Anything ~ 50!

“There, now we’re directly above the Scar that’s something like ten miles below us. Are we all happy, now that we know no bugs are coming out of it?” Luke grouched at the others, a little upset that an animal or monster that he could eat wasn’t presenting itself.

*Buzz.*

Everyone went dead silent as a Preying Mantous flew through the area. Only the swirling wind kicking up dust hid the group as the monstrous insect continued past into the sand dunes. Taylor motioned for everyone to stay still, and seemingly vanished into thin air as she followed the creature without leaving a trace of her presence behind.

Only a few minutes later, she reappeared and directed them to an area filled with bubbling sand, something anyone with half a brain would avoid. Luke felt proud of himself for his self-preservation instinct; he had seen several instances of this and knew not to trust sand that moved on its own. “Things that aren’t alive shouldn’t move.”

Andre felt the ground, letting nature speak to him or some such nonsense, then stood and gazed around the area with wonder. “It’s a natural gas vent. Something down there is producing so much gas that it creates a constant updraft. Amazing.”

“Flammable?” Luke already retrieved a pitch-soaked torch and held out to Zed so he could light it with his firestone. Andre sputtered and slapped it away from the vent, even though the torch itself was as-yet unlit.

“Most likely, yes.” Andre caught his breath and stared at Luke with a twitching eye. “Most likely very flammable.”

“So…” Luke gestured with the torch suggestively.

“Right, so, how gasses in motion work…” Andre tapped the tips of his fingers together. “I’ll make it easy. The fire will go with the gas as it’s blowing. You light it up here, all you’re doing is blocking our entrance.”

Luke reluctantly put the torch away. Zed shook his head and gingerly stepped away from the group. “I’ll hang out up here.”

“No food or water up here.” Taylor studied the shifting sand, “It must be somewhat breathable, or the bugs couldn’t live down there, right? Andre… is this a barrier you can get us past?”

“Who knows what conditions bugs can survive in that we can’t? As to letting you breathe?” The Druid spent a long few moments in silent thought, then reluctantly pulled out some seedlings. “In your nose they go. They’ll create air directly in your lungs, and draw out the harmful gasses. All you have to do is hold a really big breath, and do your best not to inhale too often.”

“Our bodies won’t let us do that, Andre,” Zed sighed as he took the plant, very delicately poking it into his nose. He patted the Druid gently, speaking in a nasally tone, “If you die and no one can take this out of me, I’m going to find a way to bring you back so that I can kill you again.”

“Fair enough,” the Druid stated wryly, “I’ll make sure to live on your behalf. Keeping your comfort in mind: my top priority.”

“Mine didn’t work.” Luke called their attention to the plant that had withered into goo as soon as it got a taste of his innards. “Oops.”

“It’s… twitching.” Taylor frowned at the dying plant and took a subtle step away from Luke. “Is that plant in pain? What sort of madness are you made from?”

“New plan; we all get gas exchange plants, and Luke teaches us how long someone can last in poisonous air.” Zed pointed at the sand and bowed to Luke. “After you, m’lord Von Murderhobo?”

“Everyone else ready?” At the group’s collective nods of affirmation, Luke ran at the bubbling sand and jumped in, sinking to his neck in an instant. Hot grit filled his mouth, and he started flailing as he realized that he was just sinking, not going anywhere.

The sand around him solidified slightly and pulled away just before he started fighting back, revealing a long tunnel hewn into the stone… a solid ten feet from where Luke was flopping around. Andre cleared his throat, which Luke appreciated—sand in the throat was more than just annoying—and called quietly, “Perhaps I should lead the underground exploration? You know… the guy that can make the earth move around?”

They got in line and followed along the tunnel, enjoying the comforting darkness and coolness of the air compared to the desert above. They continued along the tunnel for hundreds of feet on a downward slope, never once encountering any bugs. They moved swiftly yet cautiously, at a pace even Zed could maintain for hours at a time.

The tunnel began branching, and at each intersection, they needed to try their luck. Soon enough, they were turned around to the point that even Taylor’s perfect memory was becoming slightly befuddled. Without Andre to lift them straight out, the place would have been a deathtrap on that merit alone. As it was, the only light in the area came from Cookie, who blazed a brilliant blue.

