Between the Veil and Crown

Kylin 34

By the time Kylin had reached the agreed upon meeting spot, he had resolved the put the meeting with Glae out of his mind. He had more important work to attend to. Dwelling on Glae would only distract him and cause him to screw up.

When the Rangers had gathered, Vivienne gave them a brief synopsis of her plan, and her expectations of each individual while they were in the tunnels. Instead of using fire to destroy eggs as the hunters were forced to use earlier, she had a special poison she entrusted to Kylin. Another Ranger she gave the task of marking the path, so they knew where they had been, and which spots were dead ends.

"We only have until the snow starts falling," Vivienne informed them. "Ideally, we would go until all the tunnels are mapped out and the sources are cut off, but the last thing we want is to be trapped underground because of the snow. The good news is these things hibernate during the winter. But the bad news is we are limited on time. So we need to be timely, and no one's allowed to get hurt. Understood? If not, I can't help you."

Without seeing if anyone had any objections or questions, she took out her ball of light and headed into the tunnels. Kylin slipped in after her, hearing Fame ask Bryval what would happen if they did get injured.

When all had piled in, they immediately set about to their tasks. Bryval settled in the front, keeping an ear out for anything that made noise in the tunnel. The one responsible for the trail settled in the back, making sure the trail was visibly marked while accompanied by the one who had been in charge of drawing out the map of the tunnels. The remaining two, Kylin excluded, were tasked with acting Vivienne's extra hands.

For Kylin, Vivienne used the opportunity to trap him into preparing for her apprenticeship. She had him document the whole process and the evidence gathered, which guaranteed that he had to pay close attention to what she doing. On occasion, she would even quiz him to test his knowledge of ankhegs and their typical behavior, or even to see if he knew what kind of clues she was looking for.

The first day in the tunnels was spent mainly mapping. They stopped every so often so Vivienne could press herself against the wall, not batting an eyelash at the slime she got on herself in doing so. During those times, everyone was expected to be as quiet as possible, and to absolutely not shift their feet or make contact with the walls. After about the tenth time, she checked with forming map of the tunnels against a map of the villages and the Veil.

"As I thought, they'd've had to go out of their way in order to go after the village," she told Kylin grimly. "There's just too much of an opportunity to prey at other points, and the forest is quieter the closer it gets to the villages. Something drove them in that direction."

It was not a comforting thought.

She called an end to the day and set up shifts for the night, taking care to have herself, Kylin, or Bryval awake for each shift. They had made decent progress in mapping the tunnels that day, though it was difficult to tell just how much of it they had left. Being so early on in, Vivienne determined that they would not find the cause of the ankhegs' unusual behavior from where they, the Rangers, started. Along the way, she would collect a sample here and there of the slime, storing it in tiny glass vials that she tucked away on her belt.

When everyone had gotten their sleep, Vivienne called an end to the night and hurried everyone through a quick breakfast.

For the first half of the day, it seemed to promise to be uneventful. They found another exit point, which they marked, but Vivienne noted how the slime was stale.