The cave is ordinary for the most part, the walls are rough and a little wet and the ground is uneven. The difference is the flora, it looks like some sort of glowing fungus is growing on the walls.

When we first saw the blue light we were extremely cautious, slowly creeping up to get a better look at the glowing thing in the distance.

When we finally got close enough to recognize it for what it is we felt quite foolish, or rather, I felt foolish, Hermione just blamed me for making her look stupid.

“How can they grow here anyway?”

I look at the mushrooms in interest.

“They use the water from the walls and I guess Aether. Who knows how long they grow, but it must be quite a while.”

“How can it be quite a while? The Abyss only recently opened?”

“Mmm. Well, I asked the instructor after something similar came up in the book, and he said the best theory is that Abysses are just pockets of space. They could have always existed, they just didn't open yet. That's why if you dig right outside an Abyss you won't ever get inside.”

“Huh. Okay then.”

The information is interesting but not quite useful.

I get closer to the mushrooms for a close up look.

They start about head level and grow down along a wet patch on the wall.

Hermione looks over also, “The spores are carried by the water on the walls, that's why there's this cascade of mushrooms. Though why they glow is beyond me, if I had to guess though, I'd say Aether.”

I pick at one of the mushrooms.

“Well, it feels like a normal mushroom.”

There is no glow on my fingers after picking apart the mushroom, I can't lie I was hoping to glow a little.

Hermione squats and starts picking at the mushrooms that grow along the cave floor next to the wall, after verifying through me that they are indeed, not poisonous.

“It looks like the glow is a property of the mushroom itself, not the fluid in the mushroom.”

“Hey, Hermione does this count as an artifact? Should we collect them?”

Hermione rubs some mushrooms between her fingers and smells the paste.

“No they don't count, but we should take some anyway. Who knows, we may decide to eat them over starving to death later if we get stuck down here after all.”

I smile awkwardly. I get the feeling she's blaming me for all this.

“Alright, I'll grab a couple.”

I pull them from the wall with ease and stuff around two dozen into my pack.

The mushroom’s glow penetrates through the sackcloth.

After I picked the mushrooms we head further in.

The cave suddenly widens after a few more minutes of walking.

This time I don't rush in like a fool.

Hermione stares at me, probably expecting me to do something stupid.

Instead, I crouch down, not that it would hide me from anything, with all the mushrooms glowing I'm pretty conspicuous. And Hermione standing there looking at me like I'm an idiot doesn't help.

I stare back at her and glance at the floor, trying to tell her to get down with my eyes.

She sighs and crouches next to me.

Together we just look cautiously into the cavern.

It's actually huge.

It's an enormous opening with columns twice my length in width here and there. The mushrooms make this place look surreal, the blue glow is everywhere, crawling up the columns, in patches around the floor, all along the walls, even on top of the boulders that are scattered throughout the cavern.

From the ceiling come long vines that also glow, but this time a light orange almost like the Emberite.

After making sure nothing moves in the cavern we both carefully step in and double check that nothing in here will attempt to murder us.

I don't want to die before living life in comfort, without risk of death and therefore not in the Grimes.

I don't put my Emberite away, all the glowing mushrooms and vines light everything up pretty well, but I don't know if we will need to make a quick escape into a dark cave.

Better to just keep it out.

Walking around under the lighting feels pretty good, it's pleasing to the eye, and there's a slight chill making the stale cave air a bit more refreshing.

Hermione is knocking on one of the columns a few feet away from me.

From her example, I also take interest in the columns.

I move closer to the column nearest to me, vines hanging from above and a boulder about three feet away from the column.

I immediately notice there's something strange about the columns. The texture and structure is different from what we saw before on such formations.

The exterior of these columns reminds me of bark from trees.

I look up on reflex to check if there are branches.

The inky blackness beyond the vine’s light makes it a challenge to make anything out.

I see from the corner of my eye Hermione also craning her neck to look beyond the light.

She whispers in fascination, eyes wide open, “Stone trees.”

I guess that settles that. She must have seen beyond the darkness.

“I wonder if they grow.”

I hear her whisper to herself again.

Then I get an idea, “The vines. They must be branches, like from a willow tree.”

“Wow.” I hear her say.

And I too find this amazing.

I get an urge to climb the stone tree to get to the branches and maybe see beyond the light, but I suppress it. No need to do anything unnecessary that could lead to premature death.

Instead, I lean against the boulder and just gaze for a minute.

Until the boulder moves.

Hermione looks over in panic at the sudden rumbling noise and I, like the experienced brawler that I am, jump away a few times in complete control of my bladder all the while doing a half turn to face the boulder. I crouch and raise my fists, ready for a fight to the death.

The boulder on the other hand completely ignores us.

It stands on four short, bulky, stone legs and the head emerges from near the bottom of its body, like a turtle. It seems to be silently chewing on stone as if it's mere curd and glares at me with its black, beady eyes as it slowly rumbles away, all the while letting out a deep noise akin to two stone grinding at each other slowly.

I get the feeling that's the equivalent of a human grumbling.

The boulder-like thing moves to the other side of the stone tree and drops down like a pile of bricks, I assume it continues to eat the floor.

