Disclaimer: I do not own Subnautica. Unknown Worlds does.
Thanks to DevoutRelic for editing.
Chapter published 8/16/17.
Estimated Time to Death: 34 days, 4 hours, 38 minutes
Volara
The fungal stalks passed by her, so dense she was forced to scrape her body against the stone spires more than once. She zapped angrily, wrenching herself free from them until she was up against the stone cliff that led to Varian's territory. She took a moment to get used to the lower pressure, then swam up.
Once she was up, her body prickled and her swim bladder was painfully swollen. Volara let herself sink to the strange 'sand' on the ground, her lower prongs digging into the stuff, to wait out the nausea. While she did, she debated what she was going to do once she got to Varien's territory.
Now that the angry yellowish-green tint in her vision had faded, she didn't want to kill him per-say. Maybe startle him, chase him about while snapping menacingly and sending arcs of power into the surrounding fish. Or maybe stalk him silently. Maybe thrash one of those shells he liked to climb in.
The illness faded and she lifted herself into the water, swimming across the bright plateau of grass to where she remembered him to be.
She still couldn't believe him! She did so much to help him with his troubles, gave him that special rock he needed, gave him the courage to fix his old home, even guarded him as he explored the insides of the metal thing that had broken off the 'Aurora'. And instead he lied to her about leaving? What, was he sick of her or something?! The thought that such a tiny little creature, so out of his element, could decide 'Oh, I just don't need her anymore' and throw her away like food wracked by the Green Weakness, it just made her blood churn!
Great, she'd riled herself up again.
Before long she made her way back to the shallow region. Strangely enough it wasn't quite as bright as it had been last time. Apparently even the darkening could reach into the blinding Above. Past the membrane that separated the water from the not-water she could see a vast dome of blackness, speckled with white dots in addition to something massive and red. The local prey were languid and slow, hiding in small burrows in the stone.
Now, where was his territory? She knew it'd be around somewhere, and she'd visited twice before, but everything looked the same no matter where she looked. All she could do was swim around and hope to find it, so that was exactly what she did.
After some time spiraling through the shallow water, weaving between the rock faces, she found his territory. It was the same squat cylinder with a tube leading off it as it'd been before. The small shell hung out beneath it, while the walking-shell he'd made recently stood on top of the structure. But there was a new addition to the territory itself; part of it was open. All along one of the sides of the squat cylinder the metal was peeled away, letting Volara look inside once she drifted closer.
Inside Varien's territory, the lights were dim. Along the inner walls were multiple structures of stone that she couldn't make heads or tail fins out of, but there were two she could guess the use of. One was a square of metal flat against the floor, filled with brown sand from which sprouted strange and colorful plants. the other was a large elevated thing, and it was on that, that Varien rested. He was curled up under a white sheet, his head resting on a cushion.
Her anger flared again and she flicked her tail fin, propelling herself forward. She was going to get in there and -
Thunk!
Volara's entire body bunched up as her head stopped, rammed into... into something. She blinked harshly and focused on what she'd hit. She looked and saw - wait, another shocker?!
It stared at her from inside Varien's shelter, but it was nearly impossible to see. The other shocker was transparent, growing more so along its body as it faded away into the distance. How was it in his shelter? Why hadn't she seen it before?
"Hello?" she asked.
"Hello?" the other replied.
She blinked, and it blinked. Volara narrowed her eyes, and so did it. She swayed her head right, and it followed.
... oh! This was that clear substance, like he had on his shells. She didn't know it could 'reflect' her appearance. Was that what she looked like? Not bad.
No, focus. She had a human to snap at. He was still resting, even though her impact with his shelter had him stirring and quietly groaning. Volara drew her head up and bashed it against the clear stuff again. It rattled her slightly, but her hard carapace kept her from getting hurt.
Thunk!
Thunk!
Varien stirred again, rolling over in his bedding until he was face to face with her. His eyes were still closed, though.
Thunk!
His eyes flickered open, then he seemed to notice her because they flew wide open. With a startled scream of song he leaped from his bed, bringing the sheets with him onto the floor.
Volara tilted her head. Huh, was that what he looked like without those coverings? His skin was that strange brown all over, and he had more of that 'hair' in the strangest places. Between his legs, even under his arms. Strangest of all, even his feet had fingers like his hands! They were shorter compared to the hand-fingers, though.
