@aidofmessatine
You're my favorite <3
You're my favorite <3
Flight Rising Discussion
Discuss everything and anything Flight Rising.
TOPIC | [MAP][ART] The Behemoth IS the Labyrinth
I remember this forum from a while back and I still love it-
I remember this forum from a while back and I still love it-
|
Adult Player | She/they | 3+ FR Time | Wishlist [Sale] Gem Gened g1s for 900g |
I'm honored someone found the thread again! I'm both very late and very behind, but for funsies, I figured I'd at least try to do some Dusthide Rootbed stuff. Thanks for keeping this thing alive while I vanish into IRL, y'all <3
Formatted loosely after the ancient short stories (it's about the same length as the Aberration short story, the narrow post boxes make it look long). Dividers are from [url=https://www1.flightrising.com/forums/cc/3316077]Bluedragon's resource thread[/url]!
[center][size=5]Tunnels, Twined[/size][/center]
[map x=2828 y=939 view=land width=480 height=240][/map]
Beneath a trench scored by a god, in a scar in the earth that oozed muck and magic. Gramni licked dust from her claws. Hints of saltwater, humic acid, and something she couldn’t quite place. Exciting! She’d seen maps from the surface, knew about the “river” on Dragonhome’s eastern shore, but maps were dull, dead things. Here she could feel its moisture and taste its age and magic. It was alien. Cold and deep and [i]alive[/i].
Now Mierre, she loved [i]alive[/i]. Couldn’t get enough of the stuff! Couldn’t go three steps in her tunnels without tripping on a mushroom! So when Gramni was off tunneling and smelled [i]aliveness[/i], her first thought was: I’m gonna get her some of that. Really big mushroom. No, TWO really big mushrooms, THREE, and--
Gramni smacked nose-first into a root. No? She’d dug below the water, deep as the ancient drop-off and deeper still. She poked at it. Not a rock sound. She could go back and ask...or she could get a little past the “root” into whatever was behind it. Because right behind its was a not-so-solid sound. And not-so-solid meant hollow. And hollow meant mushrooms. So a one, a twooo, a one two three!
[img]https://i.imgur.com/1cJJfjQ.png[/img]
With a crashing headbutt, Gramni popped through the rock into the chamber beyond. Open air! She rolled up on reflex, bouncing off the downslope and careening up the opposing side. It was dense and damp and squishy, and when Gramni unrolled herself, soft and deep as a blanket. “Whoa, what?”
“WHAT?” came an answering cry. “Who? What!? Who are you? Did you come through the [i]wall[/i]?”
Gramni whipped around, tail and neck both zooping up straight. “WHOOPS I DIDN’T KNOW THIS WAS A BURROW!”
“It’s n--wait, slow down. Let me get a look at you.” A vast [i]something[/i] slithered down from a tunnel above Gramni, unwinding and unwinding and unwinding itself as she stood stock-straight. Its eyes were big as her head, deep as a pit, frightfully green. “Earth! But you hardly look like an invasion force.”
“I-what! No! I just thought I smelled mushrooms maybe!” Gramni’s claws tore at the moss beneath her as she suppressed the primal urge to flee or fight. The thing’s body rippled with growth, bioluminescent, a patchwork frenzy of light and life that crowded in on all sides as it coiled tighter around her...
“Oh! Well! Not to put too fine a point on it, what are you then?”
“A DRAGON” Gramni shrilled.
“No, well yes, I am too--”
“NAH BUT YOU’RE WAY TOO BIG?”
“I—oh! Sorry! Yes!” And the massive dragon uncoiled from Gramni, thrashing their bulk into a tunnel until only a ponderous head protruded. “Sorry, I must’ve given you a fright! Okay then, you’re not a wildclaw, snapper, uh, what else is there? Tundra, fae?”
That snapped Gramni out of it. “You’ve never seen a dusthide before? You’re underground!”
“Yes, we are! But given this is the Rootbed...” they stared at Gramni meaningfully. She stared back. “I mean, you’re here, aren’t you? Dug into it?”
Gramni pulled herself upright with an air of slight indignation. “I thought I smelled mushrooms!”
“Oh dear. Well, let’s get back to camp. I’m afraid we have politicking to do.”
[img]https://i.imgur.com/gophUze.png[/img]
The “camp” was equal parts lively and cozy, a cavern crammed with plants and bustling with dragons of all sorts. Gramni had adjusted quickly to their attentions: some took measurements, some asked her to try breaking this rock or that, some offered her bugs to snack on. Between all these, she found time to gossip with her new friend. They were Linaria, a druid of great experience, perhaps not in all matters. But they were trying.
“So, you and Mierre! You’re gathering mushrooms to woo them?”
She nearly spat out a grub. “NO! I mean, she just means a lot to me, yeah?”
Linaria nodded wisely, dislodging a clump of moss they pressed back on. “Ah! And flower language does have a mushroom dialect!” They pulled out a few dried specimens. “Would you describe things more as warm and welcome? Strange, but familiar, but familiar like one rain to the next? Perhaps the sensation of smelling home while far from it, and in that moment, knowing exactly how long the road back is?”
“What? No, uh, maybe? It’s more like...you know the saga of Fardelver Margo?”
“No, who’s th--oh, here they come.”
A hush fell on the camp. From one entrance, a troupe of dusthides, a peace lantern held in the leader’s mouth. From the other, the wildclaw wartroupe in charge of local security. They met before Linaria and exchanged bows. Gramni waved at the familiar faces: her clan, who broke ranks to sweep her into a rolling, tumbling, rollicking hug.
“Ack! Little troublemaker!”
“We were worried! C’mere!”
“You and that nose! What’s all this! So green!”
“Did they hurt you? We’ll show ‘em!”
The wildclaws watched this, impassive. One cleared his throat.
“Earthshaker teach us patience...so, did our Gramni cause ya trouble?”
Linaria shook their head while the lead wildclaw nodded. The latter spoke first, threading a growl through his words. “Highly secure tunnel. Seems unlikely someone would breach it by mistake. Contaminate it in its most vulnerable state. Lucky our druid was nearby, yes?”
“Secure! Me’n mine could teach you a thing about that, I think!” This was the clan lead, a massive (for a dusthide) drake with a head like a god’s own shovel. She clicked her left foreclaws. “No wonder she broke through! As is, you’ll have leaks here in...ehhhh...six months. Lucky she did, you coulda flooded us too!”
The wildclaw’s growl intensified. “And [i]you[/i] could have introduced contagion! The Mother goes where She wills. We follow Her roots. Do you doubt Her wisdom?”
“The roots’re fine, but they’re, y’know, roots.” She knocked on one, earning a glare from the wildclaw. “Love the water. Your tunnels don’t. Now, get some bracings in here, half-competent drainage-”
“YOUR WHELP TRESPASSED.”
“OH IT’S A FIGHT YOU WANT?”
[img]https://i.imgur.com/1cJJfjQ.png[/img]
“SILENCE!” The cavern rumbled with Linaria’s roar. “I—quiet, please. It’s clear Gramni was following the smell of growth, and if anything that’s a compliment. And, well, tunneling conditions [i]have[/i] been difficult.”
They poked a hole into the soft earth of the cavern, scratching at the rock beneath. “We are, all of us, beyond the borders of our Flights. The splitting sea is buffer territory and--technically--[i]none[/i] of us should be here.”
