Happy belated Thanksgiving to those who celebrate it! Now, it's time for an underwater boss! Silver Eel Argulla is a big fella, and I've posted both pixel and painted art of it under the "dungeon 4" tag on garden-eel-draws.
Content warning for electrocution and ReDeads.
Blue paced in front of the ornate door guarding the final room of the dungeon. The key to it was in his bag, hard-won from a challenge featuring three electricity-spitting jellyfish, a swarm of zombie piranhas, and a pitch-black room full of dim lanterns that they'd had to light in order to even see the Skullfish. It had been a difficult, tedious fight made more difficult by whatever the hell Yellow and Green had been getting up to.
What had they been doing? First there had been that horrible shock he'd felt after the much milder jolt Red had gotten, then there had been all sorts of bangs and scrapes, and then he'd experienced the gut-wrenching terror of something slitting his wrists. Well, it had been more like something chopping halfway through his forearms, but was that any less alarming? It had been deep, maybe even all the way to the bone. Then he'd felt a sudden pick-me-up that had to have been one of his brothers using their group's healing potion. Just because that particular echo hadn't been painful, that didn't make its implications any less frightening. What had happened? Had one of the other Harrys almost died?
Red planted his hand on Blue's shoulder and pulled him to a stop. "You're going to make your legs hurt all over again, pacing like that," he said. "No point in wasting a good healing potion. Sit down, why don't you?"
"There aren't any monsters around and we don't have anywhere else to go, so I can worry if I want to!" Blue snapped. He pointed to his forearm. "Didn't you feel this? People cut their wrists to kill themselves, Red! What if one of our brothers bled out?"
"They used the healing potion, so I'm sure they're fine."
"A Wiggenweld Potion doesn't replenish lost blood, though," Blue fretted. He shrugged off Red's hand to resume his pacing. "On top of that, we only have one potion left for eight...er, six people," he said, mentally adjusting for the two magic-immune members of their expedition. "What if the final monster is even worse than the last one? I barely even remember what happened to me in that fight, it was so severe. And this is underwater, so if any of us winds up with an open wound, the water will make things worse." He halted mid-step, his mouth falling open in horror. "What if Green or Yellow had their wrists cut open underwater?!"
"Blue, you're thinking too much. Stop thinking," Ron called from where he sat leaning against the big metal doors. Malfoy lay napping on the ground next to him, both of them too exhausted from the aftereffects of electrocution to pick a fight over their proximity. "We know they're both alive and better than they were before one of them took the potion. That's good enough for now," Ron rationalized. "We can worry about whatever's wrong with them once they get here."
"But what if they don't get here?" Blue asked, running his fingers through his hair. Now that he didn't have a mission to occupy his brainpower with, it was all turning with laser-focus toward his absent siblings. "Swimming is tiring enough without being hypovolemic while doing it."
Red clapped his hands. "Ooh, fancy word! Do another."
A splash behind them interrupted Blue before he could put his brother in a headlock. He spun around, his hopes rising. It was the other group! His spirits soared at the sight of his wayward brothers. Both of them were alive and well enough to swim under their own power. He hurried down to the edge of the water, almost falling into it in his haste.
Hermione and Ruka got out first, the Zora setting down his magic vase to help pull Green out of the water. Yellow got out last and watched Green with obvious worry. Blue crouched next to Green to give him a once-over. All of his body parts were attached and Blue didn't see anything actively bleeding. That didn't mean there wasn't blood, however. He snatched up one of Harry's arms and ran his fingers across the fresh red stains that spanned the undersides of his lower sleeves. His hand stopped over an irregularity in the fabric—the kind caused by a Mending Charm. "How bad was it?" he demanded. "How deep? Did it hit an artery?" He seized Green's chin and inspected his complexion. His brother was pale, with unhealthy shadows under his eyes. Though all of them bore a certain dewy look from having been in and out of water for the past however long, Green's skin had a grayish cast that made the droplets beaded on it resemble clammy sweat.
"There was blood everywhere," Yellow murmured to Blue. "It was really scary! He was talking slower and trying to go to sleep, so I had to use the potion on him. He kept telling me not to." Yellow shook his head. "Green really isn't okay. Up here, I mean." He tapped his temple. "He started doing that floaty brain thing we do when we're in the cupboard for too long, but in the middle of crossing a room full of deadly electric water. That's where all those bruises from earlier came from."
Blue put his hands on Green's shoulders and fixed him with a stern glower. "Green."
His brother glared sullenly at him from behind his bangs. "Everyone in my group already chewed me out for not taking a break before crossing that room, and getting cut open by a Lizalfos wasn't my fault. It was Shadow Harry's," he grumbled. "He called it a 'pop-quiz' for our sword skills. Also, he said we should buy some armor and a shield."
Red joined their group huddle. "For what, though? Isn't this the last temple?" he asked.
Green's expression was grave. "We still have to fight Vaati after all this."
All of them went quiet and pale at the thought. Blue hadn't considered that. He'd been so focused on the temples that he'd subconsciously assumed that the Vaati problem would just stop if they broke his curse on the castle. But defeating the monster himself…Blue didn't think they were anywhere near that level. Moblins still gave them trouble and Green had almost died fighting a Lizalfos. They wouldn't even be able to beat Shadow Harry, let alone his boss! It didn't matter that they had the advantage of numbers; it just wasn't possible with their level of skill.
