Sometimes to see, you must first snuff out the light.

-From Aphorisms: 1:14

The panted, glaring down at her slain foe.

Grab! Take! Consume! Her Instinct snarled from her gnashing teeth.

The corpse of the enormous bat had started to drift towards the submerged edge of the walkway. Her hands full with the torch and her knife, she bent down again and bit into the clavicle of the beast, feeling her teeth jar against bone.

Clamping down, getting a firm grip, she hauled her slain prey farther into the constructed cavern.

Meat! So much! The back and shoulders. Her Instinct drooled from her own mouth as she kept an eye out for anything else. Needs a dry place!

Need to get out of the water. She hadn’t seen the bats, and didn’t know what else she hadn’t seen.

Now that the sharp staccato fear had worn off, she was starting to notice more of the signs of neglect in the structure. Strange moss and mushrooms grew over the stones, pale in the slowly dying light of her torch. Several structures that looked as if they had been knocked over, their jagged remains not tasteful variance as she had first suspected.

She almost staggered as she felt a series of deep gashes in the stone beneath her feet. She wondered what could possibly tear out stone like that with claws. It had to be that, the spacing was right, if incredible in size.

She saved that question for later though. With no turnings and fire for light, her only option was to head forward. She wanted to butcher the thing in her jaws and eat for a bit. She continued to pick apart the strange smell of the space. It was mostly damp and dark, and the smell of wet bat was not helping much either. She focused on the subtler smells though.

Death… long sitting death… like sun-bleached bones.

Not the wet maggoty sweet smell of rotting meat. Nor that fresh earthbonian smell of blood, though that she smelled that too.

A dryer smell.

A disappointing smell. Or a warning.

The torch started to flicker slightly, and she reached for a fresh one. She didn’t want to be in the dark down here at all.

I should wait…

She felt her hindbrain focus her attention, ignoring the taste of fresh killed bat or the feeling of her blood dripping into the water. It was how it was ignoring the usual impulses that made her pause. It pulled her eyes to a pillar, half in the water, the portion above covered in the strange pale mushrooms. Something about them…

Go to embers first… Her Instinct hissed, still feeling a bit frantic, speaking from her chest with a rapid tempo. It didn’t like the idea, but her curiosity in this place had infected it.

The neonate felt that so long as there was an ember left, she could coax the next torch into flame. She kept moving forward, making sure to keep the dim light from the entryway in sight. She knew she could swim if she slipped heading back. She just hoped nothing in the water would come up to eat her. She didn’t trust that the water was actually empty.

The light grew dim, the flame eventually going out, leaving just the embers at the end of the stick. It was almost pitch black, she couldn’t see.

I need to light the next one!

Wait! Adjusting. Wait.

It took her a moment, a terrifying moment, but when her eyes did adjust she realized that she could make out things in the dark. The mushrooms were glowing with a pale blue light.

That hue… It was the same color as her bag’s runes.

She walked over to one, still dragging the dead bat, looking at it. It was long. About the length of her forearm, the stem as wide around as both her thumbs. The cap was about half the size of her palm.

She sheathed the knife, plucking the fruiting body from the stone pillar. Spiraling shapeless lights, swirled around it, flashing and flaring even brighter than her torch had.

Magic!

Jerking she hurled it away from her. It lit up the dark with trails of light like darting dragonflies, flaring bright as it hit the flowing water before going totally dark.

The soft sound of the tiny splash was drowned out by the constant roar of the water. She watched it for a moment before realizing that it had stained her fingers. They glowed now with that same blue luminescence.

Visible! Her Instinct hissed from her hand, just under the offending stains. She tried to wipe it off on her side but the glow stubbornly remained.

Is this permanent?!

She started to panic.

Some terrible curse that the plant had evolved.

She dunked her hand into the water expecting to have to scrub herself viciously to get rid of it. In spiraling fractals the wet juice dissipated almost instantly. Relief washed over her mind as it washed away from her fingers. Her neck dripped blood into the water as well, her blood black in the dim glow of the fungi.

I need to get out of this water, tend to my wound.

Consume! Her Instinct demanded.

She shifted to take out another torch out of the bag when she realized that the one she had been carrying had completely gone out. Starting to curse, her eyes fell back on the mushrooms.

