Today's Earth date: March 19, 1992

Jesus Christ this Temple is big.

Between Horcus' magic and our levels, this Temple run is a literal run. Our pace feels something like a six-minute mile, and we can hold it for the entire day. We're so far beyond the demons here that calling any of our encounters a fight seems unfair. Three floors later, and we haven't lost a single hitpoint across the entire party.

But there is so much Temple to cover that it really does feel like we're on the cross-country team or something. I always thought that was a stupid sport, and now I'm sure.

-The Journal of Laszlo the Paladin

Exploring the Water Temple had been a dull affair, so much so that Fergus packed Sheeri's research to read when the party stopped to rest. Having known him for some time, Wayne also knew that Fergus could read and walk. If the Earth Temple was as boring as the Water Temple, he expected to see Fergus doing that as well.

The foundation of the research was the discovery of a variant poem. Every Temple had some variation of the following etched into its walls:

Water on the beach

Earth beneath the trees

Fire in the field

Air above the peak

But the variant, existing only as an overlooked mistake high on the exterior of the Air Temple, read like this:

Water under the ocean

Earth beneath the sand

Fire in the field

Air above the peak

"I find her analysis compelling," Fergus said, reading Sheeri's notes. "If what we know as the Earth Temple was originally intended to be Water, it does stand to reason that the original Earth Temple is somewhere between here and the Fire Temple."

"How do you get that from a poem?" Hector asked.

"If we look at the known poem, each line corresponds to the general location of the Temple. The Water Temple we explored is on the coast of Cuan, and the Earth Temple we know is beneath the Forest of 10,000 Cuts. The last two lines are the same in both. The Fire Temple is in the plains, and the Air Temple is floating over a mountain summit."

Hector grunted. "And the old poem talks about ocean and sand. This used to be underwater, and there's only one desert directly between Iomallach and the Fire Temple."

"Precisely," Fergus said with praise for Hector in his voice.

"Do they have to be completed in order?" Margo asked.

"Not technically, but they do get progressively harder, and the current order is the most convenient for traveling from Temple to Temple. I've never heard of the Chosen Heroes trying to do it differently."

"Not much reason to, I suppose."

Fergus nodded. "Thematically, the Bata Desert does make sense for the next location, but that conclusion is thin. She says as much in her notes as well."

"And good luck searching it," Armond said with a mouthful of jerky. "The Bata Desert is enormous. That's an outrageous amount of sand to move if there's a Temple buried even half as deep as this one."

"You know it?"

Nodding, Armond answered, "Was there for a stint when these yokels had the idea of trying to settle the desert. Stirred up the orcs for weeks."

Wayne reclined on his bag, reviewing his notes on his documents screen. "We know now that the Water Sigil is a sort of locator for this Temple. If we find the Earth Sigil, we could find the original Earth Temple."

Fergus stroked his well-kempt beard. "I think Sheeri was ahead of us on that one too. These notes say she found the Air Sigil and confirmed that it's a locator for the Air Temple, just like our Water Sigil. Ha! The enchanter in Vientuls sold us out." Fergus leaned over to Wayne and pointed at a specific passage in the notes. "He knew she was looking for 'sigils,' so he sent her a letter after he saw ours."

"And then she shows up in Iomallach wanting to collaborate," Wayne said. "That makes me feel a little used, but she was direct about her intentions when we talked. I guess our next step is to get the Earth Sigil?"

"How do you propose we find the Earth Sigil?"

Shrugging, Wayne answered, "I wish I had a better plan for that, but all I've got is that we be thorough with our search and we clear any Spawners we find. There's a chance it doesn't even exist, or if it does, it's somewhere we won't find it."

"Did you review her notes on the language we couldn't translate?" Fergus asked, studying a page closely.

"I haven't looked at any of the research. What language do you mean?"

"We first saw it in Julian's Tomb. What we assumed was an older dialect of dwarvish was partially accurate." Fergus passed Wayne a page. "Sheeri believes it's a combination of advanced math and alchemy."

"She hasn't translated much, huh?" he said, reading Sheeri's notes. "What she has managed to figure out does seem more like math than a verbal language."

"Why would the dwarves write down a bunch of math?" Armond asked.

Wayne wobbled his head. "The truth is, we don't know yet, but I have a guess. If the dungeons we've seen are as similar to video game dungeons as I think they are, a bunch of complicated math makes sense. How do I explain this? Umm… Math provides a kind of logic to a computer system. The more recent games in my time try to precisely replicate real-world physics, for example."

"Which is a lot of math."

"Yes, it is," Wayne said. "Before anyone asks, I can handle algebra, but the really advanced stuff is beyond me."

"What's the plan if we don't find the Earth Sigil?" Margo asked.

"More research," Fergus replied. "A single offhand note in something as silly as a merchant's ledger could be the clue we need. Something similar helped us with the druids when we were in Cuan, but we found that insight uncannily fast. We are unlikely to be that lucky again."

"So lots of downtime in Bata?" Armond smiled.

"Probably." Fergus returned Armond's grin. "I'm looking forward to enjoying the city as well. Days spent in the library and evenings spent with good food and drink? Paradise."

