Bee's POV:-

Cold and shivering, I navigated the direction from memory. Last time I had been here, Mr. Om had been leading the way and Es had been gallivanting about in the foliage and See had been licking my shoe and now I was so alone and I was so scared and ahhh I didn’t want to die like this.

I remembered the horrendous, carnivorous plants from earlier and followed their trail. It was dark, so their purple glow alone was guiding me. Once I nearly stumbled into one of their jaws because their light had been off for some reason. I also spotted this person's shape imputed on the ridged ground and I moved towards him, only to see that the shape belonged to a skeleton eating a tiny, two-inch dinosaur. And it wasn’t a human or even a human-like skeleton, so I darted, twisting my ankle.

I knew the walk was kind of long, having done it once before – but I didn’t know it would so much longer with my ankle sprained. Like, sweet particles of astrophysics! The pain!

I breathed white fog, which kept hindering my vision. I’ve been thinking my eyesight is getting weaker, anyway, I should have had an optical exam sooner. Welps.

'Stay calm, Bee,' I told myself again and again. ‘Stay calm. You just had water, so you can stay hydrated for a while. After that . . . well, we’ll see.’

I surely couldn’t drink water from the lake. That could prove fatal.

But I really wasn’t even much worried about that. The fact that I was missing from the mansion was bound to be discovered soon. Momma and Pops – they’d blame Mr. Om and my friends . . . and they probably wouldn’t even figure out I had used the amulet to come here (by accident or not), because who the heck in their right mind would do that?

And if they did figure it out, they’d come here . . . and die, too. Ravenna was far more wary and careful than the Grahi Witch. She wasn’t drunk with power; she was fighting to have it.

I kept walking, my feet hurting like you wouldn’t believe. I kept walking and walking – and unknowingly stepped into the lake.

I sank in, warping my already sprained ankle – pretty sure I broke it, sharp, hot, searing pain ran up my leg in multiple lines – and felt something cold truss around my calf, pulling me in deeper. I started to drown, kick, gag. I looked down, suffocating, and found a sickly green weed tightening around that calf.

Ultimately, I ran out of breath, and the weed-rope kept pulling me in deeper still – you’d never have guessed a lake would be this deep – and I opened my mouth – and found that I could breathe.

I mean, water – doubtlessly filthy, grimy water – entered my nose and my mouth, but it somehow didn’t bother me. I could breathe, I was alive . . . and my good foot hit the floor bed of the lake. The weed-rope loosened and crawled away into a bush by what looked like an anemone where some sea cucumbers were having a marathon.

I looked up, but the surface of the lake was way too far above. The water in my nasal canal got it ticklish, so I snorted to get some out, even though there was water all around me, but only expunged a giant bubble.

I was too busy marveling at the wonder and horror of it all – heck, I was breathing underwater and snorting bubbles – that I barely noticed the enormous, inhabited shells behind me.

'Trespasser, do speak your name,' said a croaky voice, so I turned to face its owner, and saw a four-feet tall lobster sitting in the largest central shell, which gleamed like opal. (Opal is, as I’m sure you must know, an amorphous form of silicates – and it glows bright turquoise when hydrated with water about 8% its net weight.)

‘I – I’m not a trespasser, I was just - '

'Trespasser, do speak your name,' the lobster repeated, and I didn’t think it was going to repeat itself again.

'Bee, sir,' I said in a small voice, producing another giant bubble from my stupid mouth.

(As for my name being Bee . . . not really. But that’s the only name I can tell my readers/listeners for confidential reasons.)

‘Sir?’ The lobster leaned forward, and a wee frog with a tiara on his head jumped off the shell behind his back. 'I am Queen Elizabeth One-Point-Five. Do you not know of me, trespasser?’

Of course the lobster with the croaky voice was a female. Of course.

‘I’m sorry, but I haven’t, your – your Deepness.’ 

At this the shell on the lobster's right opened its mouth, and I saw what was at least an eight-feet long seahorse, with the tentacles of a jellyfish, sprawled inside. ‘You dare call her Deepness her Deepness?’ it said in a very girly voice which reminded me of See. ‘You shall rot along with those traitor Piranhas Of Bologinimini-Pahnk!’

The seahorse's jellyfish-tentacles cracked with weak, scary electricity. I recoiled slightly, but that hurt my broken ankle too badly to be true and I nearly tumbled over. Thankfully, the water of the lake was thick and dank, and its viscosity kept me from falling to the seabed (lake-bed?).

‘I swear, ma’am, I’m not a trespasser or anything, I go to middle-school in {Undis-2-closed}, you can ask my Momma-'

‘Ma’am?’ the seahorse-jellyfish hybrid shouted in its shrill voice. ‘I am Prince Charles, and I shall electrocute you for your insolence-!’

Of course the one with the girly voice was a guy. Of course.

‘Charles!’ Queen Elizabeth 1.5 reprimanded him in her thick, grainy voice. How a lobster bred to result in a seahorse-jellyfish hybrid was beyond me. Maybe the latter was adopted. ‘How many have you been taught to not resort to threats this early in the inquiry? Maybe this boy knows where that Ravenna's keeping Master Rasthrum hid . . . '

‘Wait, I know Rasthrum!’ I said, excited at hearing a familiar name, balancing myself on my good foot. ‘I’m his – I’m his friend!’

