With whatever monster had snapped the tree in the distance, Akna doubted she could survive in the forest as she was. Much less find the Zamani beneath the trees. Most Zamani were isolationists, and their magic let them hide very well in an environment like the forest. She was sure there were tribes hidden in the forest, but she doubted she would be able to find them while focusing on surviving. She would have to be very well prepared to survive there. She was still recovering as well, so she could take her time preparing while she finished healing.

So preparation is what she did. For the next few days, she went out to the meadow to find grass or plants she could weave into baskets to carry her berries. During her meals of berries, she searched for large sticks that she could fashion into torches for light. The forest was going to be hard enough to navigate during the daytime with the trees blocking so much sunlight, much less if she needed to travel during night time.

She also needed to work more on her magic. She had used air on the boat, earth for the cliff, and fire for her fire. So it stands to reason she should be able to use water magic somehow. If there was one thing she didn't want to ever be without again, it was water, so finding a way to gather water with magic somehow was going to be very important for her. Her magic even seemed excited for this for some reason. She didn't know how her magic could feel, but she could tell it did. The more she used it, the stronger she could feel its emotions.

Using water magic to create water turned out to be much harder than she thought it would be. The other magic came so easily, why wasn't this? After at least a week of trying, she was no closer to manifesting her water magic. So Akna decided to take a break for a day and just let her magic flow through her body while she studied the pool. Maybe she would get inspiration. She also watched the critters that had become common sights around the pool. The glider still showed up every day, and seemed to be the least afraid of her out of them all. She smiled while looking at the animal, glad for the company even if the glider never acknowledged her.

As she let her magic flow through her, the air suddenly seemed to vibrate. A flutter of wind that seemed to reverberate around the clearing echoed from above, as a massive owl the size of a house landed on the tree with the gliders hollow. It stared down at the clearing with its massive eyes, letting out a screech. Everyone scattered, Akna included. She ran as far into the back of her cave as she could, grabbing her prepped supplies to make sure they weren't destroyed if the bird decided to go for her.

As she pressed her back into the back of her root cave, she watched the other critters, including the glider, stream down one of the tunnels on the other side of the pool. The air vibrated again as the owl came down from above and slammed into the roots outside her cave. Akna set her jaw, ready to fight this thing if needed. She closed her eyes for a moment, prepared for the worst.

A sloshing sound. Akna opened her eyes to see the owl... drinking from the pool. Looking closer, it seemed to be injured, blood dripping from the base of its tail. As she watched, the owl lifted its head up from the pool and reached back to its wound, pulling out broken feathers around the wound. Then it did the most extraordinary thing. It conjured a gust of water. That wasn't quite right, it was more like a cold wind that made water fall out of the air.

As the owl slowly cleaned its wound, Akna, with her back still pressed against the wall of her cave, tried to mimic it. She used her magic and tried to do what the owl did, and it worked! She made cold air, and it coated her hand in dew! Though, did she need to use air? What if she just... pulled the water from the air? That actually made a lot of sense. So far, the only thing she had conjured was fire, everything else had already been present. What if she wasn't even making fire, but simply using her magic to manipulate the world into making fire? That would mean, she couldn't make water, but she could pull water from the sky! She could use her magic like a cloud and make rain fall!

Akna wanted to squeal in excitement as she used her magic to pull a pool of water into her hand. She had done it! She had solved her water problem! Akna celebrated quietly in her mind as the owl finished cleaning its wound and flew away, the air vibrating as it left. Akna waited a little longer before peeking her head outside her cave and creeping back out. She couldn't keep the smile off her face as she used her magic to pull the water from the air into her cupped hands.

As she leaned back by the pool in contentment, she watched as the pool critters emerged from the tunnel one by one to collect more food and water. Even the glider came down from its... hollow? How had it gotten up there? Akna stared at it puzzled, before looking at the tunnel the others had gone into. Suddenly, her forest exploration seemed a lot less daunting.

—-----------

Akna stood on the precipice of the tunnel. After the owl had left, she had kept a closer eye on the glider and noticed it was able to traverse from its hollow to the tunnel. It only went up the tree if there was no danger around. That's probably why the other more landbound critters went through the tunnel as well. It was safer to travel beneath the roots. If it was safer for them, then maybe she could travel the same and find a Zamani tribe beneath the roots.

