Pullitention away from the water, Emily turns to her friends, meeting astonished and questioning gazes. Tom, Hester, and Juliana are all looking around in woaking in the beautiful sight before them, while the other three look to Emily for firmation.

  “It’s incredible,” Juliana mutters quietly, staring out into the glistening crystalline ke.

  “It is. But, is it the right pce?” Dante asks.

  “Yeah, look over there,” Emily responds, gesturing towards her bird lighting up the writing on the wall.

  Dante squints, following her gesture and quickly spotting the faint red markings on the rock.

  “Great! Now, how are you gonna find where the hole down there goes?”

  “Is it actually still there?” Ivns before Emily answer, asking a valid question.

  “I don’t know,” she responds, looking back out over the ke. “I’ve detected movement about halfway down, and my s is being distorted past that, so I ’t tell without getting closer. As for how I’ll find where it goes, that’s what this is for.”

  She summons a simple-looking bd white metal ovoid, half the size of her forearm. The colours blend together iy, swirling patterns, with well-defined lines separating several ses on the bad sides, and several ridges protruding slightly.

  “What is it?” Juliana asks curiously, finally done marvelling at the cavern around them.

  “It’s a far better, le and submersible version of my boat,” Emily says with glee, pressing in a small panel close to the bad twisting it while gng at its system window. “I call it a Depth Diver.”

  ˉˉˉˉˉ

  [Depth Diver]

  [Rank:] E

  [Description:] A water-based drone desigo transmit its location across long distances.

  [Effect:] When activated, automatically drives to the lowest point possible in a body of water.

  _____

  The Depth Diver whirrs to life with a series of clicks. The body splits along the seams, elegantly butterflying open to reveal the plicated meisms ihere’s a dense, wind-up gearbox fixed in the tre, with small propellers on the bad sides, covered by fps that slide out of the way when needed. Each of the ridges jutting out of the side is spring-loaded and lio the gearbox as switches to activate the propellers.

  The nose of the Diver holds a purple crystal, and, in on fashion for Emily’s creations, the rest of the mae has a plicated magic circle woven into it, with some runes carefully pced on the moving parts, their motion ated for to make sure the spell never breaks. Just in front of the crystal, filling a small gap between it and the outer shell, is a tiny disc of dense silver metal.

  “Woah,” Tom excims, voig a shared se of wonder over the unintelligible mass of metal and magic. “How does it work?”

  “I won’t bore you with the specifics,” Emily says relutly, holding back her desire to go on about her creation. “It’s very simple really. I just have to swim down to the hole and pce this in before activating it. It’ll then go down as far as it , hopefully reag the end of The Waters, while transmitting its location to a linked receiver.”

  She summons a small silver metal pte into her free hand. It’s covered in runes, with two crystals embedded in the surface, one wind and one space. She is mana into it, and the pte lights up in sync with the space crystals in the Diver. The air above the tablet shivers, bending and twisting slightly as it takes on a purple hue. A shimmering image of two fist-sized dots, practically toug each other, forms from the wind.

  Her friends start slightly at the ge before leaning in to get a closer look.

  “Is it showing the Diver’s location?” Juliana asks.

  Emily says nothing and, instead, she quickly twists the release panel on the Diver, letting it pop bato pce pulling the shell ba. She hands it to Tom and points along the ke’s edge.

  “Walk away a bit please.”

  He nods and jogs a short distance from them, stopping after teres and turning around to look back. Emily and the others watch the two dots separate, moving quickly at first before shrinking down and slowing as Tom es to a halt.

  “Cool,” Daters.

  “You like it?” Emily asks with a smug grin. “I’ll admit, it’s kind of unnecessary, since I just read the data output manually, but it looks cool. I got the idea when looking at the runes for the mental interface of The Dome’s tokens.”

  “It will let us see where we’re going as well,” Juliana says with a kind smile. “And if you enjoyed making it, I don’t think it’s unnecessary at all.”

  “Thanks,” Emily says with a slight blush, gesturing for Tom to return.

  She takes the Diver from him, sending it and the receiver tablet bato her ste.

  “Now I just o go down a off,” she says as she drops to the floor on the ke’s edge to start removing her boots.

  “Wait, yoing aloom questions disappointedly. “ I e too?”

  Emily looks up at him with a raised brow.

