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“Sazahk!” Garin finally snapped, sure beyond a doubt that the animals in the gloom were aware of their presence.
“What? I’m in the middle of—oh!” Sazahk interrupted himself with an ecstatic gasp and Garin knew he’d spied their guests. He stood and grabbed Garin’s wrist. “Don’t shoot them.”
“I don’t want to, but I want to be mauled even less.” Garin didn’t lower his weapon, despite Sazahk’s deep frown and the blue dots appearing on his skin.
“You have no idea if mauling is even a behavior these creatures engage in.”
“Exactly.”
Sazahk huffed but didn’t pull Garin’s arm down, instead turning toward the animals and crouching. “They appear to be displaying curiosity.”
“Maybe,” Garin replied as a sixth pair of eyes appeared. The creature brushed the stalk of a fungus body and, for a brief moment, its silhouette flashed into relief.
“Did you see that?” Sazahk’s voice lifted in excitement.
“I did.” Garin had seen a domed back and a long tail and enough to confirm his earlier estimate of dog-sized.
The mushroom lit up again as the animal moved, and the light cascaded through its neighbors, illuminating the creature’s shape as it approached them.
“Sazahk, get back!” Garin grabbed Sazahk’s arm and pulled him behind him, but at the sound of Garin’s voice ringing against the stone walls and floor, all the eyes disappeared in a flurry of motion-activated fungal light.
“No!” Sazahk took an aborted half step forward, but by the time his foot hit the ground, the animals had gone. “You scared them.”
Garin let Sazahk shake off his grip, regret bubbling up in his throat, both at having grabbed Sazahk despite how much he knew Sazahk hated it and at having scared away the animals they’d partially come all this way to find. “I did. I’m sorry.”
“It’s—” Sazahk hunched his shoulders and sighed. “It’s okay.” He walked toward where the animals had been, sweeping the light of his headlamp back and forth across the ground. “You were just doing your job, though—oh, that’s interesting.”
“Please don’t get so close.” Garin joined Sazahk as the qesh kneeled beside a hole with dirt piled up around its edges. “That looks fresh.”
“I believe it is.” Sazahk ran his fingers through the loose dirt and it lit up with sparkling blue as they passed through. Garin bent to shine his headlamp into the hole and ensure there wasn’t an animal poised just inside ready to launch an attack. “They either dug these escape tunnels with remarkable rapidity or they emerged from these tunnels into this area.”
“Or some combination of the two.” Garin looked around and spied three other similar holes with mounded dirt.
“This soil is remarkably rich.” Sazahk scooped up a test tube full of dirt from the other holes. “I wonder if the animal was drawn to the soil or if its waste matter is responsible for its richness.”
Garin side-stepped away from the nearest pile. “Pleasant.”
“Perhaps they’re also drawn to the root of the mycelium.” Sazahk tucked away his test tube and hurried down the passage, already forgetting that Garin was supposed to be going first. “Let’s hope we see more.”
Garin wasn’t sure he could quite get himself to hope for another encounter with a mysterious and potentially dangerous creature, but for Sazahk’s sake, he at least didn’t actively hope against it.
He retook the lead, but Sazahk had lost interest in the fungus and strode along at his side, his head on a swivel. An hour later, despite Garin’s lack of hope, Sazahk grabbed Garin’s elbow, freezing him in place, and pointed to the wall on their left fifteen yards away.
“There!”
Garin saw the eyes a second before they disappeared and huffed a laugh. “Now who’s scaring them?”
Sazahk made a disappointed sound. “Maybe with exposure to us they’ll become bolder.”
“Maybe.” Garin didn’t re-holster his weapon. If they did become bolder, he wanted it at the ready.
Whatever the deal was with the animals, Garin and Sazahk were definitely closing in on the source of the mycelium. The thin strands and filaments adorning the ceiling and walls grew thicker and closer and closer together until they weaved a thick carpet across the floor. It muffled their footsteps and sent ripples of light out from every footfall.
Sazahk put a hand on Garin’s arm. “Turn off your headlamp.”
Garin balked, not liking the idea of blinding himself while being stalked by a group of possible ambush predators.
“For a moment, at least. For the sake of observation.” Sazahk turned off his own headlamp and, after a small sigh, Garin followed suit.
