Chapter 242 — Back to the Water, Again

Chapter 242: Chapter 242 — Back to the Water, Again

He found Yveth in the kitchen two days before leaving, the same unhurried routine they’d settled into over so many mornings now, and told her mostly in passing while he worked through a batch of eggs.

"Heading back down soon," he said. "Finishing out Region Three properly. There’s still a stretch I haven’t walked."

"How long this time?"

"A month, probably. Then home for a proper week before I think about going further."

"Further being Region Four." She said it without any particular alarm, the same easy, familiar acceptance she’d developed across his increasingly frequent trips underground. "You’ve mentioned it a few times since you got back."

"I have."

"I noticed." She stole a piece of toast off the plate he’d just finished plating, unbothered as always by his mild protest. "I’m not going to pretend I love the idea. I am going to trust you’ve earned whatever confidence you’ve got about it."

"I have. Properly, this time."

"I believe you." She studied him a moment, something warm settling behind her usual dry composure. "Go finish your water floors, then. Come home in one piece, same as always, and we’ll talk about Region Four properly once you’re actually standing at its door."

He spent that final morning doing the small, ordinary things that had become ritual before every trip — checking his sword’s edge one last time even though Kellan had already seen to it, counting through his stored supplies twice over out of habit rather than real doubt, sitting a while longer than strictly necessary at the Foxglove’s counter while Rilla fussed quietly over whether he’d packed enough dried fruit.

"You never eat enough of it on the way down," she said, tucking an extra portion into his hands regardless of his protest. "You’ll thank me by the second week."

"I always thank you by the second week."

"Then I’m clearly right to keep doing this." She said it with her usual flat, unbothered certainty, and he didn’t argue further, simply accepted the extra portion and tucked it away alongside everything else.

Pella saw him off at the door with her usual restless energy, already extracting a promise for a proper story when he returned, and he left the Foxglove behind with the same settled, familiar ache of departure he’d grown almost fond of by now — not dread, just the plain, honest weight of leaving something good behind in order to go earn something else worth having.

He left two mornings later with the same light, efficient pack he’d carried on every trip since discovering the storage space tucked behind his own awareness, and found the walk to the checkpoint carrying the same comfortable, unhurried familiarity it always did now.

The descent passed quickly, ground so thoroughly known by this point that he barely needed to think about navigating it. Floor One through Nine took him the better part of a week, same deliberate pace as always, nothing demanding more than his ordinary, practiced attention. He crossed paths with an Ironhide Troll near the old mining chamber and ended the fight without much drama.

He reached Floor Ten by the week’s end, the settlement’s warm, impossible light greeting him with the same strange comfort it always offered, and stayed one proper night before pressing on — a habit he’d never fully abandoned, regardless of how familiar the climb had become.

"Back again," the vendor at his usual stall said, sliding a portion across without needing to ask what he wanted anymore.

"Finishing Region Three this trip. Sixteen and Seventeen, specifically."

"Didn’t know there was more of it past Fifteen worth finishing."

"There’s always more. Just a matter of how far anyone bothers going."

The vendor laughed at that, and Arlen ate slowly, watching the settlement’s ordinary business carry on exactly as it always did, before making his way toward the ramp down into Region III’s familiar, flooded depths.

Eleven through Fifteen passed in considerably less time than his first few passes through had taken, the water no longer demanding the careful, deliberate attention it once had. He fought when fighting was worthwhile, bypassed what wasn’t, and found himself, crossing the pillar field on Fifteen, slowing only briefly near the paved clearing’s edge to acknowledge the dais’s weathered, patient silhouette before pressing on toward the floor’s far boundary.

Still not my business to disturb. Still here, though. Good to know.

He crossed into Floor Sixteen on the morning of his twelfth day underground, the terrain shifting almost immediately from Region III’s familiar, water-carved stone into something considerably different.

The water here carried a faint grit to it, fine particulate drifting through the current like ash settled over everything, and the stone itself took on a darker, more mineral cast the further he pushed. The pressure felt different too, subtle but unmistakable, a change in the water’s fundamental character rather than simply its depth.

Not Region Three anymore. Not quite Region Four either, from what the archive described. Something in between.

He moved carefully, senses stretched wide, Hunter’s Eye sharpening his awareness against the ash-dimmed visibility. A school of fish he didn’t recognize scattered ahead of him, their scales a dull, sooty gray rather than anything bright or reflective, and he let them go, more curious than hungry.

He made camp that first night just inside Sixteen’s boundary, and found himself, settling in, genuinely pleased with how the trip had started. No desperate urgency pressing him forward. No lingering uncertainty about his own readiness. Just the familiar, patient rhythm of exploration he’d come to trust across months of exactly this kind of work.

He wrote briefly before sleep, the entry practical and settled.

Twelve days to reach Sixteen’s boundary — faster than I expected, ground this familiar now. Terrain’s already different here. Ash in the water, darker stone, something between Three and whatever Four actually is. Good start.

He thought, drifting toward sleep, about everything waiting ahead of him this trip — Sixteen and Seventeen first, properly explored, then home for a week before Region Four’s true depths finally opened to him. He thought about the archive’s careful notes, about Shaleford and Hollowmere and the resonance storms described in faded, decades-old reports, names that still felt, for now, like distant promises rather than anything immediate.

One thing at a time. Sixteen first.

He closed the journal, and let the ash-tinged current settle around his small, secure camp, sleep coming easily despite the unfamiliar terrain surrounding him — the same steady, earned confidence that had carried him through every deliberate stage of this long, remarkable journey settling comfortably into place once more.

He woke the next morning to the quiet, patient dark of Region III’s transitional edge, and pressed on without hesitation, genuinely curious now about exactly what this strange, in-between stretch of the world still had waiting to show him.