What is that? Bastet indicating that she isn’t detecting anything moving up ahead, I step closer gingerly. Is it…? I step within arm’s reach and tilt the torch to see better. It kind of looks like spider-silk, but not quite. It’s not nearly as stringy, and almost looks wet, glimmering in the torchlight. I move a hand towards it and then stop myself just before I touch it. Maybe sticking my fingers into an unknown substance isn’t the best idea…
Pulling a random stick out of my Inventory, I poke the substance. It gives easily, looking kind of like the skin on the top of half-dried PVA glue. Unlike that glue, though, when I pull the stick away, I can’t. The substance, which has to be an adhesive of some sort, has it stuck firmly. Even when I apply my full strength, it doesn’t budge. Putting PVA to shame, the glue pulls a little away from the wall but refuses to either let go of the stick or break.
Finally, by bracing myself against the wall with my foot and yanking with all my Power-filled Strength, I manage to break the bonds of whatever it is that makes this super-sticky substance. Of course, the impetus from my action has to go somewhere and I soon topple over onto my back, knocking the wind out of myself. To add insult to injury, Bastet sends me a wave of amusement, clearly entertained by this human doing odd things. At least the cubs don’t seem too bothered by the jolt and abrupt reorientation of their world.
The stick has come away but still has gluey substance attached to it. I tuck it away in my Inventory, grateful that it has again expanded by ten slots as otherwise I’d really be running out of space already. Maybe I can use it later. I’d love to take more of the substance with me but can’t quite work out how to do that without getting completely stuck to it. Ah well, I’ll think about that as I continue – I’ll probably be coming back this way anyway.
Wondering why it’s here, I inspect the area. The gluey substance has ragged edges which dangle a bit into open air. It’s like the glue forms a ‘u’ shape with the raggedy bits being the inside of the letter. Frowning a little, I try to work out what could have happened.
Slowly the connections fall into place. The insect-spider. The babies. The hole in the gluey substance… Could this have been a massive bundle of eggs? Stuck to the wall? Why not? It fits, though why the eggs had hatched just before I arrived, I don’t know – it seems rather coincidental timing. Though of course, they could have hatched earlier and then it was the sound of me coming that triggered their exodus. Perhaps.
In the end, I shrug. The intricate details of spider-monster breeding habits are not really what I want to focus on. I make a note that possibly they like to lay eggs in tunnels in case it crops up later, but decide to move on, figuratively and literally.
Continuing on down the tunnel, I start noticing when the clearly dug tunnel starts to turn into something more accidental. I’d say natural, but without humans interfering – myself not included – everything is natural. However what I come to appears more to be a tunnel formed out of space between two layers of rock than something a creature has created.
The height of the tunnel lowers considerably, but it widens just as much. I can still walk, but I have to lean forward a fair bit to avoid hitting my head. As we walk, the ceiling gets lower and lower, and the walls start narrowing inwards too. With the shrinking space, I find myself becoming more and more conscious of just how much earth is above me.
I’ve never been claustrophobic, but I challenge anyone who’s not a spelunking enthusiast to go crawling through dark, close tunnels and not feel at least the faintest twinge of fear. Especially since I’m doing it without the possibility of radioing in assistance. Though, I do suppose I have Bastet – maybe I should make use of her.
“Bastet,” I start quietly, “can you scout ahead, please? See how low it gets and whether there’s anything worth going on for.” After all, just because there’s a tunnel doesn’t mean it actually goes anywhere. Especially if it’s just caused by some sort of shift in the rock layers. Or underground water movement. It would be disappointing to come all this way for nothing, but I’d rather that than pushing forward and getting stuck somewhere.
Bastet sends a wave of amused agreement. I get the feeling that she’s looking down on me a bit. Why? I don’t know: it’s not like I’m being unreasonably hesitant. No one would want to risk getting himself trapped in a tunnel for no particular reason. She’s smaller and considerably more agile so is much less likely to get stuck. Damn cats.
Although raptorcats don’t entirely look feline, I’m getting more and more the idea that they really are just big cats at heart, and most certainly in attitude. Speaking of raptorcats, the ones slung on my chest are getting a bit agitated. To be fair, the cubs have actually been behaving very well. Barely any complaints, and they’ve slept most of the time.