The party finished their rations mostly in silence after that. When Hector finished his, he sat back to lean against a stalagmite, looking pensive.

"Wayne, I've been thinking," he said tentatively. "Is it intimidating being with someone 800 years old?"

"What do you mean?"

"Well, I met this older lady once. I was maybe twenty, working the door. We hit it off, but in the sack?" Hector whistled. "I was playing checkers while she was playing chess, if you get my meaning."

The party laughed.

"And that was bad?" Armond asked.

"I mean… no, but I also didn't contribute much. Felt bad about that."

"Hector, Hector, Hector," Fergus said, shaking his head. "Your mindset is all wrong. When you're with a woman like that, you have to embrace being the student. I've told Wayne several times to take notes on everything he learns from Sheeri."

"Like in a notebook on the nightstand?"

"Exactly!"

Margo chuckled as she stood. "The more I hear you guys talk about dating, the more I'm surprised that humanity has made it this far."

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The party stood at the edge of a large pool of water. Given the simplicity of the cave system, the Earth Temple was very clearly beneath the water.

"Fifty years of that adds up, I bet," Armond said, pointing at the rainwater winding all the way from the surface to dribble into the pool. "How close are we to the Temple itself?"

"Hard to say," Fergus admitted.

Wayne began undressing, starting with his boots. "I'm going to swim down and check it out. I've got a water-breathing ability from Phantasy Star II, and I've only ever used it in Blackwell's pool. Might as well dive in and see what we find before we head back out."

"By yourself?"

"How long can you hold your breath?" Wayne asked, smiling.

"Asshole. I mean, what if you run into trouble?"

"Absolute worst-case scenario, I bail with Rise. I'll be fine, though. We can stay in touch with Voice, and you might as well get comfortable. I might be a bit."

Wayne dove into the cold cave water, the chill immediately tensing every muscle in his body. From experimenting with Maruera Gum back in Iomallach, he knew he could breathe just fine, but the sensation was still unsettling.

Instead of giving him gills or making it so he could breathe water, Maruera Gum formed some kind of barrier over his lips and nostrils. If he opened his mouth wide, no water would go in, and he could breathe as if he were on the surface. The physics didn't make sense–because there was no visible source of fresh air–but it worked, regardless.

With his Light spell active, Wayne used a breaststroke motion to pull himself deeper before realizing that he was an idiot and could use Blitz instead. The passage here felt smaller, but he wasn't sure if that was the case or his overactive imagination was running free. Wayne had seen several documentaries about cave diving, which were universally filled with grizzly tales of divers getting lost or making a mistake, dying so far beneath the water and into the caves that their bodies were unretrievable.

Presently, his vision matched the footage of those dives. His Light spell was less effective, muted by the perfect darkness of the water all around him, so Wayne could never see anything more than what his weak Light focused on.

But he continued Blitz-swimming. He couldn't run out of air like cave divers on Earth, and Rise would teleport him to the next level above him if he got stuck somehow, whether that ended up being was some part of the cave or the top of the mountain itself he wouldn't know for sure.

Periscope fluctuated between another cave system and the complete outside so often that if Wayne hit Rise in a panic, he couldn't say for sure where he was likely to ultimately end up.

"How long have I been swimming?"

"Little over ten minutes," Armond answered. "Still doing okay?"

"Yep."

Only ten minutes? He thought for sure he was nearing thirty at a minimum. Moving underwater without flippers was slower than he expected, and the darkness made judging progress especially difficult if he was Blitzing for long stretches.

But he kept going.

"I see light," Wayne reported.

As he drew nearer, he saw that the light was from the Earth Temple's decorative emeralds. Every gem glowed, outlining the Temple's dark green walls like Christmas lights. He aimed toward what looked like the entrance and kicked harder.

By the time Wayne processed the sudden change in sensation–open air touching his fingers and arms as he stroked forward–it was too late. He fell onto the Temple and bounced roughly to a stop.

-13 hitpoints.

Wayne looked around. The barrier around the Earth Temple, the same kind that kept anyone but the Chosen Heroes from entering the Water Temple, also kept the water out, creating a curving wall of dark liquid that arched all the way over his head.

Probe.

No reds.

He reported the situation to his party and thought about what to do next.

Using Sak to switch places with each party member was his most immediate idea, but in addition to being extremely painful, it wouldn't work for Hector. He had more hitpoints than Wayne, so the switch would either fail outright or succeed and kill Wayne in the process.

"It's too far for any of you to hold your breath," Wayne said, thinking out loud, kind of, via Voice. "Best idea I have is diving deeper. Maybe there's a way to drain the water."

"Logically sound," Fergus replied. "Rainwater clearly flows into this cave regularly, but none of the Heroes encountered a flooded cave. Stands to reason that the water should be able to exit somehow."

"I'll let you know what I find."

Walking into a vertical wall of water twisted Wayne's mind, his understanding of reality screaming that this shouldn't be possible. He pushed through the feeling and began searching for the deepest point in the water.

Four red dots blinked to life on his HUD. They had him surrounded and closed quickly. Wayne had his sword, but even with his enhanced strength, he found it difficult to maneuver effectively underwater.