“Stinks in here.” The Murderhobo scowled, then poked Andre. “You. Dig us straight down; I’m sick of these tunnels.”

“Bad idea.” Andre paused to let his plant pull out the gas he had sucked in. “Monsters might feel the mana. The Druid that blasted this place might have set up failsafes to stop future Druids from taking this place down. Remember, whoever did this to the Hollow Kingdom was level twenty and had hundreds of years of experience. I’m a pretty new Druid. Also, that is methane and sulphur. Great.”

“It’s just poison air.” Luke stood proudly as the others slowly came to realize how long they had been underground. “I’m pretty much immune to poison.”

“A vent here!” Zed gasped out, gesticulating wildly at a space that was darker than the surrounding rock. “Straight drop!”

“Celestials above, I really thought we’d need to walk another nine-point-eight-three-ish miles down to get where we were going.” Luke hopped into the vent and dropped, chuckling at the gasps of horror that were quickly replaced with hacking coughs. He flipped over as he fell, then tossed Cookie ahead of him to light the way so he wouldn’t splatter against the ground.

She didn’t mind.

The vent dropped down for miles, eventually opening up into an utterly massive volcanic cavity. The sight that filled his eyes took his breath away more efficiently than the harsh gasses that he was falling through. Miles, and miles of green. Not flora… green. Swarms of bugs flew around, eggs dotting every single hole in the walls or ground, and even the ceiling was covered in bioluminescent crystals that strobed with soft blue internal lights. Blue was more familiar to Luke, and he liked the contrast.

“Looks like I’m outside with all those stars. Ha! I can’t be outside; I’m underground!” Tearing his gaze away, he scrutinized the rest of the area, finding that he was falling toward a floor covered with plant matter, dead animals, bugs both dead and alive, and so many bones. All of that was seen in an instant, processed, then cast aside.

There was one, single… plant. He wanted to say ‘tree’, but no… this was something else. A woven intermingling of plant that stretched down from the ceiling before branching into vines and roots that reached the entire distance downward to feed on the detritus that coated the earth below. This thing was more than a mile tall, and at least as wide. Another detail stood out vividly: he could feel that the plant had either grown around the Scar, or that the Scar had been opened inside of the plant.

Either way, he knew now where he needed to go. The Murderhobo was suddenly exceedingly grateful for all the midair combat training he had received in Murder World, and he was looking forward to putting it to good use here. “Stealth option is a no-go. Sorry, Cookie, looks like you’re just too brilliant to be missed.”

A keening cry, buzzing, and various clacking chitinous appendages had been his wake-up call, pulling him out of his excitement and into combat mode. “Gotta secure a landing zone for the team…!”

He called Cookie to him, enjoying the fact that she came to a halt in midair, and tossed his mana-made ‘Mountaindale’ bottle at the closest swarm that was flying upward to catch the falling morsel. “Shockwave Cleave.”

The bottle hit the leading bug, and Luke was able to watch the aftermath of his Skill from a distance for the first time. All the bugs in a cone, all the way down to the ground, were converted to goo and shrapnel. Luke then activated Feather’’s Fall, only for the Skill to fail.

You cannot gain Potentia from this enemy type!

Mana: 63/324.

“Feces! I don’t have enough-” Luke reached for a waterskin, but couldn’t get any mana-water into his mouth before he hit the ground with a huge splash. Between catching the rain of ichor and landing in a hundred years’ worth of accumulated bug droppings, Luke created a wave of nasty that sloshed for hundreds of feet.

Moments later, he crested the surface of the… for his mental health, he decided to call it a swamp instead of a cesspool, and thrust a fist into the air. “Yes! Halved fall damage for the win!”

He swam powerfully to a mostly-solid area, pulling himself onto dry ‘land’, and watched for his falling friends. He was almost certain they didn’t have a way to mitigate falling on their own, but he was ready for that eventuality. As soon as they appeared above him, he chucked Cookie up at them as hard as he could.

“Catch!”