and he was dead either way, but no, thankfully it stopped and flattened out again. He had once gone in as far as this, he knew the sight and that’s why he could believe the stories, still there was a chance. Stories after all were only stories, surely someone had survived here already and if not Jeff would be the first. The only thing he regretted now was not getting a better backpack, well put that one on the list, but the fruits started to weigh him down slightly. He adjusted his hold on the bag and proceeded to walk further, hoping the fruits would not attract whatever killed people down here.

  The light in the caves was the same eerie green from the same plants in the tunnels, but thicker, the dampness present all over in this zone was even stronger here. Jeff would have sworn he could taste the wetness of the air, but well it’s that or starving to death, well probably dying of thirst, probably. The damp air just made the track just worse, Jeff already had sweat soaked clothes, were in other zones they may have dried already, here he knew they would keep being slightly wet for days at least, unless he was lucky and a dry bubble hit. Undergournd? He couldn’t tell if it was his sweat or the air that ran down his face, at least the caves were cool, unlike the rest of the zone with it’s always warm weather, sure it had been nice in the start but come on, people needed to cool down sometimes, well Jeff did, he wasn’t sure about the rest.

  Now that he thought about it, Brindgap had something to make the air less damp, that had been nice, some weird thing from the twist probably. In any case Jeff missed that now badly, maybe he should go back? No, no. Candy would just get mad if she saw him and while Brindgap was big for a camp, it wasn’t big enough to hide from her. Jeff had enough disappointment in people, he didn’t need a reminder why he generally stayed alone. Though it had been nice to talk to someone on a somewhat regular basis, even if she had barely understood him. He still didn’t get her problem, telling Rim about the trash they found had a good payday and it wasn’t like anything useful was in it. But no Candy had to complain about how they could’ve built one of those runner thingies. Not like they ran much, some old thing that was called a car or something, candy apparently knew what it was and knew how to repair it. Jeff knew somewhat what a car was, his mother didn’t go into details though, said they were mostly useless now and only the big groups or well off wanderers had stuff that would work nowadays, today it was about crawlers anyway. One of the things that got invented by some smart people in zone 1 if legends are to be believed, something that ran of the Pandemodium residue, the only thing you could find everywhere if you looked for it.

  That being said, there was a big shard pretty close, so Jeff started to walk down another path in the cave, better be safe even if he was lucky, without the gear luck wouldn’t help much if he got too near. It was nearly like the above, just with a ceiling, it was pretty big and Jeff could swear he heard a waterfall somewhere, but no water came from the top and some rock formations hid most of the cave he couldn’t see. It was relatively safe apparently, maybe the problem was too many shards? But people would know and come to harvest them, well rims people would. More likely the shards weren’t the reason people died down here. More likely they died to something that lived down here. Shards even the stupidest people could avoid, or get away quickly enough the cough didn’t kill them until they got home to tell people. No Jeff admitted there had to be something else.

  As he rounded another outcropping of rocks the environment changed, it opened up into a wide bowls, in the middle suspended in the air was a giant water bubble, slowly water ran out of it’s bottom into what could be described as a lake, if it weren’t for the weird tendrils of water running back up to the bubble, though some of the water clearly got away and ran down in a narrow fissure that flowed back into the complicated mess of ridges, passages that was the caves. Jeff just stood there and took in the weird sight, the bubble glowed yellow from within. Ah, a twisted object, probably some stone or some such thing, it must drag moisture from the air and keep it but only has so much strength so water flows out of it’s bubble. Subconsciously shrugging, it wouldn’t be worth the risk drowning in the bubble, Jeff decided to ignore it. Sure some people would buy it, in one of the hot zones you probably would get rich off it. But even if you survived getting the thing, it was hard to tell how big it was, how fast it attracted water and if you could transport it without it trying to constantly drown you. Plus it might turn out to be common there were plenty of flying huge bubbles above ground, so either this was special and worth some money but also dangrous, people already harvested and sold them or worst case, people already tried and relized it was not worth it.

  So no Jeff had learned his lesson, twisted objects were rarely worth the effort, too much residual Pandemodium, stupid name for a rock anyway. Plus a good half he heard about wanted to kill you, well they didn’t want to, but they did their best, for example now that he was thinking about it, Jeff thought there was a good chance the object in the bubble might try to rip his blood out of him. The other half of twisted objects were just as dangerous, but more because they were so useful that folk would murder you for having them instead of paying you. Well if they were good enough, to be honest most objects were rather useless, or not that powerful. Jeff had once travelled with another wanderer who had a rock that glowed each time it was about to rain, sure it wasn’t useless, but also nothing many people would pay good money for, well unless the zone had bad rain, jeff tended to avoid these zones if at all possible.

  So yeah, just stay away from the thing and all will be probably well. If he was lucky, and jeff was lucky, the thing did not attract some other creature that used it for survival, though the amount of fresh water being created probably meant a lot of animals used it for drinking water. That being said, as long as he stayed away from the rising swirls, he should be able to drink from the water. So Jeff had a good long drink. The water was cool and refreshing, damn shame he had left his waterskin at his camp, if he survived the cave he should come back and refill his water here, maybe even move his camp if he figures out why people keep dying down here.

