The Newt and Demon

Of all the dungeons around Broken Tusk, Theo considered the ocean dungeon to be the most dangerous. It had waned in its difficulty, thanks to the watertight tower they had built around it, but the interior was no less offensive. Here are the reports from the scouting party. The interior was a nightmare. An expansive ocean floor spread out as far as the scouts could see. Massive ocean creatures loomed overhead while others that didn’t belong drowned or were crushed by the pressure.

An adventurer had even been injured and forced to use a Potion of Return to avoid death. How they drank it underwater was beyond him.

Theo made his way to the harbor and then out onto the piers that stretched into the bay. As he walked along the paved path, he looked up at the massive towers with a smile. Atop each tower was a rail gun, trained on the sea and prepared to fire on attacking lizard folk. He was happy that the lizards had not come to call, and ‌he doubted they would. At least that was one thing in his favor.

Aarok stood near the entrance to the tower and nodded as Theo approached. "Are you sure this will work?" he asked.

"No, I'm not sure at all if it'll work," Theo said with a shrug. "There are some concerns I have about the vapors in the potion being able to expand, but there's only one way to find out. Do you have somebody who can head inside and check the results for me?"

"That's me!" Tresk said, bursting from the shadows.

"Alright, you little goblin," Theo said, jerking his head towards the entrance to the tower. "Let's head in."

"Oh, I actually have a present for you." Tresk said, taking the steps two at a time. “But I don't actually know if it’ll be useful.

"You never get me presents," Theo said. He continued taking the steps, unsure of what weirdness she had in store for him.

When the pair reached the bed of the bay, Tresk withdrew something from her dimensional storage bag. She handed it over with a flourish.

“A class core?” Theo asked, "You shouldn't have."

"Stop being a butthole. Inspect the stinkin’ core.”

Theo obeyed the command, inspecting the core.

[Water Sorcerer’s Core]

Common

Sorcerer Core

Unbound

2 Slots

Level 1 (0%)

A sorcerer core focused on the water element.

Innate Skills:

[Water Attunement]

The core was a duplicate of his Earth Sorcerer's core, except it was aligned to water. It would allow him to manipulate water based on his willpower, which was actually extremely helpful. He swapped his Earth Sorcerer's core out and placed the new one in his soul. As soon as he did, he could feel the water all around them. A small dribble of water came through the wall, forming a tiny puddle at his feet. He swiped his hand and picked it up with his will power, forming it into a sphere and nodding with approval.

"You know, this would have come in handy when we were working on the river," Theo said, cracking a smile. "We could have done that job without the intervention of Khahar."

"So here's the thing," Tresk explained. "I'm trying to collect all the elemental sorcerer cores for you, since your willpower is just too high. So now we have water and earth. All we need is air, fire, and... whatever other elements there are.”

“Cool,” Theo said, tossing the ball of water around. “Actually, this might be really helpful for alchemy. I wonder if it works on essences.”

Theo messed around with his new water powers as the tear waited. He could keep the tower drained without the help of the Artifice pumps with no problem, but eventually Xol'sa came, and it was time to get to work. Theo slotted his Shadow core as the man descended the steps.

“Uh, we’re cleaning up another tower today, are we?” Xol'sa asked, shaking his head. “It’s just a shame we can’t do anything to preserve them.”

"Nothing we can do about that," Theo said. "Problem is, we'll be up to our eyeballs, and Franks, if we're not careful."

“Right. Are we ready to try this out?” Xol’sa asked.

The plan this time was the same as last time. Theo would exploit his future sight to see if one of his nukes would go off underwater. He wouldn't Shadow Wrap the first one, just test if it would work. The alchemist would toss the bomb in, and if Tresk didn’t return immediately, he knew the bomb had gone off. She was in absolutely no danger, as things that happened in his future sight didn't come true if he didn't let them. So the plan was technically safe, if not grim.

"Ready," Theo said, holding the bomb up. Xol'sa wrapped it in his extraplanar energy, and Theo tossed it through the portal. A moment later, he watched as a spectral version of Tresk traveled through, only to return immediately. "That one didn't work. I don't think the bomb went off underwater. This might complicate things."

The bomb needed very simple conditions to explode. It basically only needed to hit something hard, no matter what it was. Normally that meant the ground, but if the inner chambers of the multi-layered bomb didn't break, then the entire thing wouldn't work. The group started brainstorming ideas on how to get the bomb to go off. They could commission an artifice that broke it automatically, or any other number of complicated things, but the Alchemist had a simple solution.

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A metal golem lumbered down the stairs of the tower. Its rumbling steps were shaking sediment loose from the walls. There was barely enough room for the four of them down at the bottom, but this was the perfect delivery system.

"I've got a question," Tresk said. "Why didn't you use the golem to test your future sight bomb detection system the first time?"

"It's more fun when it's you,” Theo said with a wink. "All right, let's see if this works."

Theo had all the intent of issuing an order to his golem to head into the portal and return. If the bomb didn't detonate when it smashed it, he watched as the spectral version of the giant metal creature headed in, but didn’t return.

"Alrighty, that one worked," Theo said, nodding to himself. He applied the bonuses from his Shadow Core to another bomb and handed it over to the golem. A moment later, Xol'sa covered it in his energy, and the golem passed through the entrance. This time, the stone frame of the dungeon rumbled.

"We'll need to wait a bit to see if this works," Xol'sa said, inspecting the frame of the dungeon. "I'm not sure if we'll have some time dilation nonsense from the explosion interacting with the dungeon's energy, but we'll see."

Of course, they didn't have to wait. Theo exploited the combination of his connection with Tresk and his future site to look inside and give them a report. The bomb had worked. It had gone off right near the entrance and sent a high-pressure shock wave out. It seemed to have killed the monsters inside, but it was hard to tell from the murky entrance.

