They marched on, each of them keeping their guard up in case Kait's assessment of the footprints had been wrong. They found a few more sets of tracks as they walked through the tunnels, each as old than the last. Despite there being no apparent threat, the talon marks in the solidified mud were incredibly unnerving.
Leading the pack behind Dave, Fahz had his Lancer in his hands and his tilted upwards to stare warily at the crackled and crumbled roof. When his foot failed to find the steady even ground and instead dropped down about six inches, he let out a strangled sound and stumbled in the dark. JD pulled out his flashlight and shone it into the shallow hole Fahz had fallen into.
"Fuck me," Fahz muttered as he spun around to stare down at the Brumak print he had landed in. "That's a big one…" He scrambled out, looking more than a little disturbed. "This place is one giant nightmare." He mumbled, bringing his Lancer back up to bear.
With the help of Dave's spotlight, they avoided the other Brumak prints and continued their way through the tunnels.
Eventually the path became narrower and more challenging. What had been gradual inclines and smooth dirt tunnels became steep climbs and drops with loose boulders and shattered rock.
JD scrambled on all fours as he tried to climb up a mostly blocked cavern to reach the narrow gap at the top. What had once been a thoroughfare large enough for three Brumaks abreast had caved in years ago, leaving only a small gap at the top that barely looked large enough for an armoured human to squeeze through.
As he pushed himself upwards the stones beneath JD's left boot shifted and tumbled away, making his foot slide out from beneath him. He fell flat on his chest plate and grunted, kicking his legs to find purchase. His fingers burned and his muscles strained as he tried to hang on and stop himself from sliding back down the small mountain.
"You having fun, Fenix?" Fahz shouted up at him from where he stood with Kait and Marcus at the bottom of the cave-in. JD could hear the smug grin in Fahz's voice and he gritted his teeth in frustration.
"Oh loads." JD he hissed out, swinging his right boot out and jamming the toe in a gap between two sizeable rocks. When he was confident he could put his weight on the foot he leveraged himself up and got his other leg under him again. A bit more scrambling and he managed to climb the top of the pile but had to duck before his head hit the ceiling.
Dave floated up to hover beside him and peered into the narrow gap. As JD unslung his pack and unhooked the coil of rope from its side, Dave disappeared into the passageway and left only the faint glow of his thruster and optics reflecting off the stone. After JD had tied the rope off to a large jutting shard of rock in the wall, he tossed it down so the others could haul themselves up.
"I'm getting too old for this." Marcus muttered when JD offered him a hand to help pull him the rest of the way up.
"Hey, you're the one who's still letting Baird talk you into these expeditions of his." JD said with a smirk, earning a grunt from his father.
After Kait and Fahz had joined them, JD coiled the rope up again and led them through the slim gap at the top to the next section, following the chirps and beeps from Dave ahead.
"This. Is. Fucking. Terrible." Fahz snarled, grunting out each word with a shuffling sideways step as he squeezed between the stones. JD turned in time to see the man let out a pained groan and tilt his head back so the fungus-covered rock face wouldn't press into his cheek.
JD felt a brief moment of sympathy for Fahz and his claustrophobia. A baser animal instinct chewed at the back of his mind, telling him this horribly small and tight space was indeed truly terrifying. He took a quiet steadying breath and after a few seconds he managed to quash the feeling down and instead focused on the delight of Fahz's discomfort.
When the tight passage opened up again they found themselves at the other side of the mountainous cave-in. JD led the group down the rock pile, hopping on the largest boulders first then sliding down the loose gravel on his heels to skid to a halt on the stone floor.
"Let's never do that again, shall we?" Fahz said after they had all made it to the bottom.
"Just remember," JD grinned. "Finding this thing is only half the mission. We have to haul it out of here, which means going back the way came." He pointed up at the narrow gap atop the pile of rocks.
"Aw bloody hell." Fahz's shoulders drooped, looking stricken.
"What's our map say? Please tell me we're getting close." Kait asked, sweat glistening on her brow. While it wasn't hot in the caves, it was warmer than JD had expected. He wondered if they would need to convert to their desert armour configuration if it grew any warmer.
"We're about…" Fahz tilted his head to one side as he looked at the panel on his arm. "Half way?" He offered his arm to Kait so she could read the map for herself.
"Why the hell'd we give you that thing if you can't even read it?" JD asked, motioning to Dave's panel strapped to Fahz's arm.