He flailed about with his sheets until he was mostly covered, sprawled on the ground and facing her. "Hello Varien," she growled. "Fancy seeing you here."
Varien's response was a staccato burst of hurried song, scrambling back from her in his sheets. She saw him go for a crumpled mass of dark grey and orange and tap something next to it. A flash of blue heralded the mini-shocker he used to talk with her. He held it up to her, arms shaking, and sung again. "V-Volara?! What are you doing?! Scared the life from me!"
"Oh shut up!" she hissed, pressing herself against the clear-stuff. "You lied to me!"
He had the nerve to look confused, his face shifting and contorting. "What? When?"
"You said you were leaving," she snarled. "You told me you were going back to your people, but here you are. Herzaron saw you in his territory, he told me everything! So, what was it?" she asked, backing off. "I heard the bang of you leaving, why did you lie?!"
"What?! No, you have it all wrong!" he sung desperately. His voice sounded strange, though. Like he wasn't able to sing quite right. "The ship coming to rescue me was destroyed, Volara! That was what you heard!"
She blinked, her heated anger cooling all at once. "Destroyed?" she repeated weakly. All the strength fled her body and her muscles went limp. "What do you mean, destroyed? What could do that?"
"So you know how my people, we can do these things because we know a lot of natural laws and how to manipulate them?" He looked down. "It turns out we aren't the only ones. On the place where I was supposed to be rescued, there was this giant, uh." He moved his hands around. "Weapon. None of the creators were around, but it wasn't made by my people. When the unknown, uh, the ship came, the weapon destroyed it. They're all dead," he said, his song low and hopeless and his head hanging.
Chilling, numb horror enveloped her. "Varien," she whispered, drifting closer to the clear stuff. "I'm sorry, I came here angry enough to fry you and you'd just... they'd... I'm sorry." And in her anger, she could easily have forgotten how fragile he was. She may have killed him.
Varien shook his head. "You couldn't have known. And it gets worse, too. So you know the weapon? I'm certain it's the same one that shot down my ship in the first place, and the unknown before us. When I went back to the Aurora, I got the instructions on how to build a ship that'll get me back home. But it doesn't matter, because even if I make it and try to leave, I'll just get shot again by the weapon."
"So can't you destroy it?" she asked. "That's the first thing I'd try."
He laughed, a bitter barking note. "You'd think. But whoever these people that came before us were, they're way ahead of where my people are. Can't destroy their weapon. I could go inside, and I found a way to turn it off, but it gets worse! The reason they have that weapon at all is an unknown."
"Wait, that word, the last one?" she interrupted.
"Oh." He sounded it out. "Qua-ran-tine. It's when there's something incredibly bad somewhere, so you make it so nothing gets in and nothing gets out. They quarantined this entire world because of some disease they were afraid of. And I can't turn off the weapon, because I'm sick with it. I'm sick with whatever had these super-advanced people scared enough to quarantine an entire unknown."
"Sick?" she pondered, worry clenching her hearts. "Sick with what?"
He shrugged. "Don't know. Their name for it was 'Carar'. I have about thirty days to live." Her eyes widened in shock. "It's not that bad right now. Kind of like an unknown. Itchy, sore, my - "
"- nasal arch is clogged," she finished, her horror redoubling enough to make her sink to the ground. "Varien... I'm - oh damnable death I'm so sorry. It got you," she mourned, locking her gaze onto the ground beneath his territory.
"Got me? What got me?" he asked.
"The Green Weakness, that sounds exactly like it. First you feel like, well, exactly how you described. As it gets worse you feel weaker and weaker, and the itchy shell, err, skin will erupt into boils, and then you just... die. I'm so sorry. You don't deserve to have it set its eyes on you," she bemoaned. Damn it. It'd taken her mother, her siblings, her unhatched children, and more. And now it was going to take Varien, her friend who'd shown her the world Above, the world that could be.
"You think this Green-whatever's the Carar?" he asked, sitting and placing an open palm on the clear material.
