Part 24 - Drowning

  Elizabeth began to awaken with a sensation of tiny teeth all over her body, and a weird sense of gravity having left her, somewhat.

  Teeth?

  She snapped her eyes open as she realized she was being gently munched on by a dozen or so eels, slightly seaweed colored and then obscured by the disturbed seabed sand that the falling city had kicked up.

  [Basilosaurus - 83]

  She had no ability to gauge mana types of creatures while the water mana was flowing so thickly around her, somehow much more dense than air was with Wind mana on the surface.

  She only caught one creature name before fight or flight kicked in as she rapidly snatched eels and tore them into halves, watching their low level kill notifications roll in. They were inconsequential things, really. All of them had the Wood element and were under level one hundred. Not even strong enough to damage her Runeweave, though her dress was very obviously unsalvageable.

  Eel blood further obscured her vision, which didn’t really change much for her. She put that out of her mind, though filed a mental note to clean the Runeweave thoroughly later.

  She needed to assess her situation, remembering what had happened before she lost consciousness. The bottom of the ocean was a significantly dangerous place, even by Pallos standards. The stories of creatures in bodies of water started at ‘dangerous’ and rapidly moved to the territory of ‘national disaster.’

  In fact, if she hadn’t known a bit about the Spatial woes of the world already, she might’ve assumed some massive crab had yoinked the whole city off into the water for a midday snack. Liz didn’t like her odds of becoming that midday snack if she didn’t find shelter and fresh air quickly.

  She’d also have to pay closer attention to her [Conviction] skill in the future. She’d been subjected to her mother watching shark week when she was very young, and it had developed into a crippling fear of swimming and anything generally related to marine life.

  She couldn’t swim even before her body weight had tripled thanks to her incident, and if it weren’t for the adrenaline rush attached to being munched gently by the eels, she’d be in full panic mode, which might trigger another spiral from the ‘no fear’ clause of her skill.

  It was actually great training, if she had been in a more controlled environment. That would have to come when she had a better grasp of what she had gotten herself into.

  With that in mind, she also mentally had the system bookmark every. Last. Kill notification. They were all something she would have to revisit in the future. She wasn’t responsible directly for their deaths, but she was culpable enough as a member of the group who’d done it for the system, and she’d known in advance what the risks were. Spatial tremors were her mission and she’d failed the people of Mourningloft. She’d sit through all of the people who’d died as a result of her group, internalize it and put that energy into her mission. She owed it to them all.

  She slapped her cheeks and looked around. She needed cover before anything massive came by with an appetite for Partial Humans.

  She’d sunk deep enough that her visibility from the light above was also reduced, even without the collapsing city having disturbed the seabed into a haze. The city fragments were the closest thing to cover she could think of, so she made her way in the direction that seemed vaguely upwards.

  First issue to arise… coral reefs were rather cumbersome to navigate. Also, they were home to various critters of levels that she considered reasonable for herself. Sadly, she had a limited air supply, and she regretted having not asked how long the effect would last. No time to be farming the low level things that were too scared to venture into the open waters.

  The dress was beautiful, and she loved it, but it had to go. Too many tears made the fabric nothing more than a hindrance, and her Runeweave had survived in great shape, so she was fine wearing the suit. She discarded the dress but did her best to keep the precious metal portions.

  She had no idea which direction to travel in, but after ascending for a short while, she realized she likely hadn’t been going in the right direction. After all, she’d been moving a very short distance when she’d first spotted the massive toothy beast and lost her head to fear and terror on top of a mountain of kill notifications.

  A small wave of despair hit her each time she remembered the people she’d seen in the city. All of them simply going about their days without any knowledge they’d be swept up in a disaster that evening. She was tempted to stop and go over the notifications sooner rather than later.

  She shook her head, pushing away her recurring thoughts as her foot finally landed on smooth stone. It was even slightly warm to the touch.

  [Earth Shattering Arts] came back online the moment she settled her foot on the surface, making her realize there was a man-made structure somewhere below her, an unknown size, but somehow runes kept the massive dome of the structure from being buried in the sand.

  She needed to shape stone to create a way inside without flooding the place, which meant she needed to form a small tunnel and then enter from below.

  Not knowing how much longer air would hold out from her Runeweave, she began to pour mana into her skills, conjuring and manipulating the area.

  Increased effort used more air, and suddenly, she found herself gasping. The runes were losing their ability to keep up with her consumption, and she had to mentally force herself to not panic or succumb to her fears.

