<~> Chapter 124 - Luna

The water splashed on me as Helena's large body hit the water. The water was now up to my knees, which was plenty enough for Helena to drown in. I needed to reach her! I'm not sure if she could survive being underwater, but I wasn't willing to take that risk.

Helena had fallen face-first into the water when she passed out and had reverted to her human form. She would be easier to move like this, but it would still be difficult for me to sit her up by myself. I sloshed through the water and grabbed at the back of her breastplate. She was heavy, and the metal armor covering her body didn't make things easier on me, but I still tried to force her head above the water.

("Helena passed out in the water! Can anyone help?") I cried out through the rings.

("Too many crabs, I can't come!") Maxwell replied first.

("Can you get someone else to help? I'm busy!") Piper called back at nearly the same time.

("I don't think I can make it to you!") Aria yelled through the rings.

Iris had already run over and was trying to help me pull on her, but Helena was too heavy for the two of us. The best we could do was slide her around in the water, but even together, we couldn't lift her out of it. My hands were shaking. I worried I would have to watch my fiancé die right in front of me.

Of all the people who came to help, it was Valkin. He pushed Iris aside before grabbing the back of Helena's armor and pulling her up and out of the water. The two of us rushed to adjust her legs so we could sit her up. As soon as her head surfaced, she started coughing out water, but she wasn't waking up.

"Get back!" Norrik growled while pointing his sword at two of the draco who were approaching.

"That thing was going to kill us!" a blue-scaled draco yelled at him. "Kill it while it's down!"

"Helena is on our side. She was protecting us!" Milana yelled back.

("Iris, Helena said she was poisoned. We need to get Piper.")

"Poison? Piper is on the other side of the clearing. It'll be hard to get her with all of the fighting going on," Iris yelled over all of the shouting.

"Step back, or I'll cut you down myself!" Norrik barked.

I've had enough. Helena might be dying in front of me. I wouldn't let these idiots speed up the process. I stood up and let ice mana flow from my body to create a ring of icy spikes around the five of us. The icicles sprouted up between our groups, and the draco backed away from the implied threat. The ice was already melting. The high concentration of salt in the water was making my ice magic unreliable. The sharp spikes I conjured had fallen apart in mere moments. Unfortunately fire wasn't much better in this situation, and lightning magic would only hurt all of us. It was one of the things Helena warned me about. Water conducts electricity, and saltwater is more conductive than freshwater. She hadn't been able to explain why, but I trusted her when it came to electricity. She's taught me too much to take her warnings lightly.

Norrik waved his sword between the two of them. "She's a northerner. She can shift into a wolf. Back off!"

"That bloody thing wasn't a wolf! Don't insult my intelligence. I've seen a northerner shift before. That thing was not a northerner!" the blue one shouted.

"So you've met every northerner and know of every bloody animal they can shift into!?" Norrik hollered back.

"That thing is a changeling! I saw its eyes! It's trying to sneak into our backlines and kill us while we're distracted!" the blue draco cried.

"You're a bloody moron!" Norrik shouted.

Valkin tapped on my shoulder. "She's breathing again, but it's really shallow. I don't think she's doing okay. Does her regeneration not handle poison well?" he asked.

I grabbed Iris and pulled her closer to us. ("Tell Valkin I don't know. We've never dealt with poison like this before.")

Iris repeated my words.

Valkin frowned. "I forgot you can't speak. We have to get her out of here. She needs healing, or better yet, a poison expert. I can't tell if she's getting better or worse."

"Are those guys going to let us leave? They seem really mad..." Iris said.

Valkin sighed. "I can't believe Jol'ket's team would try and start a fight in the middle of a situation like this. The crabs haven't stopped coming, and they're putting more pressure on our frontline by forcing us to protect an ally."

"Is the stairway still blocked?" Iris asked.

"I don't know. It might have gone away when Helena killed that monster, but everything is so out of control that I haven't been able to look.

"Let me see Helena!" someone called out. I looked over at the voice. It was the black-scaled drakken from Jol'ket's group. The water was already above his waist, but he had gone out of his way to come over to us.

"Back, lizard!" Norrik yelled.

"I saw Helena get bit. I can make an antivenom from that monster. If I don't give it to her, she may die!" he called out calmly.

"Rell'kor! That thing is a changeling! Its eyes were glowing white!" the blue draco yelled.

"Hush, Tor'jek! If she is a changeling, we can find out after the fighting is over. We can tie her up while she recovers if it's necessary. But if you're wrong and I don't administer an antivenom, our ally could die. Let me handle this and go back to supporting Jol'ket. He's struggling on the front line!"

("Iris, ask Norrik to let him over. Helena needs that antivenom,") I told Iris.

Iris stood up and ran over to Norrik. "Luna says to let him over! Helena needs the antivenom! She doesn't look good!"

Norrik growled and stepped out of Rell'kor's way but continued to position himself in front of the blue draco. "Fine, the black-scaled one can come over. Blue-scales stays away from her!"

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The blue one, Tol'jek, I think he was called, scowled and stepped back. "Fine. I will return to support Jol'ket. Watch that creature closely. If you die to the changeling, I'm taking your stuff!" he growled before leading the other draco away with him.

Rather than come up to Helena, Rell'kor sloshed through the water to the dead snake monster Helena had half-eaten. It was a gruesome mess of blood and guts completely submerged now, but its head was still intact.

"I need help pulling the monster's head out of the water. I need some of its venom," He called out over the backdrop of fighting.

Valkin shifted Helena's weight against me. "Hold her in place. I'll go help the drakken."

