"Are you sure we're going the right way?" Blue asked again, their voice echoing around the tunnels. Their voice was a bit muffled and metallic sounding from within their helmet and their footsteps clanked with each step along the rocky ground, but what kind of a knight didn't wear a full suit of armor, especially when they were on the job escorting someone through such a dangerous place like these caves?

It felt like they'd already been exploring for hours and they still hadn't found the hot potato or whatever they were looking for. Blue didn't complain or act rude, even if they were a bit bored, but they did show a few obvious signs of their boredom like asking questions more than once. Or it could just be that they forgot the answer. Their memory wasn't the best.

The bluish-white light emanating from between the gaps in Blue's armor lighting up the cave walls for them to see by started to give way to a more reddish light as they went around a corner and saw a larger cavern with several pools of lava scattered around. Not the first one they'd passed through. Actually, did they pass through this one already? It was hard to tell. These tunnels were like a maze if you weren't familiar with them, and Blue was visiting them now for the first time.

Blue didn't generally like visiting the more volcanically active areas of Charon since they could be a little sensitive to the heat, but they were alright as long as they had their protection, and protecting people was the knightly thing to do, so they accepted this mission easily.

SPOILER: Click to show

Quest Name: Hunted
Participants: Two or more
Location: Anywhere
Post Requirements: 5 posts per person, 200 words per post
Reward: +1 Mystical Archive Ticket, +1 Mysterious Reward
Description: You find yourself as the main character in a Black Harvest story! Write out a spooky or scary story where you find yourself hunted, stalked or followed by a scary, creepy or frightening threat. The location, villains, and details of the story are completely up to you, as long as this year's theme is obvious and consistent throughout the topic.

---

Glow

Looking around the cave they’d just entered, Mimi tried to make out any discerning features. There were some pretty deep cracks in the stone to their right and, looking down them, she could confirm that there was a river of lava flowing far below. Mimi shuddered, both at the drop and the molten rock around them. She was used to the heat, but the bubbling red liquid flowing through these caves made her supremely uncomfortable.

Fishing the tattered map out of her pocket, she studied it intently, trying to find this lava river marked on it. She turned it around in her hands several times, hoping that looking at it from a different perspective would help pinpoint where they were in relation to where they wanted to be.

“Uhhh... Yeah we’re totally going the right way.” She reassured her armoured companion, unable to admit to them, or herself, that they were pretty damn lost. No they definitely weren’t lost. The red tuber thingy grew in hot dark places, and this was the hottest and darkest place she had been in, ever. So clearly they were on the right track.

She tucked the map back into her pocket. Spotting a tunnel opening on the other side of the cavern and leading in the same direction the lava river was flowing, she pointed towards it. “This way.”

Just as she was balancing on a narrow path between the deep crack and a larger pool of lava (or at least she felt it was narrow, although it was at least 3 foot wide), a deep rumbling sounded from the rock around them, making the ground beneath her feet vibrate and dust float from the ceiling. Immediately, Mimi hunkered down and wrapped her her arms around her head, a shriek escaping her throat. The sound passed as quickly as it had started, leaving the cavern still and quiet once more. “What the hell was that?”

Blue shook slightly, but their feet remained firmly planted on the ground, stuck with a little goo to the stone floor of the cavern. They kept an eye on Mimi to make sure she was also alright. They might be able to survive a fall, but they weren't sure Mimi could and they were here to keep her safe. Landing in the lava down there was also definitely not going to be great for either of them. Blue had a little protection from the heat, but they didn't want to test it against lava right now.

When everything settled and the cavern was still again, Blue looked around and shrugged in response to Mimi's question.

"I dunno. Maybe it was an earthquake. We got a lot of those a while ago."

Blue was pretty familiar with earthquakes after dealing with a quite frankly ridiculous amount of them not that long ago. With how many towns needed rebuilding and how many refugees moved to Skypeak Village, they'd experienced enough earthquakes to last a lifetime. Well, it looked like this one wasn't too bad. It was already over.