  That made sense. Her low consumption had been fueled enough by the arcanite the runes were woven from, and the moment she used more than the runes could provide, she’d run out.

  No fear.

  She could dump some of her own mana into the runes, if she didn’t lose focus. She molded stone downwards into a hole, careful not to disturb the runes or the dome as she conjured shapes and swept the sand away around the edges.

  No fear.

  Her mantra continued as she held on to her breaths, continually delving deeper.

  A shadow passed by, darkening the faint rays of light reaching her work space.

  No fear.

  She nearly dropped her mantra as her mind betrayed her, wondering what had just swam by above her.

  She, stupidly, took time to look up from her digging operation, only to see a sea creature that made whales look small. Also, it was wrapped in the seaweed that was thick in some areas nearby.

  No Fear!

  It had found her, that much was certain, and as soon as it came in range, she got a solid look with [An Eye for Detail] which did not brighten her day.

  [Basilosaurus - 587]

  She’d taken a brief dip in the blood of the creature’s babies, she supposed. Midday snack status achieved-

  [*ding* You’ve unlocked the general skill [Mid-Morning Snack]!]

  She wrinkled her nose, then adjusted her assessment of the time of day.

  She was swept away from her work as the sand and water pulled towards the eel-shaped, robust creature when it used some mix of skills for drawing in groups of prey in the relatively shallow seawater.

  She was fully aware that shark week was a very tame thing compared to Pallos, and her mantra was long gone. She assessed her skills at breakneck speed as she re-entered fight or flight mode, solidly centered on flight. She felt indignation at the system overruling fear, thankfully.

  That snarky skill option from the system might’ve actually saved her life, really.

  She needed a plan of action. Her combat skills were beyond useless. On the other hand, she found a remarkable option available to her that made her want to laugh.

  Her lower level skills would be just the ticket.

  She pushed mana into [Chainmail] first, creating the heaviest metal she could still empower with her Vitality through [Elegant Chains] and then dumped the rest of her mana pool into [Earth Conjuration] to increase her weight, boosted by her Magic Power buff on her Metal class.

  Seira, please let this work!

  She felt gravity reassert itself on her as she shaped the stone she’d conjured into rough tools she could use, sinking to the bottom of the ocean floor again as the teeth snapped shut not far above her.

  On the bright side, the creature had sucked away a large portion of the sand she needed to dig through.

  She shivered unintentionally as she recalled the teeth snapping shut with enough force to snap an oak. She thankfully found the underside of the massive dome afterwards.

  She flicked her eyes upward, looking for the aquatic dinosaur as she turned her stone weight into a stone ceiling above herself, Her air hadn’t been an issue as she held her breath in anticipation while the stone slowly moved into position, only to catch sight of the Basilosaurus rocketing past her back towards the seaweed beds.

  She saw why immediately afterwards. A much larger oceanic predator had appeared in the neighborhood, blotting out the faint light from the surface completely.

  Barely within her maximum range, she stiffened at the name.

  This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  [Megalodon - 1,846]

  The highest level thing she’d ever seen on Pallos. And of course it was a damn sea monster. One that had appeared in movies her mother had simply adored.

  What was the line? ‘Always a bigger fish?’ On Pallos, she imagined the creature she’d just seen was nowhere near the top of the food chain.

  That was when she sucked in a mouthful of saltwater as the runes for her air were finally spent.

  She cursed—mentally, since she couldn’t do so aloud—as she finally completed her ceiling, separating herself from the larger body of water, and then dug her fingers into the stone of the domed complex she’d sensed, burrowing a hole to push her way into.

  As soon as she broke through, even with a hole only large enough for her head, she forced her lungs to expel as much seawater as possible before spending time coughing and spluttering to get the rest out.

  That was when adrenaline and everything else finally ran out, and she froze up in agony as another penalty hit her. She still kept her capped levels, but the pain was like being subjected to the teeth she’d just seen a thousand times over, all while being drowned and having her body torn apart by mysterious fleshy masses in the void all over again.

  Literally every bit of pain she’d ever felt before was reapplied to her in waves for a minimum of minutes. It might’ve even been an hour, for all she knew. She just laid there, head out of water and lucky enough to still be receiving fresh air.

  It took her half an hour to carefully expand the hole to get her entire body out of the water, then assess what stone was conjured or not before molding her entrance back together. It would’ve been unfortunate to flood the place that saved her life because her conjured material had vanished with time.

  At last, she could finally take in the place she was in.

  It was dark.

  The still air was heavy with moisture, which made some sense, only it was very warm.

