descending into water, let's use diadem!! our one move , suten rekh neftus ( historian / flight magic engineer) -- takes the diadem and starts playing aroudn with it, attaching it to big crazy things.   safina and xyla not super happy.   ship lights up as before, light sucks out of diadem and into ship. diadem only glows faintly after light passes to everything else. everything is illuminated. -- then thunderbird (not chidihaza?) how does it react? and then ship plummets out of the sky   rajiv grabs diadem back away, but ship keeps dropping , we all float up. I'm hanging on a curtain, we're a mess, tables flying errwhere, and then descent slows, still faster than pre-diadem, but still floating. slightly slower than free fall.   Illy is desperately looking for flotation devices, finds the unpacked box of flotation devices filled now with pillows. Illy grabs bone chime. Pet is geckoing around on the wall looking for bird, which is keeping up with us. Rajiv puts thing back on column, now everyone's on ceiling, and diadem is attached to column. bird swoops under us , and we feel impact and fall back down as we land on thunderbird's back.   fitness check to not get hurt in all this shaking , makes it just at 2 , just minor bumps and bruises   harumi and rajiv fighting about whether to keep diadem on the thing or not . -- bird is also shaping storm, leading us as it banks around continuing to descend. Rajiv and Harumi fighting all over. Pet asks Zuni about the lightning. Zuni says she's absorbing the shocks from lightning bird.   Illy fatalistically prepares for death // Rajiv scrapes "disembark before amoana" on the wall in nahuatl , looks jagged graffiti . in main room.   navigator patlana Mia   Pet now using fancy eye device looking out into storm . gets a good perception check LAND HO , sees land beneath the bird below us, down at the center of the whirlpool, with walls of water and hurricane all around us as we descend into the water hole. Mia says we're dropping below sea level, altho we're not underwater   Rajiv is looking out for sea serpent. hears bird calling out, almost singing, even the rhythmic melodic thunder resembles song. Rajiv trying to see what he can find out about it fauna, --> doesnt sound like a mating song, maybe more territorial more aggressive, . he thinks bird is our friend.   Rajiv: bird is protecting us from the serpent   Pet sees the horned serpent circling around the island down below us. it's so large it's basically the size of it, but it's spinning around it. bird lands!!! we're a little worse for wear but no massive damage. (in addition to whatever massive damage has already happened) eerie calm , on the birds back, on the ground   Zuni threatens the bird a little bit by letting off a ton of lightning , we fall off bird onto the ground, great endeavor actually lands on ground. we have now NO Lower floor.   we've lost little board and lower hodgepodge , landing on a little landing platform in the sea is this storm stopping anytime soon? um this storm has been going on for as long as recorded history. we all collect our rope. rajiv "someone needs to go out there into storm, not Zuni.   Rajiv Pet Illy Safina and Xyla suit up to go out into storm , tied up in ropes, leaving others behind us Rajiv in lead, but rope is Pet Rajiv Safina Xyla Illy , then endeavor   we're unplugging diadem for now, tell harumi she should plug it back in if the ship starts leaving??   crystals are varying heights, tiny or up to 8 feet tall , bits of crystal , common quartz, but arranged in an odd unique fashion, perfectly lining this circular platform. circle is water. feels artificial ? overgrown with algae, etc on rocks, all slippery // that all looks pretty indicative of civilization.   horned serpent is primary water, secondary earth? Pet thinks about that, circular path of serpent helping to shape this island. serpent continuing to spin aroudn it. successful esoterica check, seeing spine of sea serpent. unbothered by us . his foot slips, he notices some particular shape on the ground , perfect circular rings concentric out to the edge.   island itself is magic? the circles spell keeping the walls of water , looks artificial. squares to form a circle, earth and water. 20 feet between each of us on the rope. succesful deftness , trying to find our way thru crystals on the path without breaking them   Pet's esoterica sense, crystals are not growing in the center, they're just sround the middle. but theyre growing throughout elsewhere. but if this is a walkway the crystals are grown over, maybe mostly younger smaller ones , a little more weathered also // staircase is in the pool surrounded by rock   suddenly we're under water but able to breathe and move around, somehow calm in this underwater magical place. architecture and style of stone work in these stairs, has some commonality with the statue from original cave. stairs are adorned, wave patterns . similar style to statue of kirin. there are vertical things , in the railing, that may be allowing , surely those spirals are helping us breathe  