Ahead of them, the cavern wall opened up into a crevice that led into another tunnel that Blue didn't remember at all. As familiar feeling as that last cavern had been, this tunnel felt totally different. The walls, floor, and ceiling were all one, with the whole tunnel being a perfectly round tube.

"Hey, this looks new. We must be going the right way!"

Even after the tremors had passed, and the ground lay completely still under their feet once more, Mimi’s knees would not stop shaking. Images of the roof collapsing and sealing them in these rocky depths kept flashing through her mind. If earthquakes were common in this area, maybe it had been a terrible idea to come here. But there was no turning back now. They had already come so far, and Blue seemed to be right, the tunnel they had entered did indeed look very different from the ones they had passed through so far. This was the right way. It had to be the right way.

Once they left the red glow of the lava behind them, the only light illuminating their way was the faint glow coming from between the plates of the knight’s armour. It gave their surroundings an eerie quality, shadows dancing and shifting with each of Blue’s moves. Every little whisper of pebbles shifting beneath their steps made Mimi jump, anticipating another quake to hit them. If it indeed had been a quake that made the earth tremble. She just couldn’t help feeling as if there was something else down here, as if there was something following them. It felt like there were eyes boring into the back of her neck, sending a cold shiver down her spine and raising every single hair on her body. But every time she glanced back the way they’d come there was nothing there.

I really have to stop driving myself crazy there is nothing down here but us, and hopefully those tubers I’m looking for. But no matter how much she tried to reassure herself she couldn’t shake the feeling of something being wrong. At least Zeke was safely tucked away inside his pet pocket, which she had triple wrapped around her waist to ensure her little buddy’s safety. She did not want to risk him him running off and getting lost down here.

“Hang on a second,” no longer being able to ignore the creepy feeling, she stopped walking and turned around, picked a fist sized rock up from the floor and made the rock glow in her hands. She then threw the glowing rock back the way they’d come from. It sailed through the air, illuminating the tunnel behind them as it went. It landed on the ground with a small ‘clunk’ and continued to illuminate its immediate surroundings. The tunnel was completely empty, just has she had been trying to convince herself the entire time.

So it really was all just in her head. She had to get a grip on herself. Shrugging, she turned back to continue on down the tunnel. “Could have sworn something was following us... You didn’t notice anything, did you? Nevermind, I guess. I’m just being paranoid.”

Now, where were those tubers? They had to be close, surely!

Blue stopped and watched curiously as Mimi tossed a glowing rock back the way they came. with a bit of a clatter against the stone, it came to rest just inside the darkness beyond the light Blue was putting out. They didn't see anything catch the light except the walls of the tunnel themselves. They reflected the light oddly well for rock.

With another glance around, they noticed the walls of the tunnel were very smooth and a little shiny. The walls were also darker than the stone walls of the cavern they had passed through. They hadn't given it mush thought before, but it looked almost glassy. A bit weird, sure, but they didn't know anything about how volcanoes or tunnels worked. Maybe this was just some totally normal thing to find inside a volcano. Like lava.

Blue just shrugged and started to follow Mimi again when there was another tremor. It started about the same as the one they had experienced earlier, but it quickly grew much more violent. Blue stumbled for a moment before planting their feet firmly, but their upper body still wobbled back and forth from the intense shaking. A rumbling sound from the tunnel behind them grew increasingly louder and the shaking more intense.

With an ear-piercing screech, something massive burst through the floor beneath the rock Mimi had thrown and continued straight up into the ceiling. Something long and glowing bright orange and yellow, almost like the lava they'd seen, but with a pattern like snake scales.

When it finally passed all the way through, its tail tapering off, there were two brand new perfectly circular tunnels going straight up and down with walls of still dripping molten stone that was hardening into glossy black obsidian branching off of the one Blue and Mimi were in.