The lead dusthide loosed a low, whuffling growl as she reared up on her tail. “We’re not trying to invade! We’re just a bit east of the Breach, and that thanks to all the quakes! What about your roots then?”
The wildclaw bristled. “Ours! We are Hers! The Behemoth thirsts, and we tend it, wherever She may lead. Life must spread as it will! Not be--”
“Tend and spread life, that’s all? Mierre’d teach you a thing or two. Oh, the stories I could tell!”
The wildclaw blinked, incredulous. “Your clan has a druid?”
“Sure, the finest you’ll meet! Mierre, c’mon up.” The young dusthide was brought forward, her face flushed and buried in her tail. “please I just like mushrooms oh my god”. But it was hard to make it out beneath the boisterous babble of the rest of the clan, all patting her and gesturing towards the doubtlessly grand mushrooms in the tunnels beyond.
Linaria and the wildclaw exchanged a look. “Maybe Mierre and I can have some words, druid to druid.” Gramni gave Mierre a reassuring claws-up as she was lifted up and over to Linaria’s far side for a quieter, more sedate discussion. A few minutes later, they raised their head.
“Mierre's passion and call are clear. I’ll inspect for procedure's sake, tunnel size permitting, but the growth on their end is in excellent care! I believe we can learn quite a bit from one another, and I pledge my time, knowledge, and magic to make it so."
Mierre nodded, not hiding her excitement. "I'll do my best!" though the words were drowned out by her clan's cheers and tail-thumps. The wildclaw glanced to Linaria, but bowed, stepping back to rejoin the warband to another round of celebration.
Linaria cleared their throat. "And knowing their side of the ecosytem's well-tended, I see no reason we can't share these tunnels! Though, ah, given this is a buffer zone, it may be less complicated if we keep things [i]discrete[/i] for the moment."
The dusthide leader considered. “Glad to hear and happy to have a friend, but I want to be sure I'm looking after my own. I'm not too sure on this cloak and claw stuff, for one…”
Gramni looked to Linaria, then Mierre. She swept her wings out to the clan. “So they’re gonna do right by Mierre. But I think that can go for the rest of us, too. Like how they were sharing grubs with me, and I gotta say, those were great!" Linaria motioned for a barrel to be brought as she continued. "But more than that, it’s been a little quiet since we had to come out this way, what with the treaties and buffers and all that surface stuff. So...yeah, but that doesn’t have to mean going quiet ourselves. It can mean tall tales. And we'll make the tallest tales we can, so when it’s time for everyone else to realize the tales weren’t tall at all…”
“They'll know we discovered a forest that grows without the sun?”
“That one of ours's a druid trained in forbidden mushroom arts?”
“...and she trained forbidden mushroom arts right back!”
“That we're friends with a dragon whose eyes are bigger than our heads?”
“And they gave us delicious buttery grubs nearly as big!”
“And that we STOPPED THE WHOLE REGION FROM FLOODING!”
The clan lead nodded and stomped. “Now we're talking! That’s our Gramni! That’s our Mierre! That’s our CLAN! I’m in! Who’s in!”
“IN!”
“I’M IN!”
And just like that, the cavern was full of rollicking and bouncing, up the walls and down the roots, celebration, presentation of a pile of dried mushrooms to Mierre (in Gramni’s case, at least), and general joyous cacophony.
The wildclaw gave Linaria a look. They returned it, a little sheepish. “...the Mother guides, right?”
[img]https://i.imgur.com/gophUze.png[/img]
I'm honored someone found the thread again! I'm both very late and very behind, but for funsies, I figured I'd at least try to do some Dusthide Rootbed stuff. Thanks for keeping this thing alive while I vanish into IRL, y'all <3
Formatted loosely after the ancient short stories (it's about the same length as the Aberration short story, the narrow post boxes make it look long). Dividers are from Bluedragon's resource thread!
Beneath a trench scored by a god, in a scar in the earth that oozed muck and magic. Gramni licked dust from her claws. Hints of saltwater, humic acid, and something she couldn’t quite place. Exciting! She’d seen maps from the surface, knew about the “river” on Dragonhome’s eastern shore, but maps were dull, dead things. Here she could feel its moisture and taste its age and magic. It was alien. Cold and deep and alive.
Now Mierre, she loved alive. Couldn’t get enough of the stuff! Couldn’t go three steps in her tunnels without tripping on a mushroom! So when Gramni was off tunneling and smelled aliveness, her first thought was: I’m gonna get her some of that. Really big mushroom. No, TWO really big mushrooms, THREE, and--
Gramni smacked nose-first into a root. No? She’d dug below the water, deep as the ancient drop-off and deeper still. She poked at it. Not a rock sound. She could go back and ask...or she could get a little past the “root” into whatever was behind it. Because right behind its was a not-so-solid sound. And not-so-solid meant hollow. And hollow meant mushrooms. So a one, a twooo, a one two three!
With a crashing headbutt, Gramni popped through the rock into the chamber beyond. Open air! She rolled up on reflex, bouncing off the downslope and careening up the opposing side. It was dense and damp and squishy, and when Gramni unrolled herself, soft and deep as a blanket. “Whoa, what?”
“WHAT?” came an answering cry. “Who? What!? Who are you? Did you come through the wall?”
Gramni whipped around, tail and neck both zooping up straight. “WHOOPS I DIDN’T KNOW THIS WAS A BURROW!”
“It’s n--wait, slow down. Let me get a look at you.” A vast something slithered down from a tunnel above Gramni, unwinding and unwinding and unwinding itself as she stood stock-straight. Its eyes were big as her head, deep as a pit, frightfully green. “Earth! But you hardly look like an invasion force.”
“I-what! No! I just thought I smelled mushrooms maybe!” Gramni’s claws tore at the moss beneath her as she suppressed the primal urge to flee or fight. The thing’s body rippled with growth, bioluminescent, a patchwork frenzy of light and life that crowded in on all sides as it coiled tighter around her...
“Oh! Well! Not to put too fine a point on it, what are you then?”
“A DRAGON” Gramni shrilled.
“No, well yes, I am too--”
“NAH BUT YOU’RE WAY TOO BIG?”
“I—oh! Sorry! Yes!” And the massive dragon uncoiled from Gramni, thrashing their bulk into a tunnel until only a ponderous head protruded. “Sorry, I must’ve given you a fright! Okay then, you’re not a wildclaw, snapper, uh, what else is there? Tundra, fae?”
That snapped Gramni out of it. “You’ve never seen a dusthide before? You’re underground!”
“Yes, we are! But given this is the Rootbed...” they stared at Gramni meaningfully. She stared back. “I mean, you’re here, aren’t you? Dug into it?”
Gramni pulled herself upright with an air of slight indignation. “I thought I smelled mushrooms!”
“Oh dear. Well, let’s get back to camp. I’m afraid we have politicking to do.”
The “camp” was equal parts lively and cozy, a cavern crammed with plants and bustling with dragons of all sorts. Gramni had adjusted quickly to their attentions: some took measurements, some asked her to try breaking this rock or that, some offered her bugs to snack on. Between all these, she found time to gossip with her new friend. They were Linaria, a druid of great experience, perhaps not in all matters. But they were trying.
“So, you and Mierre! You’re gathering mushrooms to woo them?”
She nearly spat out a grub. “NO! I mean, she just means a lot to me, yeah?”
