The cave mouth was easy to access, and the opening wasn’t that big. He might have been able to drive a car in there, but nothing larger. It was shocking that this valley, that was several miles long, could be completely filled with muddy water from this small opening.

The cave had once been sealed off with a metal grate driven into the stone with spikes. Mark recognized the spikes, looks like he figured out what the villagers had used the other spike hammers on. It was well done, when it was new. It had been clearly neglected however and had rusted away. Those areas had been patched with random bits of wood and metal. The binding material looked like normal rope.

“No wonder this didn’t hold,” he said in shock. “Why did they let it get so bad?” he asked Lucy, who was standing next to him.

“The elders put it here a long time ago mister. Once they got too old to come all the way out here their kids were supposed to take care of it. I remember my dad saying once that he didn’t see the point. ‘Nothings come from here but one small lizard in all the years we’ve lived here’ he said. So, they made it a punishment chore for people who did stuff wrong to come fix it up.”

He looked at her from the corner of his eye. having looked at the shambles of a grate, any doubts he had that she had gone in here more than once were dispelled. She really mustn’t be able to hold her breath long enough to get passed the flooded section, otherwise she probably would have bragged about it by now.

“Well, whatever. It’s done now and we need to go in there anyway. Let’s go,” he said before climbing into the cave mouth and beginning the climb up the tunnel.

The tunnel was just that, a stone tunnel. there wasn’t anything to look at and without his artificial eye, Mark couldn’t see soon after entering. He fished around in his pockets for something to light the tunnel when he found his prosthetic’s flashlight attachment.

“With as good as that eye was, I forgot I even had this.” he said as he hooked the light onto his hand and turned it on. It was shockingly bright for as small as it was. It didn’t draw much power from his hand either, so using it wouldn’t be a problem.

“Wow mister,” Lucy said looking at the light. “That thing really comes in HANDY doesn’t it” she finished with a giant wink. “Get it mister? Handy? Because its your hand.” She was cackling madly at her joke, completely ignoring the flat stare Mark leveled on her.

“Let’s keep moving,” he said. He would be lying if he said his lips didn’t twitch a bit, but no point encouraging the hand jokes.

“you’re no fun mister.” Lucy said, still giggling. “Here it is,” she added a short time later. “The flooded section I’ve never…I mean was never, able to get passed.”

“Nice save kid,” he said deadpan. “Ok, if you can’t swim it anyway than you shouldn’t try. It will only get your bow wet and we might still need that. Why don’t you head out of the cave and hide somewhere close by?” he said, happy at least that she wouldn’t be in danger further inside.

“Why go outside, mister?” she asked, “wouldn’t it be better if I waited for you here?”

“No, what happens if a trog comes from outside? You can’t make the swim farther in and the tunnel is too narrow for you to get around one of those big brutes. Best to wait outside, ok?” with a reluctant nod she turned around and moved away.

Having freed himself of that responsibility, Mark looked at the flooded tunnel. he wasn’t sure if he could even make the swim, but he had to try. He looked at his gear. After some thought he removed all of it except the Broken blade, and his prosthetic repair kit with his last charged power cell.

Taking a deep breath, he walked into the water until he was about waist deep. He had a sudden fear that the water would get into his eye from the broken lens and electrocute his brain or something. Casting his mind around for possible solutions left him empty, so he shrugged it off. it had to be designed with cracks in mind, right?

He dove into the water and kicked his legs with a steady rhythm. Nothing happened with his busted eye, or the deep score marks in his hand, so far at least. When he got out of here, he was going to lock himself in his room with an instruction manual until he knew how everything he had worked.

He continued to swim, eye open, flashlight helping to light the way somewhat. The water was freer of mud then he expected but it was still quite cloudy. Still, the light kept him from swimming into the tunnel walls at least. He hadn’t been counting the seconds, but he thought he had long passed the point he should have run out of air. It had to be his improved attributes in agility and endurance, he likely had much better lung capacity than before.

Thankfully, he didn’t have to test the limits of his ability to hold his breath. His head broke the surface before he was in danger of drowning. Belatedly he realized having the bright flashlight on, only broadcast his arrival. Assuming anything was on the other side. Thankfully that wasn’t the case, as it looked like he was just in a new section of tunnel.

He climbed from the water and after whisking his clothes as free as he could, continued deeper in. the tunnel looked much like it had on the other side, except there was small patches of moss on the walls. Having a sudden thought, Mark turned off the flashlight. He was plunged into blackness, that slowly brightened up around him.

