our platform. The swimmers below were in real trouble if that thing could drag them into the depths.

  I began casting immediately, throwing out ice spells. Patches of the living water froze solid where my magic hit, temporarily immobilizing the tendrils.

  Trevor joined in, and Liz unholstered her freeze-ray and took aim at the center mass of the creature. The beam coated a significant section of the water beast in rapidly expanding frost. The creature recoiled from the cold, its tendrils retreating from the affected areas.

  Between the three of us, we managed to hold back the living water long enough for the Steel Rage swimmers to reach the edges of the pool. Their guild mates formed human chains, extending down from the lower ice paths to grab the arms of their flailing comrades and haul them up to safety.

  "What's good, guys?!" a familiar voice called from above.

  I looked up to see Fritz and Lucy waving from one of the higher ice bridges, their figures small against the vastness of the chamber. That was all of the Rangers accounted for.

  I waved back, then turned to assess our situation. With the number of Steel Rage members running around the various levels and the rest of our team now located, our immediate crisis seemed over. The water beast below was still active but contained to the lower section of the shaft.

  "Glad we're all together now," Willard said, "but we still need to find an exit."

  Right on cue, one of the Steel Rage members shouted from a hallway to our right: "I found the way out!"

  Willard shook his head with a bemused smile. "You give enough monkeys typewriters..."

  Leaving the bulk of Steel Rage to explore the tower, our group - Willard, Liz, Trevor, and I, now joined by Fritz and Lucy as they made their way down to our level - followed the excited shouts to a smaller hallway located a few floors up from the surface of the main well.

  It was a dry passageway, unremarkable except for what waited at the end - an abrupt transition where the corridor seemed to be cut off by a wall of water, perfectly still and vertical, as if held back by a force field.

  We approached cautiously, and I poked the wall of water with one finger. It was definitely wet, definitely real water. When I stuck my head through, my UI immediately displayed the breath meter, confirming we were back to normal game mechanics.

  "Trevor, could I get another water breathing spell?" I asked, pulling my head back into the dry hallway.

  Trevor nodded and quickly cast the buff on each of us. One by one, we entered the water. Everyone except me swam ahead to where the passage hooked upward. I walked along the bottom, then climbed up the side of the shaft when it turned vertical.

  We surfaced inside the shrine's entrance room, emerging from the mysterious pool in the floor. The others climbed out, water streaming from their clothes and gear.

  As I wrung out my soaked sleeves, I said, "No portal or loading zone, but that definitely fits an instance entrance."

  Lucy looked back down into the pool with a frown. "Did anyone see where my anchor wound up?"

  "Not on our side." I said.

  Fritz shook his head, sending droplets flying. "So where'd the rest of you wind up?"

  "Let's talk about it back at camp." Willard suggested, already heading for the door. "I bet they've got something good cooking by now."

  The six of us exited the shrine into the night. The fog was thicker and darker than before, but Drakkan and his team had already constructed the frame of a bridge across the lake, making the return journey considerably easier.

  Back at camp, the transformation was remarkable. Brian and Carla were still directing the final stages of setup, but the essential facilities were already operational - a mess hall tent filled with beer kegs and roasting spits, a well-organized supply depot, and a central administration area where maps and plans were being laid out.

  The FUN Rangers had claimed a circle of tents slightly removed from the main hustle, positioned in prime real estate that offered both privacy and easy access to the camp's amenities. We gathered around our own fire, sharing stories of our experiences inside the shrine.

  While the rest of them talked, however, Willard seemed distracted. His eyes kept drifting to his UI, checking messages or notifications.

  Fritz apparently noticed it too. "What's up with you, man? You see something in there?"

  "No, it's not that." Willard said, looking up. "It's... sewer business. I know you don't want to get involved in that."

  "Well, lay it on me anyway." Fritz replied with a shrug. "Talking's free."

  Willard hesitated, then leaned forward, lowering his voice. "I'm worried about leaving the Unaffiliated Corps alone - that's our branch of civilian informants. All of our capable fighters are Vanguard, so we're all out at these shrines, but we know these 'numah' things are after us. What if something happens? Who can they go to for cover? If we knew some way of identifying the fake player avatars, maybe I'd feel better, but... I don't know; I'm just being paranoid."

  "Did you try setting up a safe word?" Fritz asked. "Something only the real people will know?"

  "Sure, but..." Willard ran a hand through his hair. "We know these things are trying to replace actual players, and we don't know how much information they can... get out of that. If the game makes a copy of me, will it know everything I do? Or is it just a superficial shell? We don't have enough information yet." He sighed heavily. "I'm sorry, I can't let this go - we're in danger as long as we don't know what they can do. Do you think you all could handle things here?"

  "Pfft - of course we can!" Liz exclaimed, brandishing her half-eaten chicken leg like a scepter. "We're the best team the Vanguard's got!"

  The rest of the Rangers nodded in agreement.

  "Thanks." Willard said, visibly relieved. He stood up and brushed off his pants. "Percival, I'm designating you as the group leader until I get back."

  "Me?" I asked, genuinely surprised.

  "Yeah, you. You know how to handle a fight."

  Liz nodded enthusiastically. "I'll take the guy that stood up against Oxtongue, sure."

  The rest of the Rangers raised their mugs in a toast, and Lucy nudged me with her elbow. "That's my quartermaster - he's a captain now!"

  As they celebrated my promotion, Willard quietly made preparations to leave. I offered to fly him back to Florin on Ashley - partly out of courtesy, but mostly to escape the sudden attention from the rest of the guild. But Willard declined. He got a ride from Lily instead.

  But that suddenly put a lot more pressure on me. I was hoping I'd be able to just wander and poke around the shrine, maybe look for shortcuts by jumping off the ice bridges. Now I was supposed to develop a strategy for our entire expedition. At least we had the Steel Rage musclemen for security - nothing was getting past those guys.