Juselin and Erzey flanked Bath on both sides, their eyes wide. This is a first for them, for all the verdora, he noted. Juserin had a monopoly on the voyager. While the encyclopedia stated that verdora had developed space-faring ships thousands of years ago, records indicated that said ships had been neglected.

Whatever space program the verdora once had existed no more.

"We're touching down now?" Erzey asked, head whipping around as an announcement came over the intercom.

"Seems so," Bath replied. Not that we can see. This part of the craft lacked windows; only the control room had a view of the outside. Probably for the best.

The three of them were located near the front of craft's terminal room. Instead of having a bedroom, as was the case in the Egdelek arc, this spacecraft had a lounge. Because of Thaddeus' status as the first verdora to receive all basic boons, he and his retainers, Erzey and Juselin, were seated on the plushest cushion-couch present. This cushion-couch had the distinct bonus of being located along the back of the room, right next to the exit.

"Thaddeus, how long do you think the ship will take to touch down?" one of the nearby verdora, Adarin, asked.

Bath made a contemplative "hmm..." sound. "I estimate...perhaps five minutes?"

"That short?" another verdora, Iara, gasped. "Indeed."

In fact, the time was less than Bath thought. The voyager, piloted by Dean, zoomed into action, facilitating their descent into Equinox's atmosphere.

This was much faster than I anticipated. When we traveled with Juserin, he first had to pinpoint where the gate-holding asteroid was in relation to the Equinox proper before heading down to its surface. This time, because of the ships preceding ours, Dean already has a sense of where we need to go.

Bath didn't remember much from Equinox, other than that the planet looked kind of like Earth and Illudis from above. He was fairly excited to arrive and see the planet for himself.

The lights on the ship briefly flashed red, then green. "You have arrived," a robotic voice called out. Bath's lips curled in humor under his veil. Only humans would make an artificial-sounding artificial voice. AI Ninety-Seven sounded, for instance, indistinguishable from a sapient. Bath hadn't heard any automated messages or announcements created by verdora, but figured they were advanced enough as a society to have created realistic voice-emulating technology.

Bath wondered briefly if the robotic voice was a clever nod to human pop culture.

"All assemble behind us," Erzey called out. While this command wasn't necessary--all the verdora were already technically behind Bath, Erzey, and Juselin--it helped to establish order to the disembarkation process.

The entire back wall of the lounge area opened, collapsing downward on a hinge and forming a ramp to the yellow-green foliage below.

Yet another world resembling Earth, Bath sighed, inhaling the scents of Equinox. He felt a dire hunger stir within his Center, though quickly suppressed it. This hunger was a pale shadow of that which he felt in the presence of the tortus.

Not that he wouldn't act on said hunger...eventually. According to the encyclopedia, there were no sapients on this world. That meant that he could travel its surface without any consideration for its inhabitants...eating whatever he pleased without the need for subtlety.

He'd read that this planet's wildlife was reptilian-like. And also fungus-like. Reptilian fungi. He was eager to see the combination in person.

He stepped out of the craft, the other verdora falling in behind him. He led them confidently toward the Spire growing steadily-taller in the distance. Its ashen-green form shone almost white in the light of the planet's pale sun.

The atmosphere here is...thin. To Bath, the area felt like it was at a high elevation, the oxygen fairly low in concentration. However, in general, the atmosphere was easy to adjust to.

The group of ships that had arrived first--those carrying the humans and quasi-sapients--had left a clear-cut path forward. Bath led the verdora along the path, passing through the spring-green tubular trees that formed a thick, jungle-like strip.

Unbeknownst to any of the following verdora, Bath had sent out essence all through the surrounding area. As he proceeded forward, he feverishly devoured nearby organisms, only-barely sating his ravenous hunger. The small satisfaction of feeding manifest itself as twin smiles.

If not for his veil, Erzey and Juselin might have questioned his sanity.

They didn't encounter any organisms larger than the size of a human fist before they arrived at the new city-seed. Bath led the verdora to the Anima, where they quickly received their housing assignments--which were, unsurprisingly, in the same structure as before: a cookie-cutter skyscraper about three blocks southwest of the Spire.

Bath led the verdora to the building, watching with interest as they returned to the same rooms as before and tried to operate the room upload mechanism. Bath had never used it before, personally, and struggled along with the rest of them to get it working.

The idea was as follows: before leaving a dragonleaf city, one could "save" one's room configuration to a dragonleaf frond dedicated to the purpose. In practice, the process was as simple as plucking a CSL--a COTD Storage Leaf--(Bath thought the name odd, considering that it nested an acronym within an acronym) from the room's control panel.

