Simon was almost halfway down the cliff to Betty's bay when the wind picked up and sprayed him with icy droplets. He tightened his grip on the rope. "Looks cold down there..." The ocean off the north coast rarely looked inviting, especially at this time of year. But if he wanted to see his girlfriend before spring, he had no other choice.
He looked out at the open ocean, where the waves were smashing chunks of ice together like they were styrofoam. He told himself that the ice had probably broken off the Ice Kingdom, which was frozen even in summer, but he definitely saw more of it in winter. Some of it had probably formed naturally.
There was a gurgling voice from below. Betty had poked her head out of the water, and was trying to say something.
"What?" called Simon. She exhaled water when she spoke, making her sound more like a fountain than a person above the surface. Simon was hard to understand below the surface, unless he'd taken a waterbreathing potion.
Betty beckoned him in and calmed the waves.
Simon grit his teeth, and lowered himself down the cliff. He was wearing a wetsuit under his clothes, and the cold of the spray hadn't really got into his skin, but he didn't have anything to cover his face. When he was a couple of feet above the surface, he let go and splashed down.
The shock of the freezing water knocked the air out of him, and he leaned on a kelpy rock as he got his breathing under control.
Betty watched him, suppressing a smile. Simon scowled. It was okay for her. She had some sort of natural insulation to keep her warm, like an invisible layer of blubber or something. Not that he'd ever ask her about something like that.
"What did you say?" he said when he could breathe again.
They both sank under the surface so that Betty could reply coherently.
"I said, you've been staring at the water for half an hour. Are you ever gonna jump in?"
Simon surfaced. "What? Half an hour?" He did tend to lose track of time. "I'm sorry, Betty, I-"
He realised that she was trying not to laugh.
"It wasn't half an hour," he said.
"You're so serious, Simon," said Betty, when they got back under the surface. She waved a bandaged hand. "Why don't you grow a sense of humour?"
She turned and swam towards her house, which they'd built to partially stick out of the water, even at high tide.
"I have a sense of humour!" Simon protested, following her. He just didn't treat everything like a joke. sometimes he wanted to, but he wasn't a little kid anymore. Silliness was unbecoming of a hero.
It was warmer and calmer inside. Betty had attached what looked like heating elements to the walls. None of them were above the surface, which lapped at the point where the walls met the peaked roof, but they still looked like enough of a fire hazard to make Simon nervous.
Betty stopped swimming, and Simon beckoned her to the surface. "Betty," he said. "What happened to your hand?" Had she been attacked by something? What could possibly hurt her enough to make her bandage her hand like that?
Unexpectedly, Betty grinned. "Come on, I'll show you!" She grabbed his arm with her good hand and pulled him into a side room with cabinets strewn around the floor, seemingly at random. She picked up a battery with a couple of wires attached. The wires had small bits of metal on their ends. "Recognise this?"
"A..." Simon tried to remember the word. "An electrolysis device? Did you find some old coins?" Electrolysis separated substances at the atomic level, making it useful for removing the tarnish from ancient metal objects. Simon had told her all about the implications during their last date under Iceberg Lake.
"No, but look what happens when you do it without anything attached!" said Betty. She hung the wires over a stand, and turned the battery on.
The water around the ends of the wires began to bubble. Before the bubbles could reach the surface, Betty used her powers to combine them into two.
"Whoa..." said Simon, staring. "It's... green." One of them was green. The other was clear, as far as he could tell.
"Which element do you think they are, Simon?" said Betty, watching the bubbles grow from the metal pieces. "Hey. Do you have a lighter?"
"No..." said Simon. Betty knew how he felt about fire. What did she need a lighter for anywhere? She lived underwater.
"I wanna see if they're flammable," said Betty casually.
Simon hoped they could figure out what they were without having to set them on fire. "Well, there aren't many green gasses." Pity he couldn't remember which ones were. He'd memorised the periodic table a while ago, but it didn't have colour information on it, or much practical information at all. "Fluorine...?" Toothpaste was usually green or blue, and there was fluorine in toothpaste. Or sometimes it was white. "Is that how you hurt your hand?" Mermaids didn't have much experience with fire, as a rule.
"It wasn't the gasses." Betty turned off the machine, took some corked flasks from one of the cabinet, and wafted the green gas into one and the clear gas into the other. "You see how the water's all cloudy now?"
"Oh yeah!" He'd thought it was just the turbulence. The cloudy water was trying to spread out and mingle, but Betty wasn't letting it.
"I could tell it wasn't seawater," said Betty, "so I stuck my hand in it!" She rubbed her bandaged hand thoughtfully. "I think it's some kind of acid." She directed the cloudy water into another flask, which she put away with a smile. "It really hurt."
Simon had to think before he spoke next. Maybe she was in shock? How long did shock last? In mermaids? "You seem... happy."
"Of course I'm happy!" said Betty, agitating the water in her excitement. "I never hurt myself so bad before!"
Simon swallowed to make his ears pop. He wasn't sure if he'd heard right. The transmission of sound through water was still a grey area to him. "Uhh..."
"You don't understand, Simon," said Betty. "Dad never let me hurt myself so bad before. How am I supposed to learn anything if I can't sometimes mash it up?"
Simon still didn't really get it. "You want to make mistakes?"
"Yeah!" said Betty. "If dad ever heard about this, he'd- Oh, he probably already knows." She sighed and sank to the bottom of the room, with her chin on her hands.
Simon waited for her to resurface. After a minute or two, she did.
"Why?" said Simon. "Did you tell someone?" Betty didn't have many friends, and all of them were back at the Ocean Kingdom. He felt bad for her. He probably would have been happy about something crazy like accidentally hurting himself too, if he'd had her sheltered childhood.
"No, but he has people keeping an eye on me," said Betty. She gestured at the empty room.
The water was a bit silty and hard to see through, but as far as Simon could tell, they were alone. "Where?"
"The plankton, Simon!" said Betty impatiently. "Ever looked at seawater under a microscope?"
Simon shook his head. He didn't own a microscope. Bonnibel did, but she didn't often let him use it. "Microscopic creatures? Can they..." He remembered the invisible plankton and lowered his voice. "Can they even think?"
