📚Jungle drunker

Amity sets out to search for an odd client’s odd request, but comes across a bit more than she bargained for.

Characters: Amity, Mokotan, Faizah (briefly mentioned)

Warnings: N/A

Wordcount: 2,366

Vibe: yaaaay character interaction (with a twist)

this one is named after a moro song : p 

this ended up mostly turning into a fun little character interaction bit, with some ~lore~ or whatever to spice it up. faizah is also here i guess

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Treasure hunting… was not Amity’s specialty – despite her history of petty jewelry theft.

But, a job’s a job, after all.

The client just seemed relieved to even meet a mercenary in the desert kingdom’s large city – while its primary inhabitants were certainly more than well-equipped for risky exploration, the buglike xenoforms were rather infamous for their preference to avoid anything that was too ‘unpleasant’.

Amity was just visiting – she wasn’t expecting to pick up work while she was here. She thought she’d be too preoccupied with the antics of the kingdom’s queen, who was like a sister to Amity.

But a mysterious merchant managed to lure Amity in while she was out and about. She was a deerfolk woman, the sight of such alone was odd – as the species was known to mostly reside a long ways away.

She jumped a barrier, and Amity was far too curious not to investigate.

Her name was Faizah. She claimed to be a traveling merchant of sorts, and has recognized Amity as a mercenary through word of mouth.

Though she spoke with the demeanor of a chatterbox, her words during the meeting and eventual agreement were brief…

One of her associates got into a scuffle in the tropical rainforest that neighbored the desert, while scouring for ruins on the forest floor. Faizah’s associate managed to evade their attacker by slipping into a mysterious manmade crevasse to hide.

…But because they were already exhausted from the fight, Faizah’s associate left without investigating further.

That’s where Amity was to come in – Faizah had been looking for something of this nature, and was frustrated that her associate let it slip away so easily.

Amity was… conflicted. What if it was a shrine? A grave site?

Faizah seemed to double down though, until she increased her offer to one that Amity would feel stupid refusing.

So, here she was.

The floor of the rainforest had a reputation for being relatively untouched by sapient species, as the intelligent denizens of the area built their cities upon the canopy layer…

Built high up, to avoid the large predatory megafauna that would prowl below the canopies.

That was probably the least of Amity’s problems, though. That was where her training as a mercenary was, after all.

She couldn’t say as much for her perceptive ability.

It was tricky, trying to balance looking around for signs of anything manmade while also remaining aware enough of her surroundings to not become some large predator’s next snack.

So much so, that before she knew it, Amity realized that she’d completely lost track of her steps… and that there was absolutely no reception this deep in.

“Shit…”

Amity’s hushed complaint to herself seemed to be lost among the sounds of the jungle, as she kept hitting the button to try and refresh her flip phone’s connection – as if mashing it would even do anything.

Amity had been in less than ideal situations before, of course. It was to be expected in her field of work.

…That didn’t make falling into them any more pleasant.

But, just as it’d been in the past…

“Excuse me, you over there! Are you lost?”

The voice was a bit husky, and caught Amity completely off-guard. It was absolutely the last kind of thing she was expecting.

With a jolt, Amity turned to face the call – it was a tall, muscular kitsura woman. Her gait was casual, and she seemed relaxed.

At least, until she noticed Amity’s crossbow.

“Fuck’s sake.” she sighed.

“Are you another poacher? For real? What’s even causing the influx lately, man?”

Amity froze.

“I’m… not?”

The woman’s brow furrowed in response to Amity’s reply, an expression that didn’t inspire confidence.

“That model of crossbow is primarily distributed around Underdeck black markets. If you’re going to lie, at least try harder.”

“Hey! How did you-” Amity cried out defensively – but was quickly cut off.

“Man, I don’t have time for this! You being here already means I need to make sure you have a reason not to come back.” the woman growled.

“That reason being ME.”

Without much more hesitation, the woman charged Amity in attempt to tackle her to the ground – but this wasn’t Amity’s first rodeo of this nature. In fact, Amity had practically perfected her dexterity when it came to fighting those larger than her, and was able to swiftly roll out of the way.

