Leaves snapped loose from branches as the dark haired monkeys swung from one to the next.
Their fur was a striking black, likely for camouflage in the darkness, and none of them were bigger than a cat.
'They can't think highly of me.'
Evidently not, considering they had been following him for an entire day.
There was no hair on their heads, which suggested they might be scavengers by nature.
By now there were close to thirty of them. Enough to make the trees look almost like they were bearing some ominous fruit.
He had obviously decided to go around the sea. It was never really an option to begin with. A child's imagination wouldn't be enough to conjure what might live in those depths.
Kael flicked a card lazily to the side. One of the monkeys collapsed, its head following a moment later.
"Well. At least I'll have a reliable food source."
He murmured it to himself.
The others hissed and scattered when he walked over and picked up the small corpse.
Then he made his way to what he would generously call a pond. Only a few steps across in any direction, but the water was dark enough to border on genuine black, a few lily pads trailing slow lines behind them.
A soft plop as the body hit the surface. Kael crouched and waited.
Despite all the vegetation in the space, almost every animal he had encountered appeared to be a meat eater. Either that, or the ones that ate plants had adapted to the point where even Kael struggled to find them.
Probably the latter.
A dark shadow swept the body away without breaking the surface.
Kael let out an amused hum and walked over to grab the head. Three monkeys had already gathered around it, squabbling over the meal.
He flicked a card and the two survivors scattered.
He picked up the new body and tossed it into the pond. This time he stood ready, a card held neatly between his fingers.
When the shadow came again the card shot down in a streak, hitting the water with a violent splash. The surface darkened with blood and the shadow revealed itself. A massive eel, its head twice the size of Kael's, its mouth capable of stretching wide enough to swallow him whole, similar to a snake. Undeniably ugly by any reasonable standard.
Kael went to his knees, reached down and dug his fingers into its gills, then hauled it onto land. A Stone Coffin rose behind him in the same motion.
He decapitated it with his blade, then cut the jaw muscles to prevent them from closing by reflex. Then he pulled out his knife and began removing the teeth, the eyes, and finally skinned it.
This had become a regularity. The ingredients down here were clearly on another level entirely. And while newer mote recipes naturally didn't call for them, there were millions of recipes that predated those newer ones by an age that was difficult to comprehend. It would be foolish not to gather while he was here, especially given how easily he could store them.
When he was done with the eel he snapped another card and did the same to a monkey. They were apparently profound in their stupidity, still coming even after three of them were already dead. It was entirely possible they couldn't comprehend ranged attacks, the same as so many other animals. The evidence supported it. Not once had any of them moved to stay out of his reach.
Hours of uneventful walking followed. The trees had changed though. Glowing polymorphs had begun to dot the trunks, and most of the surrounding vegetation had taken on a strange pleasant luminescence of its own.
It gave the sense of drifting between stars.
A clearing appeared. A tapestry of bluebell flowers blanketed the floor, each one glowing with a faint blue.
"More flowers…"
Kael picked one without breaking stride.
They were quite interesting in general. Also his favourite flower.
He looked out over the field.
Bluebells spread slowly even when using both seeds and underground bulbs to reproduce. For a field this size to exist, stretching for thousands of steps in every direction, it would have required a millennium of completely undisturbed growth, the soil beneath left untouched for longer than most civilisations had existed.
By now the ceiling above was thick with roots descending from trees somewhere far above, reaching down like massive tentacles from some deep sea creature. Hanging plants with three-pointed leaves covered them entirely, until the whole thing looked like the world had grown a beard.
Kael glanced over his shoulder at the monkeys, forming a black line along the field's edge.
'They won't follow if there are no trees?'
He fixed his gaze forward again.
The field stretched far ahead with an elevation at its center, large enough that calling it a hill felt like an understatement.
Kael let his head fall back and took a deep breath when he reached the summit. Minerals from the sea and sweetness from the flowers filled his lungs together.
'Two weeks down here today.' His eyes moved over the sloped field. 'There's far less beasts than I expected, and I haven't stumbled into a Dreadborne either.'
He mused.
Many beasts on the surface had grown terrified of humans over time, avoiding them like poison. Down here they wouldn't have had the same exposure. On the other hand, the humans that did make it this far came as something far more terrifying than anything a normal beast would have encountered. Rank fives. So was it possible they had still developed a wariness? Was that why he saw so few? Or were there simply fewer than he had assumed?
Just as he was about to begin his descent a mass appeared beside him.
He froze.
Red as flesh and thick as a tree trunk, a tongue stretched an arm's length away to his side, dwarfing him entirely. At its tip it split into a Y, each end moving independently.
Kael moved his hand to his blade slowly.
The tongue retracted. An eye that could have replaced the moon appeared instead. Every scale on the snake's body was the size of Kael himself.
A flicker of confusion spread across Kael's face when beads of sweat ran down his forehead and back. It wasn't cold sweat. He was warm. The snake was warm. The heat it radiated carried the same suffocating quality as a high sun on a sweltering day, or closer to holding a hand a few centimetres from an open flame.
Lightning fast, Kael drew his blade.
It glowed red as the metal began to heat, and before it could reach the eye it had already brightened past blinding. Before it made contact it dissolved entirely, collapsing into a glowing mess.
Small suns of molten iron shot into the air, carried by the momentum.
The flowers beneath him trembled as a guttural rumble reverberated through the ground, low enough to shake rocks loose from the slope.
"Easy, girl."
The snake lowered its head at the words, but Kael was still forced to tilt his head fully back to see it.
A rank five Luminaire sat cross-legged on its head. Long black hair fluttered in unison with his clothes. He wore emerald green hanfu, detailed with gold thread and jade. His face was young, almost impossibly so. Unlined and fair, his eyes a dark brown that bordered on black. There was a slight, almost hidden accent in his speech.
This man was not from the western continent.
"Don't step on the bluebells."
He said it with a voice like silk.
Kael looked down at his feet. Then back up.
"Climb up." The man said.
Kael hesitated.
"Don't worry. She can choose what she burns."
Kael tossed the sword handle aside and climbed a few scales before jumping to catch the outstretched hand.
The snake began to rise, climbing along the roots, carrying them up and away from the bluebell field. Kael sat down to keep his balance.
Some answers started to form in his mind.
The reason the bluebells had been able to grow undisturbed, stretching for thousands of steps across an ancient floor, was because it belonged to that snake's territory, and the man seemed to personally make sure it remained undisturbed.
It didn't slow as it reached the ceiling, the ground falling away to thousands of meters below. Along the roots a small wooden structure rested, built to fit the root system perfectly.
The man folded his hands behind his back and dropped down onto it. Kael followed a moment later.
He stopped at the door frame and watched the man move to a small kettle, crushing some leaves and spices into it.
The interior was simple but lived in. A mattress of woven plants marked the bed. The walls and floor were built from something resembling bamboo, or perhaps sugar cane.
"You're the first Luminaire to enter the karsts in years." He said, stirring the kettle gently before setting it over a small fire. "I wonder why that is."
His voice was calm. Confident.