Chapter 237: Blue Abyss

Aegis dove into the ocean water ahead of him, with terrible form. Nonetheless, he felt excited to do it - the prospect of an underwater challenge waiting below excited him. Herilon, not so much. After Ren followed Aegis, Trexon did shortly after whilst casting a multi-cast water breathing spell on all of them. But Herilon hesitated, watching the water splash up towards him and send out ripples as his party members disappeared beneath the surface.

It wasn’t until Herilon looked away to see a devious grin on Gregory’s face that he decided to suck it up. He took a deep inhale of hair and shook his head to himself.

“Here goes nothing…” he mumbled reluctantly before jumping off the side of the ship into the water.

Aegis had already activated his aura of light to illuminate their surroundings, looking down at the fading yellow glow below. It seemed closer when they were on the deck of the ship, but looking down below now he could see just how deep it was, and it sent a tingle down his spine.

Weirder, was the sensation of breathing in water. He felt the constant urge to try and hold his breath as he began waving his hands around, shield fastened on his back. He swam downwards, but didn’t get far due to his own buoyancy. He was descending, but extremely slowly, all the while making weird gulping breaths intermittently as he slowly got accustomed to being able to breath in water.

Glancing to his side, Aegis saw Trexon was having similar difficulties, despite him being the caster of the underwater spell. He’d processed in that moment that most likely, he’d never had a reason to use it up until now. The pair were faring much better than Herilon, as he flailed about wildly and barely got below the surface.

After a few awkward moments of struggling to swim downward from the three of them, Ren came into view from below in the form of a beast-shifted giant shark, with a big smile on his face if sharks could smile.

It didn’t appear as a normal shark would, as he had two sets of fins on his sides rather than a single pair, and many small bony white spikes protruding out of its dark gray body down its back and sides. Its eyes were emerald green, resembling the color of Ren’s hair.

With all three of their eyes locked on Ren, the shark druid did a strange nodding motion with his head as if to signal them to hop on. Aegis understood it quickly, swimming down to meet Ren as Ren spun his aquatic body around so that his tail was facing the trio. Once Aegis reached Ren, he grabbed the side of his tail with one hand and motioned to the other two to do the same.

Trexon swam down and grabbed Ren’s large shark tail across from Aegis, and eventually Herilon got down below the waves deep enough to grab onto the tail from the top. Once everyone had a secure grip, Aegis gave two pats on Ren’s back with his free hand to let him know they were ready.

In an instant, Ren took off into the depths, with his fins flapping and his tail swaying back and forth quickly. It wasn’t easy to keep hold of his tail as he moved with little regard to his ‘passengers’, but the three managed, and slowly the light shining down on them from the skies above began to fade.

With each passing moment, the waters around them darkened. After a good long minute of swimming downward, Aegis could turn back to look up towards the surface and no longer see it. The light from his aura went far out, but beyond it there was nothing but pitch black ocean.

He’d never felt fear from the dark, or deep water before, but in that moment he felt a great deal of sympathy for Herilon and his fears of it. With this in mind, he decided to focus on the yellow glow below them as it got closer and closer, while simultaneously dimmer and dimmer. The magic that the fairy had used to illuminate it was only temporary, and fading fast. Luckily it lasted long enough for them to reach their destination, though.

In the final dozens of meters, the yellow glow from the spell had completely faded, but was replaced by dull glowing lights scattered across the ocean floor below them. Pink, yellow, green, blue, red, and many other colors were present. With no means to communicate underwater, each of the four players were left to their imagination on what the lights were for the last few moments they swam towards them.

Once they got close enough, though, the question was answered. There was a large mixture of plants and creatures moving about atop an angled, algae-covered surface that was jutting out from the ocean floor. In addition, the floor around the surface was covered as well.

The first creature that stood out to Aegis was a [Saltrock Snail - Level 126]. If not for the changes in color on the shell, and the patterns on them, Aegis could’ve sworn the snails were exact replicas of the snails he’d encountered in Reltrak forest. They were slowly moving along the floor amidst tangling beds of seaweed and colorful corals.

Swimming amidst them were a large variety of strange looking fish. Some long, some thin, and some looking like several basketballs glued together. The group got so caught up in taking in the ocean life along the floor that they swam closer to it, beyond the flat algae covered surface. Soon enough, though, Aegis turned his attention to it and viewed it from the side.

A magnificent stone structure stood protruding out of the ocean floor, overtaken by plant life and crustaceans of various colors, shapes and sizes. There were two statues flanking a large doorway leading into the structure, with a stairwell visible beyond the door thanks to Aegis’ aura and the glowing coral that was growing within.