Linaria nodded wisely, dislodging a clump of moss they pressed back on. “Ah! And flower language does have a mushroom dialect!” They pulled out a few dried specimens. “Would you describe things more as warm and welcome? Strange, but familiar, but familiar like one rain to the next? Perhaps the sensation of smelling home while far from it, and in that moment, knowing exactly how long the road back is?”
“What? No, uh, maybe? It’s more like...you know the saga of Fardelver Margo?”
“No, who’s th--oh, here they come.”
A hush fell on the camp. From one entrance, a troupe of dusthides, a peace lantern held in the leader’s mouth. From the other, the wildclaw wartroupe in charge of local security. They met before Linaria and exchanged bows. Gramni waved at the familiar faces: her clan, who broke ranks to sweep her into a rolling, tumbling, rollicking hug.
“Ack! Little troublemaker!”
“We were worried! C’mere!”
“You and that nose! What’s all this! So green!”
“Did they hurt you? We’ll show ‘em!”
The wildclaws watched this, impassive. One cleared his throat.
“Earthshaker teach us patience...so, did our Gramni cause ya trouble?”
Linaria shook their head while the lead wildclaw nodded. The latter spoke first, threading a growl through his words. “Highly secure tunnel. Seems unlikely someone would breach it by mistake. Contaminate it in its most vulnerable state. Lucky our druid was nearby, yes?”
“Secure! Me’n mine could teach you a thing about that, I think!” This was the clan lead, a massive (for a dusthide) drake with a head like a god’s own shovel. She clicked her left foreclaws. “No wonder she broke through! As is, you’ll have leaks here in...ehhhh...six months. Lucky she did, you coulda flooded us too!”
The wildclaw’s growl intensified. “And you could have introduced contagion! The Mother goes where She wills. We follow Her roots. Do you doubt Her wisdom?”
“The roots’re fine, but they’re, y’know, roots.” She knocked on one, earning a glare from the wildclaw. “Love the water. Your tunnels don’t. Now, get some bracings in here, half-competent drainage-”
“YOUR WHELP TRESPASSED.”
“OH IT’S A FIGHT YOU WANT?”
“SILENCE!” The cavern rumbled with Linaria’s roar. “I—quiet, please. It’s clear Gramni was following the smell of growth, and if anything that’s a compliment. And, well, tunneling conditions have been difficult.”
They poked a hole into the soft earth of the cavern, scratching at the rock beneath. “We are, all of us, beyond the borders of our Flights. The splitting sea is buffer territory and--technically--none of us should be here.”
The lead dusthide loosed a low, whuffling growl as she reared up on her tail. “We’re not trying to invade! We’re just a bit east of the Breach, and that thanks to all the quakes! What about your roots then?”
The wildclaw bristled. “Ours! We are Hers! The Behemoth thirsts, and we tend it, wherever She may lead. Life must spread as it will! Not be--”
“Tend and spread life, that’s all? Mierre’d teach you a thing or two. Oh, the stories I could tell!”
The wildclaw blinked, incredulous. “Your clan has a druid?”
“Sure, the finest you’ll meet! Mierre, c’mon up.” The young dusthide was brought forward, her face flushed and buried in her tail. “please I just like mushrooms oh my god”. But it was hard to make it out beneath the boisterous babble of the rest of the clan, all patting her and gesturing towards the doubtlessly grand mushrooms in the tunnels beyond.
Linaria and the wildclaw exchanged a look. “Maybe Mierre and I can have some words, druid to druid.” Gramni gave Mierre a reassuring claws-up as she was lifted up and over to Linaria’s far side for a quieter, more sedate discussion. A few minutes later, they raised their head.
“Mierre's passion and call are clear. I’ll inspect for procedure's sake, tunnel size permitting, but the growth on their end is in excellent care! I believe we can learn quite a bit from one another, and I pledge my time, knowledge, and magic to make it so."
Mierre nodded, not hiding her excitement. "I'll do my best!" though the words were drowned out by her clan's cheers and tail-thumps. The wildclaw glanced to Linaria, but bowed, stepping back to rejoin the warband to another round of celebration.
Linaria cleared their throat. "And knowing their side of the ecosytem's well-tended, I see no reason we can't share these tunnels! Though, ah, given this is a buffer zone, it may be less complicated if we keep things discrete for the moment."
The dusthide leader considered. “Glad to hear and happy to have a friend, but I want to be sure I'm looking after my own. I'm not too sure on this cloak and claw stuff, for one…”
Gramni looked to Linaria, then Mierre. She swept her wings out to the clan. “So they’re gonna do right by Mierre. But I think that can go for the rest of us, too. Like how they were sharing grubs with me, and I gotta say, those were great!" Linaria motioned for a barrel to be brought as she continued. "But more than that, it’s been a little quiet since we had to come out this way, what with the treaties and buffers and all that surface stuff. So...yeah, but that doesn’t have to mean going quiet ourselves. It can mean tall tales. And we'll make the tallest tales we can, so when it’s time for everyone else to realize the tales weren’t tall at all…”
“They'll know we discovered a forest that grows without the sun?”
“That one of ours's a druid trained in forbidden mushroom arts?”
“...and she trained forbidden mushroom arts right back!”
“That we're friends with a dragon whose eyes are bigger than our heads?”
“And they gave us delicious buttery grubs nearly as big!”
“And that we STOPPED THE WHOLE REGION FROM FLOODING!”
The clan lead nodded and stomped. “Now we're talking! That’s our Gramni! That’s our Mierre! That’s our CLAN! I’m in! Who’s in!”
“IN!”
“I’M IN!”
And just like that, the cavern was full of rollicking and bouncing, up the walls and down the roots, celebration, presentation of a pile of dried mushrooms to Mierre (in Gramni’s case, at least), and general joyous cacophony.
The wildclaw gave Linaria a look. They returned it, a little sheepish. “...the Mother guides, right?”
Formatted loosely after the ancient short stories (it's about the same length as the Aberration short story, the narrow post boxes make it look long). Dividers are from Bluedragon's resource thread!
Tunnels, Twined
Beneath a trench scored by a god, in a scar in the earth that oozed muck and magic. Gramni licked dust from her claws. Hints of saltwater, humic acid, and something she couldn’t quite place. Exciting! She’d seen maps from the surface, knew about the “river” on Dragonhome’s eastern shore, but maps were dull, dead things. Here she could feel its moisture and taste its age and magic. It was alien. Cold and deep and alive.
Now Mierre, she loved alive. Couldn’t get enough of the stuff! Couldn’t go three steps in her tunnels without tripping on a mushroom! So when Gramni was off tunneling and smelled aliveness, her first thought was: I’m gonna get her some of that. Really big mushroom. No, TWO really big mushrooms, THREE, and--
Gramni smacked nose-first into a root. No? She’d dug below the water, deep as the ancient drop-off and deeper still. She poked at it. Not a rock sound. She could go back and ask...or she could get a little past the “root” into whatever was behind it. Because right behind its was a not-so-solid sound. And not-so-solid meant hollow. And hollow meant mushrooms. So a one, a twooo, a one two three!
With a crashing headbutt, Gramni popped through the rock into the chamber beyond. Open air! She rolled up on reflex, bouncing off the downslope and careening up the opposing side. It was dense and damp and squishy, and when Gramni unrolled herself, soft and deep as a blanket. “Whoa, what?”
“WHAT?” came an answering cry. “Who? What!? Who are you? Did you come through the wall?”
