Solivagency - Empires SMP

XXXVI

Xornoth had honestly expected to be dropped by Joey, but the ground dropping them? That was a surprise.

A strangled yell that didn't quite fly out of their throat caught and made their breath hitch as the world turned into a confusing blur of white and blue. They could hear someone else (or was it multiple people?) shouting and at least one person was screaming. Blindly they tried to flare their arms out and grab something, but they only came into contact with more snow and an icy wall that smacked against their hand and made it throb nastily-

-they yelped as their back hit something and they rolled down some kind of slope, not rough but still freezing and uncomfortable. They couldn't tell which way was up anymore, only that they were tumbling down, and down, and down-

-another drop that made them gasp at the sudden fall ended in a-

splash

They gasped. Sharp, cold water seemed to pour around them on all sides and they pushed themselves up, spluttering. What in winters had happened?

They rapidly darted their eyes around, not that they could see much in the dark. It appeared to be a long, winding cavern of packed snow or ice, accompanied by a floor flooded with water.

Miraculously, they had managed to keep a hold of the bag of plants, although it felt wet. Xornoth slung it over from their back and went through it frantically, breathing a sigh of relief upon seeing it was only damp. They went through the bags contents anyway, pulling themselves up from the water as best as they could (although it still went up to halfway to their knees).

They knew the majority of the plants, which they were eternally grateful for. Ruby greens, aaaela blossoms, sorrow weed, savola pearls, butterfly tears, sorrow weed, glossy roses and some others that made them stop and stare from how rare they were supposed to be. They had no idea where he'd gotten them from, but they definitely hadn't expected some of them to be so hard to find, nor for a good chunk of them suited for infants, especially when none of them were used.

They closed the bag again after making sure that none of them had water on them. Now they could focus on the more important issue - where they actually were. They tilted their head to the ceiling and saw multiple cracks and tunnels pointing down and they had the sneaking suspicion that they had rolled down from one of them. Not that they could tell which, or that they could climb back up to them.

Xornoth sucked in a breath and risked calling out for the others. "Hello?"

The sound echoed louder than they would have liked and they found themselves flinching at the sound. Something thudded deep down into the chasm of darkness and they moved back as far as possible until their back had hit the wall. It was snice, they realised. The mixture of snow and ice that people sometimes built with. It still didn't explain a lot about the situation.

They had to have fallen a while to get here, and the disorientation of not knowing where they were was uncomfortable. Sure, they couldn't tell their way around Joey's very well and the in the Matral Palace it might have been impossible to find the nearest door let alone a specific room, but they still knew that if they jumped out a window they would end up in a half recognisable place. They didn't even know if they were even in Rivendell - they could have accidentally flown to some random place in the furthest Northern Empires and not known it.

To be fair, they probably wouldn't even be noticed in the Northern Empires considering that they had been mainly pushed to harass Scott. It didn't help that the Southern Empires mostly ignored the North at all times, and the treatment was fairly neutral. Maybe they should go up there someday.

They convinced themself to stop thinking about geography and shifted their weight, absently trying to find more information in the room. The water had pieces of ice and random things that floated in it like a deranged type of soup, and continued right towards the darkening chasm. The opening itself didn't look like anything particularly unpleasant, but because it was leading right into total pitch darkness it unsettled them to a blizzard degree. They kind of didn't want to move, seeing the total emptiness ahead of them.