Chapter 51 - Diabolical Depths

  I stared down at the ant nest, that gaping hole in the ground where I just knew there were more monsters waiting. If I'd killed hundreds of the things on the surface, how many more were waiting inside? Hundreds? More? Now that I could see in the dark, I could go in there after them, wipe out one more threat to the people of Boston, and make myself a lot stronger in the process.

  But if I did that, it meant putting off bringing help to people who were in dire need. I didn't know for certain that the lobsters were taking human prisoners under the water with them, but it was a fair bet that was the case. There was no one else who could rescue those people. I was their only chance. Every minute I spent doing other things up above the water was just one more minute those people remained in captivity.

  Besides, even if we were wrong, and they were killing their captives, there had to be thousands of people still hiding out in the downtown Boston area. The invading army was using the cover of darkness to capture as many of them as they could. If they weren't being killed instead of captured, that was even worse. Either way, it was up to me to put a stop to what the enemy was doing, and there was no better time to start than the present.

  I'd swapped out my torn up clothes for a spare security uniform I'd found inside the hospital. It was just a black top and black pants, both of them sort of police or military style in their cut. But it was a lot better than what I had been wearing! I threw out the rags which were all that remained of the clothes I'd put on that morning. I'd done a ton of fighting, and it had taken a serious toll on my clothing. The uniform was plain, with no patches or insignia. I figured that made it okay to wear.

  As ready as I was going to be, I took off, leaving the hospital behind as I streaked into the sky. I flew north, toward the river. That wasn't where the lobsters were, which was the point. I'd never experimented with the Water Breathing spell, and I didn't know if my Flight power would work underwater or not. These were things I wanted to experiment with before I went looking for wherever the lobsters were using as their base of operations underwater.

  That was going to be a problem, too. I had no idea where they were all coming from. For all I knew, their base was miles away, and they were sending their troops to attack Boston from a great distance. I didn't think that was the case. My hunch was, they would have some sort of base or rallying point in the water nearby, probably right in Boston Harbor itself.

  But before I could go hunting for their outpost, it was time to get wet and test that new spell!

  I landed on the riverbank and stepped carefully up to the edge of the water. At night, the Charles River looked dark and mysterious. I had no idea what lay hidden in its depths, at this point. Could be anything, now that magic had warped so many animals into monsters. Worse, I had no idea how this whole Water Breathing thing worked.

  I stepped out into the river, each stride taking me deeper. It only took a couple of steps before it was up to my neck, and then I was entirely underwater.

  The Water Breathing spell activated as soon as my head was completely submerged. I felt the spell engage, and a quick flood of information became available about how the thing worked. All the fear I'd felt about drowning myself vanished in an instant. I knew, like it was an instinct I'd been born with, that the water couldn't hurt me. I opened my mouth and breathed the same as I would have above water. It didn't feel any different. There was no sense of drowning. No rush of panic. I was just…breathing.

  "Can I talk, too?" I said aloud. Apparently, the answer was yes. It sounded funny, but I could hear my words just fine. That was interesting and convenient, especially if I ran into captives and had to communicate with them.

  "One more thing to test," I said. I activated the Flight power and tried to use it to move through the water, rather than the air. To my delight, it worked perfectly! I wasn't quite as fast, underwater. The drain on mana was more significant flying in the air, too. But it wasn't as bad as flying in the air while loaded down with hospital beds and refugees, so I figured I could make it work.

  I was going to need to pay careful attention to my mana levels, though. The Water Breathing by itself chewed through mana at about the same rate I regenerated it. That meant if Water Breathing was the only thing I used mana for, I could stay underwater pretty much indefinitely. But with Flight burning additional juice, I would eventually run out.

  If I tapped out my mana while I was underwater, the Water Breathing would cut off, and I would have a very bad day.

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  With all this in mind, I flew upward, out of the water and back into the sky. Since I used less mana flying above water than under it, it made sense to get nearer to my probable target that way. I followed the river east, crossed the locks by the Museum of Science, and then I was out into the north end of the harbor. Based on where they'd been coming ashore, my guess was the lobsters had their base of operations somewhere just east of downtown. Maybe as far south as the Seaport District, but I didn't think so. They seemed far more focused on the area between the North End and the Financial District.

