Chapter 65 – Longest Spear to the Worm

She zoomed straight up and appeared under the little whale. She had seven more seconds of Terminate, and she wasn’t sure what would fail her first: her ability to hold her breath that long or the inability to get anywhere near the surface before Terminate ended.

One!

She looked for another entity higher up. She saw Lurim only a few feet away. That wasn’t good enough. She turned upwards and saw another whale.

Two!

[Vainfall: Frame Selected Entity]

Hopping over, she looked at another entity. She saw a whale, almost leapt at it, but then she saw a small fish considerably higher.

[Vainfall: Frame Selected Entity]

Three!

She had hundreds of feet to go. She reached into the belt and grabbed the telescope again. This time, paired with depth sense, she managed to hop at least a hundred feet. It was a whale on its way down from the surface.

Half!

She targeted it right away.

[Vainfall: Frame Selected Entity]

Appearing under it, looking for the next entity with wild eyes. On her right, she caught a glimpse of a dark silhouette.

The second Terminate activated. It was the fourth and final Terminate of this sequence. The world started flickering around her like a faulty light bulb. 

One.

[Vainfall: Frame Selected Entity]

Now she was closer to the surface, but at least a hundred and fifty feet away. She wasn’t saved just yet. The Desert Rose had to be around somewhere. The world was flickering around her. Visual artifacts appeared from the corners of her vision. 

Two.

She had leapt into the water far away from it. The ship was to her left. She targeted one of the circling whales through the telescope. 

[Vainfall: Frame Selected Entity]

As she appeared under it, she was being blocked by the whale itself. She was still at least thirty feet below water, and her brain wanted her to take a breath. 

Darya clamped her nose and mouth shut with one hand.  The world shattered. 

Three. 

By some stroke of luck, she spotted master Lam swimming around whales near Desert Rose’s hull. That was the fastest way up. If she was going to drown, doing it in front of him was safer than letting it happen under a whale. 

[Frame Selected Entity]

Half. 

Darya appeared two feet away from master Lam and watched the prediction dots splash off towards him. The monochrome world was already fading. Everything was catching up, but the world was fracturing. Black glitches took over everything, and with the last bit of momentum, she slipped into the void. 

[/dev]

She lost her form and spread into the empty void. The dashboard appeared, but she didn’t do anything with it. She gave herself an indeterminate amount of time to calm down. She could feel her heart racing even without her body. The void accommodated her breathing exercises, soothing techniques, and everything else. 

She was going to find herself materializing in cold water. There was nothing she could do to brace herself. She was determined to keep the hand clamped over her mouth and nose for as long as possible. 

Clenching her imaginary fists and tightening her imaginary gut, Darya closed the void. 

[/close]

A burst of bubbles erupted around her as the last Terminate finished. The sudden momentum had her rotating in place. She caught glimpses of master Lam doing the underwater version of a jolt. 

It looked like he was about to have a heart attack. Bubbles escaped from his mouth as Darya did her very best to suffocate herself. The water felt like knives against her skin. 

She managed to thrash around and gesture up like a wild animal in distress as master Lam came for her with outstretched arms. 

Everything was darkening. She felt his arms wrap around her. She felt a jolt. 

Darkness. 

She woke up as if nothing had happened. She was taking the world’s longest breath, opening her mouth like an industrial vacuum. Her chest hurt. Master Lam was under her, hoisting her above the water surface. 

Darya took several good breaths, saw stars in the corners of her eyes, and slumped backwards. Master Lam poked his head out of the water with a splash. 

“What was that!” he yelled, rubbing her wet eyes. “Princess! How did you end up there?!” 

“Just flying around,” Darya said, immediately going into a coughing fit. 

Master Lam patted her back, holding her upright from her waist. “You could’ve drowned! breathe slow and steady now!” 

Darya grabbed his forearm, trying to catch her breath properly. Just when she could finally speak, she started telling him everything. 

“Nerima is at the bottom, don’t ask how. I was just there. I put a potion on her wound to stop it from bleeding,” she paused for a breath. 

“I know, thank the gods! She was passed out. Lurim’s working on it. I can’t go that deep. I’m working on getting the ship the hell out of here.” He waved his hand at the whales below. 

“Lurim shouldn’t go that far down. He won’t make it out. Something’s got Nerima suspended with a weird mana light. I had to come back up before freeing her. Lurim’s keeping her from being dragged down further.”

“Damn it all, I’m going back to Lurim.” Master Lam dropped his head back into the water. He almost started diving right away. 

“Wait! I’ll go straight back down. You wait here,” Darya said. “Lurim’s all yours. Don’t let him leave his whale. Tell him to tie that rope on a bigger whale. I think all the big ones he had went down to protect Nerima. That little whale can’t pull it alone.”

“Can you really go that far down, princess?” master lam asked. 

“Yes. I can hop between living things. I need them placed all the way down. Two or three good ones will do. I can use the telescope to see them.”

“How?! It’s dark—”

“Don’t ask questions. Can you and Lurim stay in one place where I can spot you? Any ideas?”

Master Lam swallowed, looking down. “We can stay in one place, but spotting us will be a problem. I have to bring Lurim up here. Only he can talk with whales.”

He started swimming, carrying her near the Desert Rose. Once near the hull, he let her grab onto the ship. “Stay here, I’ll be right back!” 

Darya clung on, flipping through hundreds of ideas to solve this problem. She had to get rid of that worm thing to free Nerima. She had many ways to do it, but very few were safe enough. 

She had to do it within the span of four continuous Terminates again. That was only fourteen seconds. At best, three seconds up and down. That left only eight seconds to do what had to be done, which would barely be enough, with zero margin for error. 