I wonder…

Her Instinct watched curiously as she plucked another mushroom, dunking her torch into the water to cool the wire that remained with a sizzle. She smeared the freshly picked mushroom onto the pillar, well above the waterline. It left a long glowing line that lingered, steady as sunlight outside the occasional motes that zipped out of it.

Good! Learn… Caution, however. Her Instinct said after a moment of waiting to make sure the glow wouldn’t dissipate.

There was a new smell as well that made her think of lightning.

This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

Ozone.

She nodded, and with a glowing hand she picked several mushrooms and put them into her bag. As she did, the bag blazed into light. Not flickering or flashing like before, but steady. The bright spiraling symbols rotating through distinct lines of the same colored light.

In the opposite direction? What did that mean?

She realized that she didn’t even need the torches. If she wanted, she could just smear herself with the mushrooms.

No! Danger! Prolonged exposure! Her Instinct shouted.

Well she could put them in the bag and hold it open as she walked. Or smear some on the spent torch.

All that work, wasted.

The bag suddenly stopped glowing as the mushrooms went dark. The neonate blinked, tongue flickering.

The smell of ozone from the bag was gone.

Reaching in to take one out of the bag to examine it, it crumbled as her claw brushed the plant’s flesh. Each ashy part floating up into the air before completely vanishing, deteriorating away into non-existence.

Magic… Her Instinct whispered from her eyes.

Did the bag… eat them?

Her Instinct and forebrain both shrugged.

She picked the last one from the bunch, holding it in her hand as she sloshed forward towards the next exposed piece of stone and a fresh patch of mushrooms.

She smeared one on each stone that was above the waterline, leaving a trail of light. Her hands and arms soon were also coated in the juices, so that she lit the way easily as she traveled. She tilted her head.

Is the sound of water getting louder?

Her Instinct filled her ears.

She listened, it sounded like it was. The current of the water was growing stronger as well, pulling her forward from her ankles down.

She had gathered as many mushrooms as she could carry in one arm, and it was by her light that she saw a shallow torrent pouring down another set of stairs. The neonate had to brace her feet firmly, dig her claws into the cracks between each stone, lest she be sucked down the stairs by the flow.

At the bottom of the stairs there was an octagonal space. Pillars or posts were at each of the sides, and there was something that looked like dirt in the gloom as well.

Consume… Her Instinct sounded halfhearted.

She didn’t want to chance anything, but what else was she going to do.

I’ll run if something comes, I can see the way back now.

Agreed.

The sound of flowing water was incredible, so loud that it was a physical force. She had to use one clawed hand to descend, keeping the mushrooms and her bag out of the water as she went. The water was all flowing into a lattice of earthbone set in the floor, descending deeper still into a void.

It left the center of the eight-sided space dry and out of the water. She could see that each side of the octagon was made by a set of stairs. Each of those led to a path.

Cardinal directions. Her Instinct interrupted from her inner ear.

The pillars, as it turned out, were carved figures, in a style she recognized from before, the detail becoming visible as she brought the mushroom-light closer.

The Idol! Her eyes went wide.

The feeling of being watched intensified again.

The gods… this is their house. Her Instinct said, resonating in her chest.

She wasn’t sure how she felt about the gods. Tok had spoken briefly about them. It felt like she didn’t have much to thank them for.

She thought of her size. I’ve been more cursed by them than blessed.

She wouldn’t be disrespectful though. Not out loud anyway.

In the center of the space was an octagonal platform, a dais.

Symbols and runes were carved along the edge, dark as the stones. Decorative geometry ran parallel to the runes, and atop the runes were piles of the earthbone disks, glittering strangely in the light of the mushrooms.

She knew that the gods were the original Providers, and so in this space, so close to their idols, she should be safe. The neonate let the bat corpse fall, checking the wound at her neck, which had stopped bleeding.

Have to clean that at some point though.

Butcher! Now!

I need more light, last thing I need is to cut open the stomach and ruin the meat.

She felt the unseen eyes pulse, and she turned to face the statue that matched the idol she had dug out of Gix’s grave.

“Both our purposes then.” She whispered, words silent in the roar of the water.

