73. The Life Aquatic with Serac Edin

  Serac Edin’s first impression of Pretjord—that middle child of the three Lowly Realms—was etched by text that flashed through her consciousness.

  [PRETJORD Realm Boon unlocked: SYNTHESIS]

  [REVOLVER Spell unlocked]

  [Chamber Two: HARVEST]

  Her second impression was then drowned out by frigid water that flooded her airways.

  As a hell bumpkin native to an arid wasteland, Serac was woefully unprepared to be submerged in a liquid medium. Her first instinct was to cough out the water she’d swallowed, only for more water to rush in. The intense discomfort of suffocation, coupled with the realization she was completely out of her depth, pushed her into full panic mode.

  She shut her eyes, as if turning a blind eye to the calamity could save her from it. She kicked and flailed, grasping for anything solid to latch onto. What she found was Zacko’s hand, grabbing hold of hers with firm, reassuring strength. I’m saved! Relief flooded in place of water. I knew I could count on Zacko! He always comes through for—

  Whoosh!

  A tremendous pulling force, orders of magnitude stronger than a NINEFOLD master. All of Serac’s insides rocked and churned as the flimsy vessel containing them shot through a watery medium at light speed. Yet Zacko held tight, and Serac, by some miracle, managed to hang on for dear life.

  What fresh hell is this? It turns out the lowest part of Pretjord is a prison—a ‘watery prison’, that is! Serac’s deranged mockery of her own predicament couldn’t mask its reality. And Pathsight made sure to let her know.

  [Wayfarer Status Effect: HYPOXIA]

  Eyes shut and senses numbed by the frigid cold, Serac was aware of only two things: Zacko’s hand and a brand-new Pathsighted overlay to warn of her impending demise. A status gauge with a light-green tint. Instead of ticking up, it plummeted downward, at a rate that perfectly mirrored Serac’s need for breathable air.

  There was nothing to be done. Whatever force carried the Wayfarers was undeniable, too strong even for Zacko to resist. Serac could only pray its destination would be somewhat drier.

  After Ksanas that might as well have been Kalpas, the pull transitioned abruptly into a push. It expelled the Wayfarers out of one watery prison, only to dump them in another. Serac felt herself break through a tangible surface, as the top half of her tasted the sweet embrace of air. Dragless, free-moving, oxygenated air. She sucked greedily, acting on pure animal instinct. Something shifted in Pathsight, but Serac couldn’t pay it any mind, preoccupied as she was with immediate survival.

  The presence of air, as well as the accompanying relief, proved short-lived. Serac was dragged back under in no time, and not due to some mysterious external force. No, she only had herself to blame. Herself and a Rakshasa’s dense body composition, decidedly incompatible with aquatic life. She was sinking, weighed down by her own onyx bones.

  Help! She tried to scream as she went right back to kicking and flailing. I can’t swim! How could she? It wasn’t like she’d had any practice, even if she were physically capable (which she wasn’t). Gods, this is the absolute worst; I’d rather fight a thousand Bone Lords than this!

  Somewhere amidst the desperate struggle, an anxious voice shouted to be heard over a Rakshasa’s undignified wailing. Even though Zacko was right beside her, Serac was too far gone to understand a single word he said.

  Sinking. Drowning. Dying. She could feel the strength drain out of her with every kick and flail. Understanding soon dawned with ruthless certainty. This was to be the end of her journey in Pretjord, and she hadn’t even started!

  That was when the water shifted again.

  The latest movement felt different still from the sheer volume of the ‘pull’ or the heartless violence of the ‘push’. Water was water, but it now moved with delicacy, intricacy, and intent. A conscious, sentient mind had taken hold of Serac’s watery prison. Their palpable presence compelled her to open her eyes.

  Only for a Ksana, but she saw them. A hooded, humanoid figure lurked within the turbulence, gripping a large, polelike object—a weapon?—in their hands. Only for a Ksana, but Serac’s attention snapped onto the face hiding beneath the hood.

  Skin of vivid pink, the likes of which should’ve been confined to an artist’s imagination. Round, wide-set eyes a little too large for their frame. Somehow, the strange visual signals combined to engage the part of Serac’s brain that recognized familiar faces.

  Froggy?

  Before Serac had any hope of making sense of it all, her world filled with sprays and bubbles. In the same instant, her whole body ejected out of the water and into the sky. The relief of avoiding suffocation would’ve been replaced by the fear of falling to death instead, were Serac still capable of caring.

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  [588!]

  The fall damage halved her Health. A paltry price to pay , all things considered. Winded, exhausted, and hurting everywhere, Serac remained perfectly still for a good minute. The ground beneath was solid and firm (as her smarting buttocks could well attest to!). With each unimpeded breath, she recovered in both physical strength and mental acuity.

  At some point, she began to notice more changes to her surroundings. For one thing, she wasn’t alone. There was of course Zacko, who let out a labored grunt as he pushed himself to a sitting position. And there were other souls here. Many more.

  Perhaps a hundred more, if Serac’s eyes didn’t deceive. She gingerly picked herself up, facing the dense throng of bodies that had surrounded her and Zacko. Then her eyes bulged in shock and wonder. For this latest avalanche of visual signals engaged the part of her brain that processed the new, the unknown, the undefined.

