Chapter 131 - Hard to Fathom

"I feel like a holiday roast," I complained as I stood on the sand looking out at the shimmering ocean water as Eira slathered me with what felt like a metric pound of herbal oils.

"Oh c'mon now, the salve isn't that greasy." Eira chided, clearly enjoying not only my discomfort but the act of rubbing her hands all over me. As much as I enjoyed the physical attention from her, I hated feeling like I would slide all over the next flat surface I touched.

"I'm pretty sure anything that ate me would get indigestion and a stern talking-to from their physician," I grumbled and gave her a bit of side eye as her hands got a bit friskier than they probably should out in public.

"That's because you're too sweet." She giggled.

"Don't try to flatter me. It works every time." I snickered and blushed.

The sun salve was hopefully going to do its job. Eira said it was formulated to stay on even while I was in the water, which was perfect. I did not relish the idea of having to do this again later.

I decided to try to stow my usually grumpy facade and just enjoy the day. It was nice and sunny, and the sea looked delightfully inviting. And we were doing one of my favorite things. Dungeon delving!

Today was also a good day to try on the enchanted swimsuits we had bought. I had clipped on the little charms we had so I could breathe underwater if it became necessary. The idea of it was a wonderful novelty, and I was looking forward to exploring under the water for the first time.

I keep resisting the urge to look over at Eira as we stood at the water's edge. Her swimsuit choice of the day was, like mine, meant for largely defensive purposes, but it really flattered her figure. Eira had a lot of charm points that got me going, and her attire, a green two-piece suit that showed off her hips and abdominals, was drawing my eye to all of them.

I had promised myself that I was going to try to rein myself in, but gods above, below, and sideways, it was difficult.

It was normal to be highly affectionate to your girlfriend, but I was starting to worry I was becoming a bit of a libidinous weirdo. Eira didn't seem to mind, but I didn't want her to start thinking I was coming on too strong. Of course, with the way she had put my salve on, she would be a bit hypocritical if she called me out on it.

Relationships were tricky, and I had no idea what I was doing.

"So. You want to do a little swimming, and maybe a bit of diving a bit of a ways out before we head down to the dungeon?" Eira asked me, pulling me out of my thoughts, something for which I was grateful. I nodded enthusiastically. The cold water would do me some good.

I had checked with the watch tower crews and some of the resort staff in charge of guarding the beach, and they said that nothing had been spotted out there, so everything should be pretty safe.

I hoped beyond hope that they were right. Everything going on, plus whatever nightmares lurked in the deep ocean, made for a nervous swim, but I wasn't willing to let worries like that keep me from having something resembling fun.

That said, we were wearing the enchanted swimsuits, and we were both armed with long daggers so we could fight if we needed to. We also had a bag tied to a rope to drag behind us as we swam that contained some other equipment we might need. I had done a bit of training in fighting in submerged dungeons, but never fully so. Dungeon School's idea of a submerged dungeon was up to your chest in water, and occasionally diving a tiny bit to access something. Nothing like this.

This was going to be an experience, that was for sure.

"Kind of surprised you wanted to go dungeon diving during vacation, but I shouldn't be," Eira said, as she did some stretching.

"Well, you mentioned they were interesting, and I'm curious about what they're like. I imagine since they're part of the resort, they've got their own dungeoneering crews to keep the core pruned properly, so I doubt we'll run into anything too unexpected." I explained, likewise stretching, making sure my muscles were in good condition. A little stiffness, but it could be worse. I'm sure it would work itself out as I went.

I was surprised at how quickly the soreness from the exercise and excitement from the night before had worn off. I was bouncing back pretty quickly these days, which I was going to say was a good thing. I wondered if the medicines and salves had something to do with it.

"Yeah, Uncle Osian is in charge of the dungeon stuff. He's done the dungeon crawl stuff for decades now as an independent. It was his suggestion I go to Dungeon School in the first place, and I'm glad he did." She gave me a playful wink.

I smiled and gave the beach one last good look around, and waved to Smitty, who was playing with her pups in the surf. It was pretty adorable, honestly. It still blew my mind that Smitty was a mother, and still working with a bunch of relatively young and occasionally stupid ruin-exploring treasure hunters.

There were some shouts and playful laughing coming from nearly every direction. It made me twitchy, and I didn't care much for that. The beach was pretty busy with other vacationers, so I didn't mind diving to get away from all the hubbub.

Eira tossed me something, which I caught. They were goggles.

