Lost in the jungle.

Together, John and Erica cut a path through the vines and foliage, delving deeper into the trees. Every step that they took away from the lake, the calmer John got, until the mental image of that horrid monster faded to memory. Whatever it was, John didn't want to know.

"So..." Erica glanced over at him, "did you get credit for the quest?"

He sighed, "Yeah, but trying to level up the skill I wanted was a bust. I'm holding onto the points for now, unless you have an idea for them."

Silence fell again as they both thought about their situation. John glanced sidelong at Erica's leg and the way she walked with a slight limp. She might be partly recovered, but they'd need to keep out of trouble for it to heal fully. Which... might not be too hard. Since the hydra, excluding whatever the lake monster was, they'd been unmolested as they explored the cavern. Hell, they'd probably been lucky in finding the hydra at all. Sort of lucky anyway.

Erica stumbled, and John insisted they take a short break to keep her from putting too much strain on her injury. When they did, John asked the question that'd been on his mind since she woke up. "Just curious, but why can't we use the Path to leave? Your thing... with the fairies?"

"We could," Erica held up a hand, "but we'd get lost. I only know the routes around Springfield, and trying to find our way back there from here would be... costly. We'd have to bargain for it." She described it like a **** sentence, and John wondered just what they'd have to offer the fae for the information.

In truth, he'd been expecting that answer. It was a last-ditch option then, like Hearth. John leaned into the bark of the nearest tree and tried to think. Wandering around aimlessly wasn't helping, aside from getting them away from the lake, and they needed a direction or a plan-

Accessing Event CI.B.30: 11_05_25_19_20_15_14_05

"Look at this," John turned to Erica, and pointed at one of the hieroglyphs engraved into the temple walls, "the people here knew how to create barriers, and it looks like they used something to do it."

The pattern of glyphs showed a device being operated by two of the lizard-humanoids producing what looked suspiciously like a portal; on the other side of which were figures closely resembling a male and female human. Both were naked and standing in an exquisitely carved garden of fruits. Yet perhaps the most distinctive element that caught John's eye was the inscription of a sun behind the humans, the one thing this underground world lacked...

He staggered away from the tree, vaguely aware of his companion's distress and attempts to help.

"It does look kinda like the box upstairs." She tapped on the visible cogwork, then the central cube, "Maybe if we found some of the parts we could get it working again? There's no guarantee it'd get us home..."

"...but it's worth a try, yeah," he finished Erica's sentence as she trailed off. "Alright, let's go back up and see what's missing."

He dug his fingers into his hair as images flooded his mind: A large stone box with missing gears, gleaming crystals, a rainbow path, skeletons, bones in piles and walls of skulls-

"John!"

Access Terminated

Erica's frantic voice snapped John back to himself and reality painfully. Blood trickled out of his nose, and he instinctively pulled one of the bandages out of his inventory to soak it up. He was on his knees, half-held and half-cradled by the berserker who looked on with uncertain panic. Unlike the first incident, John felt able to speak and move, if slowly, and he raised a hand to put on Erica's shoulder.

"I'll... be fine. Just give me a second." Talking hurt.

This vision was different from the first, closer to him somehow. He felt more connected to what he'd witnessed. Desperately, he tried to remember how they'd reached the temple he'd seen, to call on a recollection of events that couldn't have happened... yet. Rainbow... color... lines of coursing pink-blue-green-red-white... leylines!

John pushed himself up and out of Erica's hands, looking around them with Astral Observe. Surroundings faded into grey, except for the brilliant veins of magic that ran beneath their feet and through the woods. It was strange, looking at the guiding lines, because he remembered this moment in the past... but was seeing them for the first time. His memory blurred, fusing together, and his nose stopped bleeding. Without a doubt, this was the path they followed. Would follow? It was still a messy concept to try and understand.

Now... how could he convince Erica he wasn't crazy.

"Hey, hey, John. You alright?" she asked, cautiously approaching him.

"I can see the future!"

In retrospect, yelling that was probably the single worst way to convince her that he wasn't completely batshit insane, but instead of giving him a weird look or scoffing, Erica just shrugged. "Sure, why not?"

John's mouth hung open and he stared at her, "You believe me?"

"Look, dude, at this point I'm wondering what you can't do."

Following the leylines wasn't difficult but took its toll on John's mana. Even only toggling Astral Observe every half-minute or so, he'd spent almost 20 mp, and that was including regeneration. The expenditure and Erica's injuries necessitated the occasional break, and they paused in a slightly more open clearing, where a the branches of a willow curved in a half-circle along one side.

Their path had led them further into the jungle, where the plants grew higher and denser in every direction. It was darker here, with more foliage blocking out the light from the stalactites above and no natural illumination along the ground. John might've been entirely reliant on Astral Observe without Erica. As they'd found it harder and harder to see, she'd cast a spell that caused her tattoos to glow electric-blue.

It tinted their surroundings a soft turquoise, and every damp leaf glistened with reflected light. The sight reminded John of the fungal forests of Globe of Battleart, but here there were no lumbering monsters or towering mushrooms, only tangled vines, massive ferns and warped trees. He walked over to examine one. Its branches were wrapped around each other, spiraling over their heads and then splaying out above to drape vines like curtains. Halfway up, the entire tree bent at a fascinating angle, it must have grown to follow the light, before the taller trees cut it off from above.

Overhead, some of the vines rustled in the breeze.

Which was strange... there hadn't been any wind in the past twenty minutes... He looked up at the source of the sound, but there was no sign of movement. Had he hallucinated it?

At the edge of his vision, a branch swayed, and there was a rustling sound.

"Erica, I think we're not alone..." John said.

"Yri! Yri!"

What the fu-