Over (II)

Alice was woken up after an uneventful rest by the first loud chirrups of the countless species of insects that lived in the fungal forest, each one of them singing their desire to mate in the first rays of light that flooded out of the large opening in the wall. Their noise worse than that of a trashy teenager blasting low-quality trap music on the bus.

When she opened her eyes, the girl found herself being stared at by a single, bright yellow treefrog, the vocal sack on its throat rhythmically inflating and deflating as it loudly produced its mating call, completely unperturbed by the large, pink creature in front of it.

“Don’t you have a better thing to do in the morning?” she groggily asked, rubbing her eyes and yawning at the same time.

Receiving only another croak as a response, the young woman groaned and started crawling out of her hiding spot beneath the large cluster of oyster mushrooms, soon resuming her march on top of the toadstool caps and only stopping when, less than half an hour later, she realized that she had just reached the halfway point through the jungle of mycelia and that she was now standing on top of one of the tallest structures of the expanse.

From that elevated position, the young biomancer stared silently at the heterogenous mass of fleshy sprouts and spongy growths that grew under her gaze, a mixture of colors and shapes that would have been at home in a Pollock painting, growing shorter and greener the closer they came to the radiant opening in the distance.

Finally, Alice was able to observe the wide, crescent moon-shaped lake that licked the mossy outer edges of the forest, filled with green algae and tall, reed-like weeds that gently swayed under the continuous stream of water that flowed out of the opening, over the rounded boulders and into its gently rippling waters.

“Just a bit more Alice. Just a bit more.” She muttered as she carefully dropped down onto the next toadstool, her naked feet feeling the moist mushrooms getting crushed under her weight and shivering lightly when their small, displaced inhabitants scurried between her toes.

She kept on moving.

The young woman’s progress through the forest was sped up by a significant margin now that she was mainly dropping from mushroom to mushroom instead of climbing onto them, her goal getting closer by the hour.

Despite the eagerness filling her chest, Alice still proceeded carefully, often stopping to inspect the following platforms and avoiding the ones that looked thinner and less stable. Dropping on the ground from that height would mean broken bones and other injuries that she couldn’t allow herself to take.

A good deal of hours had passed when she finally decided to stop on one of the flatter mushrooms, choosing that particular one since it seemed to sport a particularly bountiful collection of smaller mushrooms which she hoped to sample while resting her legs for a few minutes.

Between the shroomy multitude, the girl even managed to find a small cluster of the bright yellow stalks that tasted like a perfectly ripened peach, which she immediately grabbed and stuffed in her mouth with a loud moan of pleasure as they almost melted on her tongue into a sweet, syrupy and poisonous goodness.

She only kept two small specimens of the newly-named Happy Caps, wrapping them in a thick pouch of moist moss that she ripped from a spot in arms reach, promising to herself that she would bring them with her out of the caves.

She had just stuffed the precious ball of moss into her bag and was busy relishing in their flavor when the first wasp landed on her left ear and mercilessly stung it without hesitation.

Alice yelped in pain and instinctually slammed her hand on the offending creature, causing it to drop on the ground stunned, its wings weakly twitching as it tried to right itself.

She didn’t give it a chance, repeatedly slamming her heel on it while swearing her hatred at the tiny offender.

“Stupid, fricking disgusting creatures. You never change, even in a new world you are just as deserving of a horrible and painful dea—” she stopped, a shadow of doubt appearing on her face, why was the buzzing growing louder?

She could suddenly feel a very worrying vibration coming from the ground beneath her feet as if a massive hive had just been awakened by her furious stomping.

Then, as the first throng of enraged wasps erupted from the layer of mycelia, Alice decided that getting stung by a bunch of murder bees was not her idea of a good time and, after quickly shouldering the sack and grabbing the mace beside her, frantically sprinted away from the hotspot.

Only for the buzzing hive to immediately give pursuit.

As the girl jumped down onto the next mushroom, her swollen auricle still sending painful throbs to her brain, a small but incredibly unpleasant piece of trivia decided to pop up in her mind.

