Book 9: Chapter 10:

Fenrir wanted to build a submarine. Not only did he want to build a submarine, but he wanted to build one in a secret, underwater tunnel. He knew that a few of those existed in the area, some of which led as far inland as to go into the mountain range, but he never explored any of them aside from the one that GG needed help with back when the serpent was an issue.

Fortunately, exploring the others in the area would be easy for him despite the fact that they were underwater.

And that was because he was still Nell’s champion. While he may have rarely ever made use of all the perks associated with that, now was the perfect time to do so.

“Ready?” Fenrir asked, standing at the edge of the river that ran through the center of the town. That was where the docks were built and where smaller ships, The Shoebill included, stayed.

Only, it was not The Shoebill Fenrir would be taking out to explore these underwater caverns with.

It was the serpentine beast sticking up out of the water that would be accompanying him.

Ilo nodded her head as her tail swayed from side to side above the water in the distance.

Fenrir reached forward to pet her snout. “I remember when you used to be a small little thing. Back when you were smaller than The Shoebill. Now, here you are. Keep growing at this rate and your head alone is going to be as big as she is.”

Not only was Ilo still growing, but her growth almost seemed to be exponential. She was getting bigger and bigger with no end in sight, and Fenrir was even starting to worry about just how big in total she would grow to be. There was no way that they would be able to keep her around if she managed to grow as large as one of the world serpents, and she was technically the same species as them.

If she grew that large then she would have to stay out in the ocean all the time. No more hanging out in the river or shallow waters.

“You might have to go on a diet,” Fenrir told her. “I think you’re eating too many rowboats.”

Ilo lowered her snout until her nostrils were under the water, pointed them up at him, and snorted to blast him water. Those unfortunate enough to be minding their own business behind Fenrir also got soaked.

“You might be big, but you’re still immature.”

Ilo snorted even more water at him.

“You’re lucky I’m about to go underwater and get soaked anyways.”

Rather than snort more water at him, Ilo rolled her eyes.

“What? Are you like a bratty teenager now? Is this you going through your rebellious phase?”

Ilo made sure that the next rolling of her eyes was significantly more dramatic than the first one after hearing that.

“I never thought I would have a giant serpent roll her eyes at me, but here I am. Anyways, you ready to go?”

Not only did Ilo become more expressive with her eyes and nostrils, but her mouth, too. She actually curled the back of her maw into a smile as she nodded before bringing the back of her neck in front of him.

Well, it was technically a neck considering that she only had a head and then an elongated body, but if she did have a neck, that was where it would be.

So, Fenrir climbed aboard her back and wrapped his arms around her. “You know this place better than me, so lead the way.”

Ilo nodded once more before sinking under the surface and carefully escaping the river. There were some players coming in and out of the dock with their own vessels, so Ilo was cautious enough to avoid bumping into any of them. That required swimming at the very bottom of the river, and that allowed Fenrir to see something that really pissed him off.

Ilo, sensing his anger, stopped to look around.

“Seriously?” Fenrir asked. Being able to talk underwater was another perk of being Nell’s champion. “We have this beautiful, clean world in this game, and some assholes are littering in the river? I’m making Nell introduce some new rules. Anybody who throws shit into the river is getting kicked out.”

The litter wasn’t too bad, and at least none of it was plastic like in real life, but it still bothered him. Not to mention that it was a sign of things to come unless he dealt with the problem as soon as possible.

But that could be saved for later.

“Sorry. Let’s keep going,” Fenrir said.

Ilo nodded and resumed their journey out into the ocean. Once she was free of the river, she could swim as quickly as she wanted, and she made sure to do so. Especially to tease Fenrir. She twisted her body, did loops and corkscrews, and even a barrel roll. She made sure to test out his endurance to see just how much he could handle.

Unfortunately for her, Fenrir had no problem handling all of it. “Is this all you’ve got?” he asked.

Feeling challenged, Ilo came up with an idea. She swam at full speed to the deepest depths that Fenrir ever encountered in any game before, and went straight into a forest of tall kelp that brushed and smacked against him. One piece of kelp hit him right in the face and got stuck there until another kelp whacked it free.

As for Fenrir, the constant kelp smacking him beat him into submission. “I give up!”

Yet, Ilo did not stop. She continued on her path taking Fenrir through the expansive forest of kelp until, eventually, they broke through to the other side of it.

And it was on that other side that Fenrir discovered her true intention for dragging him through all that kelp—well, her other intention. The one that didn’t involve putting him in his place with a face full of kelp.

There was a massive crater in the ocean floor, and there was what appeared to be an entrance to a passage leading back toward land. It was a sizable entrance, too. It was more than big enough to fit something like the submarine that Fenrir pictured in his mind.

Ilo took him toward the entrance to the passage, but he called out to stop her before they reached it. “Hang on. Look, near the center of the crater. There’s something there.”

After Ilo took Fenrir closer to the center of the crater, he confirmed what he saw. There was a sizable chunk of metal surrounded by smaller pieces of it. Looking around, it appeared as if there were dozens if not hundreds of other, smaller pieces scattered around the crater. It was entirely possible that there was even more buried underneath the seafloor.