So, the chase began.

Judging from the woman’s physique, Amity knew she’d be no match in hand to hand. And while her crossbow could definitely take the assailant out… Amity didn’t like hurting sapient species like herself. So really, it was a matter of outrunning the woman until she got tired, or until a large predator interrupted their chase and gave them both something bigger to worry about.

The two skirmished for a moment – every time the woman tried to make a grab at Amity, Amity was able to slip out of the way… but each time, it felt like she was getting closer and closer to actually catching her.

Amity just figured she could try and make a break for it, and hope that the woman would trip or fall in some manner.

The woman went to grab Amity again, and this time, was able to get her by the cape. Thinking quickly, Amity simply slipped out of the cape, catching the woman offguard and using it as her chance to run.

Amity’s pace was light and her strides were long, and she didn’t plan on looking back until…

Crash.

It was the unmistakable sound of branches snapping. Fearing for the worst, Amity glanced behind herself – only to skid to a stop when she realized her pursuer was nowhere to be found.

Cautiously, Amity backtracked… only to quickly realize that there was now a sinkhole of some kind in the path she’d been chased on. Branches and moss obscured Amity’s view down a bit, but it seemed to be quite a drop – and at the bottom, the woman was reeling in pain.

It was difficult.

Being a mercenary meant you were supposed to not care about things like this, especially when it was something threatening you just seconds earlier…

…But…

Amity took a deep breath, and grabbed a zipline from her belt. She anchored it firmly to one of the unbroken branches, and lowered herself down the sinkhole.

To which, Amity quickly realized this wasn’t a sinkhole. It was… manmade.

It was also very dark – but the light cast from above was enough to still see the woman who had fallen down.

She was hissing in pain and gripping her knee, and didn’t seem to notice Amity until she spoke.

“Are… are you ok? Is it broken?”

Amity’s words seemed to snap the woman out of her trance, as she turned to Amity – expression a mix of pained and confused.

“Shit, what?” she said in between gasps.

“Why did you come down here, why do you care?! Shit, you’re not a poacher after all, are you?”

Amity paused for a moment, not directly responding.

“I have compression wraps and a cooling pack, would those help?”

“Ugh, yeah. Bring out the first aid kit.”

Amity helped the woman sit up, and quickly went to take her first aid supplies from her bag.

Rolling up the loose-fitting leg of the woman’s pants to expose the knee, Amity was both surprised and relieved to find it wasn’t bleeding or bruised.

“Are you sure it’s this one?” Amity asked, before lightly tapping a finger to it – but the woman’s reaction was more than enough to answer the question.

“Ah, sorry!”

“Not your fault, kid, don’t worry.” the woman huffed in reply.

“It’s a bad knee.”

There was silence as Amity patched the woman up, and silence as she sat there while her knee’s pain calmed down.

“What’s your name? Who are you, even?” the woman asked – the pain was out of her voice enough that it was back to the hearty and curious tone it’d been when she first greeted Amity.

“Name’s Amity.” she nodded in response.

“I… don’t normally get around these parts. A client just wanted me to… uh, find something? It wasn’t a living or endangered something, I promise!”

Amity’s clarification gave the woman a bit of a chuckle.

“Geez, you’re sure over-equipped for just a treasure crawler, then.” she said.

“I’m Mokotan. Sorry I was… quick to judge.”

“It’s alright, I’m kinda used to it.” Amity nodded.

“I mean, the fact you could recognize my crossbow as the kind it was… mean’s you have prior experience to know people who carry it tend to be bad news, right?”

“Yeah, bingo.” Mokotan sighed.

“I did professional wrestling, back in the day. My ‘rival’ dragged me into the underground scene, and eventually busted my knee so bad that I had to retire. Nothing good happens in the Underdeck.”

“No shit… can’t argue though, this thing is the best of the best for beast killing.”

“So you are a poacher?”

“No, no!!” Amity rebutted, almost offended.

“I usually do dangerous beast response in like, the Dirge area. I don’t do illegal stuff! Not anymore!”