"If there's any disease that would be deserving of a quar-an-tine, it's that," she growled. "Nothing else in the world compares to that curse." Volara glanced at his hand, envisioning it erupting with oozing, emerald sores. The mere thought made her upper heart tremble. "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, you didn't deserve this. I shouldn't have been angry, you lost your only hope at leaving and now you're going to die," she whined. It wouldn't even be quick. It would hurt the entire time he was dying.
Varien pulled his hand off and clenched it into a fist. "I'm not going to die," he growled. "I have a plan."
"A plan! What kind of plan do you have?" she said sardonically.
"These aliens, whoever they were, are gone now," he explained. "But they did leave a lot of their work laying around. They were trying to figure out an unknown for the Carar before they seemingly vanished."
"A what for the Green Weakness?" she asked.
"Cure," he sounded out. "A way to remove the sickness. Humans have cures for lots of things. Unknown, unknown, even unknown." She blinked slowly. Okay. "These people were trying to find a cure for Carar. I know, from what I found in the weapon, that they had a place where they were testing to make one. It's located deep underwater, probably in some cave. I'm going to find it; the only hope I have of finding a cure is in that place. I find the building, find the cure, and I'm good," he said resolutely, something hot in his eyes.
She eyed him sideways. "So your plan is to find this place you don't know where it is, for a 'cure' that may not even exist, to destroy a curse that nobody can survive," Volara summarized. "How do you plan to do this?"
He deflated, but only for a moment. "I actually have an idea. I have the signal for another lifepod, but I haven't checked it out yet. I'm going to take my unknown, uh, my suit there and see if there's anything around."
Volara stared back at the tiny human. She thought it over, then zapped her front prongs 'yes'. "Then I'm coming with you." He opened his mouth to begin singing, but she cut him off. "No buts, Varien. You're dying. You were frail enough already, and you don't know what's over there that might try to kill you. I'm a shocker, there's no better protection," she crowed proudly. She quieted down. "And anyway, I feel rotten about getting mad at you for something like this. Let me make it up to you? Please?" she pleaded, tilting her head.
"... alright. Just let me get dressed, I'll meet you outside."
"Okay," she said.
They stared at each other for a moment.
"Could you, uh, turn around?" Varien asked at last. "I can't do it when you're watching."
She tilted her head curiously. "Is this a 'human' thing?"
"Yes, just please turn away!" he snapped.
Volara sighed. "I-i-if you say so." With a motion of her body she turned, her back to Varien's territory. "Is this good?"
He sang something behind her. She narrowed her eyes. "You know, I can't understand you with my back turned." But beyond that she didn't voice any complaints and waited dutifully for Varien to finish up whatever ritual he was so shy about. Before too long the end of his territory opened up, and she spun around to see Varien struggling to swim to his walking-suit.
Her eyes widened. He'd... changed. Before his clothing had been pale gray and streaked with light, glowing blue. Now, though, Varien's coverings were the same dark gray, streaked with orange, that the pair of humans that fell into her territory had worn. "What are you wearing?" she asked, confounded.
Varien settled on the top of his territory, and pinched his not-skin. "This? It's my reinforced dive suit. You know the problem I had with going deep before?" He crossed his arms and uncrossed them in an alien gesture. "Gone. This solves that problem completely."
"Oh! That's good," she said simply.
He bobbed his head up and down, the human symbol for 'yes'. "I need it, really. No way I can get down far enough to get the cure without it." With that said he climbed up onto and down into his suit. Once sitting in it, he gripped strips of metal and leaped off his territory. Varien landed on the ground, kicking up a cloud of sand.
She eyed him worriedly. "Do you even know where this lifepod is?"
He nodded again. "Sure do. It's over there," he said, waving in a seemingly random direction. "I have the signal, I can see it."
"Okay, if you insist," she drawled, taking up a place next to him. "Let's go."
"Let's." Varien began stomping off on his chosen path, leaving Volara to follow from above. But even in the suit, he was painfully slow. She could've rested with how slowly she needed to undulate her body and beat her tail fin. The colorful shallows passed by, the shadows deep and long.
Stomp! Stomp! Stomp!
Before long, another forest of thick green plants approached. Volara chomped unhappily as Varien stumbled, tripping on a ledge that he hadn't seen and tumbling into a cave system. It took tremendous effort on his part, as well as Volara scaring away the local, minuscule predators, but eventually he got his feet back under him. It took an embarrassingly long time, but eventually Varien made his way out of the tangle of kelp.
