Stepping through the gate's threshold and into the savanna, they were hit by a wall of hot and dry air, the “sun” imposing its will upon the land.

  Shade-favouring flowers would not be found in this biome.

  David motioned to the left, where he remembered a broken highland to be situated. They would have to travel through several different environments to get there, but this close to the centre, the trip shouldn't take much more than a couple of bells, by his estimation.

  As they made their way, sticking close to the central tower, they began getting a sense of the enormity of this underground sanctuary. The centre's radius had to be at least 200 meters, each of the different “pies” of lands reaching all the way inward with not much of an overlap, if at all, between them. One step, they were in a grassland, the next in a woodland, with both land and ambient temperature changing in a jarring instant.

  They spotted several creatures and beasts during the trip, most standing quite far away from them, or perhaps from the spire they were walking along of. Many of which they recognize, but also quite a few they didn't, or even had any reference for.

  One other detail they noticed was that the thunderstorm seemed to be slowly advancing through the cavern, in a clockwise pattern. They were currently moving counterclockwise, their path leading them towards the approaching storm. They could see the sheets of rain in the distance, the lightning strikes an irregular constant.

  If they didn't find their plants fast enough once they'd reached their destination, they'd need to find shelter.

  Upon reaching the highlands, they turned outward, the region's borders widening and the land rapidly gaining in elevation as they walked further in. The air was chilly, with a soft but constant wind sweeping throughout the region.

  There were a few sparse copses of trees dotting the landscape, with numerous small creeks punctuated by small waterfalls, collecting into small lakes.

  Their destination, further away, was a larger forested area that covered a sloped and broken patch of land.

  So far, they had mostly met grazing herd animals and solitary predators, but they had noticed some larger prints; some hoofed, some clawed, though none of the creatures they had spotted were large enough to fit. Maybe further in? Or did they wander in from nearby biomes?

  David looked at the approaching thunderstorm. He judged they had maybe a bell before its leading edge was upon them.

  “David, over here!” Karline called out, further ahead, at the edge of a small escarpment, looking down into a depression.

  She pointed further up along the edge, near a sort of rocky step where the depression rose up to meet the escarpment. There was some sort of round metallic structure, mostly a framework with the remnants of broken glass panes attached to it. From within a few trees pushed up and out. At their base, a carpet of chaotic colours, gently rippling in the wind.

  Flowers.

  She looked at him, grinning. “Wanna bet we'll find what we need there?”

  “No, but I think we have good chances. Good find, let's go.” He stepped onward.

  It was, indeed, flowers. A lot of flowers and plants. The structure had been deceptively small in the distance, but turned out to be gigantic, like everything else in this place. Hundreds of meters abreast, at least 30 meters high, the trees had turned out to be singular giants, providing an enormous amount of shade to a large area of open ground. What remained of the glass panes kept most of the wind out and still focused enough light to raise the ambient temperature a few degrees.

  A perfect environment for sun-shy plants and flowers.

  They split up and began searching, careful to try and avoid disturbing or even touching any of the flora, most of them an unknown species and thus all potentially poisonous.

  David heard a clicking noise, faint and indistinct. He stopped and craned his neck.

  There it was again.

  He skulked forward, straining his sense of hearing. A stronger gust of wind blew through, and the clicking intensified, akin to wooden wind chimes, close by, just around that tree.

  Before him, a carpet of knee-high stalks, adorned by white-and-blue flowers, long and sturdy stamens poking skyward and gently knocking against each other as the wind flirted with them.

  Cackling beauties.

  David smiled and began harvesting a few handfuls. Niala would have a good supply. He bet she'd be happy and do a little jump-and-wiggle. He smiled wider.

  A crack of thunder announced the first few droplets of rain. He navigated back to the structure's entrance, from where he heard Karline's shout.

  “David! Over here!”

  He angled toward her voice, walking along the inner edge. With the rain picking up, he found her after a few minutes, surrounded by black-coloured lilies, a few in her hand. She spotted him and sauntered over, showing him the flowers.

  “Hey! Do you think these are dark lilies?”

  He frowned, taking one and peering closer, turning it under the sunlight.

  It was hard to tell, but the petals did seem to be varied shades of black instead of a single one...

  “Wait, what is that?” Karline asked with concern, pointing behind him, out into the depression below the ledge on which the structure rested.

  David turned around to see what she was directing him to, and froze, eyes widening.

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  A few hundred meters away was something stalking in their general direction.

  A hunched humanoid nearly four meters tall, covered in leathery brown-coloured skin, its limbs long and gaunt, wrapped in sinewy muscles, its arms too long, ending in reaching fingers capped with wicked claws, its back covered by needle-pointed quills reflecting the light with a metallic sheen. It's head like a skull wrapped in too-tight skin, with perfectly rounds sickly-yellow eyes sporting a pinpoint iris, and a warty tongue flicking out and tasting the air.

  Its skin was adorned with scars that formed crude runes, arrayed in lines and circles. Its body glowed a soft red, the scar-runes shining brightest. The light rain seemed to evaporate on contact, leaving a mist around the creature.

  He had a horrifying flash of recollection, something one of his birth family's private tutors had shown him in an ancient book from their archive, the near-forgotten source of their family's noble name.

  It was a Fel.

  The enemy of all higher life.

  A creature that had gone unseen since before the fall of the Herniate dynasty, several hundred years ago.

  “Pack up your flower, get down low, silently make your way inward, past the line of sight.” He whispered with urgency.

  “What? Is that-”

  “No words. Do as I said.” He hushed her, crouching and pointing away from the creature.

