Cheep!?
Chapter 135
Niko pulled himself up out of a burrow between roots, stretching his legs and flexing his wings. He and Skye had taken a break, catching a quick nap and eating some of their dried rations. They had plenty of fresh food, but neither had been in the mood to find a decent enough area to set up camp. It was likely that they were going to need to find an actual secure location to stay overnight – whenever that was, considering the forest floor never fully went dark – since the map was beginning to look more and more like a lost cause.
They’d found what had appeared to be some kind of spiraling rock, larger than the surrounding trees, but they didn’t approach any closer. The map had an abundance of ‘x’ marks near the thing, suggesting perhaps danger. Niko didn’t disagree, finding his sight flaring with essence even from afar, with much of that essence roiling beneath the surface. It was too dense even to see through, and with many polluting signatures that made parsing it well beyond his abilities. He assumed that meant it was some kind of hive of sorts, but not of hornets. What they actually were was beyond him, but he had no interest in making more trouble for themselves.
However, there was also supposed to be a route upwards nearby, but Niko was frustrated to find that the supposed exit was missing entirely. They’d combed the area for hours then, before taking a break, but even as he looked upwards to the fog, he didn’t understand how they could have missed it. The path looked like a huge ramp of a fallen tree, going upwards, either a fallen titanwood or one that had grown sideways. No matter the case, there certainly wasn’t one here now, and he had to wonder if that was the mapmakers fault, or if perhaps there was something else going on.
He was leaning towards the Dawr being incompetent at this point, if only because he hated the blighted things.
“Well, that was nice enough,” Skye stretched, before pulling out the map once more, “Come take a look with me.”
Niko did as bidden while still grumbling to himself. If he got a hold of some more goblins, he’d have to give them a piece of his mind.
Skye noticed, but only gave him a smirk before tapping the page, “If we assume that the map isn’t completely wrong, then this is where we are now.”
“Big ‘if’, all things considered.” Niko muttered.
“Yes, but we can at least confirm it now,” Skye, tutting at the Phorus, “Don’t get too down over one miss.”
Niko resisted the urge to keep grumbling, but knew he wasn’t helping, and so he just gave a mild cluck and nodded to her.
She accepted that, “So, we go west – probably west? – from here and see if we hit this mushroom looking thing, there’s supposed to be an exit right afterwards.”
Following along, Niko added, “And we can check if the map’s the problem, or if something else is.”
The half-elf folded up the map, “Yup. You ready?”
Niko chirped in the positive, before the two began on their way. They kept their individual attentions on the area around,them rapidly leaving the strange rock formation behind. Whatever it was, it was certainly strong enough to weather the flood from before, unless the flood waters hadn’t reached this far. Niko still didn’t know how often or how widespread such an event was, but they kept their attention on the area around them often. Fights were far more common now too, so they assumed that there wasn’t likely supposed to be another flood for some time.
Unfortunately, due to their relatively low tier, everything that successfully detected them wanted to fight. It was only thanks to their ability to remain undetected to most things that they weren’t bogged down by constant encounters. Even with the situation as it was, they didn’t divert their path every time something happened to be prowling on the forest floor. They took fights with the uncommon tier two monsters and beasts they found virtually every time, but they selected their tier three fights much more carefully. Equal or barely higher numbers were fine, but some traveled in larger groups. They’d only gone after one tier four thus far, and only because it was alone, as such they’d been able to get the drop on it and swing the battle in their favor immediately. Other tier fours, like the ones that were sitting in ambush, or a great, lumbering thing that Niko felt confident would be an incredibly difficult fight, were strictly off limits for now. While hiding spots were plentiful, the question of whether they would be able to flee from an invested tier four was always in question.
With their steady increase in power, though, they were looking forward to when they could potentially challenge the tier fours on at least a more reasonable level. At the rate they were gathering essence, even Niko with his seemingly endless needs for essence felt that it wouldn’t be unreasonable for them to reach the next tier sooner, rather than later.
