Chapter 48: Day 47

Day 47,

Well, it’s been a long day, but we’re back in the Village.  I’m tired but I’ll see how much I can get down before I fall asleep at the writing desk.

Now, where did I leave off?  Oh yes, the Wandering god.  It was a sudden thing, we rounded a bend in the trail and there it was, just standing there in the middle of the trail examining a fallen log that it had picked up.  Butat gestured for all of us behind him to stop moving and be quiet when he saw it.  I myself momentarily mistook the being for another tree upon first laying eyes on it, such was its height, lanky build, and bark-like skin.  Looking up, I saw the rest of it above the legs and could tell that it was in fact moving, turning the aforementioned tree trunk end over end as if looking for something on it or perhaps deciding what to do with it.  

I found myself reminded of the nature sprite, given their shared plant-like traits, glowing eyes, and vaguely hunched posture.  There were, however, differences beyond the fact the entity in front of me would have been as tall as or taller than the tallest trees if it were to stand up straight.  The most obvious was the lack of branching antlers.  Instead there was only a pair of feather-like protrusions sticking out and back from where ears would be on a human.  These growths reminded me simultaneously of the “horns” on certain owl species, month antennae, and – after a few moments of watching – the scrawny wings on the back of the Reader statue in the ruined cathedral.  Also lacking was any analogue to the nature sprite’s enveloping cloak of leaves and moss, but the giant before us didn’t seem to have anything to cover in its nakedness.  Beyond that, the eyes had a greener tint, the fingertips looked less sharp, and the arms hung down past its knees once it finally put down the log.

And when it put down that log I gained an inkling of why the villagers call it a god and not simply a giant or another spirit.  For rather than simply dropping the log or setting it down lengthwise it planted the former tree trunk upright in the ground.  As the being pressed the log further into the earth I could hear the sounds of strained wood creaking and groaning and mounds of dirt began radiating out from it as if displaced by rapidly growing roots.  A few moments later the Wandering God stepped back as if to gaze upon its handiwork and then turned its head to look at us.

My villager companions, even Cass, all bowed their heads and closed their eyes at this while I – after a moment of frantically looking in every direction trying to figure out what to do – found myself staring at the eyes that were staring at me.  It didn’t take long for me to close my own eyes and turn my head away; like the nature sprite’s, the Wandering God’s eyes were bright enough that focusing on them too long hurt and left a lingering impression on your retinas.

Almost as soon as I looked away I heard another sound of straining wood and rustles of underbrush timed to the rhythm of ponderous footsteps.  We all opened our eyes then and looked up to catch a glimpse of the Wandering God departing from the trail, pushing old growth trees aside as easily as parting a curtain.  And in its wake those trees would slowly right themselves as if nothing had happened.

Once it was gone, Butat made an awed exclamation confirming the being I had just witnessed was in fact the Wandering God I had heard of.  With less caution than I would like to admit, but still more than Cass ran forward with, I moved to examine the fallen log that had been planted on the side of the trail.  Somehow half-expected, but no less amazing for it, green buds of new growth were forming on the jagged top.  In the time that it took for Daianna to finish urging us onwards I saw yet more new buds forming fast enough to be made out by the naked eye.

As I understand it, such an encounter in and of itself was uncommon but not unheard of.  Both of our guides claimed to have seen the Wandering God multiple times before this.  What was more unusual, and far more unsettling was that we continued to hear the distinctive sound of the Wandering God’s passage off and on throughout the rest of the day, always sounding relatively nearby and getting closer.  This is what caused Butat to stop cutting through blocking overgrowth and instead attempt to simply push through it, leaving the rest of us to do the same and slowing down our progress.

And so we went in silence for the next few hours until it got dark enough that Daianna called to make camp.  We did so with no fire and a minimum of conversation.  No one had actually seen the Wandering God since it first departed, the sounds of it following us had stopped once we stopped moving, and all the normal forest noises continued as normal, but the unusual behavior still had everyone on edge despite the entity’s non-hostile reputation.

Daianna woke us all at first light, still early enough that we had lanterns out for the segments where the canopy was thick enough to block the dim morning sun.  After over an hour of this (during which we heard no more sign of the Wandering God) we reached a stony clearing surrounding the entrance to a cave in the side of a hill.  Daianna explained that this was the entrance to the cavern and where we would have made camp yesterday evening if our progress hadn’t been slowed down.

