Somnus III - Chapter 18 (Patreon)

“Remember to chew the meat thoroughly,” Dorrik lectured, handing a fist-sized hunk of well seasoned steak to Kat.  “You’ll need to hold the juices in the back of your throat for as long as possible so the enchantment can go to work.”

“This still seems like it's a lot less efficient than a potion or an enchanted necklace,” Kat replied, accepting the meat dubiously.

“Unfortunately,” Dorrik responded dryly, “Kaleek was put in charge of sourcing consumables for this mission when we divided up tasks last night.  I was unaware that there was a Mek’lak chef-enchanter in this village when that decision was made.  Knowledge of this likely would have changed my position.”

Kaleek gave the two of them a thumbs up, chewing his meal cheerfully.

“Although Mek’lak flavor profiles are notorious for their… uniqueness,” the lokkel continued holding up their food between an index finger and thumb, “few doubt the efficacy of their enchantments.  I generally avoid their products because they have poor shelf lives, but they should be more than enough for this dungeon.”

She glanced at the dormant stone oval of the dungeon entrance.  Mist clung to the valley floor around them, limiting visibility.  In the distance, an unseen predator let out a protracted croaking bellow.

Kat shrugged, shoving the handful of meat into her mouth.  It was bitter and musty, maybe a tad bit oversalted, but overall it was significantly more edible than her last experience with Kaleek’s palette.

She masticated thoughtfully, growing accustomed to the steak’s gamey’s flavor profile.  If Kat was honest with herself, it tasted a lot better than any of the food she’d been able to afford as a regular employee.  Admittedly, her expectations had grown since she’d started college, but-

The food grew warmer as she chewed, causing her tongue and throat to tingle.  She raised an eyebrow, cocking her head quizzically at Kaleek and Dorrik.

“That means the magic is working,” Kaleek chuckled, slapping her on the shoulder.  “It adds a little extra tang to the flavor profile.”

The sensation continued, heat filling the back of her mouth as the tingle transformed into a full-blown itch.  Kat shifted from foot to foot, eyes watering as she tried to suppress the urge to claw at her throat.

“Relax Miss Kat.”  Dorrik’s soothing voice washed over her.  “You’ll feel when the magic finishes running its course.  Until then, you’ll just have to bear it.”

She nodded, trying to blot out her growing discomfort by focusing on the rest of the valley.  Kat couldn’t quite make out the rocky and lichen covered walls through the omnipresent mist, but she remembered them clearly from their team’s treacherous descent down their inclines.

The heavy fog swirled, a light gust of wind creating a kaleidoscope of shapes from the flowing shadows before the air stilled, leaving them once again in hushed, anxious tranquility.

Then the tingling just vanished.  One minute, it took everything she had to avoid spitting the burning meat out.  The next, all that was left was the almost pleasant musty flavor she’d originally noticed.

She swallowed, letting the food slip down her throat.  Warmth suffused her shoulders and chest as her body began to absorb the magic.  She inhaled, filling her lungs with more air than they’d ever been able to handle and triggering a rush of giddiness as oxygen rushed to her brain.

Dorrik stepped forward, touching one of their hands to the stone frame of the dungeon portal.  They disappeared, leaving behind a glowing vortex of energy.

“See you on the other side Kat,” Kaleek shot her a wink before reaching out to touch the pulsing oval of scintillating light.

A moment later she joined him, flashing away in a rainbow of light and motion that deposited her atop a small stone island next to Dorrik.  The room around her was dark and featureless, little more than a dome of roughly hewn rock just over her head that descended into the lake that filled the rest of the chamber.

Kaleek’s head popped above the water’s surface, bright white teeth flashing at her as he broke into an ecstatic grin.

“Come on in Kat, the water’s just fine.”

She glanced at him dubiously before turning to Dorrik.  The big lizard looked intensely uncomfortable as they glared at the omnipresent water, their crest tight against the back of their skull.  Finally, they sighed and addressed Kat.

“The enchantments infused in the meat should let us breathe underwater and protect us from the pressure.  As much as I would prefer to be anywhere but here, this dungeon is the best fit for our abilities right now.”

“What they said.”  Kaleek nodded in Dorrik’s direction before sending himself rocketing across the surface of the water with a flick of his tail.  “The water’s great.  Dive in.”

With a shrug, she took a pair of steps and Leapt into the air, tucking her knees up to her chest and linking her hands across them before splashing into the water.  The liquid bubbled past her as Kat began sinking rapidly toward the bottom of the lake.