"They can report back to my father," said Betty bitterly. "Hey. You said you always wanted to be an adventurer. Did your parents give you trouble about it?"
"Uh..." said Simon, surprised by the question. "Mom was kinda overprotective." Less than Betty's dad, he was sure. "Dad always encouraged me, he was way into adventuring. He even took me through some dungeons." He hesistated. "He didn't tell mom until later." That was not a good memory for him. He couldn't have known that she was so against young children completing dungeons, but he still felt bad for upsetting her.
"And... your mom knew you could handle it after that?" Betty pressed.
"I guess so, yeah," said Simon. He saw what Betty was getting at, but he hadn't started adventuring seriously until after his parents' deaths.
"That's perfect!" said Betty. "Simon, let's go through a dungeon and prove to my dad I can handle danger! Then maybe he'll stop spying on me. I know just the place."
"An underwater dungeon?" said Simon stupidly. Of course it was underwater. She couldn't exactly read surface treasure hunting guides without going through the trouble to get them waterproofed.
"It's just past the ridge," said Betty. She grabbed his hand. "Come on!"
Simon didn't want to risk swimming on the surface in this weather, so he took ten minutes of his precious waterbreathing potion. Betty had told him the dungeon was five minutes away, and she always overestimated how fast Simon could move underwater.
The dungeon turned out to be in the nearby ancient ruined city. Betty said the crystalline seaweed that grew through in the area was a pest and made it hard to grow anything else, but Simon thought it was beautiful. You never saw see things like that on land.
They went down what had once been a main road, over a line of half-buried cars and trucks, and Simon wondered if the people driving them had realised they were about to die. There was no way to know for sure.
Betty turned down a side street, through some roofless houses, and up a hill. "Here it is!"
They'd come to a tall building that had sunk so far into the silt that it was hard to tell how big it really was. Judging by the small flecks of paint still clinging to the bricks, it had once been grey.
"Hey, I've heard of this!" said Simon. "I read about in the Good Dungeons Guide!" Compiled by some of Wizard City's top scryers, it was an indispensable periodical for adventurers of any class, or at least that was what it said on the .adventure newsgroup. Simon found that it was at least worth the subscription fee.
"What did it say?" said Betty, as they swam to the only visible entrance, a big hole about halfway up that looked like it had been made by something bursting out from the inside.
"It said it's rated for one adventurer," said Simon. "But since you're a beginner, I guess it's okay. Oh, and we need bombs. Bombs that work underwater." Good thing they knew that now and not after hours of fruitless searching.
"Oh!" said Betty happily. "I nearly forgot!" She dug through her bag. "When I burned my hand, I separated out the stuff that made the water cloudy. It was some kinda white... stuff. I melted it and electrolysed it, and I got this weird metal." She pulled out a plastic container containing small balls of metal, each of which was thinly coated in something transparent. She took one out, and the coating began to dissolve. "Watch this. And stand back."
Simon stood back. Betty threw one of the metal balls down the hill, and it fell with more force that it should have underwater. It hit the ground and exploded with a flash.
"Bombs," said Betty.
Simon adjusted his glasses and inspected the container more closely. "What kind of metal is that?"
Betty shrugged. "It's soft and it blows up underwater. In air it just tarnishes. Oh, and sometimes it catches fire."
Simon thought he'd let Betty handle the explosives.
They looked at each other, and swam inside through the hole, coming out into the slanted remains of what had once been an office. It was dim, but they could still see the silvery surface of the water, glimmering not far above their heads.
The potion hadn't worn off yet, but Simon swam upwards and took a breath. Betty thought the air in here was probably okay, but he didn't want to take unnecessary risks. Betty knew a lot about the sea, but she was still as new to the surface as Simon was to the ocean. Maybe more. Simon could at least swim in the ocean if he had to.
He took a few more breaths, and when he didn't seem to be dying, swam back down.
"So," said Betty. "So where do we start?"
Simon scanned the room. There were two way out of the room that he could see, but one was covered in thick rubble. "I guess we go through that door."
Betty looked up, and Simon followed her gaze.
There was a big hole in the roof. There seemed to be more dungeon beyond it, but it was too high to reach. "That must be a more advanced section," said Simon. "We'll have to raise the water level."
Betty grinned. "Okay." She pulled her arms back.
"Wait!" said Simon. He took a breath to say more, and coughed. Now the potion was wearing off. He swam for the surface, and Betty followed. "You can't just use magic! That's cheating!"
"Are you sure?" said Betty, sounding disappointed.
Simon nodded emphatically before he surfaced again. "The Good Dungeons Guide says this dungeon can be solved without magic. We need to find another way."
Betty stared up at the hole, which wasn't too far from the surface. "Then I'll give you a boost." She grabbed him around the waist.
"That's cheating too!" said Simon, as she hoisted him above the water. "It's... it's rated for one person!"
Betty dropped him without warning. "Then what can we do?"
"There... there must be a way to raise the water level further in," said Simon, spitting out seawater. "Listen, we can't just skip half the dungeon. That's not how dungeons work."
The headed for the door.
"Why not?" said Betty. "It's just a series of rooms." She tried to pull open the door. "Ugh, it's stuck." She tugged harder.
Simon braced his legs on the wall and pulled on the door handle as well. "It's not- not the- lawful-" The door finally gave way, and two sharp-toothed eels rushed at them. "Zounds!'
One of the eels went straight for his legs, so he kicked it away. The other used the distraction to try to sneak up behind him. Simon ducked, and used the momentum to grab his nunchucks from his belt and hit the eel with them. It recovered quickly, but not fast enough to stop Simon from grabbing it by the tail and bashing it against the wall.
It stopped moving after that. Simon looked around for the other eel, and found it floating a few feet away, just above an old computer. "Are you okay?" he asked Betty, more out of courtesy than concern. Betty could take care of herself.
"That was fun," said Betty. She started to go through the door, but Simon pulled her back.
"Always check for monsters before entering a new room," he quoted, pressing himself against the wall and looking around carefully. The next room was part of a caved in hallway. There was a passageway under the rubble that looked just big enough to fit a person, and a door on both walls. The door on the right had a prominent padlock. "It's clear."
