The world became dark and warm and silent. For a terrible moment he couldn’t tell which way was up. His lungs seized. His hands found nothing but water and stone and—

A hand closed around his wrist and hauled him upward.

He broke the surface gasping, coughing water, and found Nyx holding him by the arm, her feet braced on the submerged remains of the nest.

"I thought," she said through gritted teeth, "that I was the one who couldn’t swim."

He couldn’t answer for a moment, he just breathed. When he could, he responded. "I can swim. I just forgot which direction."

"How reassuring."

Behind them, the Warden was writhing. The severed tendrils hung from its jaw in ragged strips, leaking pale fluid. Without them, it moved differently, still fast, still dangerous, but blind.

It could no longer feel the room. It crashed into pillars, thrashed against the walls, its strikes wild and unfocused.

And without its connection to the floor, the water had stopped rising.

[Current Depth: 0.9m — STABILISED]

Finn stared at the notification.

’The water stopped.’

’I noticed.’

’You cut it off from the room. It can’t control the tide anymore.’

’Yes, Bearer. As we intended.’

He laughed. Water streamed from his hair, his clothes, and he laughed, because they were alive, and because the plan had actually worked.

"Okay." He hefted the longsword. "It’s blind and disconnected. Let’s finish this."

Nyx flicked water from the Broodmother’s Fang. The venom sacs in its hilt glowed faintly in the dark.

"As you wish."

They charged.

The Warden, blind and thrashing, did not hear them over its own fury. Finn struck first, a driving thrust into the softer scales behind its skull, where the jaw met the neck. The longsword sank four inches and held.

The creature screamed, that room-wide vibration again, but weaker now, thinner, the ceiling’s tendrils twitching in sympathy without contracting.

[CRITICAL HIT!]

Nyx came in from the opposite side. Her daggers found the ring of eyes.

They punched into pale orbs and tore free trailing milky fluid. The Warden convulsed with every ruined eye, its body hammering the water into foam.

[CRITICAL HIT!]

[POISON STATUS APPLIED!]

By the sixth eye, the Warden had stopped thrashing. By the ninth, it was twitching. By the twelfth, it was still.

Its massive body settled into the water slowly, the displaced wave rocking Finn and Nyx on their feet. The bioluminescent light across the ceiling flickered one last time, then went dark.

For a long moment, they stood in absolute blackness, knee-deep in warm water, breathing hard.

Then new light bloomed, from the far end of the cavern, where a portal was forming.

[FLOOR 4 BOSS DEFEATED: Warden of the Garden — lvl 28 Elite]

[FLOOR 4 CLEARED]

[Bonus Objective: Sever all sensory connections before killing the Boss — COMPLETE]

[LEVEL UP!]

[Finn Morrow — Level 15]

[Nyx Sanguina — Level 15]

[Loot Acquired: Tidecaller’s Ring x1, Warden Scale x5, Drowned Root Extract x2]

[NEW SKILL UNLOCKED — NYX SANGUINA]

[Shadow Veil Lv. 1 (Active) — Cloaks the caster and one ally in shadow for 30 seconds. Reduces visibility and muffles sound. Cost: 25 MP. Cooldown: 60 seconds.]

Finn read the skill notification and felt something loosen in his chest.

A stealth skill. An actual, honest-to-god stealth skill that covered both of them. If they’d had that on Floor Three, the Glutton encounter would have gone very differently.

’Shadow Veil,’ Nyx murmured, testing the name in her mind. ’I felt it unlock during the fight. When I rose from the water behind the creature, there was a moment where the dark seemed to cling to me. As though it wanted to help.’

’The dark wanted to help.’

’Something near that. I cannot describe it better.’

He waded toward the loot that glimmered on the water’s surface where the Warden’s body was already dissolving into pale mist.

The Tidecaller’s Ring was small, silver-blue, set with a stone that shifted between colours like oil on water.

[Tidecaller’s Ring — Accessory (Rare)]

[Grade: C]

[Grants the wearer the ability to breathe underwater for up to 10 minutes. Passive: +3 Willpower, +2 Agility.]

He stared at it, then, without a word, he held it out to Nyx.

"Bearer, no. Your pattern of giving me every useful piece of equipment is beginning to border on the pathological."

"I took the necklace on the last floor. This one’s yours. You can have this one. You can’t swim can you? This lets you breathe underwater."

"I did just fine during the battle, did I not? If it’s just floating I can manage—"

"Nyx."

She looked at the ring. Looked at him. Looked at the ring again.

Then, with tremendous reluctance and ears the colour of a sunset, she took it and slipped it onto her finger.

"You are difficult," she said.

"So I’ve been told."

She turned her hand in the portal’s golden light, watching the stone shift. She did not thank him out loud. He did not expect her to.

The water had begun to recede. Inch by inch, the Drowning Garden was draining, the vast organism that had lined the ceiling going dark and still. Without the Warden, it was just dead tissue, pale and harmless as shed skin.

Finn and Nyx stood side by side in the draining cavern, soaked to the bone, battered, exhausted, and one level stronger than they had been an hour ago.

The portal waited.

[→ Descend to Floor 5]

[→ Return to Surface]

"Floor Five," Finn said.

"Floor Five," Nyx agreed.

Neither of them moved toward it.

Instead, Nyx wrung water from the hem of the hoodie with a look of deep personal offence, as though the dungeon had committed a fashion crime against her specifically. 𝐟𝕣𝕖𝐞𝐰𝕖𝚋𝐧𝗼𝚟𝐞𝕝.𝗰𝐨𝐦

"Bearer."

"Mm."

"If the next floor involves fire, lava, or any form of extreme heat, I am going to be very upset."

"I’ll keep that in mind."

"I am serious, Bearer. I have been impaled, poisoned, thrown through a wall, doused in acid, and now submerged. I draw the line at being set on fire."

"What about ice?"

"Ice," she said thoughtfully, "I could tolerate. Ice has dignity."

Finn laughed. The sound echoed across the emptying cavern, and somewhere above them, the last of the dead tendrils released its grip on the ceiling and fell into the water with a soft splash.

He looked at her. She looked at him.

"Rest first?" he asked.

"Rest first," she agreed.

And so they sat, shoulder to shoulder, in the fading light of the fourth floor they had just beaten, and let the silence hold them.