Whenever a wasp stings you, it releases a bunch of pheromones to attract more.

“Oh heck,” She muttered as she jumped one more time, her knees bending upon impact and immediately propelling her forward towards the next gap between the toadstools, giving her just enough time to turn and see the cloud of insects on her heels, “that was not the most reassuring information I could remember.”

She kept moving forward at high speed, ignoring her impending doom to focus on the way her body moved, reducing excessive movements or flailing to avoid slipping on particularly slimy mushrooms or enraging any larger predator with her noise.

Proceeding that way for a couple of minutes, the girl somehow managed to outdistance the swarm which, however, didn’t seem keen on relenting and kept flying towards her, ignoring anything else on their path.

She was preparing to jump once again when her eyes widened and she scrambled to a stop on the edge of the toadstool she was currently standing on, staring open-mouthed at the large cluster of funnel-shaped fungi which grew less than a meter below the one she was on and had just managed to completely block her path toward safety, their water-filled shapes the only ones sturdy enough to hold her weight.

The girl turned around once again, spotting the approaching swarm and calculating the amount of pain they would make her suffer through before she managed to kill them all. Even if the venom wasn’t an issue, Alice didn’t like the chances of so many creatures trying to burrow into her skin.

She turned back towards the still waters,

took a deep breath,

and jumped.

The impact with the water came a lot faster than she expected, her bare feet breaking the surface tension and plunging straight in with a sonorous splash that was soon muffled when her head was also submerged by the fresh and clear liquid.

She immediately opened her eyes, trying to see her surroundings through the disorientating curtain of bubbles rushing towards the surface.

The funnel shape of the mushroom seemed to go much deeper than she had previously expected, disappearing in the darkness below her feet.

The mace dragged her down quickly, stopping only when she reached the slimy, inclined floor of the fungus and allowing her to stabilize herself within the water.

After finding a somewhat comfortable position, Alice shut off any part of her body that was still glowing in an attempt to hide from the murderous wasps and kept holding her breath while searching for a sign of her pursuers.

A first minute passed and Alice finally spotted the first buzzing shapes of the relentless insects moving all over the pond as they searched for the hidden invader.

The biomancer could feel the oxygen in her lungs get slowly assimilated by her body, gradually replaced by the painful carbon dioxide that pushed on her chest to be freed, its pressure ever-increasing.

She made an effort to reduce the consumption of the precious gas to a minimum, forcing herself to still completely, her eyes glued to the swarm that was still flying overhead.

Another minute passed and the first hornets started buzzing away, disappearing from her sight. More, however, remained and she couldn’t allow herself to resurface just yet, even if the pressure on her lungs had started becoming unbearable, even if she had already started feeling the thudding of her heart in her ears, frantically pumping blood to her system.

She forcefully slowed it down, buying herself precious seconds. She had already risked drowning once and for that exact reason, this time it was much easier to control the desire to flail and panic.

Her eyes remained glued to the wasps over her head.

Two more minutes had passed and only one last insect buzzed dubiously over the completely still waters, finally landing with a soft thrum that almost broke the surface tension of the liquid and starting to slowly drink the fresh fluid with its tubular mouth.

A hand suddenly popped out with a splash, catching it mid-sip and squishing it between its long fingers before it could react. A heartbeat later, the hand was followed by Alice’s gasping head, her mouth frantically inhaling the delicious, oxygen-filled air of the cave and releasing the deadly air held in her lungs.

She floated there for a bit, idly paddling with her feet, deep in thought while her heart slowly got back to its normal beat.

Four minutes. Four entire minutes without breathing. I guess my efficient metabolism skill works on oxygen too.

That’s still crazy.

She dived once more to retrieve the mace, grasping its smooth handle and pumping harder with her legs to resurface with the object weighing her down, slowly moving towards the edge of the pool and grasping the firm but slimy flesh that was keeping the liquid contained.

She was just crawling out of the water and onto the thin overhang of the cap when something large brushed past her feet, displacing the liquid with a harsh underwater ripple that sent a shiver running down her spine.