This would just be a quick trip in and out, just to get the lay of the land. She brought enough food just in case she got lost, but hopefully she wouldn't need to worry about getting lost. As she stepped into the tunnel, the darkness overtook her. It was as if a curtain had been drawn over the entrance, the sun blotted out. Akna pulled out a torch, and sent a spark of fire magic to light it so she could see. As the light spread out, she could see... not much if she was honest. It looked like a wooden tunnel. With nowhere else to go, she simply walked forward.

After a short trek, she came to her first branch. Left seemed to be darker and go down more, and the right seemed to go up again back to the surface, and if she was honest with herself she would rather stay near the surface. But the thought of the beasts above had her deciding otherwise. But she needed to make sure she could find her way back if worse came to worse. So she decided she would only take lefts at any forks she found, that way she could trace her steps back.

After hours and many forks later, Akna was very frustrated. It felt like she wasn't getting anywhere, the wooden walls of the tunnels seemingly endless. She hadn't even seen any tracks of the critters above, the tunnel seemingly empty. She honestly had no idea how long she truly had been down here without the sun, but her first torch was running low. Before it sputtered out, she used it to light a new torch and continue on, wary of any predators and suspicious at the lack of... anything.

As her second torch was down halfway, she decided to take a break at the next fork. She sat down near the entrance of the tunnel she was going to go down, and leaned her back against the wall to have a veritable feast of berries. One accidentally slipped from her hand and fell to the ground, getting crushed as she shifted. Annoyed, she tried to clean her leg of the sticky juices, but didn't seem to make much progress. Sighing, she got up and prepared to continue.

Onto the end of her third torch many hours later, still not having got anywhere, it was time for her second break. Akna could swear it felt like she was just going down the same paths over and over. She needed to drink some water and have a light snack to calm her nerves. Again she went to the left tunnel and got ready to sit down and... there was a berry smear on the ground. Right where she had crushed one a torch and a half ago. That was weird.

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Akna ate her snack, and conjured some water as she stared at the stain. It looked identical to the one she had left. In the same spot. Was it possible she really was going through the same tunnels over and over? How? She decided to go to the next fork and see if it was the same stain.

Going down the next tunnel, she got to the fork and sure enough, there was the stain. Exactly the same in location size and shape. She ran into the right tunnel to the next fork, and sure enough there was the same stain. She went a different way though. A different tunnel. This was some magic bullshit. So she ran back, maybe she had to go backwards. There was the stain.

At this point, Akna's nerves were getting very strained. She just needed to leave, get back to her camp. Just follow the tunnels back, take some deep breaths, she would be fine. So she went back the way she came, trying to get back to her pond and camp. But no matter how long she walked, she was still stuck in the tunnels. She had nearly gone through her entire store of torches. She couldn't escape these damn roots.

Her last torch sputtered out. Darkness overtook her. Akna held her breath, hoping she could maybe see a way back to the surface. Then, Light. A lot of light. And those weren't wooden walls, but... crystal? Glowing crystal, of every color. A rainbow tapestry covered all the walls in beautiful geodes, softly lighting the way down innumerable tunnels that were certainly not there before. Even her berry stain was gone.

Looking back the way she had come, there was the surface. She had barely moved from her pond entrance. Laughing in disbelief, she slowly walked back out to her pond, the moon's soft light drifting above. Exactly as she had left it. Her nerves fried, she went back to her cave for a well deserved rest. She could explore the magic root tunnels later.

—---

Akna spent a few weeks recovering after realizing that she wasn't as well as she wished she was. Being down in the tunnels had revealed she was a lot more fragile than originally thought. Healing well likely wouldn't happen until she was back in a safe location with better food and shelter, but getting there was going to be difficult. Rushing wouldn't help though. So she waited until she was genuinely well rested this time, not just healed from the journey with the Rakt. The isolation was getting to her surprisingly, despite being comfortable with just herself normally. Hopefully today she would finally be around people again. She was about to start talking to the glider if she didn't find a conversation partner soon.

During the past few weeks she had experimented more with the tunnels, and it became clear that torches would cause the endless wooden tunnels for some reason, even if lit while in the middle of the glowing caverns. As soon as she did, the tunnels seemed to just phase into being and cover all routes. She wasn't sure if it was something messing with her brain or what, but she did know it was magic.