Her vision shifted into the grayscale of Nightvision as light faded away.  With an effort to calm herself, Kat opened her mouth and let the cool water enter her lungs. Breathing was… different.  It took a little more effort to actually draw liquid into her body, but other than a brief struggle as she first began, everything functioned more or less normally.

A second later, Dorrik splashed into the lake, thrashing as they struggled to keep their reflexes under control.  Their dense body sank faster than Kat, beating her to the bumpy stone floor of the room despite their flailing.

Kaleek jetted up to them, a sinuous streak that easily outpaced both of their lethargic movements before he let himself settle to the ground next to them.  He flashed the two of them another bright smile.

“Do you need to get settled, or are you ready to get started?”  Kaleek’s voice reached Kat’s ears a half second after his mouth moved, sounding strangely distant.  Almost like he was addressing her from the other end of a long, echoing hallway.  “It looks like the exits are on the seabed.  You shouldn’t need to swim that much, just plant yourself on the floor and stab anything that gets too close.”

“What the-” Kat flinched backwards, cutting herself off in surprise as she heard her own distant voice despite the water.

“The enchantment reads our intentions,” Dorrik said stiffly, clearly uncomfortable.  “Much like it lets its users breathe water and survive the depths, it projects our voices in a way that our companions can understand.  It is just unfortunate that the magic can’t make the experience less… wet.”

“That’s our Dorrik,” Kaleek chuckled.  “Able to turn even an existential crisis into a lecture.  I swear, one of these days I’ll convince them to give up their irrational discomfort with water.  Maybe they won’t go swimming, but given how hard we’ve all been pushing ourselves, I think we at least deserve a day at the beach.”

“That day is not today,” Dorrik grumbled.  “I am here, because The Tide Caves is a dungeon very suited to our party.  I am certainly not enduring this for pleasure.”

“What about when we go back to the fourth floor?”  Kaleek asked, kicking off of the floor and swimming a tight circle around the two of them despite his heavy armor.  “We’ve earned a break.”

“Soon,” Dorrik replied grudgingly.  “We will need to start transitioning down to the fourth floor in another two days.  Once the stallesp fortress is located and cleansed, I will tolerate a visit to the beach.”

“Thanks.”  Kat flashed a smile at the big lizard.  “I know we don’t have much time to waste, but the archipelago was really nice.  A day there to unwind would be a good change of pace.”

“To be clear,” they cracked a brief smile back at her.  “I am only agreeing to this for Miss Kat’s sake.  I have no illusions that Kaleek will be anything other than unpleasant and annoying the entire time.”

“I’m glad we understand each other,” Kaleek replied brightly, landing gently on one of his paws while his whiskers twitched with mirth.  “For now, I believe we have some frog monsters to kill.”

Traveling was a challenge.  Kat wasn’t able to just walk across the lake-bed, instead forced into either a slow shuffle or a slow-motion leapfrog as she bounded across a half dozen paces with each kick off of the floor.  Eventually, the three of them reached the exit, little more than an oversized crack in the lakebed’s wall.

Kaleek wriggled through the gap, leading the way.  Dorrik and Kat bounded after him, hanging in the water at the apex of their arcs for almost a quarter of a second before they began their descent back toward the floor.  Mentally, Kat made a note to only use short and measured movements in combat.  Her entire fighting style relied on mobility, and turning herself into an immobile target for seconds at a time didn’t seem like a terribly well thought out tactic.

A stream of bubbles was the only warning Kat got before a frog monster darted at her, barely a second after she entered the second chamber.  It was a little taller than her, pale spongy skin covering its too-long arms and legs.

She jerked backward, water slowing her usually smooth movements to the point that she barely dodged the sharp, forearm-length dewclaw sticking out of the creature’s wrist.    Almost without thinking, she cast Dehydrate on her opponent’s face.

The spell didn’t deal any damage, the water in their surroundings robbing its efficacy before it could actually attack the monster’s head.  Instead, it created a burst of bubbles and a massive pressure imbalance as the water rushed to fill the void.

She grabbed the off-balance monster’s arm, just below the massive stabbing claw, and pushed her dagger through it.  The creature shook, a distressed bass croaking sound washing over Kat as she yanked it closer to her.

A second thrust planted her knife in its neck.  A quick sawing motion tore it loose, pouring inky blood into the water surrounding the two of them.

The creature kicked away, pale hands frantically patting at its throat as it tried to staunch the flow of blood as two of its companions kicked past it.  One of them slashed at her with both of its arms, drawing an X through the water that Kat only evaded with the help of Cat Step.  The croaked, neck swelling to twice its ordinary size before it unleashed a blast of mana infused sound at her.