Alice immediately launched herself sideways, feeling the muffled vibration of something snapping far too close to her feet for comfort; with a grunt, she dug the sharp flanges of the mace and her hardened nails into the mushroom and dragged herself out of the water with a strained groan, turning around without getting up in order to face the sudden ambush.

She couldn’t help but scream in terror when she saw the creature staring at her from below the waters, slowly crawling in her direction on its multi-jointed, spiked legs.

It was a water bug. One well over a meter long.

The creature’s body was leaf-shaped, with a sleek and smooth carapace protecting its softer flesh from harm and ending in a thin, tube-like tail that periodically twitched in the water and produced small bubbles of air, she couldn’t believe she had missed it while she was submerged int the pool.

The head was small and protected by two thick forelegs, each ending in a sharp, stinger-like point that continuously snapped against the other with the same muffled, clacking sound that caused violent ripples in the liquid surrounding it. It had tried to pierce her legs and incapacitate her while she was still swimming and seemed ready to try again despite its failed ambush.

The monstrous insect finally emerged from the pond and, not daring to move her eyes away from the approaching predator, Alice was forced to observe its head more closely. It sported two large eyes similar to that of a praying mantis and a sharp proboscis that dripped a clear and dense fluid from its opening, pattering on the mushroom’s surface and dissolving it in a goopy mess.

The thick and powerful hind legs of the horrid beast started tensing as if preparing for a jump, her enhanced sense of hearing able to perceive the hemolymph as it increased in pressure within its exoskeleton. She had already seen that display once before and she couldn’t allow it to repeat.

The frightened girl immediately reacted by advancing instead of retreating like a normal prey would have, gripping her mace with two hands and swiping it against one of the forelegs, snapping it at the joint with a spray of blue ichor and causing the monster to emit a pained chittering as it stumbled, trying to get away from the unexpected attacker.

Alice, however, didn’t relent and pushed forward, moving close enough for her to slam her mace onto the exposed back of the creature, cracking it with a wet sound of torn flesh as the sharp flanges of the weapon immediately punched through its chitinous exoskeleton, forming a deep and gory indentation where the broken shards of the shell pierced the insect’s internal organs.

There was a moment of silence while the creature tried to understand what had just happened, then, it emitted a loud, bloodcurdling screech that reverberated throughout the cave, silencing all other sounds and causing goosebumps to appear on her skin.

She didn’t let it stop her, changing her grip and raising the bloody mace over her head before slamming it down again and again with a sound of splattered innards that soon interrupted the shrieking wail for good.

Panting, Alice lowered her weapon and averted her eyes from the horrible sight; it was time to get the hell out of that place.

She had managed to rush through two more mushrooms and land on the third one before she heard the sound of bubbles erupting from the water. Dread filled her guts when she noticed the roiling and rippling on the surface of each suspended pond, black and brown shapes emerging from their dark depths.

The scream had probably awoken the creature’s siblings. She didn’t have time to stop and gawk.

She sprinted towards the next funnel, almost slipping when she landed on it but keeping on the move, barely avoiding the trio of monstrous bugs that were crawling out of the waters.

By the time she had landed on the following one, Alice’s luck had finally run out and she found herself jumping and weaving to avoid the snapping mandibles of a particularly large specimen that had been expecting her; only after a few long seconds of silent struggle did she manage to end it and proceed forward, already huffing and panting after the strain and adrenaline.

The young woman had just reached the halfway point through the pools and was now running along the thin edges of a particularly monstrous funnel that stood more than fifteen meters in diameter.

She had almost reached the next jumping spot when another, larger ripple shook the water, a thunderous clack reverberating through air and ground alike.

She couldn’t help but freeze as the largest water scorpion she could imagine crawled out of the pond, rivulets of water dripping down its maroon carapace while the muscular forelegs expectantly twitched and clacked as it stopped right in front of her, standing on her path.