"I coulda told you that," said Betty. She swam past him and pulled on the padlocked door experimentally. "I guess it's locked."
"Yeah," said Simon. "The key should be around here somewhere." Dungeons always gave you the keys for locks, even rogue and subterfuge dungeons.
Betty pulled on the door again. "Can't you just pick the lock? Is that cheating too?"
Simon looked more closely at the lock, though he could already guess its basic structure. There wasn't much variety, even across dungeons. "Yeah, actually. I mean, I could." Dungeon locks were pretty simple. "It's wrong to pick a lock in a dungeon where you can get the key."
"Like it's wrong to use magic to skip ahead?" said Betty. She didn't seem to be taking this very seriously.
"It is in dungeons," said Simon. That was just how dungeons were. He opened the opposite door into a small room full of cleaning supplies and stacked furniture. "Looks like a janitor's closest."
Betty pointed at the crowded desk in the closet. "Hey, a key." She grabbed it, took it back to the locked door, and jammed it in. "Come on! Get in there, you stupid key!"
Simon took her arm. "Stop it, you'll damage the lock. This key must be for something else." Or it was a red herring. Some dungeons had a lot of those.
"How many locks are there?" said Betty, frustrated.
Simon shrugged. "Come on, let's search the closet. Might be more loot in there."
As they looked under mops and sealed chemical containers, Betty said "Simon, explain to me why suddenly lockpicking is wrong."
"Heroes have to stay lawful," Simon explained. She was still new to this. A lot of adventuring concepts sounded ridiculous when you didn't know why they existed. "You could become a villain if you're not careful."
Betty threw a plastic bucket over her shoulder, and it floated away on the surface. "Come on. We know we're not evil."
"Yeah, but you gotta keep checking up on yourself and making sure," said Simon. He did it every day. "All the worst villains think they're really heroes. Uh, except the Lich, I guess." He thought about it for a second. "No, the Lich too!" Destroying all life probably was heroic from the point of view of a being that hated life.
Betty held up a rotted wooden box. "Hey. Is this loot?" She shook it. It rattled. "It won't open." She turned it around. "It's locked!" She tried the key, but it didn't fit. "Can you pick this one?"
"I just told you why I can't," said Simon, trying not to get annoyed. "You start picking locks when you don't have to, and you end up murdering peeps just for cutting ahead of you line."
Betty frowned. "Whatever you say, Simon."
They found a pair of padded leather greaves, which Simon put on, but the only other useful item in the closet seemed to be the box. It was a bit too big to take with them, so they left it where it was and moved on to the passageway under the rubble.
Betty looked through and said "There's a pool of air just on the other side. I think you can make it, Simon"
Simon took a deep breath, and swam through the opening. He thought he'd emerged into a long hallway until he surfaced and saw it completely blocked off by more rubble. "Oh..." The only way to go was down, into a pool so deep Simon couldn't see the bottom.
Betty popped up from under him and pulled him down so she they can talk. "That's a dead end down there. Let's just blow it up!" She indicated the rubble.
Simon looked for cracks in the rocks ahead of them, but there weren't any. "We can't, the bombs aren't strong enough."
"So we use more," said Betty impatiently. "I got hundreds of these things back home."
The idea was so foreign to Simon that at first he didn't understand what she meant. "No," he said eventually. "We can only use one bomb at a time, and one bomb won't clear it."
It was a good thing he'd come along. It wasn't about getting to the end. Dungeons weren't just a source of loot, they were a test of character.
He took fifteen minutes of water breathing, and they dove down.
"You should really just become magic, Simon," said Betty. When Simon looked confused, she added "So you won't have to take a potion to breathe underwater."
"Y-You can't just become magic!" Simon protested, although he knew she was teasing him.
"Yeah you can," said Betty. "Did you even read any of the history books you waterproofed me?"
Betty was pulling ahead of him, so Simon kicked his legs as hard as he could. He didn't want to hold her up. "Of course I did, I- Okay okay, it is possible to become magic." Most of the sentient population of Uuu had some sort of human ancestry by now. "But usually you just die instead!" Or go insane. Or go insane and then die. Magic was not something you messed around with.
"Hpmh, excuses," said Betty. It was getting dark, so she pulled out some glowing crystal seaweed in a jar and shone it below them. "At least you'd be a magical-" She glanced at the ground. "What's that?" She put the jar under her arm and scooped something shiny up in her good hand. "It's the key to that stupid box! And the door!" She held it up, and it glowed in the light of the seaweed.
"Hm..." said Simon. He inspected the key more closely. "I don't think it'll fit to the door. Uh, it could fit the box."
"You can tell that?" said Betty. "Come on, let's go try it!"
"It's too small to for the door lock," said Simon. That wasn't lockpicking, it was just common sense. Lockpicking wasn't an essential skill for an adventurer, although it was a useful one. "We better make sure we haven't missed anything down here before we go back."
Betty groaned theatrically, but sank down and sifted through the mud on the floor. "Simon, are you sure this is the best way to do things?"
Simon nodded and did the same, after checking that his breathing potion was in his pocket for easy access. "Have you ever heard of a book called Dungeon Crawling for the Lawful Good? It taught me everything I know about dungeons." He'd memorised every word, although he was glad it only applied to dungeons. Following all the rules all the time would be exhausting.
"I'm true neutral," Betty replied, as she dug up half a whiteboard.
"We should all try to be lawful good," said Simon. "You just need more experience. You'll see." Wasn't that what true neutral meant? Unaligned because you hadn't had a chance to shift to either side yet?
"Uh-huh." said Betty. She didn't sound convinced.
.
In the end, they stayed down in the hole for more than half an hour, until Simon was completely satisfied that they hadn't missed anything. Betty knew Simon could be a stick in the mud sometimes, but never for so long and so irritatingly. She couldn't figure him out sometimes. He'd be doing an hilarious impression of a chasm seaweed farmer, and five minutes later be more serious than an orca attack.
The small key she'd found turned out to not fit either of the locks, though Simon had found a bigger one that fit the locked door.
