Chapter Text
She felt an odd pressure in her mind as it woke up. A mix between the sensations of mental confusion, physical pain, and an audible ringing sound. When it finally started talking to her again there was an odd blurriness to its words. It always thought AT her in words but the words also typically had feelings behind them. Now those feelings were confused and ambivalent. She kept dragging it forward physically and mentally. Outside of her direction it would push more and more ahead with both vision and memory beyond what it was asked.
They were resting at the side of a deep chasm. That was the part she could physically feel AND control. She could feel beyond herself the air swirling and swirling and SWIRLING down a deep tear in the rock filled with air that only went farther down and down and down into cold, dead rock. The airflow called to her in its way, but as it gave way to rock she felt the pull of the remaining air less and less. So instead she laid there beside the thing while it woke up.
Eryndlyn is west…
“ So you’ve told me ,” she replied. They laid on the side of the open chasm together, and she embraced every inch of open, swirling, air that it provided while remaining wary of where it sunk into the dead earth.
They woke up on the side of a cliff. When they felt into the elemental’s mind they could feel the air swirl down and down and down beyond its perception. All it knew was that eventually the rock consumed the air. Their brain was confused and fogged, but they understood that air and air and air, then EARTH was not a good formula for physical safety. They suggested moving forward despite its objections, and eventually succeeded.
The rock pressed and pressed and PRESSED down and forever. It got so deep and so bad and so TIGHT that she could only crawl. She thought that she would die. She wanted to go back to that restrictive cell where she could only pace a few steps. She couldn’t breathe here. She breathed the same air over and over and with every breath the rock compressed her chest by being so close.
It was fighting for sanity in the narrow caverns. There was enough space to move but sometimes the tunnel would touch your shoulders on one side or the other. Sometimes you would have to hunch and tuck your chin or slouch. Previously they had understood this reflex as nothing more than a trapped animal that they couldn’t soothe in their usual manner. Now they saw it for what it was, a cteature of the air literally being ‘out of its element’ and crushed by the surrounding rock.
They were having difficulties of their own as their march pushed onward. The two of them stopped in a narrow cavern with a small pool. It immediately moved to satiate its thirst by scooping water with its hands into its mouth from the shallow pool. In turn, they splashed the water on their skin to moisten it. They would need to immerse themself at some point, but that was not a pressing issue.
What was pressing was their hunger. Their last few months in the dragon’s city were a blur. They couldn’t remember when they’d last ate, but it was starting to feel like it had been a long time.
Did it think she couldn’t sense it’s hunger?
They knew it knew, they just didn’t care. With every step they cared less and less.
They reached for its head and within the same instant it grabbed them by their face. It knotted its hand in the tendrils of their face and when they burned its hand it screamed at them with every bit of its both physical and metaphysical existence.
Then it paused and offered a rare salient thought,“Not…..yet.”
…only one of us can live through this journey and I am the one that can see.
“You can live a little longer.”
I need to eat and you won’t live without me anyway.
“I’m still able to kill you.”
Excuse me?
“I can still take you with me …for now.”
They felt the raw hopelessness in that statement and finally understood.
It waited, uncharacteristically patiently, for them to walk ahead.
They did.
She heard a scraping sound up ahead and stopped. In front of her, it had stopped too. It was listening? …or maybe feeling ahead mentally like it could.
“What is that?”
She felt it turn toward her in the dark and brought her hands up defensively.
I don’t know. These caverns are supposed to be empty.
It was silent for a long time. The empty earth continued pressing down and in.
Whatever it is, it doesn’t think like you or I, or at least, I can’t feel it thinking. Probably not dwarves then, which would’ve been my first guess. We’ll have to look to find out.
It. It would have to look. She couldn’t see well, remember?
It released one of its long, rattling sighs.
They edged forward to peer into the cavern ahead. The elemental could feel the air moving, which meant two things; the area was open enough for air to move, and something was moving the air.
They didn’t see anything at first. It was just an empty cavern. The next thing they noticed was what felt like a carpet. There was a soft, almost furry coating to the ground. They jumped back and steadied themselves with a hand on the wall, but the fur was on the wall too and they yanked their hand back.
