Picking up the long forgotten items, Sera got a better look at the eroded equipment.

The broken flare was covered in moss and small black barnacles, under all of it she could tell that it had a distinct bite mark along one of the broken grooves.

Pocketing the broken flare in her pack, Sera moved on to the compass, which looked like it had been dropped accidentally rather than deliberately.

“The glass is cracked, but the pointer is moving,” Sera pick up the compass with one arm and used the other to slowly rotate her body.

As Sera was slowly spinning on the spot, Iva was staring at her perplexed until it heard something and moved deeper in to the dark.

Meanwhile, Sera continued oblivious, “Huh, it does work. This means I can go further without getting lost… Wait the PID also has a map doesn’t it?”

Pocketing the compass as well, Sera finally opened the PID’s map which had finished calibrating the previous night.

PID Map Interface

Error Map Visualiser not found, loading text description.

‘The Temple Zone’

The Temple zone itself covers three distinct area’s of interest. The Shipwreck, this area is located where the PID and main facility lies, the database is corrupted and therefore the reason for the wreck is a mystery. The Caves, this area is located where a makeshift shelter is set up, it’s material heavy with no shortage of wildlife or fauna however the depths of the caves lies a mystery until further exploration. The Seagrass, this area is composed of sand cliffs and long coral tubes along with the majority of the area covered in long stems of seagrass which can reach 30 meters or more, it also has a hidden resource heavy area but has predators defending it.

“The shipwreck, caves and seagrass areas… The PID must have used the nicknames I gave the areas, I wonder if the Map Visualiser would give me more information.”

Sera nearly closed the menu before rereading the cave area summary, “How deep do they go, anyway Iva let’s-”

Sera pushed away the blue screen and brought out her scanner to look for her cute companion, “Iva?”

Slowly scanning over the room again, Sera looked towards the entrance before circling back to where she found the compass and flare, that’s where the cave tunnel suddenly went straight down.

“Iva! Did you go down?” Sera began slowly swimming down the tunnel.

The cave walls turned from a mix of sand and rock to a darker shade of sandstone until finally the material looked more like solid stone than anything.

Looking directly down, the tunnel looked endless.

It was pitch black without the light of the scanner, and even though it couldn’t compare to the torch or sunlight in the absence of light it was brighter than anything Sera had seen.

As Sera slowly swam down the lack of noise, of the water bubbling, currents pushing past her and the small noises fish gave off, weirdly enough began making her ears hurt.

Pushing the thought out of her head, Sera swam faster, the feeling of dread finally being unmasked.

“Iva, how far did you go?”

Down and down she went until finally she could see an opening.

Something other than the cave going straight down.

Swimming to the opening, Sera pointed her scanner at the surrounding tunnel illuminating the area.

All in all the tunnel seemed to be just solid rock with long cracks occasionally running through it, with different shades of rock marked Intermittently at lower depths, but the materials were firmly inside the wall.

Rather than jutting out like the rocks in the cliffs above the seafloor, she needed better equipment if gathering resources from this cave was going to be a reality.

Stopping herself from procrastinating, Sera thought of Iva and entered the hole.

Shining her light at the bleak darkness, all that shown back was the void, but then small noises could be heard, unlike anything she had heard before.

It was like a jittering noise of a cicada or cricket but amplified underwater, with the cave echoing the pulsing noise heavy with malcontent.

“What the hell has Iva gotten me into…” Sera spoke softly, opening her pack and grabbing her knife.

Whatever’s down here isn’t going to catch me off guard this time.

Passing by a large stalagmite, Sera’s rotated her body 90 degrees and swam to the right of it, her body feeling the same despite being at the wrong angle.

Her scanner lowered as she came to the other side of the massive rock jutting from the ceiling, trying to turn back to what seemed like the right way up, Sera rose the scanner again.

Somewhere along the way the echoes began to die down, almost to a

That’s when she saw the blue light of the scanner turn the surrounding cave red as it bounced off an unmoving red object.

Hovering in what looked like the middle of the room, Sera began to see who the unmoving creature was.

“Iv-”

Before she was able to finish, Sera hundreds of bioluminescent lights shone dimly behind Iva, the whole army of lights began moving as one, it was then Iva turned around.

Its eyes were complete white.

“Iva?”

That’s when the echoes came back full throttle, whereas before it was one long continuous thrum, now it came as individuals.

What sounded like thousands of bugs thrumming their wings underwater began coming at Sera from every angle, her legs slowly began trying to walk backwards.

Not processing that she was underwater, and worse Iva was leading the charge.

Then they attacked.