"Finally," said Betty, as the door swung open to reveal a seat of concrete stairs going up out of the water. "Hey, lemme try something."
"Okay..." said Simon, who was looking up the stairs and mumbling to himself. He was probably wondering how Betty could continue through the dungeon if it was full of air. But he didn't have to.
Betty pushed herself out of the water, keeping a protective bubble of water around her so that she could breathe. She swam to the first step poking out of the water. "Okay." She grunted with effort, and swam on to the step above, bringing as much water with her as she could.
She turned around to see Simon staring at her. "What?" said Betty. "Don't tell me this is against the rules too."
Simon shook his head. "No... No, it's great! The rules don't say anything about that. How are you doing it?"
Betty shrugged. "Magic. I'm just moving water around." She rolled the ball of water up a step, and couldn't stop some of it splashing back down.
"Should it be doing that?" said Simon. He leaned into the bubble so that he could hear Betty's reply, and tapped his fingers on the surface.
"Well... I can't stop it," said Betty. It was difficult to stay focused on all the water at once, and she couldn't control water with much precision if it wasn't connected to her. "It'll be fine. I just need to top it up sometimes. I have plenty."
Simon seemed fascinated by the edges of the bubble. "But won't you eventually run out of... good water?"
"Yeah, but it'll splash away faster," said Betty. It was possible to make bad water breathable again by stirring with the air a bit, but she wasn't confident enough in her ability to keep the bubble together. "Stop worrying, Simon, I can handle it."
"Oh, yeah," said Simon, like he was reminding himself. "You can handle it. Then, let's go."
Betty got better at controlling the bubble with each step she splashed over. By the time they got to the next floor, she still had half her water left, which was more than she'd expected.
Going upwards in the air was hard work. Like waves on the surface, her bubble did not want to leave the ground. Betty was familiar with the concept of gravity, but she'd never had to fight it so hard before. No wonder surface dwellers could barely think in three dimensions.
There were more stairs, but they were blocked by rubble. Betty didn't even bother mentioning the bombs this time. Instead, they went up a collapsed section of wall and came to a large, dry room with a floor that slanted down to the right. At the bottom of the slope was a jumble of broken furniture, and on the opposite wall was a map with pins stuck on it.
Simon scanned the room mechanically, scooped a pile of silver coins off the floor, and started to move through, in the silly falling forward and catching himself way land bipeds had. Betty grabbed his arm. "Simon, look," she said, pointing at the map. It was the first interesting thing they'd come across, and she didn't think he'd even seen it.
"Huh?" Simon looked. "Oh! What is that?"
They got closer. "It's pre-war," said Betty. "Right?" Simon was better at history than she was, but it was common knowledge that the Great Mushroom War had shifted the continents somehow. It had also blown a big hole in the planet, which wasn't anywhere on the map she could see.
"Yeah..." said Simon. He pulled a pin out and put it back in. "I wonder what these were for."
"Isn't this were we are?" said Betty, pointing at the continent in the centre. The top half of that continent had no pins.
"Yeah!" said Simon. He pointed at one of the edges. "Right around there."
Betty tried to find Uuu in where he'd pointed, but all she could see was unfamiliar coastline.
Simon took a photograph of the map for later, and they were back to dungeon crawling.
Betty was surprised at how reluctant she was. The map was interesting. Dungeon crawling was... boring. Simon wasn't enjoying himself either, she could tell. He'd liked looking at the map, but now he was wearing his unfun serious face.
There was a creak so loud that Betty could feel the vibrations through her bubble, and Simon froze with one foot in front of the other. For a second, nothing moved, then the walls came alive with small land mammals. Rats or something. Betty wasn't an expert.
The rats rushed at them, Simon tensed and put a hand on his nunchucks, and Betty tried hard to care. Simon didn't seem too worried, so he could probably handle them on his own. If he looked like he was having trouble, she'd help, of course, but for the moment she just didn't care. She probably needed to conserve her water anyway. She was in the mood to crush things under fifty foot waves, and that wouldn't work up here.
Simon crouched as the rats approached, and punched apparently at random, knocking the closest rats against the opposite wall. A whole group leapt at him at once, but somehow he dodged every one of them. Several flew right past Betty's bubble.
Betty realised she was beginning to blush. She'd never seen Simon move like this before. He was... really good. At fighting. Lots of things at once. He didn't need her help at all.
Simon shook one last rat off his arm, smiling. He saw Betty's expression, and blushed a bit himself.
Betty laughed nervously, and beckoned him into the bubble. "Do you do that a lot?"
"It's the just I- Yes," Simon stumbled. "Agility is important. I... I keep in practice."
"How?" said Betty. His secret second job at the circus?
"Gunter," said Simon, gesturing upward. "You know, he can do that clone thing..."
"Oh," said Betty, with another awkward laugh. "Hey, we better get going." Even dungeon crawling was better than continuing this conversation.
Simon assumed his serious face. "I can't believe I trod on that board. If more than ten enemies attack at a time, you've done something wrong." He said it so tonelessly it sounded like a quote.
"Weren't you having fun?" said Betty. He'd looked like he was having fun.
"If more than ten enemies attack at a time, you've done something wrong," said Simon again, still looking serious. He turned to continue on, and Betty grabbed his shoulder.
"Simon. This is kinda... boring. I'm not having any fun." Enough was enough.
"Not having any fun?" repeated Simon. "Come on! Dungeons are all about fun!" He forced a smile. "That's what they're for!"
"Can't we do it some other way?" said Betty.
"What?" said Simon still wearing that fake smile. "No. We gotta follow the book, remember? We gotta be lawful."
"I'm not lawful," said Betty. And neither are you, she thought. She didn't say it out loud, though. It was rude to contradict people about their alignment. "Do you have a book about true neutral dungeon crawling?" Not that she needed one. She was true neutral because she wasn't particularly inclined to law, chaos, good or evil. It wasn't some standard she needed to live up to.
Although at this point chaos was beginning to look pretty good.
"Your alignment's gonna shift," said Simon, with so much certainty he obviously believed it. "Come on. The sooner we get moving, the sooner we can finish the dungeon." He turned and continued on.
