This new area was simple, it kind of looked like a mouse hole. Coney wondered at exactly why this little doorway had been made, but he supposed he’d find out when he reached its end. He was thankful for the light that was at the end of his paw, because it was easy enough to move forward when he didn’t need to be worried about tripping on Debris.
As he followed the tunnel there was something strange about it. “This stone… It's different from the natural rock I saw before. But this is massive, nothing like the bricks above, it was carved right into.” He bit his lip, thinking about what this could mean. “This is clearly metamorphic rock, the way it’s crystallized is different from how sedimentary and igneous rock crystallized. But it's so huge, is this what the igneous was injected into?”
He got his answer after only a minute more, as he reached a different kind of rock. This was the same Igneous rock he’d seen before, in fact the entire tunnel system looked like a lava tube rather than something man made. Looking back he got a different angle on what he was looking at and realized it. “It’s a brick!” He said, staring at the monolith of flat stone set against the tunnel’s end. “It’s a brick of stone that was quarried and used to make that large tunnel. This must be the other side of it.”
Patting it he looked back around, still narrating his thoughts to his audience. “This bad boy is huge. I mean like… really huge. That means those guys are strong, or they have strong friends. I say I get away from the big tunnel and find another way out. All in favor raise your paw.” He raised his own lit up paw, allowing him to see more of the lava tube. A glance allowed him to see how some of it was metamorphic, created by the pressure and heat of the magma that created the stone on top. “Alright, that’s a consensus. I guess we’re going down this tunnel.”
With a grin he walked down the tunnel. This was an adventure, exactly what he’d wanted this whole time. Sure the fact this game was lifelike was amazing, but that was kinda boring when all he was doing was chores. His subscriber count had said the same, as it stopped climbing once people got over the original fascination with any sort of content in the game.
The tunnel led down into a set of open caverns. He was quickly able to walk through it. Even though he saw glimpses of iron, gold, and even diamond ore he didn’t touch it. For one, he didn’t have the proper skills to begin to fathom how to mine. For another he didn’t have the proper tools, either for excavating it or for holding all of the things that he needed to process. This wasn’t minecraft, he didn’t have a massive inventory and he didn’t have a ton of tools in it.
Going down further, ignoring the glints of wealth in the walls, he found another entrance. This was different from the buildings above. It was made of a different kind of stone, more similar to the brown sedimentary stone of the monastery than what he’d seen in the tunnels he’d started in. Still, it was a sense of familiarity, and a sense of something more cultivated. Maybe this could bring him back to the others, or at least back out without relying on a respawn.
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“It feels like home.” Coney said, his soft bunny face twitching into a simple. It wasn’t safe, but it felt good to see something that was so similar to his own home for the last few weeks. This life, this new life as a rabbit, almost felt more real than his old one to him now..
Walking through the tunnel was easy, picking a direction that was hard. Though he’d entered in through what looked like an entrance, the tunnel system wasn’t simple. It was labyrinthine, which was appropriate he supposed, so he began to do what he’d always heard people say to do, keep to one side until he found an exit. From instinct more than anything else he used his light-filled paw to guide him and began by taking every left turn he could.
The first turn was a dead end, though he saw a few scraps of paper on the ground. Looking at them they looked familiar, but he couldn’t pick them up. Maybe they were a part of the setting rather than the digital reality, old school set dressing. More likely they were stuck to the floor and he couldn’t get it off with his soft bunny fingers.
With a sigh he doubled back and began moving left again. The next left turn was more difficult. It brought up upwards, beginning to climb up above the tunnel he was in, but it was climbing up rubble. He was in a more natural cavern again, until he walked back into a tunnel that was nearly identical to the same one he’d just been in. This time it was higher though, the same brown stone seeming slightly more refined.
Walking down this tunnel a part of him noted that there was no exit. There were windows, which looked out onto an unlit cavern. Waving his paw outside he got the barest glimpse of stones below, and large cave walls. The cave was jagged, almost older than the lava tubes, and though it was just at the edge of his light range he saw images painted on the walls. As he walked, and his light flickered from movement, the paintings almost seemed to come alive.
Finally he walked into a grand area. He slowly realized this was a church, though half of it was rubble. There were altars, each one with a symbol above it, but none of them were clean. Something about these altars freaked Coney out. They didn’t feel as safe, as natural, as the altars that he’d seen above in his own home abbey. No, these felt violent, as if they held far more… dangerous gods than he’d seen before.
It was odd, a part of him knew he was being delusional, but he felt that this place was… cursed almost. It was certainly unholy to him, something he’d not felt since he started this game. Looking at them, he felt like they were hungering for blood. He almost gave in, paw reaching for the sickle. He barely noticed as his left paw’s glow went out, but he did notice that his sickle was no longer the dull iron color he’d been before. No, it was glowing, but it was not glowing the soft colors of his paw, despite its reflectiveness he hadn’t been the one to cast this spell.
No, the sickle was glowing red, the color of blood. Coney’s heart began to beat, he felt drawn to one of the altars. He almost could see as there were figures that appeared above several of them. They were shrouded in darkness, as if they were the shadows of a past Coney couldn’t even guess at.