After a few hours of contemplation I still didn’t arrive at an answer as to what I would need the most in the Twisted Forest. I simply didn’t know enough about the place. There was no convenient Uer forum that mapped the location along with a hundred photos, listing the level of danger, security detail and type of mask/clothing requirements. I had no internet pals that I could pm to talk about my trip.A pro urban explorer usually chose tools that benefited the environment best and protected them the most. For example, while exploring the Odessa catacombs with my Ukrainian crew, I wore a wetsuit with a hardhat with a powerful flashlight on it and carried tons of waterproof lanterns with extra batteries for them wrapped up in plastic so that they would not get wet.

To get around various abandoned temples in the Caucasus mountains and valleys, I had climbing gear, warm clothes and my custom-made sky-diving wingsuit. For exploring the basement of Chernobyl, I had built an entire weight-redistribution exosuit that was supposed to protect me against radiation but had failed catastrophically at the Elephant’s Foot and brought about my doom and a new life as a chimera.

I looked away from the messed up control panels and examined my threads in greater detail noting the damage.

I emerged out of my Stillness trance, restarted my heart and slowly uncrystallized my organs one by one. Coming back to life in this manner was a very odd sensation that I had never experienced as a human.

I wondered if it felt like anything that bears, frogs or fish experienced when going into and out of hibernation mode.

The entire concept of animal hibernation was very interesting to me since it was completely impossible for a human. If a human sat in an icy river during winter, they would eventually freeze to death but fish and frogs became completely dormant, suspended in ice, emerging at spring perfectly fine and healthy.

Some species of fish such as koi and gobies, burrowed in soft sediments, their hearts slowing down and their needs for oxygen decreasing.

Was this hibernation, the crystallization of organs, a natural talent of chimera, an innate trait like the engrams? Could all chimera hibernate in this manner? If Allessi was anything to go by - yes.

Why did chimera hibernation exist and why was nobody practicing it anymore except for the high-cendai and her apprentices? Had chimera evolved in some extremely hostile environment on some deep level of the Chasm that required crystallization-type hibernation but had moved onto a different environment, completely forgetting one of their innate skills after a few millennia? It was definitely possible.

With practice it seems that I could suspend my body quicker. Perhaps, long ago, chimera evolved to suspend their bodies while actively escaping, becoming temporarily invisible to some sort of motion-tracking Chasm abominations?

I thought about Alessi. She was making leaps and bounds in her progress with the ancestral chorus because of her Stillness meditation practice. Stilling the body took mental focus away from running various bodily processes, likely leaving the soul with more processing power to recall deeper ancestral memories.

I gasped as I arrived at this revelation. Chimera had lost one of their essential skills, possibly because of Eunice who had made them move up the Chasm and into giant dragon skulls for protection. The high-cendai had boasted to me several times how she had guided the tribe, founded the current Tokimorimïtul village and practically set up the dragon skulls for our use!

My body finished uncrystallizing. I opened my eyes, stood up and stretched my muscles. It was time to talk to Alessi.

. . .

I met my sister inside of our workshop. She was studiously working on the large glider. She had done a lot more than I expected her to. I went over her progress, telling her what to adjust and then told her everything that I had learned from Eunice. I had also told her everything about how my test went in greater detail, which I had forgotten to do the last time I saw her.

“You know… if Eunice has a special End-Gate beneath her house that took your physical body to the Still Forest… then you have been right all along,” Alessi said with a deep frown after she listened to my story. “Any chimera could use such a gate to simply walk into the land of the dead and become a cendai.”

“Oh,” I blinked. “I didn’t even think about that. You’re right. Eunice has the potential to elevate anyone to be a cendai with a gate like that… but she doesn’t!”

Alessi sighed. There was visible turmoil in her silver-blue eyes.

“I think that you might be getting better at reaching more distant chorus memories because of Still meditation,” I said, trying to make her feel better. “Stillness and the chorus of memories are two types of innate magic possessed by chimera. The art of putting the body on pause was lost to all chimera except for the cendai.”

“I agree,” she nodded. “It had been incredibly hard to access memories of distant mothers before, like peeling a machacc fruit layer by layer with the deepest layers simply refusing to budge… but I can delve really deep now, past previously imposed limits. I talked to other girls our age at the meeting place last week. They simply cannot recall things as far back as I can. I was wrong, Juni… I can do magic. I can Still my body just like you, stop my heart completely. The chorus is truly vast and I can dive deeper and deeper into ancestral memory, examine more specific moments while my body is suspended.”

“How long has Eunice been with our tribe?” I asked.

“As far back as I can recall,” Alessi answered.

“Can a chimera live longer than thirty three?” My next question jumped out of my mouth.