The neonate coated each figure with the mushrooms, taking the time to highlight portions that she felt were the distinguishing aspects of each. She started with the one that matched her idol, the one that was on the side that led back to her territory and the thorns. She didn’t spend too much time, but she did make sure that it wasn’t a sloppy job either.

As she finished, the feeling of being watched shifted slightly. The manner of the gaze becoming more relaxed.

Eyes half lidded. She hissed, thinking of Tok. A sunshine yellow thought.

The giant bat didn’t take long to prepare, the matte black blade taking only moments to split it open. She was surprised at just how hungry she was as she tore meat off the bone, though she wasn’t hungry enough to eat everything. She ate the organs apart from the intestines and stomach, letting those squelch wetly through the earthbone gratings.

I wonder where it is draining. It had to be an incredibly deep space with that much water pouring down.

She tore the last bit of the meat from the left humerus and placed the bone with the others in a neat little pile. She had saved the wing leather as well as the pelt, the skull, and the meat she hadn’t eaten and placed it not quite on the pedestal, planning to come back later for it.

As she did, her eyes were drawn by the pile of yellow earthbone disks. This close and now in the light, she could see that there were also other things there.

More yellow earthbone, larger flat disks, rings of many sizes, from about as big around as her own fingers to as big around as her waist.

More idols and other figures were there as well, glinting as she shifted to look. Most mesmerizing of all though was the earthblood, glittering stones of all colors, translucent and sparkling. They sent facets of light scattering all about the space.

She ran her fingers through the things, taking care to not spill any, finding a red one, the color of purest power. It shone bright from the light of her painted hands.

She didn’t want to take it, just to stare into it for a moment.

It was heavy, and the size of her head.

Enthralling.

Idiot! Distracted! Her Instinct snarled.

She hissed and placed it back. The trinkets were pretty, but they were only that. They weren’t tools, they weren’t food, and they all would give away her position from their shine alone.

That, and they belong to the gods anyway. Last thing she needed was the all-Providers chasing her down to make a point.

Gentle as the rays of the sun, she felt it. Her tongue flickered out and she turned to the right, facing southwest.

Wind.

And not from the way I came either. It smelled fresh though.

Pulling her knife back out, still coated in the glow of the mushrooms, she strode up the too large stairs and planted her feet against the flow of the water on the far side. She drew the black blade, taking the spent torch in her other hand, scanning for threats. She didn’t see any.

Means nothing. Her Instinct growled darkly from her knife hand, ready to thrust.

Her Instinct tugged on her eyes, dragging them from their relentless scanning for threats, pulling her skull to face into that breeze. She could see that the way ahead eventually came out of the water.

I have to look now. It might be a way out!

She suddenly realized something else.

After months of not being able to, and dealing with the bats, she had a long straight path. A place perfect for her to run. To sprint. To challenge herself to go ever faster! In complete safety!

She hissed in pleasure and ran up the steps.

Once she was out of the submerged section she dashed down the pathway, feet pumping. The freedom of just running full tilt with a full belly was exhilarating. She couldn’t smell any creatures. None at all now that the bats had gone.

The glow of the mushroom remnants let her see the places where she had to leap over missing sections of the bridge. The swirling motes chased after her from the pigment.

She could hear the sound of pouring water getting quieter as she ran. She squashed each group of mushrooms she passed, leaving lights as she went. Both in the patches and her footprints for several steps after.

Her tongue flickered out, and she slowed. Bright. Green. Full of familiar earthy smells. The air was definitely fresh. That could mean only one thing.

There is another way out. No more thorns! But that came with a caveat. Also another way in. She’d have to be careful using this path.

Survive. Her Instinct pulled her eyes up for a moment, letting her forebrain take control back after satisfying the need of checking above her and seeing nothing.

She slunk forward, wishing for a way to wash her body clean of the glowing mushroom pigment before she went up. But the stairs were dry, devoid of the water she had expected. But she didn’t want to double back.

I could use the rain and leaves as fast as I can. She could hear it again now, echoing down. Wash with those.

Learn. Her Instinct hissed, tugging at her feet.

This was a way to travel the island in secret. And depending where it came out on the island above, it could be incredibly useful. So up she went, trying not to be too hopeful that it would turn out well.

She didn’t want to be disappointed.