Simon made his way up to me. “I have an idea that might help you locate pearls and not have us need to kill every one of these creatures.”

  “What do you have in mind?” I asked.

  “I believe I can encourage them to open if all of you are ready to rush forward and check them for pearls.”

  When I looked back, they all nodded in agreement. “Sure, let Simon give it a try,” Wilma suggested.

  “Great idea, Simon. I'm all for it if it doesn’t hurt them and makes our efforts faster.” I agreed.

  Simon moved past Biff to the head of the line and said, “Gather behind me and rush forward after my strike. They should open, but will only be stunned for a short time.”

  We moved into place, and Simon bent down to clear a space on a rock by sweeping off the sand and a couple of lone oysters. He stood back up, looked around, and then moved so fast I could only see a blur. He struck the cleared rock before him, and a concussion wave spread through the water, making a deep, thrumming sound that resonated in our ears.

  In a V-shaped cone before him, oysters wobbled and opened their mouths, temporarily stunned and relaxed. Simon smiled. “Lesser Shockwave works even better under the water than in the air,” he observed. “It must be the density of the water. Very interesting.” He nodded to himself as he assessed the scene before him.

  After a moment’s pause, we looked at each other, laughed, and rushed forward. The way was mostly clear since much of the clutter and debris had whooshed forward along with some of the smaller oysters. We scanned the opened oysters for pearls.

  “I’ve got one!” was a shout heard repeatedly across the general area. I saw maybe a dozen pearls myself and rushed forward to secure as many as possible. It did not take long before the oysters started to close again, but we got several minutes of free time to search for pearls.

  I saw Quartz reach into quite a few oysters, and he always came out with a bite to eat. He must be a fan of seafood.

  When the last oysters closed again, a quick count had us recovering over forty pearls in around three or four minutes. None of them were black, and they varied in size and shape. None were particularly large or lustrous, and about half were slightly misshapen, but it was a terrific and quick catch. Everyone except Quartz brought their pearls over and gave them to me. I placed them into a belt pouch.

  They all looked at him.

  He said, “What? Quest Boy said I could keep an equal share. What’s the problem?”

  “It’s okay. If Quartz wants his share of the regular pearls, that’s in line with what I had agreed to earlier.” I said to the others.

  “See?” Quartz said as he kept an eye out for trouble.

  We had lost track of our surroundings. I warned the others, “Quartz has the right idea. It is pretty flat around here, but our light only covers seventy feet clearly and half that again dimly. That is not very far for fast predators to swim underwater. Let’s keep an eye out. It is called Shark Bay for a reason.”

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  Our first shark was seen a few minutes later. I didn’t know if it was attracted by our light, the scent of the oysters, or the concussive sound of Simon’s attack.

  It was not huge, but large enough and with enough teeth that it caught and kept our attention. But it was just one shark. It swam around us but did not approach beyond the perimeter of our light.

  Biff said, “That worked well. But let’s head down to where the bigger oysters are found so we can pick up Gwyd’s black pearl. The more time we have searching for it, the better.”

  The others agreed, and we made our way to the furthest edge of the regular oyster beds, where we would need to drop down to the deeper, giant oyster hunting grounds.

  “Is this the dropoff you were talking about?” Quartz asked.

  I laughed. “No, this is just a tiny dip we need to climb down. You will know the dropoff when you see it.”

  We climbed slowly, careful not to cut ourselves on the sharp coral outgrowths as we descended. The rocks were slippery, and there were moments when one of us began to slip, but someone nearby always helped before it became dangerous.

  “There is a current through here,” Simon said.

  I could begin to feel it, too. It had a slight pulling effect on us as we climbed over the edge and toward the giant oysters.

  “The current must be how they feed.” I posed.

  “It is fresh water,” Quartz added.

  I had not noticed that, but he was right. “There must be an outflow from one of the dark rivers or one of the legendary underground rivers beneath Keelwell,” Bido observed. “I had spent some time below the city, and the Dark River has multiple streams that filter out debris and become mostly clear. The city uses much of it to remove sewage, but there are deeper traces that are supposed to upwell from the Deeps.”

  We all closed our mouths at the mention of sewage, but Steven added, “It’ll be clear and clean by the time it gets through the Protector’s spell. You can breathe normally, folks.”

  We laughed, a little relieved and embarrassed at the same time.

  As we neared the bottom of the climb, our magical lights were able to make out better details. If the oysters we had gathered earlier had been considered significant at the size of our hands, from three to maybe six inches wide, the ones below us were enormous. The smallest was at least a foot long, and the largest, while unable to swallow a dwarf whole, was at least three feet across and half that in height.

  “Whoa,” Biff said, expressing our thoughts out loud.

  Wilma looked down at a little open ledge we began to gather upon, and then up at the height we had descended. “It really must be your lucky day, Biff; at least we pretty much got down here in one piece.”

  Just as Biff turned to respond, his foot lost traction and slid out from under him. His large body fell through the open water and onto a bed of giant oysters.

  The oysters reacted about as you would expect some monstrous thing to behave. They opened and chomped down on what they thought was food or foe. One closed on Biff’s forearm that had been holding his banded club, another on a leg, and a third came down on his side, pinching his chest and causing him to let out a cry of pain.

  Before any of us could act, Simon once more was the fastest. He leaped high and over my head, dropping to the oyster bed and landing gracefully on top of an oyster nearby. As it opened to attack the monk, he performed the same open-handed attack, but this time on top of a giant oyster and targeting the ones all around Biff and out for another dozen yards or more.

  From our higher vantage point, we watched the concussive wave shoot across Biff, his attackers, and dozens of clustered oysters.

  Steven was already casting a healing spell on Biff from where he propped himself against the coral ledge. The rest of us quickly made our way to the flat rock area Wilma had pointed out.

  By the time we had arrived, Simon had picked Biff up, buoyed by the lower weight in the water, and deposited him at our feet because the brawler was stunned by Simon’s effect, just as the oysters had been. Simon returned and started gathering a few pearls since many oysters were open. He was not alone. Quartz was already among them, searching and snagging pearls and chuckling to himself the whole while.

  By the time we had all gathered and Biff had fully recovered, Simon was back with three pearls the size of marbles, and Quartz was at his side.

  “How was your luck?” I asked the dwarf.

  “Not as great as I had hoped.”

  “So you found some pearls, then did you?” I asked sarcastically.

  “I didn’t find a single pearl,'' he said, looking downcast.

  Dwarves were known to be honorable, in their way, but would rarely lie directly. But they were also masters of wordplay. I thought about his words.

  “Not a single pearl. That must mean you found more than a single pearl.” I said in Dwarvish.

  He looked surprised, realizing I had probably heard and understood some of his earlier mumblings. But he recovered quickly. “Very astute of you.”

  “That’s not an answer,” I said dryly.

  “Oh, it was indeed an answer. Maybe not to the exact question you asked. But it was an answer.”

  I got the feeling that he could argue like this all night, so I just let it go.

  I turned to Simon. “Quick thinking there, Simon. Old Biff was almost shark bait.”

  “More like oyster crackers, I’d say.” Quartz quipped.

  We ignored Quartz. “You okay, Biff?” I asked in concern.

  “Right as rain. Steven fixed me up.” He replied.

  We all looked out at the bed of giant oysters with a much higher respect for their dangerous nature…