The darkness can make most individuals devolve into a paranoid mess from the sounds of things you can't see. Basil didn't have that problem; his eyes could see in the dark. No, his situation was different. One called freefall to the abyss. He got hurt, impaled with a tendril with a bone razor in his abdomen. And, of course, under a weakened state. He could only see in some glimpses of consciousness, from the blood loss, the pit without end below him. He fell for at least 30 minutes. Basil opened his eyes with terror in them when he recovered his consciousness, seeing he was still falling. Basil didn't understand what Panic could be, but fear, he knew, and it was a motor for great things. He looked at his surroundings, there were some roots in the walls as some vines, but these weren't luminescent like the ones he saw in that cavern earlier. He didn't hesitate and, with care using his limbs, started to maneuver in the air. The gecko failed miserably and started spinning like crazy, giving him extreme dizziness. "He was a reptile, not a flying creature," Basil thought. Still, he tried again to regain control. He was stretching his limbs towards all directions to at least learn something. After some time, he noticed that he started falling slower when he extended the limbs to his sides. Basil progressed some, at least but not enough. He moved forward like swimming in mid-air and managed to advance little by little. After some minutes, Basil reached the walls, but he had to be careful not to do something stupid. So, of course, he did something stupid. He grabbed one of the roots with all his body, and the friction made him lost many of the scales protecting the belly. He also lost some claws trying to grab the root, but it was over when he started to stop. Basil fell again with less velocity now, but he didn't give up and tried afresh on another root before he began to fall faster. With a lot of force and more pain, the lizard managed to stop his descent so he could climb to a safe place. Now atop a steep rock, Basil was looking at his surroundings. There were various holes in the walls to explore, but first, he pulled the bone tendril from his abdomen and ate it with rage. His mind was working in ways to kill the tentacle mass that made him fall to this place. Some Animals can gain a sense of vengeance, and more if they are self-conscious. Most lizards live and guide themselves with their instincts or something called the "Reptilian Brain." By now, Basil's brain was getting larger and was creating a logical side to it. Basil was thinking for the future, and the blood of the Ethorgal was making sure he could fulfill it. Not all beasts think ahead of themselves; they only live in the moment and what surrounds them. Basil was getting himself slowly out of that category. After resting enough for his wounds to close, he began to feel hungry again. He tried to see with his strange vision something that could be alive to give him some protein to heal at least some more. His tail was thin again because he used all the nutrients in it. There were only gray colors around him. After hesitating a bit, he decided to get in one of the holes and see where it could take him. Before he started exploring, he tried to eat one of the roots. It tasted horrible and didn't give him anything to compensate for the trouble. There were eight holes, but only three were near him. He couldn't reach the other ones. He looked at each to know if they had something like a trace of the particles and lines he always saw. There was a slightly different color in one of them, but he couldn't see well. He made his choice and climbed to the one in the upper left of his rock. Perhaps there could be something he could eat that way. The hole had dirt, rock, and many tiny roots everywhere but looked stable and like it got made by something. Basil ignored the idea for the moment and started moving forward. The consequences could arrive later. Basil had his new vision always on, but for some reason, a pain in his head began to arise, "Is looking at too much of the tiny dots and colorful lines hurt me?" the lizard thought but continued the path without putting it off, even if it gave him pain. After some minutes, he saw something different. There were three paths ahead. One went upward and to the right, one down to the center, and another down and right. Basil chose to go up. He spent hours exploring tunnels and still did not get anywhere. For this, Basil decided to rest. He was eating roots all the journey, as they were everywhere, but they gave him almost no nutrient. Basil noticed something different on some strange-looking roots. Each had an intense color on his vision, separate from the tubers he ate all the way here. He always looked at the dirt and the rocks the majority of the time until now. His curiosity got the better out of him. He pulled one that looked big, and after exerting some force, a weird thing got out. It was another tuber, but it had a dim shine inside. Basil began to eat with delight. It tasted strange but not like the first one he ate. He did not care for anything else, and he was feeling happy to eat something good finally. The inside of the tuber was shining in white colors, like the worms or the creatures above. The interior was almost liquid and tasted sweet. Basil is a messy eater and bathed himself in the tuber's juices, but it was not enough. He looked for more tubers to eat. Some were different inside; they had a red color in them, others gray. It was weird, but Basil didn't care and still ate everything he could. Some minutes later, he heard some screeching coming from one of the tunnels. Basil observed all the tunnels with some fear after hearing that sound. He was packed, and his tail was getting big again, showing that he ate a lot. Basil judged it was better to move on from this place, or something terrible could happen. He knew it. Basil advanced again. This time he found a tunnel going straight up and no bifurcation, meaning he had to climb. There are different kinds of Geckos. Some have pads with tiny filaments that let them adhere to any surface, and there are too those who don't have this but clawed fingers. Basil was the latter and didn't own any pads. Also, he lost some claws when trying to stop his descent, and they had to grow again. But this did not impede the climb of rugged surfaces. He got a grip on the facade with rocks in it, at least in its majority. His ascension was slow but firm. He heard those screeches again in the caverns below him. They were far away and only an echo, but he didn't want to fight in an enclosed space like this. Sometime later, he found himself in another cavern filled with moss and roots in the walls. Still not luminescent, but he was getting closer to something, at least. He began to explore and noticed it had stalactites and dirt everywhere. Basil didn't know where he was, but the only option was getting up and finding a hole that went up because it was the best option. Basil found, after some time, a carcass of an insect. A hard one at that. It had sleek plaques and a whiteish color. Basil tried to munch it, and as he thought it was stubborn, he still ate it. His instinct told him it could be necessary for his survival. He didn't linger and continued exploring the long cavern. He found more of the carcasses. Some of them were in various forms and colors, just like the tubers, gray, red, and white. It was a curious coincidence, "maybe, these thingies eat the sweet things" these were the musings of our curious reptile. These Carcasses began to pile up each time Basil found more of them. They were getting bigger, almost 60 centimeters in longitude, and some were thicker. Basil didn't have the sense of worry but was starting to create something akin to it. He ate the stronger carcasses and left the small and weak ones behind. He was starting to feel something with each shell he ate, and the colored ones felt and tasted distinct. The screeches were getting more apparent. The creature making that sound was actively hunting him by now. Basil was feeling pressured, and there were no holes in sight yet. Sometime later, Basil found himself in a place filled with mounds of these empty shells. That was not all; there was a cracking sound coming from one of the things. He decided to get closer to investigate. It was a red shell of the slim kind, and it was moving. Basil didn't know if that was good, but the cracking intensified, and a clawed leg of an insect erupted from inside the shell, which was not a good sign.