"We are getting separated in this," Tun suddenly said, above the hubbub of conversation.

Row and Kur had forbidden anyone from using either the domain party chat or their individual party chats for anything other than serious business or threats, and staying completely silent had only lasted a whole of twenty minutes before a slightly embarrassed and subdued Tuk started yapping again with Jaz, even if in hushed tones, and for the rest of them to resume normal conversation as they continued to push southward.

Tuk's buttocks came up relentlessly, keeping the trugger in a permanent state of darkened flush, but the man had taken it in stride, declaring his pride for his self-declared, well-shaped rump, and how fortunate they all were for having witnessed it.

"Agreed," Gad said. "The vegetation is too dense, and the terrain is too uneven for us to keep up our usual formations."

As if to make her point even clearer, she and Jul looked down at the rest of them from atop a wall of moist coated, luminous ferns that rose from the uneven jungle floor.

As for their formation, it wasn't really much of one anymore.

While their two parties had fought side by side in the past, now, given developing paths and awakened affinities and new skills, there was no way to easily merge them together once again. Row's party had undergone similar changes to theirs, and until the two party leaders could sit down to have a proper discussion about the new realities of each of their parties, the best they could do was to spread the melee around their large core of casters, ranged, healers, leaders and now the two guides as well. Gad was covering their left, Tun their front, Viy their right flank, and Nar watched over their backs, ready to support Viy at any moment.

But even that simple formation was being challenged by the terrain and the dense vegetation.

"Any suggestions?" Kur asked, aiming the question at the two guides.

Sej hesitated.

"Right, I forgot. Let us have a think first, then," Kur said, scratching his chin. "If we screw up, then you can correct us."

"That I can do," Sej said, smiling at him.

"What are we thinking? Lines?" Row asked, eyeing the brightly lit jungle around them. "Three of them?"

Her hair was tied up neatly at Sej's insistence for anyone whose hair went below shoulder length to do so, and her pale neck glistened with sweat.

"That's what it said in the prep material, but it can't just be any lines," Kur thought, pushing his hair away from his sleek forehead. "We can't just put all the non-melee in the middle. Anything can jump down on top of us…"

"At the same time, we need to consider that the sides are the most likely to be ambushed. Or our backs," Row said, scanning the two parties as they milled about, waiting for their leaders to come up with a decision.

"We really need to have that chat. It's hard to think about how to split us without knowing what your people can do now," Kur said. "And likewise for you… So maybe, for the first day, we just think of our classes and everyone's known capabilities from before?"

"Makes sense," Row said. "So back to basics then. That leaves us with three tanks. Viy and Raf as our heavy weapons that need space to work with. Mul, Jul and Teb as DPS that need to be covered for. And then the four ranged plus the two casters, with us leaders and two healers…"

The red haired party leader cast a glance toward Sej, but the guide shook her head.

"Don't count me in for now," she said. "I'm 30 levels above yours. If I fight alongside you the System will penalize your gains, and the dungeon guardian will also penalize your tokens earnings."

"Oh… I guess that makes sense," Kur muttered.

"Once we're through the Jungle Tops, I'll gladly join in to earn my keep," Sej said, grinning. "After all, we need to gather our own tokens, and whatever rewards you guys aim for, we will also earn. So it's only fair that we pull our own weight."

"Hmm," Kur said, nodding. "So, eighteen people then…"

"Will we just put the two tanks on either side with Nar at the back for starters?" Row suggested.

Kur rubbed his chin, and looked over to where Nar, Gad and Jul were talking, the first having his head tilted back so that he could address the two atop the fern coated rise.

"Actually, I'm not so…"

There was a startled cry and the sound of very loud and hungry wings filled the air. Kur looked up in time to catch sight of a beetle the size of his chest dashing away from the party, and disappearing amongst the trees.

"Are you alright?" Viy shouted.

She offered a hand to Raf, who was staring at the disappearing beetle with a dumbfounded expression from the floor.

"I thought that was rock…" he said, taking her hand to allow her to pull him up.

"I didn't even sense it," Jul said, looking aghast

"Me neither," Jaz whispered.

Rel only shook her head, her eyes wide as she tracked the beetle in the distance with her [Sight].