As the ground began to shake once more, Mimi stumbled and lost balance. Her knees hit the ground painfully and she gasped. Her eyes went wide as she watched the huge snake-like creature burst from from the ground and disappeared into the ceiling, effortlessly cutting through the stone like a fish through water. The already warm air around them growing almost unbearably hot from the heat emanating from the creature. Her mouth opened to release a scream but the only sound escaping her throat was a whistle-y exhale as her lungs refused to work. She was sure her heart stopped beating for a moment, only to pick back up so hard it felt like it would burst out of her chest at any moment.

Even after the creature had fully passed back into the rock, the rumbling of its movements could still be felt for a long time until the earth around them was once again entirely still and quiet. It took Mimi even longer than that to get her body moving again and her mind still struggled to process what she had just witnessed.

“Oh shiiiiit...” her voice was no more than a whisper, her lungs still refusing to work at full capacity. “What was that? You don’t think it noticed us do you? Shit, we have to get out of here! Now!”

But there was no turning back. The way they’d come from now sported a 10 foot wide, perfectly round hole, its glossy smooth walls dropping into unfathomable darkness. The only way to go was to continue on down the tunnel they were in and hoping they’d find their way out from there. Mimi grabbed Blue’s hand, ready to run, run as fast as they could, away from the monster.

Blue looked down in surprise as Mimi's hand suddenly grasped theirs, and without thinking, they grasped hers back. Mimi immediately tried to take off down the tunnel frantically, but found herself held in place as Blue's hand held hers tight and the knight didn't budge from their spot one bit.

When the tunnel had begun shaking, Blue had stood in place by sticking their feet firmly to the floor, quite literally. A sticky coating of ooze coated the bottom of their boot and glued them to the ground, keeping their feet firmly in place and making sure they wouldn't stumble and fall.

Now, with Blue's glued-in-place stance and their strength, Mimi couldn't move them in the slightest.

"Wait a second!"

Blue lifted their feet from the ground with a wet sucking sound and reabsorbed the ooze into their feet one after the other. They put their feet back down with two clanking footsteps from their metal boots.

"Okay, now we can run." They said cheerily and then took off down the tunnel, their hand still holding Mimi's, only now their positions were reversed as Blue took the lead and pulled Mimi along behind them as the knight's much longer stride and athleticism made their speed outpace the Gremlin by a long shot, even in their heavy armor.

It didn't even occur to them that they were just heading further into the mountain, and to get out they should have run in the opposite direction past the holes. After all, they still hadn't found those tubers, and Blue wasn't going to fail their mission because of some big worm.

Mimi’s panicked mind was too preoccupied to take much note of the strange noises coming from her companions armoured boots, she was just glad when they finally set off. Under different circumstances it might have been quite exhilarating to have Blue drag her along at top speed, much faster than one might have guessed someone in such bulky armour would be capable off. As it was, the only thing on Mimi’s mind was getting as far and as fast away from that monstrous creature as was possible.

As they descended further into the mountain, the air got thicker, humidity making the already hot air almost unbearable to breathe. Sweat was beading on Mimi’s forehead and her lungs burned, all of it made worse by them still running for their lives. This would have been bad enough environs for a casual stroll, let alone a sprint. If Blue hadn’t been doing most of the work of keeping up their speed, Mimi probably would have collapsed in exhaustion.

The tunnel grew steeper but never deviated from it’s perfectly smooth, rounded walls, floor and ceiling. It was threatening to become a slide rather than a walkable surface. Moisture was beginning to bead on the stone, forming small rivulets and making everything slippery. The light of Blue’s armour reflected off the wet surfaces making the entire tunnel glimmer with soft blue light. It was beautiful, but Mimi barely spared the sight a second though.

Just as she was about to tell the knight to slow down, worried that they both might lose their footing on the treacherous ground, the tunnel abruptly deposited them in a huge cavern. The air here was so hot and thick it almost felt like breathing water. A large pool was to their right, the water bubbling happily. Steam could be seen rising from its surface. The sound of dripping water was all around them. It was almost as if it was raining. Except, when Mimi glanced up she did not spot thick rainclouds but instead a myriad of crystalline stalactites that were forming the ceiling. 

