Thariel placed her hand on the wall this side of the "cliff" she was on.

Amori Falls is exactly where Travik said it would be and she didn't even need to go to the nest of Broom-legs in the Silken Crown like she first thought she would to find it.

From the looks alone, the stump of the fossilized tree that Amori Falls is hidden under looked more like a mountain than an actual tree. It was that big.

The straight lines running down the texture of the stone reminded Thariel of one of the world's wonders in her past life. She forgot its name and only remembers the bare details but the lines running down that mountain? Cliff?... They looked exactly like these ones.

This fossilized tree trunk is said to have belonged to a species of pine that the ancients used to build their houses with and also that its wood had magical properties.

The species is now extinct alongside the ancients so no one could truly prove if this great species once had the ability to continue living even though it had been cut.

Phragmonites- a construct made by the ancients to serve as guards, - were said to be made with materials using a pressurized version of the tree's wood but again, no one could prove if it is true and even the lore is quite vague when it comes to that sort of detail.

Thariel thought about meeting one of the shield-armed golems as she circled the foot of the fossilized tree in search of the entrance to the waterfall.

Her mind had cooked up a story where she saves one from the clutches of the Ytallotiks and they become friends by the time she found the entrance.

Actually, calling this hole an entrance was too much.

It was more of like a 4 foot wide cave she had to squeeze into in order to reach the roots of the great tree. At the end of this tunnel is where she would find the enclosed ecosystem of Amori Falls.

Just like how Alice jumped into the rabbit hole, Thariel squeezed herself into the cave and almost fell down because she didn't notice a rock was protruding from the ground on the mouth of the darn thing.

Thariel skipped over it the moment she realized that the rock wouldn't budge from its spot.

The next thing that followed after the hazardous entrance was a drop into a bottomless pit. Her night vision did allow Thariel to see how far it went down but that wasn't a consolation nor a silver lining.

More of like a uhm, sign of what's to come.

How the hell did that stupid turtle get in or out of here anyway? Digging? Actually yeah that sounded like a reasonable option now that she thought about it.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

Thariel began her descent using the dirt platforms Trivok used and maintained during his many pilgrimages over the years.

She stumbled but thankfully caught a stray plant root before she fell down. The steepness of the pit was extremely hazardous and worse still, the paths that Trivok created for himself were literally just that; for himself.

Thariel had to squeeze herself into the little platforms just to fit and every jump to the next platform made her feel like she'd fail the landing and slip or worse, cause the dirt to loosen and the platform to collapse.

Both resulted in her either suffering from broken bones for a few hours as her body regenerated or losing consciousness for the same amount of time.

Huh. That second one is clearly the better option so maybe if she did fall she should do it in a way she hits the ground head first?

Moving through this entire death trap made Thariel age 10 years quicker and she had to genuinely catch her breath and stabilize her mind when she finally reached the bottom.

Thankfully, she managed to get down without a scratch so she didn't have to worry about regenerating a broken bone or something equally mortifying.

Also, she noticed that the air here feels extremely cold.

Thariel continued down the cave. She took winding turns and scared off more critters than she can count before she finally reached the actual entrance to the waterfall.

And you know what? This? Seeing this made everything she just went through worth it.

The entire place is a cavern so large that Thariel wouldn't be shocked to think that this place was on the surface instead of underground when she sees it out of context.

In front of her is a cave wall so wide that it became its own ecosystem consisting of flocks of birds, aerial reptiles, and plants- carnivorous and geothermic alike, - treated it as their permanent nesting ground/home.

And at the center of this ecosystem is a titanic waterfall that's taller than a skyscraper and wider than a lake.

The falling stream of water came from the highest point of the cavern where a glistening river ran across a seemingly flat ground with an entire forest on top of it.

At the bottom is the waterfall's lowest point and it is a land ridden with mist, the contents held within invisible even to Thariel's enhanced senses.

Thariel could feel the frosty air coming from the waterfall from here and her sweat quickly dried off after being under the presence of such a cold breeze.

Unfortunately for her, this is where Trivok's pilgrimage stopped and she'd have to face the ever freezing temperature in the lower levels of the cavern without a clear path downward.

Thariel decided to take a break for the time being. There was no time to rush.

She sat down on the ground and circulated her magical energy. It was at that exact same moment where she got the bright idea to use her spells to brave the hazards of Amori Falls.

After her break, Thariel immediately went to work in scaling down the slope.

Her journey through the cave system seemed to have taken an entire night to finish so now was the perfect time to explore the area without needing to worry about freezing to death.

She activated [Tough Skin] throughout her entire journey and together with her natural regeneration, she managed to stave off the worse that the journey had to offer.

It was still incredibly painful though.

Thankfully, her mother's training is so much worse so she only felt annoyance at the setbacks done to her by the biting cold and the powerful winds that the waterfall in the distance produced just for simply existing.

Thariel reached the bottom and her problems turned from staving off the cold to surviving the hot mist while trying her best to locate the shrine inside of it.

The process is as tedious and hard as Thariel thought it would be and she didn't even find the shrine by the time she decided to stop searching and take a break.

She wasn't even close on getting a whiff of it actually.

Man this is one elusive turtle.

And to make things worse, there are also trees inside the mist.

Trivok already told her about them so she wasn't shocked to learn that navigating between trees would be necessary down here.

But you know what Trivok didn't tell her about?

The stupid lampreys and living, bloodsucking balloons that live here!

There are parasitoid worms in this forest with a length twice the height of an adult man and they live alongside bulbous sacks of blood who Thariel can only assume stick to freaking dinosaurs because what else would they suck on?!

Overall, Thariel didn't like the change in scenery and she kept glaring at the hole leading outside of the tree root she found herself resting in.

She's decided to hide underground after finding this place but even that had its fair share of problems.

She had to fight tooth and nail against a worm whose circular mouth had more teeth than a shark to even rest here.

And the worse part? The scent of blood coming from its corpse was making her feel hungry.

Thariel gulped and eyed the dead parasite.

Surely it wouldn't be bad if she just gets a small taste of it right?

She crawled towards the worm, opened her mouth, then bit down on the patch of loose skin her saliva dripped on.

It was bliss.