A job which went underwater was also considered uncommon, although not impossible. It wasn't the first time for Akeya, who was walking at the edge of the water while looking outwards towards the sea. Humans didn't live underwater, and their interactions with the underwater world were minimal, despite it being so close by for some of them. There were fishers, sailors, pirates, traders, and various other people who had reason to either travel across or interact with the oceans which spanned the entirety of Earthland. However for most of them the water was only an obstacle to cross, and the others never went deeper than a dozen yards at most. Those few exceptions tended to live more interesting lives... and most humans actually didn't have as much desire for an interesting live as they themselves believed. Youngsters would dream of seeing the whole world, but when they grew up the majority would realize that they preferred a normal, safe, steady life where they knew that tomorrow was going to be similar to today.
In situations were someone had to go through interesting circumstances people tended to employ mages. More so, if people weren't content with leading mundane lives there would be little work left for mages, because their entire job was about experiencing interesting things that other people couldn't handle.
In this case the employer was actually a group of researchers, and rather than being interested in some lifeform which lived in the sea (Akeya had to deal with a Kraken before) they were interested in something located at the bottom of the ocean, which meant that it was far, far deeper than any place that most humans ever visited in their entire lives. In fact for most it would be impossible, since without magic or special equipment you couldn't get that far down without the water pressure or lack of air killing you.
The researchers had been so thoughtful to give Akeya some magic items that would help solve those issues, but Akeya had declined the offer since she didn't actually need them. True, her usual body wouldn't like going that far down. She had long ago made sure that she didn't have issues with lack of air, but even so her body wasn't built for deep sea pressures. The dragoness looked out across the ocean with narrowed eyes, trying to draw a mental map of the spot where she should dive in. The researchers had point out where they thought the artefact should roughly be, but there was a lot of room for error in there. Akeya would rather not spend too much time looking around down there, especially since the artefact they wanted her to find wasn't supposed to be very big.
In Akeya's case she had a way to deal with both the lack of air and the water pressure by herself, because she had the justified reputation of being crazy prepared. Before ever even hearing of this job or taking any job which included going to the depths she had already anticipated that it might one day happen and taken precautions just in case. She was the kind of person who would go to great lengths to maximize the chances of success in any mission she undertook even before she knew when she would actually be going on a mission of that nature. In her case she had done extensive research in the nature of magic and how it interacted with the body, and how one could enchant one's own body with magic tattoos. That extensive research had resulted in her crafting four sets of tattoos on her own body, and two of them were going to be of excellent use here. The first tattoo had removed her need to breathe as a land creature, allowing her to stay underwater for as long as she wished. As for the other...
Flapping her wings Akeya rose up into the air, flying over to the spot where she would begin her descend to the depths of the waters. Circling several times above it she gathered speed, then flew straight up only to then dive straight down, head first towards the endless blue-green expanse beneath her. While falling her body began to rapidly change: she became slimmer, her wings disappeared and her scales became smoother and shiny, turning from natural armour into a slippery layer covering her entire body. When she entered the water she already had fins and gills, although the gills were more as a safety net in case something managed to force her to breathe. With long hands and feet and thin membranes connecting her digits, together with the large fin on the end of her tail, Akeya had turned into a sea creature herself, making use of what was by far the most complicated and extensive tattoo she had managed to produce: a tattoo which allowed her to alter her body at a whim.
With her ability to see in the dark Akeya could actually see very far underwater, blatantly ignoring the fact that the sunlight rapidly diminished into nothing as she dove deeper and deeper. Using all five of her limbs to propel herself forwards she moved both quickly and smoothly, her dark scales helping her become nigh-invisible in the dark waters even without her magic abilities involved. Ignoring the creature swimming about Akeya headed straight for the bottom, even as she descended altering her body to slowly make it a body type suitable for moving about easily even with all the water of the ocean bearing down on her from all sides.
As an added benefit, this job meant she could do things at her own pace, because not only was she doing this on her own but there wasn't anybody nearby who she had to keep track of.