Missile.

The spell fizzled out moments after the cast, snuffed out by the water. That suggested most of his projectile spells and all of his fire-based spells wouldn't work underwater. He remembered a joke about people fishing with dynamite–toss it underwater then scoop up the fish knocked unconscious by the blast when they float to the top–but now felt like a poor time to experiment with an explosive.

Emverdoo populated Wayne's HUD with four health bars, all labeled "zombie shark." When his Light spell glinted off a set of shark teeth bearing down on him, he used Castling from Chessmaster 2100 to surround himself with a wall.

The four sharks smashed off the masonry with such force that Wayne was sure the walls wouldn't survive a second collision.

Linebacker.

As expected, Linebacker bot couldn't swim, though it whirred its treads aggressively to try. Instead, the robot sank, drawing two of the sharks to chase after it.

Skulduggery.

-100 gold.

One of the two sharks still circling Wayne turned on its partner. While that shark ripped at the other, Wayne used Insult Duel, preparing to fight the traitor shark when it finished its job.

"There are no words for how disgusting you are," Wayne heard himself say to the shark.

Moments later, it turned away from the cloud of flesh that was once a shark and sped at Wayne. Ready to use Easy Out just in case, Wayne let the shark charge, its powerful body snapping side to side to propel the monster forward.

When its mouth was only feet away from Wayne, he activated a skill.

Fire a Broadside!

Wayne worried that the cannonball would lose too much of its power if it had to travel a great distance underwater, so he let the shark get as close as possible and shot the ball of lead into its mouth. A cloud of putrid meat burst out of itsback, and it drifted limply to a stop.

The other two sharks were returning to battle now, the Linebacker bot diversion having run its course, but Wayne couldn't think of any other tactics that would be effective underwater. His best idea was to use Wink-Wing to pull the sharks into his sword, but he very much disliked the idea of helping a shark close the distance.

Running Back.

As Running Back bot sank like its teammate had, Wayne Blitz-swam toward the Temple. As he hoped, the two remaining zombie sharks chased the robot instead of him.

Popping through the Earth Temple barrier to fresh air and complete safety, Wayne again reviewed his system. If it came to it, he could simply wait out his cooldowns and fight these sharks the same way he fought the first two.

When the two sharks reappeared, swimming back and forth across the barrier like fish in an aquarium, Wayne had an idea.

Chicken.

He targeted one of the sharks with the ability, and the Chicken tunnel appeared in his vision.

SoulStorm™ Brew Dispenser.

Wayne exited his own body as a Fart and steered his smoky form toward the water. As he hoped, the rules of Chicken applied only to his body, so his gaseous form could move freely without triggering the major stat penalty.

If that idea had failed, the barrier would have kept him alive. Were that not the case, he wouldn't have left his body unattended.

Both sharks swam to attack Wayne, but when the targeted shark veered off ‌the Chicken path, its movements dramatically slowed.

Wayne possessed the other shark and immediately turned on the weaker enemy. He slammed into its side with a few whips of his tail, stunning the target. Then he bit into it as if frenzied, snapping and tearing and shaking with as much violence as he could muster.

Weakened by Chicken and surprised by its partner's betrayal, the zombie shark's health quickly dropped to zero, leaving Wayne in control of the last "living" zombie shark listed on his HUD.

While debating how to kill the last zombie shark, Wayne realized how swiftly he could move from inside this body. Furthermore, the shark seemed to have some sort of dark vision, which felt like a much stronger version of the Light spell at this depth.

Wayne dove, searching for a drain. He soon found the cave floor his party would use to walk up the stairs of the Earth Temple. The stepped-pyramid of the ziggurat structure was plainly visible, the cave opening wide enough to see the entire Temple from the front. The rest of the Temple, the top and the sides, were covered by cave wall as if the Temple were wedged into the rock itself.

At the bottommost point, in a corner off to the northeast side of the Temple, Wayne found a pile of rocks and debris. He charged it with his shark head to knock the clog loose.

After a few more passes, he broke through, creating an opening just large enough for the force of the water overhead to clear the rest away.

"Water level is receding," Armond reported.

"Great. I'll wait for you all down here."

Still in his possessed zombie shark body, Wayne had an idea. He pointed himself back the way he had come and swam as fast and as hard as he could toward his party.

It took a few minutes, but when Wayne saw green dots on his HUD, he began singing the Jaws theme over Voice, knowing full well that he was the only one present who would understand the reference. He was entertained, though, so whatever.

"Why are you doing that?" Fergus asked.

The intensity of the song grew.

"Wayne."

And grew.

"Wayne. Stop it."

At the crescendo, the zombie shark launched out of the water, its decaying body flying like a corpse missile at the Zeroes while Wayne held the final syllable of the Jaws music.

Hector acted quickly and dropped a Wall of Iron in front of the party. Wayne's shark smashed into it headfirst, and his possession ended abruptly. He presumed the force had broken the zombie shark's neck or squished its brain enough to end its life for good.

"What the fuck, Wayne? Did you do that?" Fergus asked.

Wayne laughed and laughed over Voice.

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