Something towards the end of the room glinted in the dim light. It was a pocket of water. Betty rolled towards it, but Simon stuck out his arm and mouthed "Wait."
"What?" said Betty. He was the one who'd been worried about her breathing water.
"Some acids look just like water," said Simon. He knelt down, took a bottle marked 'baking soda' out of his bag, and sprinkled it in the water. It dissolved.
Betty sighed theatrically, though she knew he couldn't hear her yet. She grabbed his arm, waited for him to take a breath, and pulled him in. "Simon, I can tell when something isn't water. It's just normal seawater. Except now it's got... baking soda in it." Whatever that was.
"You have to test unknown liquids in dungeons!" said Simon, crossing his arms. "It's in the book!"
Betty rolled herself into the water pocket, wishing Simon would just forget about the book for a few minutes.
Maybe it was time to take matters into her own hands.
She let the water construct dissolve, and beckoned Simon in. "Simon," she said. "Don't you think you're taking this lawful thing a bit too far?"
"Too far?" said Simon. He laughed unconvincingly. "There's no such thing. I am lawful."
"Yeah," said Betty. "You told me. Why is it so important to you?" She surfaced and took off her glasses. They were nearly useless above water unless she let them dry out, and she wanted to see his face.
Simon looked like he was going to brush her concerns off again, but he said "Sometimes... I think I might really be chaotic."
Betty thought that too. But he sounded so despondent that she just said "How about a test? If you're lawful, you'll stay lawful, even without the book."
Simon wrinkled his forehead. "But... isn't it all about going by the book?"
"Lawfulness is about order," said Betty. For someone so worldly and heroic, he didn't know much about alignment. Probably this would be good for him. "Where do you think the first lawful people came from? They didn't have books telling them how to act."
"I guess not," said Simon, still uncertain. "But Betty, I already memorised the book. I can't just... forget about it." He smiled weakly. "Hey, maybe I should become magic after all."
Betty smiled as well. "I can help with that. Just let me bind your memory of the book, and you can prove you're lawful!" She suspected that he'd actually realise that he wasn't lawful, and then he'd relax and stop pretending to be so serious. Either way, it would be good for him.
Simon looked at her strangely. "You can do that?"
"Yep," said Betty, surprised at his surprise. She guessed memory powers were less common than she'd thought. "I'll bind your memories temporarily. If something happens to me, they'll come back on their own. It's perfectly safe." Mostly safe.
Simon swallowed. "Okay. Just for this dungeon. Are you sure you-"
He didn't finish his sentence, because Betty had started singing, without diving under. It only worked above the water, where even her best singing voice sounded like a gurgle.
Simon's face relaxed, and he seemed to be looking at something a long way away. He stopped treading water, and began to sink. Betty grabbed him and held his head above the surface.
She'd never done this on a real human before. She never thought she'd have a reason to. Her father said it was their heritage, but Betty wasn't interested in luring sailors to their doom. There were much easier ways to drown people if she really wanted to, and people didn't often sail far enough from land to make it worthwile. It was too easy to get caught up in the current to the edge of the world.
She turned Simon's head so that she could sing in his ear, and transferred her consciousness to his memory core. She was used to memory cores that looked like kelp, and she didn't know why she was surprised that his was no different. She'd expected a flower, or... something that grew on land. The core was wilted, because her song had bound all his memories, but it would to go back to normal the second her physical self stopped singing. It only barely gave her enough time to duck underwater when she needed to breathe.
That was okay. This wouldn't take long.
Memories were rarely in a neat little package on their own, so she began to gather them together by holding the thought of Simon's book in her mind, as well the magazine he'd mentioned, just to be safe. It wasn't a perfect technique. Sometimes completely unrelated obsessions or frequently revisited memories tried to join in under flimsy pretexts, but she knew how to-
A memory whipped at her, so quickly that by the time she started to swim, it had already hit her. She found herself in some vehicle, with a young, tearful Simon. He was so far above the surface that there was no significant water anywhere, but since it was a dream, Betty could still swim and breath.
Simon hadn't seen her. He was too busy crying.
Betty tried not let his remembered distress distract her, and looked around the cluttered vehicle for the exit to the dream. Outside was an ancient city at dusk. She guessed it was really a modern city, unless Simon was a lot older than he let on her.
The sobbing stopped abruptly. Little Simon had seen her. "A... Are you the police?" he said, wiping his glasses on his shirt in a bad impression of nonchalance.
It was one of the doors. Left or right? The wrong one would lead further into the memory, and there wasn't time for that. She wasn't trying to indiscriminately rifle through Simon's memories. "No, I'm your... friend." Left door. She opened it and swam through. "Uh, ta leme."
To her annoyance, the door didn't lead back to the memory core. It led to a dingy looking city that was more in line with what Betty expected of modern land architecture. A memory inside a memory. How much time did Simon spend in his own head?
She was floating near a tower, on top of a raised platform. The tower was protected by a force field. At first she thought there was nobody around, but then Simon swung on a rope out of a high window, with Gunter on his back and a chest under his arm. This time he looked to be in his early teens or late preteens.
"Penny! We got it!" Simon pushed off the tower and swung around the other side. Betty swam to the top of the tower and looked down. High ground was a good hiding spot from surface dwellers and their gravity problems.
Simon was giving the chest to an excited little girl dressed in rags.
"Finally!" said the girl, and drew a knife, which she used to pry open the chest.
Betty had a good view of the city, but she couldn't see the exit yet. It was probably close by.
"Hey," said Simon, and Betty looked back down. The chest was full of gold and jewels, and Simon seemed surprised about that. "Where... Where's your basket? I-it is in there? Right?"
"What do you think, stupid?" said Penny. "You're so gullible. I had you picked for a master thief as soon as I saw you."
The exit was the window Simon and Gunter had come out of. She swam down to it.
Simon spluttered for a second, then fell silent. Betty looked around to see him slide to the ground into the fetal position.