The most amazing feature of this place, however, were the plants! Every visible surface teemed with bioluminescent mosses, vines and shrubbery, each of them glowing softly in their own unique colour. This was the most breath-taking place Mimi had ever seen. “Wooow,” she breathed in awe, her earlier fear momentarily forgotten.

Then her eyes were drawn to the second most prominent feature here; throughout the entire cave were perfectly round holes, much like the tunnel they had just emerged from. They were in the floor, at different heights of the walls, even in the ceiling. All of them about the same size in diameter of roughly 10 feet wide. Now that she was looking for it, she could also see large furrows running across the ground where no plants grew. Instead it looked like the stone had been molten and hardened in a perfectly smooth, rounded groove.

Mimi looked back at the tunnel they had just emerged from, its dark mouth perfectly round, just like all the other holes. Just like the hole that had been left behind by the giant worm earlier. Her throat constricted as all the pieces finally tumbled into place. “Oh... oh no.”

The scenery of the cavern was breathtaking, especially compared to the repetitive and mostly blank scenery of the tunnels they'd been wandering through before now. And any plant capable of living in this kind of environment had to be something truly special. The Red Rock Tuber had to be somewhere around here, if it was in this mountain at all.

Blue didn't really appreciate the view nearly as much as Mimi did though as they kept running. With Mimi practically waving in the air behind them like a parachute, Blue decided it was much better to tuck the Gremlin under their arm and just carry her instead.

"I'll keep running, you look for the tube thingy!" Blue called over the sound of their clanking armor and the increasingly loud sound of shaking.

A glow began to emanate from one of the holes in the walls nearby. Apparently, this creature could dig through solid stone, but it looked like it preferred to stick to the already dug tunnels in the walls in this cavern. Maybe it didn't want to cause it to collapse. In the center of the cavern, there was a divot in the stone that didn't look natural, but it did look like it made a nice spot for the creature to curl up and sleep. Blue and Mimi had apparently wandered straight into its home.

The shaking was getting bad enough it was making running pretty difficult and they began to stumble more than run.

"Agh. One sec." Blue said in a slightly annoyed tone after tripping and falling onto their hands and knees. Keeping their balance like this was starting be a real hassle, so they had to change things a bit. They picked up and tossed Mimi into the air, and when she came back down, it was onto the back of a very large, lightly glowing, blue-furred wolf. Keeping their balance was much easier with four legs than with two.

Blue took off running again just in time to avoid the worm bursting out of the tunnel and leaving a groove in the floor where they had been.

---

Shapeshifter

The world swam before Mimi’s eyes as she was clamped under one of Blue’s large arms and rattled around roughly. She was sure the knight meant well but there was no way she’d be able to look for anything while being tossed around like this. The bigger concern for her right now was keeping her lunch down. The matter was not helped when the ground began shaking once more and everything became even more turbulent.

Then, pure vertigo, as she was suddenly tossed into the air. A panicked screech escaped her throat as her trajectory reversed and she plummeted back towards the ground. Before her mind could even adjust to her involuntary flight, she landed on soft fur, a huge wolf now standing where Blue had been moments ago. What the..? Her fingers clamped into the creature's fur instinctively and her legs tightened around its shoulders as they took off at top speed.

“Blue?” She yelled over the roaring noise of the monster worm rushing into the cavern behind them. “What the heck are you?” Not that that really mattered right now. What they had to worry about was how they’d get out of this place and not end up as the worm's next snack. Forget the tubers. No plant was worth this much trouble. No wonder they were rare if obtaining them required having a death wish.

She glanced over her shoulder to the tunnel they had come through. The rock was still glowing and partially molten in places. No way going back through there for a good long while. They had to find another way. And then her eyes spied - just at the edge of said tunnel, growing on the walls - the tubers! They were glowing a bright, fiery red, almost like the hot stone beneath them. Mimi could swear those plants hadn’t been there when they'd entered. Or was her mind going loopy from all the adrenalin coursing through her?