In front of them, the ground dropped away into another plain of crimson grass, all of which grew increasingly green the further away they were. The ground wasn't flat, but instead formed rolling hills away into the distance. A couple of stone pillars reached for the surface of the water, covered in all sorts of hideously colorful plants. Similarly colored prey swarmed around them, always safely in the distance.
Or so they thought. When Varien stopped to eat a meal, she shot into a school of one-eyed triangle fish at incredible speed, lighting up her prongs and filling the water with her power. Volara chomped happily and proudly as the fish twitched and spasmed before going still. That was good and right. These fish up here had never encountered a shocker before. The most powerful predator they'd seen was, what? The tiny black things that hid beneath the ground? Ha!
As they finished wrapping up their meal, Varien groaned and pressed a palm to his head. "Headache?" she asked sadly, swallowing the last of her food.
He nodded. "Terrible one. What I wouldn't give for some painkillers." At her blank stare, he added, "A substance that reduces any pain you're feeling."
Oh. Right. That was obvious.
"Anyway, let's keep going." He opened his mouth and sung a long yawn. "It's still pretty far."
Stomp! Stomp! Stomp!
As they continued to cross the grassy hills, Volara caught sight of something above her. It was a pod of wedge-like creatures, drifting slowly in the currents. Three thick tendrils waved behind them, green lights shone from their pulsing undersides, and even as she watched a deep, bellowing groan filled the world and shook her to her core. If she hadn't just eaten, and wasn't escorting Varien, she would've gone to see what they tasted like.
"Oh, those are just unknown-backs," Varien said casually when he caught her looking. "They're harmless. Pretty loud, though."
Loud and big. She couldn't quite make out the scale from so far down, but if Volara didn't know better she'd say they were bigger than her!
Which was obviously ridiculous.
The hills started to slope upward. Off to the right, both she and her human caught sight of a colossal chunk of impossibly-shaped metal, resting silently against the stone as red-chompers swarmed in and around it. Another 'wreck' from Varien's ship, apparently, but he ignored it in favor of their task.
By then, light began filtering down from the not-air, blinding in its intensity and scorching in its heat. They climbed up the last of the hills, chunks of rusty orange metal and salt sprouting from the ground as the red grass thinned out. Once they reached the top, the ground spilled deeper still into murky gloom. Volara could make out massive spikes and spires erupting from the ground, as though she'd stumbled back into the mushroom forest but all the vegetation had vanished.
Varien took the descent slowly, his suit shooting jets of water from itself to slow its fall. She followed after him, sighing in relief as the waters cooled and darkened. Her swim bladder gradually felt less and less bloated as they descended.
The path of stone spikes was long and tricky for Varien to navigate in his suit. While he struggled, Volara took the opportunity to look around and admire the new sights. It was desolately beautiful. Not black and gray like her home was, but it had its own quaint little rocky charm. Tiny prey swam around, utterly at ease around her despite her power. They must not have had many predators. Easy pickings, if she weren't well fed.
Eventually the ground flattened out in more ways than one; it both stopped going deeper and the rock pillars vanished. Stretching around them was a beautifully empty space of gently rolling dunes, sparsely dotted with brittle grasses and spiky plants.
"It should be just up ahead," Varien said, marveling at the region along with her.
Stomp! Stomp! Stomp!
When he wasn't looking at her, Volara stole an occasional glance at the sick human and her hearts clenched. He was so confident he could find this 'cure' and save himself. Part of her wanted to believe he could, believe that just as he could conjure forth metal with blue light and control rocks from the inside, he could save himself from the Green Weakness. But she'd seen it wreak so much havoc in her life. So many people had been cursed and withered away.
If she was honest with herself, she knew Varien was a dead man swimming. Especially if the summoners found him.
The dark waters swirled around her, and before she knew it the ground opened up beneath them. A trench, carved into the ground, spread in front of the two of them. Deep within were a variety of plants she'd never seen before, glowing yellow bright enough to hurt her eyes even from so far up.
