Jade stood up, “I’ll lure it towards me, you grab and pull it out of the water so that I can attack it, alright?”
“Got it.”
Jade took her short blade out of her scabbard and with her other hand she splashed onto the surface of the pool. A shadow in the water sped in her direction. Jade waited for the last possible moment and pulled away her hand. The creature bit down on nothing but air and water. Acantha shot her vines towards the monster and wrapped around it. It growled and wriggled and Acantha strained to keep the monster constrained. Without hesitation, Jade drove her blade through the creatures skull. When it stopped wriggling, Acantha put it on the edge of the pool. Jade let out her breath slowly and relaxed her body, allowing herself to drop to the floor.
“Jade,” said Acantha, “We should get Morn.”
“Oh,” Jade sprung up, “Right.”
They dragged Morn out of the water and put them besides Lumira. It took a few minutes before they were able to move their limbs again.
“Good job,” said Lumira, “I’m glad that you can handle yourselves without me.”
Acantha raised an eyebrow at her.
“Imagine how this would have ended if we were not able to breathe underwater,” said Jade.
Morn grunted and said, “I rather not.”
Lumira stood up carefully, still unsure if her legs could carry her full weight and she walked to the creatures body that lay on the edge of the pool. She poked at it’s skin and looked into its mouth.
“Apart from the temporary paralysis,” she said, “The creature looks pretty harmless. It doesn’t even have teeth.”
Morn dove into the pool and swam towards the valve that Graham had pointed them towards. According to Graham, the monsters purpose had been to protect the valve and getting to it would provide them with a way out of here. Morn resurfaced and looked around, nothing changed.
“Huh,” said Lumira, “Maybe I should give it a try.”
They heard a murmur outside the double doors. Someone said quite clearly:
“Do you think it got them yet?”
Acantha’s face turned from green to orange. She stood up and slammed the doors open. Eight people stood huddled around the entrance.
“They’re alive!”
“But how?”
“What happened?”
“They killed the creature!”
“Oh no,” said Graham, “Who will help us wash away our sins?”
“I’m sure you’ll figure it out,” said Acantha, eyes were shooting fire.
“Hey, I know,” a younger looking villager spoke up, “Maybe we can stop committing sins.”
“Shut up, Dirk,” said Graham.
“Let’s get out of here,” said Acantha to her friends.
The villagers let them pass through, staring at them in disbelief or annoyance. When they had walked back to the water tunnel, the villagers roused everyone for a village meeting to discuss what to do with the body of the monster that had served them all those years by drowning them in the name of the Sun. The second topic on the agenda would be a brainstorm session to come up with new ways of providing the Sun with offerings. Acantha shook her head disapprovingly, her cheeks were still a bit flustered.
“This,” said Lumira, “This is the reason why Totems cannot be trusted. Look what it does to people! Putting your faith in some apparently all-knowing, all-powerful creature. It turns them into sheep. Sheeple!”
“Nobody asked for your expert opinion,” said Acantha.
Jade felt tugging on her pants and stopped to find an elfling staring up at her.
“Please, take me with you.”
“I can’t just take you away,” said Jade, she squatted down so she was on eye level with the child, “What about your parents?”
“I don’t know about my parents, I’m scared, please, I think they are going to kill me.”
Jade looked at the girl who was holding a plush toy bear and looked like she was around seven years old. Behind her, Jade saw the gathering of villagers in front of the pool house.
“Right,” said Jade, “But, I assume you cannot breathe underwater, that means you could drown. Do you understand that?”
“I understand. I am sure that it will not be worse than what they will do to me.”
Jade turned to her friends to find Morn had already gone through the water tunnel. Lumira and Acantha stood gesturing to her to get a move on.
“Hold on to me,” said Jade to the girl, who responded by throwing her arms around Jade’s waist. “And hold your breath.” They shot through the water tunnel and Jade held her tight.
As soon as she exited the tunnel, Jade kicked at the floor to propel herself and the child upward. The elfling gasped for air.
“Are you ok?”
“Yes, thank you,” said the elfling.
“The waterfalls have stopped,” said Lumira, “Perhaps turning the vault did do something. Maybe there was some truth to what Graham told us.”
“If this building is the way out, we should get the rest,” said Jade.
“I’ll do it,” volunteered Lumira, “Unlike you, I have the ability to jump back up to the door that we came from. I’ll find my way back to Seamstress.”
“Alright,” agreed Acantha.
“Then we should see if we can now reach the lever at the top,” said Jade.
“Yeah, you do that,” Acantha said, “I’ll go stand by the fence to see if it goes up.”
Jade turned towards the child and said, “I’m going to leave you with Morn for a bit, alright?”
Jade went through the water tunnel and found that, indeed she was able to walk her way to the lever upstairs now that the water had stopped falling down. When she returned to Morn and the girl, she saw that another waterfall had disappeared and a large tunnel entrance was revealed.
“I guess we should get Acantha, huh,” proposed Jade. Morn grunted something that sounded like:
“Fine, I’ll wait.”
Jade picked up Acantha from where she had been staring at the unmoved portcullis.
“Wow, that is one large tunnel. I really hope this is the exit,” said Acantha.
“I hope Lumira hurries up and finds everyone. It would be nice if we can cast the ritual of waterbreathing again so that we can all breathe underwater.”
Jade offered her hand to the elfling and she happily grabbed it, with her other hand she held her soaked plushie. Like that, the four of them climbed out of the water and went into the tunnel.
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