The Fe'gan Mountains are the highest, coldest mountains Lambastia has to offer, with the highest peak recorded at 8589 m (28,179 ft). Only the toughest creatures survive here, and the trek to get to the Basantha Shrine lays through these harsh conditions. (+3 Endurance)

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1562 [Caving] [H by C]

Postby Silver » 08/19/2017 12:57 AM


Kyrx was very pleased that her new ducky friend had given her such a precious gift. To most it was only a feather but she saw it as a beautiful treasure. It was not only an implement of flight, which she found fascinating enough, but it was also a writing utensil. She was afraid to actually use it as such for fear of damaging it, however. The cleverness of surface creatures never ceased to amaze her.

Kyrx looked at the crudely started map she had been given, trying to understand what it meant. This was not at all how her people would do it. Nonetheless she had to figure it out as she could only assume he wanted her to finish it in kind.



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Re: 1562 [Caving] [H by C]

Postby Silver » 08/21/2017 7:49 AM

It was an easy enough trip down up to the mountains. Long and uneventful, just like she liked it. Kyrx had to hold herself back from spending too much time taking notes on surface creatures today. It was not unknown for her to get completely lost in a forest, documenting every leaf that fell and every bird that chirped. She did not have time for that now, of course, and it tried her self control.

It had been a while since she had returned to this place. She looked down and grabbed a small rock in her claw. It didn't look objectively different than before, but somehow it felt like it was. A strange little twitch of nostalgia perhaps? Ah well, no time to worry about things like that. She let the rock tumble to the ground and proceeded forward.



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Re: 1562 [Caving] [H by C]

Postby Silver » 08/21/2017 7:58 AM

Once she was in the cave the strange professor and his map led her to, Kyrx ran her foreclaw against the smoothed stone of the entrance. It was not at all like the stonework back home. It was so crude and rough. Like it had been beaten in by an angry animal. She was almost certain a tool of some kind was involved, but it lacked the finesse and expertise her people were known for.

Though she found it strange, Kyrx also thought it was quite a charming little cave. It was indeed fascinating to learn how these people worked stone. She had not at all expected it to be so different from what she was familiar with. Now she had even more of a reason to finish the professor's map.



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Re: 1562 [Caving] [H by C]

Postby Silver » 08/21/2017 8:05 AM

With little delay, Kyrx began her work. She ran one of her midclaws against the side of the cave, and scratched notes onto her map with another. Not wanting to use the professor's precious feather pen, she instead dipped her sharpest claw right into the ink. This was the way she had learned to imitate the writing of the surface people all those years ago.

Every now and then, she exchanged the partially filled map with her notebook to jot down speculations about the digging method of the people who built the cave. It was full of everything from wild speculation to surprisingly accurate conclusions. She was almost certain that the surface people would use some kind of animal bone or claw to make the marks they did. Then again, it would have to be an extremely tough substance to be of any use here against pure rock.



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Re: 1562 [Caving] [H by C]

Postby Silver » 08/21/2017 8:19 AM

Soon enough, Kyrx got to the end of her map. That certainly didn't last very long. No wonder they needed her help. She felt relatively confident that she understood the map system now, so she was eager to add to it. Though she wished she had more room for extra detail. Her kind were known for their meticulous attention to detail, even when it would never be seen by anyone else. The fact that they did a job to perfection was reward enough for the hard work they put in.

A single pebble caught Kryx's attention. She leaned down to examine it. It was unlike the pebbles around it in a very subtle way. She quickly figured that it did not belong here, and slipped it into her back with a mental note to return it to its home. It would sit in that bag forever if she never found a suitable place for it.



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Re: 1562 [Caving] [H by C]

Postby Silver » 08/23/2017 1:04 AM

The crude tunnel have way to a natural cave and Kyrx realised why the previous map maker may have stopped here. In the tunnel it was easy enough to see both walls, but here in the cave they were too far apart. It was completely open and severely dark. Neither of these things bothered her of course. She could see perfectly well in the dark, even without the glowing runes that adorned her exoskeleton.

One if her antennae began to twitch as she recognised a sound quite foreign to her surroundings. It was a flowing liquid, water probably. Kyrx put her journal away and clutched her walking stick. Water underground was quite dangerous indeed. She could easily be washed away or dragged into a sticky mud hole.



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Re: 1562 [Caving] [H by C]

Postby Silver » 09/10/2017 7:18 AM

Kyrx proceeded with caution, using her walking stick to probe the ground in front of her. Though she found it unlikely, there was always the chance that she would miss loose rock and mud that might  indicate the leak nearby. None of that precaution was needed, apparently, as the waterfall soon revealed itself. Just around a shallow corner was a gushing waterfall, splashing down into a small pool.

The ground seemed stable enough, so Kyrx approached the pool. She bent down and used her midclaws to stabilize herself at the edge of the pool. The water was crisp and clear, and the pool could be seen through to the bottom. She concluded from the way the nearby stones were worn away that the water had been flowing here for quite some time. It made her wonder where the source was.