  Glistening scales, spiny fins, diverse body types. Bristles instead of stubbles, whiskers for beards, and heads covered and styled with algae. These were fish-people.

  Which was made stranger by the fact they were all bipedal, standing upright on two very-much-separate feet. They were also clothed, and in a manner not drastically different from their neighbors one Realm below. Narakites wore tunics and robes stitched together from whatever rubbish they could get their hands on. Pretjordians sported a similar fashion, just with much nicer material: dyed fabric, woven jute, and the like.

  Serac should’ve been at least somewhat prepared, having already met Bea the deer-person back in the Wayside Lotus. Even so, the shock of meeting a whole throng of Yakshas still managed to slacken her jaws and render her mute. Mute and also, as it turned out, a little deaf.

  “—okay? Hello? Miss? Do you not understand me?”

  “Huh?”

  Firm hands grabbed Serac by the armpits and pulled her up. They belonged to Zacko, who kept his gaze on the large group of strangers, eyes narrowed in that slow-to-trust way of his. As the Manusya stood to his full height, many in the crowd backed off a step. Serac couldn’t blame them, seeing how the Yakshas, at least on average, were closer in size to her own compact self.

  There were exceptions to the rule, and they stuck out like sore thumbs. Two fellows in particular—with prominent, bony notches along the sides of their muscular necks—tipped the scale toward enormous, towering over even Zacko. They flanked another man who was no slouch himself, and whose rotund, corpulent figure reminded Serac somewhat of a Hellspawn Jailer. His face was distinctive even among his fish-peers: thick, mottled lips framed by impressive whiskers, lending him an air of authority if not quite wisdom.

  But the man that now stood at the front of the crowd and spoke to the Wayfarers was much smaller, and therefore much less intimidating.

  “Are you hurt at all?” Upon a second listen, the man sounded quite youthful, possibly younger than Serac at a guess. His scaly, pale-yellow face lit up with an excitable smile as he continued, “What am I saying? You two are Wayfarers, aren’t you? Nothing can hurt you!”

  Serac and Zacko exchanged a look. This wasn’t the first time their Wayfaring status drew a positive reaction from strangers. But perhaps none before had greeted them with such exuberant admiration.

  “I think we’re alright,” Serac managed a reply, if a little timidly by her standards, “and we’ll be even better once we find a Waystation.” She could, of course, set one down herself. But it also couldn’t hurt to save the [Privilege] for a rainy day. “Don’t happen to know of one nearby, do you?”

  “You’re in luck!” the pale-yellow man enthused. “We’re right next to a Hubstation. Come on, let me show you the way.”

  “Sounds good,” Serac murmured distractedly, scanning the faces among the crowd, “but first, which one of you do we have to thank?”

  “Thank? What do you mean?”

  “One of you threw us out of the water, didn’t you? Saved us from drowning. A pink-skinned… I wanna say woman? Is she here?”

  The young man’s smile faltered. The crowd took another collective step back and broke out in animated whispers.

  Serac and Zacko exchanged another look, hers with a slight frown and his with one eyebrow raised. Did I say something I shouldn’t have?

  “The Finless.”

  The whispers stopped on a dime, as all eyes turned in unison to the speaker. It was the large, whiskered man, he of the corpulent figure and thick, mottled lips. Judging from the crowd’s reaction, Serac hadn’t been far off about him being an ‘authority’ figure.

  “Do you speak truly, Wayfarer? Did you really see the Finless lurking in these waters? And you claim it was she who saved you?”

  “Well, I mean, I don’t know her name, but sure. I did see someone pink and maybe frog-like. Wait, am I allowed to say that? And yes, she saved me and Zacko, alright. I don’t know how she managed it, but she yeeted us good.”

  The whispers flared up again in earnest. Indeed, the crowd grew so animated as to practically shout over each other. Serac’s frown only deepened, as she detected something distinctly akin to fear in the people’s chatters.

  Suddenly, the pale-yellow man broke out in laughter.

  “What a silly guppy you are, Wayfarer!” he said in between his snickering. “Even if the Finless really were here just now, why would she help anyone, let alone a pair of outrealmers?”

  A chorus of nervous laughter followed the young man’s outburst. This, however, did little to smooth out Serac’s frown, as she recognized the phenomenon for what it was. These people would rather laugh it off than believe Lady Pink was here without them knowing.

  From the corner of her eye, Serac saw the large whiskered man nod to his even larger companions. The twin towers stuck out like sore thumbs even as they turned and made themselves scarce. Serac didn’t know anything about anything, yet the sight of the exchange gave her a strange sense of foreboding. She might have even confronted the whiskered man… had her own stomach not chosen this moment to rumble.

  Serac froze, caught unawares by the utterly novel sensation. Anxious—perhaps even terrified—she looked to Zacko for reassurance, as she carefully placed a hand upon her tummy.

  Her empty tummy, which very clearly craved for something to fill it.

  Only then did Serac notice that her [Hypoxia] had long resolved. In its place, she played host to a new status effect, complete with a separate gauge of its own.

  [Wayfarer Status Effect: HUNGER]

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