illy holding oil lantern, anglemur has got a little light, and now greenish blue light ahead of us. as we move forward through the cave. necen acal has bioluminescent algae, this is a diff color but could be similar type of thing , bioluminescent mushrooms we pick some? we pick some torchshrooms, theyll slowly decay but we can try to plant some on the ship   we find another staircase going down, square straight more normal staircase   in next story down. theres a statue of the thunderbird sitting on horned serpents head. and then glow globe , room covered in crystals, they dont look particularly in conflict in this statue ? lantern   we destroy some crystals and take a little damage as we approach statue / orb as I touch orb, I feel heavy, feathers, stand on in. dehydrated, thirsty , tingly, burning sensation in arm that touches , illy takes damage from thing.   then we see movement off in the distance

live bioluminescent mushroom, human size speaking to us with mushroom cap head. it speaks akhelic? illy speaks diplomatically carefully with politics to make a good impression. we find a ton of perfectly silent mushroom people, they seem unbothered. tendign the little mushroom, collecting algae off things. stilted unfamiliar, uncomfortable, it's not speaking its normal language. "we feed the vast enigma beyond colors shape"  

do many of our kind come here --

"we have not had visitors"   blocked staircase off / many more thunder bird statues   "we dont go there"   "we have been here for one node" did you come from another place "we have grown here"   "(we have been here one unit of time, since we started counting)"   "we welcome you to commune" our minds are overwhelmed with all of their knowledge and learning, and then it all drains back out of our heads like a sieve, but now they know our stuff   lol what's a node, do they even have day/night cycles in the middle of a hurricane underground?

rajiv and pet touch the thing, experience something wild and deep, unimaginable, feel this deep knowledge of this people, you know why and what they are. they learn all these things and then they fall out of the head.

illy starts a couple minutes late.   it learned cuezali from us ? ? ?   have you seen our ship before, 10 mins later "we have not"   pet goes in with a question "what is downstairs" then puts hand on big mushroom  

they must have external brains of some kind , they can do some

it comes out says "danger" is downstairs Pet comes out with another answer " pet says theres more cave, more tunnels, and dangerous.   they come out saying they dont know of the people who came before   the big mushroom is the vast enigma beyond color shape

are you from the vast enigma beyond color's shape?

"we are all from the vast enigma beyond color's shape" VEBCS   illy asks VEB about beauty/meaning (its feeling response is : "it feels beautiful, this being, being fed, growing,) rajiv asks about the glowy orb (it's from way before, they dont mess with it anymore)   akhelic says "we gather to feed to decompose to feed the "vast enigma beyond color's shape"   there's mushroom people then VEBCA new diplomat bud(dies) "we speak for the VEBCA, do you have questions" "we have no memory from before, the statues were here when we got there" us: whered you learn akhelic bud jr: from our founder. us: when? bud jr: one node ago us: that was when VEB started bud jr: we were one, and now we are one. bud's long name is "we who speak for the vast enigma beyond color's shape" ---" we are beyond the founder now" some body decomposed at the beginning and gave them akhelic? "are there other nodes?" "we think there might be"   "there might be a way beyond the storm if you are of us" have they sent explorers out beyond the storm? "we have lost many that way we are deeper than we seem"   each of us have diff names for each of the diff characters we've met 1) akhelic buddy 2) cuezali buddy 3) speaker buddy (appointed diplomat for VEB) 4) the vast enigma beyond color's shape 5) 2 guards   they had no diplomatic buddy active, but they had guards set on stairs. guards less about strife, more about something coming up from down there.   they store supplies down other hallway   pet goes and gets harumi, who brings suten rekh and takarut (the scary headresearcher)   they observe entire island must be a glyph on its own , speaker thinks there's smaller versions of horned serpent down in lower levels captain harumi takes over the diplomacy with speaker buddy "we call ourselves plethora"   the speaker would like to join the great endeavor. learn about it and assist.   lol this is giving us no answers , just opening up more questions   takarut says there's something inside the burny orb. so rajiv with antimagic tries to peek inside "WeWho" speaker for veb is gonna be coming with us   inside bubble rajiv sees a disc that's not unlike the diadem, doesnt glow tho. another diadem type thing but with a big field around it. silver and blue . like hard glass around it f   the ship must have come for the diadem.   "we who are buddy can explain to we who are the vast enigma beyond color's shape"   and we prepare to descend to danger