Even though Savis had a very rough exterior, now that Gemma was convinced of the pale woman's motivation, her jabs and name-calling didn't mean as much. To say they meant nothing was definitely not true. But now they were more like nettle stings than a sword stab. She could handle it now that she was sure she understood the woman. And for the rest of their walk, she could not keep a smug smile off her face.
Gemma didn't pay much mind when the woman's arms went limp. But then the notebook and pen began to move of their own accord, hovering in the air and... drawing a map as they walked? At least that's what it looked like they were doing in the brief glance she got.
"Whoa, you have an magical notebook that draws maps? That's so cool! Why don't you just send it into the cave to map it without the chance of getting lost?" She asked as they stepped up to the pools. "Unless you need to babysit it. I guess something like that would be pretty expensive. Are you afraid the little ugly people that set cave-in traps will snatch the item while you're not looking?"
"Isn’t mapping and exploring the same thing, though?" She asked, half afraid she was missing something obvious and half confident that she had finally caught Savis saying something dumb. It was worth the chance. But it seemed Savis was done with this conversation. She had given Gemma instructions to go swimming. Gemma corrected herself. She was also exceptional at swimming. And if that's all she needed to do, she was happy with that.
She began to strip again, long since having realized that Savis had no intention of looking in her direction. She probably could have sneaked off to pee and return without the woman knowing she was even gone. She stuffed all her gear into her body pack and strapped her diving knife to her thigh. Savis made a jibe about Gemma not seeing what she saw and Gemma quipped back.
"If you're hallucinating there's medicine for that." But it was half-hearted. She was starting to give up on trying to interpret the woman's words. If she wanted a break from Gemma, that was fine by her. She could go for a swim, hang out for a few minutes, and rejoin the old lady when she had had time to remember how lonely loneliness could be. That might have been taking it too far, but Gemma was having so much fun imagining the gruff Savis with her creepy laugh, creepy voice, and creepy eyes, as nothing more than an old lady in need of companionship. 'There are also brothels for that.' She almost said aloud, but she held that one in.
"Aye aye, captain. But seeing as I don't seem to have figured out yet what counts to you as 'relevant', I'll just come back when I get bored. Holler if you think you might die!" And with that she pencil dove into the water, chuckling to herself for the banter.
For all the joking they were doing, Gemma had to admit that this cave was absolutely stunning. Even underwater here was completely lit up, but through the water the lights cast an ethereal glow. If she squinted, it was like she was looking at a star from up close. Or at least what she imagined a star to look like up close. It had a similar blue-green tint to it. Maybe that was why people thought it was haunted. They saw the ghostly light and got creeped out. If this was what creeped people out, though, clearly they had never met Savis.
She meandered through the pools, breathing through her gills and noting the different taste. She could tell that this water was not connected to the ocean, but it wasn't fresh. It was almost stale, but it was still clean. Maybe somehow high tide swept in and changed the water, but probably not every day or the water would taste fresher, she thought.
It was quite relaxing to slowly kick her way through the still water. The underwater tunnel looped around and intertwined with itself before resurfacing at the other pool above. It would be simple enough to simply swim from one pool to the other through the tunnels, but Gemma thought it would be almost impossible for a normal human to make the swim without drowning unless they brought a breath bag. That made her feel pretty cool, knowing that most people would be unable to come here. It was very peaceful.
The tunnel was filled with crystals and nothing else, which was not a surprise to Gemma, as she yet doubted that there was anything hidden in the caves. That was until she saw the skeleton.
Gemma startled and squeezed underwater. For a moment, she thought she was seeing things. And that would have been embarrassing after teasing Savis about the very same thing. But then she rubbed her eyes, which of course only made them blur for a moment before coming back into focus, only to see that the skeleton was still there. It looked like it had belonged to a warrior of some kind, but all its armor had all but rotted away. Gemma guessed that whoever it was had died in here long ago and the body had been trapped well enough that the moving water had not been able to wash it out to sea. She hadn't tasted or smelled anything through the water that implied nearby death, so this skeleton must have been here long enough that it had fully decomposed and maybe been somehow preserved in skeletal form by the salt or something. She didn't know anything about the topic, since that fell more under embalming and undertaking than her medical and herbal background.
Gemma swam close to the skeleton, now much less frightened since she had taken a moment to think through why and how it was here. Her logic seemed pretty sound in her mind, so why doubt it?
The really interesting thing, though, was that the skeleton's head wore a completely undamaged helmet. It was green with gold trim and had black eyes. The really cool thing was that it looked like it had stylized wings on the side. But rather than looking like feathered bird wings, Gemma thought they looked more reptilian. She might have thought of bats or dinosaurs or something, but her first thought was of Rak'keli's winged serpents, and her right hand went to the opalgloam pendant that would normally have lit her way if the cave had been dark. The glowing white stone was wrapped in two winged serpents with wings much like what she saw on the helmet.
For Gemma, this was comforting enough for her to all but forget about the skeleton. And before she knew it, she was lifting the helmet off of the skeleton's head and holding it before herself, inspecting it. It looked completely unharmed. Amazing. She looked inside and swept her hand around the interior to clean out any remaining bits of skeleton, and looked back to the bones before her. Suddenly she felt thankful, both to her goddess and whoever had first worn this helmet. She could not describe the feeling or why it came over her. After all, she had told Savis that she could keep everything in the cave. Then again, Savis hadn't accepted the deal. Did that mean she was off the hook? She didn't know how these negotiation things worked. They really hadn't talked about how to divide loot, though.
She shrugged her shoulders and kept swimming, but she realized that it was awkward to swim with the helmet, and she couldn't put it in her bag without ruining everything inside. She shrugged again and put the helmet on, figuring it would be better to swim with a helmet than with it in her hands. At first, the helmet felt a little tight, almost like it was squeezing her head, but then it was on and the pressure released. 'Probably a water pocket, she reasoned. She couldn't imagine how goofy she probably looked, but at least she was back to swimming well. Even thought the eyes were black, she really didn't notice any problem seeing once they were on. After a few moments, she almost forgot she was wearing it except for how her hair didn't shift the same in the water, and her face did not feel the water passing. The helm covered her whole head, but it didn't restrict her in the least.
As she neared the surface of the second pool without incident, she decided that she would try to scare Savis with her newly acquired helmet. Maybe the woman would think a monster was attacking her. Then again, maybe she would try to attack that monster. But Savis would realize it was Gemma before she attacked... right? Gemma didn't know what kind of magic Savis could use, but she knew it had been enough to go up against Ponrose as the damage side of the magical duo, accompanied by Madeira's mystical sweet-talking that had apparently worked wonders at talking down crazy ladies. Maybe that's why she and Savis got along.
She got to the surface and decided to just wrap her salong around her chest and thighs like a dress rather than going through all the work of getting dressed again, only to then undress who knew how long later. She tucked the helm under her arm and jogged to catch up with Savis, having completely discarded the notion of scaring the woman. Self preservation: 1. Trolling: ?.
"Hey Miss Savis, check it out!" She said with a chuckle. "I actually found something down there!"
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