She had done a short scouting trip without the torch, and the crystal caverns were actually surprisingly navigable. It was clear that whatever had kept her trapped only affected her while she was carrying a torch, and she could easily feel herself making progress through the tunnels while navigating by the glow of the crystals. Today was the day though to finally push through and try to find the Zamani.

Her last scouting trip had revealed what seemed to be a path. It wasn't obvious, but there were scuff marks of a creature much larger than the typical denizens of the root caverns. While she had never seen a Zamani, she knew enough to recognize their footsteps in the dust that covered the tunnel floor. Their wide feet covered in rough stone left obvious marks on the floor that looked as if someone had scraped the floor with a rock.

Gathering her supplies of a week's worth of berries, Akna stood at the entrance to the root tunnels once again. She hadn't gotten over her lingering fear of them yet honestly, but survival is a great motivator, and she knew her berries would run low eventually, the bushes not used to such a large Omnivore partaking of their fruit. So with trepidation, Akna finally stepped into the tunnels, ready to push through until she found the Zamani village.

As she walked through the tunnels and caverns, the glow of the crystals still entranced her. It was one of the reasons she was able to even scout honestly, the rainbow sheen reflecting off of the wooden walls, and casting a beautiful lattice of color and shadow across every surface. She indulged herself for a while more while she trekked to where she saw the footprints, before finally arriving and focusing in. The footsteps were small, maybe a child wandering from the village?

She followed the trail closely, looking down to make sure she didn't lose track of it. She didn't want to get lost in these caves, the illusory wooden tunnels were bad enough. The trail seemed to be a few days old based on the covering of dust on top, but it got more clear as she continued and learned to recognize the signs more easily. Eventually she found it meeting up with another set of footprints, these ones much larger having come from a much larger tunnel to her left. Perhaps a parent? The two trails seemed to loop back to go through the large tunnel, so hopefully that was the way to the village.

Akna was less focused on her surroundings as she progressed through the large tunnel, so it was with great shock that she was pulled out of her tracking by a deep rumbling coming from beside her. As she looked up, she found she was in another room, and there sitting on the side was a large Zamani, staring at her and making the low grumbling sound she had heard.

The Zamani was at least four heads taller than her, and had a deep auburn skin color, with beautiful lines of crystal lining their body. They had a headdress made of small crystals that hung from a string of thin glass, with other larger crystals decoratively protruding around their head in a halo. They wore a simple set of a tunic and pants seemingly made from living plant fibers, as small stems and leaves still decorated and layered on the clothing. Their hair was as if vines had drank in the colors of the cavern, a rainbow draping the back of their body, knotted into beautifully intricate braids and weaves. And their eyes, beautiful crystalline beads that seemed to emit their own light in the shimmering of the cavern, sitting above a nose and cheeks carved from clay, and a small mouth slightly... smiling?

Akna started, and held her breath as the Zamani rumbling increased, before finally turning into a large bellowing laugh.

"And what is one of the People doing here? On the day of my Rite as well."

Akna was at a loss for words initially before finally getting her mouth to work. "I'm so sorry! I was wrecked at sea and washed up here and I've been trying to find people who can maybe help me get back home and find my family and maybe some food and I'm so sorry again I can get out of your hair- or not hair? It's beautiful by the way, unless that's offensive, I'm really sorry-"

She was cut off as the Zamani let out an even larger bellow of laughter, finding her flounder for words amusing.

"Do not worry young one, you've done nothing wrong. You've come looking for help? Then follow me, and we will see what we can do."

As the Zamani stood, they towered over Akna before motioning for her to follow them as they went down the tunnel they had been sitting near. Akna scrambled to follow, having to take multiple steps to keep pace with the Zamani beside her. After a short walk, they came to the largest cavern yet, with a massive stalactite of crystal hanging from above bathing the whole area in a muted yellow and orange light. And there in the center, was a village.

"Welcome to my home young one, we are happy to host one of the People, and are pleased to make your acquaintance." The Zamani smiled down at Akna, a kind look in their eye.

As Akna finally relaxed her body from tension she hadn’t even realized she had been holding, she choked out "Thank you so much."