The statues themselves lacked any discernible features - time had taken its toll on them. In addition, they were only partially visible to begin with - the statue’s humanoid forms had their waists and below overtaken by the ocean floor itself, as if slowly over time the structure had slowly sunk deeper into the earth. There were many cracks in its walls, but it held strong despite its conditions.

Once Aegis had finished taking it in, he looked to the others to see that they too were eying the entrance to the structure, and from there, Aegis gave Ren another instructional pat on his tail to signal him forward. Ren understood it and began swimming towards the structure.

Once he passed through the doorway, he followed the descending stairwell to the lower depths of the structure below the ocean floor. The stairs remained illuminated by a variety of glowing plants for quite some time until finally the stairwell came to its bottom and opened up into a wide rectangular chamber, with a staircase immediately in front of them that led up into a pocket of air.

Herilon was the first to release Ren and frantically swim up to reach the surface, followed by Aegis and Trexon. The light from the coral below was bright enough to illuminate the chamber, creating beautiful multi-colored patterns on the stonework around them. Ren shifted out of his shark form and climbed up the stairs alongside the other, leaving a pool of still water behind them in the chamber.

Ahead of them, two pairs of pillars leading up towards another doorway, with no statues or markings carved into the walls despite the condition of the stonework in the room to be relatively in-tact. There were a few cracks in the white stones, but nothing major. A few patches of plant life made its way up out of the water and into some of the corners of the room, but for the most part, it looked clean. The only issue Aegis found with it was the stale, musty air that felt unpleasant to breathe, but he expected as much. His mind momentarily got hung up on the science behind water pressure in the game world, but he forced himself to shake it off as he began stepping forward towards the door.

“That wasn’t so bad, was it?” Trexon turned to Herilon. Herilon’s eyes were wide as he glared back at Trexon, but didn’t reply verbally which prompted Trexon to laugh awkwardly.

“This place is awesome.” Ren grinned excitedly while following closely behind Aegis and his aura of light. The other two quickly followed, to not be left behind in darkness. The doorway led into a hallway with faded murals carved into the stonework on the walls. Trexon eyed them carefully and traced his finger over several of the etching while the others eyed them curiously. None were stopping to look at them, but they slowed their walking speed to take it all in.

“Looks like it depicts the forging of the weapon, and the battle that followed. A great battle to seal away the blade of hatred.” Trexon concluded out loud as they neared the end of the hallway.

It opened up into a large dome chamber with plain dull gray walls and three doors leading out of it. One left, one right, and one directly ahead of them. The door straight ahead had two pedestals flanking it, with hands carved into the stonework to look as though they were reaching out of the ground, the pedestals their arms and the tops, a partially clasped fist. One pedestal was made from pure white stone, the other a pitch black.

Above the pedestals, and around the rim of the dome room just above the tops of all three doorways were rune carvings. Aegis had seen it enough times to know it was ancient, despite not being able to read it. Before a single word was read, though, Herilon quickly stepped forward and yanked them all back.

“Stop!” Herilon shouted in whispers at them, and the three glanced back at him in confusion.

“What?” Ren asked. “I was just going to check those strange hand pedestal thingies.” Ren pointed at them innocently.

“C’mon, this isn’t your first dungeon delve.” Herilon rolled his eyes at him before gesturing towards the floor at the center of the room. “Always, ALWAYS, look for traps first.” Herilon commanded.

The three turned their attention to where Herilon was pointing and spotted it, a small circular crease in the center of the room just barely visible to the naked eye.

“Some sort of pressure plate?” Aegis asked in a whisper, for no reason other than to match Herilon’s whisper.

“Looks like it. Good catch.” Trexon joined in on the whispering.

“Oh, phew. I almost stepped on it!” Ren said with enthusiasm, prompting Herilon to shake his head disapprovingly. “What do you think would’ve happened if I stepped on it?”

“Spinning blades. Flame traps, poison arrows, pitfalls…” Herilon began listing off the traps that came to his mind.

“Which one though?” Ren maintained his enthusiasm, eying the crease now with curiously rather than caution.

“We’re not going to find out, because we’re not going to trigger it.” Trexon replied.

“Yeah, we need to be careful. If the traps are rigged to collapse this place, we’ll lose our chance to get what we came for.” Aegis agreed. “Watch your step.” Aegis ordered, and got three nods. “Can you read what the ancient writing says?” He turned to Trexon.

“Yes.” Trexon cleared his throat and motioned to the left door. “That reads, ‘Trial of Light’, and the door opposite reads, ‘Trial of Dark’. The writing everywhere else states that we must complete both trials and retrieve the orbs, then place them within the hand pedestals to gain access to the temple. We’re not truly inside, yet.” Trexon explained.

“I see…” Aegis scratched his chin curiously, making sense of the colored pedestals now. “The Great Old One said this place was designed to protect it from light and dark. So by making the first trial require you to have both, they’re right in assuming that light and dark would never willingly come here together.”

