Stake Your Heart

The Elven Chemist

Eden and Hailey were tasked with fetching the fragment deep in the ocean, while they had no idea how they would get down there, Eden had a plan that would involve potions.

Hailey had been silent the whole journey, only replying to what Eden was saying. Eden looked at her with concern.

"You've been quiet, does something concern you?" She asked

Hailey stayed silent looking at the water, she looked up at Eden and muttered.

"I'm no help..."

"What do you mean?"

"I've been no help in this whole journey, it was either Ren or Bridget doing all of it, saying all of the plans, or just being inspiring."

Eden looked down, in truth she felt the same way. She felt sidelined as if a side character in a book. However, nothing like that bothered her. In fact, she was glad to have a role in this adventure.

"Well, it may be true that your fate and destiny don't necessarily include the death of Akeldama, but it definitely ties in with it!"

"What's the point, It's not like I won't get any recognition for doing this. I'll be okay, it's been like this my whole life."

She continued to look at the water. And Eden looked at her with Sympathy.

"Well then...Prove them wrong"

Hailey looked up at her. "What?"

"Prove to them... Ren, Bridget, and everyone else. That you are just as important to this journey as them! Show them that you are a fighter just like everyone else!"

Hailey smiled at her and nodded.

"Thank you, Eden... I know I won't get as much praise as them. But I will try my hardest to at least prove myself to others."

"That's the spirit!" Eden said

They both laughed together, and with them both in high spirits, they located the temple and stopped the boat. 

"We need to figure out how to get down... Water pressure and breathing are my main concern."

"I can use my magic to create a bubble around us, it won't save us from the water pressure, but we can breathe."

Eden rummaged through her bag, she pulled out two silver-looking potions. 

"This potion should make our bodies as resilient as titanium. It should be enough to get us in and out."

Hailey nodded and they both drank, she quickly cast the spell and they both dived in. 

The temple was lit up by underwater lights. Most fish and other lifeforms seemed to avoid this place. And for a reason too, both of them saw tentacles retracting into the temple and out of it. 

While getting closer, Hailey accidentally alerted fish nearby and made them swim away quickly, which seemed to awaken the monster. Its big eyeball turned and looked at them, and it left its temple-like prison.

It was a Kraken, an eight-armed Octopi that was notorious for taking pirate ships and other ships/boats down in seconds. 

It swung a tentacle around at Eden and she just barely dodged it by swimming to the side, Once she regained composure, she took out a flask of a green liquid labelled Acid. 

It swung again, but this time, Eden crushed the bottle into the tentacle as it hit her. The potion that made their body resilient made it so she would survive unscathed.

The Kraken roared as the tentacle that Eden hit shrivelled up into nothingness.

Hailey was having her own deal of problems as another tentacle focused on her. She summoned spears of blinding light, throwing them at the tentacles. Each time it was hit, the tentacle retracted.

Hailey had taken out 3 of the tentacles in all, with Eden working on the next one. 

Each of them was getting tired, after Eden had finally taken out another tentacle with the flasks, she almost collapsed in the water. 

She finally made one last attempt to whistle, a sound came out but it was not a whistle, hopefully, it was enough, however. 

Eden lost consciousness and started floating down. However, before she could get any further down than she was, Hailey grabbed her and swam back up toward the boat, but before she could get there, a tentacle grabbed her and started pulling her back down towards its mouth.

She quickly broke free and stabbed the tentacles several times. It released its grasp but Eden was nowhere to be found. She looked everywhere but could not see her. She turned around and threw the spear right into the eye. 

The Kraken roared and fell down to the bottom of the sea, dead.

Hailey felt the potion wearing off, so she quickly swam into the temple sanctum and found the treasure chest. She opened it and grabbed the fragment.

After swimming back up to the boat, both the spell and the potion wore off. She climbed onto the boat and saw Eden sitting there with a reptilian animal. 

"Hailey...you saved me..." She said

"Eden!" she said and quickly hugged her.

Eden hugged her back and sighed deeply.

"But...I don't understand...how? Did you swim up?" Hailey asked

Eden smiled and turned to the animal next to her, it looked like a really big lizard. If Hailey were to lay next to it, the lizard would still be longer. 

"This is Naga. My Crocillian dragon."

Hailey gasped. "You have a dragon!"

Eden nodded, Naga's head laid on Eden's lap, seemingly asleep. 

"May I...touch him?" Hailey asked.

"Of course, but please be gentle."

Hailey scooted up to Naga and slowly laid her hand on the scaley body. She giggled a bit as she ran her fingers along Naga. He seemed to enjoy it and got a bit more relaxed.

"Hailey...You saved me..."

"What? No, Naga did."

"But you did first, I would have sunk to the bottom of the sea, if not for you."

Hailey looked down, she knew that Eden was right. But her low self-esteem got in the way of being happy about it. She did her best to shove it aside and be happy about it.

"You're welcome, Eden. But hey, why don't we both prove to them that we can raise some hell" She smiled at her.

Eden laughed. "Of course"

They turned on the boat motor and sailed back to the shore, meeting Fayreach and Fayetta.