The control panel was a feature implemented early on in Basalith's design, back when it was the only city-seed in operation. The first land-shapers, at Lepochim's behest, created a means to control the layout of a dragonleaf room by first modifying it with one's land-shaper boons and then saving this configuration to a frond of dragonleaf. This frond could then be taken to an empty room and serve as a stimulus, prompting the room's dragonleaf to grow in the "saved" configuration. In this fashion, Basalith land-shapers could mass-produce certain room designs and layouts.

The control panel, a small plank of wood on a room's door, presented the name of the occupant, the room number, and listed any registered room designs in use. Considering the primitive intelligence possessed by dragonleaf, Bath wasn't surprised that humans had found a way to implement this feature. Simply imprinting the layout of a room onto a frond of dragonleaf, moving that frond to a different room, and telling that room to match the "saved" layout was well within his expectations for the plant.

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

This being the case, when Bath and the other verdora retrieved their "saved" fronds, they were uncertain exactly where to place the fronds.

"The control panel is here," Bath muttered. "Do either of you see a space for the frond to take root?"

Ezrey sighed. "No. I tried swiping the frond all along the border of the control panel. Even then, it never made a connection."

None of the other verdora had success. After ten minutes of fruitless frond-waving, Bath manifest a mouth beneath Lisa's ear.

"Lisa!" he hissed.

Lisa, who was currently involved in some social gathering involving the other kursi, almost spat out a mouthful of flavored water. "Hmm?" she intoned.

"How do you work the dragonleaf CSL upload? I can't figure out how to upload my Jure room design into this city-seed's apartment room."

She hid her mouth with her cup. "It's easy," she murmured. "Place the CSL on the floor, anywhere, and it'll be automatically taken up."

That's it? Bath dropped his frond onto his bedroom floor. Sure enough, the frond was almost immediately internalized into the dragonleaf wood planks. Within a minute, his room looked just as it had back on Jure. It was stark enough to look unoccupied, but it was definitely the same room.

"Erzey, Juselin," he called out. Despite the fact that he only called out the names of the Delelen cousins, at least fifteen other nearby verdora trotted over and stuck their heads by his room's entrance.

"Thaddeus," Juselin huffed. "How did you figure it out?"

Bath laughed. "It's simple," he said. "I accidentally dropped my frond on the floor. Lo and behold, all you need to do is place the CSL on the floor for the upload to commence."

No less than ten verdora let out cries of disgust before about-facing and rushing back to their rooms.

"You're right," Erzey called out, having returned to her own room next door. "It worked!"

"How did you accidentally drop your CSL?" Juselin grumbled under his breath.

In actuality, Thaddeus never would have accidentally dropped his CSL--he was far too coordinated for that. Nevertheless, Bath didn't bother with a better excuse for how he discovered how to upload his CSL into the room.

After the verdora were situated, Bath led Erzey and Juselin outside for a tour of the new city-seed, New Faajyun (新花园). The original Faajyun was a small town in southern China where Zhou Wang had spent his youth. Since he'd been the one to found this city-seed, he'd received the accompanying naming rights.

The city wasn't different from Jure, or Whitesun, on the surface. However, Bath had already used inspiration from local wildlife to adjust the pictures carved on the city's buildings. He'd done the same to every city-seed he'd personally visited, altering the default carvings (those of Basalith) to feature wildlife of the surrounding region. For instance, while the carvings on the buildings of Basalith featured all of Earth's life forms across its entire biological timeline, the carvings on Whitesun featured images of local wildlife and verdora.

He was currently leading an entourage of fifty verdora through an "architecture" tour of the new city, stopping to admire various carvings of strange plants, bug-like creatures, and a few stick-like quadrupeds.

If the carvings had been completely true to life, the tour would have been boring beyond all reason: Bath had yet to encounter any organisms bigger than a hand-span. To liven things up, Bath took some artistic and biological liberties and extrapolated both potential past and future life forms of the region encompassing New Faajyun.

After an hour of the tour, the entourage split up, leaving Bath and the Delelens alone.

"Are we going to go out exploring?" Erzey asked, her eye-ridges arching high in anticipation. "Like we did on Vast Desert?"

Bath grinned. "How could we not? We're only going to be here for a day or so before moving on to the next planet. We need to make the most of our time."