He sat back on his heels. For the first time, he considered the potential consequences of their actions against Vaati. What was actually going to happen once they destroyed all of the eyes anchoring his curse? Would it weaken the ancient mage, or would it just anger him? There was no guarantee they'd be able to find Vaati after beating this temple, either, nor did they have any reason to expect him not to find some other, less inhabited castle and start his world takeover from there. He could only assume Hogwarts had some connection to Hyrule Castle, which was why it had been a target in the first place, but if the two countries were echoes of one another, there had to be other Hylian castles with copies on this side. Either Vaati would just take off to haunt another Scottish fortress, far out of their reach, or he'd kill all of the Harrys and take over the world without any Heroes to stand in his way. No matter what the Harrys did, the ancient mage would still win.
Softly glowing yellow eyes stared at him with open concern. "Are you okay?" Ruka asked. "Why you are scare?" He looked around at the other Harrys and then poked Green in the shoulder. He asked him something in Hylian. Green mumbled something back, to which Ruka responded by jolting upright, his fins flaring in surprise. "Vaati? You baby heroes fight Vaati ton sor sotta klaina?" he asked, sliding from English to Hylian. He gestured incredulously toward the sheath on Green's back. "This little sword, you fight?"
The Harrys nodded.
"How you is go…Duu varias—" Ruka switched to agitatedly sibilant Hylian and started interrogating Green.
Blue listened to the streams of foreign syllables, Hermione sitting down to join him. Green, meanwhile, was looking more and more like a child trying to soothe their harried mother. Blue had fun watching his expressions; it was like getting half of the conversation. First there was exasperation, then frustration, then shock. Green squeaked something in Hylian, then turned to Blue and hissed, "He's rich and he wants to pay us for helping him!"
Blue's eyebrows shot up. Maybe it had been his English propriety infecting his thinking, but he'd assumed the naked Zora who hunted for his own fish was an average bloke. "Well, say 'yes' of course!" he whispered back. "Don't turn down free money! We'll need Rupees if we're going to buy anything in Hyrule."
"We're not helping him for money, though!"
"If he's spent the last few hours with you, I'm sure he knows that. Now say 'yes', you noble idiot!"
Green bit his lip, but reluctantly did as told. Ruka nodded and clapped him on the shoulder. "There you go!" he barked in his harsh voice, flashing a sharp-toothed grin. "You help me, I help you! Is good fish." He stood up and cracked his knuckles. "Okay, we fight monstra now?" he asked, nodding toward the giant doors.
"Yes, unfortunately." Blue took the ornate key out of his bag. He would have been willing to sit around and chat all day if it meant they didn't have to face whatever Shadow Harry felt like throwing at them this time. It was most likely going to be underwater, which meant communication would be incredibly difficult and maneuvering would be tiring and slow. He hoped this monster, whatever it was, didn't move at the same ridiculous speed as the last.
'Please don't let it be a giant Lizalfos,' he thought as he pushed the cumbersome key into its giant lock. 'We'll all die.'
The doors opened to a massive round atrium with a dark, glassy circle of water in the middle of its blue and white tiled floor. Blue narrowed his eyes at that little circle. It was suspiciously small. Why was the pool so small when the room was so big?
Red nudged him in the side as he walked by. "Come on, Blue, stop being paranoid. You already know there's a monster in there, so let's just go!"
Blue rolled his eyes before following. Obviously there was a monster in there. He had just been questioning the room's architectural logic to get an idea of what they might have to fight.
The doors slammed shut behind them with a cacophonous bang that echoed loudly around the room. Green walked out toward the center of the cavern, holding his magic vase in one hand and drawing his sword with the other. Blue and the other Harrys arranged themselves behind him.
As had become routine, Shadow Harry appeared to greet them. He rose like a dark mist from the rippling shadows of the inky water and solidified into the shape of a boy as he stepped onto land.
Blue cringed at the sight of Shadow Harry's face. The spirit's right eye was grotesquely different from the left. It looked like one of the eyes that stared out of the backs of Phantoms, or the ones the Harrys shattered at the end of each temple: Vaati's eye. It bulged out of his face, twice the size it should have been and framed by a thick gold border. Shadow Harry stood with his teeth gritted in obvious pain and his hands clenched at his sides as the new addition to his face swiveled about. When the blood-red iris settled on Green and his entourage, Shadow Harry flinched.
The spirit began speaking in dull, unenthusiastic tones. "How dare you defy my mas—ah!" He twitched and whimpered pitifully as his body flickered in and out of sight, then sighed and restarted his speech. "How dare you defy my great and glooorious master?" he boomed. "His only goal is to use the magics of this broken, goddess-forsaken world to revitalize and repair it to its former state, and you ungratefully trespass upon his lands and molest his magics!"
Green and Blue snorted, while Yellow giggled into his hands. "Why're you talking funny, mate?" Red asked.
"I speak in the voice of a god!" Shadow Harry bellowed angrily. As he said this, he flicked his fingers and conjured a printed sign. "Vaati woke up just now and he's threatening to crush my soul if I don't talk like this. Pretend he's here, because he is." He pointed to his possessed eye, though out of the field of view of said eye. "You mortals should consider yourselves blessed to be in my presence!" he continued to pontificate.