“I… think so,” my sister replied with a small shudder. “There had been a few who refused to surrender their end-lives to our high-cendai, long, long ago. The memories of this were from their daughters. The chorus is passed from mother to daughter during childbirth while the mother is young, so unfortunately I do not possess memories of old chimera.”

“How many rings back can you remember now?” I asked. “How many years?”

“Twenty six rings of the Chasm. Six hundred and ninety two years. Ninety seven generations.” Alessi replied. “Our tribe has been moving from the depths of the Chasm ring by ring, decade by decade with Eunice leading us. She's been... experimenting on creatures at each level, learning things from them. We settled in these dragon skulls three hundred years ago and haven’t moved since.”

“How did Eunice consume the souls of the old chimera before she made the gate?”

“The gray-haired chimera went into her embrace,” my sister said. “She kissed them… and then… their bodies deflated, emptied of life, ossified and… she carried and cast the drained ones into the Chasm. It was… more grotesque, more personal, less ceremonial than the End-Gate that she uses now.”

I shuddered.

“I think… my father was killed for a reason,” Alessi said, her expression dark. “His death was no accident.”

“What?” I gasped. “Why?”

“I think that he… might have recalled something that he should not have from some distant ancestor. He must have told it to my mother who told a few others. They too perished, got eaten by different monsters. Perhaps they planned to leave the tribe together. I’ve been asking around, trying to find a pattern for the past three years. All of my parents' friends had died, one after the other. There was no rational reason as to why mom and I were abandoned, ignored by other chimera when we needed help most. The tribe is supposed to help each other! Nobody helped us! Maybe Eunice herself is responsible for how my mom is broken, unresponsive. My mother’s state is not natural. There had been a chimera who tried to stand up to the high-cendai seventy generations ago… he became just like my mother. It is… a lesson. I… understand it now.”

“Eunice can control monsters with her soul branches,” I gasped in a sudden realization. “She rarely leaves the safety of her domain and the upside down forest meeting grove is right beneath her dragonskull. It must be within the affected area of her Soul-Garden.”

Alessi nodded. I saw that she was trembling.

“I will not go up against Eunice like my parents. I will not ask you to try to heal my mom anymore,” My sister lowered her head, streaks of tears glittering down her face. “If you heal her… she might remember everything and then the high-cendai will kill her. I will not tell anyone except for you what I learned. Eunice is truly ancient, unstoppable. Someone like her cannot be fought by us. We’re born to be her food, to do with as she wishes. Fodder… does not have rights to leave its owner’s kitchen. If you’re thinking about revenge on my behalf, don’t.”

I hugged my sister as she cried softly into my shoulder. I didn’t say anything, but I promised to myself that someday I would help Alessi and her mom.

“How long was I… in the library?” I asked when she stopped sniffing.

“Two weeks,” Alessi said.

“Oh. I’m sorry… I didn’t think it would take this long for me to make progress on leveling up,” I sighed. “It’s easy to lose track of time in a Still trance. I really needed to get my System age counter back.”

“It’s fine,” she shook her head. “I worked on getting everything on your list together for our trip.”

“Do you have any advice on what I should level up?” I asked her. “I can’t decide, nor do I have an idea of what to combine with what. How dark is the Twisted Forest? Will we need a light? Is there deep water? Do the seeds have a weakness if they overwhelm us?”

“I don’t know anywhere as much as you about combining magic to advise you,” Alessi lowered her eyes. “As for the labyrinth of trees… Some sections are indeed completely flooded or pitch black. The Folding Trees can form enormous caverns with deep lakes from their stretched hollows.”

“Got it. We’ll need a light and to waterproof everything,” I noted.

“As for weaknesses. The Folding Seeds don’t like… fire,” Alessi said. “Unfortunately it is very hard to keep a torch lit, because the trees can make rain if they detect smoke, unfolding rain water that they trap in their leaves.”

“Waterproof fire, got it,” I said.

“Waterproof fire?” My sister blinked. “What kind of magic is…”

“Not magic,” I shook my head. “Humans from Earth had figured many ways to set stuff on fire, even water. An oil or a grease fire is nearly impossible to put out with water for example. I almost burned down my grandfather’s cottage on my 11th birthday by playing around with some wax and oil, trying to replicate Greek Fire. We should prepare some Molotov cocktails if the Folding Seeds try to overwhelm us.”

“Wax? Greek fire? Mo-lo-tov cocktail?” Alessi tilted her head.

“Wax was a type of material that little yellow insects on Earth made. It was used to make lights that burned for a long time,” I explained. “Greek Fire was an ancient weapon that ignited in contact with water.”

“I see,” Alessi nodded.

“Molotov cocktails are incendiary, single-use, thrown weapons. They're made from a breakable container filled with very flammable substances equipped with a cloth fuse,” I explained. “Dried fumoc beetle shells with their heads cut off will make nice glass-like jars that we can use. I've been stockpiling various animal fats and oils in storage to make incendiary weapons.”