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Undoing the sling, I let the three spill out on the ground and give them some meat to chew on and some water to lap at. It’s probably unsanitary to let them drink from a bowl from which I’m also going to drink, but frankly, I don’t care. I still haven’t managed to have my bath with soap yet, or clean my clothes, so I probably have far more germs on my skin and in my clothes than the raptorcats have in their mouths.
After their snack break, they explore the area around. It’s pretty confined for me, barely any space above my head even with me sitting down, but for the much-smaller cubs, that doesn’t mean anything. They sniff at the walls, try to sharpen their claws – adorable – and then start trying to wander up and down the tunnel – less adorable and more annoying. I pull out a piece of cord and try to distract them with it.
It works for a while as the cubs start leaping at the flicking end of the cord. I chuckle as one of them ends up pouncing on the one who actually managed to capture the moving rope end. Of course, a play fight is the result which I watch in amusement. After a while, they get bored of the game and return to trying to explore. The two females start following our trail backwards and I have to lunge to grab them, headbutting the roof of the tunnel painfully as I do.
Cursing, I can’t spare a hand to rub the injured spot as they’re occupied with the cubs. Setting the cubs down on the ground near my torch, I level them with a firm look.
“Stay here,” I tell them sternly, not sure whether they can read my mind or sense my emotions or whatever, but trying to impress on them the importance. For now, it seems to work as Stormcloud sends me a long look before going to play with the sling material, Ninja following as normal.
Of course, in the short time that takes, Trouble has already disappeared. Groaning, I hit my head gently against the wall behind, but hiss as the action makes the pain from my previous head injury hurt more. Stupid. I’m going to have to go after him, aren’t I? I moan internally. Bastet would kill me if I let one of her cubs get hurt. Well, not literally. While she’s my Bound, she can’t. But she would find ways to make my life a living hell, I’m sure about that. Lacking character, she is not.
Preparing to brave the increasingly narrow tunnel in search of a wayward cub, I’m startled by the sudden glimpse of movement out of the corner of my right eye. Automatically reaching for a weapon, I grab my mace, only realising as I pull at it that there’s no way I can wield such a weapon in these close confines. I need my knife. Even as I scrabble for it, the cause for my alarm comes close enough for me to recognise her.
It’s Bastet. Relief goes through me like cool breeze. Of course it’s Bastet – what’s the chance that it would be anyone, or anything, else? Unless something managed to kill her and came hunting for the next snack, my traitorous brain tells me. Except I’d notice if Bastet died – I certainly noticed when Spike was in trouble.
Either way, it’s fine, though I should probably make sure I pull my knife out next time in case it is something else. The reason I didn’t immediately recognise her was because her profile looks different: she has a swinging cub in her mouth.
“Thank goodness,” I tell her. “I was about to go after him, I promise,” I follow up with a moment later. The wave of emotion she sends me is complicated. Admonishment – I guess because I kind of lost him to begin with. Amusement – because I got so wound up about it all. And some kind of sense that if Trouble got himself into trouble by wandering off, it’s kind of his own fault. Which I agree with. Good to know she does too; I should have guessed that would be her response. “So, what does the tunnel look like?”
What she sends me isn’t so much images as impressions. I shouldn’t really be surprised that she wouldn’t be able to send me images – her night vision is good, but it’s not good enough to see in pitch-black. There’s the sense of the tunnel winding and twisting for a while. It’s the oddest experience but it’s almost like I have whiskers, wings, and a feathery tail since I’m using the sensations of them to gauge how wide and high the tunnel is. It’s wider than my/her body but not by a lot, and the lowest it gets is brushing my/her head.
Then, after what feels like forever in the dark, the tunnel opens out abruptly, widening into a large space. She couldn’t work out the space’s size, not even by stretching out her wings to their fullest, but uses the flow of air to estimate that it’s large. There’s also a lot of humidity in the air, indicating water, and even a strange smell which she can’t categorise.
The smell is familiar to me but it takes a bit of back and forth between us to work out what it is. Eventually, it’s only when she identifies that she smelt something vaguely similar when she sniffed some white crystals I have in a bowl in my cave, that I work it out. She was smelling salt.
Could there be some sort of underground salt reserve? Does that happen? If so, that’s enough motivation for me to brave a tunnel which I’m not sure will be wide enough for me at its narrowest points. If I can get through and there is salt, that would be an awesome find. There’s so much I can do with salt. Not to mention that it’s great for adding to food, and required for my body.
Alright, I say to myself, trying to psyche myself up, I can do this. A claustrophobe’s nightmare, here I come.