I have to admit, the Ceph really helped out. One would enter the cave to take the place of the one that would then leave. I can’t be sure, but it seems like they had limited time in their goldfish suit; it makes sense, since I didn’t see any bubblers or anything in it, or any external way for oxygen to be swapped out. One would enter, the other would leave, and there would be a couple minute or so longer pause in the ventilation cycle, presumably while they changed shift.

After about an hour or so of swapping, most all the injuries were taken care of. I wish I could say that no-one was seriously hurt, but there were several fatalities. Some were trampled and succumbed to injury, while others didn’t survive the hypoxia. I briefly glanced at the lips of the woman who smiled a tired smile of thanks as I finished up her wrist splint. It’s no wonder nobody noticed; hard to tell if someone is turning blue from lack of oxygen when the only light you have to see by is blue.

I looked around again, seeing faces near me and clustered shadows afar. I don’t believe that the Ceph would do this intentionally; if they wanted us dead, they could have just left us to the wolf people. Instead, they took us in and sheltered us. At least, that’s what I desperately want to believe. I can’t say for sure that the others won’t become hostile if we ever get out of here, but I’m becoming more and more hopeful that we will, eventually, leave this place.

I see another light appear from behind me, and I turn to see that it’s another new Ceph that I don’t immediately recognize. Its smaller tentacles look to always be slightly moving, compared with Threedots and Donut, who were always pretty still. Still to the point of almost looking like a squid in a moving specimen jar, if not for the...Respiration? Breathing? I don’t know what the appropriate word is, but it really doesn’t matter. Come to think of it, that half blue one was pretty still as well.

Another breeze flows past, followed by the pressure normally felt afterward; only this time, the air feels a little warmer. Are they regulating the temperature now, or is this the byproduct of some other process they are doing? Regardless, it makes things a fair bit more comfortable, and I hear some quiet snoring, causing me to look over my shoulder briefly. I use the blue gesture, hoping it’s for something polite and meaningful before I lay down on the sand and try to get some rest.

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I must have been very tired, because I don’t remember falling asleep. Who does, though? When I awake, it’s to the sound of whispers and feet in the sand near my head. When my eyes snap open, the first thing I notice is how bright it is; at least twice as bright as it ever was, but unfortunately still a purple-blue color that’s slightly off-putting. As the cobwebs clear, I realize why; this might be a form of poly-chromatic UV light; with that revelation, I scramble to my feet and turn to look at the light sources; there were two floating in the flooded tunnel, and another small crate of them just in front of the tunnel.

“Don’t look at them! It might be UV light!” I rush over and scoop one of the crusty egg like lights out of the water, doing my best not to look at it directly, and bury it in the sand near the flooded cave. The handful of people nearby grumbled but didn’t protest. Some did take a few light eggs, though, and I grabbed one as well. I’m pretty sure I smell some ozone, so that’s not great; hopefully no-one has anything worse than a sunburn from this, but I’ve got no idea how long people were exposed to the light.

The light egg I held didn’t seem to have any obvious way to turn it on, and was pretty solidly constructed; at least solid enough that I wasn’t able to crush it in my hand. I couldn’t see it very well now that there was essentially no light; it felt kind of like a fine, hard foam sponge wrapped in a bone like lattice. I sat cross-legged next to the tunnel entrance with my back to the coral; I didn’t want to sit against the coral, but I didn’t want to be in the way of anything coming out of the tunnel and of anyone trying to grab an egg. I also wanted to see if anyone figured out how to turn them on, and if they did, I would try to talk them out of keeping it; this temporary dark is a much better thing to deal with than a permanent one, after all. I spun the light-egg in my hand, squeezing, prodding and poking a bit before I decide that sitting cross-legged isn’t doing anything for my lower back and change to a vaguely more comfortable kneeling position. In doing so, the light-egg slips out of my hand and I hear a light thump in the sand. I feel around for it a bit before, finally, I sigh, and resign myself to just waiting quietly.

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About a minute passes and I realize that there’s been no tunnel pump event, and there should have been one by now; either one of them just left, is about to arrive or whatever makes the tunnel air system work has failed like the coral lights. I push that thought out of my mind, though, and only have to wait another few minutes before some dull violet light comes up from the flooded tunnel.

