The Search for Vanessa Hawthorne: Fighting for Breath

John’s eyes snapped open, into a world of blurred and distorted light. Stinging salt burned at them as he adjusted. He was still in the bathroom he’d found the locket in, in a way. Kelp grew up through cracks in the floor, spiked urchins congregated in the corners of the stall, and limpets littered the tiled floor and walls. Only the mirrors remained untouched by sea life, reflecting his floating form staring back in horror through a transparent popup.

Illusion Barrier - Artificial Conjuration
Level 46
Eden - The Everdeep
Creator: Victoria Wentworth

This can’t be happening.

He parted his lips just enough to let a taste of the salt water in and then fought the urge to start coughing it back out. The faint sense of pressure all over his skin and the way his clothes drifted away from his body only further confirmed the reality of the situation. He was trapped underwater.

To make things worse, a new facet of his UI had just popped into existence: a staple component of games with swimming sections, the oxygen meter. According to a little number attached to the distressingly low bar, he had twenty seconds of breath left before… whatever happened in reality when you ran out of oxygen. John didn’t want to find out.

Air. He needed air. The initial instinct was to look up, at the ceiling, for a spot he could grab a single breath… but there were only a handful of bubbles that weren’t consolidated enough.

10 seconds. He’d somehow avoided exhaling so far, so the bubbles had to come from somewhere else.

7 seconds. Frantically, he whirled around and shoved at the doors to the other stalls.

5 seconds. John caught sight of a single glistening bead of air in the corner of his view, over by the sinks.

2 seconds. He swam over and stared at the faucet. Another tiny bubble slipped out from the spigot and tricked upwards, there was air inside the sink.

0 seconds.

John’s lungs burned, and he felt his heart skip a beat. Reactively, the combat UI rezzed in, and his health bar started dropping fast. He’d never been one to pray before, but as John grabbed the faucet as hard as he could and twisted it, he hoped that the Developer had left him some form of out. An explosion of huge bubbles surged from the spigot, one passing over John’s head. He took an instinctive heaving breath, and the bubble drew inwards until it vanished, replenishing his oxygen meter in the process to 180 seconds.

Energy drained out of his body as relief filled his pained lungs. He was alive, but only barely. Drowning had burned away two-thirds of his health in a handful of seconds, and if he didn’t keep oxygenated, then he’d be facing the same fate again in short order.

John looked up at the ceiling, where the remaining air from the tap had congregated. The tap had run dry in one go, so this is what he had to work with… maybe a breath or two at the most. There were, however, three other faucets in the room. He turned each one and was rewarded with more air. It was just barely enough in total to create an inch or so of breathable space against the ceiling, maybe a couple dozen minutes of air in total.

Calm down. Just keep calm and think. I need to get out of here. Focus on that.

After swimming up to take a breath of his dwindling air, John let himself sink back down to the floor and closed his eyes. He needed to keep things together; panicking would only drown him faster. As calmly as he could, John reviewed his memories.

The last thing he remembered clearly was touching the amulet and the words ‘I do not tolerate fools, Mr. Newman. You were warned.’ in Mrs. Wentworth’s voice. Clearly, he’d walked into some kind of trap… but why would his teacher go to such lengths to kill him when she’d demonstrated the ability to do so in her office? There was no way she’d know that he’d get help from the Order, and specifically Lorelei, and it didn’t explain the **** scene. It was possible that she was trying to set him up… but there was another, more likely explanation.

I was warned, huh?

He’d seen the locket for the first time ever the day before, conveniently one day after he’d been given an explicit warning by Mrs. Wentworth not to mess with Vanessa. If his teacher had provided the amulet to protect the cheerleader from a new threat, himself, then it wouldn’t be surprising if there was a trap keyed on it to target him specifically.

That or the witch had a deep manipulative streak and was enjoying watching him flail about pointlessly like an ant under a magnifying glass.

Beyond that… there was something else. Images flickered at the edge of his memory, like the fading fragments of a waking dream. It was similar to the feeling he got with Planning, but with this he lacked the certainty of knowledge that came with the visions. Dread and euphoria blended together with details he couldn’t quite grasp. A sea of space, a girl of stars, a woman of earth. He’d met the Developer, he’d met Gaia…

No. That couldn’t be right. Could it?

He’d been **** and drowning, on the verge of ****, at the point where the body begins to hallucinate and suffer from other negative mental effects. There was no way he’d met a god, or anything else he thought that he remembered. It had to have been an insane dream. John shook his head. The flashing air meter reminded him that he had other pressing concerns.

Fortunately, from the looks of things, he was alone, which meant that Trynity had been far enough from the trap that she’d been spared his fate. That meant that he was free to cast Hearth and get the hell out of here. John wasted no further time in reaching for the energy to cast the spell.

0 mp

When he tried to cast a spell, John felt a profound sense of total emptiness. Something had burned him out in a visceral sense that ran deeper than any fatigue he’d ever experienced. He checked the oxygen meter just to ensure he wasn’t drowning again, but it was half full.

What the hell is wrong with me?

