Welcome to Gaia! ::

Jacob paused for the slighest moment, then nearly smacked himself in the face.

"You're right..."

Quickly, he disguised himself as his mutilated old past self again. After a numerous amount of turns, twists, and a few climbs down a couple of rocky drops, Johnathon signaled for everyone to be quiet. The massive area up ahead was lit with some sort of glowing ore in the walls, showing off a rather long and large natural bridge of sorts over a deep pit. Drips and running water could be heard.

"Careful here. There are these things called crawlers that are attracted to noise. Very delicious, but dangerous to hunt. A little bit smaller than us lightning imps. Nothing but tendrils and sharp mouths all over, they like damp, dimly lit places. Bright light burns their ability to see, but they'll still be able to hear excellently. Ssh, ahead. There's one. Let it pass back into the water below."

Indeed, there was a writhing mass of octopus like tentacles on the middle of the bridge slithering blindly, occasionally making a quiet, high pitched squawking sound. It slimed it's way to the edge of the bridge and dropped, hanging on by just a couple of arms, before letting go completely, eventually splashing into the water unseen below.

Over the years, they've practically grown immune somehow. Maybe some sort of experimental chemical found it's way into the water here from the mages...

Just as the group made it over the halfway point off the long bridge, there was a slight quake. Just enough to make a few large rocks come falling down from the ceiling and crash into the side of the bridge, making loud noise and talking a small chunk of it with them. A few people in the group winced at the clatter made, knowing that it would attract undue attention. Sure enough, screeching, squawking crawlers leaped out from barely see-able waterfalls in the sides of the distant walls, and from the bottom of the watery pits.

The idea to hurry up through flying was a good one, until something deep roared. Johnathon and the other imps looked rather surprised at this one. Especially when a massive tentacle raised out from under the depths and slammed onto the other end of the bridge, splashing water and scattering bits of debris everywhere from the impact. Apparently Niearcim chemicals and residue magics had leaked itself down here, because a massive crawler pulled itself up. Looks like the group woke up big mama.

"...im.... impossible..."

It opened one of it's many mouths and dozens of infant crawlers slipped out, squealing for a meal.

The majority of the crawlers went towards the food, but the larger one almost seemed to sniff the air. Parts of it's flesh peeled back, and it revealed compound squid-like eyes as it gurgled and hissed. This one wasn't so easily fooled and wanted a bigger meal. One of it's mouths stretched out and snapped at Sephiroth, while using several tendrils to try and snatch him up.

(thinking) This one isn't acting like it should! And it certainly shouldn't have eyes with which to see! Not only is it massive, it's mutated in other ways!

Tendrils and teeth followed Sephiroth while the smaller crawlers were busy with their new meals tossed out by the angel.

During this chaos, Jacob was steathily casting some manner of spell, trying to examine what magics had leaked into the animal. He figured maybe he could reverse some of it so it wouldn't be so dangerous, while dodging a flailing tentacle. that smashed against a wall.... behind it were dozens a jelly like eggs, each one holding a baby crawler.

Jacob mentally swore at how many there just seemed to be in this little ecosystem.

A smaller, thinner tendril wrapped around Sephiroth's ankle and attempted to yank him down into the creature's main gaping maw. Quick action by others cut other tendrils that tried to entangle him, but that one slippery one was still a problem...

The large creature paused, just a foot away from cramming Sephiroth into it's mouth. It seemed to sniff the air, before giving out a strange song-like groan, almost dropping the angel on the ground. It's stomach rumbled loudly though, mouths salivating. It was obviously still hungry, though now calmer... Only they didn't know how much longer it would stay calm.

Well.. that worked for now. Perhaps you should feed it something, dear? I'm guessing it's been giving up most of it's food to it's young, poor thing.

After a while of messy eating, the crawler gave a slight belch, almost seeming to purr... it had saved a little bit in some of it's teeth, possibly to give to it's young, as it slithered back down to the watery depths. The other crawlers followed it as well.

Jacob in the meantime casted a small spell to reverse some of the more ill effects that the Niearcim residue magics had on the mother crawler and it's young, including a more foul than usual temperment.