“Bioluminescent Moss.” He said with a smile. He had mixed feelings about this particular plant. It reminded him of his time underground with Terra and later Tinker. For the most part, he didn’t mind being underground, but if he found another swarm of fecal flies, he was going to murder…everything.

Now that he didn’t need to hold his hand up, Mark drew the Broken blade. It felt solid in his hands, and gave him a feeling of reassurance as he moved. The weapon wasn’t practical. It was too light to be an axe, too short to be a sword, too long to be a dagger. Even so, he felt a connection to it. Unless it broke, or he died, he planned to keep this with him for a long time.

Time passed, eventually he reached another flooded section of tunnel. he repeated what he had done before, diving in and swimming with a steady rhythm. This stretch took a little longer, even his lungs were beginning to feel the strain when he resurfaced. Having learned from the first time he exited the water; he was careful not to create ripples as his head broke free this time. He even controlled his first few breaths so the noise didn’t attract any unwanted attention.

It was a good thing too. He was in the middle of a pond, in a giant cavern. It wasn’t anywhere near as large as the ancient one’s cavern. That place had held an entire city of frog kin, in addition to the mammoth turtle. Still, it was big enough to fit a city block. He couldn’t see the entire cave from his location, but he did see several more tunnels branching off this one. Some leading up, others down. the latter ones were flooded. Just like the one he had swum out of.

Moving to the bank he slowly climbed out of the water, again squeezing what he could from his clothes. he didn’t need dripping water giving away his position. That done he once again drew his Broken blade, and moved to explore. The stalagmites and stalactites hadn’t been destroyed here as they had been by the city sized turtle. They transformed the cave into a jungle of stone, that he had to slowly work his way through.

He was picking up signs of life here and there as he walked. Discarded bones, dried fecal matter, even a broken belt axe. Looked like he found the right place, but where were all the trogs? He kept moving deeper into the huge cave, eye peeled for movement. The ground level slowly started to rise until it was completely dry.

Once the ground dried out entirely, he entered a village made of mud huts. He had to do a double take. The buildings looked just like the ones the swamp rat villagers lived in. further out, on the far side of the village he could even see a rat dam. with several swamp rats scurrying around it. there were very few sticks in the dam, being mostly made of mud. Yet, they were able to find food, even here. He saw several carrying large mushrooms into the dam, dragged in from other caves.

Apart from the rats, there wasn’t any movement at all in the town. It was like a ghost town, completely devoid of life. Instead of the lack of trogs helping Mark to relax, it actually had the opposite effect. His fear of a surprise attack ratcheted up several notches, until he had to take a few deep breaths to prevent himself getting to wound up.

He crouched in the outskirts of the village for a long time, looking for movement of any kind. Not seeing any, he finally had to admit the place was deserted. Getting up, he moved into the village. Going from house to house he checked inside each one. Until he came to one that resembled the medicine woman’s hut in swamp rat village, and a feeling of foreboding creeped into his mind.

Stepping into the hut’s entrance, the foreboding he’d felt outside blossomed; and his heart, so recently stimulated from its long numbness, wilted a little in his chest. This hut didn’t just resemble the medicine woman’s hut, it was an exact copy. Right down to the woman sitting at the table inside, sipping from a steaming cup.

“So…you did make it here.” Said the woman, a sad smile on her beautiful face. She looked almost the same as when he had first seen her. Yet her image in Mark’s mind shifted, the glow she’d seemed to have since their first night together faded away. Leaving behind a tired, scared, and angry woman who hadn’t eaten properly in a long time.

“Lilly,” he said. His mind was rapidly going over everything he knew about her. It wasn’t much at all when tallied up like that. Just a few hours together over a few days, and even less time spent in conversation. A few clues stuck out to him, now that he looked at them as a whole.

Lucy said the old medicine woman named the lizards trogs. Lilly telling him her adopted parent took her all over the valley and they found places the other villagers had never gone. The jar of bioluminescent moss on her shelf in the village. Her unexplained absences. Was there more? He didn’t know, he couldn’t think.

“Why?” he asked at last, taking a step forward. A shape moved toward him from the side when he stepped fully into the hut.

“Stop,” Lilly shouted franticly. Looking worried. At her command, the shape stopped moving towards him. Only after it stopped moving did Mark get a good look. It was a trog elite, one of the yellow ones. “Please, go sit back down.” Lilly continued talking only after the trog stopped advancing.

