#037 – I mean, I can swim, but this is a little too much

#037 – I mean, I can swim, but this is a little too much

My butt skidded down the wet plastic surface at terminal velocity and I had to force myself to keep my eyes wide open, while gritting my teeth so that I wouldn’t scream on my way down. The result was a screech reminiscent of a dying kitten.

All I felt was regret at the moment.

Why did I listen to chat again?

Then, at last, I hit the bottom, the nearly vertical drop abruptly shifted into a ramp, transferring my momentum, and I shot into the air. I finally lost the battle and let out a scream full sail.

I had about two seconds to realize that I was going to land straight in the middle of one of the death water pools and immediately swapped Persistence for Fire Breath before gasping in and letting out a cone of fire below me.

To my surprise, rather than agitating the pool into throwing more zombies at me, my breath actually burned through the fake water like it was made of paper, revealing a dark hole.

Unfortunately, the pushback from my breath either wasn’t enough, or the physics were screwed up again, so instead of flying over the pool like I had planned, I fell straight into the dark hole with another scream.

I instinctively lit myself on fire just in case it would do something to prevent me from going splat whenever I landed.

Luckily, after a terrifying few seconds of freefall, I splashed into a body of water, causing Flameguard to fill my immediate surroundings with steam.

I turned it off and flailed my arms around, trying to find the surface even as I accidentally breathed in some of the water and began choking.

I couldn’t find it.

I lit my body on fire again, but it did nothing other than sting my eyes and throat with steam, making it even harder to figure out what was happening.

Not knowing what else to do, I reached into my backpack and mentally searched for something that could stop me from drowning.

My hand found the towel. I ripped it out of the bag, brought it in front of me, and buried my face in it.

I had no time to think about the irony of willingly covering my own face in a towel after the last floor.

Just as I’d wanted, the towel quickly chugged up my surroundings and gave me some literal breathing room to look around and figure out where the heck the surface was.

To my left. The surface was to my left.

I scrambled to reach it and despite the added weight of my wet clothes and backpack, I made it there in record time.

I gasped as my head broke the surface and blinked away the residual water in my eyes. My attention gravitated toward the first piece of dry land I saw, and I immediately swam over there.

Unfortunately for me, that dry piece of land was vertical. As in, it was a wall. Fortunately, the wall wasn’t completely flat. I managed to get a grip on it with my free hand and found a giant jutting brick for the tip of my feet to stand on.

The towel kept on absorbing the water around me as I finally got my bearings and looked around.

I seemed to be underground in some kind of tunnel filled with water. Not like a sewer or a cavern or anything like that, but like something you could see at some water parks. Except scaled way up, similarly to the locker room.

I coughed away the last bits of water in my lungs and calmed my breaths while holding onto the wall and carefully looking for any monsters looking to ambush me.

Thankfully, the dungeon was kind enough to give me a moment of respite.

After finally mentally recovering, I put the still dry towel back into my backpack and sighed.

“Chat, I’m never listening to you ever again. That was horrible. I should have gone with the kiddy slide instead.”

Jeofffff: you don’t know what’s here yet tho

GeorgeDoshington: stop ur chickening

Jeofffff: could be better loot

RetconRanger: Don’t poll it next time, then.

I glared at chat before huffing and ignoring them.

Why did I even bother? Bunch of jerks. Really, what had I expected from literal voices in my head?

I huffed to myself before refocusing on my present situation.

The water tunnel looked kind of like what I’d seen outside. Except the water level wasn’t shallow enough for me to casually walk in it. And with my wet clothes and backpack, swimming didn’t sound like a great idea either. I would have to hug the wall if I wanted to get anywhere.

Well, at least I wasn’t cold thanks to the clothes’ effect.

I grumbled to myself, picked a random direction, and began climbing the wall sideways.

I really hoped that whatever monsters resided here wouldn’t be too big of an issue. Otherwise, how the heck was I meant to get through here? Was this area designed for mermaids? Was I supposed to have a magical snorkel by now or something?

I continued painstakingly climbing alongside the wall while keeping vigilant about my surroundings. I briefly wondered how long I could keep this up. I’d already proven that my body was stronger and had more stamina than it had any right to – way more than my original body – but even that couldn’t be endless, right?

