Argent, Ryn, and the twins, stepped into the left-hand tunnel.
Almost immediately, the air changed.
This wasn't like the spider tunnels, cold, metallic, and dead.
Here the air felt warm, humid, and strangely alive, like stepping into a greenhouse after rain.
Soft green light pulsed faintly in the stones, as if veins of some luminous plant grew beneath the rock. Pale moss clung to the walls in braided patterns, glowing in gentle waves. Strange fungal fronds unfurled from cracks overhead like umbrellas of living jade. Each step released a whisper of spores that drifted lazily in the air like dust motes suspended in a sunbeam.
Ryn slowed, staring around with wide eyes.
The glow made the contours of her face soft, warm, and peaceful.
Argent watched her for a moment too long before the words tumbled out of him:
"You… look really pretty in this light."
Ryn froze, then turned slowly, red spreading from her ears down her neck.
Behind them, the twins exchanged the most blatant silent sibling look of oh, this is happening.
Ryn pushed a strand of hair behind her ear and tried to play it off.
"I, It's just the mushrooms."
Argent sputtered. "Right, yes. Mushrooms. Magical… flattering mushrooms."
Veyra whispered loudly, "Extremely flattering."
Then awkward silence fell over them.
They continued down the tunnel, walking past clusters of glowing vines and patches of luminescent moss that looked like starlight scattered across the ground.
Halfway through, Veryn slowed.
His eyes narrowed at something embedded in the wall, half sunk into the stone as if it had grown out of it.
A shape.
A tangle of bark and fungal plates.
A vaguely humanoid silhouette sagging inside the rock.
Veyra placed a hand on her brother's arm. "What is that?"
Argent stepped closer, brow furrowed.
"Looks like… a tree? But also not. Kind of shaped like a person."
Ryn shivered. "It's alive."
Veryn extended his nature element out, his awareness brushing through the soil.
"…it is alive," he murmured. "Barely. Like it's dormant. Waiting for something."
All four took a cautious step back.
Argent cleared his throat.
"Good. Perfect. Dormant wall people. That's not unsettling at all."
Veyra elbowed him lightly. "If it was going to attack us, it would've already."
"Unless," Ryn added softly, eyes scanning the walls, "it's waiting for the right moment."
The twins glanced at each other again, this time serious.
They continued on slowly, more cautiously now.
The tunnel widened gradually until it spilled out into a vast cavern… and all four stopped in place.
Because this wasn't just a cavern.
This was a whole underground forest.
Bioluminescent moss carpeted the ground like emerald grass.
Fungal "trees" spiraled upward, their bark glowing with swirling patches of green and orange light. Their canopies dripped spores like soft shimmering rain. Strange plants with petal-shaped fronds opened and closed as if breathing.
And between the fungal trees…
They moved.
Not spiders.
Not beasts.
But tall, humanoid like shapes made of wood and mushroom and stone, walking with slow, deliberate heaviness.
Some had glowing green veins pulsing through their bodies, as though sap-light flowed beneath bark.
Others carried an orange glow, cracking faintly at the joints and radiating a soft warmth, like embers in driftwood.
Ryn whispered, awestruck,
"What… are those?"
Argent shook his head.
"Sentinels, maybe? Guardians? This must be the thing the ledger wants cores from."
Veyra leaned in and whispered to her brother, "If Ember were here, she'd already be calling them something ridiculous."
Verýn smirked. "Flamey bark. Moss legs."
Argent added, "Probably 'ugly wood face.'"
Ryn stifled a laugh, tension easing for a moment.
They moved deeper, careful not to disturb anything.
The Sentinels hadn't noticed them yet, their movements were slow, methodical, almost peaceful. But each step from the glowing giants left impressions in the mossy soil. This place was alive.
Argent scanned their numbers.
"Four of the… green ones. Two glowing orange ones farther back."
"What do we do?" Ryn whispered, hand sliding toward her bow.
Argent exhaled slowly.
"We hit first. Before they spread out. Before the slower ones reach us."
Veryn braced his stance, roots tingling at his feet.
"I can counter some of their tricks… I think. Nature reacts strangely to nature."
Veyra spun her short swords, wind gathering around her ankles.
"And I've been dying to try these on something new."