"That's how it goes in the jungle," Sej said, as the relative quiet of the music of the jungle returned. "No matter how good your senses are, you can never be sure there's nothing there lying in ambush. Beasts can be incredibly quiet and still, and some of them can even hold their breath for long periods of time, waiting for prey to pounce on or for predators to pass. Both are adept at masking their sounds within those of the jungle, and while I can teach you what to sense for, a lot of times you just have to react fast enough to it… And hope for the best."

"Did you know it was there?" Rel asked.

"I did, but despite their size and looks those things are harmless," the guide said. "So I thought this was going to be a good learning moment."

"I think it was," Kur said, a deep frown etched upon his features. "Alright! Let's go with your idea, Row. Gad to the left, Tun to the right, and Nar behind us. Let's put Viy to the front of the middle line, and the rest we can split around. Maybe we can even place Tuk and Jaz on the outside lines too, as short-range fighters?"

"Sounds like a plan," Row said. "How about this…"

**********

Glancing up, Nar couldn't even see a shred of sky amidst the dense foliage above their head. Even when they walked underneath the odd gap in the canopy, all he could glimpse were even taller branches or glowing underside of titanic mushrooms that grew across the Jungle Tops.

If we die here, would anyone even find our bodies? He wondered, as he climbed up a tangle of gnarly roots. I feel like this place would just swallow us whole with its fast reset rate…

Kur's breath came heavy and labored from in front of him, as the air had only grown denser the further they waded into the jungle. It almost felt like a thick syrup going down their throats now, though Nar couldn't help but wonder if that was all just in his head, a part of the mental combat he needed to win against the jungle's sensory assaults upon him.

And yet, he couldn't deny that the further in he went, the more he found himself returning to that initial awe of when he'd just entered the domain.

The dense foliage and underbrush, the heat, the massive trees, the mushrooms and so, so much more, all of it glowing in a myriad of neon colors, shapes, and patterns around him… It was hard not to lose oneself in the dark beauty of it all. It was something unlike anything he had ever experienced in his entire life, the insects buzzing, the birds calling and flapping their wings overhead, the distant growls and grunts… The sounds of an immense jungle filled to the brim with life, and spreading all around them.

It was dangerous, of course. But as he pushed past a large frond of thick, glowing and flat leaves, his eyes lit up in neon blue. An entire grove of shining blue ivy wound up massive tree trunks of moist dark bark, and tiny, white glowing flowers grew alongside the vines in a sight that left him open-mouthed, even at the risk of something flying in.

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It was… It was beyond words for him to describe. It was so beautiful it was almost too much, as though he walked through a fever induced dream.

"This is a good time to reapply the repellents," Sej called from up ahead. Now, even the expert guide was soaked in sweat, her blue skin shining under the blue light of the immense ivy growing at their side. "Just apply them on the suits, though! Don't undress here, obviously!"

Obviously, Nar thought, eyeing the tall plants around his hips, and which likely housed all sorts of nasties.

He pulled out one of the slimy gels first, another one in the endless range of products ending in "-ex", like the potions he had used in their first dungeon. Each of the repellants worked, to various degrees of success, against a vast array of bugs, while being utterly useless against an even vaster array of other creepy crawlies, meaning that they were all necessary in order to even give Nar anything close to resembling full coverage. This ended up resulting in them having to cover themselves in a sticky, pungent mess of gels, cough inducing sprays that caught on their throats, and even sticky pads that were glued to their jungle suits. It made them a lot easier to sniff for a predator, but that was the price they had to pay in order to keep away the endless horde of deadly insects around them.

And there are so fucking many of them! Nar thought, twisting his lips as he spied a very bright, fat and fuzzy looking caterpillar making its eyes up one the neon blue ivys. That thing's got to be poisonous! Or is it venomous?

He shook his head. It was probably both.

Smothered laughter rang out from the left flank, and Nar glanced over to the left line. Tuk was whispering something in a heavy excitement to Teb, and the quam was holding his mouth as he tried and failed to keep it together.

