64. One Room Later

Jaden and Nox logged onto the console and quickly discovered it was a Datasphere terminal, like the ones in the Spire. Unfortunately, it was inactive and couldn’t restart without power.
 
Fureva-Yung lifted her arm to the door in the south, and like the others before it, it slid open without concern.
 
 
The next room was more of a space providing access to doors. Besides the double doors they now entered through, there was a double door to the east and a double door to the southwest. Either looked as good as the other. As Fureva-Yung smelled through her new trunk, she didn’t notice any particular smell from the shadow creature or anything with nano-tech. There was a faint smell of ozone from the door to the southwest. Everyone seemed to be waiting for Fureva-Yung and her magic arm. She’d seen the shadow creature slip through a crack to the east. So, with her magic arm, she opened the door to the left and walked in.
 
A long, dark gantry dog-legged to the left down to a second level that held another column. A set of stairs led down to the column level, and another set led further down. Directly ahead, a small door led south. As Nox’s Hedge Magic light zipped into the room heading north, Fureva-Yung sensed the shadow creature fleeing for the second set of stairs.
“You’re not getting away,” she murmured, freeing her chain. She leapt down the stairs, swinging her chain through the darkness and struck the creature. Marius noted the flight of the chain and sent a heat ray in chase. It hit, and as it died, the shadow creature illuminated the whole room, giving back the energy it had fed on. The pillar beside began to glow. The energy was absorbed into the column, and the light from it intensified. Nox did a scan.
 
“Uh…that column is drawing energy from the air. The death of the shadow creature and the heat ray seem to have…woken it up,” Nox said as she flitted back up the stairs out of harm's way. Fureva-Yung did the same, but now the static in the air made Fureva-Yung’s fur stand on end.
“Ur..should we do something about that?” Marius asked as his feet left the ground, and he began floating. Fureva-Yung looked around, “Anything to throw?”
“How about this?” Nox offered one of the crystal shards she’d picked up at the small island outside of N’Quintin. Fureva-Yung took it without question and threw it.
 
It wasn’t a particularly hard throw, but it was an energy crystal. When the crystal came in contact with the column, there was a flash of blinding white light and…
 
…the four found themselves in a forest around a giant tree trunk. It was night, and a storm, of sorts was raging, only there was no wind and not even a smell of rain in the air.
“Not again!” Marius complained, looking around at the unrecognisable bit of forest.
“Yeah, we haven’t done that in ages,” Nox smirked, placing the few other crystals safely back in her bag, “Not since Scaverous ate one, remember?”
 
Fureva-Yung extended her senses, seeing the sounds bouncing off the objects around her. Instantly, she was aware of two things: they were in a vast forest of great trees and were not alone. Eight of the tree trunks around them belonged to two massive beasts, their bodies obscured by the tree tops. They were the ones making the storm sounds at each other. They were also slowly, carefully stalking towards the giant tree where Fureva-Yung and the others were. It was clear they knew the group were there.
“There are two beasts with four legs as big as trees,” She pointed in two opposite directions. Nox took the opportunity to flit up into the canopy of the tree they were beside and disappear, “They are walking, in a way that trees do not, in this direction.”
 
Reaching out, Nox found an intelligent mind. It was stalking them, thinking itself very clever that it was blended so well with the surrounding forest.
You don’t want to do that, Nox said to the creature and was pleased when it returned with a surprised thought,
Who is that?
“What…can we do? Do you think they’re friendly?” Marius asked and stepped away from the tree they’d been sheltering under. He waved his hands in the direction Fureva-Yung had pointed, ”Hello! We’re friends!”
 
The tree creature that Nox and Marius had contacted hesitated, unsure of this new prey. However, the tree creature on the opposite side struck out with surprising speed. Its head on a long neck snapped down at Fureva-Yung, who was ready for the attack, stepped aside and grabbed hold. As the neck rose, she went with it, climbing tens of metres before sliding down the neck to stand on the creature’s shoulders. She swung her loose chain around the creature's neck and made herself fast. Now, wherever the beast went, she would go also. Jaden stood still and watched everything happening. She figured that with their size, speed and not strength attacks would be best against these creatures and started rummaging around inside Bellyache for spare parts.
 
After seeing the attack on Fureva-Yung, Marius rethought his friendly strategy and slipped behind the tree, around and out of sight of the first tree creature.
I’m telling you, you don’t want to eat us, Nox repeated to her creature, broadcasting it to everyone over the telepathic network. Though the words sounded tough, the tree creature was the apex predator of this forest. It was not intimidated by her words. By way of reinforcing what Nox had said, Marius sent a heat ray at the creature. The result, Marius found himself chased around the tree by the beast, dodging its biting jaws.
 