John’s eyes fell on a different meter, the one just below his health. His mana bar was completely empty. That would be why he couldn’t cast Hearth, but why was it depleted? He couldn’t remember casting anything. Well, either way, now was a perfect time to use the mana potions he’d been saving. He dug one out of his inventory and almost opened it underwater but stopped at the last second.

That would have been pretty stupid, wouldn’t it? Maybe if I angle it just right I can…

He pushed off the floor and drifted up to the patch of air, awkwardly shoving the neck of the potion into the dry space so he could pour the contents into the corner of his mouth. It got all over his cheek and ear, but he managed enough in the right spot to get his mana to jump up a few points. The taste was reminiscent of blueberries, but even mixed with the salt of the water surrounding him, it was the sweetest thing he’d ever drunk. John felt relieved.

For a second.

As quickly as he’d gained it, the infusion of magical energy was stripped away, plummeting his mana back to zero. John blinked at the UI, refusing to believe what he’d just seen. He took another, less clumsy sip of the potion and watched in growing terror as the same thing happened. Something was stopping him from gaining mana… and without mana he couldn’t cast Hearth... and without Hearth...

Oh fuck. This can’t be happening. I’m not going to die like this!

John became aware of the sound of ragged breathing and dropped the potion into the water as he slapped a hand over his hyperventilating mouth. With great effort, he **** himself to take a full breath and dip back underneath the surface. Oxygen was the one thing he absolutely could not afford to waste.

He couldn’t cast spells here. Was it an effect of the water or another element of Mrs. Wentworth’s trap? As he **** himself to stay calm and his body to relax, his mind surged with adrenaline. Logically, it wouldn’t make much sense to create a dimensional trap for a mage unless you had some way to keep them there. The first thing any competent caster would do would be try to portal out, and since he knew at least two different ways to do that, the easiest way to stop a mage from escaping would be… to lock out their mana.

John opened his Character Sheet and checked the status section… and sure enough, he found what he’d begun to dread.

You are afflicted with Mana Void (Spell Focus)!

Mana Void (Spell Focus)
The binding between you and your spell focus has been sabotaged: separation from your foci leaves a hole in your metaphysical being through which mana bleeds constantly, rendering you effectively mundane.
-101% Mana Capacity (Conditional)
-101% Mana Regeneration (Conditional)

Another message popped up to elaborate further:

You are attuned to Shattered Casket of Dreams (Miniature).

Spell Focus
The ethereal ties of your soul have been woven together with an object, allowing you to utilize it as a conduit for powerful spells and rituals. You may sense the location of your focus at will and call it to your hand with a simple cantrip.
[Phylactery Prerequisite]

Despite the chilling description, John’s attention focused on the details that gave him the possibility of hope. His guess had been right. Mrs. Wentworth had cursed him with a spell that stripped all his mana, but she’d chosen one that was reversible. All he needed to do to use magic again was figure out where he’d dropped the locket. In a twisted way, it was a sort of silver lining. The Casket was his best, and only, lead for finding Vanessa… it was imperative he got it back.

Additionally, the curse’s description wasn’t entirely accurate. It’d said that he was rendered ‘effectively mundane’, but John was still able to use his inventory, and his abilities as ‘the Gamer’ hadn’t been disabled. He wasn’t completely depowered.

The flashing red of his oxygen meter running low again reminded John to take another breath before he ran out. As he did so, a strange thought came to mind. He’d been able to put almost any object he’d encountered thus far into his inventory… but surely he couldn’t put a liquid or gas into it… right? He tried putting in the water surrounding him anyway.

A cubic foot of ocean simply vanished from around his right hand. It remained empty for a split second before the surrounding water poured in, filling the empty space with painful ****. John quickly drew back his hand and mostly bit back the urge to cry out, though a few bubbles were knocked out of him anyway.

Once he’d massaged some sensitivity back into his fingers, John took stock of what he’d just accomplished. In his inventory he now had one ‘Unit of Seawater’, which he couldn’t begin to imagine ever needing. That wasn’t the important bit though. If he could grab the water, why couldn’t he grab the air too?

John cautiously poked the tip of his index finger into the dry space and replicated the process. A ripple spread outwards from the breach, then the whole room lurched upwards. Water rushed in to fill the vacuum, and the **** sent John into a dizzying spin. It took some effort to regain his balance, but when he did the message in front of his eyes was a relief to see.

Unit of Atmospheric Oxygen (240) added to inventory. Air will automatically be expended from your inventory to replenish your breath meter. Remaining time: 3 hours and 16 minutes.

Achievement Unlocked! ~ “The Kobayashi Maru”
Exploit your Gamer powers.
+1 All Stats
-674 Experience

He immediately started coughing, expelling water from his nose as air bubbles formed and **** out any that had gotten into his system. It was a strange feeling to experience, the sensation of water pressing in against his lips but unable to pass a barrier into his mouth. He could breathe cleanly, expelling bubbles past the perimeter to drift up against the ceiling. John took a few experimental breaths. Clean, pure air filled his lungs with only a trace hint of the salty taste of the ocean.

Time was no longer a pressing issue, or at the very least wouldn’t be for a few hours longer. Now all he needed to do was get the locket back…