The two of them stopped several times along the way, attacking tier threes they found, most of the time being Thimurge. The creatures appeared to be the most common down here, and while the tier threes traveled in smaller numbers, they were equally hardier targets. They possessed the ability to manipulate plant life around them, but they seemed unable to work with the titanwoods themselves, thankfully. Otherwise, Niko didn’t think they’d be able to fight them at all. Skye seemed to have precognition against them, reacting to their plant-based attacks before they even made them. Apparently the plants liked her more than they liked the Thimurge, which Niko found to be a mixture of amusing and incredibly unfortunate for the insectoid-like creatures. It just so happened that the two of them were able to more or less counter anything they could throw at them, so long as the numbers weren’t too skewed.
Five tier three Thimurge, for example, pushed the limits of what they could do without incurring any real injuries. A few times they’d made mistakes, but aside from some bruises and light scratches, Niko and Skye remained in fighting condition. Both of them were durable enough to tank hits and keep moving, and agile enough to keep avoiding heavier strikes that might prove problematic. Hours had gone by between their travel and repeated battles, and the two had to stop then for another bout of rest before continuing.
“We’re getting closer,” Skye’s voice reverberated in Niko’s mind.
He clucked in acknowledgement but didn’t see what she saw. Everything looked more or less the same to his eyes, essence and mundane alike. It was only after a few more minutes of travel that Niko began to notice bigger changes in the local flora. Where in most locations there were sparse fungal growths, the ground here possessed more of them, and in greater varieties. He noticed that there was an incline as well, and that had been steadily bringing them higher and higher. Niko began to feel hopeful that they might have found a route upwards.
“The map wasn’t dotted in ‘x’s’ around this one, right?” Niko asked Skye mentally, not recalling off hand what it said.
She shook her head, “Nothing like that. If anything, it seemed they just weren’t really interested in the place.”
‘That’d be nice if that’s true.’ Niko thought to himself, ‘Might be a good place to camp out if we need to.’
The two slowed down as the incline rose sharply, the tree roots tangling with new and broad growth of mycelium that formed something of a ridgeline. It wasn’t vertical, though, and Niko felt that the essence here was toeing the line between tier four and tier five. That made them nervous, but after a quick deliberation, they silently climbed on, pace slowing to a crawl. Neither had seen any indication of a tier five creature around, but then, neither really knew what that might look like. If they did find one, they hoped that it would see them as so far beneath it that it simply wouldn’t bother.
With that in mind, they crested the top of the hill and simultaneously froze.
“That’s a lot of mushrooms.” Niko blankly stated aloud, staring out at the veritable forest of fungus, entire titanwoods covered in sheaths of broad capped growth. The air was rich with spores, floating and even glowing with bioluminescence. It was beautiful in a way, but he couldn’t help but feel nervous looking at the particles, wondering how many of them would take root in flesh as well as any other place. Movement caught his eye below, and Niko blinked again as he saw tens of creatures roaming around. Some he recognized from before, not the least of which were Thimurge, but others too. The packs of Thimurge navigated between tall stalks of mushrooms, forming forests within forests, only barely visible to Niko through his essence sight and the occasional flashes between the shorter canopy therein. From their vantage point, Niko could make out their hunts, and in turn them being hunted.
Prowling wolves, similar to the Greenhound he’d seen so long ago, moved alone in the underbrush. He’d been uncertain before if they were more plant than beast, but here the distinction blurred even further. Mushrooms grew from their fibrous fur, and the beasts moved around with an expert grace, the fungal forest moving subtly around them to give them easy passage. Aside from them, there were other creatures, but what surprised Niko was that most lacked any sort of mushroom or plant growth upon them at all.
“Maybe it’s not aggressive growth at all?” Niko tilted his head as he looked in on things.
Skye hummed, but said nothing as she slipped back down the embankment, putting the sight out of her vision. Niko followed, looking to her curiously as she pulled out a pair of oiled wraps.
Comprehension dawning, Niko nodded and leaned his head in closer. She wrapped the oiled cloth around his beak, making sure to cover him as tightly as possible. Skye did the same for herself after, before pulling out a flask of pale liquid. Silently, she also tied off a rope to her waist, and then down into a knot of roots beneath her.
“I’m going to slip over a short distance to see what happens. If it goes unresponsive or I start going deeper, pull me back.” Skye gestured to the rope, “Hopefully our mental connection will let you know if something weird starts happening that I don’t notice, but it’s better to be safe.”