For now, Fenrir reached down to pick up one of the smaller pieces of metal and tucked it into his bag. “Didn’t expect to actually find anything interesting while down here. Alright, let’s check out the tunnel.”

Ilo nodded once more and turned around to head into the tunnel. They were surrounded by darkness immediately after enterint, but Ilo managed to navigate through it without any issues. She never bumped into anything, either, despite how dark it was.

I guess that she can see in this still, Fenrir thought.

And then he had an idea.

It was something that he only ever did with Ilo a couple of times before but, if could basically watch her memories by connecting to her thanks to being Nell’s champion, then he could watch the memories she was creating as they went through the tunnel.

Fenrir took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and relaxed as he tried to remember what it felt like before to get inside of Ilo’s mind. Fortunately, Ilo picked up on what he was trying to do and met him halfway in the process to let him see.

The cavern lit up before Fenrir’s eyes. Only, he wasn’t actually looking out of his eyes. He saw the cavern as Ilo saw it. And it looked… well, like an underwater cavern. A very dim, underwater cavern. It was a cave that, even with Ilo’s sight, barely looked like anything. All he knew was that it was rocky, twisting, and long. Navigating a submarine through there would be incredibly difficult and require extreme skill, patience, and confidence. If anything, getting in and out of the cavern would be more dangerous than the actual mission that Fenrir had in mind for it.

But that didn’t deter him from his plans.

After about twenty minutes of Ilo speeding through the cavern, they came to a stop in a massive room that could not have been any more perfect than it was.

At the far end of the room were a few, smaller tunnels just under the surface of the water that most likely led up into the mountains. More important than that was the ground above the water. On both sides of the room were ledges that Fenrir easily pictured being used for constructing the submarine. They could build infrastructuree and safely keep materials and tools there.

There was only one problem, and it was that they had no idea where they were. They knew they were somewhere underground, but where?

Fenrir opened his eyes and saw… nothing but pitch-black darkness. “Yeah, figured I still wouldn’t be able to see. Anyways, think that special water beam attacks of yours might be able to cut through the ground? I’m thinking… if you aim straight up and shoot until we break through the ground up above, we’ll be able to figure out where we are. Unless we’re under the mountains. I have a feeling you won’t be able to break through if that’s the case.”

Ilo moved closer to one of the ledges and shook Fenrir off onto it before turning away and moving to the center of the room.

Fenrir might not have been able to see before, but he did see what the scales along Ilo’s back began to glow from the tip of her tail to her head.

And then came the sound of pressurized water shooting directly upward into the ceiling.

Ilo kept it going for about fifteen seconds before needing to stop. In those fifteen seconds, though, she managed to drill a hole via pressurized water into the ceiling.

A short break later and she did it again.

And again.

And again.

Each shot drilled the hole deeper and deeper into the roof of the cavern.

After nearly an hour, though, Fenrir began to lose hope. “We might be under the mountains,” he said. “As awesome as you are, I don’t think you’ll be able to drill up through a mountain. We should—”

The latest jet of pressurized water came to an end and was replaced by a single beam of light shining down through the hole, lighting the surface of the water beneath it.

It also provided just enough light for Ilo to show off a very, very smug expression of satisfaction and “I told you so.”

All Fenrir could really do at that point was clap. “You continue to get more impressive. Good work. Wherever we are, it’s close enough to the surface and not underneath the mountains, so that means it can be used. But… we have no idea where we are other than—wait. I just got an idea.”

Ilo twisted her head to the side. That was her own way of tilting her head.

“We’re going to need some spotters. Let’s go back up for now.”

A couple of hours later and Fenrir had a team prepared. The team consisted of Rao atop Shogun, Azalabulia and Death, and Nell.

“Alright,” Fenrir said, standing over a map spread out on the table. It was a map of the nearby region that one of the players in the town created, and it covered everything from the watchtower to the south up to Spike Port. Reaching up to Rainbow Afro’s territory. A map with Rainbow Afro’s territory added was being worked on, but it was alright to exclude that for the time being since it was too far north anyways. “Over here,” Fenrir pointed at a region on the map between the town and the mountains, “is where I believe we might have been. Well, that’s if it’s a straight shot from the entrance to the cavern, but there were enough turns and bends in there that it might not be accurate.”

“What do we have to do?” Azalabulia asked.

“We’re going to go back down there and shoot water up through the hole we made—well, that Ilo made. You’re all going to be on standby looking for wherever it comes out at. I’m hoping it might shoot up into the air a little bit like a geyser, so that might make it easy to spot.”

“Got it, bro,” Rao said. “Fly around on Shogun, look for it, and then plant one of these little sticks you gave us wherever we find it.”

“Exactly.”

“Splendid plan, my hero!” Nell said.

Fenrir immediately groaned when he heard that word. “Please, Nell. Not the S word.”

Nell giggled to herself with a hand over her smug smile.

“U-um,” Azalabulia spoke up, “they can fly, but… I can’t. Are you sure I’m right for this?”

