"You all suited up?" Sid asked.
"Just a second... okay!" Robyn came out from the shelter. She was dressed in a dark grey diving suit, vertical visors on her helmet glowing a faint yellow. The suit was plated with luminite, designed to protect her from creatures of the deep and also weigh her down enough that her plunge to the bottom would be swift.
She followed Sid onto the wooden platform that bridged across the Sulphurous Sea. The suit's luminite weighting made her feel extremely sluggish, barely able to take off into the air. But that was okay. The only way was down.
She felt her insides screaming at that. Why had she, of all people, chosen to volunteer to be the one to reach the bottom of the Abyss and collect whatever was down there? Sid or even Renee could have done it as easily.
But this felt personal to her. Lord Yharim had taken William away, not just in body, but in mind. And he'd done it through a lie, through deception. Robyn needed to take him back.
And besides, if she couldn't even have the courage to deep-dive all the way down the Abyss, how was she going to face off against Yharim?
Renee met them ahead, who gave a slight nod at Robyn. Robyn knew Renee and Sid had equipped the crests that had dropped from the Aquatic and Desert Scourges, which would grant them some underwater breathing down there. But not forever, and certainly not for as long as the Abyssal Diving Suit that Robyn wore. They would have no choice but to magic mirror out once their breath ran too low. The plan was that Sid and Renee would drop down with her, and divert the attention of any mega beasties down there. At least, the first few they encountered, so that Robyn could get as far down as she could.
And find the Eidolist's Weapon. That was what she was calling it in her mind. She knew nothing about what lay at the bottom besides what the Eidolist had told her.
"You all set?" Renee asked.
Robyn nodded. "Let's do this."
"There's no big deal if we can't get down there on the first try," Sid said. "If we rush this, we will die."
The three of them held out their Gills Potions.
"On three," Sid said. "One... two..."
He was interrupted by the hard raindrop plipping onto his helmet.
Seconds later a downpour had started. Bright teal, the sky turning dark.
And a giant green monster leaping at them. Shaped kind of like a mantis crossed with a spider.
Sid and Renee leapt to the side. Robyn, trapped in her Abyssal Diving Suit, was unable to jump to avoid the monster slamming right through her, cracking the armour plates on the suit with a visibly loud clank.
She grit her teeth, de-equipping the diving suit so she could move freely again. Underneath she was wearing Bloodflare Armour, a new suit which she and Renee had upgraded to. It had been crafted from Phantoplasm and Ruinous Souls dropped from Polterghast. She took to the skies with her Seraph Tracers, leaping over the Nuclear Terror that was attacking them and firing at it using her Telluric Glare. The Nuclear Terror scampered to one of the small islands that the wooden bridge connected to, planted its spindly feet into the sulphuric dirt, and started spurting out streams of glowing green globs. Three of them – each pointed at Sid, Renee and Robyn respectively.
Robyn kept firing, but was hit out of the sky by a wicked green laser firing into the air. She fell next to a Gamma Slime, the gelatinous blob having a sulphuric growth mounted on top of it that had been emanating said laser. She fired a few arrows at it to burst it into goop, then turned her attention back to the Nuclear Terror.
In the background, Sid's summons were swarming all over the place, attacking anything that moved. One of his new summon weapons, which had dropped from Polterghast, summoned little miniature Polterghasts that darted around zapping enemies with ectoplasmic beams from their jaws. Another new summon weapon – the Void Concentration Staff, crafted using Dark Plasma dropped from Ceaseless Void – summoned a dark aura around him that launched dark smoke at enemies. His Profaned Guardians also flew around him, silently healing, shielding and damaging at the same time, while the Elementals convened to discuss summon attack strategy.
"Come on, girls," Sandy said. "There's five of us and only three of them. We can take out more acid monsters than the Profanity Guardians."
"Profaned Guardians," the Cloud Elemental corrected.
"They might as well be the #$%@& Profanity Guardians!" the Brimstone Elemental shouted.
"Oh! Language!" Sandy exclaimed.
"Arrêtons de nous disputer et commençons à combattre ces monstres acides," Anahita said.
The only Elemental who seemed to understand what she'd just said was Sandhee. "I don't wanna take out any acid monsters, they are just so disgusting, ugh!" She made a dismissive flick of her hand.
Robyn and Renee's focus on the Nuclear Terror meant it was losing health fast, but the fight ended up being interrupted by a massive brown-scaled shark that leapt out from the water.
Renee jumped upwards to dodge the Mauler, the shark sailing over the wooden bridge and back into the water. It was quick to turn about and lunge back at her. She threw a Sealed Singularity at it, which was a bomb that exploded into a black hole that sucked in enemies. Well, it was supposed to suck in enemies – one had chewed up all the target dummies that had been stored in the lab earlier – but the Mauler was able to pass right through it with minimal damage and ram through her.
Sid's summons were quick to chase after the Mauler, while Sid himself landed next to her.
"I can't believe your black hole didn't work on that shark," Sid muttered. He held out his Void Concentration Staff, channelling his summoned dark void into a black hole of his own and launching it towards the Mauler, which at that moment was in the water spitting acid up at them. His black hole too had little effect beyond damage, as the Mauler leapt up from the sea again.
"Black holes really don't work on sharks," Renee muttered.
"It's making me wonder what shark spaghetti would taste like," Sid said.
A part of him was expecting some sort of snide remark at the silliness of that statement, but Renee just faded into her stealth.
That was more of a Meg thing, he thought to himself solemnly. Not the first time he'd thought about her since her turn.
But for now, they had an acidic downpour to survive.
***
The radioactive monsoon lasted maybe five minutes, but it was five minutes' worth of rather intense fighting.
It was then that Robyn noticed the acid rain seemed to be clearing up, the light of the sun coming back. Sid was chasing down another Nuclear Terror, sticking every single one of his summons onto the beast.
"You think you're a terror? How about me?" he shouted.
"So boisterous," the Brimstone Elemental grumbled, though Robyn noticed even she was throwing fireballs at the Nuclear Terror.
The creature quickly fell, but that was when a massive plume of brown dust began rising into the air, taking the form of a massive tornado. It towered into the sky, spinning and whirling with a toxic haze.
"Oh, what's happening now?" Robyn yelled.
Several shapes began being flung from the tornado, shooting forward and impacting into the sulphuric water or onto the platform. One shot close by Robyn, and she recognised the shape – it was like a shark. Brown and rotting.
She realised with a jolt what must be happening. She remembered one of the beasts she had summoned onto William and Meg while cursed, and the story William had told her later. Of a dragon-pig-shark named Duke Fishron, who attacked by summoning tornadoes that flung sharks like these at them.
There was a strained roar in the air as the tornado dissipated, flinging out a wave of brown dust in all directions.
In the centre of where the tornado had been, was a boss that was shaped almost exactly like Duke Fishron.
The most obvious difference was that this boss had hardened brown skin, like the Mauler that had attacked just earlier and many of the other creatures of the Sulphurous Sea. Its wings were purple, and it had a strange lavender beard and eyebrows that, in conjunction with its wrinkled snout, made this creature look very decrepit.
The Old Duke roared again, and charged forward.
It's Duke Fishron, but old! He's definitely old enough to vote...