Chapter 55: The Deep Dive Mandate

Chapter 55: Chapter 55: The Deep Dive Mandate

"The sea, once it casts its spell, holds one in its net of wonder forever."— Jacques-Yves Cousteau

Nobody had volunteered for that net. The wonder it had been meant to catch had been dead for three thousand years.

The order came with the dawn bells. It was not a request.

Every herald tower in Aethelgard rang at once. A deep, layered BRONNG rolled across the sky-docks.

By the second bell, the top fifty students of Zenith Vanguard Academy had gathered in Meridian Hall, trying to look unsurprised.

Joel stood near the back, wearing the calm look of a man checking a bill he had already reviewed.

Proctor Harrison read the scroll in a flat voice.

"By order of the Provost’s Council, the Academy announces a mandatory expedition into Stratum Five, known as the Sunken Necropolis. All students ranked in the top fifty must take part.

"Your objective is to recover First Ascendant relics from the drowned districts. The expedition will last six days.

"Casualty insurance is not included."

Joel did not laugh. He was busy doing the math.

When he enrolled, he had ranked ninety-one. The Academy’s polite way of saying he was easy to overlook.

Then Victor Kole had wagered his Storm Vault on their duel and lost. The winner-takes-all rule had given Joel another 4,700 Merit chits.

That reward had pushed him up to rank twenty-three.

Now he was inside the top fifty and directly in the path of this expedition.

The system hummed against his sternum, dry as ever.

[Ding!]

[ DEEP DIVE MANDATE: REGISTERED ]

[ PARTICIPANT: JOEL CARROW. STANDING: 23 OF 50. ]

[ ATTENDANCE: COMPULSORY. SURVIVAL: OPTIONAL. ]

[ NOTE: COMPULSORY RISK IS STILL RISK. ODDS FILED. ]

The note almost sounded kind.

Someone in the Academy wanted him dead in that water. The timing pointed to the Koles. Their Inquisition petition was still crawling through the paperwork, but a drowned city could kill much faster.

Bribe a registrar. Fake a roster. Let the ocean handle the rest.

The squad lists went up at noon. The sabotage was so neat that Joel almost wanted to frame it.

Every other squad had five members, balanced for a proper expedition.

Squad Eleven had only three.

[ SQUAD 11: EXPEDITIONARY UNIT ]

[ JOEL CARROW: FLESH-GUIDE, F-RANK, LEVEL 1, SCANNER-VERIFIED ]

[ ROAN: RUNE-WRIGHT, LEVEL 20 ]

[ SYBILL: HEX-WEAVER, LEVEL 22 ]

The Academy’s records still listed him as an F-rank, Level 1 Flesh-Guide. The Null-Band fed that lie to every scanner, and no clerk dared question the boy who had put Victor Kole in a crater.

Squad Eleven had no real chance of success. Nobody even tried to pretend otherwise.

Joel found his teammates at the gear depot.

Roan was a lanky third-year student with ink-stained fingers. He slouched like a man who had already worked out how long he had left to live.

"So they put the Academy’s two biggest liabilities with the F-rank who cratered a Kole," he said. "That’s not a squad, friend. That’s a burial with paperwork."

Sybill was smaller. Hex-thread wrapped around her fingers, and her eyes kept darting toward the exits.

"My hexes take eleven seconds," she said in a voice barely louder than the tide. "The field manual says a combat spell should take three."

Something in Joel’s stillness made even Roan stand up straighter.

"Roan, you will handle air wards, anchor lines, and floor runes," Joel said calmly.

"A Rune-Wright who cannot fight is not a broken soldier. He is a portable wall. Give him three seconds and a flat surface, and he can build a defense. And walls win sieges."

He turned to Sybill.

"Your eleven-second cast is not a weakness. A slow spell is like a fuse. The only problem is when nobody protects what it is about to set off. I will keep the enemies away from you while your spell builds. Do not cast anything until I give the order. And once you start, do not stop until the water goes quiet."

Roan stared at him. Then a rusty grin spread across his face, breaking through his usual cynicism.

"You’re assigning us jobs like we’re items in your inventory," he said, sounding almost hopeful.

"Inventory implies I intend to use you up," Joel replied. "I don’t waste resources. I put them to work."

*******

Three days later, the descent began. The students entered a pressure-locked shaft they called the Drowned Stair.

Their gondola sank through four hundred meters of green water. Outside the window, the city of the First Ascendants slowly came into view, like a photograph appearing in acid.

Towers made of smooth glass-like stone stood in rows, their surfaces covered in coral. Marble streets ran between them in straight lines. Far ahead, a cathedral bell swung once in the current.

DOOM.

The sound rolled through the water.

The Academy had given every student a pressure glyph. Joel clipped his to his collar, though his body was already handling the pressure in its own way.

