Corrupted Timelines

Fighting Our Way Out

Ina turned the broken housing of the time watch over in her hand. Through the purple glow of her barrier, she could see all of the cracks and dents in the gold casing. She could corrupt it to fix the cracks and buff out the dents, but she shook her head slightly and sighed. Any corruption around the Droplet could be dangerous. With all of the Pure Flow that she knew of now gone, any corruption would be permanent now.

'We still have some of the Pure Flow, Priestess. With the Droplet being as close as it is to the barrier, it may be slightly corrupted which we have accounted for,' the Ancient Ones said to her. Ina nodded, agreeing with the voices in her head. It was good to know that her patron still had some of the glowing liquid just in case. She felt slightly more relaxed now.

"Now it's time to get out of here..." Ina whispered out loud. She quickly made her way back over to the tunnel she had come from. She strengthened the barrier around her to increase the glow it gave off and increased her swimming speed even further. She knew her presence wasn't welcome here, so she was going to leave as fast as she could in order to avoid any mistakes.

She really wished she could just teleport out of there, but it was risky. With Emersyn being so far away now, it was taking a decent amount of concentration and a large amount of magic to keep her barrier up. If she teleported, her barrier would disappear for just a moment. In close proximity or if Emersyn was teleporting with her, she could account for that. However, the distance made Ina unable to prevent the other barrier from possibly dropping.

Emersyn would be crushed to a pulp by the weight of the ocean above them. Ina shuddered, the images of that horrible fate popping into her head.

'Slow down, Priestess,' the Ancient Ones asked of her. Ina noticed she had sped up to a very fast pace and slowed back down. Another reason drifted into her head as to why she needed to leave. The enclosed space made her feel uncomfortable, like she was being trapped. She wanted to be back with her friend and manager as soon as possible.

'We said slow down-' the Ancient Ones' request was drowned out by a sudden rumbling. The whole tunnel began to shake with the water forming strong currents.

Somehow, the defense system of Atlantis had activated. Ina cursed her luck. Maybe she shouldn't have listened to the Ancient Ones' request to slow down.

'Your increased speed created currents that caused the once disabled traps to trigger anyways. However, that is no longer important,' the Ancient Ones explained to her. Ina shot tentacles into the walls around her, trying to keep herself stable in the ever increasing currents. They were almost intense enough to carry her away even with the added stability.

Portions of the walls around her lowered to the floor, carrying some of her tentacles with them. She retracted them before they were ripped apart and placed them back into the potions of the walls that were still there. Ina couldn't really see what the walls had revealed until they walked out.

Dozens of terracotta soldiers with glowing blue eyes marched out of the walls. They performed a synchronized turn to face her before charging her. Ina attempted to defend, but her magical handicap made it difficult.

Each soldier carried a large trident also made of terracotta. She could break them with one swipe of a tentacle, but the enclosed space and torrents around her made it hard to actually hit them with enough speed. She was fighting a defensive battle.

One soldier got too close for comfort and swung its trident down at her. It wouldn't hurt her because of the barrier, but she didn't want to have the barrier get hit. If she was forced to focus on the integrity of her own barrier, she might accidentally cause the barrier around Emersyn to drop.