Chapter 2317 A Dip

--- Kat ---

Kat found herself looking over the lake with an uncertain eye. She’d checked this place out for portals earlier and found exactly one. The rest of the area was water with a couple of ’islands’ dotted about but honestly most of them were just rocks with barely enough space for a person to stand on.

Under the water was a bunch of monster fish. It was hard to see them all, they were hiding in and around the various bits and pieces of underwater foliage, so making out exactly what they were was tough. Especially with the distortion from the water. For someone who can fly, avoiding them all was easy... but Appoline... "Are you sure it’s worth picking up some of that coral? It’s going to be a fight."

Appoline nodded, "I’m rather sure that several of them I can see will be good for the breathing potion. Not enough to solve the issue completely but it’s a good start. If you’re willing to grab some for me I’d be quite thankful."

I guess I’m not totally unwilling though jumping into the water with monster fish feels like I’m asking for trouble.

"Alright I’ll go down. Just let me know which ones I need I guess," sighed Kat.

Appoline grinned, "Alright so, grabbing some of that kelp down there as a big role is probably worth it. Nothing special about it, but it’s a good base for healing potions so it’ll be nice to have some of it. Just slice it off about two-thirds of a way down. If you go lower you’ll kill the plant, which is a minor issue and not something I care too much about considering I only want... three rolls?"

Kat nodded, there was at least twenty kelp... tree things? Kat wasn’t quite sure what they were classified as but there was a bunch she could see down there. Kelp was apparently a universal constant, or something.

"Next up, can you see those spiky looking things?" Kat nodded at Appoline’s question. She could indeed see a few of them directly below them, clinging to the solid rock that made up their little island. They looked a lot like sea urchins but they notable had hooks on the end of their spikes and there were much larger than the mundane counterpart. "Well those you need to be careful with. They can fire off their spikes and real them back in.

"I’d recommend tapping them with a stick or something, tricking them into launching them out. Then while they’re being reeled back in, flip the things over and stab them in the moving bits. Should kill them and then if you bring the corpse back up to me I can gather the important bits. They’re filter feeders which, hopefully, means their lungs will be useful for that potion of mine. Grab... hmmm say five if you can.

"Next up is that curly looking plant hidden in between the kelp. Hard to spot and brightly coloured. I need you to carefully run your hand along it. The plant will try to stick its seeds to your hand as you do this. Let it, and then store the seeds a moment later. That’s all we need from those plants. Probably only need two batches of those.

"Now the real prize is going to be some of those monsters. Not sure you can see them at the moment, but there are some puffer fish down there. They can suck in a bunch of water and then launch it out as bullets. Those things hit really hard and can punch above their rank a lot of the time... but they also are quite weak to a good poke if they’re expanded like that. Now, annoyingly, I can’t have you exploiting that weakness. I need the water pouches intact.

"So... I’m not quite sure how to have you kill them. Can’t use demonic fire either because I’m quite sure that would cause issues as well. Just try to get as many of them as you can. Maybe you can cut off their back tail and have them bleed out or something? Not sure how fast they’ll die but it won’t mess with the glands... at least, as long as nothing else gets to them.

"Finally, I’d like you to grab some of those glowing pearls, but you’re going to have to be careful with them. They’re not actually pearls of course, and below them as the rest of the plant. It will snap shut around you if you touch the pearl, like a clam... but you can’t kill the rest of it first. You also need to cut the pearl away perfectly. Clean slice, just barely under the leaves. Too high and you cut the pearl, too low and the pearl withers away."

"Wait how does that work?" asked Kat.

Appoline shrugged, "Aquatic plants are not my specialty I’ve got no idea why it works that way, it just does."

"Alright then, just watch over Lily while she sleeps and I’ll be right back," Kat requested as she handed Lily off and moved towards the edge. Her girlfriend shifted a bit, sensing her absence, but settled down after Appoline pulled her close. Still notably less comfortable, which made Kat a touch smug, but at least it didn’t look like she was about to wake up.

Dropping into the water sent a bunch of fish scattering. They fled into the deeper kelp area. Meanwhile, the urchin adjacent ones immediately fired an attack off at her. Apparently diving in so close to them was a bit too much. Kat shifted into water for a few moments letting the hooks pass through her as she took control of enough water lower down to reform without too much issue.

Kat didn’t know what she thought the thing was meant to look like without its spines... but the answer was mostly the same. A glossy black shell with a bunch of holes in it for the hooks to slot into. Thin wires of sinew were reeling the hooks back in. Kat decided she needed to be quick, and careful.

Keeping a feel out for the other nearby hooks just in case, Kat flipped the first one and then stabbed down with her fan. There was a crunch and the hooks stopped getting pulled in. Kat sliced the sinew holding them down and stored the corpse before moving onto the next one. It seemed they really were quite defenceless once the spikes had gone out.

With the urchin’s collected Kat moved to the kelp next, mostly because that’s where everything else was. The fish were collecting around her more now. Not moving to attack but watching. Notably, and annoyingly, the pufferfish were not so bold and she couldn’t see a single one at the moment. Not ideal, but also currently not a problem. Kat sliced a bunch of kelp up and bundled it into a roll. Carefully eyeing the fish in case one of them charged or attacked in some manner... but none of them did, not yet at least.

Kat went down for the spindly plant to get some eggs... and that apparently was a step too far. One of the fish with a tiny little horn on its head charged at her. Kat thought the attempt was adorable until the horn started to glow, and then bang, it went off like a flashbang. Ripples extended through the water, Kat was left blinking her eyes clear from the flash and it was looking to take a big bite out of her hand.

Sadly for it, Kat recovered quickly enough to punch it in the face. It didn’t like that much, face deforming under the blow, and apparently, its friends didn’t like that much either. A bunch swarmed Kat trying to attack her from all sorts of angles... so Kat just disappeared into water. The fish kept attacking the spot she’d been, perhaps they were used to invisibility or something?

Still, they were occupied with that so Kat went for the pearl next. She looked it over very carefully, even tried pushing some extra water onto the stalk to try and get the thing to snap shut... but it didn’t move. Or at least, the ground didn’t. It looked the same as the rest of the seabed. No illusion necessary, just piling on sand Kat supposed.

Carefully, Kat created a current, spinning it around in an attempt to get the pearl to float away. This failed, even after five minutes of trying to whip up enough of a disturbance to free the pearl. Sure it moved around a bunch, but didn’t get cut. In the end, Kat had to trust that she could do it. Fan out... Kat sliced, she knew the exact angle, the perfect cut.

Kat glared at the slither of white remaining at the tip of the stalk as the plant snapped shut around her. Kat sighed and dispersed into water. This, apparently, was going to be far more annoying then it seemed originally.