Caustic Filtration had confirmed that the water was safe. The crushing weight of the deep pressed against his Aegis Frame, but it felt like a steady, gentle shove.

His trait turned that pressure into stored energy, just as a mill turns the force of a river into power.

[Ding!]

[ AMBIENT PRESSURE: KINETIC LOAD, CONSTANT ]

[ ABSORPTION ENGAGED. CHARGE: +0.4% PER MINUTE ]

Static Lattice sat inside his core like swallowed fireworks. He had learned it from Victor’s stolen skillbook, but at Novice rank, it was still unreliable. Lightning remained his weakness, and somewhere in this drowned darkness, a storm was waiting.

The first ambush came at the Plaza of Tides.

A cloud of silt rose beside the colonnade, warning Joel that something was moving.

Six figures stepped out of the doorways in perfect formation. Coral-covered armor clung to their drowned bones. Each carried a halberd in the same position, as if they were still following an ancient drill.

Behind them, long eels twisted through the murky water.

[Ding!]

[ DROWNED WATCH: LEVEL 27, X6 ]

[ BONEYARD EEL: LEVEL 24, X4 ]

[ NOTE: THE FIRST ASCENDANTS KEPT EXCELLENT CITY WATCH. STILL ON SHIFT. ]

"Roan, prepare the floor rune. Wait for my signal," Joel said, stepping in front of Sybill like a post holding a ship in place. "Sybill, cast your slowest hex now. Do not stop weaving for any reason. Cast!"

The first guard charged faster than armor that old should have allowed. Its coral-covered halberd swung down in a whistling arc.

Joel crossed his forearms and blocked the blow.

KRRAK!

The sound resounded through the plaza. The halberd’s shaft snapped, and its coral blade shattered.

Joel did not move an inch.

Water always found its level. Today, Joel was that level.

He struck back half a beat later.

At point-blank range, Meteor Piercer unleashed its power underwater. Water could not be compressed, so the force spread through it like a debt collector coming to claim what was owed.

THWOOM!

The blast tore a path through the formation. Then the water rushed back into the space left behind, creating a violent collapse.

KRUMP!

The combined force swept the guards away and smashed them against the colonnade like furniture caught in a storm.

The eels attacked from the side, twisting through the murky water with their mouths wide open.

That was when the floor rune activated.

SHNK!

Roan’s ward snapped into place as a bright grid. Two of the four eels hit it at full speed and were cut into smaller pieces.

"Eleven seconds," Sybill whispered behind Joel. Her fingers moved faster and faster as she worked on her spell.

Joel used those seven remaining seconds to deal with the guards.

He walked into their scattered formation, grabbed the nearest one by its faceplate, and slammed it into the marble floor.

DOOM!

The impact left a crater in the stone.

He grabbed another guard and used it as a shield against a third guard’s halberd.

Bone struck armor with a sound like a foundry tumbling down a staircase.

On the eleventh second, Sybill’s hex finally took effect.

It spread across the plaza like an anchor made of curses dropping into the water.

The Salt-Rot Hex released a ring of grey light. Every drowned creature it touched began to slow down, as if the water had turned to thick syrup. Their aggression faded, leaving them floating helplessly in confusion.

Sybill stared at her hands.

"It worked in the field," she said in a tiny voice. "It never works in the field."

Joel moved down the slowed line, knocking each guard out with open-palm strikes.

DOOM.

The sounds echoed through the deep like a funeral drum.

He dealt with the last three using a single Meteor Piercer. The blast crushed the wall behind them, burying them in the rubble.

THWOOM!

Silt drifted down through the green light like snow. The plaza fell silent, leaving only the faint hum of the pressure charms.

[ SQUAD KILL: DROWNED WATCH X6, BONEYARD EEL X4 ]

[ EXPERIENCE ALLOCATED: ROAN +312, SYBILL +366, JOEL +118 ]

[ SURVIVAL ACCUMULATION: +6% ]

[ NOTE: COMPOUND INTEREST NOTED. THE DEEP REWARDS PATIENCE. ]

Roan sat on a fallen statue, still shaking from the fight. It was not fear that made him tremble. He looked at Joel like a man who had just discovered that everything he believed was wrong.

"You held six of them back while I set up the ward," he said. "You weren’t just protecting Sybill. You were buying her time."

"You set the ward in two seconds, and she stopped a whole group of soldiers with her first cast," Joel replied.

He turned toward the deeper darkness. The distant bell had rung again, and he had been counting.

"None of us is broken. We were simply placed in the wrong category. I found the right one."

They continued along the drowned avenue. Roan’s anchor lines connected the three of them, while Sybill rewound her hex-thread.

Joel kept track of everything as they moved. The return beacon had a thin crack that no fall or impact could explain.

Ahead of them, the deep had begun to sound like something breathing.