They would unfortunately need to mount an expedition. Which is why Aarok was waiting at the top of the tower with a team of adventurers. Theo sent a few more golems in with bombs, just to be sure. One could never have enough bombs.

"Physics be damned," Theo said, rolling his shoulders as he stepped through the dungeon's portal. He had concerns about keeping the water and pressure off of him, but trusted in the world's magic. It didn't hurt that he could rely on his overwhelming willpower to make something happen. If that didn't do the trick, he had watched himself go in and create an enormous bubble for them to survive inside made things even easier to accept.

The crushing pressure inside the dungeon was immediate and almost deadly. With his Water Sorcerer's Core, Theo focused on pushing all the water away from himself. Physics said that air shouldn't have rushed in, but it did. He couldn't know where it came from, and he didn't care. The one thing that amazed him was how large the bubble was. It spread out, surrounding his body at first, then it encompassed the portal he had just arrived through, and then much of the surrounding area. Moments later, the rest of the adventuring team came through, including Xol'sa.

"How long can you hold that up?" Aarok asked, patting his hand on Theo’s shoulder.

"Forever," Theo said with a shrug. He wasn't pushing his willpower to its limit, not even a little bit. He was confident he could encompass a much larger area than he was currently shielding from the crushing depths of the water.

"The dungeon core should be this way," Xol’sa said, "just forward." And the party set off.

It was incredibly eerie watching the deep ocean scene outside of the bubble. The group had to bring lights to illuminate the area, otherwise it would have simply been too dark. Still, shapes moved on the other side of the bubble: massive sea creatures that had somehow avoided the bomb. Perhaps they were used to the intense pressure and the shock waves that didn't affect them. Theo expanded the bubble, and he was glad he had done so.

A massive shark-like monster fell through the barrier, slamming against the seabed and flopping around helplessly. That was their one advantage here in this dungeon. The monsters that could survive the depths couldn't survive within his bubble, and the adventurers made quick work of it.

"It turns out the Ocean Dungeon’s strongest points are weakest against your abilities, Theo,” Xol'sas said with a chuckle.

This small bit of levity didn't take Theo's attention away from the largest of the dark shapes moving through on the other side of his bubble. He expanded it out again, tapping into about half of his willpower to hold up an area about the size of a Qavell. It was ridiculous to think of, but he didn't want any probing ocean monsters to sweep in and get any of his people. The walk was mostly boring. They made their way across the ocean's floor and eventually found their way to the dungeon core.

"It might take me a minute to work," Xol'sa said, cracking his knuckles as he approached the core.

Tresk nudged Theo in the ribs and pointed upward. "Giant squid," she said in a low voice.

Theo swallowed hard as he looked up, and it was the creature he had seen several times before, but he hadn't wanted to say anything. As Xol'sa did his work, the creature seemed to probe the outside of the bubble. Shouts of surprise came when one of the tentacles shot through the surface, slapping against the ground and probing the area as though it was looking for something. Which meant the monster was roughly the size of a city.

"What's up with the negative dungeons creating monsters of unreasonable size?" Theo grumbled.

“Never trust a M.O.U.S.,” Tresk said, shaking her head.

Brought to this, provided an opportunity while Theo was distracted by maintaining the bubble. The adventurers did battle with the tentacles of the monster. They weren't able to engage with it properly, but when the appendages came back down, they slashed at them or hurled arrows and spells. Of course, that gave Tresk time to harvest materials from the monster. When she had found enough that Theo was satisfied, she stuck the creature with a dagger infused with venom, and then it backed off.

The sound of a mournful cry came from outside the bubble, vibrating the ground as the giant squid retreated. Unfortunately for the monster, thanks to the potency of the venom, it would continue taking damage almost forever. Theo would almost feel bad if it wasn't such a horrifying sight. But overall, this dungeon went far better than the last one. Xol'sa worked his magic on the core and soon had it overloading. Then they were given a certain amount of time to retreat and headed straight for the entrance.

The party all traveled safely through the dungeon's entrance, heading to the other side. Although the dungeon would collapse soon enough, the party was still required to assemble at the top of the tower, waiting for it to be destroyed. If anything were to break out while they were waiting, they would need to respond swiftly.

"Check it out," Tresk said, withdrawing an item from their shared inventory. It was a massive chunk of monster meat she had taken from that carved from the squid monster. Theo took the spongy material in his hand and inspected it.

[Xotl Flesh]

[Alchemy Ingredient] [Ascendant Xotl Ingredient]

Legendary

The flesh of an ascendant xotl. Known as terrors of the sea, the xotl terrorize the seas, attacking and eating anything they can find. They have a very high affinity with water, and this reagent reflects that.

Properties:

[????] [????] [????]

"This is very strange," Theo said, inspecting the reagent. "There's a spirit fruit called the Xotl Orange. I always thought the creature it was named after was a mythological thing, but I guess they're real."

"You know how these negative dungeons are," Tresk said, taking a bit of the flesh and inspecting the red-orange color on the surface. "It may as well be making everything up."

Theo was certain of one thing. Tresk had had enough sense to harvest quite a lot of the flesh. As long as they kept it in storage, he could use it in potion making for as long as they were still on this planet. And he was eager to see what kind of water-aligned properties it would have. The orange didn't have many interesting things, and it was difficult to get a lot of them.

"Can we cook it?" Sarisa asked, appearing from nowhere to sniff the lump of flesh. "I would like to cook it."

Theo held the chunk of meat out for her and laughed to himself. "Just to be warned, I'm pretty sure consuming ascendant flesh changes you."

"On second thought, let's not eat it. I don't want to turn into a giant squid," Sarisa said.

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