As Octavia lowered me toward the trees, I scanned their twisted branches, looking for some kind of fruit. Finding the fruit should have been easy, considering that the trunks of the tallest trees were curved so much that they were practically horizontal at their top, with branches coiling toward the glowstone wall. Their leaves pointed toward the walls in a seemingly desperate attempt to absorb whatever light they needed for photosynthesis. I searched the branches, looking for something resembling the fruit that Octavia had showed me from her first dip down.
It wasn't until I was several feet from the highest branches that I could see tiny little berries, each barely more than half an inch in diameter, with most of them even smaller than that. They looked yellow, but with the shape and texture of blueberries. Clearly some kind of fruit, but somehow, I got the feeling that it wasn't the kind that Octavia had in mind: if this had been what she was looking for, she could have plucked these berries with little effort, as there weren't any bugs up here, and the fruits that she'd come up with were considerably bigger than these.
My descent halted, and I glanced up toward Octavia, seeing what looked like another wave of one of her legs. She was, apparently, giving me another pause to scope out the situation before I proceeded further, and I did exactly that, directing my attention to the layers below the upper canopy. In fact, it could scarcely be considered a canopy; observing everything from up here was shockingly easy when none of the trees seemed particularly interested in blocking out the sight of anyone overhead — thick foliage only made sense when there was light to collect, and in the inverted world of the Shimmergrove, all of the light was concentrated on the lower levels, emitted from the ground beneath. That was where I focused my attention, looking for places where the foliage covering the ground was thin enough for the glowstone's illumination to shine through. It was there on the ground that I spotted the largest pieces of fruit. It made sense: back on earth, trees produced large fleshy fruits, while berries tended to grow on shrubs closer to the ground. But in an ecosystem where the light came from the ground instead of the sky, things were inverted: the plants with the thickest leaves and the fleshiest fruits were also closest to the ground.
I watched as four armored ants cooperatively hefted what looked like a giant fruit melon — a melon of some sort? Without the armored ants for scale, I might have mistaken it for an orange based on its color and spherical shape, but it was the size of a large watermelon — little wonder, then, that it took more than one armored ant to wrest it away from the vine that it grew on. The ants began marching away with it, and I started to wonder how any fruit could possibly be remaining for us to find, given that there were so many insects to abscond with it.
My question was answered a moment later when a centipede, several feet in length, scuttled out of a bush and sank its two front claws into one of the ants. The fruit dropped to the ground and rolled a short distance as the other ants fled. This was the nature of any ecosystem: the presence of plant life brought herbivorous (or omnivorous) creatures, and the presence of smaller critters brought larger carnivorous predators. The captured ant struggled, then its struggle slowed, and finally stopped, without any further action from the centipede. Some kind of venomous attack, perhaps? Within seconds, the armored ant had been completely subdued, cracking open in the same way that dead armored ants so often did as the centipede sunk its massive mandibles into the ant.
Centipedes are not to be trifled with. Noted. Perhaps most notable was the lack of effort needed for the centipede to crack the armored ant open, a task that my own claws hadn't managed. If a centipede could crack an armored exoskeleton with that level of ease, how would my scales fare against it? Best not to find out.
I scanned around for anything that might look like a possible source of danger. With the coast seemingly clear, I flicked the line twice, signaling for Octavia to continue lowering me. I eyed the giant fruit that the two ants had dropped. It was too far away for me to reach it unless I did some walking after hitting the ground. I decided to ignore it for now: Octavia had sent me here as an exterminator, not to pick up an item for delivery. If I did manage to bring back any fruit with me, that would be a nice bonus, but not essential: Octavia herself would probably do a better job of harvesting fruit, and in addition to the advantage of experience (and knowing exactly what she was looking for), she also had the advantage of extra limbs.
Bearing in mind that my job first and foremost was to serve as an exterminator, I gave the line two more flicks. For a moment, I debated whether to drop all the way down to the ground, but that could potentially introduce all sorts of complications: my method of communicating with Octavia that I was ready to extract relied on the line being taut, and if I dropped to the ground and started walking around, there were all sorts of risks if the line snagged or caught on something. Better to remain aloft. I kept signaling for more slack for Octavia, as she dropped me down in increments of two to three feet at a time, until I was hovering just over the plants that covered the ground.