Niko warbled concernedly, but understood that this was probably the only decent way to test this. It wasn’t as though she’d be able to pull him up nearly as easily as the inverse.
Together, they ascended once more, but Niko felt his concern rising as she stepped over the top of the ridge. For a moment, he half expected the mushroom forest to rumble at the intrusion, but if anything noticed Skye’s presence, it certainly didn’t show it. She slid down the incline after testing her foot holds, but there didn’t seem to be any trap to keep anything that came into the area from leaving.
She poured the liquid from the flask on her arms, and then on the ground itself, a generous amount. Then, she sat down, simply waiting and watching, with Niko doing the same with as much patience as he could muster.
It was simultaneously the most boring and stressful ten minutes of Niko’s life, as the fluid gradually turned transparent, before going totally silver. Still, neither moved, Skye’s voice ringing out, “It’s nontoxic, and doesn’t seem to be having any immediate negative effect, but we’ll give it a little longer.”
Niko swallowed hard at that, watching the fluid on her arm as it changed color slowly, going from silver to a bone white. This time, it took almost half an hour for the transition to complete, but when it was finished, Niko felt relief flood the link between the two of them.
“No parasitic agent beyond what could be expected from a harmless fungus. I’m going to need to restock on this stuff later, but it’s worth knowing.” Skye stated as she rose, stretching her stiffening limbs, “Alright… I’m going to take off the mask, wait five minutes, then come back up. If I come up with any reason to do otherwise, pull me up.”
The Phorus shuffled uncomfortably at that, remembering well what he’d felt in the Daurghast. Somehow, he doubted it would take five minutes if there was an effect, but he kept his thoughts to himself. He had a direct link to Skye, after all, and was confident enough in his ability to get to her and get out quickly.
The half-elf took off her face mask, taking in a few slow, shallow breaths at first. She communicated with Niko all the while, giving seemingly obvious reports of her condition. Three minutes in, she added, “I’m going to use my pattern to try to see what the plants are like.”
Before Niko could suggest she wait, he felt her essence pattern activate. He tensed, seeing the essence in the plants all around her respond. After a second, though, nothing happened, and Niko felt across at the connection between them with an insistent poke.
“Seems… fine? The plants here are a little more codependent than other places, but they seem to be healthy and well nourished. Nothing unusual happening from what I can tell.” Skye looked around, “Lots of different types of mushrooms, so there’s no super-organism dominating all of them, though there does seem to be one around here. It hasn’t responded to me, though, so I don’t think it cares.”
“Skye, I know you’re pretty in on this whole plant-talk thing,” Niko began, feeling his nerves shoot up ever higher, “But, telling me there’s a super-organism around and that it doesn’t care about your presence does not make me feel better.”
Amusement played back across their connection, “Relax, it’s fine. I’m coming back up now, it’s close enough to five minutes.”
With that said, Niko watched Skye make her way back up with no problems whatsoever. The fungal forest didn’t come alive with activity, nothing tried to bar her way, and most importantly, no ‘super-organism’ tried to assimilate Niko’s friend.
“Seems fine?” Skye shrugged, “Anything from your end?”
“Existential terror and I may molt from stress, but we’re good otherwise.” Niko clucked dryly, “Super-organism, really?”
She rolled her eyes at that, “Niko, there’s a mushroom network the size of Riizen in there. It really could care less that we even exist.”
Niko was having a great deal of trouble trying to explain why that concept was not sitting well with him, when he decided that he might well have been overreacting. Earth had huge spanning colonies of mushrooms, but they didn’t have the possibility to be a thinking creature like here. That said, he did recognize that he might have been poisoned by popular depictions of fungus taking over people’s brains and puppeting them like zombies to further their propagation.
“Alright, alright, fair enough,” Niko trilled, “So, looks like the map isn’t completely screwed, right? Where’s the exit?” He changed the subject.
Skye whipped out the map, before humming in thought, “Looks like… somewhere in there?”
“Right, so they’re still incompetent.” Niko replied with blasé, “Alright, I guess get this cloth off my face and we’ll head down. If you notice your super-organism getting hungry, don’t keep it to yourself, yeah?”