Another sign replaced the first. "He's sooo mad! He thought the electricity would kill you. If you beat his monster, he'll do something fun for sure," it read. Shadow grinned wickedly before shouting, "For your defiance, I sentence you to death! You may remain here to face starvation or descend below to become meals for my sea serpent, Argulla! It matters not to me."
A third sign appeared. "If you survive, go to the castle. Run. You'll want to be there when Vaati has his tantrum, if he does what I think he will. Your adventure isn't even close to over, Heroes."
"Now meet your fates, worms!" Shadow Harry threw his hands up dramatically and brought them together in a thunderous clap, releasing a rainbow-tinged wave of dark power. Seconds later, an eerie wail reverberated around the room from the hidden depths beyond the floor. With a cheeky little wave, Shadow Harry dissolved into smoke.
"Well, that wasn't ominous at all," Malfoy drawled from the back of the group. "One has to wonder what 'fun' thing he expects his master to do. Set Scotland on fire, perhaps?"
"Vaati said he wants to 'repair' this world, so probably not," Blue said, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. If he was interpreting Shadow Harry's speech correctly, Vaati was planning to become a god by using the local style of magic to change the world to match his tastes. In Blue's opinion, it seemed like Hylian magic was already serving him rather well; anything that let someone snatch entire geographical features from across time and space was nothing to sneeze at. Whether the time-travel part worked on living beings was debatable, given that Ruka and the Deku Scrubs were from more modern eras than the locations accompanying them, but even so, that was some powerful stuff! What could Vaati possibly do to top that using wizard magic?
"If we don't die, we'll find out," Red said, strolling up to the pool in the center of the room. He peered into it. "Oh, look! There's some lights down there, so that's something." He hugged his vase and did a graceless cannonball into the water.
As Vaati had said, there wasn't anything for them to do but fight the monster or wait around and starve, so they all dropped into the water. Blue clutched his vase like a teddy bear as he descended through the short tunnel cut straight through the stone. The water temperature plummeted, dropping what felt like multiple degrees per meter. With his heart in his throat, Blue worked his wand free of its sheath to cast a Warming Charm on himself, then stuffed the stick back into its pocket before his shaking hand could drop it.
The reason for the drop in temperature presented itself as he entered a space too vast to simply be described as a room. It was certainly wide—big enough to accommodate a large, stately manor with ease—but more importantly it was deep. Two gently diagonal lines of dingy yellow lamps ran down the circular walls and spiraled off into eternity. Drifting clouds of plankton further defined the space, lending a sense of distance that could be measured in meters rather than kilometers. They puttered in and out of the multitudes of doorways that dotted the walls like unseeing eyes. This tunnel was more than a lesson in the terrifying vastness of the Earth; it was also a former hive-city.
He was so busy taking in his surroundings that he ran into Green, who was staring at a nearby cloud of plankton with glassy, hollow eyes. It was by pure luck that he hadn't dropped his vase, which hung precariously from the fingers of one dangling hand. If he dropped that here, in this bottomless pit, they would never be able to recover it. Blue corrected his brother's grip and pushed the magical artifact into Green's chest. "Hold onto this," he mouthed sternly. "If you can't fight, hide. Hold this tight and stay back."
Green shook his head, some of the life returning to his blank expression. "I can fight," he said, clutching his vase desperately. "I can do this!"
"Are you sure?" Blue held Green's gaze with a confident steeliness he didn't feel. Inside, he was quivering as much as his brother. This place was deep, it was dark, and there was a man-eating monster dwelling somewhere inside it. He wanted nothing more than to teleport home and hide in his four-poster bed with the curtains closed.
"I'm sure," Green said, nodding emphatically. Not that it meant anything. Blue had no doubt his brother would always insist he was fine, no matter his state of being.
"Alright," Blue said, though he didn't believe it. "If your head feels floaty, go in a doorway and stay."
"Okay."
A haunting call, like whale song mixed with a woman's scream, filled the water. Blue gripped Green's forearm when he saw his brother's pupils shrink to pinpricks. He pulled his sibling in close and held his vase up with his other arm, swiveling his head in all directions. Blue cursed at the terrible visibility. The lamps, contrary to what one might assume, were not helping. All they did was mess with his night vision and leave after-images in his eyes.
Far, far below them, he saw a flash of pink. Then he noticed other moving spots of color—areas of yellow and pink glowing at varying levels of brightness. He slowly put together a collection of body parts: spiny fins, pink and yellow eyes, soft-looking pale skin, and a brilliantly glowing, paddle-shaped tail flanged in a flame-like ridge of neon pink. A long body, dimly defined by the dying lamplight, slithered through the water. It was an eel, or something resembling one—a bioluminescent creature with a folded, fleshy pouch behind its wide mouth and interlocking, needle-like yellow teeth that would make it impossible to escape if it swallowed them. As Vaati's pet swam up and up and up, Blue realized how much of its size had been disguised by the distance. There was a certain ridiculousness of scale that marine environments allowed for, since the water cut out most of the effects of gravity. This creature was one of those animals that would die from its own weight if it washed up on the shore. It was as if a blue whale had been stretched out and turned into someone's delirious imagining of a Moray eel.
With another mournful scream, Argulla surged into a spiraling ascent. Everyone scattered from the middle of the cylindrical column as the eel charged up with its jaws held wide. It pulled to a stop at the top of the column and began circling, its rippling throat pouch ballooning out with water.
