Chapter 182 — Current and Current

Chapter 182: Chapter 182 — Current and Current

They left the tunnel where the Hydra had fallen and pushed on for the better part of three days, and Arlen found the pace considerably brisker than anything the trip had offered so far — Ilyana clearly mindful of the ground still left to cover before their two weeks properly ran out.

"We’ll move faster through Thirteen," she said, the morning after the Hydra fight. "Less lingering, more covering distance. You’ve got the basics settled now. Time to see how much of this region actually looks like, rather than studying every stretch in careful detail."

Floor Thirteen proved narrower than Twelve’s open lake, a genuine maze of interconnected flooded tunnels that demanded constant, careful navigation rather than the leisurely exploration of the days before. The party moved through it with brisk, practiced efficiency, engaging only what crossed their path directly rather than seeking anything out.

A school of Abyssal Pike tested their formation briefly on the first day, scattering before Rurik’s raw strength cleared a path through their loose, aggressive cluster. A solitary Ironclaw Lobster blocked a narrow passage on the second, and Grennig simply shouldered it aside with his shield rather than bother with a proper fight.

"Not everything needs killing," he said, when Arlen raised an eyebrow at the casual dismissal. "Especially not when we’re trying to actually cover ground."

Arlen took the lesson properly, adjusting his own instincts accordingly — engaging when the fight came to them, letting the rest pass by unbothered, the accumulated practice of days already spent down here settling into something considerably closer to genuine competence than the anxious, deliberate calculation he’d carried into his very first solo dive.

They reached Floor Fourteen on the third day, the terrain shifting once more into something Arlen hadn’t yet properly encountered — vast, submerged forests of pale, waving kelp-like growth stretching in every direction, thick enough in places to genuinely obscure visibility beyond a few careful body-lengths.

"Slower here," Ilyana warned, as they entered the growth. "Plenty of things use this cover to hunt. Stay close, stay alert."

The warning proved well-founded within the hour. A Deepclaw Crab, considerably larger than anything Arlen had yet fought, burst from the kelp’s dense cover directly into Osric’s flank, and the party responded with the same practiced, wordless coordination Arlen had come to genuinely admire — Grennig’s shield interposing before the strike could properly land, Kess’s claws finding the creature’s exposed joint before it could recover, the whole engagement ending almost before Arlen had properly registered the danger.

"Fast reflexes," he said, genuinely impressed, once the creature had fallen.

"Years of exactly this," Osric said, unbothered by how close the ambush had actually come. "You’ll build the same instincts eventually, working this deep long enough."

They pushed on through the kelp forest, and it was Arlen who spotted the next opportunity — a lone creature drifting at the edge of the dense growth, its body long and eel-like, faintly crackling with visible arcs of pale, blue-white energy that danced across its scales with each slow undulation.

"That’s new," he said, studying it with immediate, genuine interest.

"Thunder Eel," Ilyana identified, something approving in her tone. "Electrical discharge, mostly defensive rather than aggressive unless properly cornered. Rank Four. Careful with the water around it — the charge travels."

Arlen approached cautiously, mindful of the warning, and found the creature’s electrical nature immediately apparent even at a careful distance — faint, crackling arcs jumping between its scales and the surrounding water in slow, rhythmic pulses.

Careful. Don’t want to be standing in the water when that discharges properly.

He circled wide, using the kelp’s cover for concealment rather than direct approach, and found Duskveil’s familiar, thinning quality settling naturally into the water around him, muting his presence at the edges of the creature’s awareness even through the medium’s usual difficulty for stealth.

He closed the distance in a careful, patient approach, and struck the moment he judged himself close enough — a clean, committed thrust that caught the creature before it could properly discharge in retaliation.

It convulsed, a genuine burst of electricity crackling outward through the surrounding water, and Arlen felt the charge catch his own exposed skin in a sharp, unpleasant jolt even from several body-lengths clear of the actual creature.

"Careful!" Kess called, though the warning came a half-second too late to matter.

He gritted through the discomfort and finished it with a second strike before it could properly recover, and surfaced afterward at the nearest air pocket, shaking his stinging hand with genuine, if minor, complaint.

"That’s why I said careful," Ilyana said, though her tone carried more amusement than actual concern. "Manageable, though. You’ll feel that for an hour, not a day."

He harvested what he could, the creature’s electrical organs proving considerably more delicate to extract than anything he’d handled so far, and made camp with the others as the kelp forest’s dim, ambient light began its own slow, gradual dimming toward evening.

He ate slowly that night, curious despite the lingering, faint sting still working its way out of his hand, and found the warmth arriving partway through his meal — sharper this time, crackling faintly at the edges the way the creature’s own discharge had, though the sensation itself carried no actual pain.

A name surfaced, whole and certain.

Lightning Strike

He sat with it a moment, and understood immediately, completely, exactly what it offered — lightning gathered and loosed, sharp and decisive in a way nothing else he carried quite managed.

That’s the one. That’s exactly what I’ve been missing.

He didn’t test it, same discipline as every ability before it this trip, though the temptation sat considerably sharper this time than it had with either water ability.

Home first. Then I’ll see properly what this can actually do.

He settled in for the night’s rest, the kelp forest’s strange, drifting quiet settling around him, and found himself, turning the day’s accumulated progress over with genuine satisfaction — three new understandings gathered so far this trip, each one patiently waiting, and Floor Fourteen, he suspected, still holding at least a little more before they finally turned back toward everything waiting above.