我的继坶我的性老师

Chapter 1351 Chapter 1351 Tresure for Four Part 2

Romilda shivered as the water covered her completely. She wasn\'t cold, but she never felt truly comfortable here. Perhaps it was all the times she\'d been thrown into the water with metal weights on that caused the issue, even now she could control those same pieces of metal in such a way she could fly, let alone swim with them.

Shaking her head to clear the unwanted thoughts Romilda looked around at the area she was in. It appeared to be… a coral forest? The coral here was stretched out into tree-like structures that tangled together where the \'branches\' met. The coral was surprisingly tall, but not too tall. The real issue for others would be navigating through all the tight spaces that the coral through up, for Romilda though? Her shorter stature was coming in handy this time.

The coral had a few distinct colours. Green, White, Pink and Orange. The colours mixed occasionally, where the branches met. Some entire trees were a wonderous swirl of two or three colours that looked breathtaking. Sadly that wasn\'t the norm. For the most part, each of the \'trees\' kept to the same single colour with only minor deviations in shade.

Aside from the, mostly, inanimate coral on display there was a number of fish that were swimming around. They ducked in and out of the branches with no trouble at all. Some fish would bump into each other occasionally, but never the coral. Romilda thought the whole place looked rather peaceful…

That was until one fish drifted too close to the sandy floor and it was speared through by a sharp tail. It was only around a fingers width in size at its largest and was attached to something hiding under the sand. Romilda couldn\'t help but swallow heavily as the fish, still struggling slightly on the end of the spear, was reeled down under the sands. Once the fish had been pulled into the gap in the sand, something underneath it all vibrated for a few seconds.

When the sand stopped bouncing all looked calm. There was no sign of any predators or dead fish. If Romilda hadn\'t seen it with her own eyes, she would\'ve said that it was a perfectly normal patch of sand in this coral forest. Not one that hid a fearsome predator. Romilda found herself carefully shifting the metal on her body about. Focusing more of it around her torso to protect her organs from a spear like that.

*I\'m sure I can block at least one strike from that thing… but it would bruise something fierce. I\'m really not interested in fighting those things, but I also have no idea how to avoid them. I can swim around that area now I know one is there… but where there is one, surely there are more. How can I recognise them? Do I have to send out little beads of metal ahead of me to try and trigger the \'traps\'?

Probably not. I can\'t be sure if whatever that was can tell what is and isn\'t alive. If I knew how often these things require food I could try testing it with the one in front of me… but if it\'s an ambush predator it likely won\'t even try to grab more food for an hour at minimum. I\'d need to really rile it up to get a reaction… which completely defeats the point. Hmmm… the only reason to fight it is if I think there\'s some treasure hidden in its burrow. How likely is that though? Thyme wouldn\'t put a treasure chest in every burrow if they\'re common… but if they\'re not perhaps. Hmm… am I talking myself into it?*

Romilda shrugged. It wasn\'t the worst idea after all. Separating out around half of the metal on her body she moved slightly further back while sending the metal forward. The pieces split further into thin spears of her own all aiming down at the sand. Romilda let them spin around the area for a few moments before clenching her fist.

The spears shot down into the sand and instantly Romilda knew she had it. The thing was thrashing around majorly under the sand, throwing it up everywhere and creating a massive dust cloud. Probably in an attempt to escape from whatever had just attacked it. Sadly for whatever this was, Romilda could feel the extra resistance on a few of her spears. So she simply sent the ones that missed in that rough direction and was reward when she felt the spears connect.

Romilda waited for the dust to settle and saw that the thing she\'d attacked was an odd mix of crab and stingray. With a hard shell around its centre and fins that stuck out to give it better mobility. It was currently laying on the sand, seemingly dead after being speared into the ground through the fins. Romilda wasn\'t content with that. She pulled off one more chunk of metal from her body and formed it into another spear. Launching it right at the shell in the centre.

Considering the fact the damned thing started thrashing again after the spear made it through the shell? Romilda was going to guess it was just playing dead. Better safe then sorry. *Let\'s just hope there\'s something in its lair.* Thought Romilda as she started to retract the spears and form them into tiny shovels. Hopefully digging up the nearby are wouldn\'t take too long.

--- Blue --- (Just after entering the portal)

Sigils exploded around Blue as she floated in the water. *Don\'t bother studying the water search spell Blue. It won\'t be useful Blue. It\'s won\'t even make learning the rain search spell easier Blue. Well WHO\'S LAUGHING NOW.* Then the spell kicked in and Blue was struck by a massive headache. It felt like she\'d just been domed by Nell.

*Ok maybe I went a little crazy with that. Shit ok, note to self. Do not use twelve concurrent search spells all covering different areas unless you want a raging headache. Dammit the info isn\'t even any good because it\'s all garbled up in my head. I guess I\'ll need to do this slowly. Still faster then everyone else, but slow. Urgh, I was hoping to grab a whole bunch of treasures and then try to fight some of the others before they can gear up and perhaps get lucky with something that can stop my underwater.*

Another sigil lit up. This time Blue took it slow. Sigil up, get info, sigil down. Sigil up, get info, sigil down. Blue felt her headache worsening after the fifth sigil and decided that was enough. For now. The spell had found her six chests already, but no further information about them sadly.

*Hmm, guess I\'ll just go grab the closest one then? I couldn\'t work out if any of them were locked or if they had challenges nearby. I\'m not good enough at the spell for that sort of thing. At least it worked. I was a bit worried it wouldn\'t, or Thyme would\'ve enchanted against it. Still it looks like my practice paid off big time.*

A different sigil lit up next to Blue and suddenly she was rocketing off towards the nearby chest. The area she was in consisted of a bunch of craggy rocks with a few bits and pieces of wildlife hanging around. The nearest chest was in a large opening to a shallow cave around fifty metres off to her left. It took Blue no time at all to pull open the chest and find herself… a pickaxe? Blue shrugged as she grabbed the thing and then sped off towards the next chest. Not even bothering to test it out or look for the name. It wasn\'t important to her at the moment.

The next closest chest was actually in the opposite direction, but there were three chests in that rough direction so Blue considered it a worthwhile second destination. The first chest she found that way was disguised as part of the rock formation with actual rocked stuck to the top to hide the fact. Alas, Blue\'s spell had more than enough water around it to get a clear picture of the chest inside.

Blue threw this one open as well and found a knitted scarf inside. It had a nice flower theme going on with all different shapes and colours of flowers knitted across its length. Once again, Blue didn\'t bother with looking too closely. She just wrapped it around her neck so it would be easy to carry and then launched herself off after the next two chests. They were right next to each other after all.

Blue pulled up and was surprised to see Thyme with a snorkel and flippers. Behind Thyme was the two chests that she could see. Thyme was holding up a sign that said, \'You may claim only one chest. Answer my riddle to figure out which contains the better prize,\'

"I want the one on the left," said Blue.

Thyme spun the sign around so it now read \'Are you sure you don\'t want to hear the riddle?\'

"No, I\'m going for quantity over quality. I don\'t care if it has the better prize or not I just want to be fast. I\'m certain I can win any fight underwater," proclaimed Blue. Thyme just shrugged, and handed over the chest as requested. Blue pulled it open and found a seemingly ordinary looking rock. Blue found she didn\'t really care if it WAS an ordinary rock or not. It was a treasure and that was all that mattered. So she rocketed off to the next chest.