"I thought we had the water vision charm thing, or whatever they're called," I asked, looking at them.

"Eh, better to go as old-fashioned as much as you can. Don't want to go blind if something damages the charm." She explained as she put hers on.

Made sense. Redundancy was usually a good thing.

"What about breathing?" I asked as I followed suit. "Is there any kind of workaround for that?"

"Hope and pray, babe. Hope and pray. Now let's get in there and pretend we're fish for a while!" She gave my rear end a playful slap that stung a bit, and she dashed into the water.

"Why you little-" And I chased after her, giggling.

I submerged myself in the water and felt the charms activate. It was like something brushed my own mana reservoirs, without taking from it, and then a surge of energy went into my lungs. I opened my mouth, tentatively, and sure enough, I was able to breathe just fine.

Enchantment magic is absolutely wild sometimes. I really needed to know more.

This text was copied without the author's permission from NovelPhoenix, where their chapter is published and readers support the writer.

Soon enough, we were swimming through the crystal blue waters of the Swordwind Sea and the Free Waters. There were schools of brilliant and colorful fish shimmering like silver in the depths. Larger creatures were barely visible in the distance, but they didn't seem to be threatening in any way.

The water wasn't too incredibly deep as we swam away from the shore, though still much over our heads. We swam quite a way out, and I was wondering where a dungeon could possibly even hide here.

And then we swam over what I could only call an underwater cliff. The sandy bottom of the sea plummeted into what I could only call a blue abyss. If it had been a mountain pass, I would have fallen to a messy death, but here it felt like I was flying.

The sight below was stunning. Large fish, strange tentacled things, the shimmering schools were still there, but where there had been sand and rocks was an expanse of some ancient ruined city that stretched as far as the eye could see.

I wondered if this was what they had called the Deep Grave, but I considered my mental map for a moment and realized we were still quite a way from that strange structure.

This was something else entirely, but still part of that mysterious ruin of the long dead, buried, and ironically named Endless Empire. The home of that strange lich that had nearly claimed my life atop a snow-covered mountain. It honestly made me wonder at how big it had all been in its day. If there were ruins in both Burgotova and the sea so far away, and rumored to be in far-off continents, it must have been impossibly massive.

And here was the barest part of it, submerged under untold depths of cold, uncaring water, now home to nothing but fish, coral, and crustaceans. I was a bit humbled, truth be told. The Endless Empire was considered to be the most powerful civilization in the history of this world, and now it was soggy, soaked stone, drowned and half forgotten.

I didn't know if it deserved it or not, but I wondered if the Mortal Kingdoms would one day simply be the ruins for some future people to loot and explore. It would be fitting, I supposed. It seemed to be the fate of all civilizations one day. Probably.

Eira waved to get my attention, and pointed directly down from where we were. I looked at where she was pointing and saw a structure that looked like it had at one point been an ornate temple to some unknowable god. I mean, to me all gods were unknowable. Or more like, I didn't want to know. Religion was only useful to me so much as it was good to know for dungeoneering details, and figuring out who to sell treasures to.

In any case, the temple below awaited us, and I was looking forward to it.

I gave her a thumbs up, and we both triggered our weight charm, which allowed us to slowly descend into those dark depths. I realized as we lowered into that abyss that the goggles Eira gave me had a secondary function. It was allowing me to still see despite the lack of light. Not with the same clarity as proper daylight, but enough that I didn't feel blinded.

She truly was thoughtful. I had never considered it. Of course, I had never been deeper than a pond before. I abstractly knew the sea was deep, but actually experiencing it is another thing entirely. I was pretty sure I hadn't even been this deep underground before, much less with tons of water over me. The one thing they never really prepare you for is the weight of the water over you. It was almost like being gently crushed by the world's biggest and wettest slime monster.

I was rather proud of myself for keeping my composure in a strange situation like this. I was with Eira, though, and I always felt more confident with her around.

Eventually our feet touched the sandy bottom, which sent up clouds of silt around us. Eira held on to our gear bag as we walked our way up the strange temple steps, finding movement underwater difficult. I had thought that being in the water up to my waist was bad enough, but this was a whole different animal. It was like trying to move through a room full of slimes. But less gross.

Much less gross.