One by one the lights throttled backwards then began racing towards Sera-

Less than a few meters lay between her and the whole swarm.

Quickly trying to swim backwards, Sera began frantically swimming back-

Banging into the stalagmite, her scanner shone backwards and screams came from the fish behind her.

Pushing past the rock and frantically pushing her legs into action, Sera had a second to look at the horde.

At the moment she looked she could finally see the face of the swarm.

Skeleton jawed fish with small tentacles and large fins screamed as the light him them.

Sera nearly let go of her scanner as her arms worked double time.

Shovelling water backwards as the screams increased in intensity as more of the swarm came closer.

She could hear the snapping of the jaws right behind her-

Banging into another wall, Sera couldn’t waste a second.

Her feet sprang into action, using the wall as a springboard, Sera continued swimming.

Barely able to see in front of her-

Only shadows came as the scanner’s light flickered in her vision before being thrown backwards again and again.

Her arms ached as her legs became numb from the motion.

The screaming only increased and that’s when Sera realised something.

She wasn’t going back up.

She was going down.

Her ears began feeling like something was squeezing them and Sera unconsciously realised the feeling she had from before was-

PID Interface

[WARNING UNSAFE DEPTH REACHED, USER SAFETY IS AT-

Shoving away the menu as she continued swimming, her eyes, nose and ears began squeezing down on themselves.

But the screaming didn’t stop, and neither did the biting.

Every two seconds she could feel a fish latch on and try to rip flesh only to be flung off.

But they were leaving their marks, they were slowing her down.

Even worse, Sera could feel her neck begin to pinch down on itself as the familiar headache was coming back fullthrottle-

She was going to die.

Feeling a bite finally meet flesh Sera screamed and stopped moving her leg as others latched on she quickly ripped them off and swam harder.

The thrumming didn’t let up and there was no end in-

Wait a hole!

Seeing the crevice Sera quickly swam to the other wall she could hear the swarm directly behind her.

Close enough to use it as a spring, Sera did an underwater barrel roll and sprung off it.

Seeing the hundreds of skeletal jaws snap at her right out of reach and-

Iva!

Barely able to see her friend, she could only see the small seal swim aggressively towards her.

Quickly trying to swim deeper into the hole Sera found-

“A dead end? No, this can’t b-”

Flashing the scanner at the wall, there was no small opening or anywhere to hide.

She was trapped.

If I’m going to die here, I at least want-

Turning around there were hundreds of them, most were still going down, but she could see they were slowing down and lots had already begun to enter the small hole.

With Iva at the front, the same as before.

Her vision was blurred, and the most Sera could do was hold up the scanner to see her death come to her.

At least it would be with a friend.

Almost in slow motion the nightmarish fish began thrashing their way towards her, Iva of course was still in the lead.

His maw was bared like the other fish, its cuteness had transformed to savagery.

It’s wing like fins swam towards Sera with an anger she had never seen before.

Sera stared frozen as her body began shutting down and with the incessant thrumming she could feel her ears begin to leak.

Then Iva snatched its jaws then went in for the kill.

Sera’s arm was still raised before darkness overcame the cavern, and she closed her eyes.

Her arm was violently thrown to the side, the scanner resounded still, smashing into the wall.

Sera couldn’t stop shaking even as thousands of the bloodthirsty fish dived at her-

Only to brush past and swarm something to her left.

Barely conscious with her ears ringing, arms shaking and legs numb, Sera slowly turned her head.

To see the hundreds of fish snarl and scream at the scanner on the floor, the ends of their tentacles glowed with ferocity.

And to the side she saw Iva weakly swim up to her.

Sera looked at her hand in disbelief-

That’s where Iva attacked me, she bit-

Her mouth would’ve formed an O shape if she wasn’t on the brink of collapse.

Sera began slowly swimming out of the cave as still other of the skeletal fish swam towards the faintly glowing scanner in the cave.

At that moment, as Sera swam upwards with Iva by her side, all the pieces connected.

The broken flare and dropped compass, the fish must’ve attacked the light and broken it.

Iva’s pupils, the light blinded him and the other fish used to lightly glowing tentacles rather than an aggressive blue light that targeted them as it shown in their direction.

And finally Iva attacking her, to get rid of the scanner in her arm.

Sera felt like crying as another noise stopped, the beeping from the PID, she could feel her ears, nose eyes and even gills relieve the pressure.

“Thank you, Iva, lets…” Sera paused as her mind struggled to put together the next plan of action.

Resource collection was out, and her scanner was lost… at least for now.

Which only really left one option.

“Let’s go home.”