Chapter 17

Numbskull

“That’s much, much better,” Vynk said, after resurfacing and handing Foli yet another key.

He’d started taking sips of the water breathing potion and found that the more he drank at once, the longer he was able to stay underwater. So for the last two grottoes Vynk was comfortably able to reach the depths of every hot spring pool with enough time to search around for hidden keys and key pieces. Twice now, the poisonous effects hadn’t afflicted the warrior, due to Ghospo’s charm, which I was delighted to see work.

We’d ended up running into two other treants and two more hordes of frog imps. Each batch of monsters was slightly more powerful than the last. They weren’t the only ones getting more powerful. We were able to hone our strategy in taking them out more efficiently.

I’d even leveled up the power rune of Burning Flare by 50 levels. As a result, I was able to instantly take down three frog imps at a time. My Spectre Sentinels were used as a blockade at the doors, forcing the frog imps to battle them, or be pushed between the sentinels in a bottle neck. Then it was a matter of picking them off before they swarmed us. At that point, we’d thinned their numbers by half and had no trouble obliterating them.

After we battled the last horde of frog imps and Vynk spent an hour diving, we finally acquired the last piece of the broken key. We then came to a massive door with a lock that looked like the large key belonged to it.

“This is it,” Foli said. She’d taken a seat upon the ground to align all the pieces of the key together, save the last piece she held in one hand. “Let’s hope I’ve got things in the right order and this works.”

She put the last piece in place and every rune sheened various metallic colors. It looked like a bruised dawn had just set upon the artifact. The key flashed with a bright light for a brief moment. We shielded our eyes, and when the light passed, we discovered the key had fused together.

“Alright,” Robern said. “I think it’s pretty obvious what’s waiting behind that door.”

“The boss,” Vynk said and grinned wickedly.

The key was surprisingly heavy. Foli had to heft it with both hands. It turned easily in the keyhole and performed a loud and deep click. Mechanisms whirred unseen. Then the door crumbled of its own accord. It tumbled in a cascade of broken and splintered wood. The steel braces twisted and snapped off. The hinges clattered to the floor. All that was left was a heap of material.

Beyond was a circular chamber. We would have called it another grotto if it hadn't seemed so cared for. It was as though a landscaper had recently passed through. Although there were a few rocks at the base of the cornerless wall, and vines hung from the ceiling, there was little else except the spring.

The spring was an almost perfect pool cleanly cut in the exact center of the room. Green steam rose in a rush from the water. When we entered, and fully set our sights on the water, it began to crash violently. It seemed as though someone had taken a bucket of ocean beneath a tempest, and dumped it in the spring.

“Alright, this is it!” Vynk said.

There was nothing to do but prepare for battle. I was ready to cast Spectre Sentinel at a moment’s notice.

It wasn’t a corrupted treant or frog imp that we fought. It was a water elemental. The likes of which I’d never heard of or seen before.

It rose with an atmosphere of its own tempest. It rose as though beneath a bedsheet of water that violently crashed against itself. Green steam rose and performed curls of tornadoes above it. It’s mouth opened like a cracked dam and water poured from it.

Robert, Vynk, and the anciennes’ spider and wasp were useless. Basic attacks failed to deliver damage. Arris and Foli had each cast Oakbeard and battled the elemental. It was susceptible to damage from magic sources, so I had to alternate between attacking and healing.

Lep’s Hand of Flames was only briefly successful. For the first couple of seconds, his spell dealt a decent amount of damage. Vapor would erupt from beneath the spell’s grasp and the elemental would roar with an oceanic rumble. Then Lep’s spell would rapidly cool and dissipate.

Burning Flare also did a fair bit of damage, while the anciennes’ translucent green fists of Oakbeard chipped away at the boss’s health.

Pelle’s Star Armor saved me from being hit by extending arms of water that swiped at all of us at once. Other times I cast Spectre Sentinels as shields in front of our warrior and rogue.

When the boss’s health hit exactly halfway, it stopped fighting and melted back into the spring. Each of us were poisoned and I took that opportunity to cure us. I knew we would get poisoned again, but this saved us from a few more points of poisonous damage.

“Stay on your toes!” Arris said.

The water began to quickly rise, overflowing and flooding the space. Even though the doorway was still open, the water acted as though there was a barrier. A deep rumble came from deep within the spring. The water continued to flood until it came to our waists.

Shields were going to be important. In my experience, fighting while wading through water was extremely difficult. We wouldn’t be able to maneuver dodges so easily.

From the spring rose a mound of water. It came up slowly and quietly. Then it formed a tall wave that sped forward. The wave appeared as a mouth of dark blue water. It headed straight for Robern. I cast Spectre Sentinel and it manifested in front of the rogue. The mouth of the wave slammed over the sentinel and swallowed it. I watched in horror as the sentinel was swallowed through the water and forced down into the spring. The head of the water elemental bobbed for a moment to recover, and we took the opportunity to attack. The moment was brief, and the head melted away.

We waited once more for the elemental to rise as a dome from the center of the spring. That was its tell.

The elemental rose once again, very slowly at first. A mouth of water rose from a tall wave. Then it rushed towards Robern. I cast Spectre Sentinel to block the elemental, but this time it ignored the sentinel.

