Chapter 2350 Looping Around

--- Lily ---

Zipping along through the current was actually kind of fun once you got the hang of it. Extra fast and really speedy. Lily could eventually see the light at the end of the tunnel, and even if it wasn’t all that close to the portal. She could hopefully use this exit to find the real way. She’d been on the lookout for other paths while in the current, and none stood out... though admittedly she was moving very swiftly and they might not have been super clear from the angles she’d been watching from.

Still, the light... wait what? Lily shot out of the tunnel and into the open sky. Not a lit up cave, not some sort of mossy section, but fully outside, where the water was draining away into nothing. Lily flared her wings and pulled upwards as swiftly as possible, careful to angle herself back towards the island before she could get too far away. *Shit! I wasn’t expecting to end up outside. Do I have time to keep looking? How long do I have left with this potion?*

Lily also had no real idea of where she was or how to get back to everyone. Just a vague guess at the direction. Deciding not to waste time Lily quickly glided back towards where she thought the other two were... and found them decently quickly. They weren’t nearby but the relative lack of cloud interference and the fact Appoline had her alchemy setup going meant spotting them from a distance wasn’t too bad. The lack of waterfalls helped as well she supposed.

It took a few minutes, as Lily glided down next to Appoline softly. "Ah welcome back. I’m working on some more waterbreathing potions. Did you find the portal?" Lily shook her head. "Some other exit then?" Lily nodded. "Hmmm... give me one moment this one is nearly done. Then I’ll have you hop up on the ingredients table and see how long that one has left..."

Lily nodded again and waited patiently. Flying up a bit to see what the potion looked like. The cauldron was bubbling a lot, which Lily supposed made sense. What was less usual was that all the bubbles were contained within the water. They formed, floated around, and then popped as if that was a completely normal thing for them to do. The air just seemed to be spontaneously generated and none of the bubbles reached the surface. Or rather, some tried and then bounced off, as if there was a layer of glass over the top keeping them in or something.

The fact Appoline could easily scoop out and bottle them all not long after proved this wasn’t really the case, it simply looked that way. Soon there was a number of bubbling bottles and Appoline turned to Lily who floated down to the table. Soon Appoline was examining things while frowning. "Hmmm... yes good thing you came back. Looking at this in action I’d say you have another ten minutes before this stuff breaks,"

Lily’s eyes widened. *Oh dear, maybe it was a good thing I stumbled back here. I don’t know what I would have done if I’d run out of air. Well, no, I can hold my breath for a while so I would’ve had some extra time. Wait... how much air do I have left? I’ve been a bit careful but not too careful just in case.*

Lily decided to transform and ask, she wasn’t going to risk it anyway, so no reason to worry if this one broke. As the transformation settled, she found her mouth and nose free, or at least, the potion wasn’t still working. She’d have to transform again to see for sure. "That’s fine, I guess I can grab another one... though how much air was left in it?"

Appoline shrugged, "No good way to tell with those ones. You can transform back and I can try to find out?"

"Didn’t you say it’d break?" asked Lily.

"It probably has, but I’ve got no other way to tell you," countered Appoline with a slight glare. Accepting that answer Lily transformed back... and found that as expected the potion had broken in the transformation. There wasn’t anything around her mouth and nose anymore. Appoline just shrugged as Lily transformed again.

"Welp, kind of expected that. How long do these ones last?" asked Lily.

"Exactly one hour and I’ve made it so that they started to flash when they get close to running out. I’m not entirely sure how much of a warning that’s going to be, because they might flash lightly for ten minutes, or ten seconds. It’s hard to know without testing, but it should give you at least SOME warning to take in a deep breath. What’s the plan for now? Are we all diving or digging or what?" asked Appoline.

"Did you make any more digging stuff?" asked Lily.

Appoline shook her head. "Don’t have more ingredients for it."

"Then it’s fine, I’ll duck back into the water and try again to find the entrance. These last for one hour?" Lily double checked.

"Yeah, and you can stack them too. If I give you two doses that’s two hours... or well, it’ll probably be closer to an hour a fifty-five minutes because there’s some slight diminishing returns, but I thought making them mergeable like that would be for the best. Oh, and there’s less diminishment if the original has mostly rundown, and more if you take like, five. That probably wouldn’t be much past four hours if you’re even that lucky," explained Appoline.

"Alright, keep... relaxing or brewing or whatever I’m taking another look," stated Lily as she downed the potion once more and dived back into the water. She soon found the entrance... and that damned fish was still watching. What for? Lily still didn’t know... though the entrance had sealed itself up a bit. Not enough that Lily needed to cut her way in again, but it was about half repaired.

Lily didn’t bother getting into a staring match with the fish as she passed into the tunnel. That damned thing had been staring far, far too long at the entrance for her to think she had a chance. Once again, only thing she could do was eat the thing and Lily wasn’t quite tempted enough just yet. So off into the tunnel once again. Keeping very good track of where exactly she was. On the leadup to the crab, Lily poked Kat a bit.

*Nearly back with us?*

[Yes actually. I can’t SEE the island for obvious reasons and it’s harder to tell without you around but I think I’m close. I’d give it maybe an hour maximum? As I said it’s harder to say without you guiding me there but I haven’t needed to go around or anything. Just dip lower a few times to avoid some other islands and stuff. Should still be right on track.]

*Alright good to hear.*

When Lily did get to the crab’s hiding spot, or rather, a few steps back from it she didn’t wait. Her shadows form into a giant meat tenderising hammer with wicked looking spikes and slammed it down into the wall. The crab revealed itself with a shriek... and so Lily just kept slamming it down. The crab tried to block it with a pincer but its larger, sturdier one was already quite damaged from the first encounter and the second wasn’t strong enough.

Eventually, after quite a lot of attacks the crab stopped moving. Stone-like carapace floating around along with a good deal of blood. Just to be safe though Lily formed a giant spike and sent it right through where its brain should be. Lily watched for twitching or something... but no, seemed it was already dead.

Gathering up the floating bits and pieces, Lily hooked them as best she could into the wall, making use of the hole the crab had... maybe dug? Or simply found to keep everything from floating away. Hopefully whatever was useful Appoline could grab when they went back through this later.

Lily turned back to the rest of the cave and continued to swim, carefully this time. Though as soon as she rounded the corner the rapids were pretty clearly visible. Even if you couldn’t see the currents, the fact that the tunnel just sort of ended at a T-junction gave it away pretty clearly. So Lily made her way to the edge and reached a shadow out to confirm the water was rushing past.

*Alright so I probably want to backtrack. It’s not certain there’s another path that way, and honestly I could be in completely the wrong area... but logically, it should be there. I didn’t find any other secret tunnels and I refuse to believe Thyme is quite that negligent of peoples time. Just have to be careful. Maybe... move along with a shadow harness? I might be able to swim against the current but it would be a lot of effort and I’m not all that certain I can anyway. Just gotta work out the shape...*