It's then that I notice all the little areas of the floor that are missing some, well, floor, forming shallow holes. Some of the holes are filled with water others not, reminding me of the streets full of potholes in the Grimes.

My mood suddenly drops, I'm so used to the Grimes I missed something so frustratingly obvious.

I also notice all the moisture from the usually damp rock floor is completely gone from the place where the rock thing was occupying, but I'm in such a sour mood I don't care much about even something so interesting.

Hermione warily looks around at all the boulders around us as she walks closer to me.

I just stand here in this spot, with what I assume Hermione would think is a childish pout, on my face.

She starts grinning and whacks me on my back.

“I think that Grock liked you.”

“Grock?”

“Yeah! I just named it, the book didn't have anything about them in it. I could be an undiscovered species of abyssal construct.”

“Hey did you notice all the potholes?” She suddenly asks with a grin.

My sour mood returns in full force as I gloomily respond, “Yea I noticed. A little late though.”

I pout, I can't help it.

“Eh, don't be so gloomy we don't need a rain cloud over our heads, I didn't notice until it moved either.”

My mood lifts a little at that.

“Did you notice the dry patch? I think that the Grock was absorbing the moisture by sitting on it. Or was that laying? Oh man, that's so much like the mushrooms, but it also eats rocks and so quiet too, I was right next to one and I didn't hear. Imagine the jaw strength and the sharpness of its beak. That was a beak, right? Like a turtle.”

She lets out a very un Hermione like giggle out.

“I've never seen a turtle before except in books, this almost counts right? Look at it now! The mushrooms! Aren't they a bit dimmer than they were before? I wonder if moving makes it dimmer. Is it a direct representation of its energy? Are the mushrooms in symbiosis with the Grocks or are they parasitic?

Hermione's excitement is contagious and I find myself smiling.

Hermione continues to ramble about how she thinks the relationship works between the mushroom and Grock as we explore the cavern.

The tension leaves my body and I start feeling tired, the kind of tiredness that slowly settles in your bones, the dangerous kind. This kind of fatigue rears its head at the moment you need to act.

We need to find a place to rest or the staircase.

“Hermione do we rest or keep going, ” I say as I rub my face.

“I don't think we will find a place like this again if we leave.”

Hermione looks around, her shoulders drop as her excitement fades.

“I think we should rest, the sickness shouldn't come for another day or two, ” she says hesitantly.

She must have been tired for a while.

We look around for a suitable place to close our eyes, a place as far from Grocks as possible, just in case, they develop a taste for flesh as we sleep.

We look around for a while before I decide maybe we should try climbing the trees.

“Hermione I'm going to climb one of the trees.”

“Why?”

I shrug and look at the Grock nearby.

“Seems like a safer place, if there's room enough to sleep, I’d rather sleep up there instead of down here.”

Hermione looks up at the trees and shrugs.

“I guess.”

I walk up to the nearest stone tree and try to pull some stone bark off, to test if it can support my weight.

It doesn't budge so I guess I'm fine, I reach for a knot in the tree and pull myself up.

I feel my muscles rippling and stretching as I pull myself up towards the next handhold. There's a certain satisfaction in knowing you haven't gone too soft. Not that you can get soft living in the Grimes, just more sloppy and slightly less hard, which usually leads to death.

My mood flashes dark for a second before I focus on climbing.

The climb isn't hard, there is plenty of space between the bark.

The bark is unnaturally thick and widely spaced apart. Must be because it's made of stone. At least I don't have to worry about Hermione climbing up.

I get up to where the darkness starts, the willow-like branches still droop down but up here they don't glow.

I reach a split in the trunk. There are 4 different shoots coming from the tree, leaving plenty of mostly flat space in the middle for a little bit of rest.

I still can't see the top of the cavern even as I pull the Emberite out from a pocket that I stuffed it in when I began my climb.

All that I can see is the branches fading into the blackness up above me.

“Hermione there's space up here, you can climb up.”

I can't help but think if Hermione climbs this tree, we will be sleeping next to each other, I tell myself I’d rather have that than being split up.

“Uh, alright, I'm coming up.”

As she climbs I look down across the cavern. The lights spread out across the entirety of my vision, I can't see where the lights end which means I can't see the end of the cavern. The lights begin at nearly the same point in every willow branch, making the view quite spectacular it's like looking at a warm orange blanket spotted with the blue light from the mushrooms.

Hermione finally gets up here, so I help her up.

“Thanks.”

She then spots the view and gasps, drinking in the view with her wide open eyes, lights twinkling in them.

I prop down next to one of the four main branches and slide down until my back and head are against the branch and my legs are relaxed.

Hermione does the same after drinking in the view for a while longer. She slides down, much in the same way as I did, on the opposite branch from me. We look each other in the eyes for a bit.

Her nose is small

The thought flys through my mind

I close my eyes after that to try and get some sleep.

I drift away into sleep feeling her gaze on me.

--------

I wake up with a start. I still feel tired so I must not have been asleep long.

Hermione is asleep, breathing deep.

