Knelling down to allow her to climb on my back, "ready to go?.." I asked her.
"Yes lets go." she said sounding more excited.
Taking off my robe I slowly lowered myself into the pool, it was surprisingly warm and felt extremely comfortable to be in. "wait do you have any goggles to use?.." I asked before I began to dive.
"What's goggles?.." She asked.
"Of course..... You don't have them here...." I replied, slowly lowering my head into the water I forcing my eyes open, fighting my natural instinct to keep them shut, to my surprise it didn't hurt at all. Going back up to refresh my lungs with air, I went back down keeping my eyes again. "Hmmm looks as if I can keep my eyes open in this water!" I said to S'ffa.
"Thank you for doing this for us!" She said with a smile filled with anticipation and excitement.
"Lets begin." I said refreshing my lungs with air and began our decent. Swimming down felt extremely terrifying the black abyss manifesting all sorts of horrors from my imagination. She pointed to me into the darkness along the sides of the pool. With a nod I swam in the direction she pointed at, her bio-luminescent body barely illuminating the darkness in front of me. Arriving at the wall it was covered in a thick mesh of dark purple seaweed camouflaged in the darkness, Using my legs pushing off the wall I managed to loosen several extremely long strands of seaweed tearing out long strands and passing it to S'ffa to hold her giant smile filling me with more confidence.
She pointed to another again a little deeper down, with a nod I swam a little deeper collecting more seaweed again. The bubbles rising to the surface strangely becoming more and more frequent filled me with anxiety. The deeper we went a stronger sense of fear began creeping into me sending shivers down my spine, also the feeling of an underwater current getting stronger and stronger. Eventually grabbing our twelfth S'ffa began pointing to the surface, with a nod I began making my way slowly upwards.
"You smell like him...." a very old deep voice appeared in my mind.
I turned to look S'ffa shocked at who the appearance of the voice, she began to frantically point at the surface, making me swim faster. Foolishly I stopped to take a look down below wondering what the source of the voice could have been.
Within the darkness an impossibly large silhouette of a head seemed to be there, suddenly a large yellow eye opened with a large black slit for its pupil. "WHAT THE F IS THAT!" I instinctively screamed letting out over half my air supply. My whole body flooded with adrenaline and fear causing make me to make a break to the surface.
"SWIM!" S'ffa screamed to me in my head.
Swimming closer and closer to the surface, I couldn't help but take another peek down. "WHAT THE HELL!!!!" I screamed as I looked at an impossibly large maw and snout. As we broke the surface I quickly tossed S'ffa off my back into safety before quickly climbing out, picking up S'ffa I made a mad dash to the entrance deep into the tunnel.
"What in the hell what that?.." I said still trying to catch my breath keeping my eyes on the pool.
"It was the ancient one!" S'ffa replied.
"I thought you said it was vegetarian." I asked still out of breath recovering from the ordeal.
"It has nothing else to eat here except algae." She replied to me, beginning toportioning the Algae we collected into small rolls.
Looking up at me she held a small roll to me, "would you like a taste?!" she said with a huge smile of her face.
I couldn't help but laugh a little how she was so unfazed by imminent death and looking so gleeful with our haul. "No thanks....I want your people to enjoy it." I said lying down catching my breath.
"Daughter of Solomon leave this place NOW if you want to live!" the old deep voice warned me in my head.
"WHO ARE YOU??!!" I shouted back at it.
"I SAID LEAVE!!!!" It screamed at me again.
Quickly grabbing S'ffa and grabbing the bundle of seaweed and made a quick walk back to the main cavern.
"S'ffa.... do you know what the Ancient one is?.." I asked her.
"Not really.... but some of us believe it's a Sea Dragon." She said still giddy with the haul we made.
"A SEA DRAGON?! and you didn't think to tell me?!" I asked her.
"You didn't ask before." She said still distracted.