Everyone stared up at the monster in the same manner a damsel tied to the tracks might watch an approaching train. What were they supposed to do? This thing was just too bloody big! Blue went with his instincts and dragged Green with him into one of the doorways lining the walls.
A chilling shriek ripped through the water, locking his limbs in place. Blue watched with incredulity as an entire family of Zora ReDeads, children included, appeared from behind various shadowy corners and began shuffling through the water toward them. He struggled madly against the magic keeping him prisoner, his horrified eyes forcibly frozen on the sight of the two long-dead children pulling ahead of their parents. Trapped within the confines of his mind, he screamed as one of the child-zombies sank its rows of needle-teeth into his calf. As soon as he could move, Blue bashed the ReDead about the head with his magic vase, not caring whether the artifact broke in the process. The monster's jaws weakened and he ripped his leg free. Green launched the other zombie child backward with a two-legged kick to its glowing ribs and then joined Blue in getting the hell out of there. They shot into the main cavern, out under the predatory gaze of the grinning eel coiled by the ceiling.
Yellow electricity danced around Argulla's tail, ran across the tall ridges on its back, and gathered in the fins on either side of its face. The creature's mouth then opened wide, revealing a golden glow building in its throat. Blue glanced back at the cave he and Green had just fled, momentarily tempted to reenter it and face the ReDeads again. The stinging in his leg convinced him otherwise, however.
The eel tossed its head back and forth, loosing a spray of electrified globes of water. Blue squeaked and held his vase over his head with the mouth pointed up, snapping his legs together to hide under its small area of protection. The artifact jolted violently in his hands, knocking against his skull. Blinking stars out of his eyes, he continued holding it up as the crackling rain fell. One of the aquatic bullets narrowly missed the vase, shooting by him so closely that its wake of boiling water scalded one of his hands. Blue hissed in pain and clutched his hand to his chest. That felt like a mild second-degree burn—manageable, but sure to become distracting.
If the eel had decided to sit still for a bit, Blue would have gotten his wand out and healed himself. However, it went into its next attack before its first had finished falling into the room's depths. With its throat pouch empty once more, Argulla unspooled from the ceiling and began spiraling its way down along the walls. The creature's head stayed stationary as its body undulated, its pink and yellow eyes following them around the room.
Blue swam away from the walls, watching the eel warily. The other fully-human members of the group unfortunately had the same idea, resulting in a cluster of weak swimmers treading water in the middle of the room. The eel's eyes lit up at this stroke of luck.
"Scatter!" Blue yelled into his soundproof bubble, fleeing straight up.
His sudden movement must have caught the eel's attention, because its eyes zeroed in on him. Blue kicked his legs even harder, wrapping one arm around his vase to free the other one up for swimming. The bite in his leg flared with cold, stabbing pain as he swung it back and forth. Blue gritted his teeth, his eyes watering. It felt like there were still teeth in the wound, reminding him of their presence every time he flexed his calf muscles. He focused on the hot, itchy complaints of his burned hand to drown the feeling out.
Argulla shot at him with its jaws stretched wide enough to swallow him whole. Blue's limbs turned to limp noodles as the tooth-rimmed maw closed in. His wand was useless in its pocket. His sword was too small to deter a creature the size of a train, especially at the speed it was going. Only one band of light circled his vase; he needed two more stripes lit in order to fire it. There was nothing he could do but draw his sword and prepare to fight his way out of a monster's insides.
The living train was derailed as its massive head snapped to one side. Argulla shrieked angrily and clapped its jaws shut, revealing Ruka scrabbling at one of its eyes. The Zora was furious to the point of feral, screeching and clawing and biting. Purple smoke spouted from the subject of his ire like pouring blood. Ruka did a graceful back-flip out of reach as the creature whipped around to snap at him and then shot toward Blue. He hooked one arm around Blue's waist and ferried him straight into one of the holes in the wall.
"No monsters here," Ruka said in his echoing underwater voice. He set Blue down on a stone chair shaped like a diagonally-sliced eggshell and laid his vase next to the one already sitting by the door. "You are not okay. Do magic." He fluttered his hands at Blue's leg.
Blue stared blankly at the wound while his brain caught up to his change in circumstances. He'd almost been eaten. If Green's group hadn't decided to let Ruka tag along, Blue would have died! One of his shaking hands went to his midsection, curling over where he'd been slashed by the mind-controlled Deku Queen. He could remember staring up at the ceiling and seeing nothing, unable to do anything but silently scream at the white-hot pain consuming his torso. When he'd been healed by the temple's scroll, Hermione had still been crying over him, her face ashen and her eyes red and puffy. He'd been helpless to defend himself then, just as he'd been helpless seconds ago.
Yellow light flashed in the cavern beyond the dark little cave. Argulla's caterwauling reverberated around them. Blue jolted up from the chair to see what was going on, only to be muscled back into it by Ruka.
"No swim now," the Zora said sternly. He stretched Blue's leg out straight and scrutinized the bite wound. Then he started plucking the teeth out with deft motions of his red claws. Blue clenched his teeth and quietly endured the sharp sting. Ruka was doing it more quickly and cleanly than Blue could manage with his trembling hands.
Argulla swam past the opening of the cave, its bright tail momentarily blinding them. Blue gripped the edges of the chair as the water in the room was sucked toward the passing creature.
"I need to go out there," he said urgently. "I can't just hide in here!" He didn't want to be the most useless of the Harrys twice in a row!