  Uncertain, she did as instructed and began shuffling away from the structure's edge.

  A scream rang out, bristly and cutting. David snapped his head back, a weight dropping in his stomach.

  The creature was charging on all four at their location, its neck undulating up and down, keeping its head level and immobile, its stare locked straight at them.

  “Karline, get on me. NOW!” He commanded.

  “What?! I-”

  “Piggy-back, now, if you want to live.” He cut her off, stepping up in front of her, back-first.

  She hesitated.

  “NOW, Karline!”

  As soon as he felt her legs and arms wrap around him, he willed and exploded forward, just as he heard the rending of metal behind him, the Fel having cleaved through the structure's metal ribs.

  Each of his steps left a furrow; in his trail, flowers were ripped apart from the air he displaced, petals whirling up, only to be dashed through by a red blur that left even more destruction in its wake.

  He distantly heard Karline shout, his attention focused on navigating the terrain as fast as he could, to outrun the Fel in a desperate race for survival.

  A blue ball of light shot out of the ancient greenhouse, petals sucked out in its wake, disturbed a second time by a red one.

  They raced through the full might of the rain, the droplets stinging his face, the thunder indistinct from the pounding of his heart.

  A flurry of thin spears whizzed around him. Karline squeezed him and screamed.

  He dared a single glance back at the Fel; it had fallen back a few meters, recovering from a hunched-forward position, its quills flattening from an erected position.

  It could shoot quills. Great.

  “Karline! You need to tell me when it's about to shoot! Can you do that?” He shouted at her.

  She groaned in pain. “Pit's blood! Graah!” She sucked through her teeth. “Yeah, yeah, I can do that. Saint's doom! What in the pits is that thing?!”

  “Something we don't want to mess with. Hang on tight, I'm going to accelerate!”

  And he did so, leaning his body forward, his legs no longer running, instead pushing him into an unending fall, one mistimed step away from losing balance and crashing to the ground, synonymous with death under the circumstances.

  He ran, raced, fled. On Karline's shout, he dodged to the side, a hail of quills piercing the curtain of rain where he'd been a fraction of a second ago. With each miss, the Fel screamed in frustration, the sound spiking through his ears and into his brain.

  The central spire grew in size as the minutes oozed away, second by excruciating second.

  The massive outside door was opened and would take too long to close, especially with how persistent the Fel was.

  The inner door that led to the vertical shaft was closed, with only the smaller door open, too small for the Fel, but he wasn't going to bet on the larger door to be able to resist the thing for too long, especially not the bell it would take for Karline to climb all the way up.

  He had to gain some distance, get enough time to let Karline off, and start climbing the ladder ahead of him.

  His eyes darted around, looking for something to use, all the while trying to maintain his concentration on his steps and dodging as Karline called it.

  And then he found it. A slope, covered in fine gravel, slick with rain. He angled towards it, calculating his steps to jump over what was certain to be a slip and fall at the speed he was going.

  The Fel would try to do the same, but...

  “Karline! Hold on tight, we're jumping!” He warned her, feeling her grip tighten.

  Emptying his lungs and filling them back up in one breath, he bounded once, landing both feet at the edge of the slope, then pushed, launching like a ballista bolt. At the apex, he flung his arm out toward a boulder ahead of him, the jungle's grasping tendril snapping forward and coiling itself on his target. He pulled back, the boulder whipping past him, the vine loosening its hold as it did.

  With a grunt, his feet touched ground on the other side of the slope, a bony crunch, the scraping of flesh against stone, and a roar of pained indignation punctuating his landing.

  Karline whooped, then winced. He didn't look back. He had already resumed his flight.

  They reached the entrance to the spire a few minutes later. The Fel had fallen out of sight, but its roar rang out in the distance, getting closer by the second.

  He let Karline down. She stumbled for a step, pressing a hand on her back where the Fel's quill was still embedded.

  He walked up to her, bracing a hand on her back, the other on the quill, and pulled it out, ripping out flesh and blood, Karline screaming and falling forward on her knees, tears of pain lost in the rain.

  He glanced at the quill's head, which had parted open into rear-facing spines. He threw it away in disgust and retrieved four bottles from his pouch. One he opened and poured over Karline's wound. It sizzled, and he heard her breath catch, a deep grunt exhaling out of her mouth.

  “PITTING' END!” She cursed, lowering her head to the ground.

  He inspected the wound. The flesh was knitting back. No poison, only physical trauma. Good.

  He grabbed her by the armpit and lifted her back to her feet. She swayed but stood upright, shooting him a murderous glance.

  He shoved the other three potions at her.

  “One heal, two energy. Run in, all the way to the inner shaft. Drink all of them, then climb up. As fast as you can. Got it?”

  She scrambled a hand over the potions, her eyes turning round as she looked at him. “I... ok.”

  She'd understood the unstated: Go without me.

  The Fel's roar split the air. Both of their heads turned in its direction.

  She swallowed, nodded, and raced with an unsteady step towards the entrance. As she reached it, she turned sideways back toward him. “Stay safe.” She said, turning back and disappearing in the looming darkness of the unlit hallway.

  “Nothing safe about this.” He mumbled, turning towards the Fel's location and running ahead.

  He didn't have a grand plan. He was going to run, lead the Fel around on a fruitless chase, buy Karline time to climb up, and then he'd run in himself and use the vine to fling himself up the ladder, hopefully faster than the Fel could chew through the inner door.

  Niala would have said it was a very David-y plan: all brute force. He would have smiled if he hadn't been pursued by a mythical bloodthirsty creature.