“Robern!” Pelle called out.

“Felke!” Robern cursed.

He leapt from the water and brought his legs up. A cloud of inky shadow suffused the air around him, just as the water elemental’s mouth crashed down upon him. It bobbed where it landed and swallowed, but nothing was sucked down its watery throat.

“Where’s Robern!” Foli said.

“Attack!” Vynk said.

“We need to make sure it doesn't swallow Robern!”

“We need to attack!”

Foli swung her massive green ensconced fists with all her might. She and Arris delivered blow after blow. I cast several Burning Flares at the same time. While Lep’s Hand of Flames flew across the chamber, Vynk frantically searched for the rogue in the water.

“Robern!” he called.

An inky shadow slowly moved away from the bobbing boss’s form towards Vynk. Vynk plunged his hands in. A hand emerged from the black cloud and Vynk clasped it, then yanked Robern up out of the water.

“That was close,” Robern said, shaking water from his face.

“Swimming? At a time like this,” Vynk said with a grin.

“Guys, we’ve almost killed the boss!” I said as I watched its health drain to near zero.

“How much more damage do we have to do?” Arris said.

“One more tell. When it pauses to recover, we’ll need to attack and that should do it.”

The water went still once more as the elemental prepared for its next attack. Once more it slowly rose and raced towards Pelle this time.

“Move!” Vynk cried out.

I cast Silver Lite Kite Shield before her, since I was afraid Spectre Sentinel wouldn’t work, but the elemental simply passed around it. Pelle couldn’t escape in time, but Vynk was there to offer his hand. As soon as they clasped hands, Vynk ripped her out of the water and pulled her out of the way.

The elemental turned at the last moment and dropped its mouth over Vynk, swallowing him down into the spring source.

“You numbskull!” Robern said and dove after him.

Robern made it to the source of the spring, but everytime he dove in, he was spit back up. He swam with all his strength.

“Vynk!” he called out. “You flea-brained warrior!”

The rest of us had no choice but to finish off the boss before we could focus on Vynk. Burning Flare dealt the killing blow and the boss gave a booming rumble before collapsing with a great splash. The water flowed both out of the doorway and back into the spring.

“Vynk! Where’s Vynk!” Pelle said.

We rushed to the spring in tandem. Green steam continued to rise, albeit gently now. For minutes we waited. Robern repeatedly dove the whole time, as deep as he could go, looking for Vynk.

Arris shook his head and fell to his knees. “Too much time has passed. There’s no way he could have survived.”

Robern surfaced once last time and pulled himself out. Then a form rose from the depths of the spring. It was Vynk, and we rushed to pull him from the water.

“We thought you died,” Foli said, near tears.

“What did I miss?” Vynk said as though nothing had happened.

“Scared us for nothing,” Robern said bitterly.

“I don’t understand,” I said. “How did you survive that?”

With a grin, Vynk whipped out the potion of water breathing. It was now empty.

“That’s why you rushed to save Pelle,” I said. “You knew you were the most prepared to survive drowning!”

“I would have tried to save a comrade, even if I didn’t have the potion.”

“Psh,” Robern said, “You probably didn’t think about it. You probably acted without even thinking the potion was a possibility.”

“Maybe,” Vynk said, “but I saved Pelle, didn’t I? So everything’s alright in the end.”

“Regardless,” Lep said, “very well done. We defeated the boss, and—wait, why isn’t there a chest?”

Vynk’s expression darkened.

“It’s at the bottom of the spring,” he said. “Guys. It’s deep. There’s no way we can get to it without a water breathing potion. I’m sorry. I had to use the rest of it.”

“Great,” Robern said. “Just great.”

The next few hours were spent recovering. I cured everyone of poison, dried everyone off, and we huddled by the doorway while we shared bread, apples, and water. We were mostly silent, with each of us in our own heads.

There has to be a way. There has to be.

I spoke with Arris quietly. Together we went over all his spells. I did the same thing with Foli, Pelle, Robern, and then Lep.

“How fast can you control Hand of Flames?” I asked Lep.

“I think I see where you’re going with this,” he said. “Not very fast, and it won’t go a few meters before being snuffed out. There’s no way I could make it go all the way to the bottom of the spring.”

“What if you keep casting it until all the water is vaporized? Then we can repel into the spring using Arris’s spider’s silk or something?”

“There’s no way I’d have enough mana for that. Sorry man.”

The last person I spoke with was Vynk. We went over his spells and abilities and an idea struck me when he mentioned his Replace Blade Power Technique.

“Wait a minute,” I said. “What if you dropped your greatsword into the spring. It’ll sink all the way to the bottom, and you can use your power technique to switch positions with your greatsword.”

“I don’t know, Tosin. It’s really deep. I mean, really deep. I’d have to use a significant amount of my health bar in order to power the technique to go that far. I’m worried, I’d have to use nearly all my health.”

“We can prepare you with all the healing you need. I can cast Zekaidean’s Anvil in advance. Pelle can cast Danera’s Wisps so that one follows you down to heal you right up. I’ll give you the rest of my potions.”

“That… might work. I’ll need to be healed to full again so that I can switch once more after looting the chest. Then I’ll have to recall my blade. If I lose my sword, I’m going to be livid.”