Ruka finished picking out the teeth, then snatched Blue's burned hand up by the wrist. "Do magic," he said sharply, pointing to the extremity. "You do not magic, you swim not. You will sit here. You understand?" He gave Blue an expectant, distinctly paternal look. Some things were universal across dimensions, it seemed.
Blue sighed. "Fine, fine." He took his wand out of its pocket and chanted the basic healing spells he knew. He went through his injuries systematically: close the punctures (which were thankfully narrow enough for it to work), reduce the severity of the burn, and do what little he could to restore the blistering skin. When he was done, he put the wand back in its pocket. His repertoire of spells wasn't going to do anything against Argulla and there was no point in risking it floating away from him.
He and Ruka collected their vases by the door and swam out into chaos. Argulla was barreling around with its crackling tail lashing, flinging slow-moving orbs of electricity across the cavern. Their speed made them easier to dodge or catch, but it also made them a dangerous obstacle course of drifting balloons.
Blue carefully navigated through the gauntlet, firing at Argulla every time he felt the button pop up under his fingers. The others did the same, resulting in a constant stream of electrical cannonfire exploding against the walls near the agile monster. Malfoy was the first one to land a shot, zipping through the thinning cloud of electric orbs and nailing the beast right between the eyes as it swooped under him.
Argulla's fins lit up as they carried the energy across its body, leading it straight into its tail. With a cackling cry, the monster went into a tight spin and sprayed another wave of projectiles for them to frantically avoid. One of them hit Ron in the arm, rendering him limp and lifeless in the water. Blue reached out for him, screaming his name, but he was too far away to help. Malfoy dashed in, caught the vase that had fallen from Ron's hands, and towed the boy off toward one of the caves. Blue could only hope it wasn't one of the ones haunted by ReDeads.
Green dipped and dove through the field of electric mines, his vase held out to clear the way. He stopped in front of Blue, looking exhausted and desperate. "What do we do?" he asked, gesturing helplessly toward the monster now circling the ceiling. Its throat pouch was full of water again; once this volley of ghostly, slow-moving electricity had dissipated, it was going to batter them with faster, more solid electricity. Great.
Without warning, Blue's vision whited out. His heart squeezed, sucking all of the strength and feeling from his limbs. His hands scrabbled at his ribs as he wheezed against the horrible force keeping his lungs from inflating, every breath he managed to take wasted on a scream. The pain was crushing, blinding, and all-consuming; it paralyzed him as surely as a ReDead's scream.
He opened his eyes—which he didn't remember closing—to the sight of Malfoy's pale, frightened face. Blue sat up, his hand pressed to his chest. His heart was beating again. There was no pain in his lungs. He was okay.
As he got his bearings, he realized they were in one of the little side caves. Ron and Yellow had their wands lit, kneeling grim-faced beside Hermione as she helped Red sit up. By Hermione's knees sat an empty glass bottle. Blue's spirits sank as he looked at it.
Malfoy followed his line of sight. "His heart stopped," he explained, looking ill at the memory. "He was hit in the chest."
Blue's gut twisted. Three near-death experiences in one day and no more second chances. Even if they managed to slay Vaati's pet, how were they supposed to fight Vaati himself?
Outside the cave, Argulla screeched in frustration and battered its body against the side of the main cavern. Tremors shook the floor. Then came a drifting wave of lethal electric spheres, one of which floated into the cave and fizzled against the back wall.
They moved a safe distance away from the front door, resting their sore bodies inside three bathtub-shaped stone beds by the cave's back corner to form their silent conference. "What do we do?" Red mouthed from the tub across from him. "The vase didn't work. Attacking its eyes doesn't work. They just heal. What's its weak point?"
Blue honestly didn't know. There tended to be a certain pattern when it came to fighting high-level Hylian monsters. The creature would attack, the expedition team would use the temple's tool against it, the monster would be stunned, and the Harrys would attack whatever body part looked most vulnerable—usually an eye. So far, they had attacked Argulla with the temple's tool and it had turned the energy back at them. Ruka had repeatedly clawed its eye and the monster had just whipped around and tried to bite him in half. Nothing was going as it should have!
Another furious howl echoed through the water, followed by the thunder of Argulla slamming against the side of the cave. A yellow lightshow ensued.
Hermione frowned thoughtfully at the golden light reflecting off of the cave's back wall. "What about its tail?" she asked.
"What about its tail?" several people, Blue included, mouthed back.
"It's where the power comes and goes," she said, motioning as she spoke. "The fins run power to and from the tail. The eyes don't do anything. The weak point is the tail."
Blue nodded in excited understanding. That made sense! The tail was the brightest, most attention-grabbing body-part on Argulla, too. It just hadn't occurred to him to attack it because it seemed so heavily charged with electricity. Maybe if they could just stun the creature, the tail would lose its crackle for a little while.
How to stun it, though? The vase was definitely involved somehow, since it was the only effective long-range weapon they had. Hitting the monster from the outside with electricity had backfired; the fins had just carried that energy back to the tail. What if they landed a shot in its open mouth, though? No fins in there, and he'd seen glimpses of many movies (while cleaning up the popcorn his cousin threw at the TV) involving tough-skinned monsters having more vulnerable innards.
"Shoot it in the mouth," he declared. "It opens its mouth a lot. Wait for that, then fire."
