<h4>Chapter 1348 Chapter 1348 First Treasure! </h4>
?--- Lily ---
In the end, Lily decided to look over the nearby coral pirs. She didn''t want to spend too long deciding what to do, and while working her way upwards from the bottom might be a better long term strategy, Lily couldn''t actually SEE the bottom from where she was, so wasting who knows how long going downwards had the potential to waste a whole bunch of time.
A quick nce over the coral wasn''t enough to find anything that stood out. Not that Lily expected anything else. Even as she swam closer it all seemed to be naturally urring sea-life. Coral, some anemones swaying in the current, and of course lots of fish. There didn''t seem to be anything out of ce, but Lily had no interest in sea life beyond its wonderful taste.
So Lily began her slow spiral upwards, looking over the spire as she went, trying not to miss any details along the way. It wasn''t all that entertaining and Lily found her eyes constantly drawn to the fish. It wasn''t just that she wanted to taste them, but that they were the most interesting thing around at the moment. The constant movement and vibrant colours constantly drawing her eyes away from the simrly vibrant but still coral.
Eventually, after around ten minutes of searching Lily noticed something out of the corner of her eye. It was hard to say what drew her attention initially. At best guess, it was that the fish seemed to be noticeably curving around the area, but one she was focused on the coral in question there was an obvious discrepancy. There was a thin line that split the ''coral'' in half. Apletely straight, and unnatural line.
Closer inspection revealed an somewhat chest shaped bit of coral that didn''t quite blend in with the surroundings. The coral was slightly off-colour, the area where the natural coral met with the fake not quite blended properly with a mostly clear line separating the two. This one at least wasn''t quite so unnatural, but with everything else added up together it was clearly unnatural.
*This has to be a chest. I can''t see anything else that it might be… but damn is that hard to spot without a bit of help. I''m not sure if I would''ve made it out had my eyes not been drawn over. Then again, I''m just assuming something ''natural'' drew my attention and not a small spell designed to draw the eye.*
As those thoughts swam around Lily''s mind she made her way over to the chest and tapped it with a paw, hoping that that would be enough to open the chest. Sadly for her, it wasn''t quite that easy. With a sigh Lily transformed and then tried to open the chest, and found that the lid lifted easily, revealing a plush interior with a nice looking bracelet in the centre. It seemed to have been made with alternating red and white wooden beads that had been sanded down and thencquered with a shiny finish. If Lily looked really closely she could see small carvings of snowkes in the red wood and fires in the white.
Reaching out to the bracelet Lily slipped it over her hand and watched as it shrunk slightly to fit perfectly on her small wrist. Lily shook her arm a bit and found that it didn''t move much. *Well… I don''t know what exactly this does but at least it''s going to be easy to carry around. Should I bother spending time to look for the paper that names it? I''m going to say… yes. At least for a little bit. If I can see an example of the paper for the future that would be nice, but I don''t want to be here for too long.*
With that decided Lily started to poke around the chest. The pillows seemed to be fixed to the chest pretty firmly. Push, pull, a slight twist, none of those actions revealed a hiddenpartment and so Lily turned to other things. She checked the top of the chest, and after seeing nothing there, she tried to lift it up… and found the whole thing to be quite easy to move with the water helping. A quick spin and Lily could see that no surface had a convenient note taped to it.
Frowning down at the chest for a few moments Lily contemted just giving up at that point, but instead she grabbed the edge of the chest and tried to slide off the coral feature. It moved, slightly. A bit more effort and Lily was able to wiggle it offpletely, and there, stuck to the bottom of the coral insert was a piece of paper that read ''Bracelet of Comfort''. Lily nodded a the note and then pushed a bit of mana into the bracelet and all of a sudden the water around her went from being actively chilly, to slightly warm.
*Huh. Well that''s neat I guess. Not really something I''d want to chose for my one treasure, and not all that useful in a fight… but at the very least it''s easy to carry and not all that likely to get damaged because I''ll be in my Memphis form. I wonder if it keeps working when I switch…*
Lily decided to test that idea a momentter, swapping back to her Memphis form and noticing that while the temperature did drop, it wasn''t by a significant degree and still felt veryfortable. *Wait… it giving me the temperature this form feels mostfortable with? That''s actually really neat. I wonder how an enchantment like that is made. I''ll have to try and remember to ask Thyme about it after the round is over.*
Lily got back to the search soon after, continuing her slow spiral upwards. It was even slower now that she knew there could potentially be chests disguised as coral, even going so far as to poke her head into therger crevices to take a closer look at things. They still weren''t veryrge crevices, most of them notrge enough to fit Romilda, let alone March. So Lily doubted there''d be anything in there, but she decided to check anyway.
Just as she was about to look into another crevice, she noticed all of the fish nearby sprint away and start to vanish into their own little hiding spots. Lily didn''t need her instincts to tell her that something bad wasing. So instead of just peaking into the nearby crevice Lily squeezed herself inside, curling herself up as much as possible, while letting her eyes gaze outside. Slightly closed of course. Her amber eyes were too likely to stand out against the darkness if they werepletely open, but things were colourful enough around here that it wasn''t too strange.
Time seemed to pass slowly as Lily felt her adrenaline spike. Almost nothing was moving nearby until suddenly a shark the size of a small van squeezed its way between the pirs. It looked like an odd cross between a tiger shark and a great white, with glowing lines just behind its eyes and an oddly crystalline patch across its stomach that seemed to shine in a poor imitation of the sky above. It looked around for a little bit, circling a few times before simply swimming away, continuing on its journey, not bothering to mess around with anything nearby to find its prey
*Ok… on the one hand. A shark that big would scare me even if I was in human form. On the other hand… it seems really bad at hunting. Everything around here seemed to know it wasing before I did, and it didn''t get a chance to eat anything at all. I just don''t see what the point of it is. It has to be at least minimallypetent in order to survive though right? Nothing getscar sized without eating a lot, possibly over a long time.*
Lily didn''t really know what to make of it as she wiggled out of the hole she''d hidden herself in. It just… didn''t quite make sense as an animal. Which meant it had to be a monster with some sort of ability. What that ability was though… Lily simply didn''t know. Regardless of that, Lily had no desire to get anywhere close to any sharks at all. That was… unless one was guarding a chest perhaps. Lily couldn''t shake the idea of a shark swimming around with a chest tide to its back. *Would Thyme really do that? What am I saying. Of course Thyme would do that.*
Lily blew out a long stream of bubbles while trying, and failing, to dismiss that thought. What was more annoying to Lily though… was the knowledge that if Thyme would consider putting a chest on a shark a grand idea… a muchrger and more dangerous sea monster was entirely on the table as well. Lily really didn''t want to think about thatst part too much.