After a brief lecture from Daianna on cave safety we went on in.  At first it was as dark as one would expect from a cave, with the only light being that which we carried with us and the quickly retreating sunlight from the entrance behind us, but as we went further in and further down the gently sloping tunnel we began to see hair-thin colored veins in the wall that, when I put my lantern down and cupped my hands around a spot to test, very faintly glowed with a light of their own.  As we went on these veins grew in size and number, eventually even sprouting small protruding clusters here and there.  Soon enough, our own lanterns became nearly redundant.  And then we saw the greater glow coming from around a curve in the tunnel signaling that they would soon be fully unneeded.

As we rounded that curve the cave opened up around us into a truly massive cavern.  Clusters of glowing crystals grew from floor, walls, and ceiling alike, ranging from barely finger-sized to huge, angled, floor-to-ceiling columns wide enough to fit a person inside.  The colors varied in much the same proportions I’d noticed coming from windows in the Village at night; mostly blues and magentas, with the occasional green, and more rarely yellow and orange.  What I hadn’t expected was for much of the cavern floor to be given over to scattered pools of water.  Most were fairly small and shallow, but a few were easily big enough to swim in.  Daianna advised us not to.  And not to drink from the pools either as it tends to make people sick.  All of these pools were lined with crystals at the bottom and the scattered clusters seemed to be more dense around their edges.  It was markedly cooler down here than up on the surface yet just as humid, a combination that gave a bit of a chill.  Curiously for such a wet cave there were no stalactites or stalagmites, but there were crystal growths in analogous formations here and there.

Daianna, in the lead now that there wasn’t brush for Butat to clear, continued to take us further and further in until we reached what could only be called an underground lake, wide and deep enough that the light from its far depths was faint.  Here she instructed us to unload the crystals we’d brought and toss them into the water.  This was something of a surprise to me.  I’d been expecting to find a pile of previously deposited crystals that had “recharged” that we’d be collecting and replacing with a dun pile.  Instead, Daianna explained that the lightless ones we’d brought would dissolve over time in the water, providing material for new growths.  And it was those new growths we’d be collecting.  

So, while Cass and I unloaded into the lake, Daianna started backtracking and distributing what she’d carried amongst the smaller pools.  Meanwhile, Butat put on a pair of heavy gloves and began collecting crystals from the shallows of the lake.  In a moment of curiosity overpowering self-preservation I stuck my own unprotected finger into the water.  It didn’t hurt, but there was a mildly uncomfortable tingling sensation that lasted until I dried it off on my pant leg.  Thankfully for my dignity neither Butat nor Daianna saw that, but I was still subjected to a “well, what did you expect” sort of look from Cass at seeing my discomfort from touching water that the professional was using hand protection with.

When Daianna got back she presented us with hammers and chisels so we could assist with the collecting and gave us some instructions on how to do so.  After a few… less than productive… attempts on my part, Daianna took the tools back and I spent the rest of the time in the cavern alternating between taking observations in my other notebook and transferring the crystals the others gathered into our packs.  After a couple hours of this we headed back out to make our return trip to the Village.

The way back was much like the way there, with only two exceptions; we only heard sound of the Wandering God once (and were unable to tell if it was following us or not) and we were still on the main cobblestone road when the sun went down.  Still, it’s much harder to get lost on the main road than it is on a narrow trail in the jungle so we pressed on to the Village.  We certainly had no shortage of light, and once night truly set in, we could even make out the glow of our haul through the material of our backpacks.  We passed by a pair of night-patrolling guards who made a comment to the collectors about them coming in later than usual that was met with a good humored comment about things going slower when giving tours.  An offer was made to escort us the rest of the way back, but Daianna declined and no one seemed especially concerned about it.  I suppose there’s a difference between four people with an abundance of light crystals and one person alone in the dark.

The actual getting back to the storehouse and unloading what we’d carried was admittedly a bit of an exhausted blur.  But we got through it, I walked Cass back to Norman and Marva’s, and got myself back to the archive.  Honestly, I’m not totally sure how I’ve managed to keep my eyes open through writing all of this.  Force of habit bordering on compulsion at this point I suppose.  Time to stop and go to sleep before I start incoherently rambling.

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