The idea that water can soften a fall only works up to a point. After that point, you might as well be hitting concrete. Cyn had fallen from a height far past that point. The only thing hitting water did for Cyn was try to drown her after shattering her legs, ribs, and causing significant internal organ trauma. But by some miracle, she was still alive. In pain, still disoriented, and polymorphed. But alive . If anything, Cyn was less injured than she would have expected from a fall like that. Maybe sheep did take less fall damage?

  Much to her relief, Spam was alive too. She could feel the Voidling having a very bad time in the water beside her, but otherwise it did not seem worse for wear. Cyn presumed that she had taken the brunt of the fall for both of them, though she did not know exactly where Spam had been when she hit the water.

  While she wasn’t in danger of drowning immediately - since Cyn had discovered during the Trial of Vitality she was able to hold her breath for a long time – she was floundering in an unfamiliar and broken body, in addition to being at the bottom of a tower with unknown dangers lurking around. Low health meant she had plenty of mana to work with, and Cyn did not hesitate to dump as much as she could into Overloading Restoration on herself. She found it a little surprising she was able to use her normal skills while changed into a sheep, but there was no reason to look a gift horse in the mouth.

  As Restoration did its work, mending bones and refilling her health pool, Cyn also had to continue to deal with the nausea from her potion chugging, alongside regularly burping up small fireballs. Those burps felt ten times worse with a shattered sternum. But each fireball pushed her fluffy new self closer to the surface of the water, and when combined with a natural buoyancy it did not take long for Cyn to be able to breathe again and take a look around.

  The pool of water she was in appeared to take up most of the bottom floor of the tower, and was quite deep. There was only a small strip of stone that would allow her to enter the spiral staircase, or the single, closed door on the wall at the bottom of the steps. Dark, scrawled runes similar to those she had seen on the upper portions of the tower spiraled up the walls around her. The pool itself was also devoid of features, except for the source of the amber glow that permeated the area. The source was a runic pattern at the bottom of the pool, and its glow illuminated the one other object in the water besides Cyn and her familiar. Atop the runes was a large egg.

  Feathered Solar Serpent Egg

  ? Once a Feathered Brine Serpent Egg, this unhatched creature has been forcibly evolved through infusions of attuned mana.

  ? Will not hatch in current location.

  ? You do not know the required conditions to hatch this creature.

  ? Parts of this creature are edible.

  Any relief Cyn felt was rapidly followed by worry. While the egg below her once belonged to the Feathered Brine Serpent, it clearly didn’t any longer. It wasn’t her fault someone had messed with it, and she could only hope that the big snake could understand that.

  The idea something, or someone, had evolved the egg before it hatched also did not sit well with her. If it had been a sort of natural evolution, such as its environment changing without intent, it wouldn’t be too bad. But based on its location at the bottom of this tower, and the rune it sat on, Cyn had a feeling it’s evolution had been purposefully done by the tower’s inhabitants. And she was pretty sure an egg could not consent to that. With the state of this place, at least there is a good chance that any inhabitants are long gone.

  Cyn wasn’t going to be able to get the egg in her current condition, but at least she knew it’s location. Spam climbed up her neck to cling to the top of her wooly head, making distressed sounds. Cyn got the impression it really, really did not like being wet. While she wasn’t that bothered by the water itself, she could feel herself getting steadily heavier as the once-fluffy, orange wool she was covered with became saturated. She wasn’t going to be able to remain in the water indefinitely, as Cyn knew the increasing weight would only make it harder for her to stay afloat.

  Using slow and clumsy movements after her body had healed enough, and hindered by the feeling of unfamiliar muscles and limbs, she made her way towards the stone slab to try and get out of the water. Getting to the slab was not all that bad on its own. She was still injured and it sucked to move, but Cyn managed before becoming too heavy. Getting out of the water was a different story entirely.

  As soon as they were close enough to the edge, Spam hopped off her head and onto the safety of the cool stone, followed by watching her unsuccessfully attempt to get out of the water. The top of the stone slab was a few inches higher than the surface of the pool, an easy enough distance to pull herself up if she still had arms and hands. But Cyn did not have arms and hands. She had stubby, wobbly, hooved legs that lacked the range of motion that came from Human shoulders.

  After trying and failing to even raise her front legs far enough up out of the water, Cyn just gave up. She had no idea if a real sheep could get itself up the small ledge, but she sure as hell could not. Instead, she tried to tell Spam to back up away from her so she could Soul Slip to the familiar. Since any verbal communication came out as pathetic sounding bleats, it took way too long for the Voidling to make a correct guess at what she wanted and place itself close to the wall. It took multiple attempts for her plan to work, with each failure ending in Cyn falling back into the water, but finally she was able to Soul Slip into a position where her lack of balance on injured limbs instead left her soggy sheep form sprawled out on the stone slab.

  This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

  Cyn wasn’t sure how long she was going to be stuck like this, but the only thing she could do in the meantime was Meditate. After the Trial of Agility, Cyn’s levitation had only lasted about a half hour. The fireball belches had already stopped. Those two experiences gave her hope that she would not have to wait too long to be back to normal.

