Another Verti Lost to the Depths

by Drunkenpanda051 with Midjourney

It was, I think, a rather brilliant plan on the surface. We knew where the ship had sunk. you could even see it's shadow on a calm day, resting there on the bottom. Taunting us with the promise of untold riches and magical artifacts. But alas none of us knew the spell for water breathing, nor were we powerful enough to summon a water elemental.
It was then that clever Verti came to our rescue, or so we thought. After all, even the least magically skilled of us was proficient enough to cast a simple spell for shaping water. It was one of the first things we learned as children. Verti said a group of us could work together to keep the water away from us as we walked to the sunken ship, grab what treasures we could, and then walk back.
It was a trick often used to retrieve excellent skipping stones from the Clear Lake, or to retrieve crab traps from some of the reefs around the island. Sure we would have to go farther out, but what could go wrong.
Breathing, as it turns out. We got to the ship just fine. Verti had found a nice suit of armor and the others had loaded up on swords and spears and coid, oh the coin. We were just leaving the wreck when the headaches started. Smart old Verti realized what what up. We didnt have no way to get fresh air. LIke poor Owen trapped in the sea cave at high tide, Drowned dry he was.
As our vision started to blur and each breath felt like Fat Tom was sitting on your chest the others started to panic. "We can swim to the surface" was I think their thought. Not realizing every one of them was weighed down with the same treasures that we had hoped to loot. Verti saved me, at the back like we were at the time.
"Dump out the coins in the bags" he says. "Turn em upside down so the air cant get out and then when we stop shapin the water we will float on up. We got 4 bags, thats one on each arm, easy peasy."
Poor bloke, both of us forgot he was wearing the armor he found.