"You know if you wasn't so cute... I would be so angry at you right now!" I said to her finally entering the main cavern. "How did the Sea Dragon get here?..." I asked her.
"We have no Idea... it's has been here for many generations." She replied.
The moment other Sporeans saw our haul they began looking excited, smaller Sporeans I assume younger ones came rushing towards us in excitement. S'ffa handed me a small roll to give to them. One by one we handed out small pieces to the young ones causing them to run and jump in excitement.
"Whats got you so happy?!" Jay said walking towards us.
"Nothing just seeing them so happy makes me happy!" I said replying to him watching them jumping around.
"S'ffa?... do you know who Solomon is ?.." I asked.
"Nope.... Sorry.." She replied to me.
"S'ffa meet my good friend Jay." I said introducing him to her.
"Hello." she greeted him but quickly returned to portioning the seaweed, still rolling them into small rolls.
"Hello!" Jay greeted her with a giant smile.
"So what did you do?.." I asked Jay.
"Ahh boring stuff I was just mending things, you?.." Jay replied.
"Mending?.." I asked.
"Yeah repairing buildings and things." He answered
"Didn't take you for a manual labour guy." I joked
"Manual labour?...." He asked laughing.
"Yeah how do you repair things?..." I replied looking slightly confused.
"Mending spell of course."
Instantly face palming myself, "Of course there's a spell to repair things... How silly of me..." I replied.
Jay took a seat next to me, "I wonder what the others are doing...." He said placing a younger Sporean who was staring at him on his shoulder who began to climb up his head.
"Beat's me.... by the way do you know who Solomon is?" I asked.
"Hmmm didn't Helen and Grace mention him, some kind of king or something....." He answered me trying to remember.
"Hmmm I guess I'll ask them when they get back.." I replied subconsciously helping S'ffa making small rolls of seaweed.
"So what did you do?.." Jay asked.
"You won't believe me if I told you...." I replied to him.
"really?....." He said looking more curious.
"Well… we was swimming down this very deep pool, the bottom is pitch black. So everything was going great... when suddenly this voice spoke out to me in my mind. Calling me Daughter of Solomon, then suddenly from the abyss I large mouth was heading straight towards me!" I said to him.
"NO WAY!!!" He said totally encapsulated into the story.
"So we quickly swam to the surface running away from the pool and met up with you." I concluded the story.
"So what was it?.." He asked.
"I dunno ... it had yellow Eyes and a slit for a pupil, S'ffa said it was a Sea Dragon." I answered him.
"No... Way.....dragons specially sea dragons shouldn't be deep underground…..." Jay said.
"No joke... there's something there though..." I replied.
"Hmmm I'm gonna go check!" he said with a giant smile on his face, carefully taking off the tiny Sporean who was playing with his hair and gently putting him on the ground, before standing up and making his way through the tunnel.
"Wait!!!! It tried to eat me!" I tried to inform him.
"I'm sure it's gonna be fine!" He shouted back disregarding my warning.
Getting up leaving S'ffa I cautiously followed him back into the carvers, "Seriously Jay! Get back!" I tried to order him.
"I can't see anything!" He yelled back at me surprisingly further than I expected.
Finally reaching him, I held on him hiding behind him. "It's... deep... you won't be able to see it..." I replied.
"I literally can't see it.... even with my Detect magic spell...." He said still staring into the depths of the pool. "Are you sure there's a dragon?..." he asked.
"Why would I lie about getting eaten?" I whispered to him still cautious to awaken the Ancient beast again.
"Nope.... I definitely don't sense or see anything." He said turning to me looking a little sad. "It would have been so cool to see and meet a dragon." he said slowly making the way back to the main cavern.
"Well... this one wasn't friendly and probably would have ended up eating you..." I replied still whispering and quietly walking back with him.
"That was anti-climactic ...." He sighed.
"Why would you want to get eaten?.." I asked.
"I dunno it would be awesome to meet one..." He replied.