To her relief, this exit led back to the memory core. Simon had told her about that second memory, though she'd got the impression that he'd been a lot younger than he'd looked in the memory, and hadn't been an adventurer yet. What did any of this have to do with the book, anyway? Did it have a rule about not being manipulated by adorable urchins?
Betty was so distracted that she ran head first into another memory. This one was back in the ocean, with her memory self nearby, kissing Simon on the mouth. The sea surged violently, and Betty blushed. She remembered this fine. She did not need to see it a second time. Besides, if Simon noticed her, his mind might confuse her with the memory Betty. Escaping a mind that thought you were a figment of its own imagination was not easy.
She dove down, and out of the memory.
Betty was more careful now as she gathered the memories. Simon's thoughts were swift and persistent, and it was getting hard to carry the relevant memories one-handed. Her thought form didn't necessarily have to match her physical form, but she'd never been able to get the hang of changing it.
She was still pleased about burning her hand, but she thought about Simon obsessing over something that had made him cry when he was five, and felt lucky that she still had one.
Eventually, she had the memories balled between her hands, connected to the rest by a stalk. If she tugged hard enough, they'd come lose and eventually disintegrate in the mental ether, but she didn't want to take his memories away forever. He would never have agreed to that.
She concentrated on the stalk, and it grew stiff and metallic. Nothing was getting through there for hours, unless she let it.
She let her mind fade from the memory core, and could finally stop singing. She pushed Simon to the edge of the water, and rubbed her throat. She hadn't practiced since she'd left the Ocean Kingdom.
Simon focused on her slowly. "What? I... Sorry, Betty, I must have spaced out."
"It's okay," said Betty. He'd remember what had happened when the song finished wearing off. "Come on, let's keep going." She reformed her bubble, and they kept going through the doorway to the next room.
It was a completely bare, metal room with a few scraps of paint clinging to the walls. It was so empty it looked like it had been ransacked. A wind rippled the surface of the bubble, and Simon shivered.
Betty kept a lookout for anything locked. She needed to know if it had worked. They turned a corner, and Betty grabbed Simon's arm and pointed at the chest nestled in a rusted away segment of wall.
Simon nodded and started towards it. Then he stopped, looked distraught, and moved his mouth.
Betty poked her head out of the bubble.
"-geon crawl!" Simon was saying. "I don't know what to do!"
Puzzled, Betty said "What would you normally do?" Why was he so upset? He'd agreed to it. Hadn't he? Had she misunderstood?
Simon gestured at the chest. "I'd pick the lock, but... I can't remember if it's the right thing to do. A-I think there used to be rules."
Betty realised what had happened with a shock. In binding his memories of the book, she'd also bound his memories of agreeing to have his memories bound. "Just do what you want to do and let's keep going." Separating the memories out properly would take too long, and direct reminders could cause stress on the memory stem. She could damage his memory permanently if she wasn't careful.
Simon closed his eyes. "Okay."
He knelt down next to the chest and shone a light in the lock. He jiggled a couple of picks around inside, and had it open in seconds.
Betty couldn't tell if he was any happier. He still looked upset about the books. She hoped she'd made the right choice.
Inside the chest was an empty picture frame. Betty took it. "You sure this dungeon is rated for one, Simon?"
Simon frowned. "What?"
"Nothing," said Betty quickly.
The only other feature of the room was a small crack with water dribbling out of it. There were no other exits.
"A dead end," said Simon. "That's weird."
"Are you sure?" said Betty. She felt around the crack. The metal around it was slightly bowed out. "We explored everywhere else." Except...
Simon seemed to be thinking along the same lines. "The upper floor! Betty, is there a lot of water behind there?"
Betty nodded. "I think the wall can hold it, but..." She pulled out the container of explosive metal and grinned. She could just increase the water pressure in the next room and get the same effect, but she really wanted to blow something up.
Simon stood back and took his waterbreathing potion out of his bag.
Betty backed up and threw one of the bombs at the wall. For a second it just sat there, as the water dripped down to dissolve the coating.
Then it exploded, and the drips became a torrent. Betty managed to stop it from knocking Simon over, but even she couldn't soften the force very much.
The room was rapidly being drained of air. Simon managed to wedge himself against a corner so that he wouldn't move, and took more water-breathing potion. He didn't have time to measure it exactly, but it looked like five minute's worth. It was enough get to back downstairs if they didn't dawdle.
Betty pulled ahead as they swam back, glad to be out of the air. She looked back to make sure Simon was keeping up, and noticed he was frowning.
"What's wrong?" said Betty. That had been fun. She'd had fun. Blowing up walls and controlling water flows.
"I'm supposed to be helping you learn about dungeons, but I can't remember anything!" said Simon, pressing on his temples. "I'm sorry, I'm ruining your first dungeon crawl."
"What are you talking about?" said Betty. "That was the most fun I've had since we got here. Just relax!"
Simon didn't relax.
They swam down the stairwell, which was much easier than climbing up it, and went back to the first room, where the water had risen past the hole in the roof.
Simon surfaced halfway into the tiny upper room, and looked up. "Hey. There's another gap."
"Let's take a look!" said Betty. She waited for Simon to explain why they couldn't, but he didn't, so she gathered up a column of water, then let it fall as she took notice of their surroundings. "There's a sea serpent through there." She pointed at the small hole that had been bored into the wall. "Let's fight it!" She was back in the mood for battle.
Simon smiled naturally for the first time. "Let's."
.
As they reached the sixth floor, Simon looked up, expecting to see another gap in the ceiling, but it was whole. "I think this is the last floor." The room was even smaller than the one they'd come from. The only exit was over a pile of munitions, mostly bombs. They seemed empty, so Simon wasn't too worried.
Betty formed the water column that had brought them up into a ball of breathing water, which took up most of the room. "This is the boss floor, huh?"
"I don't think bosses work like that," said Simon. He was sure he usually knew how they did work, How could he have forgotten everything so completely? They hadn't died yet, but he was more concerned about their methods, which were probably heavily chaotic. Not knowing the right methods didn't make theirs any less wrong.
"But the boss is here," said Betty. "Right?" She rolled her water forward cautiously.
Simon shrugged helplessly. "Maybe."