Blue suddenly shifted beneath her and she almost got flung off his back, only barely managing to keep her grip. Looking ahead once again she realised that the strange elongated plants were absolutely everywhere! She just hadn’t realised that they where what she was looking for, since they were only emitting a very soft blue glow which was swallowed up amidst the many other lights of the luminescent flora all over the cavern. Only where the worm was passing did the tubers light up in their distinct bright red, activated by the intense heat. Perfect! Now she just had to grab a few of them and they could leave this place for good.

But that would be easier said than done. It wasn’t like she’d be able to just leisurely pluck a few of the plants while the worm was patiently waiting for her. And they still didn’t have any plan of escape...

"A totally normal knight!" Blue shouted an extremely unconvincing reply back to Mimi as they ran, the giant wolf opening their mouth, but not moving as the sound came out slightly lower pitched and garbled compared to their human form.

Dodging the massive worm took a lot of focus and they could barely avoid it in time. They figured they could survive maybe one hit unharmed thanks to their armor and their thermal core, but after that it would probably hurt a lot, and that was only them. Mimi didn't look like she'd be able to shrug off a hit from this thing.

They felt her grip slipping on their back as they dodged the worm and took off running straight from it, in a perpendicular line from the groove it left in the ground. If she fell off... Yeah, she'd probably die. No way would she be able to dodge the worm like they were. It'd probably swallow her in one gulp. To be fair, even in Blue's giant wolf form, it could probably swallow them whole too. The front of its body was nothing but mouth. Pretty efficient. Nothing on a slime though, whose whole body was basically a mouth, but this was no time to be getting into a competition over who was better at eating. (Blue is, it's definitely Blue.)

"This is also a normal knight thing, don't worry!" Blue called out as two pairs of blue, furry arms grew from their back and grabbed Mimi's legs and shoulders, holding her down onto Blue's back just in time for Blue to leap to the side to avoid another pass from the molten worm.

---

Extra Limbs x2 (Altered Physiology)

Mimi screeched as blue arms suddenly took hold of her. Memories of creepy multiarmed ghosts trying to trap her swirled around in her mind. It took a panicked few seconds for her to catch up with the fact that it was just Blue holding her down so she didn’t slip off their back. Yes, of course, this was a totally normal thing for a human knight to do. Even her mental voice was thick with sarcasm at that statement. But if Blue didn’t want to talk about it, and preferred to keep their true nature hidden, then Mimi really wasn’t one to pry into such personal matters. Besides, now really wasn’t the right time to worry about it and she was just glad that her companion had these marvellous abilities. If not for Blue, she would certainly be worm food by now.

Oh! But of course this might be the perfect way for them to still get what they had come for before making their escape! “Blue,” Mimi shouted over the noise of the air rushing past them, “can you make more arms? The tubers we’re looking for are only red when they’re hot! Otherwise they’re pale blue.” She described the plant in as much detail and as quickly as she could. “If you can pluck a few we can get out of here. But don’t worry if you can’t. I’d rather escape than get the plants!”

The worm was still hot on their heels and it actually looked to be getting closer and closer to them. Damn, how could they escape that thing? Oh, how she whished to have been better prepared before ever coming here. She needed something to distract the bloody monster with and quickly. But what? For a moment she considered jumping off Blue’s back to distract the worm and lure it away. That way at least Blue could make their escape... But the knight was too kind hearted and probably would try to rescue her, no matter what she told him. So that approach would just get both of them killed and making her sacrifice pointless. No, she had to think up something better.

But luring it away might not be a bad idea. How was the worm tracking them anyway? Mimi could not see any obvious eyes on the creature. Which made sense, given the beasts usually utterly dark environs. Was it perhaps smelling them? It would have to possess an incredibly strong sense of smell if it could locate them this precisely within this cave filled with different plants, each of which would have their own unique smell. And it was following each of Blue’s evasive manoeuvres too quickly, changing direction almost immediately instead of reaching where their scent would change direction. So smell was very unlikely to be the answer.