"I can read it." Fahz said indignantly. "You think it's easy reading a map that looks like a plate of noodles? Have at it, then." He moved to undo the straps holding the console to his arm, but JD waved him off with a chuckle and a small roll of the eyes.
Kait tapped at the screen on Fahz's arm—ignoring their banter—and zoomed in on the map and the path ahead.
"Looks like we're coming up on some big caverns. Hopefully things get a little easier after this." She said, pointing to bulbous cave outlines on the map.
Fahz stared down at the map for a moment, unmoving as the others continued on.
Then, jogging to catch up, he asked, "Are we gonna stop for a snack at some point?" Fahz asked innocently, looking at each of them in turn. "I'm fuckin' famished."
"Oh my god." Kait muttered under her breath, shooting the glowing ceiling an exasperated look.
The break was short but surprisingly needed. JD was hungrier than he thought, scarfing down a COG-issued energy bar in less than a minute. He swallowed a few lukewarm gulps from his canteen and sighed, his hunger momentarily satiated.
The others looked as though they had needed the break as well. Kait sat on the ground, not minding the damp stone, and Marcus was eating his own energy bar while remaining vigilant, his eyes scanning the pathway ahead. JD doubted his father would ever be truly relaxed, even when no enemies were present.
Fahz disappeared behind a large tumbled boulder to 'have a whizzle', and Kait shot him a snarl of disgust. Dave followed along, apparently out of curiosity or protectiveness—JD had no idea which but hoped it was the latter—but quickly jetted away when Fahz threatened to douse him.
"I hope you washed your hands," Kait said, eyeing Fahz as he returned to the group.
"You want me to put the toilet seat down too, love?" He asked, all false sweetness. But he humoured her and spritzed his hands with a spray sterilizing solution from a pouch on his belt. "Just for you, princess."
They moved on, a little rejuvenated after their short rest. The rough terrain didn't seem so challenging now that he wasn't hungry, JD decided. And Fahz's antagonizing remarks weren't nearly as irritating.
Sections of the cave walls ahead had crumpled with age and the lack of maintenance. Rocks and earth had come loose and gradually slid down to pile along one side of the tunnel, and the group pressed themselves to the opposite wall to skirt around the debris.
"Is it just me, or does anyone else see that light?" Marcus asked from behind JD, who had been focused on where his feet were going rather than the tunnel ahead.
JD looked up and saw the glow in the curving tunnel, a soft blue light brighter than the bioluminescent fungus currently lighting their path. Dave saw it too and immediately zoomed off to scout it out, fading away around the corner.
"Wow…" Kait breathed as they followed and the source of the light came into view.
The tunnel expanded abruptly and they stopped to stand at its mouth and stare up into the cavern ahead of them. It was a space longer and wider than a thrashball field, and taller than any stadium JD had ever seen in person or in photographs.
Massive stone spikes hung from the ceiling like gargantuan icicles, each one emitting a near-florescent bright blue. It was like looking at massive beautiful chandelier, glimmering and suspended above them. Smaller inverted spikes rose from the floor to meet their brethren, their tips glowing but becoming gradually dimmer toward their bases.
Even Marcus seemed intrigued by the display, his head craned back to stare at a smaller stone spear that dangled above them.
"More of that fungus?" Fahz asked, the light reflecting off his glasses. He had long ago traded out his usual tinted pair for faintly pink set of lens so he could still see in the dark.
Dave was the only one not completely stunned by the sight and he rose to take a sample off the tip of the glowing spear Marcus had been staring up at. Then he fluttered to its matching mate near the ground and used his manipulator to take another sample.
It was only when Dave beeped and Fahz's arm panel flashed that JD tore his eyes away. He reached out and grabbed the man's arm and turned it so he could read the display, Fahz putting up no protest as he kept his eyes on the ceiling.
"Same fungus, just greater quantities." He said to the group before letting Fahz's arm drop away.
"Who would ever have known this was down here?" Kait uttered. She was transfixed by the sight, the blue light bright enough to see the small smile on her face. "We've got to be the first people to see this."
"Take lots of pictures, Dave. Baird'll love it." JD said to the bot, who gave a short buzz and flew upwards to circle around and fly between the dangling spikes.
"At least when the ceiling caves in on us and one of these stalagmites falls and horribly impales me, my death will be pretty." Fahz said, only half sarcastic.