Fenrir placed a hand on Azalabulia’s shoulder and said, “Of course I am. You’re awesome. Plus Death can fly and you’re his master, so he can do all the work for you and then lead you to wherever you need to go.”

“Oh. That—that makes sense.”

“Also, once it’s found, you can shoot a giant fireball into the sky to let the others know that they can stop looking. Or should I say… you can make the sky explode once it’s found.”

Azalabulia perked up as soon as he rephrased it to have explosions. “I’ll do it! I—I mean, I, Azalabulia, will undertake this task to set the sky ablaze!”

“Thanks, knew I could count on you. Anyways, everybody ready?”

The group nodded and got to work.

“Hello darkness, my old friend,” Fenrir said, once more sitting on the ledge of the underground cavern. “Alright. They should all be in position, so fire when ready.”

Ilo nodded her head and got to work firing her pressurized water jet up through the hole she made.

“We’ll keep it up for an hour. If an hour isn’t enough for them to find us, we’re probably looking in the wrong area entirely. Hopefully, that’s not the case. This is going to take a lot of trial and error if it is.”

The first jet of water ended which meant Ilo could bring her head over to Fenrir, nudging him in the torso with the tip of her snout.

“I wonder what you could possibly want.”

Ilo pulled her head back into the water until her nostrils were facing up at Fenrir.

“Alright, alright! Don’t—wait, why do I care if you soak me when I’m already drenched?”

Ilo twisted her head from left to right.

“Alright. Come on, I’ll pet you until you can go pew again.”

The needy serpent brought her head back up against Fenrir once more, and this time he gave her what she wanted by stroking the top of her snout behind her nose. He could only pet from front to back due to her scales, but that was more than good enough for her as she let out a low-pitched hissing noise in response.

“Good girl. I’d have no idea what to do without you. Seriously. I would have had to manually swim around which would take days if not weeks just to find a good place. Then I’d have to swim all the way through the cavern to check it out, and I’d have to find some way to light the place up. And then I’d still need to figure out a way to tell where it is since I wouldn’t be able to just shoot a beam of water up to the surface. You’re responsible for making this plan possible.”

Ilo nuzzled up against his head for a few more moments before returning to shoot an extra motivated jet of water up through the hole.

Unfortunately, there was no way to tell if those up above saw it or not, so they continued the process of shooting, petting, and repeating for another forty minutes.

“They’d probably be able to see it by now, right? Maybe we should head back up,” Fenrir said just as Ilo finished the latest attempt.

Ilo nodded which prompted Fenrir to climb back onto her. Only, right before they left…

A powerful gust of wind blew all loose dirt and rocks in the hole downward, and the sound of a massive explosion going off followed that.

Ilo turned her head to look at Fenrir.

They both knew what that was.

And if that explosion went off, it meant that Azalabulia found out where they were. Or somebody else did, went to Azalabulia, and then she caused the explosion.

“She must have had a pretty wordy chant that time if it sounded that loud from down here,” Fenrir said.

Once again, Ilo nodded, and then they returned to the surface together.

The hole ended up being pretty close to the mountains tucked away in a forest, which was even better than what Fenrir had hoped for because that meant the entrance to their soon-to-be submarine construction site would be all the easier to hide.

“Looks like a good spot,” Tabitha said, standing at the site of the hole with Fenrir and Rao.

“Yeah, couldn’t have asked for a better spot,” Fenrir said. “I’m thinking we build a log cabin over it to cover it up, and give it a secret opening floor that opens up into the shaft we’ll have to dig out?”

“I think me and Red can figure something out for that.”

“Yeah, definitely,” Rao said.

“Then I’m thinkin’—first, I thought we’d have to mine out a staircase, but buildin’ a staircase would probably make life a lot easier when it comes to transportin’ materials. Think we might be able to rig somethin’ together?”

“Problem is powering it. We’d either need a crew of people to man it, which brings more into this secret project, or we’d have to find a natural way of powering it. A windmill would be too unreliable, and there’s no running water close enough…”

“Oi. Ya know I could whip up another engine like my girl has in her, right? I’d need some more materials, but I can make an engine to power it.”

“Oh. Right. Yeah, that’d work.”

“Need me to do anything?” Fenrir asked.

Tabitha smiled and crossed her arms over her chest. “Somebody’s gotta do the diggin’.”

“That’d… be a lot of digging. What if we use Ilo to like… you know how in spy movies, they’ll use like a laser cutting tool to cut a square out of a door or window or something? What if we do that, but use Ilo to cut us a path?”

“And send a bunch of ground falling onto her, maybe killin’ her?”

“Ri-right. Probably not a safe idea.”

“Get some folk who like minin’ to help ya. Shouldn’t be too hard.”

“I guess. Just not sure I know anybody I can trust to keep this place secret who’s obsessed with mining.”

“I think I might know a few guys who’d be willin’ to help out.”

“Well, if they have your approval, they’ve got mine.”

It might not have made sense to Fenrir why some people who abhorred physical labor in real life absolutely loved to do it in virtual worlds for hours on end without break and pay, but Fenrir wasn’t going to complain about that.

Because seriously, they had a lot of digging to do.