Nymphlopedia

Entry 84: Tunnel Nymphs

"I've wanted to do this for so long!" Shouted Sonata as she sped through the tunnel. It was her, Vince, and Tania as usual, but with a Tunnel Nymph - a particularly dirty-looking one (she'll clean that off) with some pebbles adorned on her legs. The four of them were on a cart, speeding through a particular, certain-crafted cooled tunnel of green-yellow rock. All but the Tunnel Nymph were using tools to fire large bouts of Green Solution everywhere, clearing out the Crimson that dared to take over the walls. "Purifying at full speed!"

"We've been doing that a lot." Tania told her. "And minecart riding."

"Technically we both went on a minecart ride when we first met." Vince added.

Tania sighed. "Wait. Our purification here is done." She said. "I no longer sense any Crimson infecting this tunnel."

"Yeah," added Sonata, "it's to the right now. And... uh, hey, does the Tunnel System have a branch going to the right?"

"N-no..." the Tunnel Nymph guiding them reluctantly said. "It's straight for the next six kilometers."

"Yeah."

The Trio hopped off of their specialized, super-fast minecart.

"Well, sorry, we'll see you a little later." Sonata told her. "But we've gotta kill this multidimensional hivemind!"

"It's pretty convenient that that tunnel of Crimson lined up with this tunnel." Said Vince.

Tania nodded. "Quite so. It's almost as if you have some kind of foresight to-"

"No, we don't, sorry to disappoint." The Tunnel Nymph quickly said. "Anyway, you should go. I'll look in to the Naked Empire later."

She sped off on the cart. Sonata waved down to her.

"Be sure to give us a call!" She said. Then she put her hands on her hips and looked down further in the tunnel- or, no, capital-T Tunnel. "Any creature that can see all the way from one end of these to the other would scare the shit out of me."

"Technically, the Crimson can do that." Said Tania.

"Point taken! So, does the Candyland strip happen to line up with the Tunnel System too?"

"Sadly, no."

"Damn. Hey, Vince, this might piss off some of the people that live here, but if we do this right it won't. Want to see a really big echo-"

"I tried that last year." Vince replied, chuckling.

They heard creaking.

The same Tunnel Nymph from before went back, shooting Vince a glare.

"THAT WAS YOU?!" She shouted.

In addition to people, one other thing that travelled really well in the Tunnel Systems.

Was sound.

Tunnel Nymphs.

Most types of Nymphs like to stay in their associated biome. When that biome itself is their highway through all of the underground, things become a bit more complicated.

Preferred Environment: Tunnel Systems.

Environment Threat Level: Moderate.

Environment Stats: Dry. Cool. Moderate-Mundane. Common, but may be hard to encounter without specifically detecting them. Usually underground systems of very long, very linear cylindrical-shaped paths. Surprisingly, these were formed naturally, and not dug out by their patron Nymphs/Satyrs. (But they were dug out later, throughout history.)

Other Names: Freeway Nymphs, Travel Nymphs, Fast-Travel Nymphs.

Affinity: Earth.

Color: Dull Chartreuse.

Traditional Costume Weapon: Small pebbles on their legs, a few on their arms. Helps them move across their specialized earth faster, and command that earth.

Vince's Comment: Easy. Cause a cave-in if one of them is attacking you. Sorry to sound morbid for a second (I had a REALLY bad experience with one of them fighting me, but most of the others I met were nice), but this is akin to cutting off their legs, they feel like they lose that much mobility. It really stuns them.

Sonata's Comment: Being in one of these always scares the shit out of me because even though while I can see that there aren't any tracks, I'm scared to death that a train or something will come out there and start barreling at me at HOLY FUCK meters per second. Anyway, even when you're working with the Nymphs here, and you're riding on their backs as they run and teach you how to use their magic to get around without outright teleporting, it still feels like a train will slam in to me - from the OPPOSITE direction. It's all because I really was hit by a train when I was 6.

Tania's Comment: Tunnel Nymphs.
Nymphae Ciniculum.
Similar to most Nymphs with the Affinity for Earth, a part of their power and identity comes from being able to sense the paths laid out ahead of and around them and form connections from there. Tunnel Nymphs have this, appropriately, "tunnel focused," where the narrow passages with only the occasional turn or intersection have allowed for a greater control over what they see and their motion. One loose key trait regarding Nymph Affinity is movement through that Affinity, where those with Water can usually swim well through bodies of liquid, those with Wind can go through the air in some way or another, and even those with Fire can bear extreme bursts of ignited gas or plasma. Those with the Earth Affinity travel across or through the land, and in the case of the Warriors of the delicate and carefully-placed Tunnel ecosystem, both.

Closing AN:

Day 26! I'll be honest. Switching to four chapters a day really has a tangible difference, I can feel it. And that feeling is me getting my ass kicked. For some reason, it felt like three chapters a day were managable, but just four is a sudden asswhooping, even without needing to worry about coming up with new rough drafts. I'm still not nearly as far ahead as I'd want to be, and have some super late entries that I might rewrite completely.

Jeez when I was looking through the previous three sets for figuring out what to do for the last one I was worried that I didn't "leave" any of the Dulls to have an open spot for an Earth Affinity, without editting some of the previous rough drafts (or even the chapters I had published). Thankfully, I found that Chartreuse made at least one.

Oh, and there are "post-Moon Lord tools" besides the Moon Lord drops that the gang would be using in the chapters set later chronologically. I haven't ironed out all the details yet though, so I'm keeping that a mystery in the meantime, just not mentioning gear for the most part. I did want, for simplicity's sake, to keep most of the stuff they use vanilla unless it specifically relates to the biome they're in, but... yeah, not much vanilla post-Moon Lord. So we'd be seeing some new things... IF they came up.

The next day's gonna start with something a little... crazy.