I nodded and held Helena tight so she wouldn't slip back into the water. She was normally so gentle with me. I had never realized how heavy she actually was until her body went limp like this. The heavy metal armor that she wore and the deep water we were fighting in didn't help either. Iris came to help me support her, but even with the two of us working together, it was tough to hold her upright.

I looked over to see if Valkin would be done soon. He had wedged himself under the snake monster and was lifting the monster's corpse out of the water with his legs. The snake looked pretty heavy as well. The black and white scaled drakken touched something inside the monster's mouth that caused its fangs to release venom into a vial. He collected a few of them before stepping away and pulling things out of a waterproof satchel he kept at his side.

"Do not imitate what I'm about to do. I have an extremely high resistance to poison and venoms through magic-infused potions I have developed. Most people would die if they do what I'm about to," Rell'kor said before injecting himself with a small amount of the snake's venom. He closed his eyes, cracked his neck, and stood there quietly for a few moments. After a long, tense pause, he pulled out a different syringe and began drawing some of his blood.

"What are you doing?" Milana asked warily.

"Creating an antivenom using my blood," Rell'kor said while mixing something into the tube with his blood in it. "Once it's finished, I'll inject it into her, and it should help her recover."

("Iris, ask him if her regeneration will be a problem,") I told the mousekin.

"Uhm, Luna wants me to ask if Helena's self-healing is going to be a problem!"

"It shouldn't. Her regeneration is probably the only reason she's still alive. But I don't know if... something else about her body will make it less effective. We'll find out after I inject her," he replied.

("Ask if there's any chance this will make things worse,") I asked Iris again.

"Could this make things worse?" Iris asked worriedly.

Rell'kor shook his head. "It shouldn't make things worse. Based on the way she looks, she'll die if we don't inject her with this soon. The fact that she's held on this long proves how tenacious she is. Most would have already expired by now."

His statement made me blanche. I am so lucky my Helena is strong.

The black and white scaled drakken shook the tube in his hand before taking a third, clean syringe from his satchel and drawing the concoction into it. "Hold her still. I need to go through her neck near where the original bite was," he said, waving to Helena.

Valkin pushed Iris aside again and helped me hold her in place. I gulped a little when I saw the length of the needle he was going to use up close. I held her head against mine and took a deep breath as I watched the long needle sink into my lover's neck. I hope I wasn't making a mistake.

After only a moment, he pulled the needle back and nodded. "If her healing is as strong as you say, she should recover quickly from here. I don't know how long it'll be before she wakes up, but I think she will survive."

"What about tying her up?" Valkin asked hesitantly.

The drakken laughed. "I doubt she's going to want to do anything when she wakes up. Don't worry about it. For now, we need to focus on the horde of monsters around us and see if the stairway is unblocked."

"Can you carry her to the stairs?" Milana asked Valkin.

"I think so, but it might be better if you three mages go back to help clear the waves of monsters. There's a lot of them, and magic is better for that than the two of us," Valkin replied.

I shook my head and grabbed Helena's hand. The metal and leather of her gauntlets felt cold to the touch.

Milana sighed. "I'll go with Norrik back to the front. You go with Luna and Iris and see what you can do near the stairs."

"Fine. Be careful, you two," he replied.

"I'll go back to the catkin. The two of us were sharing a couple of trees to shoot from. I'd like to be out of the water again. See me after we get out of here. I'd like to talk with Helena about the venom," Rell'kor said before turning to slosh back through the water.

The water had risen to mid-thigh for me now. I hoped this was the extent of it. The flooding seemed to have slowed down, and the moon that Helena pointed to had already passed the apex of the sky.

Valkin pulled Helena onto his back, and I helped him stand with her heavy weight. The water was getting a little too deep for Iris, so I pulled her on my back too, so she wouldn't have to swim through it.

When we reached the stairwell, several soldiers were trying to chip away at something that was covering it, but it kept reforming. Once we got closer, I could see what was happening. A cage made from salt was blocking anyone from leaving and sucking mana out of the surrounding saltwater. The cage allowed freshwater to pass through, flooding the stairwell, but any chips the soldiers made to the cage reformed as soon as the water passed. The bony spikes were reinforcing themselves with the salt that was leached from the water that passed through. Was the entire freshwater oasis caused by this interaction in the dungeon? That would bear investigation later.

I looked at Helena lying over Valkin's back. Her breathing seemed to have normalized, but she looked exhausted. I wasn't sure if we would be able to count on her to thin these crabs that were attacking us so relentlessly. I just hoped her theory was true and this trial would end once the moon receded enough for the flooding to stop.

I turned to the waves of crabs and started collecting my mana. I would need to be as cost-effective to kill as many of them as I could, but I had a good idea of how to accomplish that. I would just need to be careful to avoid friendly fire. The salt wouldn't let the ice stick, but a blizzard of ice wouldn't need to freeze things for long to be effective.

("Get ready, Iris. I need your help. Let's thin the crabs with an ice storm,") I told her.

("You want to fight them from here?") Iris asked.

("It isn't too far for you, is it?") I asked her genuinely.

("I don't know, I don't think so, but I don't want to hurt anyone on our side...")

("I think we can do it. Just follow my lead,") I reassured her.

("Okay. I got it. I trust you, Luna.")

I felt Iris collect her mana and swirl her wind magic as I marked where I wanted her to spread my frost. Despite the ice not sticking around long, it was clear that the ice was effective at killing or at least slowing down the crabs. Together, the two of us would protect our friends and my love.

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