I sit in the pool, dangling my legs in it. It’s taken me at least five minutes to will myself to do just this much, and I’m fucking terrified. It feels so much more cold than previously, and I know that’s psychosomatic and related to me actually needing to immerse myself in it, but god I hate this. I hate this so fucking much.

I start to lower myself further in, supporting my weight with my hands, and carefully searching with my legs for the bottom… which isn’t there. I get about to my waist before I decide this is just fucking terrible. I start to pull myself back out, rethinking this whole ‘reward’ idea, when I’m kicked squarely in the back.

The water closes around me and foams as my panic fueled thrashing churns the entire pool. I hear water smack against the far wall as my ‘Fortify’ activates and my swimming strokes launch me toward the peninsula, displacing huge amounts of water. I start to haul myself up, when Lauren steps on my shoulder, trying to hold me back.

-”No, stay in. Do your stupid bullshit. I don’t want to hang around here forever while you pussyfoot around.”

“FUCK YOU WHY. WHY WOULD YOU DO THIS.” My voice rings out loudly in the confined space, the sound of churning, wavy water filling the subsequent silence.

-“Shh, you’re going to attract attention. You’re fine.”

“I’m going to fucking pull you in.”

-”Only if you want to be healing knife wounds for a while.”

I stop struggling against her foot. I’m deeply uncomfortable, but I try as hard as I can to suppress it. She’s right, I’m wasting time, and the sooner I find the stupid thing, the sooner I can get out. Gah, I know it’s irrational, but that only makes me hate it more. That and there could EASILY be some horrible tentacle monster in here and I don’t want to think about that at all.

Why!

What eldritch god did I piss off to cause this to happen?

I’d much rather god run at the monster camp, ass naked. Lauren shoves a bottle at me, already glowing.

-”Go.”

I snarl at her half-heartedly, but accept the bottle, and she removes her foot from my shoulder and sits down.

-”I’ll be here. Don’t stay down too long. If I jump in to save you and you’re just holding your breath, remember: knife wounds.”

The light illuminates a large amount of brown, kelplike plant in the bottom of the lake, which I now understand is… at least 20 feet deep. Great.

I take a deep breath, steel my nerves, and submerge. The water burns my eyes, almost like Chlorine in a pool, but I put the strange sensation to the back of my mind. I swim down until the pressure in my ears grows too painful, pinch my nose and blow to equalize, and continue going down. There’s almost no sound in the lake aside from my movements and the occasional splash from the earlier turmoil, and even those are nearly silent. It’s eerie, but the light helps keep it from being overwhelming. I stop right above the tips of the weird plants. Trying to swim through them would probably be a bad idea… it’s really easy to get tangled up. I really don’t want to drown, so I swim carefully around the bottom, using the light to look down into them. Unfortunately, their constantly shifting movement makes it impossible for me to see the bed of the pond, so I try pushing some water at them. The plants spread in the wake of the unexpected current, revealing some rubble, but nothing interesting, before closing back together a moment later. I try this three more times before my lungs start to feel the lack of Oxygen, and I make my way to the surface. I tread water for a few moments, taking time to gasp for a while, and leave Lauren’s smirking face behind as I dive again.

Slowly but surely, I grid-search the bottom of the lake, being sure to check the walls for good measure. Part of the problem is that I don’t know what exactly I’m looking for. Zathis said it was some kind of ‘key’, but was that a metaphor or is it an actual key? I’d have asked, but he seemed really cagey about specifics. Maybe he couldn’t say more. I didn’t want to push.

I’m mostly looking for something that seems acutely different. He did say there was just one, so I need to find the one unique object in here. God help me if it’s buried… but there’s no way. That would mean I’d have to rip up all the kelp shit and then DIG UNDERWATER. No. It’ll be hidden, but not that hidden. It has to be sufficient, for whichever neurotic asshole hid it, for the thing to be in a dungeon hidden by illusions, in an unassuming side passage, under the creepiest fucking water ever, and lightly covered by some plants. Right?

Grumbling underwater isn’t smart, but I’m sorely tempted anyway.

Wait-…? I had just searched a space, seen nothing, and started to move on, but I could have sworn I saw something still glowing in there. When I brought my light back, I couldn’t tell anything. Probably because my light is drowning out the one I saw, they all look the same… but there was definitely (probably) something glowing. I’m unwilling to drop my light into the kelp, but I need it out of the way, so I swim back to the surface, drop my light next to a very confused rogue, and dive in roughly the same spot again. The process of finding the actual place again is at least an order of magnitude harder without good lighting, but eventually I see a glimmer: a thin, stone slab, slightly covered by other miscellaneous rocks, and blending right in with them. All except for the faint light it gives off. I swim down, grab it, and swim up just as I start feeling the 4 foot long strands of plant closing back in around me. The stone in my hand makes my strokes less effective, and my legs are brushed by the plants as I ascend.