Gramni whipped around, tail and neck both zooping up straight. “WHOOPS I DIDN’T KNOW THIS WAS A BURROW!”
“It’s n--wait, slow down. Let me get a look at you.” A vast something slithered down from a tunnel above Gramni, unwinding and unwinding and unwinding itself as she stood stock-straight. Its eyes were big as her head, deep as a pit, frightfully green. “Earth! But you hardly look like an invasion force.”
“I-what! No! I just thought I smelled mushrooms maybe!” Gramni’s claws tore at the moss beneath her as she suppressed the primal urge to flee or fight. The thing’s body rippled with growth, bioluminescent, a patchwork frenzy of light and life that crowded in on all sides as it coiled tighter around her...
“Oh! Well! Not to put too fine a point on it, what are you then?”
“A DRAGON” Gramni shrilled.
“No, well yes, I am too--”
“NAH BUT YOU’RE WAY TOO BIG?”
“I—oh! Sorry! Yes!” And the massive dragon uncoiled from Gramni, thrashing their bulk into a tunnel until only a ponderous head protruded. “Sorry, I must’ve given you a fright! Okay then, you’re not a wildclaw, snapper, uh, what else is there? Tundra, fae?”
That snapped Gramni out of it. “You’ve never seen a dusthide before? You’re underground!”
“Yes, we are! But given this is the Rootbed...” they stared at Gramni meaningfully. She stared back. “I mean, you’re here, aren’t you? Dug into it?”
Gramni pulled herself upright with an air of slight indignation. “I thought I smelled mushrooms!”
“Oh dear. Well, let’s get back to camp. I’m afraid we have politicking to do.”
The “camp” was equal parts lively and cozy, a cavern crammed with plants and bustling with dragons of all sorts. Gramni had adjusted quickly to their attentions: some took measurements, some asked her to try breaking this rock or that, some offered her bugs to snack on. Between all these, she found time to gossip with her new friend. They were Linaria, a druid of great experience, perhaps not in all matters. But they were trying.
“So, you and Mierre! You’re gathering mushrooms to woo them?”
She nearly spat out a grub. “NO! I mean, she just means a lot to me, yeah?”
Linaria nodded wisely, dislodging a clump of moss they pressed back on. “Ah! And flower language does have a mushroom dialect!” They pulled out a few dried specimens. “Would you describe things more as warm and welcome? Strange, but familiar, but familiar like one rain to the next? Perhaps the sensation of smelling home while far from it, and in that moment, knowing exactly how long the road back is?”
“What? No, uh, maybe? It’s more like...you know the saga of Fardelver Margo?”
“No, who’s th--oh, here they come.”
A hush fell on the camp. From one entrance, a troupe of dusthides, a peace lantern held in the leader’s mouth. From the other, the wildclaw wartroupe in charge of local security. They met before Linaria and exchanged bows. Gramni waved at the familiar faces: her clan, who broke ranks to sweep her into a rolling, tumbling, rollicking hug.
“Ack! Little troublemaker!”
“We were worried! C’mere!”
“You and that nose! What’s all this! So green!”
“Did they hurt you? We’ll show ‘em!”
The wildclaws watched this, impassive. One cleared his throat.
“Earthshaker teach us patience...so, did our Gramni cause ya trouble?”
Linaria shook their head while the lead wildclaw nodded. The latter spoke first, threading a growl through his words. “Highly secure tunnel. Seems unlikely someone would breach it by mistake. Contaminate it in its most vulnerable state. Lucky our druid was nearby, yes?”
“Secure! Me’n mine could teach you a thing about that, I think!” This was the clan lead, a massive (for a dusthide) drake with a head like a god’s own shovel. She clicked her left foreclaws. “No wonder she broke through! As is, you’ll have leaks here in...ehhhh...six months. Lucky she did, you coulda flooded us too!”
The wildclaw’s growl intensified. “And you could have introduced contagion! The Mother goes where She wills. We follow Her roots. Do you doubt Her wisdom?”
“The roots’re fine, but they’re, y’know, roots.” She knocked on one, earning a glare from the wildclaw. “Love the water. Your tunnels don’t. Now, get some bracings in here, half-competent drainage-”
“YOUR WHELP TRESPASSED.”
“OH IT’S A FIGHT YOU WANT?”
“SILENCE!” The cavern rumbled with Linaria’s roar. “I—quiet, please. It’s clear Gramni was following the smell of growth, and if anything that’s a compliment. And, well, tunneling conditions have been difficult.”
They poked a hole into the soft earth of the cavern, scratching at the rock beneath. “We are, all of us, beyond the borders of our Flights. The splitting sea is buffer territory and--technically--none of us should be here.”
The lead dusthide loosed a low, whuffling growl as she reared up on her tail. “We’re not trying to invade! We’re just a bit east of the Breach, and that thanks to all the quakes! What about your roots then?”
The wildclaw bristled. “Ours! We are Hers! The Behemoth thirsts, and we tend it, wherever She may lead. Life must spread as it will! Not be--”
“Tend and spread life, that’s all? Mierre’d teach you a thing or two. Oh, the stories I could tell!”
The wildclaw blinked, incredulous. “Your clan has a druid?”
“Sure, the finest you’ll meet! Mierre, c’mon up.” The young dusthide was brought forward, her face flushed and buried in her tail. “please I just like mushrooms oh my god”. But it was hard to make it out beneath the boisterous babble of the rest of the clan, all patting her and gesturing towards the doubtlessly grand mushrooms in the tunnels beyond.
Linaria and the wildclaw exchanged a look. “Maybe Mierre and I can have some words, druid to druid.” Gramni gave Mierre a reassuring claws-up as she was lifted up and over to Linaria’s far side for a quieter, more sedate discussion. A few minutes later, they raised their head.
“Mierre's passion and call are clear. I’ll inspect for procedure's sake, tunnel size permitting, but the growth on their end is in excellent care! I believe we can learn quite a bit from one another, and I pledge my time, knowledge, and magic to make it so."
Mierre nodded, not hiding her excitement. "I'll do my best!" though the words were drowned out by her clan's cheers and tail-thumps. The wildclaw glanced to Linaria, but bowed, stepping back to rejoin the warband to another round of celebration.
Linaria cleared their throat. "And knowing their side of the ecosytem's well-tended, I see no reason we can't share these tunnels! Though, ah, given this is a buffer zone, it may be less complicated if we keep things discrete for the moment."
The dusthide leader considered. “Glad to hear and happy to have a friend, but I want to be sure I'm looking after my own. I'm not too sure on this cloak and claw stuff, for one…”
Gramni looked to Linaria, then Mierre. She swept her wings out to the clan. “So they’re gonna do right by Mierre. But I think that can go for the rest of us, too. Like how they were sharing grubs with me, and I gotta say, those were great!" Linaria motioned for a barrel to be brought as she continued. "But more than that, it’s been a little quiet since we had to come out this way, what with the treaties and buffers and all that surface stuff. So...yeah, but that doesn’t have to mean going quiet ourselves. It can mean tall tales. And we'll make the tallest tales we can, so when it’s time for everyone else to realize the tales weren’t tall at all…”
“They'll know we discovered a forest that grows without the sun?”
“That one of ours's a druid trained in forbidden mushroom arts?”
“...and she trained forbidden mushroom arts right back!”
“That we're friends with a dragon whose eyes are bigger than our heads?”
“And they gave us delicious buttery grubs nearly as big!”