Mark watched in stunned silence as the trog elite did as it was told and moved back into the corner. Where it sat down in front of a clutch of small eggs. It stared at him with hatred on clear display, in its eyes.

“Mark, would you please join me for tea?” Lilly asked him, with forced calm clear on her face. for a long moment, Mark couldn’t take his eye off that elite and the eggs. He would have died if Lilly hadn’t spoken out. The elites were too strong and fast, and he hadn’t seen it coming at all. for that alone he could give her a chance to explain herself.

“Thank you, Lilly.” He said at last, moving forward slowly to sit down. “I would love that. We never really had time for something as mundane as tea…” he was about to bring up the trog invasion, but remembered where he was and just trailed off as he took a seat across from Lilly. “What now?” he asked.

“Now,” Lilly said pouring him a cup of tea from a pot he’d missed seeing before. “I tell you a story, and you make a choice.” She refilled her own cup from the pot before setting it down again. likely to prove that she wasn’t trying to poison him, and took a sip.

“When I was a child, my parents died.” She started her story with something she’d already told him, but he didn’t interrupt.” The medicine woman took me in after that. No one else wanted to take me in back then, so I became her apprentice, and she became my grandma.” Pain filled her eyes as she remembered the past.

“We used to go on long trips into the valley, looking for medicinal plants. Every year, something new gets washed out of the cave. Or migrating birds drop seeds as they fly over, point is, the valley is still young as these things go and is constantly evolving. So, we looked. Eventually, I asked her why we didn’t just go into the cave and look for the stuff instead of waiting for it to come out every year.”

She took another sip of her tea. Mark could tell she was afraid, of what he couldn’t be sure. So, to help settle her he also took a sip of tea. He was a little surprised at how good it was. His eye brow went up and he took another sip. The unintended action had the desired effect, and she continued her story.

“It took a few years, but eventually we did enter the cave. I couldn’t hold my breath long enough to swim across, but grandma was crafty. She figured out a way for me to cross. We ended up in here and found the lizards. There was only one of them back then with a clutch of eggs…actually, it was this one here.” She pointed at the elite on the floor.

Mark looked at it again. There wasn’t any green at all to be found on the scales, if his earlier guess was right that meant it wasn’t a young trog. There were several scales missing from over its body too, it looked like the creature had been badly injured at some point in the past and had never healed properly.

“She was hurt,” Lilly said, drawing his attention back to her. “She never did recover completely, but me and grandma did our best to heal her up and care for her and her eggs. eventually they hatched and she wasn’t alone anymore. We helped them build the village, and explored the caves together. The hardest part was feeding them all. they only eat meat you see and this place isn’t exactly crawling with life.

We solved that problem in the end too, at least for a while. Each year the cave would fill with water, nearly up to the village here. This last year it was especially bad and the farm of flies we had cultivated from maggots were drowned out. leaving the trogs without anything to eat.”

Mark was getting into the story now, but a small flash of emotion crossed his face at the words flies and maggots. He wasn’t sad in the slightest those little bastards had all died.

“We came up with the idea to start a swamp rat colony in the caves. There is plenty of vegetation in here and the rats are herbivores. Grandma said we could try it now because there were enough rats. When we first found them all those years ago the rats hadn’t stabilized yet and taking them would have impacted the village.” She sipped her tea; each mention of her grandma caused her evident pain.

“We led the trogs out of the caves, getting them to scare the villagers back into town. no one was supposed to get hurt. We only wanted to take a few rats from each dam and bring them back here. Grandma was there when they came to scare the villagers. She told them to just go back inside. But the young men couldn’t do that, they just had to fight.” she grit her teeth as she said that, her cup shaking in her grip.

“She tried to stop them, but they rushed out on the dock. It was an accident, but the kids knocked her into the mud. It shouldn’t have been a big deal, but she hit her head on a rock. When the trogs who we sent saw grandma die… they lost it. they were from the first clutch of eggs and had been around grandma a long time. they killed all the young men and brought grandma’s body back here. We buried her with the trog dead. Deciding to go ahead with the plan to populate the cave with rats before going back inside the cave…then you came and started killing the trogs.”

She looked at him then, for the first time since she started her story. Her emotions were clearly in turmoil. Mark felt for her, but was still trying to come to terms with what was happening. He hadn’t expected anything like this. he expected to come in here, guns blazing and have a final last stand with the trog who were still alive in here before going back to town, victorious. Now, well now it was complicated.

