Cold Plunge

We gracefully landed in the water. Well, it was about as graceful as a rock flung by a lil jit but at least no one broke any bones as we splashed down on the water. I hadn’t swam since my previous life so I was a bit worried about drowning, but it ended up being fine.

Raya pointed out a somewhat nearby ledge so we swam to it. She ended up beating me there so she helped pull me out when I eventually made it to the ledge.

I took a second to catch my breath as I gazed up at her figure. Though I had started to catch up a bit, she was still significantly taller than me. There was at least a five inch difference between us. The only word that came to mind when thinking about his fact was–

Adam: Unnatural.

Raya: Huh? What’d you say?

Adam: Uh… I meant that this structure is unnatural. We must be in labyrinth city proper.

Indeed, this was the true labyrinth city. The one above where all the people lived was just a fake that was built on top.

All of the walls and floors were made of the same stone bricks and the houses just had holes where there should have been doors and windows. The only sources of light were the mysterious glow from the underground lake behind us and the sporadically placed streetlights that would occasionally flicker. It seems that the luminous moss doesn’t grow on stone brick so it was overall darker than the upper levels once you went far enough away from the glowing lake. There was no electricity in this world though, so I wondered how the streetlights were being powered.

Raya: You’re right, clearly we’ve ended up much deeper than we originally planned for. Luckily we packed a map of the labyrinth city, we just have to find out where we are based on the surrounding landmarks and navigate our way back up.

Raya placed her backpack on the ground before rummaging through her belongings and eventually pulled out the map. She handed it to me while she reorganized her belongings.

I pulled out my magic compass and compared our surroundings to what was shown on the map. Sadly, the only landmark was the lake besides us, which bordered the labyrinth city for a great distance. If we followed the “coast” in either direction we should eventually figure out where we were and then we could find the nearest path upwards.

Adam: Okay! Let’s go this way.

I randomly decided we should head north and Raya nodded so we began walking.

We had been walking for a while and hadn’t encountered a single monster so I was feeling a bit paranoid when I suddenly heard a strange chattering sound. I looked behind me in the direction it was coming from and saw Raya except she was looking a bit blue and was hugging her shoulders.

Adam: Raya! Are you okay!? What’s going on?

Raya: I– I think that for the first time I’m j-jealous of your magic. We were drenched in water and it’s f-freezing here so how are you completely fine?

I looked down at myself for a moment then realized what she was talking about. I had turned on pain nullification back when we were fighting the rabbits and forgotten to turn it off. Because of that, after getting soaked in water and walking around for a while in the shockingly cold labyrinth Raya and I were dangerously close to getting hypothermia.

But why hadn’t she said anything earlier?

- - - - - - -

Raya and I shared a blanket as we huddled around a campfire. We had decided to set up camp in one of the empty houses and changed into some spare clothes while our normal gear was drying. Because the labyrinth doesn’t come with wood, we had brought some Treant wood. It burns twice as strong as normal wood and lasts ten times as long. Luckily our backpacks were also waterproof so none of the things inside them got wet.

We sat in silence and just watched the flames dance for a little while. It would be romantic but –No, actually I think this is romantic. This would have been a better time to ask her to by my girlfriend.

Sigh.

As usual, I couldn’t help but dwell upon my past mistakes during times of silence.

Should I be doing more? I’m her boyfriend and she almost just froze to death. I didn’t even offer her my coat (not that I have a coat but it’s the thought that counts).

I’m so stupid. I’m so stupid.

Stupid stupid stupid. STUPID STUPID STUPID STUPID STUPIDSTUPIDSTUPIDSTUPIDSTUPID–

Raya: Hey, are you alright? We should probably figure out a game plan for getting out of here.

I took a deep breath and calmed down before answering Raya.

Adam: I don’t see what’s wrong with just continuing what we were doing a moment ago. Until we find one of the landmarks listed on this map we should keep walking north. It might take longer but wandering around in a labyrinth without knowing where you’re going is more dangerous than fighting a wyvern head on.

Well, it’s not like I’ve ever fought a wyvern myself. I was just regurgitating what Veronica had told us before we entered the Labyrinth.

Raya: I know but something strange is going on here. We should have run into something by now. Skeleton knights, zombie wolves, rolling beetles, horned wanderers and plenty of other monsters are said to be commonplace on this level but we haven't run into a single one.

She looked at me with those big blue eyes of hers. At this distance, I could smell her—

Stop and focus on the matter at hand Adam!

Looking away I thought for a second but couldn’t come up with any reason for this strange phenomena.

Adam: …I don’t know. But what should we do then? Do you have any other ideas?

Raya shook her head subtly and the silence resumed. After a little while, Raya leaned her shoulder on mine. Eventually I was lulled to sleep by the crackling of the flames.

- - - - - - -

The only way to tell the time was by how long it took for us to get hungry. We walked in silence and took breaks every now and then but the scenery around us never changed.

I looked up and stared at the dark ceiling for a minute. I felt that I could barely make out more empty houses. I wasn’t exactly surprised that there were gravity defying buildings in this gravity labyrinth, but earlier when I had looked up I couldn’t see anything but darkness.

Was the ceiling slowly getting closer to us?

Because I had been looking up, I didn’t immediately notice the giant serpent that jumped out of the water towards me.

Raya saw it and shouted to me immediately.

Because of that, I managed to dodge and the monster only managed to grab my arm with its razor sharp teeth rather than instantly killing me.

It pulled it’s head back towards the water and I made the split second decision to sever my arm before it could submerge me in the water.

I leaped off the sea serpent’s nose and landed back on land.

Adam: RUN!

Raya and I bolted down the dark street as the serpent swallowed its snack. It stopped for a moment before charging after the rest of its dinner.

We ran as fast as we could but the serpent was rapidly catching up.

Right before it could chomp down on us, Raya activated her Electric Scales and tackled me into an empty building with a burst of speed. The serpent looked into the building with it’s gigantic yellow eye before raising its head and smashing the building.

We were already out of the building by then and the two of us weaved between buildings to get as far away from the serpent as possible. All I could see was Raya’s hand in mine as she pulled me forward. No doubt, losing a large amount of blood very quickly without blood manipulation active had huge negative effects on me. My head felt light and my body felt numb but I put my augmentation into my legs to keep running and only used blood manipulation to stop the bleeding for now.

Eventually we got far enough away that the serpent gave up and returned to the water.

Adam: We solved the mystery of why there were no monsters near the water!

Though barely standing I cracked an unfunny joke and turned to see Raya’s reaction but noticed that she was in a fighting stance and facing several headless suits of armor.

Raya: I’ll handle these guys! You just focus on not dying for now Adam!

Aw shit, we’re not even close to being out of this mess.