Argent stepped toward an open patch of moss.
"Alright," he said quietly.
"We start here."
The Sentinels turned their heads.
Their chests glowed.
Slow pulse.
Deep tremor.
Ryn whispered, "They noticed."
The cavern breathed around them, soft motes drifting in the air, roots shifting under the moss.
The six Sentinels stared silently, heads tilting as if listening to heartbeats the four of them couldn't hear.
Argent stepped forward, dagger and axe ready.
"Stay sharp. They're slow, but this place… isn't."
The nearest Sentinel, tall, bark shelled, glowing faint green from within, took a lumbering step.
Roots cracked through the soil beneath its feet like it was taking ownership of the ground.
Argent moved first.
In a blur of motion, he vanished into shadow and reappeared at the Sentinel's flank, dagger slashing in a clean arc. A blade of light extended several inches past the tip, sharp, bright, perfect.
It sliced clean through bark and glowing fungal mass...
...and then the wound sealed, fresh wood growing across the cut in seconds.
Argent froze.
"…what."
The Sentinel turned, its chest glowing like a throbbing heart, the slash healing completely.
Veyrn shouted, "Argent, don't think that one worked!"
Veyra skidded beside him, short swords in hand.
"Well that's new. Hit it again!"
Argent did, three rapid slashes, each leaving glowing lines across bark.
Each sealed instantly.
"Oh come ON!"
The Sentinel swung a heavy root-coated arm at his head. Argent ducked, shadows flickering around his boots as he slid back.
"Switch sides!" Veyra called.
She burst forward, wind snapping around her as she darted low, zig-zagging unpredictably. She leapt, kicked off an invisible foothold of compressed air, and flipped over the Sentinel's arm. Her twin blades struck in rapid succession, each swing cracking the air.
Thin bursts of slicing wind nicked deep grooves into the creature's bark.
But the grooves…
Healed.
Veyra landed next to Argent, exasperated.
"Okay. So they're allergic to dying."
"If light isn't working, let me try shadow," Argent muttered.
He raised his axe, shadows swirling thickly along the edge. The Sentinel lunged again. Argent sank low, and when he swung upward the shadow cleaved through bark with a dull, crushing thud.
The wound did not close.
Instead, dark tendrils lingered on the break, slowing the regrowth.
"Oh," Argent breathed. "That's better."
"Less sunlight, more eclipse!" Veyra shouted.
Before Argent could finish it, another Sentinel charged in, this one glowing softly orange, heat radiating from its core. It slammed a molten-orange arm toward Ryn, who already had an arrow drawn.
She fired.
The earth mallet head struck the Sentinel square in the chest.
The arrow shattered like cheap pottery.
Her eyes widened. "Oh. That's… bad."
"Ryn, left!" Veryn shouted.
The second Sentinel's arm came down like an executioner's hammer. Ryn dove aside, rolling across moss, her bow already drawn again.
No earth this time.
No mallet.
She whispered, "Spirit."
The arrow flared pale blue.
When she fired, the spectral tip punched into the Sentinel's bark, not breaking through, but sinking and pulsing with soft light. The Sentinel staggered, the glow spreading like cracks of ice across its torso.
It slowed.
Breathing hard, Ryn backed up beside Veryn.
"Okay. That works."
Veyrn gave her an impressed look.
"You're good at that."
"Fear is a powerful motivator," she muttered and drew again.
The second arrow hit a root covered leg, spirit light bursting outward. The Sentinel slowed even more, movements becoming sluggish, as though its limbs were dragging through water.
Veyrn stepped forward.
"Let's try something."
Roots shot from the soil around his boots.
They rose in thick coils, twisting with the same fungal hue as the Sentinel's roots.
Ryn gasped. "It… matches them."
"Not matches," Veryn grunted.
"Merging with it, when two trees meet, they come together."
The Sentinel's feet sank as Veryn's roots wound around theirs, fusing, like two trees grafting together. Through the soil's network, Veryn's will overpowered the Sentinel's natural flow. The creature struggled, but every attempt to break free only made the fusion dig deeper.
Veyrn blinked, awe in his voice.
"I wasn't sure that would work."
Argent called from across the cavern. "We take those wins."