“And that we STOPPED THE WHOLE REGION FROM FLOODING!”
The clan lead nodded and stomped. “Now we're talking! That’s our Gramni! That’s our Mierre! That’s our CLAN! I’m in! Who’s in!”
“IN!”
“I’M IN!”
And just like that, the cavern was full of rollicking and bouncing, up the walls and down the roots, celebration, presentation of a pile of dried mushrooms to Mierre (in Gramni’s case, at least), and general joyous cacophony.
The wildclaw gave Linaria a look. They returned it, a little sheepish. “...the Mother guides, right?”
[quote name="Oranitha" date="2024-04-27 14:53:07" ]
I'm honored someone found the thread again! I'm both very late and very behind, but for funsies, I figured I'd at least try to do some Dusthide Rootbed stuff. Thanks for keeping this thing alive while I vanish into IRL, y'all <3
Formatted loosely after the ancient short stories (it's about the same length as the Aberration short story, the narrow post boxes make it look long). Dividers are from [url=https://www1.flightrising.com/forums/cc/3316077]Bluedragon's resource thread[/url]!
[center][size=5]Tunnels, Twined[/size][/center]
[map x=2828 y=939 view=land width=480 height=240][/map]
Beneath a trench scored by a god, in a scar in the earth that oozed muck and magic. Gramni licked dirt from her claws. Hints of saltwater, humic acid, and something she couldn’t quite place. Exciting! She’d seen maps from the surface, knew about the “river” on Dragonhome’s eastern shore, but maps were dull, dead things. Here she could feel its moisture and taste its age and magic. It was alien. Cold and deep and green and [i]alive[/i].
Now Mierre, she loved [i]alive[/i]. Couldn’t get enough of the stuff! Couldn’t go three steps in her tunnels without tripping on a mushroom! So when Gramni was off tunneling and smelled [i]aliveness[/i], her first thought was: I’m gonna get her some of that. Really big mushroom. No, TWO really big mushrooms, THREE, and--
Gramni smacked nose-first into a root. No? She’d dug below the water, deep as the ancient drop-off and deeper still. She poked at it. Not a rock sound. She could go back and ask...or she could get a little past the “root” into whatever was behind it. Because right behind its was a not-so-solid sound. And not-so-solid means hollow. And hollow meant mushrooms. So a one, a twooo, a one two three!
[img]https://i.imgur.com/1cJJfjQ.png[/img]
With a crashing headbutt, Gramni popped through the rock into the chamber beyond. Open air! She rolled up on reflex, bouncing off the downslope and careening up the opposing side. It was dense and damp and squishy, and when Gramni unrolled herself, soft and deep as a blanket. “Whoa, what?”
“WHAT?” came an answering cry. “Who? What!? Who are you? Did you come through the [i]wall[/i]?”
Gramni whipped around, tail and neck both zooping up straight. “WHOOPS I DIDN’T KNOW THIS WAS A BURROW!”
“It’s n--wait, slow down. Let me get a look at you.” A vast [i]something[/i] slithered down from a tunnel above Gramni, unwinding and unwinding and unwinding itself as she stood stock-straight. Its eyes were big as her head, deep as a pit, frightfully green. “Earth! But you hardly look like an invasion force.”
“I-what! No! I just thought I smelled mushrooms maybe!” Gramni’s claws tore at the growth beneath her as she suppressed the primal urge to flee or fight. The thing’s body rippled with growth, bioluminescent, a patchwork frenzy of light and life that crowded in on all sides as it coiled tighter around her...
“Oh! Well! Not to put too fine a point on it, what are you then?”
“A DRAGON” Gramni shrilled.
“No, well yes, I am too--”
“NAH BUT YOU’RE WAY TOO BIG?”
“I—oh! Sorry! Yes!” And the massive dragon uncoiled from Gramni, thrashing their bulk into a tunnel until only a ponderous head protruded. “Sorry, I must’ve given you a fright! Okay then, you’re not a wildclaw, snapper, uh, what else is there? Tundra, fae?”
That snapped Gramni out of it. “You’ve never seen a dusthide before? You’re underground!”
“Yes, we are! But given this is the Rootbed...” they stared at Gramni meaningfully. She stared back. “I mean, you’re here, aren’t you? Dug into it?”
Gramni pulled herself upright with an air of slight indignation. “I thought I smelled mushrooms!”
“Oh dear. Well, let’s get back to camp. I’m afraid we have politicking to do.”
[img]https://i.imgur.com/gophUze.png[/img]
The “camp” was equal parts lively and cozy, a cavern crammed with plants and bustling with dragons of all sorts. Gramni had adjusted quickly to their attentions: some took measurements, some asked her to try breaking this rock or that, some offered her bugs to snack on. Between all these, she found time to gossip with her new friend. They were Linaria, a druid of great experience, perhaps not in all matters. But they were trying.
“So, you and Mierre! You’re gathering mushrooms to woo them?”
“NO! I mean, she just means a lot to me, yeah?”
Linaria nodded wisely, dislodging a clump of moss they pressed back on. “Ah! And flower language does have a mushroom dialect!” They pulled out a few dried specimens. “Would you describe things more as warm and welcome? Strange, but familiar, but familiar like one rain to the next? Perhaps the sensation of smelling home while far from it, and in that moment, knowing exactly how long the road back is?”
“What? No, uh, maybe? It’s more like...you know the saga of Fardelver Margo?”
“No, who’s th--oh, here they come.”
A hush fell on the camp. From one entrance, a troupe of dusthides, a peace lantern held in the leader’s mouth. From the other, the wildclaw wartroupe in charge of local security. They met before Linaria and exchanged bows. Gramni waved at the familiar faces: her clan, who broke ranks to sweep her into a rolling, tumbling, rollicking hug.
“Ack! Little troublemaker!”
“We were worried! C’mere!”
“You and that nose! What’s all this! So green!”
“Did they hurt you? We’ll show ‘em!”
The wildclaws watched this, impassive. One cleared his throat.
“Earthshaker teach us patience...so, did our Gramni cause ya trouble?”
Linaria shook their head while the lead wildclaw nodded. The latter spoke first, threading a growl through his words. “Highly secure tunnel. Seems unlikely someone would breach it by mistake. Lucky our druid was nearby, yes?”
“Secure! Me’n mine could teach you a thing about that, I think!” This was the clan lead, a massive (for a dusthide) drake with a head like a god’s own shovel. She clicked her left foreclaws. “No wonder she broke through! As is, you’ll have leaks here in...ehhhh...six months.”
The wildclaw’s growl intensified. “The Mother goes where She wills. We follow Her roots. Do you doubt Her wisdom?”
“The roots’re fine, but they’re, y’know, roots.” She knocked on one, earning a glare from the wildclaw. “Love the water. Your tunnels don’t. Now, get some bracings in here, half-competent drainage-”
“YOUR WHELP INTRUDED.”
“OH IT’S A FIGHT YOU WANT?”
[img]https://i.imgur.com/1cJJfjQ.png[/img]
“SILENCE!” The cavern rumbled with Linaria’s roar. “I—quiet, please. It’s clear Gramni was following the smell of growth, and if anything that’s a compliment. And, well, we [i]have[/i] been having some issues with flooding.”
They poked a hole into the soft earth of the cavern, scratching at the rock beneath. “We are, all of us, beyond the borders of our Flights. The splitting sea is buffer territory and--technically--none of us should be here.”