Still, I was glad that this was apparently real water and not the Ether-draining death water like up there. I would have been so dead otherwise.

“You know, it’s kinda weird, chat,” I mumbled. “This is probably still part of floor three, even though I’m clearly lower now. And floor one and three are at the same elevation. I guess the word floor just means something else in this world, huh?”

Which led me to another weird thing that I hadn’t thought about at all.

I let out a tired sigh and flapped my hands, realizing that I had actually gotten tired from having to cling to the wall for so long. My stamina wasn’t endless, after all.

“Alright, let me...” I blinked and got the similar feeling to reaching out for your cup of coffee and realizing that it wasn’t there. “Oh. Right. I swapped Appraisal out for Fire Breath...”

I made a face but didn’t dwell on it too much.

Instead, I pulled out my naginata and began poking the chest from afar.

“It’s even more important now, chat, because I don’t have Appraisal,” I explained, my tone exaggeratedly serious.

GeorgeDoshington: yeye we get it

Jeofffff: why didn’t you swap out craftsman instead?

“Because last time I swapped out Craftsman, I regretted it.” I shrugged. “Hey, it’s not a big deal. I can Appraise whatever loot I get later.”

With my obligatory chest poking done, I put away the weapon back into the backpack, approached the chest, and heaved the lid open.

My eyes immediately zeroed in on the big turtle plushie on the left and I gasped in delight.

“It’s a plushie!” I took it out of the chest and hugged the pure softness to my chest as my eyes sparkled. “I shall name you... Mr. Gargles!”

GeorgeDoshington: lmao wtf

Jeofffff: gross name lol

PrestoFive55: Nana was never good at naming things

“Hey, shut it, you lot! I’m a naming expert, you hear me?” I went to pet the plushie. “Don’t listen to them, Mr. Gargles, they have no idea what they are talking about.”

Was I talking to an inanimate object again? Yes. But I’d done that back on Earth with plushies as well, so this was totally a fair game.

I wasn’t going insane at all. Everything was fine.

GonguuH: what does it do?

“It’s cute, what else could you need, Gong?” I shrugged before holding the turtle in front of me, looking into its button eyes, and mentally flicking the missing Appraisal switch over and over. Nothing happened, obviously. “Well, it probably does something magical, but I’ll just have to find out later.”

I held my new best friend in one arm and then peered into the chest at the other items.

It was a set of red inflatable swimming sleeves, just like the zombies up above wore.

I hummed.

“You guys think these are lightning resistant too?” I asked as I grabbed them and began sliding them on my arms.

Jeofffff: maybe it will help with swimming

GonguuH: finally some armor?

Once I finished putting them on, I looked myself over and... then I realized that I probably looked ridiculous with the mismatch of everything I had.

My original cyan-blue Vcuber outfit, the whitish cyan bracelet, the red swimming sleeves, a blue glove on my left hand, the black backpack on my back, and a green turtle plushie in my hands.

Not that I cared about fashion that much, but since so many people were watching, maybe I should? What if people started yelling that I look stupid?

I shook my head.

Why was I even worried about something like that? They weren’t real. I could do whatever the heck I pleased and it wouldn’t matter. And anyway, I was in the middle of a dungeon! Who cared about how I looked?

“Alright, let’s see if they help with swimming, I guess.”

I turned away from the chest, eager to plunge myself in the water and try swimming, but then blinked as the sunlight hit my eyes.

The tunnel had changed. It no longer looked like where I’d come from. It was smaller and shorter, leading straight outside again somehow.

“Wait, hold on.”

The water was also shallow enough for me to casually walk through and there didn’t seem to be any fake fish waiting to ambush me.

I walked forward through the short tunnel and found myself exactly where I had expected to – back in the main part of floor three with the pools of dubious liquid, looking out from the water tunnel I had noticed before, but couldn’t figure out a way to get to.

I looked back once more at the chest, but the chest was also long gone. The tunnel led to a dead end with nothing there.

I sighed.

“I should have figured it would spit me right back out. I’m guessing the other slides lead to similar tunnels that eventually spit me back here, huh? Do I have to go through all three? Like the lockers?”

Knowing this dungeon, probably.

In other words, I would have had to go through that suicide slide anyway, eventually.

“Well, whatever.” I hugged Mr. Gargles to my chest. “Let’s go to the next slide, I guess.”