The roots of the Behemoth twist and turn through the whole of Nature, and even this deep underground, Her reach is spread far and wide. The many Nature dragons on our journey take comfort in her presence, but Nature is not the flight of nurture. Even in its roots, no one is safe from the wrath of the land.
Taiga, Florasighth, Hawthorn, Maolin, Raijin
Hawthorn led the way down the path, doing his best to follow the path outlined in the map to find the outpost he had seen ahead. The other four followed in his footsteps, the tension thick and weighing down on their shoulders like an overfilled backpack.
After a few minutes of silence, Florasighth turns to look at Maolin. “What did you mean by that? That ‘This wouldn’t be the first time’?” she questioned. Maolin looked a bit surprised, before scratching her chin.
“Did I say that out loud…? I didn’t realize.” She smiles, but it doesn’t reach her eyes. “I guess this just isn’t my first encounter with one of Lionheart’s ‘adventures’. I should have known this expedition was trouble when I saw him sitting at the podium.”
“Lionheart?” Taiga asks.
“The uh, what was he this time, a ridgeback? Yes, the ridgeback who told us about spelunking and scorpions and such.” She scrunched her nose, trying to remember as much as she could about him. “Before, he was a pearlcatcher, and before that, he was a spiral… The events have always been exceptionally dangerous, much moreso than other expeditions I’ve been on. Always understaffed and under supplied, too.”
Hawthorns frills twitch as he listens in on the conversation, but does not contribute. He needs to focus on bringing them to the waypoint. “Now that I think about it, I think he was looking for flowers on the other expeditions too…”
“A flower?” one of Raijin’s heads questions. “What kind of treasure is a flower?” The two heads squint at each other as they walk. “If he can muster up all these people to do these, ‘adventures’,” Raijin’s right head emphasizes the last word, “why does he not get dragons to find things or actual value?” “Like gold?” “Or ancient powerful weapons?” “Or powerful magic scrolls?” The two heads of Raijin chatter excitedly as they think of all the cool things they’d love to pilfer in their treasure-hunting hijinks.
“Why do you keep going on these expeditions if they’re supposedly so dangerous?” Taiga asks, eyeridge raised suspiciously.
“I go on
many expeditions, not just the ones run by Lionheart,” she explains. “He’s just happened to be the lead on a few of them.”
Hawthorn feels along the wall, feeling carvings in the wall. Places where flowers roots would have grown, once upon a time. “We’re almost there,” he pipes up. “Stay close.”
The group hushes as they eagerly follow Hawthorn, eager to get some relief from the crushing claustrophobia of the tunnels. Maolin is grateful that the attention is no longer on her. After a few more minutes of walking, the group are surprised to see part of the wall give way to a giant root. To the collection of Nature dragons, it’s obvious this is one of the many roots of the Behemoth, and a massive one at that. After walking about 100ft along the side of the root, the group come across an opening carved into the side of the root.
“We’re here.”
Lertes, Sunrise, Myrdin, Sapphire, Krill
Though clearly smoothed down by many claws before them, the twisting wooden floor of the root below allows a much better purchase for the dragons than the stones of the prior caverns. Besides, wouldn’t a flower prefer the base of a tree to cold, unending rock? The Nature dragons feel more at home here within the tree roots than they had in the cave proper; Myrdin especially feels at peace among the pith, pleasantly dwarfed by what could only be the roots of the Behemoth herself.
While Myrdin slowly strides along the path, reaching out to trace the wall with his tail and listening to the persistent reverb of his claws clicking against the floor, the other Ridgeback of the group has taken to the wing, skillfully navigating the tight space - for a while. As they continue down the root tunnel, the walls begin to close in on them, forcing Krill to the ground rather abruptly. They keep going on foot for some time, the space continuing to get narrower until the larger dragons can stretch out their wings and touch the walls on either side of them.
Krill, disgruntled by being landbound, continues to push through the cave, almost barreling right past something peculiar, but as he moves past, a gleam indicating something shiny catches his eye.
He backtracks, noticing a small divot in the wall. Without hesitation, he sticks in his hand, roughly poking around with his claws until something small and smooth slips against his fingers. Quickly retreating his hand, he stares down in confusion at a silver key, a green badge indicating it belonged to the Everbloom Resort hanging from it. How did that get way down here? His red eyes narrow in suspicion. There’s faint writing on the badge indicating that the key is for “Unit 450,” and then, fainter, in clearly removable ink, two letters: “L.H.” Lionheart!
As he turns to show the others his evidence, he hears a soft scraping noise from beside him… almost pouring out of the hole are thousands of ants, their black carapaces littered with shimmering stones, chunks of metal, and items that had surely once belonged to dragons. Now disturbed, they descend on Krill, crawling up his scales effortlessly to swarm him. Although most are unsuccessful at piercing his thick scales, a few are able to sting him, and those numbers add up quickly.
Sapphire watches in horror at the front of the group, quickly flaring his wings to stop the rest of the group from getting any closer.
As the ants march mercilessly up the length of his long neck, Krill realizes in dismay that he can’t wriggle free. Scowling, he flings the key in the direction of the group and activates his ring, shouting to the rest even as he disappears: “This has to do with Lionheart somehow - find out what he’s plotting!”
