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Dread wasn't something Lawr usually experienced, so when he did it was equal parts novel and unpleasant. He didn't want to swim but he did want to see Atlantis. There were any number of riches down there and it would be wasteful to miss out on it all so greed outweighed concern and in the end he decided to give it a shot, trusting Melvin to get him down there somehow.

Nodding to the question Lawr looked to Melvin, decidedly pale even for him. "I think you are fine, I can't think of anything less sexy than this. I feel like I am never going to get aroused ever again." Nothing had the effect of a splash of cold water quite like the threat of a lot of cold water he'd have to be under.

He did however find himself concerned that this attire did nothing much to conceal how thin he was getting again but quickly set that sternly aside in favour of the fact that even if Melvin asked him, he no longer owed him any answers.

The fear slithered into his guts like a living creature as the helmet was placed on. It was fascinating and he found himself analysing the very primal response of his body to the situation as if he was outside of himself. There was a cold that seemed to take hold of his extremities, his hands and feet and he shivered even in the wetsuit.

"I can hear you." he said, his voice oddly small and tinny through the headset.

Taking Melvin's hand he clenched his teeth tight, squeezing tightly as he moved close to him. For once in his life he didn't know if he could do something and that thought alone was like spreading fractures across the surface of underfoot ice.

Once they got into the water, all poise and control slipped away from Lawrence in an instinctual way he might have considered humiliating if they hadn't been completely alone. He wrapped himself around the other man, summoning his claws in a basic act of survival, burying his head against him.

He couldn't look, he couldn't pay attention to any of it, he found himself as they slipped under the water suddenly rendered a child again, clinging to safety in a blind and helpless way.

"I'm.. I'm." and he couldn't understand why it was so diifficult to talk or why his teeth wanted to chatter in the adrenaline soaked chill. "Please don't let it take long."

In his head Butch responded to his master's uncertainty and racing pulse the only way he knew how, with a low, terrified and keening whine.

"I'm not ok." he said. "But don't stop."

Lawrence just held on, oddly fixed and unmoving, the cold feeling like it wrapped around him until the only warmth he had was in his ribs, the only light in this deep and pressing darkness housed in his ribs. It was horrible and any moment he knew the air could stop and he'd die, trapped down here in the pressing darkness.

When Butch was desummoned he didn't even notice, just adjusted his grip and seemed to stay somewhere far away, somewhere beyond even flailing panic, the limp and distant acceptance of a creature in the arms of a predator, unable to do anything about the primal fears built in and hard wired to his brain.

Lawrence had never been so glad to feel the ground, very hurriedly getting himself out of the water, where he stood just collecting himself for a time on the dry ground, shivering bodily. He tried not to think of the deep impassable water above him, able to crash in at any time and failed.

He did as he was asked, removing his flippers and helmet, leaving them behind on the shoreline and following Melvin. It was difficult to focus on anything after the degree of trauma he felt he'd experienced but the strange mermaid guide was enough to at least pull him into a state where he could talk.

"Is it a golem?" he asked.

The longer he was away from the edge of the water and the memory of how horrible it was the more he relaxed. The reassuring contact helped him too. He seemed to compose himself. "It's fine. No piggybacks required." he said calmly, his eyes on their strange guide.

He sauntered over to lean on the wall with his good hand, one leg crossed over the other.

"So, whatever your name is. Sophie. Servant. What is of value down here? Is there gold? Is there rare jewels. Monetary value, I could care less about cultural."

There is a pause, and then Sophie answered, "To separate an item from culture is to destroy its given value. What is in your head, what Babel can access, is not here in such forms as you desire."