Nar snorted, though he couldn't help smiling. There was no dimming Tuk's sense of adventure and joy, not even when something had tried to kill and lay eggs in him. And similarly, from the right flank, even Jaz was yapping about non-stop at Viy. No matter how many glares Row or Kur threw at the two chatter boxes, there was just no blocking the endless stream of excitement that seemed to permanently gush from the two ranged apprentices, and separating Tuk and Jaz had only spread the problem, not fix it.

"I think I hear something," Jul said. However, her posture remained relaxed. "Is that… One of those herds?"

"Good [Hearing]," Sej said as she slathered her legs with gel. "They're about half a mile away, and it sounds like a herd of vedars. They eat bugs and fruits and are pretty docile, so we don't need to worry about them. Oh…"

"What happened?" Row asked.

Nar glanced at Jul and noticed that the quam had gone stiff, her face deadly pale.

"I-I think they're being attacked by something," the quam whispered. "There's a lot of screaming…"

Well, damn, Nar thought. He strained his [Hearing] but whatever was happening was too far away from his range.

"Right on our path too," Sej said, closing her eyes and cupping her hand around her ear.

After a tense few moments of silence, she opened them again.

"Whatever it was, it got what it wanted and dragged it away," she said. "One of their younglings by the sounds of it."

Sej looked around at the pale, sweaty faces shining under the blue light.

"That's the way it goes in here, and it could have been us, so be ready for anything," she said. "Come on, let's keep going. We still have a ways to go before we get to our campsite. In the jungle, it takes a lot longer to get anywhere, and we never want to get caught out in the open when actual night comes."

Nar grimaced. He wasn't looking forward to the Brightnight's infamous actual nights.

They proceeded in their trek, and a while later Jul spoke up again.

"I can hear water," she announced.

And about twenty minutes later they came upon a stream of glowing, shimmering waters of blue, green and purple, and they gathered by its shore.

"Careful there!" Row snapped at Jaz, Lim and, predictably, Tuk, who had edged closer to take a better look at the glowing water. "Not too close! And melee always between a body of water and the rest of the party!"

Nar stepped in closer to the chastised ranged, ready to intercept any sudden danger that leaped from the waters, and Teb and Tun moved in to do the same, with the tank glaring at the three curious ranged until they took several steps away from the edge of the water. As for the body of water itself, as Row had called it, the waterway was barely fifteen feet-wide, though there was no guessing at its depths or how far it stretched under the ground beneath their feet. Nar tested the ground as he stepped closer to the water, as the prep material had advised them to do, but found it solid.

"One of a thousand streams that eventually feed into the Tchan'Ohlan," Sej said, grinning at Nar when she found him and Tun testing the ground.

"The northernmost of the three rivers that sprout from The Water's Birth," Row said, her eyes reflecting the placid water's glow of green and blue. "It runs through the Jungle Tops and eventually falls down to the Hungry Jungle, and then onto the Bloodrot after that."

"Nasty place," Sej muttered.

"Have you been there?" Kur asked.

Nar continued eyeing the water as pockets of conversation spread around the twenty delvers, though he kept his ear to the leadership and guide's conversation, curious to hear about what was heralded as the undisputed worst area in the entire domain, even if it was one of the so-called starting areas.

"More times than I care for, but the pay is always hard to turn down," the guide said, scanning the banks of the stream.

"Why would anyone even want to go there?" Cor asked.

Sej chuckled. "Nobody does, but some of the most valuable gathering and harvesting in the Brightnight is found there. Any trip that starts out in the Bloodrot and survives to tell the tale comes out of it with inventories worth at least five times more than any other delve."

"Really? That much?" the human caster asked. Nar had noticed that Cor had seemingly elected to visit the barber as well, and her hair was cut in a very short style. Almost as short as his. "What's so valuable in there? I thought it was just a marsh of poison and rot aspects."

"And for some that is worth a lot of XP," Sej told her. "For good, and for not so good reasons alike. But no matter how much it pays, I'm a lot happier being here instead of there."

Nar's eyebrows rose at the darkness in her tone, and he nodded in quiet agreement.

Thank the Crystal the faculty thought the Bloodrot was too casualty heavy, he thought. And taking into consideration their surroundings, that alone spoke volumes of the danger they would have faced in that crimson swamp.

"There's stuff in the water!" Tuk suddenly said, from a few feet away. "Look, in the shinny stuff!"