“Right,” Alessi noted. "Don't burn down our home."

I smirked at her.

As my sister went back to her sewing, I pulled out a white limestone tablet and mentally went over the list of my skills. I wrote them down with a charcoal stick and added names that the high-cendai gave for them, approximating how many points I had in each now:

Strength / Fortitude:

1 [Mitchell Shield] - [Damaged]

Agility / Folding:

1 [Air compressor]

Dexterity / Dominion:

2 [Pneumasomatic Actuators]

3 [Pneumasomatic Actuators] - [Damaged]

Vitality / Anima:

1 [Slow Mirror] - [Depleted]

Charisma / Resonance:

1 [Allure Halo]

Magic / Power:

1 [Battery]

1 [Generator]

Luck / Destiny:

1 [Probability Tree] - [Depleted]

Intelligence / Mind:

1 [Calculator]

Wisdom / Seeking:

1 [Seeking Arrow] - [Damaged]

Alessi looked over my shoulder at my charcoal - written stats chart. I even added dabs of colors to it with some paint. Over the years we had crafted various paints from plants and monsters, since paint was very useful for making camouflage. It was sitting in various skull-enclosures on my workshop table as we had plans to paint the glider when it was completed.

“A magic shield or harder bones will not help me in the forest against many Folding children,” I mulled as I stared at the stat lines. “As cool as it would be to make an oxygen compressor and set everything on fire, I have no idea how to differentiate oxygen from the rest of gasses and I don’t have anywhere near enough mana to keep compressing things continuously… so Folding magic won't be that useful. Not unless I grow a whole lot of Folding branches myself. Hang on… What if I completely cover myself in Folding magic? Will the Trees and Seeds see me as their own?”

Alessi purses her lips. "That is an interesting thought. The Folding Seeds lack eyes and I do not know what they use instead. Pheromones, maybe? But, they also don't have a nose. They might just be feeling vibrations through their roots and follow the prey in this manner."

"How many roots do they have exactly?"

"A few to a hundred, depending on how old a Seed is," Alessi replied. "An old seed is mostly roots and a very small core that unravels into a flower during the day."

"Hmmm…" I rubbed my chin. "What if we catch a young seed and I use Dominion threads to… control it? It's bigger on the inside, yes? We could maybe travel inside it? It could carry stuff for us from the forest, at the very least!"

Alessi blinked at me. "Hum… right. You can dominate creatures. That is an interesting idea! We will have to avoid the allure of the sap in the flower basin within the seed's center though."

"Maybe, I could just… cut it off?" I suggested.

"How are you going to approach the center without succumbing to the allure?" She asked.

"Oh," I looked at her. "Already got this covered. We will have to make you a breathing mask like my nightcrawler skull too! The sponge plant from the nearby lake is porous enough to let air in but blocks vapors completely. I can't smell anything when I put on my mask and my chimera nose is generally excellent."

"That solves the problem of the sap!" Alessi nodded excitedly. "My ancestor had to avoid the Seeds completely, fleeing from them before the allure got too overwhelming."

"Another Slow Mirror could be useful… in case my soul is injured." I pondered.

Alessi nodded.

"If I can figure out how to make the Resonance branch… do the opposite of Allure then I could scare monsters away from us, but that's not necessary as our capes already do that," I said.

"The Folding Seeds have no ears and think more like plants than creatures. They might be immune to mind-altering music-magic," Alessi commented.

"Gotcha," I scratched my head. "What's next? Battery and Generator. More power would be nice… alas I don't have amazing spells to fire repeatedly at my enemies yet."

"Plenty of luck would be nice though," I pondered. "If I knew how to use it... the luck tree only worked once for me in the Still Forest."

Alessi nodded. "Picking the best paths in the labyrinth will likely require lots of right choices. A pity your luck skill can't guide us."

“I'll be relying on you as my intelligence officer and guide,” I glanced at Alessi. “That means I won't need memory magic. As for Wisdom… frankly I'm far too scared to use that one."

"Understandable," Alessi said. "Maybe you can combine the Seeking branch with Luck to make it less prone to running into the Still Forest phantom?"

"I can't even understand the answers it gives me, what's the point?" I complained.

"Maybe it requires a lot of wisdom to understand the answers?" Alessi suggested.

"I don't want to rely on an assumption," I shook my head.

"Well, fine," she shrugged. "If I was a cendai… I'd probably sit at home all day and invest in Intelligence and Wisdom, diving as deep as I can into my chorus to recall and understand all of my ancestors."

"You are doing great already," I praised her. "Anyways, I think I know what Branches to evolve now. Thanks for letting me bounce ideas off you."

"Anytime, Juni, we're in this together," she smiled softly.

“Until the end,” I affirmed with a smile.