  If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  So Jeff manuvered himself to one of multiple exists, not really caring which one he chose, he could se multiple exitst while moving around, see them emptying into the huge cavern, but since the stone walls were irregular at best, there was no way of guaranteeing a way over there in any case. So relying on luck it is. Just before entering one of these pathways, Jeff heard a growl and a sound like claws on stone, his head snapped around, looking at the creature who made the sound, to his dismay it was no normal creature, like a tiger or wolf, not that Jeff had ever seen one of these. No of course it was some kind of twisted beast and if Jeff was lucky it was this beast and others like ti that killed people, if not that meant something more dangerous was running around.

  Not bothering to take the creature in, seeing it had four legs, sharp claws, a maw large enough to crush his head and was scaly and wet looking, just like the damn crab whose fault this all was, Jeff started running. He debated leaving the fruits behind, but accepted that they may slow him down but not by enough to significantly lower his chances. The best was either fast enough to kill him or it wasn’t. That and he could always throw the bag in the creatures face if it came too close, not that he had great confidence in his ability to hit the thing, but you take positivity where you can get it.

  The stone was as to be expected not good for running, uneven and slippery, Jeff had to put as much effort into keeping balance as he was into running. He slipped at least two times hurting his ankle somewhat, but he was used to running while hurt, it was at least half the running he did, well maybe two thirds. Thankfully Jeff knew a lot of things, running was one of them, as soon as he got used to the ground he was able to increase his speed, not by enough but still. The bag of fruits made balancing a bit harder, and well if he fell he would crack his head open, but at this point sunken cost fallacy had set in, not that Jeff really thought about that, he was too focused on running. Step, step, step, small hop, step, jump, landing. That stone looks slippery, best avoid it. Step and step. He could hear the best coming quickly and he would bet on having seen the white bone of bones, though whether they were human, adjacent to human or completely different he would not guess.

  Instead, it was all about running, ok more like careful fast scramble. Jeff was quick, not nearly as quick as he had hoped, but it was either go on or die and he slowly got used to it, keeping his head down he probably would be fine for at least a minute. A howl from behind nearly made him step on a bad rock, that would’ve been the end, but it also lightened Jeff mood a bit, it sounded pained. So either the best had stumbled and hurt itself or well let’s not think about the alternative that something bigger and nastier had catched it. In either case Jeff had just gained some more time, but he also realized while quickly glancing up, to check his progress, that the way he had chosen was running into a fork in his way, stalagmites? Well their name didn’t matter jabbed out of the ground running up a rocky incline, where a lot of the glowing plants grew, Jeff didn’t think long, he could continue to run or take a risk, the stalagmites or whatever had just enough of a gab so he could get through them and onto that ridge. It was his best shot really. So he increased his speed and nearly fell twice again but made it to the stalagmites, scrambling in between them rushing to the ridge. Jeff threw a glance back and just saw a blurr moving towards him, yeah sur ethe thing hadn’t hurt itself seriously. As he looked away he heard a crash and howl, well thankfully he was lucky and smart enough to not look back as the threw his bag of fruits over the ridge, they caught on some small stalagmite and he climbed up quickly, bruises forming on his arms and legs as he didn’t care about hurting himself, just getting up that ridge. As he managed to get up there squeezed between the rocks, he could barely grab his bag and saw to his relief that the way down would be much less troublesome, a soft incline lead back to what could be considered ground level.

  It was then he heard more howls, three at least and his heart sank, but then he heard a shout, a human shout and Jeff looked in that direction and relief came right back to him. His luck had held out, a group of maybe three armed humans were on the other side of the cavern, just shapes against the glowing rocks and fighting against three other shapes. Oh they were all dead but this meant Jeff had a chance he could see his pursuer trying to get through the rocks, saw it’s four eyes and weird twin tail with globes at the end and began his decent. He didn’t want to risk there being more of the beasts, so he kept his pace as he followed his new pathway which began to slant upwards. Ha! His luck had prevailed, and his fruit were mostly in shape, sure he would get a bit less but that was ok for surviving. Grinning Jeff followed the path before him soon finding a tunnel upwards, now he just had to hope he would end up somewhere he could find his way back to his camp and that no beast followed him. But the pained screams of the people who had battled the beasts still rang through the cave, surely, he would be fine, the beasts had enough to eat for an evening, probably. Better not risk it. So despite being hurt, exhausted and honestly quite fed up with the day, even for Jeff it was a bit much running around, he did not stop until he found a way out of the caves above and to his surprise and great relief he ended up on finding nothing else of note, also a bit sad but what’re you gonna do? Complain you survived with your fruit intact? No instead he hummed a melody, and when the ground was less wet and less unstable even risked a skip or two. Well, the last thing was a bad idea, cause he had hurt is leg already, he slipped and got even more bruises and had to hobble the rest of the way. Not that it lessened his good mood much. He had survived yet again!