The notification cut off abruptly.

  Richard is what?! [Dead]? Gone? I checked my notifications again, ignoring the fighting monsters above.

  [Your [Party Member] Richard is...]

  The [System] wasn't updating.

  Richard's presence in my head had vanished.

  I used [Analyze] on the birds.

  [Pterror Gull - This 'bird' is a giant predator who makes its home on a World Snail. Although never far from its beached residence, they feast on fish and the leftovers of other species. The Pterror Gull is known for its diving attacks, shredding teeth, and stunning scream.]

  The information dump told me nothing. There was no [Mesmer] skill blocking our telepathic link.

  I swam back towards the jewel that was our enclosure, my failure dogging each kick. What was I going to tell them about Richard? He was [Dead]? Gone?

  One fact was certain: we would not exit the dungeon by swimming across the surface. We'd be the Pterror Gull version of fish in a barrel. The Mosas corpse drifted past. The fish were eating slowly, but they had made little progress on the whale-sized snack. I kept swimming, feeling more alone than ever.

  Richard wasn't dead. He was fine. He could take care of himself. But this didn't negate the fact that I was alone. Leo, Tandy, and now Richard were gone. My strokes slowed as I looked down at the glowing enclosure. The barrier shimmered with magic, keeping the water at bay.

  As I watched, it rippled, shrinking by a hand-span. The bubble was half as big as it'd been when we first arrived. I dog-paddled above it, watching what was left of my entire world, the four souls I was to keep safe as they dug around a glowing object embedded in the sea floor. I sank to the sandy floor of our prison and walked through the barrier.

  My [Gills] skill took a second to disengage, causing me to cough and clear the remaining salt water from my lungs.

  "Our gilled [Hero] has returned, rejoice," Meredeath intoned as she took a ridiculously small shell and pretended to scrape some sand out of the pit the rest of them were standing in. "Please tell me you can save us from Ash's harebrained plan. How's the surface?"

  I shook my head grimly as I explained, "There's these carnivorous sea birds, Pterror Gulls, that are just waiting for someone to pop up out of the sea. We'll have to deal with them eventually. They seem to be part of the island." I reread the notification, my brain finally slowing down enough to solve the mystery. "Meredeath, the mobile island that our escape portal is on, is an Everbear-damned sea snail. The notification calls it a World Snail."

  "A World Snail? I can't wait to see one of those." Ash had popped out of his hole and joined our little huddle. "So no good in swimming to the surface?" I shook my head. "Well, that's okay, we found the power source for the enclosure! It's a self-contained multidimensional, magical orb that oscillates against our magic fields to create a pressurized barrier that is diametrically opposed to the water surrounding us. It’s a SCMMOO! A Self Contained Multidimensional, Magical, Oscillating Orb!" He trailed off, realizing that he'd lost his audience.

  Leyla leaned against the side of their hole, using this as an excuse to stop working. Argin, however, was still scraping with her shell, a scoopful at a time.

  "Uh, yeah, so what does that mean?" I asked, brushing off a bit of seaweed stuck to my chest.

  "It means we've got a way out."

  "Theoretically," Meredeath added in a dry tone.

  The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

  Walking over to the hole, I inspected its orb. It shimmered the same sapphire blue as the enclosure's magic. The ball was the size of a cheese wheel and crackled even as Argin carefully scooped sand away from it.

  "What does the SCMMOO do if you touch it?" I asked curiously, stepping closer.

  "It burns you." Argin held up her hand. A forked burn mark traced down her arm, disappearing into the ragged sleeve of her shirt.

  "Noted, don't stick your head into the lightning ball," I said, squatting down to take a closer look. The globe pulsed. It looked like a miniature of the enclosure. Five nestled balls of energy bounced inside, and each strike of the exterior seemed to push against the barrier.

  "Well..." I looked at Ash as his smile waned. "My plan requires one of us to hold the SCMMOO."

  I had a sinking suspicion I knew who.

  After an hour of jargon-filled explanation from our maganical engineer, I knew without a doubt that his plan would not work. He wanted me to swim while holding the magic ball. The theory was that as we moved the SCMMOO, the enclosure would follow. Even the ever-optimistic Ash cringed when I asked what would happen when the ball touched the water.

  "Absolutely not. There's no way I can carry that all the way to a World Snail." Ash made to interrupt me, but I held out a hand, forestalling his interruption. "We're going to lose our air long before my [Cheat Death] skill refreshes enough to get us near the island, and... that's not even considering the island is literally swimming away from us."

  "I just don't know what else to do." I realized in that moment that I might have squished Ash's eternal optimism too much. He was full of harebrained ideas, but sometimes they worked.

  As I kept talking, the man deflated. His fluffy eyebrows drooped in defeat.

  "Should we stop digging?" whined Leyla, whose sad efforts had resulted in a markedly smaller pile than the other three diggers.

  "I didn't say that. Keep digging. I need to talk to Meredeath for a moment." If looks could kill, Meredeath would have murdered me a few months ago. "Ash, join us for a moment."

  The three of us walked the ten feet to the edge of the bubble. Argin gave us a suspicious look, which I waved away.

  "You certainly can't judge us for having a few secrets," I called. The girl had enough self-awareness to blush.

  "I just realized Richard didn't come back with you." Meredeath looked around, trying to find our slimy companion. "Cole, where's Richard?"

  I had to tamp down the rising panic her question triggered.

  "He used some skill. I'm not sure where he's at right now." A little hope, a little bit of truth.

  Meredeath's expression conveyed That's a bullshit answer, but she didn't push. I think even she could tell I was hanging on by a thread.

  "Okay, so Ash." I turned to our maganical friend. "I think we can make your plan work. It's just not going to be me swimming your ball of lightning towards the island. It's going to be," I pointed to the vaguely threatening Mosas carcass floating above the enclosure.

  Ash's comical expression was now a core memory.

  "How do you think we got the carriage to the oasis?" I asked coolly at his bewilderment, waving at the remains of the oxen.

  Ash stared at the singed hip of the ox, realization finally dawning.

  "You are a [Necromancer]!" His accusation was a little too loud, as I heard Leyla gasp from the pit.

  Glancing over, I saw the two girls hiking their skirts to crawl out of the pit. Leyla was already getting riled up at the [Necromancer] in our midst, but Argin was just rolling her eyes.

  "How do you think they got the carriage moving, you ninny?" Argin muttered, trying to forestall Leyla's complaint. Inwardly, I smiled as I braced for Leyla's complaint. Maybe there was hope for Argin yet. "Pops says [Necromancy] is just one of the twelve magics, and magic isn't inherently good or bad—it's the act that defines the morality of its use."

  Considering Pops had used his magic to steal Tandy away, I wasn't sure I was going to take a moral lesson from his mouthpiece, even if it supported our cause.

  "Okay, first, I'm not a [Necromancer]. I'm a [Death Knight]." Meredeath crossed her arms. "And it doesn't matter, because I'm not doing this. There's no way it's going to work."

  We stood quietly, the slow drip-drop of the ever-shrinking enclosure the only thing willing to break the silence.

  "Look, I know you like death and all, but I'm not willing to let this bubble be my tomb. You're animating the Mosas, Meredeath. I don't care if you're a [Death Knight] or the [Embassy of the Everbear], we're getting out of here." I'm not sure who was shocked more by my words, me or Meredeath.

  Her eyes flashed from shock to a flicker of green defiance. The magic fizzled as a fat drop of cold, salty water landed right on her nose. Something else crept into her expression. Approval?

  We had a plan.

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