The lead dusthide loosed a low, whuffling growl as they reared up on their tail. “We’re not trying to invade! We’re just a bit east of the Breach, and that thanks to all the quakes! What about your roots then?”
The wildclaw bristled. “Ours! We are Hers! The Behemoth thirsts, and we tend it, wherever She may lead. Life must spread as it will.”
“Spread life, that’s all? Mierre’d teach you a thing or two. Oh, the stories I could tell--”
The wildclaw blinked. “You have a druid?”
“Yeah, whatever that is! Definitely! The finest druid you’ll meet! Mierre, c’mon up.” The young dusthide was brought forward, her face buried in her tail. “please I just like mushrooms oh gods”. But it was hard to make it out beneath the boisterous babble of the rest of the clan, all patting her and gesturing towards the doubtlessly grand mushrooms in the tunnels beyond.
Linaria and the wildclaw exchanged a look. “Maybe Mierre and I can have some words, druid to druid.” Gramni gave Mierre a reassuring claws-up as she was lifted up and over to Linaria’s far side for a quieter, more sedate discussion. A few minutes later, they raised their head and nodded. “This one has shared the call. While I’ll inspect for myself, tunnel size permitting, it seems growth on their end is well-managed, and we can learn quite a bit from one another. I see no reason not to call this meeting appointed and friendship anointed. And perhaps, given this is a buffer zone, best kept discrete for the moment?”
The dusthides, who'd been nodding to this point, switched to mutterings instead. “Not too keen on the cloak and claw stuff, to be honest…”
Gramni looked to Mierre, then to Linaria, then nodded. She swept her wings out to the clan. “Well, uh, secrecy shmecrecy...but it sounds like they’re gonna do right by Mierre. And maybe by the rest of us, too.” She nodded at Linaria. “They were sharing their grubs and, I gotta say, they were good! And, uh, it’s been a little lonely since we had to come out this way, what with the quakes and all. And yeah, I guess technically treaties and buffers and all that surface stuff. So...yeah, but that doesn’t have to mean going quiet. It can mean tall tales. And we'll make the tallest tales we can, so when it’s time for everyone else to realize the tales weren’t tall at all…”
“They'll know we discovered a forest that grows without the sun?”
“That one of ours's a druid trained in forbidden mushroom arts?”
“...and she trained forbidden mushroom arts right back!”
“That we're friends with a dragon whose eyes are bigger than our heads?”
“And they gave us delicious buttery grubs nearly as big!”
“And that we STOPPED THEIR WHOLE REGION FROM FLOODING!”
The clan lead nodded and stomped. “Now we're talking! That’s our Gramni! That’s our Mierre! That’s our CLAN! I’m in! Who’s in!”
“IN!”
“I’M IN!”
And just like that, the cavern was full of rollicking and bouncing, up the walls and down the roots, celebration, presentation of a pile of dried mushrooms to Mierre (in Gramni’s case, at least), and general joyous cacophony.
The wildclaw gave Linaria a look. They returned it, a little sheepish. “...the Mother guides, right?”
[img]https://i.imgur.com/gophUze.png[/img]
[/quote]
This, Right Here.
Make This the Dusthide short story, Devs!!
Oranitha wrote on 2024-04-27 14:53:07:
I'm honored someone found the thread again! I'm both very late and very behind, but for funsies, I figured I'd at least try to do some Dusthide Rootbed stuff. Thanks for keeping this thing alive while I vanish into IRL, y'all <3
Formatted loosely after the ancient short stories (it's about the same length as the Aberration short story, the narrow post boxes make it look long). Dividers are from Bluedragon's resource thread!
Beneath a trench scored by a god, in a scar in the earth that oozed muck and magic. Gramni licked dirt from her claws. Hints of saltwater, humic acid, and something she couldn’t quite place. Exciting! She’d seen maps from the surface, knew about the “river” on Dragonhome’s eastern shore, but maps were dull, dead things. Here she could feel its moisture and taste its age and magic. It was alien. Cold and deep and green and alive.
Now Mierre, she loved alive. Couldn’t get enough of the stuff! Couldn’t go three steps in her tunnels without tripping on a mushroom! So when Gramni was off tunneling and smelled aliveness, her first thought was: I’m gonna get her some of that. Really big mushroom. No, TWO really big mushrooms, THREE, and--
Gramni smacked nose-first into a root. No? She’d dug below the water, deep as the ancient drop-off and deeper still. She poked at it. Not a rock sound. She could go back and ask...or she could get a little past the “root” into whatever was behind it. Because right behind its was a not-so-solid sound. And not-so-solid means hollow. And hollow meant mushrooms. So a one, a twooo, a one two three!
With a crashing headbutt, Gramni popped through the rock into the chamber beyond. Open air! She rolled up on reflex, bouncing off the downslope and careening up the opposing side. It was dense and damp and squishy, and when Gramni unrolled herself, soft and deep as a blanket. “Whoa, what?”
“WHAT?” came an answering cry. “Who? What!? Who are you? Did you come through the wall?”
Gramni whipped around, tail and neck both zooping up straight. “WHOOPS I DIDN’T KNOW THIS WAS A BURROW!”
“It’s n--wait, slow down. Let me get a look at you.” A vast something slithered down from a tunnel above Gramni, unwinding and unwinding and unwinding itself as she stood stock-straight. Its eyes were big as her head, deep as a pit, frightfully green. “Earth! But you hardly look like an invasion force.”
“I-what! No! I just thought I smelled mushrooms maybe!” Gramni’s claws tore at the growth beneath her as she suppressed the primal urge to flee or fight. The thing’s body rippled with growth, bioluminescent, a patchwork frenzy of light and life that crowded in on all sides as it coiled tighter around her...
“Oh! Well! Not to put too fine a point on it, what are you then?”
“A DRAGON” Gramni shrilled.
“No, well yes, I am too--”
“NAH BUT YOU’RE WAY TOO BIG?”
“I—oh! Sorry! Yes!” And the massive dragon uncoiled from Gramni, thrashing their bulk into a tunnel until only a ponderous head protruded. “Sorry, I must’ve given you a fright! Okay then, you’re not a wildclaw, snapper, uh, what else is there? Tundra, fae?”
That snapped Gramni out of it. “You’ve never seen a dusthide before? You’re underground!”
“Yes, we are! But given this is the Rootbed...” they stared at Gramni meaningfully. She stared back. “I mean, you’re here, aren’t you? Dug into it?”
Gramni pulled herself upright with an air of slight indignation. “I thought I smelled mushrooms!”
“Oh dear. Well, let’s get back to camp. I’m afraid we have politicking to do.”
The “camp” was equal parts lively and cozy, a cavern crammed with plants and bustling with dragons of all sorts. Gramni had adjusted quickly to their attentions: some took measurements, some asked her to try breaking this rock or that, some offered her bugs to snack on. Between all these, she found time to gossip with her new friend. They were Linaria, a druid of great experience, perhaps not in all matters. But they were trying.
“So, you and Mierre! You’re gathering mushrooms to woo them?”
“NO! I mean, she just means a lot to me, yeah?”
Linaria nodded wisely, dislodging a clump of moss they pressed back on. “Ah! And flower language does have a mushroom dialect!” They pulled out a few dried specimens. “Would you describe things more as warm and welcome? Strange, but familiar, but familiar like one rain to the next? Perhaps the sensation of smelling home while far from it, and in that moment, knowing exactly how long the road back is?”