"Stalactite." Marcus grunted and Fahz gave him a confused look. "Stalactites are the ones that hang down. Stalagmites grow up from the floor." He pointed with two fingers to the peak rising from the ground. "And if I was a betting man, I'd say the fungus grows brighter on the stalactites because it's feeding on the nutrients in the water dripping down."
"You learn that in your COG biology class at the academy?" Fahz asked with a snorted laugh. Marcus fixed him with one of his steady looks.
"My mother was a biologist. She used to do research in the Hollow before the war. I picked up a few things." The old man said in passing, and it surprised JD to hear his father talk about his grandmother; it was topic rarely brought up.
"You've never really talked about her." He said quietly to his father. Marcus glanced at him for a moment, then heaved one shoulder in a shrug.
"Not much to tell. Nothing you can't look up yourself." Marcus said, walking past him and toward the bed of stalagmites.
"Sure," JD conceded as he followed. "Doesn't mean I don't want to hear you talk about her though. Or my grandfather, for that matter."
Marcus appeared to consider that, then he shook his head. "Later. We've got a job to do."
JD made a mental note to follow up with his father on that promise. Anya had always shared stories from her childhood before the Locust War, about her heroic mother, Major Helena Stroud. But Marcus had almost never talked about his parents. JD knew the basics: Adam had been the key physicist behind the Hammer of Dawn and the Imulsion Countermeasure, and Elain had been a biologist of some renown. Anything beyond that—what they had been like as parents, what Marcus's childhood had been like growing up as part of one of the rich founding families—was a mystery to JD. And as time went on and his relationship with his father steadied and became less tumultuous than before, JD's curiosity about the Fenix ancestral line grew.
The stalagmites rose from the floor to form a forest of stone trees. They walked through them along an old worn path, presumably left by the Locust years before. Some of the stone pillars were five or more metres tall and had grand sloping bases.
Everything was damp and the stone was slick from dripping water. The air felt thick and rich with stale rot, likely unstirred for decades.
One of the largest stalactites had fallen from the ceiling, broken off by its own immense weight. It laid across their path, cracked and glowing from all the fungus.
JD braced his back against the stone barrier and weaved his fingers together to provide a step. Without a word Fahz placed his boot in his hands and JD boosted him up. Kait was next, followed by Marcus.
JD straightened up and turned to take a few steps back from the stalactite. Then with a running start he leaped up and grasped Fahz's arm. When he tried to put his boot on the wall to help his climb, the treads smeared through the blue fungus and provided no grip, quickly sliding out from under him. He grunted as he was slammed against the stone and glowing vegetation plastered the front of his armour.
Kait reached down and grabbed at JD's other arm and between her and Fahz they pulled him up.
"How is it, every time we find something glowing, you always manage to cover yourself with it?" Kait said, gesturing to the blue spattering on his chest plate. It was nearly the same colour and brightness as the indicator lights on their armour.
"You know, I keep asking myself the same thing." JD smiled and shook his head as they hopped down the other side of the broken stalactite. He used the side of his palm to wipe the fungus from his chest plate, then paused to look at the residue on his hand. "And we're sure this isn't poisonous?"
"Dave says it's okay, so it's okay." Kait shrugged. She watched as he sniffed the blue goo curiously. "What's it smell like?"
JD pondered the smear of mushroom on his hand again, and gave it another sniff. "It smells like…" He sniffed again. "I dunno, like a mushroom?" Pulling his hand away, JD studied the glowing fungus. "I wonder if it's edible." He mused, wiping his hand off on his pants and leaving a glowing blue patch behind.
Fahz leaned down and scooped up a fist-sized stone speckled with the fungus and offered it to JD. "Go on then, give it a lick. For science."
JD took the rock and studied it for a moment, looking as though he was actually considering tasting it.
"I'll give you all my rations to not eat the glowing mushrooms, okay?" Kait said as she reached out and grabbed the stone in JD's hand. She tossed it away before he could protest, and the clattering sound echoed around the cavern.
"If I'm the first one to try eating a new species of fungus, you think they'll name it after me?" He asked, smirking at Kait and her look of disgust.
"Can we please get back to the task at hand? You can eat all the glowing mushrooms you want after we've finished this damned mission. " Marcus interjected gruffly, glaring at the group. JD put on his best shit eating grin, feeling the particular sparkle of amusement that only came from annoying his father. The old man gave a hoarse sigh and turned away to follow Dave, ignoring the prattling of the younger Gears.