Varien hummed, then began to sing to her. "Well it's a trench, and I think I see some caves. But the signal's just a bit up ahead, let's get over there and see." Without further word he jumped across the ravine, and she dutifully followed.
Ahead of them was a squat, rocky hill covered in sparse tufts of vegetation. Interestingly enough, there was a hole in front that lead straight down. Both of them came to a stop, and Volara swam ahead to turn back and face Varien. "Well?"
He nodded. "It's right beneath us." He leaned forward and glanced down, eyes narrowed. "I think... yes!" he cheered, song jumping loudly. "That's the lifepod, right there!" Volara snaked her head forward to look. Sure enough, there it was! Another lifepod, just like the one that had landed in her territory so long ago. The cave was deep and sharp, with sandy floors and comforting black walls. The lifepod rested on a slope, next to a cluster of glowing stalk-plants. Mats of grey-green circular plants clung to the stone in rare patches, as though the ground was sick.
The two of them made their way inside, Volara spiraling down while Varien used his suit's jets to slow the fall. Why was he even doing that? With a light thud he landed, casting blinding light on the cave. She came down next to him and adjusted herself, looking at the lifepod, the nearby plants, the prey.
Something laughed around them, high-pitched and raspy.
The human screamed, leaping from the seat and tumbling to the bottom of his suit while babbling a frantic series of notes that weren't even translated.
Volara looked around. The source of the laughter was some of those parasites she'd seen in the kelp forests. One swam to the underside of her jaw and unfurled its tendrils, trying pathetically to wrap around her head and pierce her shell with its teeth. More were trying to bite her in other parts of her body, with similar success.
Unimpressed, she killed them with a single word.
"Seriously?" she asked Varien, drifting over to him with the front of her body lower than her back. He was still curled into a ball, 'breathing' fast. "That's what scares you?" She crackled teasingly. "Were those the 'giant things' around your ship that you were so afraid of?"
"Shut up," he managed at last, uncurling and dragging himself back into his seat. He sneezed, and all at once Volara herself felt sick for teasing him like that. "Those... things were the first thing on the planet that ever attacked me. They're horrible! Anyway, the pod." He looked over at the nearby lifepod. Now that they were closer, Volara could see it wasn't quite like the one that she'd found. While the hole in its side was similar to the one she'd torn in hers, the reddish symbol on its side was entirely different. It certainly held some sort of significance for Varien, maybe a symbol of how important the people inside had been, but she didn't pry.
There were two things scattered around it; one box like he'd opened up by the first wreckage, and a dark sheet of godlike substance identical to the tool she'd seen Varien tap his fingers on sometimes. If she looked closely, she could see a second such thing inside the pod itself.
"Alright," the human whimpered. "There they are. I just need to get out and grab them. With... with all the bleeders around."
She looked at him, torn between teasing and helping. "Do you want me to carry them over to you?"
"No, but thanks. But um. Could you maybe stick by me?" he asked with a quiet, embarrassed song.
"Of course!" she said. "Just stick by my head, I'll bite any that come for you."
"Great!" He began to climb out of his walking-shell, but stopped halfway. "And please don't zap me."
"I won't zap you," she reassured, her upper heart throbbing at the accusation. "I know you're small and weak and naturally terrified of anything bigger than you - "
"Hey!"
" - but have some faith. You'll be fine."
"Right, right. Thanks again for doing this." He finished climbing out, the mini-shocker still in his suit.
Volara held still and let him swim up to the side of her head, close enough to brush up against her armor like he had when he'd hugged her and said goodbye. It struck her again how puny he was, shorter than her prongs. She could, with some difficulty, swallow him whole if she wished.
Slowly but carefully, she guided him over to the flat thing resting in the sand, making sure to go at his painfully slow pace. Volara couldn't be impatient with him. He was dying. She owed him all the patience in the world and then some.
Once he had the first, he made his way to the lifepod and dipped inside. She couldn't follow him, so she dutifully guarded the hole as he explored inside. She had to bite and kill another parasite, but it was otherwise uneventful. He came out and settled to her side like before and she led him to the last of the technological marvels, the sealed box resting up against the cavern walls. Varien opened it, removed a small gray bit from it, and approached her. He sang something she didn't understand, then pointed his hands at the suit.
