Call of Fate

Depth of the woods

I relaxed by the stone bank of an underwater lake, taking in the view. I had almost forgotten how pretty these underground chasms were. Lights danced above, emitted by cave fireflies shining in a constant yellow glow, transforming the dark subterranean heavens into a swirling night sky. The vast underground aperture was filled with lakes, some bodies only narrowly connecting themselves between each other or others being no more than small pools specking the bare, stone ground. The depths of these waters were filled with bioluminiscent plankton, displaying an inverted starry night captured in the cool dark beneath.

The glow from these waters emitted just enough light to distinguish surrounding silhouettes of the chasms. Enough to see the dark shape of large tree roots worming to and from the rocky ceiling above. Some roots had found their way to the lakes beneath, feeding on it's glowing waters. Absorbing the lake water, lingering plankton merged with the roots, the same lights glowing from the water now sparkled, embedded from within the roots.

The sounds of crashing waterfalls, falling in from above or gushing out the walls, echoed across the chasms. Smaller jets of water trickled down from above too. Small batches of mushrooms were huddled together on the shores of the waters, them too illuminated by the same luminescent light. Like a cherry to a cake, this biome was topped off with white, interwoven fibers hanging from the ceiling. They looked like those from the silver chandelier trees above ground, only larger. There was a living, earthy smell that filled the air.

There too was the particularly loud sound of a scream filling the air. A girl went flying through a waterfall above, only to spectacularly splash into the lake beneath.

"You're finally here" I remarked. Cynthe made a big show of panting and splashing around before swimming to shore. "I'm going to kill you for that" "What did I do?" "I could have-" she stopped to catch her breath. "I could have fallen down on a rock and died" I had to admit she sort of had a point there. "But you didn't". She gave me a murderous glare. Maybe she actually was going to kill me. Luckily, her totally unjustifiable anger soon died out as she looked about.

"Where are we?" "Underground" "I can see that" she muttered, eyes wide. I was relishing at the half-awkward silence I created between us. I could tell she wanted to ask more questions, but sadly refrained from doing so. Somehow that girl was already catching on to the fact that the only answers I was about to give her would be fantastically unhelpful. "I assume that backpack is waterproof" She said instead. "Umm no" "So everything is wet inside?" "Yup". She gave out a tired sigh. "Genius".

A splash coming from the water surface snatched her attention. "What was that?" she asked suddenly fearful. I had no idea. It seemed to come from some large creature under the water. "Probably just a fish". Time to get moving.

I turned around to face a big pair of round eyes staring at me. I recoiled back in shock, in the process slamming into a certain Cynthe behind, knocking her off the stone edge and back into that cold water.

Spluttering out water from her mouth as she surfaced, she took a deep, shaky breath. A volley of the most shocking slew of curses to ever disgrace this age were hurled upon me. "Quite the tongue she has" remarked an unknown voice, stopping her midway through. My unknown savior who saved and prevented me from probably a curse of eternal hell or the likes, came to the scene.

It was a ghostly white humanoid creature, about the size of a skinny child. "Jazza! Haven't seen you in ages!" I exclaimed happily. "And so it should stay, you are not welcome here" He narrowed his eyes at me. Or maybe it was a she, I couldn't tell, although being adult, it's voice was childlike and it wasn't human enough for me to be able to determine gender from it's appearance. "Besides, my name is Javva".

Why did Jaz- Javva, of all have to show up here... "We're just looking for a place to stay and then we'll get going. Can't you help an old friend out?" "You poisoned our water supply and almost killed our entire village last time". "Oh my god that? That was an accident!" I exclaimed incredulously, making sure to put extra emphasis onto that last word.

Javva seemed unimpressed. "Okay, we won't stay, we'll just take the water expressway and leave" "You're not taking anything". "I have to. We can't come back the same way we came in." I pointed out. "Hmph. Fine" Javva conceded. "Follow me"

Cynthe and I made quite the pair as we waddled after Javva, absolutely drenched from the freezing lakes. We didn't have to walk long before I sensed stares lasering onto us as we approached the Bavari settlement. As we neared a dark underground corridor, a ravine of sort appeared, housing a village within.

The village was made from dark woods of the forests, rising vertically along the stone walls of the cave. Chutes carried surging water from the ceiling above, weaving their way in and out of buildings on their way down, before ending up in a narrow, but deep channels dug through the ground.

Stone slabs were placed over the fast flowing torrents of the channels beneath, acting as bridges. Tree roots had made their way down here too, intertwining prettily with the Bavari architecture. Lanterns were generously placed across the streets, illuminating cautious street vendors watching us from behind their stalls. Amongst their wares I could spot them selling eyeless fish, roots and blue clay pottery amongst many other items.

"Do they have something for us to eat?" asked Cynthe, nodding towards the vendors. Right! Food. Damn. Almost forgot about that. I glanced over a strange looking eyeless fish from a fishmonger stall. "I'm not eating that" said Cynthe, following my gaze. I agreed with her on that. After some time though we managed to purchase various roots and vegetables that I remember having eaten last time I was here. Those shouldn't taste too bad.

I placed the produce in a waterproof sack, which then went into the wet backpack. Somehow, I couldn't escape the feeling that I had forgotten something however. Was there anything else I should buy? I looked around. Cynthe was busy staring at a Bavari villager contently placing green powder under it's bottom lip. Didn't need any of that stuff.

Realization thereafter dawned upon me as I noticed I wasn't missing something, but rather someone. Where was Javva? Now that I thought about it he hadn't been with us at all when we did our shopping. Javva had probably thought we were still following and walked off without us. That's not so great, he's already suspicious enough of us as it is. With his temper he probably would put us in prison before we had a chance to explain ourselves. Perhaps worse.