Floof
There was something here besides the wasps. He could tell the others couldn't smell it yet, and he wasn't sure if they ever would. Even to him, it was faint, almost like something out of a dream. But it was calling to him. And even if the King wouldn't like it, he had to follow. This was too important not to.
Floof wished he could apologize to the King for his disobedience. He heard him yell from behind as he took to the forest, not as quick as his legs could bear him. No, he wanted the others to keep up. While he wanted to find the source of this smell, he didn't want to do so alone. This kingdom belonged to his father, and all discoveries should be made alongside him, when possible.
Floof also knew that the king would know how to handle what they found much better than he would. He was a wise ruler, but Floof also knew that he couldn't stop running. The pull was too great.
“Dammit, Floof. No, don't go down there!” He heard the King yell from behind him as the scent led him towards an outcropping of rock in the ground with a large hole in the center.
Floof was reasonably sure the hole was big enough that the humans could fit down, though it was possible the King would have to squeeze a bit to fit. Still, the dog was sure they could make it in. And that meant he kept going. His mission was somewhere ahead of him.
His nails made a loud clicking sound as he ran across the bare, hard stone floor of the caves. The deeper he went, the more he could pick up a faint smell of ash and a few of the goblins, but that wasn't why he was here today. And as they weren't in danger, that meant he had to ignore them.
It was a different scent he chased today. It was something deeper and much older, older than he thought should be possible, but he couldn't fully place why. The complexities of the smell confused him, but much of the magic of this new world did the same, so all he could do was trust in his own senses that this was the correct path.
The various kinds of mana, as the King called it, flowing into their new world, all smelled different. Floof didn't fully understand what those smells represented or why there needed to be so many types of magic, but something deep inside him, a new connection that formed in the days since he started thinking better, told him it was required. Somehow, those new threads bound so much of everything together. And without them, everything would collapse.
Those thoughts triggered something in the back of his mind. Something tugged at him about the concept of universal mana collapse, but he couldn't fully understand what it meant or where he had even learned of it. Had it even been there before he had entered this cave?
Skidding to a halt in front of the bright blue growing crystal, he had finally reached his destination. Somehow, one of the lines of scent had been connected between himself and this gem, and Floof thought that was where the strange, new, intrusive ideas were coming from. But he didn't understand why.
Floof sat down. The King would be here soon. He would solve this new mystery. Floof had only needed to guide him here. That important step was done.
But if that was truly accurate, then why did he feel so much more was yet to come?
Adam
“Dammit, Floof. No, don't go down there!” I yelled as I caught up with the dog, just before he vanished into the darkness of a new cave outcropping. What the hell had he smelled? This wasn't like him at all.
While I had expected the wasps to take longer and wasn't exactly running behind any certain schedule, I still didn't want to spend more time traipsing through underground caves when there was so much more to do in the Neighborhood planning for the future trip. God, there better not be more acid slugs down there. I'm really tired of them.
“Uh, Adam, are we going down there?” Noah asked. He didn't sound particularly against the idea, but I wasn't sure he was in favor of it either. I couldn't blame the kid. Venturing into an unknown, dark cave was a good way to get yourself killed in an integrated world. On the other hand, Floof was down there, and I certainly wasn't leaving him.
“I'm going down there. I'm not saying you two need to come with me, but it's either that or head back to the Neighborhood. You've both been doing plenty of scouting on your own, so I fully trust you out here alone if that's what you want to do.” I wasn't willing to push them into the dangers they weren't willing to face, unless I actually had to. And now wasn’t one of the times I needed to.
“We should go. If we're going to keep scouting out this area, we need to know everything we can about what's out here, and that includes entrances to whatever is underground. There's a lot of weird shit out here already, and if we want to stay safe, we probably need to see all of it, I think. What do you think, Noah?” Bob asked, looking towards the youngest member of the Neighborhood.
“Yeah, I really want to know what's down there. They wouldn't let me check out the sinkhole, so I don't want to miss this chance. Plus, you're here, so how much danger can really be in Adam?” Noah added
Far more than he knew, but there was no sense in scaring them. Either I outclassed everything down there, or we were in for a world of trouble anyway. And since I couldn't hear any winds of pain from Floof echoing out, only his footfalls growing more distant, it didn't seem like combat was in our immediate future.
