Double-Blind: A Modern LITRPG

Chapter 227

Of all the many possibilities Id accounted for before embarking into the tower, riding a whale wasnt one of them.

This is some real Studio Ghibli shit. Nicks face was white as a sheet as he clung to the long coil of rope encircling the whale.

You were the one all amped on following fate, I growled, not feeling much better. Just being in the open ocean put my nerves on edge. Wed waited an hour for my mana to regenerate, and a quick internal check put it at just over half, which was hopefully enough. Assuming we didnt drown, which was probably the worst that could happen.

What if we get the bends? Nick whispered.

The what? I asked.

What do you mean, the what? He grinned. Oh my. Do I actually know something you dont?

Shut up.

Sourpuss. My Uncle told me about it when we went scuba-diving. Nick answered, reciting the information. You dive deep enough, atmospheric pressure compresses stuff in your body. But if you come up too quickly, it can get released in the wrong place, like your bloodstream.

Great. I felt the blood drain out of my face. Audrey was up front, closest to the whales head. Audrey? Any chance your thrall told you how deep were going?

Audrey cocked her head. No. I ask. She leaned down and did something. I wasnt sure if she was using or if they had some other sort of connection because of . Either way, she seemed keyed into the whale in a similar way that Id keyed into Keith.

From what shed said earlier, the whale was terrified. Not of a sea monster or something worse, but a fissure deep below the surface. There was a crack in the stone wall of the bluffs far beneath the surface exuding something Audrey translated as gross, that made it difficult to see. More notably, the fissure was pulling in seawater indiscriminately, sucking in any ocean creature that drew near. It was impossible to say whether the anomaly was a ripple or something else, but it fit the bill if Nick was right, and there was something for us to find in these exact circumstances.

After Audreys stunt, I was beginning to wonder if he was right.

Deep. Audrey cocked her head as the whale let out a low, moaning rumble. Less deep than deep deep. I groaned, Nick echoing me a second later. The system helped with translation at certain points, but apparently not with specific metrics.

Did he tell you how to avoid it? I asked Nick.

Nick mulled that over. Exhale slowly as you rise and dont come up too fast.

Is it even an issue if youre free-diving? Not breathing from an oxygen tank?

Dunno. Nick shrugged.

I rubbed the bridge of my nose, suddenly exhausted. Id decided toat least in the short-termfollow Nicks lead and go with the flow. If there was even a slight chance he was right, it was worth looking into. Even if every fiber of my being was screaming to back out.

Better to just get it over with.

Okay. Audrey, if I tap you, it means Im at my limit and we need to go back to the surface. I said, wrapping my mind around what we were about to do.

What if Im at my limit? Nick asked nervously.

Then tap me, and Ill tap Audrey. For now, deep breath. I elbowed Nick, then gripped the rope with both hands. Audrey, tell her to take us down.

The whale jerked into motion far more abruptly than expected, plunging us into warm water that quickly grew cold. My ears popped shortly after, the speed with which we were moving making impossible to see the dark blue of the surrounding ocean through more than a slit.

The little I could see grew darker and darker still, as the depth and pressure increased. Above, the scattered reflection of the sun was still visible, though watching the glowing amber above grow more faint exacerbated my anxiety by the second.

I counted down from sixty slowly, trying to keep track of the time even as my lungs burned.

Darkness seeped into the surrounding water, dyeing the dark blue an inky black. The feeling of current streaming past ceased as the whale stopped in place. I reached out blindly, trying to belay panic as my fingers brushed nothing but unyielding stone. Right when I was on the verge of signaling for Audrey to return to the surface, my hand landed on something slimy, almost membrane-like. I pushed through up to my shoulder and felt the icy chill of open air on my fingertips on the other side.

Bingo.

I reached back and grabbed Nicks arm, placing his hand on the gap in the surface. Once he realized what he was feeling, he kicked off the whale and swam headfirst into the opening. I extended my arm through the fissure and waited, heart racing, lungs burning. Much longer and I wouldnt make it back up to the surface.

Strong hands closed around my arm and unseated me, dragging me into the fissure. I had a moment of panic but didnt fight and allowed myself to be pulled.

In complete disorientation, I broke the surface with a gasp, taking long pulls of stale air as my vision adjusted to the darkness. Id gone through sideways and somehow came out right-side up, and it took a moment as my mind reconciled the conflict. Nick pulled at me, still tugging upward after I was well-clear of the gap.

I twisted out of his grip Im through already.

Shh. Nick hissed. The urgency in his voice banished the fogginess from my mind, and the surroundings slowly came into focus. I let him pull me to my feet, still ankle-deep in the stinking liquid.

Ornate marble pillars loomed in the distance, cloaked in shadow. We were at the far end of a long rectangular fountain, though maybe fountain was the wrong word. It was a long square rectangle of dark water, little spouts bubbling up every few feet. Across a wide ream of plush red carpet, there was another matching rectangular water fixture framing the walkway. The carpet itself extended towards a set of stairs.

And at the base of the stairs was a stoic knight in full plate. His plate glimmered in the low-light, and he held a broken bastard sword loosely in one hand. His head was tilted downward, as if he was staring down into the carpet itself.

Motion caught my eye. Something flitting around in the shadows that surrounded the walkway. Multiple somethings. Whatever they were, they seemed to move in quick, sporadic bursts.

That we were mostly on our own stuck firmly in my mind. I focused, and started to summon Talia.

Then froze, as the disheveled knight straightened and raised his sword arm, extending the jagged point directly at me.