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The Caves (5) : To any explorers visiting the new Reservoir, they may find that just a bit away from the sandy water are a set of caves. Some of these connect back to the lake, but others rapidly plunge into darkness. It wouldn't be hard to get lost in here, but thankfully there are some very odd lights to help guide you out. If you turn off your light down some of these dark paths, you may find yourself surrounded by glowing pastel lights. A closer inspection reveals that you seem to be looking at some sort of glowing caterpillars. An internet search will reveal that Destiny City scientists have been researching the strange, unnamed creatures, but the articles are very limited. If you take them out of the cave they seem to shrivel up almost immediately. They’re neat, but clearly meant to be stay in their natural habitat.
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Takes place June 25, 2022.
'These things just happen in this city.'
Fine, sure. Weissite had seen enough in his almost-year's worth of being an agent that things "just happening" wasn't super uncommon to him, anymore. Still didn't like it. Still felt certain there had to be something they could do to prepare or resist or avoid these mayhemy things. When they'd come to the reservoir the night before, one of the inexplicable 'things' had dragged one of his best friends under the surface and hadn't let him go.
It had almost killed Gideon.
Why was everything always after Gideon?
There were forum posts and news articles of it happening to others. Not infrequently, even. More private channels claimed it was a youma, which Weissite guessed was possible, since they'd all been hanging out as civilians, and there was no way for a youma to know who was an agent or not if they weren't powered up. But he somehow didn't think so, despite having no evidence. Those same articles had also claimed that no one had died, yet. And why wouldn't a youma kill its prey?
It had to be something else.
Something else harassing people and almost killing his best friend.
He went back to the reservoir as Weissite, using his heightened senses to try and feel out anything off in the area.
Notably, nothing felt like youma. Which was maybe odd in its own way, considering how populated the area was with people who couldn't defend themselves. If it wasn't allied with the Negaverse, what would he do if he really found something? Noooot important. Tell Rakovanite, certainly. Assuming he didn't die from the encounter. Odds were good? It hadn't killed anyone yet.
His investigation led him from the cliffs where they'd jumped from, down a little tree-lined precipice back toward the bank. He couldn't feel anything as he stalked through the dark of night. No youma or senshi or anything that he could pick up on the radar of his powered sense. Instead, he found only caves. And if that wasn't someplace for something to hide, then Weissite didn't know where was.
He moved into the caves silently, still not sure what he was looking for or hoping to find, but the darkness felt more distinctly like a disadvantage now. When it was just night, it was dark enough to conceal him from anything not paying attention, but still light enough for him to see. In the caves, he was walking blind, using only the powered sense to try and tell if something otherworldly was lurking. Hopefully there weren't any bears. Those would be harder to sense.
Fortunately, Weissite didn't have to walk far into the cave before there was something unusual on the path. On the path, and on the walls, and on the ceiling: some kind of glowing... bug?
Little caterpillars inching across the stone.
Though they were maybe too unusual to be a typical creature, he didn't feel any aura off of them. If he took out his phone and did an image search off a picture he took, there were even a few links of locals spotting them, playing with them, holding them, trying to remove them from the cave and failing. Nothing said there were any adverse effects to handling them. They were just... strange. Pretty and phosphorescent, but harmless.
Weissite didn't see any information on what they grew into, but... maybe it just wasn't important. Nothing here seemed particularly out of the ordinary, and he hadn't found anything that could grab a man and hold him underwater, so... Might as well continue on, with just the picture he'd taken for his efforts.
(607)
