Tahir glanced over to the water, and then handed off his storage bag to Theo. “I’ll go check.”
“Are you sure that is wise?” Shukri asked. “The waterfall hides it well, but the water is deeper than it looks. It will drain your aura if you have to go down too far.”
“Not a problem.” Tahir replied with a smile. He summoned the water spirit and stepped toward the pond. “I can go down without having to worry about most of the issues. I can also communicate with Dahlia, so I’ll let you know if I find anything, or if anything goes wrong.”
He heard quiet voices from a couple of the other hunters, and a couple of them even stepped up, likely about offering to join him, but Shukri held a hand out to stop them. With a nod, Tahir turned and strode into the pond. Unbothered by the water’s chill or the current where the pond transitioned into a river. He felt glad he decided to test out all of the spirits’ effects while he used aura a while ago. He likely wouldn’t have found out that he could breathe underwater and generally ignore the effects of water pressure for a long time otherwise. Shukri’s warnings weren’t for nothing- normally he’d have to use aura to swim back up after getting down a certain distance, but that distance was either severely enhanced or ignored entirely with the water spirit.
Something he’d have to keep in mind if he ever had to explore a sea or the ocean, certainly. For now, he could definitely confirm Shukri’s words, the bottom of the pond seemed to extend dozens of feet down, with some openings in the cliff face of the falls several feet down that might lead to some submerged caves. For now, he swam down to the bottom, casting a spell to give himself a bright light to illuminate his surroundings. Even as he descended, he could feel that same sense of something off in the space that he imagined led Dahlia there. He didn’t know if he gained a better sense of it from Dahlia herself while he summoned her, or if the feeling simply became so intense that even he could feel it when he got close, but he followed his gut, swimming along the bottom of the pond.
Tahir, darling. I’m checking in because this beastfolk girl seems worried about you. He heard Dahlia speaking in his mind. I don’t think she realized that you can breathe perfectly fine down there.
“I’m fine, still looking.” He thought back. “I’m definitely close, I think, I’m starting to feel what you must have…” He trailed off, as his head swept back and forth, taking in the surrounding area and moving forward, he finally spotted something that gave him pause.
As if something had cut a hole in the fabric of reality, pulled it apart, and held it open, an immediately visible tear that sparked white at the edges, leading to an entirely different body of water. One not from this plane. “Dahlia, take a look at this.” Using the trick he learned from the Traveler, he focused some of his aura to his eyes, and a moment later ‘felt’ Dahlia connect to them.
A planar rift! She said. To some monster infested ocean no doubt. Look there, Tahir, toward the edge. Following her direction, he glanced down at one of the edges of the rift. There, he could see a large, dark orb with faintly glowing runic sigils. I believe that is the anchor. If you remove that from its place, the rift should close on its own.
“Got it.” Tahir began swimming toward the rift. He found it odd that water didn’t seem to flow in or out from either side, but he didn’t pretend to know much more than the basics on how the planes themselves function, much less passages between them. In the water, he floated some five feet away from the rift while he reached for the orb. Placing his hands on it, he found it surprisingly warm to the touch. He started to lift it, and found it heavier than it looked, though he barely got it an inch off of the ground he realized something was wrong.
And that ‘something’ made itself known before he could even look around. He’d lifted his head toward the rift to look, as something shot out from it towards him. He kicked back in an attempt to dodge, but gasped as a thick tentacle, black at the top with a purple inner side, like that of an octopus wrapped around his chest, and began to pull him toward the rift. He tried kicking back and pulling against it using his aura, but it barely slowed the tentacle down, the thing behind the rift must have been massive. Thinking quickly, he called on Dahlia’s magic, feeling kelp, seaweed, and other underwater plants surging forth to wrap around him and pull back against the creature’s grip.
He knew it wouldn’t last long, he could already feel the plants snapping and cracking against the tentacle as it pulled, and the opposing forces took a toll on his aura shield, he just needed time to reach for his sword. As he reached for it, his eyes widened as multiple tentacles began to slip out from the rift. A shadow passing over him drew his attention upwards, and in the light from the spell he created, he spotted Shukri rushing down toward him. She took her spear and impaled the tentacled holding Tahir, and with her claws she tore it apart where it held him.
After that, she grabbed him and began to pull him up, as more tentacles closed in, but he shouted “Wait!”, though he didn’t know if Shukri actually understood through the water. He kicked away from her, to her confusion, and rushed toward the orb to scoop it up under one arm. Seemingly understanding, Shukri took the orb, grabbed him by the collar of his cloak and began to swim up. Her aura-enhanced movement got her a good distance, but Tahir had to guess his weight, and the weight of the orb slowed her down a considerable amount. So much so that another tentacle managed to wrap around her leg. With her hands occupied, Shukri couldn’t remove this one without dropping either Tahir or the orb. She glanced down, her gaze a little frantic, but Tahir managed to pull out his sword.
Though he couldn’t get a good angle from where he was, the water wouldn’t impede his swing. Taking a deep breath, he focused his aura and had it gather around his blade. He focused in on a spot away from Shukri’s leg, down several feet, and swung. Bubbles erupted around the wave of aura that flew, as it cut the tentacle where Tahir aimed and freed Shukri. Glancing back up at her, he spotted a few bubbles float up from her mouth as she gasped at what she saw, but she managed to register her freedom and started swimming upwards once more, before any other tentacles could grab her.
Once she breached the water, Shukri all but threw Tahir back onto the surface with the orb. She took a deep breath, and rolled onto the shore herself before shouting. “Ready your weapons!!” At her words, all of the hunters stood at attention, a couple moving forward to pull her back toward them, just as large tentacles began to emerge.