We reached the top and were greeted by a set of doors. They opened easily at the slightest touch, and on the other side was a large chamber. It was full of statues whose details had eroded under the weight and friction of the ages, but I imagined that in its day it was truly a sight to behold. We proceeded across the expanse to a small door set between the legs of a stone giant. It was dark, impenetrably so, but there was a shimmer, and I felt the softest press of dungeon mana from it. I wondered if water diluted dungeon mana somehow. Something to ask the dungeon researcher duo later.

We passed that threshold, and suddenly the pressure of the depths was gone, and I felt dry cool air on my skin. In its place was the all-too-familiar feeling of dungeon mana, but much less than anything I had felt in a while. This core must have been extremely well maintained for it to feel this mild.

I deactivated my water breathing charm and took a breath of the air, letting my body adapt to the energies of the place.

"Welcome to your first literal dungeon dive! Behold the Temple of The Iron Bound God." Eira declared with exaggerated aplomb.

"Wow, they really do like giving these places over-the-top names." I put my hands on my hips and looked around. It looked like a mirror of the chamber we had just been in, but the statues fit the name of the place. They were stone statues of what could only be gods of some kind. Powerful-looking beings of all sorts, but their bodies were bound in iron. The heads, however, were featureless, save for a single large rune in place of a face. I had a feeling I knew what these were.

"Are these all golems?" I asked, wanting verification.

Eira looked up from digging through the gear bag for something.

"Hmm? Yeah, that's what they think. No one has quite figured out the trigger mechanism yet. Either it's broken, and the dungeon has some kind of flaw that keeps it from repairing itself, or it's just really hidden somewhere. I dunno. I kind of hope we don't run into it. We are not equipped for a golem fight." She shrugged as she went back to rifling around.

I wandered the room carefully, keeping an eye out for any traps. This was the first chamber, so it wasn't likely, at least not from my experience and research, but there were oddities of all shapes and sizes in this world.

It was a simple enough room, golems aside. Three doorways. Well, two doorways, and what looked like a carved-out tunnel, nestled just behind a cluster of the golems. I almost missed it, but there it was. An interesting choice for a dungeon to make, but stranger things could happen.

"Found it! Osian gave me a map, so we shouldn't have to worry about getting lost, and we can avoid the worst stuff. We're just here to look around, not get in fights or treasure hunt." She said firmly.

"Just a little treasure hunting? Please?" I gave her my best pleading eyes.

"Ok, just a little treasure. Just for you." She blew me a kiss, and then unrolled the map on the floor.

I came over, knelt, and took a look at it. It seemed simple enough. Standard dungeon growth patterns, definitely not a labyrinth or spiral dungeon. Too many monsters on there to be a Puzzle Dungeon. It was refreshingly simple. I liked simple. Something kept striking me as wrong, but I couldn't figure out exactly what it was.

It then occurred to me.

"Lovely? This map only shows two doorways in the entrance hall." I pointed out.

"Yes? There are only the two. Always has been. That's the way it was when I first got taken here as a youngster." She looked at me, confused.

"Then what, pray tell, is that over there?" I said, indicating the tunnel I had discovered.

Eira looked very confused, stood, and walked over to where I was pointing.

She stared at it for a few beats, walked back to the map, stared at it, walked back, put her hands on her hips, and scowled.

"Well, shit. That's not right." She declared.

"Are we at the right dungeon?" I asked, though I was pretty sure of the answer.

"Yeah. This is the only one in this section of the sunken city. And something is deeply wrong here. Pun not intended." She turned back to me.

I sighed a deep sigh. Just once, I'd love to have a normal dungeon delve. Was I cursed? I must be cursed.

"We need to check it out, don't we?" I groaned.

"We do indeed, my sweet." Eira put a reassuring hand on my shoulder. "Things like these need to be reported on, just in case it's something bad."

"Just once, Eira, I would love for a day to go smoothly on this trip. Just once!" I bemoaned my fate, throwing my hands up to shake at the heavens above.

"Sorry, my cherry-headed gorgeousness. You and I seemed cursed with having interesting lives." Eira was trying her best to reassure me. It didn't work, but I appreciated it all the same.

I sighed again, drawing my long dagger, checking my charms and my exploration swimsuit, and hoping that the defensive properties were legit and not just a sales tactic. That would be my luck, to get a supposedly enchanted swimsuit that wasn't properly enchanted. I wouldn't even be shocked at this point.

"I guess we're doing this. Into the unknown. Joy of joys."

"Into the unknown indeed." Eira laughed softly as we approached the dark tunnel that led to someplace that only the gods of the depths knew.