Juselin and Erzey nodded, flexing their ribbon-wrapped primary hands. Unbeknownst to Eyrin, Bath had taken the Delelens on as his own "proteges," showing them how to explore and get into--and out of--dangerous situations. He had a reason for doing so: studying the verdora adrenaline/danger response.

Bath led the two verdora out of the city, dashing out of the city's gate. Since the Delelens had long-since obtained their Expert-tier close-combat boons, Bath had no qualms leading them into the dense jungle surrounding New Faajyun: the action was well-within expectations for the reliable, cautious Thaddeus.

Just entering the alien jungle immediately elevated the heart rates of the two verdora. Bath continuously monitored their vitals as he led them deeper into the wilderness. To his jubilation, the deeper they went, the more new life forms they encountered.

After an hour of trekking, they were at least twenty miles further away. To Bath's mind, the further out they traveled, the more interesting the wildlife that they encountered. He speculated as to the reason, realizing belatedly, as a body of azure water came into view, that most of the larger life forms that they had encountered were amphibious.

The local wildlife wasn't amphibious in the Earth sense of the word. Rather, Bath and the Delelens had discovered various species of pod-like invertebrates that slithered over the land. Now that the water was within his long-range manipulation range, Bath realized that the same pod-like organisms on land also populated the water.

Moreover, it was only near water that Bath and the Delelens spotted the first vertebrate worth their attention: the distinctive reptile-fungus creature that Bath had read about. From its appearance alone, Bath would've placed it as a larger version of the pod-like invertebrates. However, after having swiftly devoured one of the creatures, Bath knew that the species did possess a skeleton. In fact, the species almost reminded him of a cross between a squid and a chicken.

"It's not moving," Juselin breathed. "It looks almost like a jijik," he said, referencing a species native to Illudis. Bath didn't recognize the name, but thought he knew what Juselin was talking about: a fleshy, almost peach-like fruit that grew on the southern half of the planet.

"Look at those tentacles," Erzey panted. "I bet they could pound something to a fine pulp."

Bath had to agree. "The primary tentacles are the size of tree-trunks. Anybody want to take a first stab at antagonizing one?"

The Delelens looked back at him, anticipation flashing in their blood-shot eyes.

"I'll go," Erzey growled playfully. She bowed forward into her forearms, flexing her body like a dog about to pounce.

Bath and Juselin remained still as Erzey stalked forward. Bath watched her intently as Erzey circled in on the stationary creature, her excitement approaching its zenith. The creature's squid-like (and, apparently, fungal) top section quivered like jelly as its tentacle-covered mouth writhed over the ground. Bath realized that it was foraging for small, shelled creatures under the sand.

The creature ignored Erzey until she actually pounced in front of it, releasing a frenzied cry into its face. The creature appeared startled, its head quivering violently as it moved up onto its two main tentacles. In a flash, the creature was standing upon two nimble chicken legs. Bath supposed that he could describe the creature's legs just as accurately as dinosaur or raptor legs, but thought chicken legs a more...satisfying descriptor.

It let out a gurgling noise as it jumped up and down on its feet. Considering the creature's enormous head and relatively small legs, the display appeared almost gravity-defying. However, it didn't so much as faze Erzey. She danced back and forth around it until, after about a minute of antagonizing the creature, she zipped back into the jungle, leaving the discombobulated creature alone and confused. The creature made a few pitiful gurgling noises before settling back down onto its tentacles.

Erzey shot out from another section of jungle, running back to Bath and Juselin.

"That thing is so...bizarre," she laughed. “It has that enormous head and those teeny, stick-like legs."

Juselin smirked. "That head is clearly made out of a light-weight, boneless material," he said. "It jerks around wildly with each of the creature's movements." He looked to Bath. "Thaddeus, does this creature have a name?"

Bath shook his head slowly. "No, I don't believe so."

"Oh, really?" Erzey said. "That's surprising."

Bath shrugged. "The encyclopedia has little information regarding planets lacking sapient life and valuable natural resources," he replied. "While 'fungus'- and 'reptilian'-like life forms are described, this specific creature is not."

"So...we can name it?" Juselin said, voice hesitant.

"As the first verdora to engage one," Erzey began, "I say that we should call it a gurgle."

Bath snorted. A gurgle? "Are you naming it after the noise it makes?" Bath asked, trying to clarify her strange name choice.

She nodded. "It's oddly endearing," she said, tilting her head to the side. "I almost want one as a pet. I wonder if the Dragon will make them into a quasi-sapient species."

Bath just shook his head in amusement. "Let's keep moving," he said. "Who knows what else we'll encounter?"