"It opens its mouth when it tries to eat us," Malfoy said skeptically.
"Yes. Shoot it when it does that."
After a round of incredulous expressions, some silent despairing groans, and a quick translation from Green to Ruka, they trooped outside to face the sea serpent once more. Now they had a plan! It was a start. Hopefully their new familiarity with the eel's movements would make up for the fact that they'd have to use CPR the next time someone's heart stopped.
Argulla sang delightedly when its prey left their hiding place. It celebrated by diving at Ruka, giving them the perfect chance to see whether their plan would work. Of any of them, the Zora had the best chance of surviving if they turned out to be wrong. Ruka stood his ground as the eel approached, only flapping his many fins to put himself at a better angle. He fired his magic cannon straight down the Argulla's throat, then jetted out of the way.
The eel thrashed and screamed, its eyes bugging out of its head and its jaws spasmodically opening and closing. Then it rolled over on its back with its tail trailing under it, still twitching. Ruka ferried the Harrys over to it two at a time, hooking the handles of their vases on his arms. "Go, baby Heroes, go!" he cheered.
Blue unsheathed his sword, swam up to Argulla's dangling tail, and attacked it with all the viciousness that had been building up in his chest over the course of the temple. He hated the lightless watery voids, he despised the helplessness of being seized by the burning, blinding agony of electricity, and most of all he wanted nothing more than to rip this sodding eel to bloody ribbons. He stabbed and slashed with mindless fury. Every line of purple smoke he raked into the neon flesh fueled his growing sense of vindictive satisfaction.
After a disappointingly short amount of time. Argulla roused. It flicked its tail, pelting the Harrys with gemstones, and fled into the depths of the vertical tunnel. The Harrys swam around and flapped their swords at anything that glittered. Blue didn't know what the other group had been up to, but his own team hadn't gotten the chance to do much monster-slaying throughout the temple. He didn't want to find out what would happen if they tried to break Vaati's curse-maintaining eyes without powering up their swords, so every gem they could collect was precious.
They were in the middle of reclaiming their artifacts from Ruka when they felt the water shift. Blue sheathed his sword, hitched his vase up to his chest, and maneuvered himself around to point it at Argulla. What was the bloody beast up to now?
The eel was circling below, faster and faster. Its neon yellows and pinks blurred into a continuous streak as it picked up speed. The water started sucking Blue down, pulling him away from the relative safety of the lost city, with all its hidey-holes, and into a narrower column with smooth walls. When he realized what was happening, Blue turned around and started kicking upward with all his might. If there were no caves to hide in, they would have no way to rest from swimming and no way to stop and heal! His struggles were fruitless, though, only succeeding in reintroducing the ache to his potion-reinvigorated legs; the current was too strong and he was too slow. Like his brothers below him, he gave up the fight and let himself be dragged down by the unseen whirlwind. No point in burning energy only delaying the inevitable.
Once everyone was well out of reach of the side caves, trapped between the uselessly smooth walls of the lower corridor, Argulla slowed its hurricane spin. It opened its mouth to take a great gulp of water and pointed its head up. Blue kicked to put his body upside-down and parallel to the walls of the tunnel, holding his vase out to form a narrow shield. It would be bad enough if Ron, Hermione, Malfoy, or Ruka got hit; if any one of the Harrys caught an electric attack, all four of them would be dead in the water. Literally, even, if they caught a ball of electricity to the chest again.
'Stupid busted sword,' he thought bitterly as Argulla started spitting water bullets. If the malfunctioning magic of the Four Sword didn't get them killed in this fight, he had little doubt it would screw them over in their battle against Vaati.
Electricity rained upward. Blue caught one of the bullets and gritted his teeth as the vase kicked in his arms. Comets trailing boiling water flew past him, kissing his skin with uncomfortable heat. One of them skimmed past its face, leaving a hot, itching streak down his cheek. Blue growled through his teeth and resolutely held his body straight as two more shots hit his vase, shoving him upward. The button under his right hand popped up. If the eel had another go at eating him, he was ready.
Argulla shot straight up through the middle of the cavern, right on the tail of its electric shower. Its turbulent slipstream sent Blue and the others pin-wheeling through the water. Blue flapped his limbs out of instinct, managing to stop himself but losing all sense of direction in the process. He put a hand to his spinning head, squinting at the nearest oyster lamp to tell which way was up.
Wait, squinting?
Blue clapped a hand to his face and loosed an inhuman shriek of fury and frustration. Oh, great, he'd come close to dying three times today—twice because of this bloody eel—and now he'd lost his glasses! He sent a fiery glare toward the blurry monster now spiraling down the walls. He couldn't see it, but he assumed its eyes were jumping from one potential morsel to the next. Well, Blue hoped it decided to try eating him again. He wanted to be the next one to make it scream.
Blue thrashed his legs, doing his best impression of a sea turtle caught in a fishing net. The vague yellow spots of Argulla's eyes seemed to dip in his direction. "That's right, come and get me, you stupid bastard," Blue growled. The cluster of pink and yellow circles denoting the beast's face continued sliding around him, then paused. He locked his vase into position and, just as the colorful blurs tilted up and surged forward, he fired at the black hole that had opened between them.
With a triumphant stream of insults issuing from his lips, Blue swam below the screaming, flailing monster and made a beeline for its tail. Holding his vase under one arm, he slashed away with the other. Quantity over quality was fine—he just wanted to make this thing bleed. A surge of strength ran through him as his brothers joined in and he cackled maniacally. One more attack run, and the eel would be dead!