"Tuk!" Nar snapped at him, noticing how the trugger had sneaked his way closer to the edge again.

"Sorry!"

Tutting, Nar glanced down at the waters again, focusing his sight not on the search for movement or shadows beneath the surface, but on what he now noticed was a streak of greasy liquid coating the stream.

"And there are things swimming in it," Jaz said, twisting his nose. "Let me guess, they also want to eat us from the inside out?"

"Actually, those guys are pretty harmless," Sarke said.

Nar frowned at the little misshapen spheres, four little tentacles flailing around them as they swarmed in clusters and swam from cluster to cluster at breakneck speeds.

"They eat fruit or any other dead thing floating in the water," the reptilian guide explained. "Even if you swallowed them, between your stomach's acid and your auramancer bodies, they would just die, and they don't bother with live prey either."

"Well, that's something, I guess," Jaz muttered, but his tone somewhat mollified.

"Are we going across this?" Kur asked.

Sej nodded.

"And of course, we can't just swim across, right?" Kur joked, though it was more to himself than for her.

However, her eyes hardened at his words. "No. Never, ever go into any waters in the Brightnight. And don't even try to jump over them! Everywhere you look can hide a beast, and even if you don't sense them at all, they can be there, completely still, some of them not even breathing like I told you earlier. And bodies of water in particular are incredibly dangerous for these sorts of ambushes. Not only do beasts of all kinds flock to them to get water, but there are also many beasts that live hidden within the waters themselves, and they are specialists in ambushing prey."

"Fuck me…" Lim whispered, the three ranged stepping back from the glowing edge again. "This place is insane!"

"And is this the stuff that we're drinking? Or just rainwater we collect?" Cen asked, eyeing the patch of oily, live-squirming and glowing water.

"The boiler-purifier makes it sterile and clean for us to drink," Sarke said. "You just have to be careful when you're actually collecting the water."

"Because of the beasts that live there…" Kur said, scratching at his chin. "Well, so far, everything's according to the pre fi…"

"Watch out!" Sej cried.

Nar was already moving, triggered by the sound of exploding water. His attributes and passives kicked into overdrive as the dungeon seemed to slow down around him, he watched as the once idyllic, glowing waters burst forth to let through a wide, long mouth filled with serrated teeth… And it was heading straight to Jaz, who had just turned his back onto the stream.

Aiming between me and Teb? Damn, these beasts are smart and fast… he thought, accelerated by his [Aura Quickening].

The skill had come to him almost of its own accord, the default reaction he should always take when surprised, and which had been pummeled into him by the relentless hours of sparring and beatings he had endured at the hands of the Master of Blades and Tys.

It didn't matter that he didn't take any action while accelerated by his [Aura Quickening], and unless he was at the dredges of his massive aura bar, which was unlikely given its already absurd size, it didn't even matter if the aura used for the skill went to waste. What was crucial in such situations was that the acceleration pumped into his [NPC] and [Reflex], so that he could assess the situation first, and then take appropriate measure if needed thanks to the boost to his [Agility] and [Speed].

This was one such situation that demanded his immediate action, and his sword came into his hand already mid-swing. Bright aura flashed across the blade faster than he could've blinked, coursing through his improved pathways, thanks to his relentless aura practice, and he slashed right through that open mouth, spraying blood and teeth into the warm, still air of the jungle.

There was a strangled growl of pain and the hiss of seared flesh, and the beast collapsed back into the waters, trashing widely before disappearing beneath its now disturbed surface.

"Crystal…" Teb whispered, his features having gone deadly pale.

He had reacted fast enough to pull out one of his blades, and without Nar's intervention, Jaz, who was only now turning around with a confused look on his face, would've been grabbed and dragged down into the stream.

"Tygalos!" Nar shouted, his heart racing within his chest.

He wasn't 100% certain of it, but what he had seen matched the description of the beast.

Before any of them could say anything, the water started bubbling and churning, brown blood spreading across its surface.

"What the fuck?" Mul muttered.

"Melee forward!" Kur shouted. "Tun, get ready!"

Then the water exploded once more, and this time dozens of sinuous bodies leaped up from it, hungry mouths piercing through the frothing waters.

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