  “I thought you’d be scared off by my mention of movement down there,” she says fshing him a teasing grin. “Not scared of fish eating ys anymore?”

  “You’ll be there, so I should be safe. Right?”

  “It didn’t stop you w before,” Emily responds with a shrug, sending the Spitter and its spare ammo into her belt with her shoes.

  “Actually,” Hester interjects. “I’m ied in ing too. You said there was strong mana leaking from that hole when you saw it st time, didn’t you? Is it the same elements as the cursed object you found?”

  “I think so. Darkness, ice, ah, along with water in the case of the hole itself. Why? Are you ied in studying them?”

  “Yes. Ice is the higher form of water, so I’d like to have a look at some raw, natural ice mana to see if I gain any insights from it. The deer mana will probably do me some good too.”

  Emily nods, agreeing with her logic.

  Exactly the same reason I looked at the darkness element imbued in the Mensacus. It’s a shame that didn’t work out. I still haven’t maed all six os because of it, and that’s got to be a hidden achievement.

  She turns to her other friends, gauging their reas as she asks, “Who else wants to e?”

  Dante grimaces, gng disdainfully at the water as he responds, “No thanks. Fighting uer is... unpleasant.”

  “I’m alright thanks,” Enzo dees politely. “I’m not that bothered about seeing this hole, and I don’t fan uer fight either.”

  “No thanks. I’ll just slow you down,” Ivns, taking a seat on the ground happily.

  Finally, Emily’s gaze falls on Juliana, who shivers slightly and quickly shakes her head.

  “Nope! I’d rather stay on dry nd please,” she says resolutely.

  Emily raises a brow, a gentle smile warming her features.

  “That’s fine, I’m not gonna force you.”

  Juliana’s shoulders drop as she rexes at the reassurance. Making a mental o ask about her obvious fear of the water ter, Emily turns back to the twins, both of whom are sat, with their shoes removed, beside Tom’s bag with his on harness draped over the top.

  “Looks like it’s just us three. We may be down there for a little while. You both know how to breathe uer, right?” she asks, fixing them with a deadpan stare.

  “No, we don’t,” Tom answers with a suspicious gre. “But you doher.”

  Emily’s expression cracks into a grin as she slowly, exaggeratedly, reaches down for her belt.

  “Well, actually...” she says, trailing off as her hand vanishes into a dimensional pocket.

  She pulls it out holding a metal face mask. It’s big enough to cover everything below the eyes, with a plicated pattern of scale-like fins c the front. In the tre of each cheek is a magic crystal, water on the left, air on the right.

  “I do!”

  To Emily’s disappoi, Tom aer both release exasperated sighs.

  “Have you been making that down here because I joked about breathing uer?” Hester asks.

  “Yep! You mentio and I realised uer breathing would probably be really helpful for this expedition if we ever o explore uer. So I made these Gills.”

  “She’s been making them while on watch,” Juliana adds proudly.

  “Them?” Enzo picks up on her w, and Emily silently pulls out twills in response.

  “It’s only natural I make enough for everyone here just in case,” she responds. “Though, I’ve only finished six of them so far.”

  She hands the two face masks to the twins before rising from the ground with unnatural grad stepping towards the water’s edge.

  “Let’s get going.”

  “Wait,” Tom says, scrambling to her side. “How do I use this?”

  “Just pce it over your mouth and will atta its own and work automatically,” Emily says dismissively, pulling three light packs from her belt.

  She pces one against her shoulder, tg it to her body armour fag forward, and hands oo each of the twins to do the same.

  “Just el a bit of mana into that oo activate it,” Emily says, turning to give Juliana o smile. “Ba a sed.”

  She raises her Gills to her face, pressing them into pce, a small su force holding it fast as the air crystal pulses, sending a wave of motion through the fins as she steps backwards. She drops off the edge and into the water below, plunging below the fog yer almost instantly.

  Emily activates the light pack mouo her shoulder as the twins break through the fog yer arrivio her. The glow of her light pack illumiheir Gills, letting Emily watch the small fins on the front stantly adjusting, breathing in and out in time with their breaths.

  They work perfectly!

  With a self-satisfied grin cealed by the mask, she signs for them to follow and turns to swim deeper into the ke. She stays close to the steep bank, keeping one side covered as they desd, cautious of the creatures dwelling below.

