Hazel and Klunk (An RnC Subnautica AU)

Chapter 7: Lava Castle

On day forty-three as promised, Hazel had a couple rebreather heat-resistance mods installed on both rebreathers. I had been gathering as much material and data as I could from the surrounding area and practicing with Maria in the meantime. I discovered both Alien Sanctuaries and recovered a lot of data from the sanctuaries, the off-site laboratory cache, and the resources I was collecting. I also ran into a live Sea Dragon Leviathan while exploring around a huge structure that reminded me of a castle. After showing Hazel the pictures I took with my PDA—which she recovered for me from an abandoned one—she dubbed the rock formation the "Lava Castle" and pointed out that there seemed to be something inside it. I had been all over the damn Lava Zone and hadn't seen any alien structures, so the fact that she spotted alien tech hidden in one of the photos said it must be hidden in there.

Hazel wasn't at optimum health, but she hadn't been experiencing anything abnormal aside from flu symptoms and skin lesions. However, I was nervous about letting her go with me. She seemed alright. Able to swim, breathe, and walk okay, but her days still could be numbered even with the slow infection progression.

On day forty-four, I sat up and glanced over at Hazel. She was usually up before I was, so seeing her bed empty wasn't anything new. However... She appeared to have fallen asleep in her workspace near her bed and hadn't woken back up. I couldn't wake her up, so I might've had to go to the thermal plant alone.

I was confident I could go this one alone, but if I had to go any others on my own I would likely lose my shit.

I ate some food from the farm and started up Maria from the expanded Moonpool.

"No Hazel today, Captain?" She asked as I started her engine.

I shook my head no. "She'll be keeping up via radio when she wakes up I'm sure of it."

"Alright. May I activate autopilot?"

"No thank you, I will attempt the journey without assistance."

"Yes sir."

I traveled down to the Lava Castle and entered the open caves without the dragon seeing me, nor any of the Warpers. But to say the whole experience of going into the caves was pants-shitting would be an understatement. I. Was. Petrified.

What scared me even more was the vision I experienced. Hazel went through something similar near the beginning of our ordeal when we discovered the Enforcement Platform. The large telepathic creature told me to go to her, but I wasn't certain where that was.

The thermal plant was very small in comparison to other sites. Data collected taught me about fossil records in the area, ion energy technology, and even energy readings as to where the energy was being diverted. Naturally the Research facility was offline, but all the other facilities were online and getting some power. From that data, my PDA was able to decipher a location for the Primary Containment Facility; a lava zone fourteen-hundred meters down.

I knew I needed to go there next.