“Stay behind me. Same rules apply as when we approach the wasps,” I said before, pushing myself into the very cramped opening. Had I been any taller, I wouldn't have fit. As it was, I wasn't going to enjoy attempting to get back out of here. Hopefully, Floof had another exit in mind.
Despite how far ahead of us he had gotten, following his footfalls was easy enough. It also helped that there didn't appear to be any branching paths in the cavern. It was just one easy, straight shot down a long, empty cavern, chasing the sounds of a dog on a mission. I just wished I knew what that mission was. What was Floof about to throw us into?
Floof's footfalls fell silent at the same time an eerie blue glow came into view. That glow instantly threw my brain back to a conversation from this morning with Tom and Grimbleflork. Had Floof just been chasing down Ash? The fact that we hadn't seen any of the workers made me doubt it, but there couldn't be two sources of natural crystallized mana this close together. They'd cannibalize each other.
While it was already pretty insane for there to be one of them of that size, another would make it impossible. They needed a strong amount of flow to grow, and if they were both absorbing that flow, it would lead to instability in each of them. Almost certainly, one of them would entirely consume the source of the other over time.
That fact went out the window as soon as I saw what Floof was sitting in front of. It was another piece of crystallized mana.
Or was it?
The blue glowing light it emanated was surrounded by a ring of water, similar to what the other one supposedly had. And we had run long enough down here and through the woods that it was possible we were back under the neighborhood. Had we somehow found the exact same crystal a level or more below where Tom and Grimbleflork had found theirs?
It would mean this natural mana crystal was absolutely massive. But at the same time, it also meant this was possible. So, as strange as that was, it had to be the answer. It also meant we were going to have to excavate downward and find just how deep this crystal went.
Floof's head turned towards me, and he let out a small contented bark before returning to gaze at his discovery. I couldn't be mad at him. What he had led me to was important. And it wasn't like we had found any danger on the way.
“What the hell is that? Wait, is that what Tom was working all night to secure? There weren't any walls or anything stopping us from getting here, so it couldn't be that, right? Adam, what is that?” Bob rambled out several questions.
“That is something very powerful, and no, it's not exactly what Tom found. Though it's almost certainly a part of a much larger piece that he did,” I replied.
“Guys, are there words on that crystal? Like, I can't read all of them, but that's my name, isn't it?” Noah asked, slowly approaching the water.
I hadn't noticed the words, but considering he was one of our scouts, it was likely his perception was higher than mine. It was one of the two attributes I had barely focused on at all. That was something that was going to be changing over the next several levels.
I took several steps forward, looked at the falling water, and debated briefly before deciding to step through it. Luckily, my intuition against it being trapped proved correct. Seeing me safe, Noah and Bob followed after me.
There were dozens of lines made up of symbols I couldn't read encircling the entire crystal. Below, some of those symbols were the names of people. I recognized almost every one of them.
Every single one of those names belonged to someone in the Neighborhood.
“Why are our names here? Linda's, there's mine, and there's Norm. Wait, who is Koslina? I think I recognize every name except theirs. Well, assuming Grokiss is Lukiss' father. But I mean, they sound pretty similar. They must be right, and it's right next to his,” Bob asked, almost stumbling over his words as they poured out of his mouth in a full stream of thought.
“I'm not sure, but yes, I do recognize basically all of these names. I don't know what's going on here, though.” I was deeply confused. I had never heard of anything like this before. Why were members of the neighborhood being recorded on this crystallized mana? And who was doing it?
“Koslina is one of Norm’s chickens. She was the sick one who laid the giant egg recently,” Noah explained
“Interesting. Wonder why that qualifies her to have a name on here. Floof is here, too. And there's Slinky. But none of the other animals, and I know for a fact Norm has named more of them. Plus, there's the Loamhag and her cat Teacle. I would have expected them both to be here.” I had started rambling almost as much as Bob. But I really had no idea what was going on, and that was a rarity in my life.
“Do you hear that sound above? Is someone hitting something up there?” Noah asked, changing the topic.
“I'm pretty sure we're below the workers. It's possible we're close enough that we can hear just what they're doing to secure that room, but they're going to have to work their way down here and secure this, too. I may not know what this is, but it's something important. And I have a feeling it's a lot more important than I understand.”
Floof stood up and started wagging his tail as he looked at me.
“Yes, Floof. Despite everything earlier, you did a good job here. I just wish I understood what it meant.”