“Meaning?” Herilon looked at Aegis curiously.

“Most likely… Just a guess, but I doubt either trial will require light or dark. Both of them need to be solved without either. It’s a trial of neutrality. The wildlings don’t want someone of a light god, or a dark god, to get inside.”

“Hm. Makes sense.” Trexon nodded along.

“So, which one first?” Ren asked excitedly.

“I guess, light.” Aegis shrugged as he began carefully walking around the outside of the room, his eyes darting around quickly to ensure he didn’t step on any traps mistakenly. The other three followed in his footsteps until they arrived at the stone door with ‘Trial of Light’ written in ancient script above it. Aegis pushed on the door slowly, hearing the stone grinding against the floor as it opened - echoing off the walls around them.

Once the door was fully opened, the room ahead of them came into view. Through the doorway they stood on a short walkway that ended abruptly over a seemingly bottomless pit below. The walls to their left and right were not visible - the size of the room extended well beyond the light of Aegis’ aura of light spell. At the edge of Aegis aura, in all directions, was a dark mist. The mist pushed up against it but was held back by his light.

“Nothing in all directions but darkness, and light. How is this a trial of light exactly?” Ren asked curiously, looking to his elders for answers. All three, however, had confused expressions as their brains went hard at work to solve it. The first to act was Herilon, who found a small loose stone on the ground and chucked it off the side into the bottomless pit below. Once he had, they all listened intently for the sound of the stone to impact something, but the sound never came.

“We definitely don’t want to fall down there.” Herilon said with an uncomfortable tone, and the others nodded in agreement. “But, where are we even trying to go?”

“The other side, I suppose. There must be some way to cross this bottomless pit.” Trexon replied.

“I can climb along the walls, or the roof. As a spider or something. Should I?” Ren asked eagerly. Before he got an answer, he began reaching his hands out towards the walls adjacent to the balcony, but Aegis quickly grabbed his wrist and yanked it back before he could touch it.

“Nope, don’t touch. Trapped.” Aegis motioned to etchings and small holes that covered the visible walls nearby.

“Oh, right.” Ren laughed awkwardly as he pulled his arm away.

“You should refrain from shifting or casting magic unless absolutely necessary. These runes are all marked as druidic, arcane, and demonic. It seems some sort of effect will trigger if any spell caster uses magic here outside of divine magic…” Trexon spoke as he read over the rune markings on the walls around them.

“A solution that requires no light, or dark… And nothing outside of divine magic…” Aegis mumbled to himself for a second, before snapping his fingers and canceling his aura of light spell. The moment he had, the group was left in complete darkness.

“Uh… Aegis?” Herilon spoke.

“Try throwing another rock forward.” Aegis replied.

“I would if I could see.” Herilon grumbled back.

“Then chuck something else.”

“Here, a gold coin.” Trexon answered, taking one from his inventory. A second after Trexon flicked it, the sound of the coin rang out off of a surface it had impacted directly in front of them, where they once saw a bottomless pit.

“In the darkness, there’s a way.” Aegis declared. “Ren, take my hand and come. The others stay back. If we start falling, beastshift into a gryphon and fly us back up okay?” Aegis said, speaking into the darkness with no exact sense for where the others were. He began reaching his hands out until he felt Ren and took his hand.

“Got it.” Ren acknowledged.

“Good luck.” Herilon said with a tone of apprehension. With that, Aegis took a deep breath, then lifted his right foot and swung it forward into the pitch black darkness, off the size of the balcony as far as he knew. He then slowly, and very hesitantly lowered his foot down. His anxiety rose the closer his foot got to the level of ground his other foot stood on, until he finally pressed some weight down and felt a solid surface beneath his foot.

He released a huge sigh of relief before taking another slow step forward. Again, without any issues. Another step, and he was pulling Ren along behind him by the hand.

“Whoa, it’s working!” Ren cheered with excitement. The two sped up after long, and eventually found themselves at the end of the bridge of Darkness. There, waiting for them atop a plain altar, sat a dark black orb of glowing purple energy.

“That’s it, that’s the first one.” Aegis declared, reaching out to grab it. Once his hands were on the orb, though, Ren stopped him from lifting it.

“Wait. Did you check for traps yet?”

“Well…” Aegis laughed awkwardly. “It should be fine, right?”

“Yeah, probably. It’s not like we can see anything anyway.” Ren replied.

“Right.” Aegis nodded to no one in particular. He then lifted up the orb and heard an ominous clicking sound coming from the altar, as a plate of stone that had been held down by the orb lifted up. Following this, several loud clunks could be heard in the darkness all around them.

“Oh c’mon, seriously?” Aegis groaned in frustration.