Iris and Victoria enjoyed a dinner of sandwiches and trail mix which had been graciously prepared and packed by Autumn that morning, and they spent much of the evening resting in the tent to avoid the bugs and conserve energy for the night to come. When the forest began to darken and the sounds of crickets began to overtake the ambiance, the two adventurers made their way outside. It wasn't so dark that Iris couldn't see yet, but it was quickly becoming difficult to discern detail and exact shapes in the dimming twilight.
They made their way to a tree branch over their camp, where they sat together and began their stakeout. Soon the forest was all but black, with only the shimmering, ever shifting glimpses of purple and orange moonlight peeking through the canopy providing any light. Seldom were gaps in the leaves large enough to allow enough light that it would reach the ground below, but where they did the moonlight cast long rays which pierced through the darkness and were alive with fluttering moths. Had Iris not experienced the true void herself, she might have compared this vast, rarely interrupted darkness to the concept.
After what felt like an hour but had really only been about twenty minutes, the girls found themselves growing restless. Though the forest was active, and many critters scurried in the dark and caught their attention, there were no signs of any iridescent or invisible beetles -- even with Victoria's auravision to search for them.
"Split up and look around?" Victoria asked.
Iris nodded, and Victoria turned to mist and drifted away to the west. Iris went east, blipping to the ground and traveling by foot. With conscious effort, she shifted from relying on sight to relying on her Awareness of Matter ability. The shift itself was quite easy, as the sensations from her ability were already present, but adjusting to the different limitations was a challenge on its own. The limited range of the ability made for a somewhat tense atmosphere, yet relatively easy short range navigation, as if she were carrying a lantern that only reached out as far as her ability. She stepped over rocks and small roots without effort, sensing their shapes bulging out from the ground long before she might trip on them, and easily dodged the occasional bugs that buzzed towards her with reckless abandon, but frequently found herself walled in by large redwood trunks and roots that forced her to double back.
She walked slowly through the sea of blackness, veering and turning when she sensed the solid shapes of large roots or the fuzzy outlines of bushes in her path. She meandered her around, zigzagging to cover more ground but careful to never stray too far from camp. She still wasn't having any luck on her hunt, but was quite enjoying the casual stroll through the forest which was still serving as good practice for her ability.
A thunderous buzzing like a thousand clapping hands whizzed past her, fanning her with a breeze and registering to her senses as a huge, oblong mass that entered and exited her range in less than a second. She instinctively ducked low and shielded herself with her arms and walking stick, but it was already gone.
The buzzing continued for a moment before stopping somewhere on the other side of a large redwood root. She blipped atop the root, waited for a moment but sensed no movement, then blipped to the ground up ahead. When she reappeared, she instantly sensed the creature on the very edge of her range. It was the size of a small dog, but with six stubby legs and a bulbous, oblong body. Sticking out from its tiny head were two long antennae, accompanied by two jagged shapes that Iris hoped weren't the pincers they seemed to be. She followed the creature with her senses until it crawled into a ray of moonlight, but there was nothing there. Even as she felt each of its legs and the shape of its body with her senses, she saw nothing but moonlit dirt where it should be.
Got you, she thought to herself, readying her stick for a strike.
Just when she was prepared to blip and swing, she remembered the shards of its carapace were her ultimate goal, and it wouldn't do her any good to obliterate them. She paused for a moment, holding her stick poised to strike, while she thought of a plan of attack. After a few seconds, she blipped.
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She reappeared in the moonlight, hooked the toe of her boot underneath the beetle and kicked upwards. The beetle was heavy, and she grunted from the weight, but it was nothing her Strength stat couldn't handle. It was lifted from the ground and flipped into a roll in the air. Even as her eyes believed she was swinging at nothing, Iris struck out where she felt the beetle to be and released a small burst of force from the stick. What followed was a sickening crack, then two thumps. Her strike had thrown the beetle into the trunk of a tree, where it had then fallen to the ground motionless. After a moment, the beetle became visible, its vibrant silver shell reflecting brilliant glimmers of moonlight.
The process of removing the shards was less than pleasant. Though Iris was strong enough that she didn't struggle to rip them off, the cracking and snapping which she both heard and felt were almost enough to make her nauseous, and were definitely enough to make her feel a little bad. Still, though, she had successfully secured two intact shards, and quickly stashed them away in her bag.
The next beetle came a little while later, as she was whacking her way through dense brush with her stick. She sensed the bulbous mass scurrying at her from under a bush and blipped backwards, but it immediately launched into flight and shot after her. She yelped and held up her arms to block. Something grabbed hold of her bracer and clamped it tight against her arm, pulling and twisting it up over her shoulder as she felt a heavy weight land on her back and three pairs of legs wrap around her torso.
"AAH!" She screamed, desperately trying to yank her arm free from the beetle's pincers.
The giant bug clamped down tighter, refusing to let go of her arm, then gripped tighter with its legs too. Iris heard the buzz of its wings once more, and before realization and horror could fully set in, she felt her legs dangling as she sensed the ground moving away from her feet.
With her stick still in her free hand, she twisted it around and slotted it between the pincers, just in front of the beetles mouth and just behind her arm. She pushed the other end of the stick away from her body, using it as a lever to pry the pincers apart enough to slip her arm free. The beetle tried to clamp down on the stick, but she yanked it free before it could, and its rigid body made it impossible for it to reach to pinch anything else so long as she kept her arms clear of its range. She sensed branches moving past her, and could feel the cooler, breezier air of the canopy on her face.
"Abby!" She shouted, "wanna help?"
A single tentacle snaked its way out of the bag at her waist and slithered up to the beetle on her back. It slid between the beetle's fluttering wings and wrapped around the base of one of the shards sticking out to either side. With a sharp yank, the tentacle ripped the shard off the beetle's body and pulled it down into the bag, clipping and partially damaging the beetle’s wing in the process.
The beetle veered sharply and suddenly to the left, causing Iris to flail and scream as she was jerked around in the air. Even as they spun erratically and barreled through the forest, narrowly missing branch after branch, Abby's tentacle reached up and ripped off the other carapace shard and pulled it into the void, clipping the other wing as well. This only made the uncontrolled flight even more unpredictable and erratic. Iris sensed it all with her ability, and now knew that, if nothing else, the beetle's shards were safely collected.
"Okay," she gasped to herself as she prepared for what came next.
She whirled her staff around until she held one end aimed just above her shoulder, leaned her head to the side and jabbed it backwards into the beetle's face. A burst of force exploded the beetle's head and ripped it off her back, leaving her suddenly falling into the abyss. She pointed the stick downwards to absorb her impact, but didn't have time to properly orient herself for the landing, and came down softly face first in the dirt.
After rolling onto her back and sitting upright, she glanced down at her bag, "we're gonna have a conversation about your definition of help."
Even though she had only collected four shards, Iris returned to the campsite after her harrowing experience with the second beetle. She needed a breather, and it wouldn't hurt to check in with Victoria if she had the chance. There was still the rest of the night to search for bugs, after all. When she got to camp, she found Victoria tending to a campfire. She looked calm and put together, like she hadn't even left the campsite.
"When did you make that?" Iris asked.
"About ten minutes ago?" Victoria estimated.
"What about the beetles?"
Victoria casually pointed over her shoulder towards a pile of beetle shards, "I found three, that makes six shards for more than my half of the quest."
Iris, visibly disheveled and still somewhat short of breath, looked at Victoria incredulously.