“Damn, ok! Sorry.” Mokotan chuckled.

“I’ll stop interrogating you, ya seem like a good kid.”

The tone of the conversation managed to lift the mood significantly – so much so, that Amity had gotten a bit distracted.

But all the chatter had given her eyes some time to adjust to the darkness, and she took a pause in the conversation to look around a bit more.

It seemed to be… a chamber of some kind, constructed out of stone. It was no doubt manmade – though overgrowth was still particularly heavy in some areas.

But apart from the overgrowth of tree roots, the chamber itself was empty – only connecting to a corridor of some kind.

“You have any idea what this place is?” Amity asked, turning to Mokotan.

Mokotan shrugged.

“Nope, I’m about as puzzled as you are. Far as I’m aware, people stopped building and living on the forest floor eons ago. Even long before the Darkest Day.”

“Hmm…” Amity hummed to herself.
“This is sort of… the kind of thing I was looking for. I was gonna look deeper and see where the corridor leads.”

“Alrighty, I’ll just hope that curiosity doesn’t hurt ya!” Mokotan nodded.

“Granted, I’d love to investigate too, but I should really head on home and rest.”

“You… can make it back ok?” Amity replied, a bit concerned.

“I’ve been through worse! Though, if you could help me up, that’d be awesome.”

Amity nodded, and helped Mokotan up to her feet.

With a rather noticeable limp, Mokotan paced over towards the line down into the chamber – and with an admittedly impressive display of arm strength, climbed her way out.

“Twas nice meeting ya, Amity! Sorry about earlier, again!” Mokotan said with a wave once she had fully pulled herself back out – a wave Amity returned.

Right. Back on track.

Carefully, Amity went to proceed through the darkness. Even after giving her eyes lots of time to adjust, it was still dark – so she extended an arm to one of the walls overgrown with roots, as a means to keep balance.

There were a few turns to the corridor, but it seemed to be one-way… as it eventually opened up into a different, larger chamber – this one being dimly lit by some kind of glow worm.

This chamber, unlike the last, did have some things in it… sort of.

There were evenly lined pedestals to the sides of the chamber – or at least, remains of what used to be pedestals, Amity could only assume. Time and natural erosion had not been kind to them.

…But, one pedestal remained – almost as if frozen in time.

It was at the edge of the chamber, and seemed in perfect condition – even retaining some form of shiny coating that was painted on. Atop the pedestal, was a roughly carved clouded diamond – seemingly in the shape of a bell.

There was no doubt to it – this had to be what Faizah was looking for.

As Amity approached the pedestal that the bell sat on, she could see a mural behind it. The mural was completely uncovered from roots and other overgrowth, almost as if repelled by a radius around the bell itself.

While the mural’s style did strike Amity as likely being ancient, it was still decipherable.

There were two large figures, one with a large crowd around them, and the other seemingly striking the wall behind the bell with a form of energy.

It seemed that the figure who had struck the bell was being chased away as they did so, up into the inverted sea above…

The figure being chased was pure black, with many eyes. Amity had no idea what or who they were supposed to be.

But the figure chasing them with the large crowd…

Was undeniably the Skymother.

There was also some kind of writing at the top, but it was in a language Amity couldn’t read. So, she took out her phone to snap a quick picture of it – in case Faizah or anyone else happened to know.

With that, Amity figured she only had one thing left to do. Nonchalantly, she swiped the bell from the pedestal – it wasn’t light, but not too heavy, either.

Almost instantly, the pedestal it’d been sitting on crumbled into dust, and roots rapidly grew to cover the mural.

It completely caught Amity off guard, and she froze – almost expecting the rest of the chamber to start crumbling too, having watched one too many movies where that was the next logical step.

But… nothing else happened.

Amity let her breath go, and cautiously went to put the diamond bell in her bag. There were some other corridors connecting to the chamber – but quite frankly, Amity really didn’t want to stay in the structure any longer.

She was able to leave the way she came, and rather hastily pulled herself out the same way Mokotan had exited.

The job was done, and all that was left was to report back to her client.

But… Amity had more than a few questions for Faizah.