I look around. I feel that something’s wrong. I get an itchy feeling in the back of my mind and even though I'm tired I feel restless.

Nothing is visibly wrong.

I get up and look down.

The lights still shine, the Grocks still, well, chilling I guess, and the trees still standing.

But the feeling persists.

I move over to Hermione and shake her gently, I put my hand near her mouth, in case I need to shut her up.

She wakes with a start and I put my finger to my lips. She understands and I move my hand away from her mouth.

She gets up and looks around with a confused look.

She shoots me an annoyed look, some of her messy hair over her face.

I shrug with as much seriousness as I can and look out again.

At first, I don't spot anything, Hermione glaring daggers at me, but then I see it.

I blink and rub my eyes to make sure I see it right.

The tree next to us down at the trunk is rippling like water.

I point to show Hermione.

Hermione and I stare at the approximately 6 feet of trunk that ripples more and more violently.

Finally, when I think the tree would fall over, there's a loud crack, and the trunk splits open outwards. Like an explosion, but none of the stone from the tree detaches

Out from the stone, a big ass rock thing walks out.

Hermione stifles a gasp with her hands over her mouth and under her breath says, “Golem.”

I almost didn't catch it.

The Golem makes a grinding noise, and all the Grocks nearby respond in the same kind.

The stone tree folds back in on itself as if time were reverting.

The Golem makes a high pitch sound, almost like chirping, but more rock-like.

The Grocks all stand up on their stubby little feet, and shuffle towards the Golem eagerly, like the puppy's I saw in the Fringe once, all wobbly but still somehow walking.

The Golem is seven or eight feet tall, it was leaning forward when it came in from the trunk, but now that it's out it stands at its full height its huge. Its shape is humanoid in essence but that much bulk clearly makes it inhuman, not to mention it’s made of rock.

The Golem gently crouches down among the Grocks and spreads the digits on its hand out.

The Grocks crowd around the hand and suckle on the stone fingers.

How weird.

The Golem lets every Grock around it suckle for a while.

The Grock that I disturbed, the one with dimmer mushrooms, hobbles over to the Golem while grumbling.

I beg the Abyss not to let them be able to clearly communicate.

The Golem pays more attention to this one, letting it suckle for a bit longer than the other ones.

The Golem tilts its head in confusion as it lets the Grock suckle, but it shows no sign of noticing us.

It stays for another hour, or so it feels like, playing with the Grocks, letting them chase its hand and clamp their jaws on its arm.

It would have actually been quite cute if not for that stain all over the Golem which I strongly suspect is dried blood.

The Grocks settle down and shuffle to a new spot to plop down on and the Golem moves back to the tree, which ripples again as it touches it. The Golem bends over to reduce its height and slips into the watery tree. The stone tree continues to ripple for a minute or two, then it settles down to solidity again.

Hermione looks at me with her eyes wide open.

“I think we should find our way out before another one pops out of the woodwork.”

“Wait, so they live in the trees?” I ask in horror.

“I don't think so. I think they use the trees as exit points from the rock. Golems are able to travel through stone. What I didn't know is that Grocks are Golem children. The books never said that and the instructor didn't mention it. In fact, it mentioned that Golems are never found on early levels of the Abysses,” she says with pride, her chest puffed up.

I scrunch my forehead in confusion.

“How’d you decide that the Grocks are Golem children?”

Hermione looks at me with exasperation, her lips narrow, “That's the question you have? It was obvious, the Golem fed them, and played with them, ” she said curtly, lips still narrow.

She starts climbing down the tree, leaving me alone, baffled at her sudden change of mood.

What was I supposed to ask?

After she makes it down and starts walking away I grab my pack and the Emberite and hurry to climb down, scratching my knee on the bark in my haste, I run to catch up to her.

We, or rather, she picks a direction to go in and that's the direction we go.

I was about to tell her to wait for me to use the compass but decided not to say anything, instead, I quietly dig around in the pack while we walk and pull out the compass to verify if she chose the right direction.

She did, amazingly, so I put the compass away and continue walking.

So this is what they mean by feminine intuition.

I rub my face with both hands to wipe the sleep away when I suddenly get the same feeling everyone gets when they wake up.

“Hey Hermione, nature calls.”

I run to a nearby tree and get behind it to relieve myself. It's a little strange with all the light on me.

When I finish I pull out the water skin and use a little of the already small amount of water we have to at least wet my hands, if you survive in the Grimes long enough you learn to keep a certain standard of hygiene. There's only so much death due to poor hygiene you can stand to see and not keep a standard.

Hermione quietly walks behind another tree when I get back, to do her own business I assume.

When she gets back she uses a lot more water to clean her hands. I magnanimously don't mention it though.

Less water for her.

I smirk

But most likely less for me.

My mouth slowly turns into a scowl.

She then takes a long drink.

As I thought.

She passes me the waterskin and I drink what's left.

I sigh as I put the empty water skin away and we move on, making sure to keep away from trees - and the Grocks.

As we walk side by side Hermione lets her hair out of the bun and runs her hand through it over and over trying to clean it up.

After a while of combing, she seems satisfied and wraps it back into a bun.

I shake my head and pick up the pace.