Cheep!?
Chapter 135
Niko pulled himself up out of a burrow between roots, stretching his legs and flexing his wings. He and Skye had taken a break, catching a quick nap and eating some of their dried rations. They had plenty of fresh food, but neither had been in the mood to find a decent enough area to set up camp. It was likely that they were going to need to find an actual secure location to stay overnight – whenever that was, considering the forest floor never fully went dark – since the map was beginning to look more and more like a lost cause.
They’d found what had appeared to be some kind of spiraling rock, larger than the surrounding trees, but they didn’t approach any closer. The map had an abundance of ‘x’ marks near the thing, suggesting perhaps danger. Niko didn’t disagree, finding his sight flaring with essence even from afar, with much of that essence roiling beneath the surface. It was too dense even to see through, and with many polluting signatures that made parsing it well beyond his abilities. He assumed that meant it was some kind of hive of sorts, but not of hornets. What they actually were was beyond him, but he had no interest in making more trouble for themselves.
However, there was also supposed to be a route upwards nearby, but Niko was frustrated to find that the supposed exit was missing entirely. They’d combed the area for hours then, before taking a break, but even as he looked upwards to the fog, he didn’t understand how they could have missed it. The path looked like a huge ramp of a fallen tree, going upwards, either a fallen titanwood or one that had grown sideways. No matter the case, there certainly wasn’t one here now, and he had to wonder if that was the mapmakers fault, or if perhaps there was something else going on.
He was leaning towards the Dawr being incompetent at this point, if only because he hated the blighted things.
“Well, that was nice enough,” Skye stretched, before pulling out the map once more, “Come take a look with me.”
Niko did as bidden while still grumbling to himself. If he got a hold of some more goblins, he’d have to give them a piece of his mind.
Skye noticed, but only gave him a smirk before tapping the page, “If we assume that the map isn’t completely wrong, then this is where we are now.”
“Big ‘if’, all things considered.” Niko muttered.
“Yes, but we can at least confirm it now,” Skye, tutting at the Phorus, “Don’t get too down over one miss.”
Niko resisted the urge to keep grumbling, but knew he wasn’t helping, and so he just gave a mild cluck and nodded to her.
She accepted that, “So, we go west – probably west? – from here and see if we hit this mushroom looking thing, there’s supposed to be an exit right afterwards.”
Following along, Niko added, “And we can check if the map’s the problem, or if something else is.”
The half-elf folded up the map, “Yup. You ready?”
Niko chirped in the positive, before the two began on their way. They kept their individual attentions on the area around,them rapidly leaving the strange rock formation behind. Whatever it was, it was certainly strong enough to weather the flood from before, unless the flood waters hadn’t reached this far. Niko still didn’t know how often or how widespread such an event was, but they kept their attention on the area around them often. Fights were far more common now too, so they assumed that there wasn’t likely supposed to be another flood for some time.
Unfortunately, due to their relatively low tier, everything that successfully detected them wanted to fight. It was only thanks to their ability to remain undetected to most things that they weren’t bogged down by constant encounters. Even with the situation as it was, they didn’t divert their path every time something happened to be prowling on the forest floor. They took fights with the uncommon tier two monsters and beasts they found virtually every time, but they selected their tier three fights much more carefully. Equal or barely higher numbers were fine, but some traveled in larger groups. They’d only gone after one tier four thus far, and only because it was alone, as such they’d been able to get the drop on it and swing the battle in their favor immediately. Other tier fours, like the ones that were sitting in ambush, or a great, lumbering thing that Niko felt confident would be an incredibly difficult fight, were strictly off limits for now. While hiding spots were plentiful, the question of whether they would be able to flee from an invested tier four was always in question.
With their steady increase in power, though, they were looking forward to when they could potentially challenge the tier fours on at least a more reasonable level. At the rate they were gathering essence, even Niko with his seemingly endless needs for essence felt that it wouldn’t be unreasonable for them to reach the next tier sooner, rather than later.