Argulla's tantalizing tail was yanked out of reach again, much to Blue's frustration. He raised his sword arm to protect his face from the expected flurry of magical rocks and then swung his weapon around blindly to collect them. Hopefully his brothers could pick up his slack, because Blue couldn't see a damn thing.
One of his brothers swam up to him—Blue couldn't tell which. His sibling probably also said something, given the dark spot opening and closing in the lower part of his turquoise-lit face. Blue just shrugged and waved at his eyes. If communication down here had been difficult before, it was impossible for him now.
The water started sucking them down. Blue squinted at the glowing donut far below. Really, what was the point of dragging them even farther down the well? They were already deprived of anywhere to hide. This would just make it harder to swim back up to the surface.
Argulla pulled to a hard stop and roared. It was deep and resonant—a sound that hummed in his organs and bones. Blue clutched his nearby brother's arm. What was happening? What did the ominous noise mean?
The yellow rings around Argulla's pink spots flared brighter and a vague circle of golden light bloomed in the darkness. An arm locked around Blue's middle and he found himself being hauled toward the side of the cavern alongside his brother. From the scrawniness of the arm at his back, Blue assumed it was Malfoy pushing him along.
Suddenly he wasn't just blind, but blinded. The whole cavern lit up like the sun as a flash of heat seared his back. Blue screamed into his air bubble, the sound bouncing back and stabbing him in the ears. What the hell was that?!
The light winked out, leaving Blue to deal with his seared retinas. He blinked furiously and rubbed his eyes. Bad enough that he couldn't see without another dose of "can't see" on top of it! He was going to need an aquatic guide-dog at this rate!
A heavy rush of water sent him into a disorienting spin. He cursed Argulla both silently and aloud as he struggled to right himself—whichever way "right" was. By the time he managed to get himself stationary, he could kind of see again. Blue looked up in time to see a volley of fuzzy yellow balls heading his way. Blue yelled another handful of blistering oaths into his soundproof bubble, far beyond his aunt's lessons of propriety at this point, and struggled to get his vase aimed right. His depth perception was utter crap and the vagueness of the projectiles' size made it difficult to get his vase positioned right. After some desperate maneuvering, he managed to catch one heavy water sphere with the artifact set directly against his chest—not a good idea. Up until now, he'd been holding the vase a little away from his torso, using the muscles in his arms to absorb the recoil. This time, hard stone cracked against bone. There was a sharp pop in his ribcage, and suddenly every breath felt like being stabbed.
At this point Blue had run out of new swears, so he recycled a few of the foulest.
Blue couldn't afford to nurse his ribs, though, because more bullets were coming. He gingerly curled his legs and tucked his arms to present a smaller target and then caught the approaching ball of lethal water headed for his knees. Merely leaning down to get a better angle was enough to make his broken rib ache; jolting it by absorbing the force of a weighty, fast-moving projectile was enough to make him scream and nearly black out. His head spun with the floaty, thought-swallowing fuzziness of his brain desperately requesting time off.
He flapped one arm as vigorously as he dared, trying to flag down Malfoy, or Ruka, or literally anyone who wasn't both half-blind and sporting something broken. If he intercepted another bullet, either by catching the thing or being hit by it, he'd be out of the fight. At this point he didn't know whether he could even swing his sword, but conscious and mostly useless was better than unconscious and totally useless.
Someone noticed his flailing and swam toward him. Long hair, so it had to be Hermione. "Thank God, Merlin, and bloody Zeus," he wheezed. "Broken rib, no glasses. Can't use vase. Help."
Hermione moved in front of him with her own artifact held up. Blue left the defending to her, pouring his focus into remaining conscious and not getting hit. 'Just stay awake. Just stay awake,' he chanted in his head.
He didn't notice the wave of projectiles had been spent until Hermione was suddenly right in front of him, her wand aimed at his chest. Blue blinked. Had he lost time? His injury must have really been something, then. Hermione said something he couldn't see before wiggling her wand and making the sharp stab in his chest fade to a dull ache. That was good enough for him. He gave her a thumbs-up. Bone-knitting spells were going to be next on his reading list, for sure. Madam Pomfrey could re-break and re-heal the bad fixes later; making the pain stop was Blue's main priority.
A low howl shook the water. Blue didn't know precisely what it signaled, but he knew it was a good thing his rib was semi-fixed. He and Hermione scurried toward the outer edge of the cavern, Blue following the light of her breathing globe. Once he was pressed up against the wall, he shut his eyes and threw an arm over them for good measure.
Uncomfortable warmth lit up along the itching burn already covering his back, thankfully not as painful as it had been the first time. When the heat faded, he peeled his face away from the wall.
"Someone just shoot the stupid thing!" he shouted at no one. Soon after, he heard pained screeching. "Thank you. Glad to know someone was listening."
One of the resident good swimmers appeared in cloud of bubbles and whisked Blue away. Nice meaty arms and lots of exposed skin, so must have been Ruka. Blue was the last to arrive, but joined in on his brothers' assault with gusto. He hoped his siblings knew to stay out of his way, because he did not care about his surroundings. It was just him and that infuriating, electricity-spewing tail.
"DIE, DIE, DIE!" he yelled, hacking away.
