Prompt 5: The Caves
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.


Vaylin sat in biology classroom listening to lector on bio-luminescence. Her professor began to talk about a strange local example of the biological phenomena, caterpillars that glowed but only in one cave in Destiny City. That was strange enough to peak the alien girl's attention. The professor stated that local scientists had found that upon being removed from the cave the luminescent caterpillars shriveled up and died. That didn't make sense to the Corporal, she understood that some creatures needed to live in a certain environment but the environment of the cave should not be that different to the outside world that the creatures would die immediately upon exposure, at least not without deep enough that unprotected humans would not be able to get to the caterpillars. Then there was the location, a cave near the Reservoir, the same reservoir that housed the strange monster that had twice now attacked her. She suspected there was magic at work in those caves.

So once her class ended Vaylin shouldered her bag and slipped out of the classroom. She headed back to her apartment. Later that night once the cover of darkness had fallen she made her way to the Reservoir in her uniform with her weapon secured at her hip. She looked distrustfully at the dark waters. She was prepared for if the monster tried to attack her again, keeping her hand on the hilt of her blade she skirted around the lake to the entrance of the cave. As she walked down one of the dark paths she spotted a pastel glow. Sure enough as she approached she saw the glowing little worm like creatures.

Getting out a note book Vaylin began to take observations of the tinny glowing caterpillars. The were fascinating and very pretty. A part of the young Velencian wanted to keep some of the caterpillars both for further study and just so she could continue to appreciate their beautiful light. But even if she could safely remove them she knew it would be wrong to enslave a creature in that way, even ones as small as these caterpillars. She knew the humans often enslaved the animals of their world as pets or even worse for mass food production, something she found very difficult to reconcile with, but she would hold true to the values she was raised with. All life was precious and all life deserved to be free. So once her notes were finished she left the incandescent creatures in peace where they belonged. She continue to search the cave taking notes of the atmosphere and anything else she thought was important. She was hoping to find some other magic phenomena but most the rest of the cave system seemed to be fairly ordinary by Earth standards. So feeling a little disappointed but still glad she had come out the young Corporal began the trek back to her apartment to compile the data that she had and see if any of it might prove useful.
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