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Re: 1562 [Caving] [H by C]

Postby Silver » 09/10/2017 7:25 AM

It wasn't the time to go chasing leaky rocks, she reminded herself. She swiftly removed a small vial from her bag and filled it with liquid from the pool. Then she slipped a label around it and scratched in some notes. Some day, if she had the time, she might return to investigate. Some testing back home might tell her the origin of the water, or at least which minerals it ran through.

Kyrx filed away the vial next to many others of its kind and stood up to look around. From this angle, she could see two paths spreading out into the darkness. The wider of the two continued straight for as far as she could see, and the other one hooked off to the left.



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Re: 1562 [Caving] [H by C]

Postby Silver » 09/10/2017 7:33 AM

The left path felt more intriguing for a reason she couldn't quite place. That was good enough of a reason for her to explore that tunnel first, she figured. Kyrx was always one to follow her feelings, despite the rigid logical nature of her people. Perhaps that's why she was here filling out maps for surface dwellers in the first place. It just seemed like it would be... well, fun.

Kyrx continued to scratch away at her map as she scuttled across the tunnel and around yet another corner. The twisting and uneven tunnels didn't really bother her much. In fact, they almost reminded her of home. The pathways dug by her people weren't all that different, save for their ruthless efficiency. In a way, she almost preferred the charm displayed by these ones.



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Re: 1562 [Caving] [H by C]

Postby Silver » 09/10/2017 7:39 AM

A subtle change in the rock caught her attention, and she reached up with her foreclaw to make scratch at it. The feel of the stone under her claw gave her an idea what it could be. It was soft, she determined, much more so than the surrounding tunnel. There very well could be a gemstone hidden here,
though she wasn't about to investigate any further. She would leave the gem excavating to someone else -
she had her own work to do.

Kyrx's first instinct was to write about the change in rock on the map, but she saw no place for it. Perhaps surface dwellers didn't care about such things. She had a feeling they weren't looking to expand the tunnels anyway, and if they were, they could do their own rock studies.



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Re: 1562 [Caving] [H by C]

Postby Silver » 09/10/2017 10:01 PM

The sound of her claws hitting the ground changed suddenly. A more metallic twang than a hollow rocky click. She looked down to see an odd structure made of metal. It was long since eroded away
by the elements, but she could tell that it had been made by people. No such structures exist in the natural world.

Kyrx reached down with her midclaws and scratched away some of the dirt and rust from the metal. It was forged, as surface people once did. She wondered what its purpose could be. A long thin strip of metal extending out into the tunnel. This part of the tunnel was also particularly well crafted. Perhaps someone had already looked to work the soft stone in search of the gems she had just been speculating about.



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Re: 1562 [Caving] [H by C]

Postby Silver » 09/10/2017 10:06 PM

Kyrx decided that she should follow the metal strip for now, not that she had anywhere else to go. The tunnel was quite narrow, but it was much better formed than the ones she had seen before. The people who created this had taken special care to make it easy to navigate. She wondered why, if people made this, they hadn't mapped it. Perhaps such a thing had long since been lost. What a sad thought; missing information, gone to never be known again.

Further down, she noticed another thin strip of worked metal, this one parallel to the last. In fact, it was exactly parallel. Perhaps that indicated something about its purpose, but Kyrx couldn't figure out exactly what. She sketched it onto her map and planned to ask the strange duck if he had any ideas when she got back.


[Processed up to here]



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Re: 1562 [Caving] [H by C]

Postby Silver » 09/11/2017 7:29 AM

Kyrx pulled out her notebook and made a few sketches and notes about the strange metal objects. She measured the distance between them, and speculated about the metals they were made from.
While doing this, she noticed that there were lengths of mostly worn away wood between the two lines. Surface people really liked to create things out of wood, she noticed. So much so that they even apparently brought it under ground with them.

She continued to follow the path until it abruptly ended. A tall rocky shelf signaled the end of the well made tunnels and strange metal lines. The people who built it must have given up here, probably because the rock changed so much. Kyrx was even more curious than ever and hastily made her way down the wall.



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Re: 1562 [Caving] [H by C]

Postby Silver » 09/11/2017 7:35 AM

It was easy enough to scale her way down the wall; her kind were built for it, after all. She landed softly on the solid ground at the bottom of the shelf. Though she knew it wasn't actually possible, it somehow felt darker down here. She proceeded with caution as she felt out this new area.

A pair of glowing orange objects caught her attention. They reminded her of the signal stones that marked different pathways back home. Instinctively, she walked right toward them as she had done many times in her life. To her genuine surprise, they moved away. The orbs flickered, followed by a low, rumbling growl. These weren't signal stones at all - they were the eyes of an unknown creature!



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Re: 1562 [Caving] [H by C]

Postby Silver » 09/25/2017 9:21 PM


Kyrx let out an oddly soothing soft hiss in the creature's direction, not unlike how a human might instinctively click their tongue at a stray cat. She showed no fear in slowly approaching the creature, though the same could not be said for it. Her curiosity pressured her forward, and to her surprise, it didn't immediately bolt away.

"Aah, no afraid," she said softly. The creature probably didn't speak common, but she felt the need to say something. Its skin looked rough and solid, like it was made of stone. Kyrx knew many kinds of stone, but this was something extraordinary. In some ways it reminded her of surface creatures, but in others it very much did not. What would a surface creature be doing all the way down here, anyway?



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