The 7th Layer was a different world from the ruins within the city dome, the buildings and manmade streets replaced with walls glowing pale blue with millions of microscopic creatures clinging to the surface and uneven stone floors that had a perpetual stickiness to them, which lead to an annoying suction every time the boy took a step.
Still, this was a reasonably peaceful start to the journey. Andrew had been fully prepared to deal with some creature attacking as soon as he stepped foot in the caves, but surprisingly, it was quiet.
He could hear running water coming from somewhere, but other than that, there were no sounds of animals running around, whether large or small. When he'd gone down this way, a year ago in his time, there had been many little salamanders and other amphibians underfoot, so prevalent that he could simply drag a net along the ground and catch enough to feed himself on his way.
It looked like he'd need to actually work for food this time, though that wasn't too bad. He was skilled at fishing, and he would be moving quicker upwards than he had downwards. The Relic he possessed was game-breakingly useful for ascending quickly, after all. He couldn't imagine how Lyza would react if she knew he could simply pass through the Curse like it was nothing, so he'd simply hidden the knowledge from her.
Now that he was alone, however, he didn't need to hide it anymore, and since there could be parts of the caverns that rose quickly, it was about time to activate it, just in case. The fact that many Relics didn't require much power was nice, it meant he could simply have it passively running on his person.
He sat down on the stump of a stalagmite that had collapsed at some point in the past, removing his overlarge backpack and setting it beside him, opening one of the side pockets to root around for the artifact, before smiling to himself as he pulled it out.
It was deceptively simple, a piece of cloth that he wrapped around his right arm, tying it tight against his skin just above his elbow. That was it. Such a powerful ability, and yet it took only a few seconds to apply. There was no glow, no glyph instructions, nothing to suggest that it was anything special. How something like this even existed, he didn't know, but it was useful and he had it, so that's all he cared about. He wasn't interested in mining and selling Relics after all, so he was probably the safest delver of all for it to be owned by. For him who didn't care about making many return trips, this was only for going upwards past the 6th Layer. Past that, he could handle on his own even without it.
After applying the Relic, he was about to stand up to continue, before his eyes turned to his pack again, and he sighed, moving to unzip the main pocket and looking inside.
The egg was handling well in its sleeping bag cushion, and he reached his hands inside to lift it out, sitting back down on the rock and holding it in his lap.
It was some sort of birdlike species, based on the shape, but the size and mottled coloration were both very standard of Abyss species, who had an advantage to having big, camouflaged eggs and mostly developed hatchlings. He'd have no idea what it was until it was ready to hatch, and by then, there was a possibility that it would already be dangerous.
Then again, Lyza had mentioned finding it near the top of the 4th Layer, so most likely, it was from higher up. Unless something drastic had happened since he left, he knew every species above that point well, but this was still too common a pattern in many species to recognize at a glance. It could be a giant hammerbeak, or a terror bird, or even some unusual subspecies of pincerbeak, he had no idea.
He rubbed the surface with one hand as the other arm wrapped around it, holding it close to provide it with his body's warmth. The caverns were relatively warm, but he knew that most eggs required a higher temperature to survive, so he'd need to be vigilant if he wanted it to hatch safely.
He wasn't entirely sure why he'd accepted the task so readily. Maybe he just got along really well with Lyza, or somewhere in him he really did want a companion. He'd decided to make the journey on his own and of his own power, but that was more due to his having come down this far with that same power. It would be nice to have a friend to talk to, and he wasn't about to turn back and ask Lyza to join him. She had a daughter to reunite with at the bottom, she couldn't very well do that if they missed each other on the way to their respective destinations.
He briefly wondered if he'd ever meet the girl, before blinking as he looked down, feeling a vibration in the egg's shell as the hatchling inside shifted, and he chuckled, rubbing the top as if to show the creature inside his affection.
"You need a name, don't you?" he asked, humming as he thought it over. "Toma? Hmm, no, I don't know if you'll be male or female, and that's more human than animal. Hmm…" He pondered the question, thinking over various possible names, before chuckling as he lifted it up to eye level.
This was technically Lyza's child, so he'd take inspiration from her and name it after the daughter she talked at length about. Of course, to differentiate, he'd change the name up a bit, but it still felt right to take her lead since he wasn't very good with names himself. "...Rico. That's your name. Rico."
There was no movement to signal it heard him, but he grinned, not expecting a response as it was obviously not ready to react. He had no idea how long it would take for it to hatch, being that this was down below the point where time dilated, so he'd just have to wait and see if it was quick or slow. Perhaps it would react to the dilation the same way he did, though he wasn't entirely sure how the Abyss creatures actually responded to the Curse, especially this deep.