The key drops right at Lertes’ claws; he reluctantly grabs it, viridian eyes narrowed as he watches to make sure the ants don’t redirect their ire to him. But with the immediate danger to their hive gone, the swarm disperses just as quickly as it had arrived.
The rest of the dragons shudder, the phantom feeling of thousands of tiny legs dancing over their scales as they move on.
Chiastolite, Petra, Gild, BeautifulPoison
“The path splits in two?”
“The river does, yes,” Gild explained. “There’s no other exits to this route except continuing downstream.” She scratches at her chest, trying to hide the building anxiety. “I tried going down one stream already for a minute. I was coming back up to check the other fork when I heard the screaming.”
“Then, we’ll just do what we did before. Split in two groups and each walk a few minutes down the river.” Petra looks around as she says this, looking for the approval of the others. Everyone appears nervous. “We’ll backtrack and meet back at the fork, and discuss how we want to proceed.”
“It’s worked once,” Beautiful Poison agreed.
Gild agrees. Something just isn’t right, and as much as Gild would like to continue treating this as a race, he thinks they’re all better off sticking together for now. Gild guides them to the fork in the river, creating a Y shape in the rock. The pink glow only reaches so far before one path fades to darkness, and the other is hidden around a bend.
Gild and Petra take the path on the right, and Chiastolite and Beautiful Poison take the left path. The girls tread carefully through the water, careful not to slip on the rock floor. The river gets deeper, coming up to their mid-torsos by the time they reach the end of the river.
The river on this side dumps into a sizable underwater lake. The surface of the lake is calm, and more tree roots with glowing mushrooms growing on them decorate the ceiling above. The ceiling is too low to fly, and the stalactites dangling above would prove too difficult to navigate around.
The skydancers look at each other for a moment, Chiastolite nodding and wading into the lake. Beautiful Poison is right behind her. The two don’t get far before stopping, each one kicking multiple stalagmites underwater.
“Ow! What are we even kicking?” Beautiful Poison asks, wincing. That one was gonna bruise. “It doesn’t look like there’s anything there!”
Chiastolite shakes her head. “You’re telling me. I can’t even see my own hand under here.” To make her point, Chiastolite raises her hand out of the water. The water reflects her hand eerily as it rises above the surface, looking as if two arms were sprouting out of each other, rather than a single object rising from below the surface.
“...It’s a perfect reflection,” Beautiful Poison murmers. “We can’t see what we’re hitting because it’s physically impossible to see under the water.” She looks down at the water’s surface, then back up to Chiastolite. “I’m going to take a look. Stay here.”
Chiastolite nods as Beautiful Poison dunks her body under the water, opening her eyes underwater. It’s dark, but not pitch black; the pink glow of the mushrooms doesn't penetrate more than a few feet under the surface of the water. She can make out glowing shapes moving about the water, and swims closer to investigate.
The shape turns suddenly towards her, its fins shimmering and pulsing in a way that should be unnatural. Beautiful Poison flinches, but quickly she hears a voice in her mind.
You’re looking for a flower… a rare, beautiful flower indeed… Swim closer… I will show you where the flower is… Do not resist…. Come closer...
Beautiful Poison shakes her head slightly, trying to resist, but it’s as if her body moves of its own will, slowly moving towards the shimmering white fish in front of her. Once she gets close enough, the fins on the fish open and expand, wrapping around her face.
Beautiful Poison tries to scream, the air escaping her mouth and bubbling back up to the surface as she thrashes. It’s not long before a long, thin arm reaches down, slender fingers wrapping around her own and pulling her to the surface, once again face-to-face with Chiastolite. The other skydancer attempts to dig her fingers between the fins of the strange white fish and Beautiful Poison’s face. Both girls work together to pry the strange creature off her face, it falling into the water with a squeal and a splash before disappearing under the pristine mirror-like surface of the water again.
Beautiful Poison heaves. Between the scorpion attacking Serenity and now this, Beautiful Poison decides she’s had enough. “I, I have to go,” she stutters, reaching for the ring around her finger. This journey is no longer worth the price of that flower.
“Wait—” Chisatolite tries to stop her, but in a flash of pink light, the other skydancer is gone, leaving Chiastolite alone in the underground lake. Not wanting to take her chances with whatever had attacked Beautiful Poison, Chiastolite heads back the way she came. She can’t swim back fast enough, ignoring the stinging pain in her legs as she scrapes them against rock in her scramble to return upstream.
Another video game reference, this one to
the mesmer from Subnautica. This game had a vice grip on me for 3 weeks recently, and this particular enemy scared the living daylights out of me thr first time I came across it.
Did you know that water in caves is perfectly reflective? Something something no sunlight means the light doesn’t penetrate the water, only bounce off of it. Our tour guide told us about it when I toured the caverns, but that was almost 2 years ago, so the details are fuzzy. Here’s a picture of this phenomenon in action!
Aid and sabotage cutoff is
09:00 for round 5. As a reminder, if you send an aid before rollover tonight, you get the following badge:
And if you send a sabotage before rollover tonight, you get the following badge:
If you send in an aid
after rollover tonight, you get the following badge:
If you send in a sabotage
after rollover tonight, you get the following badge:
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