I feel pressure on my leg, and my upward motion stops suddenly. There’s no way I got tangled, I was barely moving my legs, but I feel something sturdy holding me down. I feel the panic trying to set in again, but I fight it and rev up Fortify again, kicking and pushing water down with everything I have.

The sudden explosion of force, shoots me out of the water slightly, and I almost splash back down to the plants when I fall back in. Thankfully, I manage to avoid re-entangling myself and swim to the peninsula. The leg that got trapped is in agony, and I quickly pull myself out of the water so I can examine it.

Lauren looks alarmed. -”What the fuck, are you a fucking dolphin- you’re bleeding, here- OH GOD IT’S MOVING, WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT.”

I look down to find that not only is she correct about the bleeding, but also about the ‘what the fuck is that’. The kelp, or what I thought was kelp, wriggles like a living thing while still attached to my leg. I start to grab it to pull it off, but remember the force they held on with before, and instead send some of the new orange Energy to deal with it.

[Target lacks any will, elimination guaranteed. Dominate(-1 max E) OR Eliminate(+1 fragment, +2 Power, +0 Max E)]

I don’t know much, but I know I definitely don’t need a creepy underwater leech for a pet.

It’s not much, and it definitely doesn’t make up for the body horror of a plant leech sticking to my leg and sucking my blood, but the implications of that notification are worth more than everything else, except maybe the stone tablet in my hands.

I could raise my Energy pool using orange as my offense instead of red, and have the chance to force a Domination on things that aren’t as intrinsically awesome as Kaythe.

Awesome: not immediately trying to eat me. It’s amazing how my standards have fallen.

This changes a lot. But the stone outclasses that discovery entirely.

[Stone of Ascension - Raises the user’s Tier by one level. Cost: 5000 Power.]

There’s no option to use it, probably because I’m not even close to the Power requirement, but damn. Zathis only told me a bit about Tiers, but what he said made it seem like they’re a pretty big deal. If I’m Tier 1 already, this would bring me to Tier 2… which would do something, but probably an extremely useful something. It fucking better for that cost. I put it into my soggy pocket and start to put my other clothes and sword back on.

-”Aww, is the show over already?”

“Shut it or I’ll throw this leech thing at you.”

She frowns slightly and glances at it in disgust. -”What did you get out of your ‘leisurely swim’?”

“It’s essentially an upgrade that costs a shit ton of Power. But, there’s no indication what the upgrade does, so… I’ll have to accumulate it first to find out.”

-”Huh. Maybe I could use it to empty out my Power supply so you can fix me.” She smiles coyly at me.

“Fat chance. It’s 5 grand, do you have that lying around?”

Her smile remains but she shakes her head. -”That’s going to take a bit. A lot of hunts… or one big one.” Her smile says there’s more to that last part.

“Did you have something in mind?”

-”Hmm… have you seen the leader of the monster camp?”

-----

He did not rest during the night. Nor had he any other night, for he had no need. His body was powerful beyond measure. He had been intended as a final encounter for the fledgeling ‘competitors’, but his subordinates had done well. The resistance had been broken before he had even arrived. They had won.

He growled. Almost. The beast called Cerberus was, so far, unable to fully execute his plan. It would only be a few more days, at most, until he was ready, but for now…

He had to wait. He hated waiting.

His patrols would find the ‘dungeon’, and all this will have been worth it. Saving his energy, succumbing to lesser beings again and again due to their numbers alone… he would be repaid in full. He detested dealing with one of the administrators, but it was required. He needed part of his memory so he could save his species from this recurring hell.

If he had to do this anymore… appear, watch his kin be slaughtered, and die as well at the hands of the weak... he would go insane. Then, his species was surely doomed. He was the last one capable of leading them, and while he remained sane, they had a chance. His subordinates responded to his will without need for communication. He wanted, and they acted. Without this, they would be unable to survive as a group. Even his Lieutenants were only marginally more intelligent than the lowest ranking, and the slime balls were… almost useless. They had mostly been disposed of. The ones that remained languished in pit traps where the unwary would fall and be consumed. The best they could do.

He knew that insanity had already claimed all of his underlings. He knew he would join them if he could not succeed. This ‘contestant’ species would suffer in their stead, but it was of little concern. They had not lost everything over and over like he had.

He thought no longer on the plight of others.

They would find the dungeon, and they would escape the cycle forever.