Jaden wired an iotum to an amber crystal and threw them up into the air. With a bright snap, the area was filled with light, hitting the creature chasing Marius in the face. Fureva-Yung thought she’d get in on the action and sent a subsonic boom through the ground, triggering an earthquake. Everyone in touch, including Marius and Jaden, were thrown about. Marius now tried his attempt to climb up the back of a tree creature and ride it as Fureva-Yung was. He didn’t get very far before he had to fall back to the shuddering earth.
Stop it! Nox insisted into the first tree creature’s mind and sent a flash at its face. By this time, the creatures saw these tiny morsels were more trouble than they were worth. The storm's thunder changed as the first creature displayed a leaf-like frill with colour and sound effects. The second tree creature responded in kind, and hey both started backing down. The second taking Fureva-Yung with it.
“Hey, Fureva-Yung! “Jaden called as she activated an energy baton, “You can’t take that creature with you.”
“How did you know?!” Fureva-Yung replied, astounded as the creature she was standing on turned and trundled quickly away.
Good! Thank you! Nox called after the first had turned and left. Marius was left shaking his head in disbelief.
 
The party was safe… most of them…as Fureva-Yung went into the deep jungle. Pulling one way then the other on her chain, she tried to influence the creature’s direction, but being smarter than most it deliberately went in the opposite direction. She tried thundering at the beast as she’d heard them talking, but without any idea what she was saying, she just ended up parroting the beast. The tree creature tried shaking her off, but as many had found before, it was hard to deter Fureva-Yung once she’d set her mind and feet on a course. Next, it rubbed up against a nearby tree to remove the unwanted barnacle. Fureva-Yung took her opportunity to jump free, mistimed the leapt and crashed into the tree as effectively as if the beast had squashed her against it. She slip to the ground dazed as the creature now stomped away. Down in the tiny plants and leaf litter of the jungle floor, Fureva-Yung looked up to see herself surrounded by four-legged creatures with heads like empty frames. The sight of dozens of empty ovals staring at her confused her batted brain, and before the grey mists enfolded her vision, she’d passed out.
 
Nox lost contact with Fureva-Yung. She tried looking through Fureva-Yung’s eyes, hearing with her ears, but sensed nothing.
“Ah, I don’t know where Fureva-Yung is,” She said to the others, “Can you find her?”
 
Marius and Jaden, still on the ground, quickly found massive footprints heading in the right direction. Clambering aboard the new and improved Bellyache, they followed the footprints, Nox flitting after them through the treetops.
 
It wasn’t long before they came to the small clearing where a group of creatures with no heads except circles or ovals of flesh were looking at something crumpled at the bottom of a tree. At the appearance of Bellyache, the deer-like beasts fled, gracefully leaping through the foliage.
“Fureva!” Nox cried and zipped directly to the knocked-out Fureva-Yung’s side.
“No…come back…” Fureva-Yung said dreamily as the creatures galloped away.
“Bloody hell, why do you have to go run off like that?!” Jaden told the prostrate Fureva-Yung, “And stop it with your fairy woodland dreaming. Creatures do not flock to the sound of your voice!”
“Thank you for flocking to my voice,” Fureva-Yung replied, noticing something on her chest. It was a cypher or artifact or something. She handed the thing to Nox.
“Hey! Pretty! Don’t know what it is, though,” Nox confessed and handed it to Jaden.
After a moment’s study, Jaden looked up, “Well, it has an injectable substance that permanently changes the user's body make up.”
She had all their attention. By now, all of them had taken advantage of body modifications in one way or another.
“Yes, it gives you oil glands all over your body. It would help you slip through the water more effectively, though it does come with the fact you’re forever…greasy.”
“Urgh…” Nox shook her head. She didn’t think Raffi would like her greasy….at least not always. They looked at Fureva-Yung. Her fuzzy hair would be slicked back against her skin in a constant wet sheen.
 
Jaden handed the device back to Fureva-Yung as she, Nox and Marius caught glimpses of a figure walking through the trees. In a red robe, the hood full of stars, Nox was about to call out when there was another blinding flash, and they were back in the Eastern Terminal once more, the column still building in power.
 
They could all feel the gravity of the column. It was only a matter of time before they were pulled in.
“We need to leave before that goes off,” Nox said, grabbing the end of Fureva-Yung’s chain and flying it across to Marius. Fureva-Yung and Nox then tried to get an end to Jaden but failed as the column pulled Jaden away.
“Go! Before you pulled in, too!” She shouted.
 
She was now only metres from the column, the static making a halo of silver around her head. Fureva-Yung and Marius leapt simultaneously, reaching Jaden as Nox held onto the chain and bampf the group out and into the room with the three doors. Just as they fell to the ground in a heap of bodies and chains, another of the cockroach-like robots scuttled out from under the southwest door. Seeing them, it sped for the open door to the column room, where the light was brightening by the second. Fureva-Yung stood and watched as the robot entered the room, was picked up by the gravity well and drawn into the column. She watched it torn apart atom by atom and disintegrate into pure energy. With a final grunt, she used her magic arm to close the door to the column room.
“Ha! Nice to meet ya, wouldn’t want to be ya!” Nox laughed at the demise of the malignant shard's, eyes and ears.
 
Collecting themselves, Jaden, Marius, Fureva-Yung and Nox, all stood before the door to the south-west, the way the robot insect had come from and the ozone smell originated.