The plants that covered the ground weren't exactly ferns, but there was something fern-like about many of the massive blade-like leaves that covered the ground, trying to absorb as much of the light from the ground as they could. Now that I was closer, I could see that the ground wasn't entirely glowstone; much of the ground had a clay-like texture, studded with glowstone throughout. There were some smaller glowing shards embedded in the ground, but much of the exposed glowstone came in the form of massive rocks that were as much as several feet across, and who knew how many more feet deep in the ground. Everywhere the glowstone shone, plants reached out, trying to cover it, while critters scurried above, casting inverted shadows upward, their silhouettes looking eerie against the glow.
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I watched as a troop of armored ants skittered by, carrying fruits of various sizes. Rival gatherers. I exhaled [paralyzing breath], followed by a round of [poison breath].
SP: 12/16
The insects quickly scattered, as more than a dozen ants, several centipedes, and several beetles I didn't recognize sprang from the foliage and scurried to escape the radius of my breath attack. I was somewhat annoyed by the fact that my "paralyzing breath" was so long in taking effect that it wouldn't immobilize a creature whose movement wasn't already constrained in some way.
Stick bug defeated! 2% exp toward next level Stick bug defeated! 2% exp toward next level Stick bug defeated! 2% exp toward next level
Apparently, there were "stick bugs" here — they were likely the only ones who hadn't fled my breath attack, being less nimble than the other insects, instead relying on their camouflage to survive. Unfortunately for them, "hiding" wasn't a very effective strategy against an indiscriminate breath attack: they had done such a good job of blending in with the plants that I hadn't even noticed them, but they were dead all the same.
I spotted a small piece of fruit below me – not nearly the size of the giant melon-sized fruit I'd spotted before, but better than nothing, apparently dropped by one of the critters that had fled my breath attack. I gave the line two quick flicks to request more slack, figuring that now was as good a time as any to retrieve it, and as soon as I was close enough, I speared the fruit with my claws before flicking the line to indicate that I was ready for extraction. A moment later, I felt a tug, and Octavia pulled me upward.
It took several minutes for me to make it all the way to the cliff overhang where Octavia was waiting for me. She looked at me expectantly. "Well? How did it go?"
"Not so well," I said. "The critters were all quick to flee, with the exception of a few unlucky stick bugs."
"Hmm." She seemed surprised by that.
"It's not like fumigating an ant nest," I said. "The ant colony probably has tight tunnels. But this is a big, wide-open cavern. There's so much space that it's almost like being outside: the critters can flee without any major obstacles, and the gas is diffuse enough that it just spreads in all directions and dissipates pretty quickly."
"That is unfortunate," she said. "But at least you cleared the area, right?"
"I mean, I did get this," I said, dropping the apple-sized fruit in front of her. "But if you go down now, the poison will have already completely dissipated."
"Yes," she said. "That was the idea. I don't want there to be any of your breath attack lingering there when I go down to pick fruit."
"But by the time you get back down there, the critters might already have returned," I said.
"It's still worth checking," she said.
"It is," I said. "I just wanted to calibrate your expectations."
"Consider them calibrated," she said, and she lowered herself off the edge.
It took several minutes for her to get to the bottom, and several minutes after that for her to return.
"Any luck?" I asked.
She let out an exasperated chitter. "No different from when I went down last."
"That's unfortunate," I said. "I was able to clear them out for a short time period, but…"
"Apparently, it wasn't long enough," she finished.
"How long do you think you'd need?" I asked. "Like, would a few minutes be enough?"
She gave the question some thought. "Probably?"
"Alright, new plan," I said. "Let's go down together."
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Class: Baby Dragon Level: 9 Progress toward next level: 78% HP: 29/29 SP: 12/16 Claws: level 1 Scales: level 2 Mouth: level 10 Wings: level 0 (wingless), max reached for current class Traits: Carnivore, Kin sensitive, Carrion feeder Abilities: Sprinting, Noxious Breath, Poison Breath, Paralyzing Breath, Harden Scales, Roar, Speech Unlearned Abilities (Mouth): Hot Breath, Cold Breath, Poison Fangs, Petrifying Breath Unlearned Abilities (Scales): Abrasion, Camouflage Unavailable Abilities (Prerequisites not yet met): Sweltering breath, Chilling Breath, Venom Fangs Active Quests: None Available skill points: 0