“I had intended to use the excuse of healing you to get you alone and kill you. It was the obvious move, to keep my trogs safe. But I just couldn’t do it. I don’t know why either, it wasn’t love. I only ever felt love for my grandma and our little trogs. Still, I didn’t want to kill you. because of that, we have come full circle. The first trog is now the last trog with a clutch of eggs. Only this time we have a renewable source of food. Along with all the other benefits the swamp rats offer. Like furs, oil, soap and so much more.”

Mark half expected he would feel something when she said she didn’t love him, but he didn’t. he hadn’t gone numb again, he just understood where she was coming from. He hadn’t loved her either. They were just two people who were desperate for a connection as their worlds fell apart around them.

“Now that I’ve told my story,” Lilly said, after giving him time to think. “It’s time for you to make a choice.” She didn’t elaborate, tell him what choice he had to make or make threats or promises. She just sat there, looking him in the eye, waiting for his decision.

She could be lying. There were tunnels numbering in the dozens leading from this cave. There might be trogs hiding down each one. Waiting for him to leave so they can attack the village again. he just didn’t believe that she was lying to him. Everything she said had sounded like the truth to Mark. He sat there for a long time, looking into her eyes as she looked into his.

Then, he tipped his cup back until the now cold tea was gone, and nodded. setting the cup back down he slowly stood up. he was careful as to not agitate the last trog. Backing up until he was standing in the doorway.

“I’m glad I met you, Lilly.” That was all he said. That was all that needed to be said. Once he finished speaking, he turned around and left the cave.

* * *

He picked Lu up as he exited the cave. Not wasting time on explanations, he just said that it was done. The pair returned to the village. Where they were greeted as heroes. Mark stayed for another two days, until he was completely healed. He accepted the praise, but he never accepted any of the village girls invitations to anything more.

When he felt up to going back to Landing, he told Bernard he was leaving. The old man called the whole town together to present him with the present he had hinted at before. It was a pair of trog elite hides. They had been painstakingly repaired and preserved. One was red, the other was yellow. Apparently, they were the two who had come to the dock. They were the biggest and their scales hadn’t had any green to them at all.

Mark didn’t know how he felt about the gift, not after his conversation with Lilly. Still, he accepted them. the Broken blade had taken his arm and nearly his life, yet he carried it everywhere. He decided that he would do something similar here. He didn’t want to forget his time here. He thanked the villagers with a nod of his head, before turning and leaving the village for good. He hadn’t seen Lilly since he left her in the cave, somehow that felt like the right way to leave things.

Lucy was waiting for him on the dock. She was as filthy as ever in her boy’s clothes. she still carried the bow, and had another addition. A vest made from green scales peaked out from under her shirt. She was shaping up to be quite the little warrior. Mark almost wished he could be around as she grew up.

“Hello Lu,” he said walking up to her with a smile.

“Hi, mister.” She said back with an answering smile. “I brought you to the village from near the sphere. I thought it only right that I take you back there too.” She explained, sounding older than her normal, slightly disrespectful tone.

“That sounds lovely.” Mark said offering her his arm. She put her small hand on the bend In his elbow and they walked to the end of the dock. That was as far as her mature girl act lasted and she let go of him to jump off into the mud.

“Dang it, girl.” He said in mock outrage as she splashed him. She only laughed and moved ahead of him to lead the way. she talked his ear off the whole way, just like she had when they met, and parted ways with him at the spot he had saved her.

“Good luck, mister.” She said before she turned away from him. She left him there without another word.

Mark continued on alone until he reached the teleportation platform. He paused, his hand hovering above the sphere. Looking off towards the cave, he remembered his time in swamp rat valley. Then with a faint smile he put his hand on the softly glowing sphere. Suddenly, he was somewhere else.

“Finally!” it was the first thing he heard when he reappeared on the platform he’d left from. “I was beginning to worry old man.” He recognized Terra’s voice even before the blinding flash from the teleporter faded. “I mean, this really was the easiest of the hard quests. What took you so long…holy shit! What happened to you?”

The bright light had finally faded and she had apparently caught sight of him for the first time. He really was a mess; clothes ripped and repaired and covered with mud. He had suffered attribute loss and looked like it, not to mention the broken lens that had been his eye.

“Terra,” he said giving her a nod. “Tinker,” turning from her, he addressed the scree. “Do you still have any of the bloody hive exoskeleton?” he asked the little ant man. “I have a project I’d really like you to do for me.”