Then they saw movement in the dark, far on the edge of the cavern. It was humanoid in that it had arms and legs but that was the extent of the similarity. It’s head appeared to be some odd, twisted shape, like a fungus.
They stumbled backward into the tunnel and tripped over the elemental who began physically struggling and drawing energy from the environment, but they were lucky there was so little air for it to pull from. They supposed they could have eaten it, but given the current obstacle, were grateful they hadn’t.
QUIET THEY’LL HEAR US.
It froze, pinned between their back and the rock, gripping their tunic tightly in one hand and their wrist in the other.
Let me go! We need to get farther back!
It finally understood their panic and let go. They both stumbled back around the corner as quietly as possible. The fungus thing’s footsteps were heavy, but muffled by the soft groundcover. They let the sylph see what they had and it panicked, wanting to run further down the tunnel.
NO! Stay here, just stay quiet. I don’t think it can go past the edge of the mycelium. Or, even if it can, I don’t think it will want to.
It was wary, but did as it was told, for the moment.
Alright. They took stock of their options. Myconids are often peaceful, depending on the species.
It opened its mouth to speak, but thought better, and shut it. The elemental carefully, experimentally, thought “at” them. It wanted to know what species this was and if they were peaceful.
I have no idea.
It glared at them disbelievingly. Well, it tried. It glared at the wall next to their head.
They don’t make great thralls, obviously, and we generally prefer to grow mushrooms that can’t hit us!
Their species did seem at a loss the moment something could fight back.
I’ve never fought fair in my life and I’m not starting now.
They peeked around the corner and received a completely non-magical jolt or energy from the sight of it looming RIGHT. THERE. at the edge of the mycelium… staring? Could Myconoids stare??? (They couldn’t see any eyes) down the otherwise empty tunnel. They ducked back and flattened against the rock.
They shouldn’t be this far south, and I think that answers the question.
The elemental would assume that meant they were aggressive.
Correct.
It wanted to know what the plan was.
We fight our way through. Preferably before more of them get here.
It suspected that it would be doing most of “their” collective fighting.
… also correct.
“How-” she whispered, but cut herself off. How far/long would she need to fight?
I have no idea; they’re not supposed to be here in the first place.
That was a very helpful and informative sentiment.
OK. …look. …on the other hand, they’re not even supposed to be here, and Eryndlyn isn’t far. Myconids are not typically aggressive, but the Drow …are. They would defend their borders against this kind of thing.
So they could possibly back out and go around?
Do you want to risk running into my former compatriots if they’ve followed us? It huffed angrily, but also… to steel itself.
She stared hatefully at it, only half because it was right.
“I-” she stopped herself again. She would need more open air to really work. It was ever so slightly bigger than her physically, so it should shove the fungus-thing out into the larger cavern, then she would be able to fight the fungus-thing.
She hated feeling the uncertainty and terror under its agreement.
They did as they were asked. They ran and they used all of their minuscule muscle to shove the thing into the central cavern and then just kept running. They ran past and ran and ran and ran and tripped over the last little bit and skidded to a stop on bare rock again. They looked back to watch everything unfold.
It fought the Myconid. Technically, it even won, just not how it expected.
The Myconid exploded. It blew apart into what looked like a million tiny spores and the elemental was right there sharing its air and incapable of anything else but breathing them in.
The last thing it did before losing consciousness was to try and fail to look for them with its meager sight. Its last thought before black closed in on its vision was, Well, you were right. You get to live.
Their memories of the next part were of poor quality. There were a couple possible reasons. First of all, they were extremely hungry. That problem seemed to have resolved itself very quickly. It wasn’t a high quality meal. They honestly weren’t even sure what it was just that most of it’s intellect consisted of the muscle memory needed for manual labor. That could have been a lot of different things, in retrospect. It probably wasn’t a drow since they rarely did their own manual labor if they could help it, but they still couldn’t be sure.
The second problem was that after the hunger resolved, they seemed to have gotten hit on the head, and hard. They didn’t lose consciousness, or they were fairly certain, anyway. They remembered trying to crawl back into the cave with the myconid and…
They did remember watching it lose consciousness. It fell limp like a sack of grain that had been dropped.