Arrows started flying as Theo and Meti helped Tahir stand. He spotted a dark shape rising from the water in between the tentacles, and sheathed his sword to take out his staff. He only had about half of his mana left, but it would work for what he needed. Quickly, he switched out the water spirit for the air spirit, and shivered as the cold from being drenched hit him all at once.
The three of them backed away from the shore as a massive shape surfaced. The head of an octopus as large as an elephant, with heavy tentacles that attempted to slam down on any hunters that fired arrows or threw spears at it, as well as a sharp beak that could probably swallow any of them whole if it didn’t snap them in half first. Tahir nodded to Theo and Meti. The two of them with staves pointed them toward the creature, while Theo held her hands out. Lightning crackled between Tahir and Theo, while Meti simply conjured dozens of bolts of raw magic. The creature seemed to notice the flow of magic, and started to turn toward the mages with a piercing shriek.
It barely managed to rest its gaze on them before their magic fired out. Its shriek turned to one of pain as the lightning surged, and the magic bolts pierced its flesh. That seemed to spur its actions on, increasing its aggression. Quick as a flash, another massive tentacle emerged from the water and moved to slam down on the three. As they started to scramble a way, Shukri jumped in the tentacle’s path and wrapped her arms around it, keeping hold of it as her feet hit the ground and stopping it from moving, a low growl rumbling in her throat.
From the way she held the tentacle in place, and prevented it from moving back despite the creature's attempts to tug it, the amount of aura she used had to be immense. Tahir regained his composure and went to chant for another lightning spell, and Theo followed suit, gathering more elemental aura around her hands and channeling it into lightning for a second volley. They fired off again, and another shriek of pain erupted as it took the lightning, and more arrows from the surrounding hunters.
Seemingly sensing that it was outmatched here, it tried to leave, but Shukri dug her heels in, standing firm even if it dragged her several feet forward. Nearly out of mana, Tahir channeled and chanted for a third lightning spell as fast as he could, before Shukri lost her grip or it pulled her along with it. Fortunately, the other hunters closest to them rushed in to also grab at the tentacle, keeping from diving down while Tahir, Theo, and Meti sent one last volley of spells. With a final, pained shriek, the octopus collapsed on the shore.
Several seconds passed, with only the roar of the falls nearby, and the sound of heavy panting from the entire hunting party to break the silence. Once she took some time to recover, Shukri grabbed onto the tentacle once more, and the other hunters nearby followed, pulling the corpse onto the shore. She then moved back, leaned against a nearby tree, and sank down.
“Does anyone need healing?” Dahlia called. A few of the hunters gathered, some limping, in order to get that taken care of. While they took care of that, Tahir turned his attention back to the orb. Now that he could focus on it, it just radiated the sense of something wrong.
“If we just destroy this, will that close the rift?” Tahir called out to Dahlia.
“I imagine the rift is already destabilizing, but breaking that would probably prevent another one from being sustained!” She called back.
“Right then.” Drawing his sword again, Tahir raised it high above his head, gathering aura for a precise swing. With a deep breath, he swung down. A diagonal line carved itself into the mud beyond the orb, and a couple seconds passed before the orb itself fell in two pieces.
“You’re getting better at that level of aura control.” Meti noted, kneeling down to examine the orb. “Should we check to see if that rift Dahlia told us about has closed?”
“Yeah, probably. Want to go with me Theo? Just in case there’s a second octopus.”
“Sure, I could use something to bring me down from lightning energy anyway. See if you can get its blood or ink, if it has any, okay Meti?”
Part of the hunting party began carving up the octopus, while the other part gathered around Dahlia for her healing magic. Tahir switched back to the spirit of water, and he and Theo dove back to check on the rift. With careful testing, Theo found that she could apply her aura for several of the same things that Tahir got when using aura to summon his tier zero spirits. Water-breathing and immunity to the effects of water pressure among them. They proceeded carefully, as Theo used a sizable amount of her aura, and Tahir himself was out of mana.
Heading back to the same space where he first saw the rift, he could already see it deteriorating. It looked like a patchwork of pockmarks in reality rather than a full tear, and many of the tears were already closing. Once he confirmed that, he swam down to the bottom where the tentacle first emerged, to grab Shukri’s spear from the ground so that he could return up to the surface with it.
Coming back onto the shore, Tahir and Theo looked between each other, as progress in butchering the creature continued. “One down.” Tahir said with a grin. He strode over to Skukri, still heavily breathing and sitting against a tree, but with her eyes closed. Her attention focused on Tahir when he got close, and she noticed her spear in his hands. “Wanna be dry?” He asked her, while handing her the spear.
Her eyes flicked between him and her weapon as she reached up to take it. “I suppose.” With her ears down and wet hair clinging to her face, she very much looked like a cat that had accidentally fallen in a river to Tahir. He knelt down beside her and held up a hand between them.
“This shouldn’t hurt at all, but you might feel a burst of heat.” He snapped his fingers, and the wave of heat flew out between them, drying the water from their clothes and gear in a puff of steam. From the sudden, unexpected heat, Shukri let out a very catlike short cry. A hand went over Tahir’s mouth to hide his grin and stifle any laughter, and Shukri responded by having her recently reacquired spear lean against his shoulder.
“You have…my thanks.” She struggled to say.
“I should be thanking you for diving after me. I can only imagine what might have happened if that thing pulled me into wherever that rift led.”
“Your spirit saw it coming through your eyes. Perhaps before you did, based on her reaction.” At that, she stood, patting herself down. “I will admit, this hunt has been fulfilling. We’ve not been able to draw from this river for a while due to the creatures inhabiting it. We’ll do another sweep of the area, and then make our return to the grove.”