“What? No, uh, maybe? It’s more like...you know the saga of Fardelver Margo?”
“No, who’s th--oh, here they come.”
A hush fell on the camp. From one entrance, a troupe of dusthides, a peace lantern held in the leader’s mouth. From the other, the wildclaw wartroupe in charge of local security. They met before Linaria and exchanged bows. Gramni waved at the familiar faces: her clan, who broke ranks to sweep her into a rolling, tumbling, rollicking hug.
“Ack! Little troublemaker!”
“We were worried! C’mere!”
“You and that nose! What’s all this! So green!”
“Did they hurt you? We’ll show ‘em!”
The wildclaws watched this, impassive. One cleared his throat.
“Earthshaker teach us patience...so, did our Gramni cause ya trouble?”
Linaria shook their head while the lead wildclaw nodded. The latter spoke first, threading a growl through his words. “Highly secure tunnel. Seems unlikely someone would breach it by mistake. Lucky our druid was nearby, yes?”
“Secure! Me’n mine could teach you a thing about that, I think!” This was the clan lead, a massive (for a dusthide) drake with a head like a god’s own shovel. She clicked her left foreclaws. “No wonder she broke through! As is, you’ll have leaks here in...ehhhh...six months.”
The wildclaw’s growl intensified. “The Mother goes where She wills. We follow Her roots. Do you doubt Her wisdom?”
“The roots’re fine, but they’re, y’know, roots.” She knocked on one, earning a glare from the wildclaw. “Love the water. Your tunnels don’t. Now, get some bracings in here, half-competent drainage-”
“YOUR WHELP INTRUDED.”
“OH IT’S A FIGHT YOU WANT?”
“SILENCE!” The cavern rumbled with Linaria’s roar. “I—quiet, please. It’s clear Gramni was following the smell of growth, and if anything that’s a compliment. And, well, we have been having some issues with flooding.”
They poked a hole into the soft earth of the cavern, scratching at the rock beneath. “We are, all of us, beyond the borders of our Flights. The splitting sea is buffer territory and--technically--none of us should be here.”
The lead dusthide loosed a low, whuffling growl as they reared up on their tail. “We’re not trying to invade! We’re just a bit east of the Breach, and that thanks to all the quakes! What about your roots then?”
The wildclaw bristled. “Ours! We are Hers! The Behemoth thirsts, and we tend it, wherever She may lead. Life must spread as it will.”
“Spread life, that’s all? Mierre’d teach you a thing or two. Oh, the stories I could tell--”
The wildclaw blinked. “You have a druid?”
“Yeah, whatever that is! Definitely! The finest druid you’ll meet! Mierre, c’mon up.” The young dusthide was brought forward, her face buried in her tail. “please I just like mushrooms oh gods”. But it was hard to make it out beneath the boisterous babble of the rest of the clan, all patting her and gesturing towards the doubtlessly grand mushrooms in the tunnels beyond.
Linaria and the wildclaw exchanged a look. “Maybe Mierre and I can have some words, druid to druid.” Gramni gave Mierre a reassuring claws-up as she was lifted up and over to Linaria’s far side for a quieter, more sedate discussion. A few minutes later, they raised their head and nodded. “This one has shared the call. While I’ll inspect for myself, tunnel size permitting, it seems growth on their end is well-managed, and we can learn quite a bit from one another. I see no reason not to call this meeting appointed and friendship anointed. And perhaps, given this is a buffer zone, best kept discrete for the moment?”
The dusthides, who'd been nodding to this point, switched to mutterings instead. “Not too keen on the cloak and claw stuff, to be honest…”
Gramni looked to Mierre, then to Linaria, then nodded. She swept her wings out to the clan. “Well, uh, secrecy shmecrecy...but it sounds like they’re gonna do right by Mierre. And maybe by the rest of us, too.” She nodded at Linaria. “They were sharing their grubs and, I gotta say, they were good! And, uh, it’s been a little lonely since we had to come out this way, what with the quakes and all. And yeah, I guess technically treaties and buffers and all that surface stuff. So...yeah, but that doesn’t have to mean going quiet. It can mean tall tales. And we'll make the tallest tales we can, so when it’s time for everyone else to realize the tales weren’t tall at all…”
“They'll know we discovered a forest that grows without the sun?”
“That one of ours's a druid trained in forbidden mushroom arts?”
“...and she trained forbidden mushroom arts right back!”
“That we're friends with a dragon whose eyes are bigger than our heads?”
“And they gave us delicious buttery grubs nearly as big!”
“And that we STOPPED THEIR WHOLE REGION FROM FLOODING!”
The clan lead nodded and stomped. “Now we're talking! That’s our Gramni! That’s our Mierre! That’s our CLAN! I’m in! Who’s in!”
“IN!”
“I’M IN!”
And just like that, the cavern was full of rollicking and bouncing, up the walls and down the roots, celebration, presentation of a pile of dried mushrooms to Mierre (in Gramni’s case, at least), and general joyous cacophony.
The wildclaw gave Linaria a look. They returned it, a little sheepish. “...the Mother guides, right?”
Formatted loosely after the ancient short stories (it's about the same length as the Aberration short story, the narrow post boxes make it look long). Dividers are from Bluedragon's resource thread!
Tunnels, Twined
Beneath a trench scored by a god, in a scar in the earth that oozed muck and magic. Gramni licked dirt from her claws. Hints of saltwater, humic acid, and something she couldn’t quite place. Exciting! She’d seen maps from the surface, knew about the “river” on Dragonhome’s eastern shore, but maps were dull, dead things. Here she could feel its moisture and taste its age and magic. It was alien. Cold and deep and green and alive.
Now Mierre, she loved alive. Couldn’t get enough of the stuff! Couldn’t go three steps in her tunnels without tripping on a mushroom! So when Gramni was off tunneling and smelled aliveness, her first thought was: I’m gonna get her some of that. Really big mushroom. No, TWO really big mushrooms, THREE, and--
Gramni smacked nose-first into a root. No? She’d dug below the water, deep as the ancient drop-off and deeper still. She poked at it. Not a rock sound. She could go back and ask...or she could get a little past the “root” into whatever was behind it. Because right behind its was a not-so-solid sound. And not-so-solid means hollow. And hollow meant mushrooms. So a one, a twooo, a one two three!
With a crashing headbutt, Gramni popped through the rock into the chamber beyond. Open air! She rolled up on reflex, bouncing off the downslope and careening up the opposing side. It was dense and damp and squishy, and when Gramni unrolled herself, soft and deep as a blanket. “Whoa, what?”
“WHAT?” came an answering cry. “Who? What!? Who are you? Did you come through the wall?”
Gramni whipped around, tail and neck both zooping up straight. “WHOOPS I DIDN’T KNOW THIS WAS A BURROW!”
“It’s n--wait, slow down. Let me get a look at you.” A vast something slithered down from a tunnel above Gramni, unwinding and unwinding and unwinding itself as she stood stock-straight. Its eyes were big as her head, deep as a pit, frightfully green. “Earth! But you hardly look like an invasion force.”
“I-what! No! I just thought I smelled mushrooms maybe!” Gramni’s claws tore at the growth beneath her as she suppressed the primal urge to flee or fight. The thing’s body rippled with growth, bioluminescent, a patchwork frenzy of light and life that crowded in on all sides as it coiled tighter around her...
“Oh! Well! Not to put too fine a point on it, what are you then?”