The two of them stopped several times along the way, attacking tier threes they found, most of the time being Thimurge. The creatures appeared to be the most common down here, and while the tier threes traveled in smaller numbers, they were equally hardier targets. They possessed the ability to manipulate plant life around them, but they seemed unable to work with the titanwoods themselves, thankfully. Otherwise, Niko didn’t think they’d be able to fight them at all. Skye seemed to have precognition against them, reacting to their plant-based attacks before they even made them. Apparently the plants liked her more than they liked the Thimurge, which Niko found to be a mixture of amusing and incredibly unfortunate for the insectoid-like creatures. It just so happened that the two of them were able to more or less counter anything they could throw at them, so long as the numbers weren’t too skewed.
Five tier three Thimurge, for example, pushed the limits of what they could do without incurring any real injuries. A few times they’d made mistakes, but aside from some bruises and light scratches, Niko and Skye remained in fighting condition. Both of them were durable enough to tank hits and keep moving, and agile enough to keep avoiding heavier strikes that might prove problematic. Hours had gone by between their travel and repeated battles, and the two had to stop then for another bout of rest before continuing.
“We’re getting closer,” Skye’s voice reverberated in Niko’s mind.
He clucked in acknowledgement but didn’t see what she saw. Everything looked more or less the same to his eyes, essence and mundane alike. It was only after a few more minutes of travel that Niko began to notice bigger changes in the local flora. Where in most locations there were sparse fungal growths, the ground here possessed more of them, and in greater varieties. He noticed that there was an incline as well, and that had been steadily bringing them higher and higher. Niko began to feel hopeful that they might have found a route upwards.
“The map wasn’t dotted in ‘x’s’ around this one, right?” Niko asked Skye mentally, not recalling off hand what it said.
She shook her head, “Nothing like that. If anything, it seemed they just weren’t really interested in the place.”
‘That’d be nice if that’s true.’ Niko thought to himself, ‘Might be a good place to camp out if we need to.’
The two slowed down as the incline rose sharply, the tree roots tangling with new and broad growth of mycelium that formed something of a ridgeline. It wasn’t vertical, though, and Niko felt that the essence here was toeing the line between tier four and tier five. That made them nervous, but after a quick deliberation, they silently climbed on, pace slowing to a crawl. Neither had seen any indication of a tier five creature around, but then, neither really knew what that might look like. If they did find one, they hoped that it would see them as so far beneath it that it simply wouldn’t bother.
With that in mind, they crested the top of the hill and simultaneously froze.
“That’s a lot of mushrooms.” Niko blankly stated aloud, staring out at the veritable forest of fungus, entire titanwoods covered in sheaths of broad capped growth. The air was rich with spores, floating and even glowing with bioluminescence. It was beautiful in a way, but he couldn’t help but feel nervous looking at the particles, wondering how many of them would take root in flesh as well as any other place. Movement caught his eye below, and Niko blinked again as he saw tens of creatures roaming around. Some he recognized from before, not the least of which were Thimurge, but others too. The packs of Thimurge navigated between tall stalks of mushrooms, forming forests within forests, only barely visible to Niko through his essence sight and the occasional flashes between the shorter canopy therein. From their vantage point, Niko could make out their hunts, and in turn them being hunted.
Prowling wolves, similar to the Greenhound he’d seen so long ago, moved alone in the underbrush. He’d been uncertain before if they were more plant than beast, but here the distinction blurred even further. Mushrooms grew from their fibrous fur, and the beasts moved around with an expert grace, the fungal forest moving subtly around them to give them easy passage. Aside from them, there were other creatures, but what surprised Niko was that most lacked any sort of mushroom or plant growth upon them at all.
“Maybe it’s not aggressive growth at all?” Niko tilted his head as he looked in on things.
Skye hummed, but said nothing as she slipped back down the embankment, putting the sight out of her vision. Niko followed, looking to her curiously as she pulled out a pair of oiled wraps.
Comprehension dawning, Niko nodded and leaned his head in closer. She wrapped the oiled cloth around his beak, making sure to cover him as tightly as possible. Skye did the same for herself after, before pulling out a flask of pale liquid. Silently, she also tied off a rope to her waist, and then down into a knot of roots beneath her.
“I’m going to slip over a short distance to see what happens. If it goes unresponsive or I start going deeper, pull me back.” Skye gestured to the rope, “Hopefully our mental connection will let you know if something weird starts happening that I don’t notice, but it’s better to be safe.”