  Liz couldn’t see anything, but her senses were giving some feedback. Mostly that there were roughly box-shaped things around the room made from something that wasn’t stone.

  She began to follow the edge of the huge dome, cautiously ensuring she never left the edge of the space so she could escape if things turned out for the worse. Every step squelched as fabric met stone, which was making Liz feel so much worse about her lack of any stealth skill choices.

  Then she finally found a doorway, which connected to a tunnel that stretched beyond her perception range from her skill. She’d reached an impasse. She was in no position to be letting her guard down, but she also needed the power of her class-up.

  There was no way, with her experiences, that she was classing up before having fully explored the area she was in.

  She took the hallway, keeping herself oriented as she felt the walkway descend slightly, going deeper underground. Blessedly, anything to get further from nearly level two thousand death was appreciated.

  She reached an intersection with paths going to the right and left, both at a curve that matched the rough curvature of the dome before, meaning the halls wrapped the first chamber in a ring shape.

  First thing, she turned back the way she came from and in the middle of the first hall, she stripped out of her soaked Runeweave suit. She was beyond thankful for the tightly folded spare suit Sorana had given her. It wasn’t as well-equipped, but it had enough woven runes to be useful, even without Arcanite. She’d be getting real comfortable with activating the enchantments manually and maintaining them if she ran into trouble.

  She pondered what to do with the soaked suit, then decided to conjure a drying rack from stone and suspended the suit on it.

  Now, to explore what this place is. Any information you can offer me, Seira?

  She waited a few minutes for a response, but the Goddess felt preoccupied in her subconscious connection.

  She was on her own.

  First, she took the path to the right, taking the circular hallway in clockwise fashion.

  There were doors along the way made from metal and sealed closed by some sort of enchantment, but eventually, she found another hallway back towards the center. She followed it, hugging the right hand wall and ending up at a suspiciously wet area with smooth stone around the lower part of the wall.

  She’d gone in a loop.

  She continued to expand her exploration, hoping for a room she could enter, or some form of lighting. When she did find a room with a stone door she could force open, she was greeted by the smell of chemicals and some stacked books.

  Nothing terribly helpful, until she found a familiar spot on the wall.

  It had seemed like more runes like what was crackling with energy all over the ceiling of the place, except these were among the inert ones to her mana sight.

  By carefully fueling the runes with a trickle of mana, they seemed to create a connection with the ceiling runes, and the room brightened instantly.

  She actually had to shield her eyes, as she wasn’t used to the sudden whiteness of everything. Even the stone she was sensing through was stark white in color, and the hallway outside the room was lit up in normal grey tones as the light spilled out of the room.

  She cast her gaze around the room as she blinked spots from her eyes, taking in the shelves and work tables full of books and test samples.

  She reached for one of the books, but hesitated as she recalled the damage time could do to paper over long periods. Fortunately, she realized the paper was intact, despite the high humidity of the complex.

  She cracked the first book open and frowned.

  Biological Testing Logbook #83

  The covers of the books were unmarked, but the interiors were filled with copious notes.

  In English.

  She leafed through the book and found the notes to be documenting complex details of various aquatic plants.

  Other books were logging aquatic animals as well, and the details were unbelievably dry. It was as if the author was a professor of biology, and had offered no suppositions beyond the smaller pieces of paper tucked into a handful of pages, which all seemed to be unproven data points.

  Since she’d solved the lighting issue, she returned to the huge innermost chamber, with the domed ceiling.

  She found the nearest array of inactive runes and fueled mana into each one, turning on the lights for each region of the room piece by piece. The entire chamber was the size of a sports arena, more or less. She didn’t know enough about sports to have given an example of which was closest in size.

  Her eyes were drawn in by the contained boxes she hadn’t been able to see into previously.

  Every one of the boxes held plants. Wild varieties of different flora could be seen within contained spaces by what appeared to be flawless glass sheets. It actually made her wonder what glass was classified as. Glass came from sand, to her knowledge, so maybe a Sand mage could control glass? Regardless, she had no ability to sense inside the boxes, which also blocked her ability to sense below the boxes as well.

  Each tiny ecosystem of plants was surrounded by runes to maintain the conditions of the interior, but also appeared to be keeping the plants from overgrowing the space.

  As she wandered the inner chamber with a complex expression on her face, she reached the center of the room and paused, sucking in a sharp breath.

  The center of the room was hollowed out deep into the ground by a massive pillar of Arcanite.

  Arcanite that appeared to feed the entire research facility she was inside of.

  She didn’t have any money sense for Pallos, and frankly, she also hadn’t had any for Earth before that. Even so, such a quantity of Arcanite was surely an incredible amount of wealth.

