The Lady Rill plunged downward.
Water roared around them, the sound filling their ears as if it was trying to go straight into their brains.
It wasn't just a fall. It was a pull, a grip from the throat of the sea dragging them into the depths.
The shattered sky above had vanished into a swirl of black, and the boat rocked and spun like driftwood in a whirlpool, tossed about with no mercy.
Ren held onto the side of the boat with both hands, his Push resonance flaring around him just to stay balanced.
Zuzu was at the helm, but barely. The current had taken control, and the sea no longer listened to her.
Thorn had tied himself to the boat, one arm around Elias who was bracing against the rails.
Lilith had her arms around Ren, her hair streaming behind her.
The water howled. And then, ahead of them, it opened.
They broke through a spiraling wall of mist, and there it was.
A monstrous, vertical drop carved out of a jagged black cliff.
The water fell in absolute silence, as if even sound was too afraid to follow them here.
"Hold on!" Zuzu screamed, voice snatched by the wind.
The Lady Rill tumbled forward.
They hit the waterfall.
The boat lurched violently, nose tipping down, the bow dipping into the impossible slope. For a moment, it felt like they were flying. Weightless. Floating.
Then gravity returned with fury.
Down and down and down.
The roar of water returned all at once as they fell through a shaft of black stone.
The spray blinded them, and the hull of the boat groaned like a wounded beast, timbers creaking under the pressure. Everyone clung to what they could, clenching teeth and praying to nothing.
Ren shouted something no one heard. Zuzu's knuckles turned bone white as she held on for dear life.
Thorn screamed a curse, and Elias tightened his grip with the dead calm of a man used to riding death down.
The Lady Rill slammed into something. It didn't shatter.
A splash exploded around them, and the boat rocked violently before finally settling on still, glassy water. They had fallen into another world.
No one moved at first.
Zuzu was the first to sit up. She looked around, wide-eyed, her soaked clothes clinging to her body, her hands still white-knuckled on the helm. Her shoulders heaved with each breath, the adrenaline still draining.
The Lady Rill had survived.
Miraculously, the boat hadn't broken.
The front was cracked. The mast was ruined. But the boat itself floated. It was scarred and definitely battered, but not destroyed. It had survived, just like him.
They had landed in an underground lake.
Or something else entirely.
The cavern that stretched out before them was so vast, the ceiling was lost to shadow. But patches of glowing moss, clung to the dark stone high above, shimmering like stars.
It painted the water in pale green and blue, soft enough to see by, eerie enough to unsettle.
Shadows danced along the walls, creating patterns that almost looked like things moving just out of sight.
The water itself was black.
It carried no reflection.
Just a still surface, broken only by the soft drift of their damaged boat. It was as if the water here wasn't meant to move unless the Deep allowed it.
"Where... where are we?" Thorn whispered.
Ren slowly stood, the last traces of his resonance loop fading from his body.
He glanced upward, at the glowing moss. At the way the water below them didn't move. Every muscle in his body was alert.
"We're inside the Deep." He finally said, his voice rolling over the water.
Lilith rose next. She didn't speak. Her eyes were scanning, flicking toward everywhere, searching for any signs of movement.
Elias pulled himself to a sitting position. His arm was bruised, but he was intact. "I thought we were dead."
"We should be." Zuzu said quietly. "That fall should've broken the hull."
"It didn't." Ren said.
That's the way it was supposed to be.
Although the entry cavern of the Deep wasn't always the same, every player's boat survived the fall. Seems like it wasn't just game physics.
The silence in the cavern was unnatural. Even the sound of their breath felt too loud.
The air was cold, wet and somehow too dense, like they were breathing the inside of something.
Then something moved.
A ripple, slow and wide, glided just beneath the boat.
Zuzu froze, one hand gripping the rail.
Ren turned in time to see the shadow pass under them, huge, serpentine, and longer than any ship he'd ever seen. It sliced through the water like a wraith, leaving just tiny ripples behind.
It didn't breach the surface.
Her eyes glowed faintly, the red in them catching the light from the moss.
She stared down into the dark.
And for a moment, the shadow paused.
No one breathed until it vanished.
"Don't provoke it." Lilith said quietly. "It was deciding."
"Deciding what?" Elias asked.
"If we were worth eating."
The silence that followed was absolute.
If Lilith was saying not to provoke something… just how powerful was it?
"Fuck it." Thorn spoke, breaking the silence. "We're in!"
"We're fucking in!" Thorn exhaled with a breathless laugh.
Smiles came up on the faces of the group as they remembered that they had in fact survived entry into the deep.
He then reached into the supply crate. He pulled out a dented flask, held it up with a wry smile.
"A toast. To not being eaten. Yet."
He drank, then offered it around. Elias took a swig. Zuzu shook her head. Lilith ignored it.
Ren took the flask and drank last. He didn't smile.
"Yes." He said quietly. "We're in."
Ren looked up at the glowing moss.
"Now, we find the heart."