Niko warbled concernedly, but understood that this was probably the only decent way to test this. It wasn’t as though she’d be able to pull him up nearly as easily as the inverse.
Together, they ascended once more, but Niko felt his concern rising as she stepped over the top of the ridge. For a moment, he half expected the mushroom forest to rumble at the intrusion, but if anything noticed Skye’s presence, it certainly didn’t show it. She slid down the incline after testing her foot holds, but there didn’t seem to be any trap to keep anything that came into the area from leaving.
She poured the liquid from the flask on her arms, and then on the ground itself, a generous amount. Then, she sat down, simply waiting and watching, with Niko doing the same with as much patience as he could muster.
It was simultaneously the most boring and stressful ten minutes of Niko’s life, as the fluid gradually turned transparent, before going totally silver. Still, neither moved, Skye’s voice ringing out, “It’s nontoxic, and doesn’t seem to be having any immediate negative effect, but we’ll give it a little longer.”
Niko swallowed hard at that, watching the fluid on her arm as it changed color slowly, going from silver to a bone white. This time, it took almost half an hour for the transition to complete, but when it was finished, Niko felt relief flood the link between the two of them.
“No parasitic agent beyond what could be expected from a harmless fungus. I’m going to need to restock on this stuff later, but it’s worth knowing.” Skye stated as she rose, stretching her stiffening limbs, “Alright… I’m going to take off the mask, wait five minutes, then come back up. If I come up with any reason to do otherwise, pull me up.”
The Phorus shuffled uncomfortably at that, remembering well what he’d felt in the Daurghast. Somehow, he doubted it would take five minutes if there was an effect, but he kept his thoughts to himself. He had a direct link to Skye, after all, and was confident enough in his ability to get to her and get out quickly.
The half-elf took off her face mask, taking in a few slow, shallow breaths at first. She communicated with Niko all the while, giving seemingly obvious reports of her condition. Three minutes in, she added, “I’m going to use my pattern to try to see what the plants are like.”
Before Niko could suggest she wait, he felt her essence pattern activate. He tensed, seeing the essence in the plants all around her respond. After a second, though, nothing happened, and Niko felt across at the connection between them with an insistent poke.
“Seems… fine? The plants here are a little more codependent than other places, but they seem to be healthy and well nourished. Nothing unusual happening from what I can tell.” Skye looked around, “Lots of different types of mushrooms, so there’s no super-organism dominating all of them, though there does seem to be one around here. It hasn’t responded to me, though, so I don’t think it cares.”
“Skye, I know you’re pretty in on this whole plant-talk thing,” Niko began, feeling his nerves shoot up ever higher, “But, telling me there’s a super-organism around and that it doesn’t care about your presence does not make me feel better.”
Amusement played back across their connection, “Relax, it’s fine. I’m coming back up now, it’s close enough to five minutes.”
With that said, Niko watched Skye make her way back up with no problems whatsoever. The fungal forest didn’t come alive with activity, nothing tried to bar her way, and most importantly, no ‘super-organism’ tried to assimilate Niko’s friend.
“Seems fine?” Skye shrugged, “Anything from your end?”
“Existential terror and I may molt from stress, but we’re good otherwise.” Niko clucked dryly, “Super-organism, really?”
She rolled her eyes at that, “Niko, there’s a mushroom network the size of Riizen in there. It really could care less that we even exist.”
Niko was having a great deal of trouble trying to explain why that concept was not sitting well with him, when he decided that he might well have been overreacting. Earth had huge spanning colonies of mushrooms, but they didn’t have the possibility to be a thinking creature like here. That said, he did recognize that he might have been poisoned by popular depictions of fungus taking over people’s brains and puppeting them like zombies to further their propagation.
“Alright, alright, fair enough,” Niko trilled, “So, looks like the map isn’t completely screwed, right? Where’s the exit?” He changed the subject.
Skye whipped out the map, before humming in thought, “Looks like… somewhere in there?”
“Right, so they’re still incompetent.” Niko replied with blasé, “Alright, I guess get this cloth off my face and we’ll head down. If you notice your super-organism getting hungry, don’t keep it to yourself, yeah?”