How else could it locate precisely where they were, then? Mimi recalled how the creature had burst through the tunnel in the exact spot she had thrown the rock earlier. Was that coincidence, or had the worm felt the small vibration of the rock landing on the floor? Or the sound, maybe? This idea was certainly worth testing.

With Blue holding her on their back securely, she released her hold on their fur and began rummaging in her bag for anything she might be able to throw. The best she could find were the four healing potions she carried, as well as a handful of empty bottles. She dismissed the empty flasks, hoping that the extra weight of the liquid inside the filled containers would help in creating a larger impact. Cradling one of the bottles^[1] in her hand she tested its weight to ensure she’d throw it as far as possible.

“Blue I have an idea! If the worm stops chasing us for a moment try to step as quietly and softly as you can. I think it might be tracking us by vibrations in the stone, or maybe sound.” With that, she flung the potion as far away as possible, following its trajectory with her eyes and hoping.

Blue glanced around at the plants as Mimi pointed them out, finally seeing that they were a bright red. The leaves and stems looked like smoldering coal with a red glow coming from within the veins of the leaves while the small flowers that had been a pale blue with a slight luminescent glow earlier were now a fiery red like the plants were candle wicks tipped with a burning flame. They would have been pretty if they weren't growing in such a deadly environment.

"Okay!" Blue replied simply as they dodged out of the way of another charge from the worm. Not much time to talk for them while they were busy running and dodging. No time to explain they couldn't grow more arms, but they had other ways of grabbing the plants that were definitely normal and not going to freak Mimi out at all.

Blue changed their direction to head toward one of the plants while the worm was still carving a wide arc in the ground as it had to curve to turn around and try to attack again. The plant was close to the wall, making it a bit dangerous to actually try and run directly over its location to grab it in their mouth, but they had other plans anyways.

With their own arcing turn, Blue skirted close enough to the tuber to try to grab it. They turned their head to the side, looking toward it and opened their mouth wide. In a flash of blue, a long, smooth tongue shot out of their mouth and hit the base of the plant with a squelch. Like a frog plucking a fly out of the air, the sticky tongue shot back toward Blue after a second of resistance, pulling the plant up out of the soil and revealing the large, reddish-colored, rock-like tubers attached to its roots.

The entire plant instantly vanished into the wolf's big mouth which shut with a smile. Finally, they got what they came here for! Now they could get out of here. They just needed to get away from this big worm.

They leapt to the side to avoid another charge as the worm finally came around again.

"Uh, stepping quietly and softly is really hard to do right now." Blue muttered, turning their head to look back at Mimi. How were they supposed to be quiet while they were running for their and her life? Giant wolf footsteps weren't exactly quiet.

Their eyes were drawn to the potion bottle Mimi pulled out, a red liquid inside that looked like a healing potion. Blue had seen those before. What was she pulling that out for? Blue was perfectly fine. Did she get hurt while she was on their back and they hadn't noticed? Blue was surprised when she suddenly tossed the potion away. It spun through the air before coming down and shattering on the ground.

The worm that was rushing toward them suddenly swerved for a moment, toward where the bottle had landed, before turning back toward the running wolf. Blue noticed and everything made sense.

"Oh! I get it!" Blue called to Mimi.

They just needed to toss something to distract the worm, and then Blue needed to stop running and stay still so it lost track of them. The timing might be a bit difficult though, with the worm hot on their heels. Something that made a bit longer-lasting of a distraction would help.

Blue made sure three arms were still holding Mimi securely to their back and then let go with the fourth to reach forward and grab something out of their mouth. In the hand was a handful of little glass balls with tiny hooks on them, decorated in different patterns and colors.

"Here, throw these! These'll distract it!"

---

Tongue Lash
Explosive Ornaments