The horrid eyes of the monster were glued on her panting form when its sharp beak suddenly opened to show a jungle of sharp ridges made to rend flesh while the enzymes they produced dissolved it into goop.

Alice wanted to vomit from the fear she was feeling but she forced herself to enhance her grip on her mace and prepare for the fight. She couldn’t turn her back to it as a smaller swarm of the monsters was already on her heels, trying to catch up to the slayer of their kin.

Adrenaline madly pumped through her system, enhancing her senses to such a degree that she could see the countless, minuscule mirrors composing the creature’s eyes and hear the creaking of its exoskeleton every time it shifted on its six legs.

Her heart was pumping so frantically that she thought it would explode but she kept perfectly still until, after two seconds that seemed to have lasted hours, the creature lashed out, its hindlegs propelling it forward while its pincers tried to close around her head and shoulders.

She, however, was ready to counter the attack and also pushed forward, lowering herself as much as possible in order to avoid the snapping pincers that closed just above her head as she entered into the monster’s guard.

An instant later, she was pivoting on her right leg and putting all of her strength into a single swing of her mace that connected to the exposed head of the water bug, pulping one of its eyes and slamming against the hard chitin of the creature’s beak which, to her surprise, managed to rebound it back.

At the same time, a stab of excruciating pain came from her right shoulder as the backlash of the swing moved back along her arm and caused the ball of her humerus to suddenly pop out of its socket, damaging the tissues and ligaments surrounding it.

Alice cried out in pain as her momentum caused her to drop from the larger mushroom, landing into the cold water of a lower and smaller one.

Without letting go of her weapon with her barely responding arm, Alice swam to the other side of the mushroom and crawled out of the water once again, turning around to see the convulsing elder bug as it screeched and clawed at its own head, ichor, and venom corroding the mushroom it was standing on.

She finally let go of the weapon, letting it drop on the soft ground with a thud before feeling at the dislocated joint, wincing every time her fingers brushed on her silk-covered skin.

“F-uck. Fuck. Why the hell does this happen now?” she exclaimed, tears streaming down her cheeks as she eyed the water bugs crawling towards her before kicking a smaller one that had tried approaching in the meanwhile, sending it splashing back into the water.

On a hunch, she used her Biomagical Instincts to find a quick solution to her problem, a grimace twisting her face when she actually found it.

Before she could do anything, however, the monster screeched again, an enraged shriek of hatred that made her blood run cold as it turned again towards her.

It’s too big. The mushroom won’t hold its weight. It’s not going to follow me. Her effort to reassure herself failing when the exoskeleton of the monster suddenly split apart in the middle and it extended two huge sets of transparent wings that experimentally thrummed in the air, sending a spray of droplets in every direction and revealing a bright red abdomen beneath them.

It can fly.

The desire to puke returned as she stiffly grabbed her mace, gasping in pain every time her fingers moved, turned around, and jumped to the next growth, praying she would be fast enough to escape.

As she ran, Alice reached for her wrist, numbing herself just enough to only grit her teeth while she forcefully raised her arm upwards, a scream still erupting from her mouth when she felt the bone moving back in its socket.

She could still feel the torn ligaments and damaged flesh surrounding it but couldn’t worry about them at that moment.

She was incredibly close to the last funnel mushroom and beyond it, Alice could see the more traversable jungle of colorful caps. She had a chance.

After sending an empowered tendril of magical warmth to the injury, the determined girl used her other hand to get a grip on the weapon in case of necessity and prepared to jump onto the final one.

Only for something massive to come crashing against the mycelium she was standing on, causing its stalk to simply break off.

The mushroom started falling forward, the massive bug flailing to catch her as it too dropped on the ground, filling the massive cavern with its screeches.

Alice didn’t even have the time to take a deep breath as a huge wave of water slammed against her back and engulfed her in a torrent of water that sent her crashing between the stalks. She tried to swim to the surface but was soon overwhelmed by the current until, after many long seconds of panicked flailing, she slammed face-first against a tree on the water’s path. Darkness enveloped her soon after.

*****

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