  She decided that the storage boxes for each specimen must also be drawing from the pillar, so she elected to disable the lights in any room she wasn’t using.

  Next up, she began peeking inside the rooms all around the outer ring.

  Most of the chambers held dedicated research projects into a different field. Some held bizarre metals that she could see mana flowing from, which meant they were tiny samples of magic metals. Those research journals made no mention of the source of such rare materials, but the whole lab was a treasure trove.

  Eventually, she found a room full of dissected creatures that reeked of blood, which she chose to leave sealed shut without reading the journals.

  She began to hesitate and cover her nose before entering rooms after that, focusing her senses before even opening the doors. Anything that had killed those specimens so recently as to leave the bodies bereft of signs of decay was likely still present.

  That was until she found a room full of gemstones.

  She spent a long while just staring at them all. She was in love.

  Pallos had a wealth of gemstones, even with some cultures using them in their coins. She’d thought they were likely to be less expensive than they would be on Earth, but she’d never been in a position to simply request them in great quantities.

  She finally left the room to finish exploring. She did leave a mark on the door to remember it for later. She had so many burning questions about gemstones and magic that she was hopeful she’d find answers.

  Elizabeth finally entered the last quadrant of the circle.

  It was effectively a huge living quarters and general laboratory with equipment she defined as distinctly Earth-style in design.

  Microscopes, fume-hoods and even various ovens and the like were arrayed in a large room like a science classroom.

  Right next-door was a private living space that had been cleaned up and left neatly in order. She sighed as she spotted a very fluffy looking comforter on a queen sized bed. There were no feminine fixtures, so she assumed a man had been residing in the place.

  Overall, the living area was quite functional, except she was getting hungry and had not seen a kitchen yet.

  The bathroom was opposite the bedroom. Very helpful, except a slime was living in the toilet. It seemed content there and was sealed behind a set of runes, so she assumed waste disposal was slime-powered.

  She finally found the kitchen, but it was… wrong.

  There was no fridge or stockpile of stored goods.

  There was no sign of normal cutlery, either.

  A single recipe book was left on the counter next to a mixing bowl and a door that led to a room full of moss and barrels of slime.

  She cracked open the recipe book and blinked, stupefied.

  Oozemancer’s Guide to Self-Sufficient Living!

  By Henry White

  She immediately buried her face in her hands.

  Then she began reading.

  It detailed skills and how to mix various ingredients from labeled sample boxes in the main chamber into… edible, fully healthy pudding meals. It was like the superfood nonsense from back on Earth, only the recipes seemed documented to an extent that seemed very plausible. One could take ingredients from any climate region and turn them into a local pudding variety with every nutrient needed not only to survive, but thrive.

  A diet of mostly flavorless pudding.

  Liz had done worse to stay in shape, so she began to study intently.

  Liz was entirely unaware of how long she’d remained in the small kitchen studying the guidebook. She finished the entire book and hadn’t felt any exhaustion reach her yet, so she began working on her skills.

  She copied the entire book onto conjured stone tablets to help her memorization, then closed her eyes, testing her own knowledge.

  “Right… Page thirty-five was about tropical fruit pudding.”

  “Page ninety-eight was about frost-berry pudding in the deep southern climates.”

  “Page one hundred eighty-six was about the ashroot growths unique to volcanic areas that can be added to recipes of any given region in different ways to add spicy flavor to puddings for variety.”

  She nodded to herself, then took a scoop of pudding from the first barrel in the storage room, and then slurped at it experimentally.

  It tasted earthy, but the rest of the flavors were quite savory, if one ignored the smooth and slimy texture.

  She took what the book had described as a standard portion size, finished it, and then had three more as her mana consumption caught up with her, and stacked on her newfound lack of restrictions.

  How she’d been holding herself back for such a long time when mana expenses made a person ravenous was beyond her.

  All hail Pallos for preventing mages from gaining weight!

  That little mental prayer earned her a chuckle from Seira, who’d returned at that exact moment.

  You should be safe for a while. Classing up would be a wise choice. Losing an entire city of my faithful has stirred up serious problems, so I won’t have much time to watch over you for a while. Enjoy the new class!

  Liz nearly choked on her slime-meal.

  Then she offered up a prayer before marching to the bedroom nearby, sealing the doors shut and laying on top of the covers of the delightfully soft queen bed.

  She’d acquired food, some semblance of water, and shelter.

  She had all the assurances she needed to get her class-up done right away and think about everything else after.