Her ears tingled, perks activating to prevent the attack from disorienting her.  Without missing a beat, Kat retaliated, casting Overpressure next to her assailant’s head.  It snapped.

The spell multiplied the already intense pressure of the depths, creating a shockwave that shattered the monster’s fragile bones.  Head tilted irrevocably sideways, the spell spiked the creature off of the ground only for it to float nervelessly away from Kat and her remaining opponent.

The remaining frog hopped backward, a look of concern on its bulbous face, but Kat didn’t give it a moment of respite.  She cast the spell again.

This monster got its hands up in time to disrupt the worst of the pressure-wave.  The spell broke both of its arms, leaving it dazed, disabled and helpless as Kat kicked off of the floor and tackled it.  Four stabs from her knife later, and it was motionless on the rocky floor, blood rising from its shattered body like inky smoke.

She pivoted.  Dorrik was glowing brightly, their Psi abilities pushed to the maximum.  As she watched they overcorrected, kicking off the ground to dodge a swipe from a dewclaw and sending themselves soaring through the water.

For a moment they hung there, all but motionless at the apex of their arc.  Then a trio of the frog creatures kicked off the lake floor, soaring through the water like fleshy pale torpedoes.

Dorrik spun to meet them, overcorrecting as they flailed wildly in the water and turning their back on the monsters even as their swords glinted ineffectually.

Kat cast Overpressure just in front of one of the monster’s snouts, snapping its face backward from the blast of water pressure even as she reached for one of the throwing knives strapped across her chest.

Her hand froze, fingers just barely touching the hilt of the weapon.  There wasn’t any way that she’d be able to aim properly through the water.  Instead, Kat fired off Overpressure once more, detonating the spell just below one of the frogs, shattering its legs and knocking its thrashing body off course above Dorrik.

The lizard spun at the last moment, flashing with light as they used Halt Momentum on themselves before kicking their legs against the water and turning to face their assailant.  The amphibian thrust with its right arm, razor sharp dewclaw leading the way as it tried to impale Dorrik’s struggling form.

They reached down, grabbing the thrusting arm of a frog with one of their lower hands at the last second.  For a moment the two figures struggled in the water above Kat and Kaleek, then the lokkel brought their other sword down in a double handed grip, cutting their opponent open from shoulder to hip.

Dark blood puffed from the wound as the creature went limp, sinking back toward the rocky floor of the lake alongside Dorrik.  As the lokkel touched down, Kat surveyed the lake once more, looking for any remaining opponents.

A half dozen corpses hung bonelessly around Kaleek.  The big otter twirled to face, a massive grin on his face as he spun his sword in a tight figure eight.  A sharp flick of his tail later, he crossed the distance between them in a single protracted leap.

“There we go!”  Even the magical echo and distance granted by the enchantment couldn’t hide Kaleek’s glee.  “Now that’s what I call a battle.  It just isn’t the same if you can’t dodge in three dimensions.”

“I am glad you enjoyed yourself,” Dorrik replied with a wince, brushing some of the cloudy dark blood from their scales.  “I believe the important takeaway from this conflict is that Miss Kat’s water magic is incredibly effective underwater.  Between the two of you, this dungeon should be fairly easy, even if I am unfortunately more or less dead weight.”

“You forgot that the frog things are hiding in holes lining the cave walls,” Kaleek responded cheerfully, nodding at the nearby rocky expanse.  “That’s why you didn’t see them at first.  The sneaky little buggers were hiding.”

Kat squinted, trying to make sense of the alien expanse through the grayscale of Nightvision.  The lakebed was a barren rocky expanse.  Nothing more than gently curving stone bereft of any plant or animal life except the camouflage warrens that Kaleek had noted.

“Good point,” she agreed.  “If I can see them coming, I can make quick work of them with Overpressure, but I’m not sure how well I can handle a surprise attack.”

“Then let’s not get surprised.” Kaleek slapped her on the shoulder, his paw slowed by the water around them.  “As long as there aren’t any major obstructions, I should be able to spot their hiding spots before they jump out at us.”

“As good a plan as any,” Dorrik agreed.  “There should be three more rooms before the boss chamber.  One with heavy currents and another with jets of high pressure water that will seek to dash us into the chamber’s walls.”

“Sounds like fun!”  Kaleek kicked off of the floor, hovering in the water a couple paces above the ground.  “Let’s get to it.”

With a grin and a flick of his tale, the cheerful otter disappeared, swimming past Dorrik and Kat.  She turned to Dorrik and shrugged before following the fading form of the desoph with long, bounding steps.