After ten slashes, Argulla let out a final wail. Blue watched with absolute glee as the monster writhed, struggling desperately to escape the wave of gray consuming it from tail to nose. Then it exploded into a burst of purple smoke and a fountain of jewels. Blue swam through it happily, squealing with delight when his sword began humming with power. The horrid beast was dead, their swords were all charged up, and they'd soon be free of this temple! Oh, happy day!
After swimming up for an exhausting eternity, they dragged themselves onto land. Blue lay flat on the stone, suddenly reminded of the effects of gravity and the pain of his injuries all at once. His scalded back did not appreciate being removed from the cold water, and neither did his half-healed hand. His ribs, meanwhile, protested the fact that he dared lay his suddenly-existent weight on them. Blue groaned, planted his vase on the ground, and used it to push himself upright.
"One of you get the scroll before I strangle someone. I'm bloody blind and I want to leave," Blue announced.
"Oh, no wonder you were moving so slow," he heard Ron remark. "I thought you'd gotten hit, or something."
"I broke a rib, too, after I lost my glasses," Blue told him, "which is why it'd be really nice if someone would touch that scroll, wherever it is. Hermione, did you half-heal it or something?"
"I repositioned it and lightly stuck it in place, which I explained when I did it," she said. "I'm guessing you didn't see that part, though."
"Not at all!" Blue said blithely.
The mental assault of violently-introduced knowledge came over him. Blue welcomed the pain, knowing it would be over quickly and carry his other pains away when it left.
"Thank you," he breathed once he could think again. He immediately summoned the Lenses of Truth onto his nose. Everything snapped into perfect focus. "I can see!"
Green asked Ruka a question in Hylian, gesturing toward his face. He reported the Zora's response as, "Good news: Hyrule has prescription glasses. If we go there to buy armor, we can get some glasses that work for us, too. No more charity-bin cast-offs!"
"Well, that's nice to know." Blue looked around, now that he properly could, and spotted the exit. He set off for it at a sprint and accidentally collided with the giant blue sapphire floating within. It vanished as soon as he ran into it, though, so no harm done. Blue paused for a moment, wondering whether something might happen. Nothing did, so he shrugged and began pacing impatiently in front of the quartet of lightning-ridden shadowy eyes guarding the exit. After this place, there would be no more jellyfish or ReDeads or electricity, just fighting Vaati. Or so he hoped. His hopes weren't high, though; nothing was ever simple where Hylian nonsense was concerned.
The others trickled in too slowly for his liking. Sure, they were tired, but the exit was right there! They could afford to have more pep in their step. Green and Ruka were the last to walk in, their heads bent close together as they muttered to each other in rapid Hylian. If Blue didn't know better, he'd say they were planning something.
"What are you talking abou—?" he began.
"So, once we find a way back into Hyrule, we need to take a train to Five-Spear Island so we can visit Ruka and he can set us up with a set of rupees and magic pouches. His family makes bags with magic kind of like what the vases use—his ancestor made the Abyssal Vase, by the way—and that's why they're rich," Green said in a rapid-fire stream. "After he gives us money and bags, we need to catch a train to the mainland and find an armor shop. Adventuring is a big industry in Hyrule, since evil mages attack with armies of monsters pretty often and there are a bunch of hidden dungeons and caves with magical artifacts everywhere. We can find even more Rupees if we look for those places—enough for some shields to go with the armor."
"You've just come up with a whole itinerary, haven't you?" Blue remarked. "Well, it's good to see you being organized for once instead of making me, Hermione, or Malfoy do it for you. If you make me plan a trip this ill-advised again, I'm going to bash your skull in with the Hylian Bestiary."
Green looked away, rubbing the back of his head. "Sorry," he mumbled. "I know you didn't want to do this, so thanks for doing it anyway."
Blue pursed his lips and gave an accepting nod. "Thank you for apologizing." He'd done as Green had insisted because, as much as Blue had hated the facts of reality in this instance, his brother had been right. Vaati's plan to drown Hogwarts had needed thwarting and it took the full set of the Four Sword's bearers to destroy his magical anchors, no matter how mentally shaken some of those bearers might have been.
The Harrys lined up in front of the crackling eyes and brought their swords down and across. Four eyes closed and vanished into smoke. A chorus of victorious cheers went up, only to be silenced when the ground bucked under their feet. They were knocked around like a handful of scattered pebbles. Blue managed to land relatively painlessly on his side, then winced as his brothers added echoed bruises to his knees and right shoulder.
He staggered upright as the earthquake faded to a background tremor. "Either this place is coming apart or that was Vaati starting his tantrum!" he shouted over the sound of surprised yelps and rumbling stone. "Time to get back to the castle!"
As cracks began forming in the ceiling, raining streams of water on their heads, they ran for the exit and leapt into the blinding light of the outside world.
Item Get: Abyssal Vase
Notes:
-If you're wondering why Vaati talks so weird, it's because he's gone thoroughly round the bend at this point. He was an egotistical brat before he went mad with power, and then he spent most of the next several thousand years of his life in extradimensional eyeball jail with nothing but his own thoughts for company. He's gone so far up his own arse that he's managed to reach the moon. Vaati is too vast to be encapsulated by such pitiful mortal concepts as "cringe".
-That blinding attack Argulla did was a massive energy beam. If Blue had stuck around to watch it, he would have been fried to a crisp or had his retinas destroyed.