“A DRAGON” Gramni shrilled.
“No, well yes, I am too--”
“NAH BUT YOU’RE WAY TOO BIG?”
“I—oh! Sorry! Yes!” And the massive dragon uncoiled from Gramni, thrashing their bulk into a tunnel until only a ponderous head protruded. “Sorry, I must’ve given you a fright! Okay then, you’re not a wildclaw, snapper, uh, what else is there? Tundra, fae?”
That snapped Gramni out of it. “You’ve never seen a dusthide before? You’re underground!”
“Yes, we are! But given this is the Rootbed...” they stared at Gramni meaningfully. She stared back. “I mean, you’re here, aren’t you? Dug into it?”
Gramni pulled herself upright with an air of slight indignation. “I thought I smelled mushrooms!”
“Oh dear. Well, let’s get back to camp. I’m afraid we have politicking to do.”
The “camp” was equal parts lively and cozy, a cavern crammed with plants and bustling with dragons of all sorts. Gramni had adjusted quickly to their attentions: some took measurements, some asked her to try breaking this rock or that, some offered her bugs to snack on. Between all these, she found time to gossip with her new friend. They were Linaria, a druid of great experience, perhaps not in all matters. But they were trying.
“So, you and Mierre! You’re gathering mushrooms to woo them?”
“NO! I mean, she just means a lot to me, yeah?”
Linaria nodded wisely, dislodging a clump of moss they pressed back on. “Ah! And flower language does have a mushroom dialect!” They pulled out a few dried specimens. “Would you describe things more as warm and welcome? Strange, but familiar, but familiar like one rain to the next? Perhaps the sensation of smelling home while far from it, and in that moment, knowing exactly how long the road back is?”
“What? No, uh, maybe? It’s more like...you know the saga of Fardelver Margo?”
“No, who’s th--oh, here they come.”
A hush fell on the camp. From one entrance, a troupe of dusthides, a peace lantern held in the leader’s mouth. From the other, the wildclaw wartroupe in charge of local security. They met before Linaria and exchanged bows. Gramni waved at the familiar faces: her clan, who broke ranks to sweep her into a rolling, tumbling, rollicking hug.
“Ack! Little troublemaker!”
“We were worried! C’mere!”
“You and that nose! What’s all this! So green!”
“Did they hurt you? We’ll show ‘em!”
The wildclaws watched this, impassive. One cleared his throat.
“Earthshaker teach us patience...so, did our Gramni cause ya trouble?”
Linaria shook their head while the lead wildclaw nodded. The latter spoke first, threading a growl through his words. “Highly secure tunnel. Seems unlikely someone would breach it by mistake. Lucky our druid was nearby, yes?”
“Secure! Me’n mine could teach you a thing about that, I think!” This was the clan lead, a massive (for a dusthide) drake with a head like a god’s own shovel. She clicked her left foreclaws. “No wonder she broke through! As is, you’ll have leaks here in...ehhhh...six months.”
The wildclaw’s growl intensified. “The Mother goes where She wills. We follow Her roots. Do you doubt Her wisdom?”
“The roots’re fine, but they’re, y’know, roots.” She knocked on one, earning a glare from the wildclaw. “Love the water. Your tunnels don’t. Now, get some bracings in here, half-competent drainage-”
“YOUR WHELP INTRUDED.”
“OH IT’S A FIGHT YOU WANT?”
“SILENCE!” The cavern rumbled with Linaria’s roar. “I—quiet, please. It’s clear Gramni was following the smell of growth, and if anything that’s a compliment. And, well, we have been having some issues with flooding.”
They poked a hole into the soft earth of the cavern, scratching at the rock beneath. “We are, all of us, beyond the borders of our Flights. The splitting sea is buffer territory and--technically--none of us should be here.”
The lead dusthide loosed a low, whuffling growl as they reared up on their tail. “We’re not trying to invade! We’re just a bit east of the Breach, and that thanks to all the quakes! What about your roots then?”
The wildclaw bristled. “Ours! We are Hers! The Behemoth thirsts, and we tend it, wherever She may lead. Life must spread as it will.”
“Spread life, that’s all? Mierre’d teach you a thing or two. Oh, the stories I could tell--”
The wildclaw blinked. “You have a druid?”
“Yeah, whatever that is! Definitely! The finest druid you’ll meet! Mierre, c’mon up.” The young dusthide was brought forward, her face buried in her tail. “please I just like mushrooms oh gods”. But it was hard to make it out beneath the boisterous babble of the rest of the clan, all patting her and gesturing towards the doubtlessly grand mushrooms in the tunnels beyond.
Linaria and the wildclaw exchanged a look. “Maybe Mierre and I can have some words, druid to druid.” Gramni gave Mierre a reassuring claws-up as she was lifted up and over to Linaria’s far side for a quieter, more sedate discussion. A few minutes later, they raised their head and nodded. “This one has shared the call. While I’ll inspect for myself, tunnel size permitting, it seems growth on their end is well-managed, and we can learn quite a bit from one another. I see no reason not to call this meeting appointed and friendship anointed. And perhaps, given this is a buffer zone, best kept discrete for the moment?”
The dusthides, who'd been nodding to this point, switched to mutterings instead. “Not too keen on the cloak and claw stuff, to be honest…”
Gramni looked to Mierre, then to Linaria, then nodded. She swept her wings out to the clan. “Well, uh, secrecy shmecrecy...but it sounds like they’re gonna do right by Mierre. And maybe by the rest of us, too.” She nodded at Linaria. “They were sharing their grubs and, I gotta say, they were good! And, uh, it’s been a little lonely since we had to come out this way, what with the quakes and all. And yeah, I guess technically treaties and buffers and all that surface stuff. So...yeah, but that doesn’t have to mean going quiet. It can mean tall tales. And we'll make the tallest tales we can, so when it’s time for everyone else to realize the tales weren’t tall at all…”
“They'll know we discovered a forest that grows without the sun?”
“That one of ours's a druid trained in forbidden mushroom arts?”
“...and she trained forbidden mushroom arts right back!”
“That we're friends with a dragon whose eyes are bigger than our heads?”
“And they gave us delicious buttery grubs nearly as big!”
“And that we STOPPED THEIR WHOLE REGION FROM FLOODING!”
The clan lead nodded and stomped. “Now we're talking! That’s our Gramni! That’s our Mierre! That’s our CLAN! I’m in! Who’s in!”
“IN!”
“I’M IN!”
And just like that, the cavern was full of rollicking and bouncing, up the walls and down the roots, celebration, presentation of a pile of dried mushrooms to Mierre (in Gramni’s case, at least), and general joyous cacophony.
The wildclaw gave Linaria a look. They returned it, a little sheepish. “...the Mother guides, right?”
Make This the Dusthide short story, Devs!!
Give a like if you think they're cool--->
Reminds me of the Reset Bomb Forest from Kid Icarus Uprising, which is very spooky and very pink
[img]https://imgur.com/g20fOmk.png[/img]
[img]https://imgur.com/s8hDMD1.png[/img]
Reminds me of the Reset Bomb Forest from Kid Icarus Uprising, which is very spooky and very pink
I love the idea of underground settlements in The Behemoth's roots, the tree this big must have created something not only above, but below too, and this Dusthide short story is awesome!
I love the idea of underground settlements in The Behemoth's roots, the tree this big must have created something not only above, but below too, and this Dusthide short story is awesome!