Even in the dim glow, I could tell it was Donut that was visiting this time, just as its eye came into view; there was no mistaking that pattern around that large right eye. I stood as soon as I recognized it and moved next to where the crate of light-eggs were and waited patiently. Donut approached, a small crate held by the front of the suit, then stopped right next to the egg crate, and lightly… Swished? Their tentacles towards it. I looked down and grab a light-egg from the crate, holding it up. Donut’s light turns off then rapidly goes from nothing to max, but there’s a transition there, like a dimmer switch being brought to full quickly instead of being on or off only. I make the blue gesture to Donut, then put the egg back in the crate. It fades the light quickly to black, and I gesture blue once more; hopefully it understands that I’m telling it that I understand. Donut lights back up.

I pick a light-egg back up, and hold it on a flat palm between us. Donut wiggles the crate off the suit down onto the sand before turning and heading back towards the tunnel; I follow, hoping it’s not leaving. Fortunately, Donut stops just before the entrance and does the tentacle swish thing again. I hold up the egg once more, and donut does the increasing light response. That’s right, the two eggs I woke up to were floating in the water. I sigh, knowing where this is going, and lightly toss the egg into the water. It lights up immediately, apparently activated by salt water. Donut flickers and goes dark, but I’m already holding up my hand to block my eyes from the light as I walk to the edge of the tunnel entrance and blindly fish around for the egg. Eventually I risk a peek and discover that I need to move to the other side to get it, so I do and then immediately bury it in the sand.

I’ve got no idea if Donut is confused or angry or just contemplating, but I need to remind it with a point and gesture to turn the non-egg lights back on. Donut complies and we both stare at each other for a moment.

I’m not real sure how to convey that UV light hurts us; I consider expanding the hand gestures for more and less light horizontally for color, but so far, I’ve only seen them emit two.

“Does anyone know anything about light? Photons?” I ask out into the dark. No answers; it sounds like half the people might still be asleep. I run my hand across my face in frustration; Donut is probably on a clock as far as oxygen supply goes, and they might swap with another Ceph if we don’t make progress right now. That could be a problem if the understanding I have with them is lost on the others.

“Think back…” I mumble to myself. Light is both a particle and a wave… Not overtly helpful. Double slit experiment probably won’t help here either. Waves? The spectrum of color is just long to short waves right? I kneel down and draw some wide sinusoidal waves that gradually get narrower and narrower between peaks… I know one side was UV and the other was IR, but I can’t remember which. Wait, we can only see a small part of the middle right? So that shouldn’t matter.

I lean back so that Donut can get a look at the drawing; being this close, I can see that all the colored dots on it’s skin are changing in wave like patterns, but not sure if that’s good or bad. A moment goes by and I get my answer in the form of the increasing light response. Hopefully, this means it understands. I draw two vertical lines through the wave diagram, then lean back so that Donut can see what I’ve done. With the diagram cut into thirds, I cover the beginning and the end with my hands so that only the middle is visible, then cover my eyes with one hand while lowering the other with the reduce light gesture. Donut responded with the ascending brightness. Time to see if we can skip a step here.

I point at the outer two-thirds of the diagram and look back at the Ceph. Donut responded with descending brightness. I pointed to the central third of the diagram, and back to Donut. Ascending brightness. I confirm with the blue gesture.

Donut turns and starts heading back to the tunnel while the spots seem to roll patterns through the dim blue bio-luminescent light, but stops and slowly turns back towards me. Donut wiggles a tentacle towards the crate; I pick up one of the eggs from it, just barely visible at this distance from the Ceph’s light, but it does the darkening light response. I drop the egg back in the crate, and as I do, I notice the smaller crate and pick it up. Donut flashes the increasing light response, so apparently there’s something they want us to look at in here.

At first...Feel, since Donut has gone dark and I’m no longer able to see anything at all, it seems like it’s just a bunch more water gels. Off to one side, however, there’s also some kind of small, thin, square device made from what feels like the same bony material as the light eggs and the crates. I run my fingers over it, and though it’s smooth almost everywhere, there’s a small section on one side that almost feels glassy. Whatever this thing is, I should probably keep it to myself, at least until the Ceph return to help explain it.

“Fresh water here.” I state to everyone who may or may not be listening, before feeling around for and grabbing the small crate, then shuffling more towards where everyone should be. “Call out if you need water and we’ll get some handed down to you.”

Some call out for water, and quiet voices and cold hands reach out in the dark; quiet thanks follow shortly.