He looked it over, occasionally speaking the name quietly to cement it in his mind. Now that it had a name, there was no going back. He'd bonded to it, so now, it would not just be a creature. Now, it was Rico.
He jolted as he heard something skitter along the ground nearby, looking around as his eyes narrowed. He'd dropped his guard, and when he hadn't let his Pins passively function, being ambushed could have been dangerous. For now, he didn't need them, but if whatever was near got too close, it would be destroyed in seconds and make a decent meal to start off his journey.
As he listened, the skittering took on a strange pattern of moments of something flicking against the ground and silence between the impacts. What was going on?
It went quiet after about a minute, and he blinked as he listened to the now-silent cave. Had it given up after noticing that he was aware of its presence? He set the egg down where he had been sitting so that he could stand up, walking over in that direction to check on the issue. He could easily handle it, there was very little in the Abyss that was a threat when he was alert.
He stood still, looking around where the noise had come from. It was a more open pathway, opening into a still-water pond that had grown over with a similar blue algae to that which lined the walls, and from the swirls in the pond scum, something had recently left the water. So whatever it was, it was amphibious, and from the sound, some sort of insect creature.
He turned around to head back, and his eyes widened as he found himself face to face with the creature.
Somehow, it had avoided his detection and as soon as he was gone, and now sat lying against the rock he'd been sitting on. It was a hideous animal, a mix between the bulbous head and large furcula of springtails, and the large transparent brown body and facial legs of a Daphnia, the size of the creature making the details all the easier to see as it wrapped the beardlike legs around the egg, struggling to move it away from the area as it noticed that it had been discovered.
It was big, but it wasn't very strong, clearly unable to break through the shell as Andrew growled, a sound not fitting his permanent grin as he ran at it, keeping his Pins inactive as he didn't want to accidentally damage the egg.
He was about to kick at the creature before it jolted, the curled up furcula below it springing up and sending it flying into the air, flipping and sticking to the ceiling of the cave with a wet slapping sound as he stared up at it.
He pondered how to get to it without damaging the egg, while the monster's antennae twitched as it smelled its prize, which was held loosely in its legs as it kept itself steady on the ceiling, using its large soft body to cushion its prey.
He needed to attack it, but the egg would be damaged if he tried anything directly, and so he instead moved to the wall below the creature, raising his fist and glaring at it as he brought it forward into the rock.
The force of the punch, using avery low amount of the strength granted by one Pin, created a crater in the stone and vibrated the cave enough to make it lose its balance, and he quickly turned around in order to catch the egg when it fell.
The plan worked. The creature did in fact lose its grip, collapsing down off its perch and tossing the egg aside. He was fast when he used his Pins, he was sure he could catch the egg, so he took the split second before the animal hit the ground to kick it with the single Pin active, sending it flying into a wall, its soft body ruptured by the force of the impact and killing it instantly.
That had worked well, but he froze as he heard a crack, and turned around slowly to see what had happened. His eyes widened at the sight, and he stepped forward, kneeling down to hold his hands over the egg.
It had hit a sharp rock on its way down, his reaction time having been just a bit too long to register where it was before it could hit the ground, and it had split in two, the shell separating to either side as a white sac inside spilled out, liquid oozing from it as the form inside stayed still.
He'd failed to save it. Choosing to attack the creature first had been a bad call, and he'd paid the price by spilling Rico onto the ground.
Tears welled up in his eyes, and not for the first time in his life, he wished he could stop grinning, the cursed expression making it impossible to properly convey the guilt he was now feeling as he gingerly set his hand on Rico's severed shell, pulling it aside to inspect the remains of the-
His eyes widened again as it started to move, and after a few seconds of wiggling, the membrane broke completely, contracting as the thing inside lifted its head to the air, a high-pitched squeaking coming from it as he stared in surprise.
It was covered in slime and its eyes were closed, but he could instantly recognize the species as it was fuly developed, feathers sticking to its body from the eggy goop and flicking the air with its four split tongues, tasting for scents as it struggled to crawl out of the mess it had hatched in.
It must have been ready to hatch for a long time, but the shell had simply been too thick for it. He knew this species, sometimes when conditions weren't right, they were able to go into suspended animation and wait for the environment to break the egg for them. It was a good thing he knew how to handle these, because now, he laughed, sitting down cross-legged to observe it as he knew it had to learn to clean itself off on its own.
He called these creatures "terror birds", but when talking with Lyza, she'd mentioned a different name for them.
As Rico greeted the world, it was the birth of a hatchling corpse-weeper.