Skye is the Limit by Phenomenal Pen (best time to read books txt) 📕

Bear Tooth had materialized a spherical force barrier and the Count and Man-At-Arms jumped into it. Once inside, Man-At-Arms stopped shooting his microgun because the Orcs were unable to follow them. They pounded with their fists and snarled right outside the transparent bubble. 

As the Fiery Caverns were flooded, the sphere became a sort of Noah’s Ark and their pursuers uninvited refugees. Worse, as things stood, it was about to become a bomb shelter. 

“Run towards Nethril!” the Count ordered.

He didn’t need to tell them twice because that direction was away from the oncoming tidal wave and the series of eruptions, which were proceeding in a neat column like demolition effects in a movie set.

Making Bear Tooth’s sphere move was similar to zorbing. They scrambled up its concave wall and watched the ground slip away from underneath them. It was absolute mayhem in the Fiery Caverns as the Orcs fled for their lives but inside Bear Tooth’s giant hamster ball everything was muffled and the loudest thing they could hear was their own ragged breaths.

Soon, the wave of water caught up with them and zorbing gave way to white water rafting (which Bear Tooth was also acquainted with). Luckily, the wave brought them directly below the flowstones where Nethril was and she leapt nimbly into the sphere.

“Thanks for dropping in,” the Count said grimly.

“Thanks for coming for me.”

They swayed as water rocked the ball.

“Um, guys, you seeing what I’m seeing?” Nethril asked nervously.

They were headed straight to the bottomless pit in the middle of the Fiery Caverns. Its lip loomed ahead like the top of a very steep waterfall.

“Oookayy,” Bear Tooth said. “If you have any newly discovered ability related to flight, now’s the time to whip it out.”

He was addressing Nethril in particular because her crest was a hawk. She looked back at him with equal desperation.

“Er, not exactly flight but…” Man-At-Arms ventured and, when he couldn’t find the words to explain the weirdness he was about to do, he leapt to his concave section of the barrier.

He shut his eyes and willed himself to pass through, like a ghost going through a wall. More to it, he transformed into his Anima crest as his body passed through the membrane. He became a bottlenose dolphin.

“Whoa,” the rest of the team mumbled.

The transformation was instantaneous, like a costume-changing act of the magician’s assistant, with the barrier’s thin edge serving as the accordion dressing screen. The part of his body that was outside the sphere became a dolphin’s while what was inside (his legs were the last to go) remained human longer.

The Man-At-Arms-turned-dolphin also took a bite of a curve of the hamster ball and the auric piece stretched like bubblegum. He started swimming in the opposite direction and the stretchy parts trailed behind either side of his head like a horse’s bit. He swam with all his might against the tidal wave.

It was a noble effort as evidenced by his dolphin form’s flared-out pec fins and the large bubble cloud he was releasing from his blowhole. He managed to delay the inevitable for almost half a minute. Alas, the force of a couple million gallons of water was much too strong. 

The hamster ball teetered on the verge of the bottomless pit and its occupants screamed.

****

A groan. A body stirred.

“Where are we?”

Nethril was the first to rise. With her healer eyes, she scanned all her unconscious and semi-conscious companions for any signs of injury. All their stats had returned to max and their weapons lay on the ground around them. In fact, the lacerations in her right ankle where a couple of murderous Orcs had grabbed her had completely smoothed back, including even the greave that covered it. Everything and everyone seemed to be in perfect condition. They were back at the stone table, the Save Point.

“Mon Dieu!” the Count screamed and tried to move backwards on his butt, away from Nethril. His eyes were bulging. “Your head! It’s swelling!”

The left side of her hood was in fact billowing, giving the impression that her brain, including her skull, was throbbing. 

“Oh, right.”

Nethril swept her hood back and revealed… the baby Nidhoggr.

“What? How is this possible? That Nidhoggr’s not a player and we… we died!” The Count spoke rapidly. “Right?”  

Nethril shrugged. “I don’t have the faintest idea. Maybe this cougher’s special.”

“She’s right,” Man-At-Arms said just as soon as he had caught on. “If Nethril was able to carry him over even though monster species typically cannot be stored in the inventory, he’s probably going to serve a bigger purpose in the game. Like a sidekick or something.”

“This Nidhoggr,” Nethril corrected, “is a she. Her name’s Olitiau. It means Cave Demon.” She then added cheerfully: “But you can all call her Ollie.”

It didn’t occur to Nethril that Ollie was in fact very close to her nickname on the surface world, Ellie.