Both Lam and Lurim surfaced with splashes. Lurim was staring at her through his glowing eyes, his face stuck in a permanently worried expression. 

“What did he say?” 

“He didn’t say anything. He’s three. I told him what to do. We sent a big whale to pull the rope on the way up, and Lurim and I can stay with one whale each, facing down, pulsing mana. Can you spot that from the deep?” 

“Should be good enough. I’ll go down in straight lines, and come back up following the exact same ones. Here to you,” she pointed at master Lam. “You to Lurim,” she pointed at the boy. “Him to Nerima,” she said. "And that fucking worm.” 

Master Lam Swallowed. 

“The less time that trip takes, the more time I have to save Nerima. Lam, you go as deep as you possibly can. Lurim should stay right below you. His last point was fine. The whales aren’t doing the circle beyond it. He’ll get eaten if he goes out of the circle.”

Master Lam quickly did some signs at Lurim. They were more crude than how Nerima did them, but the boy nodded eagerly. 

“I’m definitely going to free Nerima within seconds. It’s the return trip that’s going to be a problem. Now you two know I’m down there. If I somehow drown all the way down there, I’ll just be dead. There’s nothing you can do. If I drown somewhere not that deep, which is the more likely case, then Lurim can bring me up, and hopefully Seris can fix me.” 

“A-are you sure about this?!” master Lam asked, eyes wide. “I can’t let you die, Princess!” 

“Good, then make sure I don’t. I can’t let Nerima die.” Darya waved her hand at the water. “Ready when you are.”

Master Lam threw several signs at Lurim with trembling hands. Lurim stared directly at Darya for a second, eyes wide. He argued with Lam, but the conversation was quick. Lurim leapt up and dove back into the deep. 

Darya waited another minute and activated the depth buffer. 

[Vainfall: Overlay Depth Buffer]

She watched Lam settle into place, at least five hundred feet down. It was the only whale heading vertically down. The regular mana pulse was visible even in the gray world. 

She gave Lurim another few minutes to settle. He was a dot in the depths. She couldn’t spot him without the telescope at all.

It was ready down. Two anchor points. 

Darya breathed in and out. She took the largest breath she possibly could and held it in. 

[Vainfall: Terminate Twice]

[Vainfall: Frame Selected Entity]

Zooming straight down, she appeared a few feet away from Master Lam, who was looking up at her. The trip took a full second for that stretch. 

One. 

Lurim wasn’t perfectly straight down. She had to move for a bit to find him. 

[Vainfall: Frame Selected Entity]

She appeared a few feet away from him, glowing eyes staring up like two bulbs. The whale’s mana pulse was perfectly frozen with the Terminate, making its silhouette large enough to spot from a distance. 

That’s lucky timing. 

Two. 

From there, Darya could see the little whale and the rope going into the depths. She already knew trying to find Nerima at this angle was going to be a waste of time. 

[Vainfall: Frame Selected Entity]

That took way less than a second. She aimed directly down. Nerima was another few hundred feet down, still suspended mid-air. Her posture had changed. She was curled forward. 

Wait. Did she wake up somehow?! Good news if she did. 

Up here, she had to execute her perfectly safe genius plan to whack that big worm at the bottom. She grabbed her gauntlet and targeted Nerima. 

[Vainfall: Frame Selected Entity]

Three. Maybe a little more. 

Appearing above Nerima, Darya pulled her hand off the right gauntlet. She could already see prediction dots; the last half second was already underway. 

[Vainfall: Terminate Twice]

[Vainfall: Terminate Twice]

[Vainfall: Terminate Twice]

[Vainfall: Terminate Twice]

The fourth one activated during the last half second. 

The next step was a bit more experimental than she thought, but she knew it would definitely work. The moment her hand came off the gauntlet Manacer, it turned black and white and froze. 

[Vainfall: Edit Collider Wireframe]

She grabbed one of the vertices, looking directly at the gigantic worm looming under Nerima. Her heart was at his throat. She had no idea how deep it was, but luckily, it was looking up straight down from Nerima. 

[Vainfall: Frame Selected Entity]

She went so far down. It was definitely more than one second. Now was the time to pray to Gods she didn’t believe in. She counted ahead, just to be safe. 

Two. 

The worm was bigger than the largest eel thing that she fought earlier. She had targeted its open maw where the mana light was coming from. It was so large, she appeared at least two hundred feet away from it. 

She let go of the vertex, confirming the edit. 

Three.

As part of her plan, she had initially considered making a collider that was very different from a sharp point, but now that she knew the distance and the creature's true size, she was paranoid about the remaining time. 

She looked straight up and targeted the tiny dark shape that was Nerima. 

[Vainfall: Frame Selected Entity] 

She appeared a few feet away beneath Nerima. Her posture had changed by inches even through the negligible gaps between Terminate activations. 

Half. She’s thrashing around. Panicked out of her mind. 

Darya pushed herself towards her gauntlet, which was another few feet away. She actually made a small mistake. It didn’t go as smoothly as she planned. 

One. Lost that whole second.

Once positioned properly, she slid her hand into it, already forming a fist. She couldn’t wear the gauntlet perfectly again with the remaining time. It was just the handle of a very long spear aimed directly at the worm. 

Pouring mana from her hand, she watched the Manacer regain its color as it left the monochrome world. 

She made sure to freeze her posture as much as possible, and targeted the worm again. Red mana burst from the gauntlet scales.

Two. 

[Vainfall: Frame Selected Entity]

She went down that same distance, driving the sharp end of the collider straight into the worm’s open maw.