While the shark dragged me along, I used the creature’s inbuilt navigation system to create markers of where we’d gone in the underwater caves. The undersea cave system was just as complex and treacherous as the labyrinth we’d come through. As we went on through the pitch-black water, I found that I had to admire Captain Redbard. He had to have been either the luckiest or ballsiest pirate captain in history to have taken this on without any supernatural aid and made it out the other side alive.
I had always been a strong swimmer, but the strongest human swimmer in all the world couldn’t have come close to matching the shark for swiftness and agility underwater. What was more, with the undead beast’s magnificent navigation system working in tandem with my senses, avoiding underwater obstacles became effortless. I could anticipate their presence well in advance and swoop gracefully around them.
Less than a minute after diving under the shark and sticking Grave Oath into its belly, we broke the surface. I found myself in a pool in a huge cavern. There was a large exit leading to the base of the cliffs, against which I could see fierce waves crashing. A smaller, darker tunnel led out of the cavern into another system of tunnels, deep below the earth. This was where the dead cave troll scent was tugging me.
Now that I’d done the route and imprinted the memory of it into my shark’s senses, I was able to transfer this memory into the minds of the other sharks. They would now be able to pull my party members through the underwater caves swiftly and smoothly, without any hassle.
I sent a command to the sharks to surface, wait to feel daggers being jammed into their underbellies, then to swim over here as quickly as possible. I also sent the instructions into the minds of Fang and the direbear; they were too big to hitch an underwater ride with the sharks, but since they didn’t need to breathe, they could simply walk through the underground caves.
After I’d done all of that, I found a comfortable-looking dry boulder and sat down and waited.
I saw them coming long before they surfaced. In the depths of the black pool, a violet glow began to become visible. Sure enough, the glow grew steadily stronger, and my party emerged coughing and spluttering from the water a few moments later.
“I guess you guys don’t quite have the lung capacity I do, huh?” I joked when they all came staggering out of the water, gasping for breath—all except Drok, who was beaming out his usual idiot’s grin. The long swim had washed some of his usual stink off, which was a welcome change for everyone except him. He sniffed at his semi-clean body, and his grin drooped into a frown.
“Ugh,” Layna growled, grimacing. “I hate swimming!” I had to wonder whether this was a personal thing for her, or whether all Arachne hated being in water. It made sense. I couldn’t think of a single kind of spider that voluntarily went anywhere near bodies of water.
“Elyse, do me a favor and step into that shaft of sunlight there,” I said to Elyse, pointing at a pillar of sunlight that was coming into the cavern from the exit near the cliffs. “And Rami-Xayon, could you pull up a stiff breeze for us?”
“I’m soaked to the bone and freezing cold!” Rami-Xayon protested. “We all are! A strong wind will give us all frostbite now, save perhaps those of us who come from the frigid climate of the Northern Wastes.”
Yumo-Rezu shot her sister a glare but didn’t say anything.
“It’s not going to be a cold wind,” I said, drawing the Dragon Sword.
A light of understanding came across Rami-Xayon’s face as she realized what I was about to do. She called up a wind. With the Dragon Sword, the glowing images of a white tornado, representing Wind magic, and the yellow sun, the image of Light power, materialized in front of me. I used the sword’s alchemical magic to blend both powers, adding heat from the Light power to the Wind magic, Thus, I created a hot, dry wind that rippled with pleasant warmth against our soaked armor and clothing, drying us all off in minutes.
“All right everyone,” I said, “now that we’re all dry and ready, it’s about time to head into the caverns and find some wyrms.”
“I hope you have a solid plan to deal with these monsters, Vance,” Isu said to me as we set off into the darkness. “I feel like you may be underestimating the deadly might of the wyrms.”
“Of course, they are no equal to dragons,” Yumo-Rezu said, “but if any beasts could be such an equal, wyrms are it.”
“Don’t worry, I’ve got a plan,” I said. “And it should be coming out of the water … right about now.”
I looked behind me and saw Fang and the direbear emerge. “Rollar, Drok, get the wolf’s head weapons out of the barrels, along with the gray powder and red balls. Make sure they’re dry and ready to fire. We’re going to be needing them before long.”
“Will do, Lord Vance,” Rollar said. He and Drok got busy with the barrels on Fang and the direbear.
Once they’d unloaded a few of the weapons and munitions, we headed off into the darkness of the tunnels. The glowing purple dagger lit our way, and the ghostly trail of the scent of dead cave trolls guided me through the darkness.
The various scents of death were far more familiar to me here, now that I was back on—or, rather, under—Prandish soil, but this place had a strange and unearthly feel about it. The caverns were enormous. The initial maze of tunnels we traveled through was quite similar to the Black Passage. However, this soon opened out into eerie