Betty's understanding of her surroundings was severely reduced out of water, so neither of them knew if she was right. The room seemed clear, though. There was only a small footlocker, which Simon picked open.
"Just old money," said Betty, sounding disappointed. She pulled out the notes and put them away.
Pre-Mushroom War artifacts were strangely rare in this dungeon. Maybe it was a common feature of dungeons to contain modern loot regardless of age. Simon thought he'd known the reason before, but the knowledge had vanished with all his other expertise.
Betty rolled over to the pile of bombs with her hand on her chin. She pushed them, but they seemed rusted together. She concentrated, and rolled her water up the block, almost vertically. When she reached the top, she waved at Simon, then suddenly disappeared down the other side.
"Betty!" Simon ran to see what had happened.
He pulled himself up the pile, and before he knew what was happening, he slid down a steep river of water on the other side, into blackness.
A coil of water pulled him faster down the slope by his ankle. Simon struggled until Betty came into view, laughing and throwing her hands into the air.
There didn't seem to be any danger yet. Simon relaxed and laughed as they spiralled downwards.
There was a flash, the slide stopped abruptly. They fell into a partially flooded room, still laughing.
A piece of laminated paper floated down from the slide. Simon grabbed it out of the air. "Huh. A photo."
It was a picture of them on the slide, holding on to each other and happy-screaming. Probably an automated system, he hoped.
"Let me see!" said Betty, snatching it off him. She examined it, smiled, and said "That's going in the picture frame."
Simon tried to figure out where they'd come out. It wasn't anywhere he recognised from the rest of the dungeon, though they hadn't visited every room. He didn't know how far they'd slid, but he guessed they were in some sort of basement. It was large, with a high ceiling, like a hanger. But he couldn't see a vehicle anywhere. It was just a huge, empty room.
He noticed something out of the corner of his eye, right below them. Simon grabbed Betty's arm. "Betty."
Betty looked down, just as the shape rushed up at them. They swam in opposite directions, and a huge, lopsided dolphin or whale erupted out of the water, then dove back under, chittering angrily.
"Takes one to know one," Betty shot back. She made a circular motion with her good hand, starting a small whirlpool.
"You speak dolphin?" said Simon, watching the dolphin carefully. It didn't seem too inconvenienced. In fact, the whirlpool was dissipating.
"You don't?" said Betty, making faster motions.
The dolphin swam against the current, and the whirlpool died down.
"Ugh, she's nullifying my attacks," said Betty. She threw her arms back and created a big wave, which, under the dolphin's forward motion, turned into a gentle rise.
The dolphin rushed them again, generating a current so strong that Simon almost didn't get out of the way in time.
"Betty!" he said. "Get me as close as you can!"
Betty used the water to push him towards the dolphin, which was now circling the walls. The current slackened off as he got close, but Simon's swimming had improved so much lately that he barely lost any speed.
He hit the dolphin's back hard and held on, twirling his nunchucks and hitting it in the back of his head. The dolphin twisted around and tried to tear him off its back with the water, but he barely felt the tugs. It seemed to have a lot of control over water, at least at close range, but it could not beat Betty's currents.
After several blows, the dolphin let out a tiger-like roar, and finally managed to throw him off.
The water began to drain from the room, apparently to nowhere.
"What's going on?" said Betty. She formed her bubble back as the water went below head height.
"I think it's phase two," said Simon. He assumed it was the dolphin letting the water out, because he couldn't see anything else that could be doing it. And why would it get rid of the water if it wasn't at least as competent out of the water than in? Maybe it didn't know that Simon was as much a land dweller as Betty was a water dweller. It wasn't going to get an edge this way.
When the room drained completely, the dolphin chittered and bounced around at them. Simon had no trouble dodging, but he was a bit worried about Betty. She wasn't quite as agile when she had to roll a big sloshy ball around.
The dolphin stopped in the centre of the room, and pulled its head back. Nothing seemed to happen, except Betty grit her teeth.
Simon poked her head into her bubble to see what was going on.
"She's trying to take my water!" said Betty. "Go distract her or something!"
"Right!" said Simon. Maybe if he hadn't lost his memories, he would have guessed that and not wasted the time.
The dolphin kept pulling on the water, but it turned its head to watch Simon as he tried to sneak behind it. Realising that he couldn't get out of its sight, Simon abandoned stealth and jumped at its back. It slapped him in the face with its tail, knocking him to the floor. He managed to twist his feet under him and land in a crouching position, but the dolphin hadn't relaxed its guard at all.
"Hm... That's not gonna work this time."
Simon looked back at Betty. She was barely holding on. He thought he could see a fine mist streaming from the bubble to the dolphin.
He went right up to the dolphin and smacked it in the face. It bit him in the arm, held on for just long enough to show that Simon couldn't break its grip, and let go.
Simon stepped away and rubbed his arm. The wound wasn't deep, but it did hurt. He was still dripping with saltwater, which didn't help.
So. He couldn't stay on its back, he couldn't attack it from the front, he couldn't attack it from the back, and it was flexible enough to hit him with either end if he attacked it from the side. If he did nothing, Betty would lose her grip on her water. It didn't seem to be getting tired, unlike her.
What did he do now? Simon pressed his temples, trying to think. He had no idea. The monster was going to take all Betty's water and he had no idea. The dolphin was... invincible.
How did you kill an invincible boss monster? Dungeons were always solveable, he still remembered that. "Think," he mumbled, pressing his head harder.
Stealth was not going to work. There was nowhere to hide, and no way to get the dolphin's attention away from him. He assumed that Betty was already trying her best to keep her water, and even as he watched, a glob of water detached from the bubble, and splattered into the dolphin's head.
Betty looked around at him, poked her head out, and yelled something that was mostly unintelligible, but Simon could lipread well enough to see his name. She was wondering what he was doing just standing there.
What a time to get strangely specific amnesia. His girlfriend was going to suffocate, all because he couldn't protect her the one time she needed protection. She was so smart and capable and good at everything, until you took her out of the water.
No. She was less capable out of water, but she was exactly as smart. Simon approached the slowly shrinking bubble and waved Betty out.
"Uh..." he said. "Any ideas, Bets?"