  ***

  Scott rubbed his face with one hand, barely stifling a groan as he watched Irrab scramble backward from the creature he was fighting, the young guardian practically hiding behind his party’s mage. It’s not that the group of four he had taken out to the plains was bad, per say. They were all acceptable when it came to fighting alone. Working as a team, though, somehow made all of them worse. It was difficult to watch them struggle to take down one of the cow-sized rats together when they had no problems doing it on their own.

  If they could spend the rest of their time in the dungeon only fighting one foe at a time, it wouldn’t be a problem. But most creatures came in groups, and facing a group of enemies alone was inadvisable at best. Deady at worst.

  If any of them were good at retreating – which they absolutely were not – it would be a little better. At least then they could do what Hex currently was... letting a few of the rats chase him around and whittling them down slowly. The Seeker remained nearby in case Scott and the others needed help, but the boy was far too antsy to just sit and watch others fight.

  Scott watched as Hex’s throwing dagger hit one of the rats in the skull, killing it. His aim’s improving. Despite all Scott’s frustrations with his original party, he was now aware of the blessing it had been for everyone to be able to not only stand on their own, but to be able to shift gears and work together near flawlessly.

  Regardless, even if the others were good enough to generally fight on their own, there was still the matter of protecting the Territory Heart, and clearing the small ruins out for treasure. Those things were going to require them to work as a team. He couldn’t let them, or anyone else for that matter, enter more dangerous looking locations - like the tower on the lake - until he was sure they could handle it.

  ***

  Cyn did not have to wait very long, as predicted. She did, however, have to suffer through the feeling her familiar was laughing at her for a while. The sudden contortion of her body back to Human forcibly ended Cyn’s Meditation, which she found a bit disorienting, but mostly all she felt was relief at being back to normal.

  Except for being orange. A quick glance at her hands confirmed that Cyn still looked like she would be right at home in a chocolate factory.

  Avoiding the temptation of the door closed beside her, Cyn took a little bit of time to ready herself to continue on, making sure her body was working properly after so many injuries and being polymorphed. Since - by her estimation - it was only midmorning, Cyn determined she should have plenty of time to return the egg to its mother outside before sunset. As long as there were not too many problems on the way back up. I’ve never missed an elevator more than I do right now. It was going to be an arduous trek up the spiral staircase, but she really hoped she could deliver this egg quickly, and the serpent would leave for its natural environment in the deep ocean. That should allow easier access to the tower so Cyn – and others – could return to explore it fully.

  Cirrus had not joined her at the bottom of the tower yet, but she was not surprised about that. She had almost killed the guy by accident. And it would not be unreasonable to assume the fall would have killed Cyn. It probably would have killed most, if not all of her allies. If any of them didn’t just die on impact, only the mages would have a reasonable chance of being able to heal themselves enough to not just bleed out or drown. Realistically, the rogue had either left entirely or focused on getting the defenses deactivated so the other members of their party could join in looking for the egg in order to stop the Feathered Brine Serpent from attacking their camp.

  After confirming her body was in working order, Cyn dove back into the pool. Since Spam was so averse to getting wet - and there had not been any threats inside the tower outside of her own bumbling miscalculations – she left the Voidling at the bottom of the staircase. The distance she dove was uncomfortable for both of them, but apparently it was less uncomfortable than being in the pool to Spam.

  As Cyn got closer to the egg, she was able to make out that the mostly dark runes that were scrawled across the interior walls of the tower extended all the way to the floor. The single, large, amber rune was the only one that was still glowing within the water. It resembled a geometric image of a sun, and considering the new species name for this egg that was not actually surprising. Not that Cyn knew anything about runes or what she assumed was ritual magic. It just made sense the main rune would look like a sun symbol if it was making something ‘solar’.

  The egg itself was smooth and spherical, looking more like a yellow-tinged pearl, and was bigger than Cyn’s head. Considering the size of its mother, it actually seemed a bit small. Thankfully, when she touched it, the egg felt stiff and not fragile. In the back of Cyn’s mind, there had been a tiny concern that she might have to carry and handle something more akin to a fish egg. At that size, there was no chance she didn’t accidentally pop it. After a moment’s hesitation, she tried to transfer the Feathered Solar Serpent Egg into her storage.

  It didn’t work, and Cyn wasn’t sure how to feel about that. It was a creature, and presumably alive, so the idea of storing it in her Promising Ring of Holding felt... wrong. Something told her that was not a place living things should be. On the other hand, getting it out of here had just become multiple times more annoying. Resigned to carrying it, Cyn wrapped her arms carefully around the egg and started to ascend using just her legs.

  The moment the egg left the ground at the bottom of the pool, two things happened. First, Cyn felt herself receive two new objectives. Before she even had a chance to celebrate her earlier experiment with her internal HUD working, she was plunged into total darkness.

  The sun rune, which had been lighting up not only the pool but could be seen from where she had entered the tower above, had gone out.