Veyra darted past the trapped Sentinel, vaulting off one of Veryn's exposed roots to slash high at an orange-glowing one, wind screaming around her blades.
The blow staggered it, it didn't heal.
Orange Sentinels were slower to regenerate.
Veyra grinned. "Wind works on this one. I like that."
Two Sentinels converged on her, one green, one orange.
The green one raised both arms, roots ripping upward from the floor.
"Switch!" she shouted.
Twin location triggered, a blink of displaced air and spatial twist, and suddenly Veyrn stood where Veyra had been, shield braced as roots slammed into him.
His stance held.
Roots burst around his boots, anchoring him harder than the Sentinel's vines could shove. With a shove, he sent the excess force back into the ground, a rebound of pure stability.
"Solid footing," Veyra said admiringly as she reappeared where he previously was.
One orange Sentinel charged Argent, molten heat gathering along its forearm like a forging strike. Argent vanished into shadow, appearing behind it, dagger stabbing deep.
As a reflex from days of fighting the spiders, the light blade extended, and again, the wound sealed instantly, stronger now.
Argent murmured, "Ugh…you've got to be kidding me."
Ryn called. "It's like you're feeding them!"
"I know I know. I need to get used to only using shadow down here." he yelled back.
The sentinel's glowing fist hurtled toward him. Argent struck with his shadow infused axe, it embedding deep into the sentinels chest as he ducked, shadows rippling along his spine as he slid between its legs.
While he slide beneath it, he hooked a dark tether from his hand to his axe embedded in the creature's bark.
He yanked.
The axe tore backward, ripping a huge chunk free, exposing an orange glowing orb in the sentinels chest. The Sentinel collapsed sideways, roots flailing wildly. Breaking into dust leaving only the core behind.
"One down!" he shouted.
"We've got three here still!" Veyra yelled from across the cavern, spinning through a vortex of air, her blades crackling with pressure as she sliced across a lumbering trunk-like arm.
Ryn fired another spirit arrow, this one hitting square in the chest, she had seen where the exposed core was on the other one.
This arrow hit and sunk slowly through the hard outer bark into the core of a green Sentinel. The pale light pulsed like a heartbeat, then burst outward, freezing the creature in place as if stunned by its own inner glow.
"Veyrn!" she called.
He understood instantly. His roots surged upward, coiling tightly around the immobilized Sentinel. The two opposing plant natures met, merged, and for a moment sparks of green light flickered between them.
The Sentinel convulsed, trapped.
Argent and Veyra dove in together, shadow and wind carving through its torso, ripping out the glowing core in a burst of green light.
It fell.
"Two down!"
The cavern trembled.
The remaining Sentinels stepped back.
All four of them froze.
Ryn whispered, "…did they just retreat?"
The fungal trees rustled.
The moss beneath their feet pulsed softly with light.
Veryn's nature sense shuddered.
"No," he whispered.
"They're not retreating."
Argent raised his weapons.
"Then what?"
And then they felt it.
A shift, not in the air, but in the roots, in the moss, in the veins of fungus threading through the chamber.
The four remaining damaged sentinels, in eerie unison, stepped back toward the cavern walls as if obeying an unheard command.
Veyrn's breath hitched. "That's… not good."
Argent lifted one hand, shadows coiling at his fingertips. Ryn drew in a slow breath, spirit-light blooming along her bowstring. Veyra's stance tightened, foot settling on a invisible foothold of wind.
The cavern walls shifted.
Not crumbling, opening, like wood parting to reveal hollowed spaces beneath the bark.
From those openings, shapes pushed free.
Six more sentinels, each glowing with the warm, ember-orange of burning wood. Their fungal plates cracked with faint light. Their mossy limbs pulsed with heat. One by one, they stepped out of the walls and onto the mossy floor.
Ten total now. Forming a slow circle. Trying to surround the four of them.
Ryn whispered, "…They waited."
Veyra twirled her blades once, forcing her voice steady, trying to bring light to the situation.
"Ember would've named every single one of these by now."
Argent didn't smile this time. His eyes tracked the tightening ring of sentinels.
"They're coordinating," he murmured.
"Good. Then we hit back the same way."
The fungal grove seemed to hold its breath, and then the circle closed.