"What?" said Betty. She sounded strained.
"I-I-I don't know how to stop it." Simon did his best to sound calm. He wondered if he should have lied and told her that it was a test, and she had to come up with a plan for him.
It would have a been a sadistic and pointless test. She was under enough pressure trying to keep her water, and she needed to know her own strengths and weaknesses, not Simon's. At least not in much detail.
Betty didn't reply. She just swallowed, and Simon could tell she was disappointed in him.
Simon focused as hard as he could on his vague, fleeting memory of rules for dungeons, and pain shot through his head, nearly sending him to his knees.
Betty looked from left to right. The bubble seemed to be shrinking faster. Was she giving up, or was the bubble's surface area just smaller?
Betty beckoned Simon into the bubble, and Simon took a breath and went in. She normally pulled him in without even asking. It could have just been because she usually wasn't locked in a watery tug-of-war with a monstrous cetacean, but he couldn't help thinking that it was because of him.
"Simon, you can't remember because... I made you forget," Betty said. "You agreed to it," she added, before he could say anything.
"I... what?" said Simon. What she said made so little sense it sounded like a lie. It made his head hurt so much that he couldn't even muster the strength to be angry.
Betty grabbed his arm. "Don't think about it. Just let me restore your memory." She opened her mouth.
Some time later, Simon shook his head. For a second, he thought he'd been daydreaming, until his wet clothes reminded him where he was. He remembered now. He had agreed. And he'd proved that he was... chaotic.
This was very bad, but he couldn't afford to worry about his alignment now. He stepped back, massaged his temples, and mumbled "Boss battles..." Suddenly he knew a lot of rules for battling bosses. He knew not to let his guard down until he was sure the boss was defeated. He knew that if the boss didn't react to an attack, it probably wasn't doing any damage. And he knew that... "When the boss seems unassailable, look at the environment!"
He looked at the environment. It was a big room, made out of brick. There was a door at one end. Part of the right wall was cracked.
"Cracked..." he said. Cracked walls could be bombed. That was one of the axioms of dungeons. "Betty!" He mimed an explosion at her.
She didn't seem to understand. "She's weak to yoga? Isn't everyone?" She poked her head out.
"No, the bombs!" said Simon, pointing at the wall. "That wall has a crack in it!" He wondered how much effect the bombs might have on the dolphin, and whether he would have thought of that if he'd remembered that they were necessary for this dungeon.
"Okay..." said Betty reluctantly. She gave Simon the container of metal.
Simon took out a good sized piece gingerly and hurled it at the wall. The coating around it cracked, but the metal just sat there, getting slowly duller.
Simon gestured at Betty. She realised what he meant and shot a quick blast of water at it from the now quickly shrinking bubble. She had to curl up tightly to stay inside. They were out of time.
The bomb exploded, leaving behind a substantial hole in the wall. Behind it was an alcove with a deep, smooth hole in it. Above the hole was a button, and a faded sign reading " M EN Y DE N E".
Simon hesitated, then pressed the button.
There was a slow whine. Something was warming up. Simon peered down the hole, then realised that he was looking down the barrel of some sort of weapon.
He threw himself out of the way just in time. "Holy moly!"
Something rocketed past him and exploded on the opposite wall.
Simon stared at the black mark it had left. That would probably help, but there didn't seem to be any way to aim it. He went back to Betty's bubble, which was now small that she was almost doubled over, with her back exposed to the air, and whispered "Can you make the dolphin move in front of the rocket?"
Betty grinned weakly and nodded. She took a breath, and yelled something with a lot of clicks and chitters.
The dolphin replied with its eyes narrowed.
Betty said something else, and indicated herself with a "come and get me" gesture.
The dolphin charged. Betty quickly moved her breathing water under her and used it to propel herself away.
Simon retreated to the alcove and tried to calculate the right time to press the button. Betty was leading the dolphin around in a circle that went directly in front of the weapon. If he did it right, they had a chance. If he did it wrong, he could hit Betty instead.
Betty glanced at him as she went around.
Simon counted in his head. If the dolphin's speed remained current, and he remembered how long it took for the M EN Y DE N E to warm up, then he should press the button... now.
He flattened himself against the wall next to it, and the weapon warmed up and shot a rocket that caught the dolphin right on the midsection.
When the smoke cleared, the dolphin was on its back. Simon ran to check on it, with one hand on his nunchuks, but it wasn't necessary. They'd won.
Betty took a deep breath of her small amount of remaining water, and headed for the door, picking up water from the floor as she did.
.
Later, they sat on a buried golf cart in the underwater city, sorting out the loot in silence. Simon let Betty keep most of it. It was her first dungeon, and he had plenty of loot at home.
Betty seemed happy. She was humming to herself as she let the coins fall through her fingers and made a whirlpool from all the keys they'd collected.
Simon wished he was happy. He sighed, and looked up at the surface, where an iceberg was passing. There was nothing like being underwater in winter to truly appreciate how much of an iceberg stayed under the surface. "Maybe I really am chaotic."
Maybe he'd been deluding himself all these years. Why was doing things the wrong way so fun?
"You could still be lawful," Betty suggested. "The book just... didn't tell you the right rules."
"Yeah," said Simon. "Maybe." It was tempting to think that the book was the one that was wrong.
They watched the iceberg pass overhead, almost like a cloud, until Simon took a breath and coughed it back up. "Breadballs!" he glubbed, swimming upwards. The waterbreathing potion had worn off.
The surface was further up than it looked, and he was already tiring. He didn't think he hold his breath that much longer. "Breadballs," he said again, wasting precious air.
Betty grabbed him and propelled him upwards. He broke the surface and gasped for air. It was so cold it felt like tiny icicles were stabbing his throat, but it was air.
"Simon?" Gunter was sitting on the iceberg, frying up a fish.
Simon clambered onto the iceberg and tried to warm himself on Gunter's portable stove. "I r-ran out of air," he said, when he could speak again.
Gunter prodded the fish with a spatula. "Are... are you okay?"
Betty dunked the iceberg underwater just as Simon was starting to get slightly warm, and said "All our dates end this way."