Essentia Animus

33-Fearful Laughter

As an initial assessment of their circumstances failed to bear fruit, doubt started to settle in on the three girls. None of the three girls could figure out a proper way to proceed.

The foremost idea was to simply scale back up, as they did have climbing gear handy. Riyxia was fairly certain she could make the climb, at least while enraged. In that state, she could also help both of the others to climb too. However, Sryine was worried about how such an onnes on Riyxia could make the situation very dangerous if she were to snap suddenly. Vwyx had even more insistence against the subject, as it appeared the height was a fearsome concept in itself. It was almost baffling that Vwyx was afraid of heights she had both caused and scaled without even blinking, but her trance could easily have made all the difference. Vwyx did take into account that this implied an obvious solution, if she were instead capable of controlling her own trance, she could simply get them all back up there, no problems at all. Either melding the ground to pick them right back up, or if that wasn't exactly an option, at the very least she could scale the wall without concern like she had coming down. If she herself couldn't even make the climb entranced, at least Riyxia could help and she wouldn't be a screwball scared of the floor.

Other than up, their surroundings had two things in common, cold and dark. If they couldn't go up, their alternative would be to find a tunnel or something around here. The beast that had previously attacked them, the same ones she had dealt with, seemed to be tunnelers by their own nature, so there was a fair chance of finding a passage if they looked hard enough. Riyxia might even be capable of opening up some tunnels too, if it really came down to it. All the considerations of what Riyxia would be capable of constantly just brought Vwyx down, she would too be so capable if she learned a measure of control. Everything had her troubled, mostly how both her and Sryine seemed to know instinctively to keep each other at a distance, and to keep Riyxia between them. Nothing about this situation was good, it actually made them feel quite helpless. The worst part was the cold and darkness and...

"I'm hungry, can we eat something yet?" "Ahh!" Vwyx noticed that her intentions even seemed vaguely like her entranced state, just with a voice behind it. With Sryine on high guard, and Vwyx still dripping blood from the shadows of her dark outfit while making such a statement.. it ended up seeming overly nightmarish. Even so, she could remember that other hunger, how it had felt consuming her. Technically, the impressions and comparisons only left her wanting food even more desperately, so that such a hunger would finally leave her alone. This put her into her own state of desperation, no longer letting Sryine's arguments dissuade her resolve. Despite her best efforts, soon Vwyx was hard at work getting lunch prepared, trying to get a small fire prepared in a metal tray with some burnable scrap and flint. They didn't exactly have wood available for this purpose, but they had a good stock of burnable plants that burned hot and slowly. She set everything up, eager to cook some lunch on an open campfire.

With things in position, Vwyx next needed to figure out how to get the fire burning. She scattered the plants into a decent mesh at the bottom and tried to strike up a fire, without much success at first. She flicked flint to generate sparks, Sryine shuttering with each attempt. Sryine honestly wished for Vwyx's failure, that there was too much moisture for a fire or something. However, unfortunately for her, after several more attempts, the spark caught and a fire began. At first the sparking plants started with a soft amber light, but as it really started to catch the most flammable parts of the plant, that flame started burning blue. Vwyx set their lunch atop the flame, blue lights flickering in shadows from below, dancing out towards her. Sryine dove away in pure fear, utterly terrified. The others quickly discovered the truth about Sryine's fears, how the night of the Astral Flame had left her afraid of such open fires. Vwyx was very apologetic, trying to support her in her fears. Riyxia tried to share in such comfort, noting another example of how ignorance led to problems that knowledge could have avoided. Riyxia sat with Sryine a fair distance away, while Vwyx tried to ensure food was prepared swiftly. Once done, she used a metal rod to shift the plants a bit so that they would burn out sooner, then brought the food over to the others. They all ate quickly and silently.