  Emily stares out into the murky darkness as they swim down, infra-sight activated and her water dete spell running at full strength, the small blue magic circle following in the small of her back, allowio track the movements below slightly better than her boat. She pinpoints the closest creatures, finding them to be a school of ten piranhas.

  She holds her hands to her back, lit up by the twins’ light packs, as she keeps swimming towards the school of fish. She quickly weaves together a few gestures to inform Tom aer about the approag fight and begins casting attack spells.

  I somewhat agree with Dante here. I’m quite limited uer as well. My physical prowess is practically useless, and I ’t use any of my guns effectively without wasting my special ammo. I ’t even use most of my lightning spells without extra resources to not fry the twins as well, not to mention boiling the water around us.

  The piranhas notice them before the light of their packs reaches them, turning and quickly closing the distance. Emily halts her poihoughts and unleashes a barrage of spells on the fish.

  Two glittering blue magic circles appear, bending strong currents around the school, knog them off target and sending them tumbling in a vortex of motion, being dragged into the middle of the two opposing flows. Two more circles form in front of the others, releasing tw bdes of water that quickly accelerate, pushed by the current, and slice through the group of fish.

  Six of the fish are sliced in half, but the other four mao push themselves out of the way of the bdes i sed before they hit. Four smaller bdes of water shoot out from the fish gliding through the water towards the trio. Only two of the bdes are on target, the other two having been dispced by the currents still relentlessly battering the piranhas. Hester casts a barrier a sed before the bdes reach them, a barely tangible ripple ier around them f into a protective bubble, smoothly dissipating the force of the attack.

  Emily throws a thumbs up behind her back to Hester, approving of her choice to defend and leave offeo her. She dismisses the spells keeping the fish tained and forms four smaller magic circles around her in the blink of an eye. Four sleek teardrops of clear water bubble into being in the tre of the circles before rocketing forwards, smoothly cutting through the water and burrowing into the fish’s heads before they react.

  The bodies of the fish float to the surface as Hester cels her spell, and they tinue swimming into the darkness. They desd past another school of piranhas, dispatg them in much the same way, before the kebed starts to level out, turning into a gradual dee heading further out into the water.

  They swim along close to the bottom, just above the dense reeds and weeds that reach up a few metres from the dark rock beh that was exposed on Emily’s st visit.

  It looks like the Mensacus’ curse affected the pnts around it too.

  Emily’s water dete locates six lightning eels stalking towards them through the pnt life, weaving fluidly through the vegetation while barely produg a quiver of motion, dispying their predatory nature.

  Emily es to a halt, gesturing for her friends to do the same, and tellier to prepare a defence spell. She plies as Emily jures four more teardrop-shaped water bolts to unleash on the unsuspeg fish. The eels slither up from the reeds aer the small field of light around the trio with crag blue lightning building around their bodies in rings, eg the glistening blue gems on the end of their spines.

  Emily releases her water bolts at the same moment as the eels attack. Three streams of lightning ect the eels to the barrier Hester throws up, as three teardrops of water pnt themselves in the heads of the attag eels, extinguishing the streams almost instantly. However, the fourth teardrop flies off into the open water as the other three eels rocket forwards.

  The three long bodies cut through the water swiftly, closing the distao the barrier. The first two sm head first into the barrier, each releasing a strong burst of lightning that together break Hester’s defehe third eel sails through the gap created, straight towards Emily’s chest. Emily watches the eel approach, her trol core automatically turning on full assistive processing with her spare cores to slow time in her perception.

  She pushes her hand up against the water’s resistand snatches the eel. The moment her hand closes around it, the full force of its gathered lightning bursts, p into Emily’s arm. The twins both flinch, looking at Emily in as their processing catches up and they notice the crag fish in her grip, but Emily scoffs at the attack. The crag lightning flows through her arm, meeting the cold buzz of maa inside before beihodically taken apart.

  Emily tightens her grip, crushing the life from the fish as she slips out of assistive processing and casts two more water bolts. The new spells finish off the st two eels quickly, aer swims forward to cheily iermath of the fight.

  She taps her on the shoulder, gng towards the crushed eel still in Emily’s clutch, and her seemingly untouched hand around it.

  “Are you okay?” she signs as Emily turns her head.

  “Yeah, I’m fine,” Emily responds, sending the corpse into her belt and freeing up her hand. “I’m very resistant to lightning.”

  KeroKeron