Volara almost zapped her front prongs in agreement, but stopped herself at the last second. Just as slowly, she helped him back inside his suit, as safe and sound as a dead person could be.
"Thanks," he said once he was in. "Let me just sift through all this real quick."
"Take your time, I guess," she said, settling for swimming around as Varien did whatever he needed to do with the things he'd gotten. She went over to inspect the cluster of glowing plants. Now that she was closer, she could see growths on them. They looked like... eyeballs, oddly enough. Weird. What kind of plant grew to look like it had eyeballs?
Between the stalks was some other plant, though. It grew in threes, shaped like a tube striped orange and yellow. She tilted her head curiously as she swam around them, then floundered in shock when they swiveled to her, pulsated, and shot spines at her.
"Ah!" she shouted, more from surprise than pain when the barbs hit her tan underbelly and bounced off. Volara hastily relaxed her swim bladder and floated away from them. What sort of plants shot spines?
Varien called from behind her, so she swam over to him. "It wasn't anything that important," he said once she arrived. "Just one of the unknown - um, important people in the Aurora telling people where to go once their lifepods landed. I've already been there. There was nobody there." His voice had grown sadder and sadder as he spoke. "Well, we got the lifepod, want to look for a way deeper?"
She hummed. "How deep?" she asked eagerly.
"Eight hundred unknown." Volara stared at him blankly. He sighed, placed his hand in his palms, and looked back up at her. "Alright, so the distance from here to the surface is about two hundred and fifty. I need to get to eight hundred unknown beneath the surface."
"Fair enough. Let's start looking around this cave, then," she said, lifting her head to look around.
That was exactly what they did, then, moving throughout the caverns to search for a way down. They looked up and down, left and right. Varien led the way, stomping his suit and kicking up clouds of sand as she slowly followed him, making sure to dart out and kill any of the parasites he feared so much. They found massive rooms filled with plants and strange rocks - a few of which Varien collected - that branched off in a hundred different passages. They moved up ledges, down into tunnels, over and over.
But it wasn't at all deep enough. According to Varien, not once did they get more than three hundred 'meters' down. They looked and looked, but there was simply no way down. Eventually they had to give up; Volara could hunt endlessly, but Varien only had so much food with him. He couldn't hunt because his food needed preparation so he could safely eat it. The water, too.
He smacked his lips as they ended up by the destroyed lifepod again. "Unknown, forgot how much water you need when you're sick. I should start heading back." He cut himself off with another yawn.
"Let's get going, then," she said, looking at him worriedly. "I'm sorry we couldn't find it."
"It's fine," he said. Then he laughed. "I mean hey, worst comes to worst I can just build an unknown and dig down to it!" He laughed again, then trailed off nervously. "That uh, wouldn't actually work." He fiddled with his suit and began thrusting up, barely making it out to land on the surface. She swam up next to him. "Home's that way, you can find your way back from there, right?"
"I can," she confirmed, doing a casual loop in the water.
They crossed the flat areas and climbed up through the stone spikes. Varien groaned and murmured a quiet song to himself, making her keep throwing worried glances his way. They reached the grassy hills and continued back. They stopped so Varien could check the nearby wreckage quickly, but according to him there was nothing useful there.
Without further incident, they arrived back at Varien's territory. With a groan, he pulled himself up out of his suit and into the burning water. "Right, I'm gonna take a nap." He yawned again. "You can get back okay, right?"
"I can," she confirmed.
The human nodded. "Good. Volara, thank you for your help, even if we didn't find it. We'll try again tomorrow, right?"
"Tomorrow, yes. I'll be by when it brightens. In the meantime, I'll try to look for anything that might be good."
He held up a hand and waved it. "Oh, you don't need to do that."
"Yes, I do!" she insisted, eyes wide. "You are dying. And if there's any chance this 'cure' you're looking for can help others, too, then we need it." She quieted. "So many people die, Varien." She shook her head and brightened. "Go inside, get some rest. I'll be back tomorrow."
"Thanks again, Volara!" he called after her.
"Anytime!" She turned and swum away. She heard him sing something, but without the mini-shocker in sight it was just noise. Volara beat her tail fin against the water and headed home.
Think, think. What was there that might go deep enough for Varien's goal?
Please do leave a review, let me know what you think.