  I had to force myself not to hold my breath as I dropped from the sky and plunged into the cool waters of the harbor. Water Breathing kicked in again right away, and my Flight spell continued to propel me through the water at a good clip. Better still, the NightVision crystal let me see where I was going! As dark as it was down there, to me, it looked like twilight. It wasn't perfect, but it was more than enough.

  I pushed south, moving through the water about ten feet above the bottom. Lobsters and crabs were mostly bottom dwellers. It was a good bet they had constructed something on the seafloor. Sure enough, before long I saw pinpoints of light in the distance. As I drew closer, those lights grew brighter and more numerous. It had to be my destination.

  The last thing I wanted was to be spotted too early, so I slowed down as I approached, drawing even closer to the seafloor. I wanted to scout the place out, first. Finally, I stopped entirely and hid myself behind a jumble of boulders which lay about a hundred meters away from the lobster base. From there, I had an excellent view of the place. I paused to scout their operation out properly.

  What I’d found was definitely a lobster base, but I didn't think it was their main city. It was far too small for that. There were dozens of glowing orbs about the size of a beach ball, each tethered to the seafloor with what looked like seaweed or rope. I couldn't make out how they were giving off the steady blue-green light. My guess was probably magic. That seemed to be the answer for everything, these days.

  The glowing orbs were like streetlights. They were positioned to illuminate a series of paths which ran between the two dozen makeshift structures, which made up what I was increasingly thinking of as a forward operating base. The buildings were crude, and gave me the feeling of being temporary structures. Some of the smaller ones were built from crab shells supported by walls made of piled stones. There were also a few very large structures which looked much less sturdy. Those long buildings looked like they were made of cloth with large bones acting as supports, sort of like crude tents.

  As I watched the place, a massive convoy of the giant crabs, each carrying half a dozen lobster warriors, scuttled their way into the base. It was fascinating watching the crabs move underwater. On land, they'd approached me head on so they could use their claws to attack, but underwater, they moved sideways! The whole thing looked almost comical, but I wasn't laughing. Those were twenty giant crabs and at least a hundred and twenty additional lobster warriors. That was going to make breaking into the camp next to impossible.

  I needn't have worried, though... They didn't stop for very long before setting off again, continuing west. I had no doubt about their destination. With that many additional troops, my friends on land were going to be in a lot of trouble. Would the lobsters strike early? Would they break the truce?

  I had no answers, only questions.

  For a moment, I considered going after them. Maybe I could ambush a few of the crabs before they reached shore. Failing that, perhaps I could take out chunks of the force after it reached land. But before I could jet from my hiding place, another convoy arrived, this one from the opposite direction.

  These were human prisoners. There were at least a hundred people, all lined up into a long chain. Each captive was tied to the ones in front and behind them with ropes or vines. None of them were in immediate distress, so I'd guessed right. The lobsters were able to grant some sort of Water Breathing to their prisoners.

  They were accompanied by a couple of dozen lobster warriors. Like the others, these were all in the tier one to tier three range. They weren’t significant threats by themselves, at least not to me. But they would cut the prisoners to ribbons if they tried anything. I knelt there and watched as they paraded their captives down one of the lit paths, toward one of three much larger structures. The lobsters bustled their prisoners into the crude structure, then shut and locked the door behind them.

  Those buildings had to be where they were storing their captives. That pretty much finished my scouting. I had most of the information I needed. Now, I just had to come up with a plan to break into those buildings, get all of the prisoners out, and ideally do it all without alerting the lobsters to my presence.

  Movement near the center of the compound caught my eye. I realized with a start that the lobsters hadn't put all of their prisoners into the big structure. They'd kept four of them out, and now they were dragging them into the middle of what amounted to the town square of the base. The hair on the back of my neck bristled. Whatever they were up to, I didn't like the look of it. I got ready to move.

  Before I could act, one of the warriors jabbed something at one of their prisoners, who fell over. The other captives backed away as far as their ropes would allow, while half a dozen of the lobsters surrounded the fallen human. It took me a moment to realize what they were doing.

  They were eating.

  I was horrified. I felt a flash of revulsion so strong, I almost threw up. I’d discovered their secret. They weren't capturing humans for labor. They were capturing us to fill their larders!

  It was elegant, I had to give them that much. Give a human a Water Breathing crystal and drag them into the depths. That way, they're nice and fresh for when the lobsters got hungry. After they killed one of their prisoners, they could just recover the crystal and use it again on a new captive. It was cunning, gruesome, and diabolical.

  And I was putting a stop to it. Right now.