Here another shell, the one on the lobster’s left, opened its mouth to reveal an . . . Ogcocephalidae, I think it’s called. Which is a batfish, for those who don’t know. Fascinating creature of the deep to study, but my skin crawled at seeing its chapped anglerfish body live.

‘You imbecile!’ roared the batfish in a manly, manly voice. Kind of like that Bryan Cranston guy Aar's always talking about. 'Master Rasthrum would never be friends with the likes of you!’

‘Sir, I promise to you – it is sir, right?’

The batfish flapped its loose, darkened upper skinfolds. I took that for a nod.

'Right, I – I promise he’s my friend. We helped him defeat the Grahi Witc - '

'Humph!’ said the lobster. ‘We do not speak the gone devil's name here, boy! Names hold much power of the old Aqua Gods!’

'Actually, I’m a girl-'

'Don't speak unless you’re spoken to! You think claiming to be Master Rasthrum’s acquaintance will save your terrestrial skin?’

I opened my mouth, tasted the mucky water on my tongue, closed it.

'How did you get here, boy?’

‘I’m a girl,' I mumbled, my ginger hair floating behind me.

'Huh?’ said Queen Elizabeth 1.5.

'I – I used the silver amulet Rasthrum – uh, Muh-Master Rasthrum gave to me. Like, I kept it in my mouth. Well, it was an accident, I was having a vision, I think. I don’t know. Anyway, I kind of teleported here, I guess. It felt weird. I was planning to, you know, board a boat like the last time and go to Lakoswanion, to meet Ravenna-'

‘Aha!’ exclaimed the Bryan Cranston batfish. 'There it is! To meet that woman, you came! To meet and conspire against us, as if you haven’t wrecked enough homes already-'

‘To meet and thwart her. Rasthrum told me he needed my help.’

'As if we'd ever believe you,' muttered the batfish, swimming out of his shell and charging towards me.

Just when I thought I was going to be strangled to death by a talking batfish, the lobster queen bellowed: 'Enough! Seclude yourself in your shell, Edward, or I’ll find another Earl for Bersexent!’

Edward the batfish stopped mid-charge, stared me down with eyes I couldn’t see, and went back to his shell, which clamped its jaws down like the book-jaws I had used to frighten Aar in pre-school.

‘Now,' said the lobster queen in a low voice, 'you say you used the amulet? Can you show it to me?’

‘I – I can’t. It kind of just dissolved in my mouth when I arrived here.’

Prince Charles the seahorse-jellyfish hybrid swam over to his mother’s shell and whispered some inaudible words into her ear. She, in turn, waved her crusher claw in my general direction thoughtfully . . . and some giant silver Hatchetfishes with teal spears surrounded me. I shuddered.

‘Yes,' I heard the lobster queen utter from her cephalothorax (do some research on that, it’s an interesting organ). ‘Bring forth the Seer.’

‘Ex – excuse me, your Deepness? What’s the Seer?’

She didn’t care to respond, just wiggled her carapace (body of arthropods), and snuggled up in her comfy shell. Moments later, the giant silver Hatchetfishes around me sided . . . and I saw a teensy little brown dot swim towards me.

Turns out, the brown little dot (Pops, close your ears) was a living creature – a Gigantocypris, to be exact – and had two shiny, button-like eyes attached to its small round body. It looked like one of those crazy balls Aar used to hone his Paracord Slinging skills. 

The dot snorkeled right in front of my nose, and I forgot that I had a broken ankle as I stared into its glistening eyes. The glow in them kept on increasing, until the buttons were emitting white light . . . and I knew that the Gigantocypris was the Seer, and that the Seer could – how non-ironic – see right through me. Both figuratively and, yes, literally.

Eventually the light from its eyes receded, and my ankle started to hurt again. I almost cried. What was happening? I had been celebrating my friend's birthday just two, maybe three, hours ago, and now I was here, and I had no idea what these – these freaking fishes were going to do to me. Probably poke me to death with those teal spears.

Imagine getting killed by a bunch of water creatures with your ankle broken. And no one you love has any idea you’re dead, or how to find you.

‘Well?’ The lobster queen and her son the prince looked expectantly (I’m guessing, because their expressions are, uhm, hard to read) at the little brown dot.

And the little brown dot answered.

More like, shrieked.

First off, I don’t understand the physics of underwater breathing or talking. If you do, and if I’m alive by the end of all this, let me know.

Now, the Gigantocypris's shrieking. I’d rather not elaborate much, but it was way more eardrum-ripping than Es and Marra's duo. And that’s saying something.

I didn’t get a word she – or he? The genders of the deep are a puzzle to me – shrieked, but apparently, Queen Elizabeth 1.5 did. She approached me, clanking her claws as she swam with royal leisure.

Her mandible moved like a faulty garage door as she said: 'The Seer tells me you speak the truth, boy. He tells me that you assisted Master Rasthrum in overthrowing the Order Of The Witch Grant. For that, I thank you. I apologize on behalf of the Vologimigoli-Wahnk water-dom. Now, we shall help you in carrying on with your journey to defeat Ravenna.’

‘Cool,' said I. ‘I’m a girl, by the way.’

This was a crazy chapter, but it was necessary for more than one reasons, as you'll see.

I hope you liked it?

Thanks for reading anyway! Let's dance! ♪～(´ε｀ )