Content warning:


    None.


    It wasn’t long after the stream had ended that Maeve was called by Professor Richards. She put him on video so everyone in the room could talk with him as well. Lauren begrudgingly got out of her seat, meaning no more bee girl in her lap.


    The deer-kin professor was sitting in an office, starkly lit, and with several pictures on the wall behind him, one of which was of himself and his family—one of his children was also a deer-kin. Rain pounding against the nearby window added white noise to the audio.


    “Hello, everyone! It’s been a while,” the professor said, waving. “And hello to Marama and Heather as well, though this is the first time we’ve spoken.”


    The two both gave small waves.


    “Is this about the stream?” Maeve asked.


    “Yes! Yes.” Professor Richards—Craig—nodded eagerly. “Myself and some others at the lab watched, and the special trees you mentioned piqued our interest. As I interacted with the Wolf Pack recently, I was asked to be a research liaison with you.”


    “What are you hoping to accomplish?” Lauren asked, her tail twitching irritably.


    Addressing her directly, he answered, “Unique new plants are of interest to us, because of all plant life worldwide withering. But it’s less about the specific plants themselves, and more the circumstances under which they changed. Samples of any plant from the Abyss would be useful, as well as any information you have. And we plan to release any results to everyone, unlike a government-funded lab.”


    Heh, he knows who he’s talking to.


    Craig gave a wistful sigh. “I’m quite tempted to become an Explorer again myself. The other thing I wanted to ask about is if you have any information regarding the undead. The Abyss-” A booming thunderclap interrupted him. “Sorry, massive storm going on up here. The Abyss was already the most popular Dungeon in the world, but with the recent discovery of the bottom Floor, it became even more popular.”


    Lauren tilted her head. “So more people means more of those undead blob things?”


    “Yes, and larger, too. And it’s Explorers specifically, not just any people. There are hypotheses about why that is the case, but nothing solid as of yet. Undead have never appeared on this scale before, so that’s why studying them is a priority.”


    Lauren whispered in Lucia’s ear. “So we just share information and samples if we feel like it? Seems okay to me, if you trust him.”


    Lucia smiled and nodded.


    “Alright,” Lauren said, standing before the three teams she’d entered the jungle with. “I’ll teach you everything I know about the jungle.


    “The first lesson is simple: Traversal. You somewhat know it already, but the ground has a ton of things that want to snack on you, and if you’re flying above the canopy, then you’re exposed to all the birds and bats and insects up there.


    She licked her lips. “That leaves the tree branches as the safest option. ‘Safest’ doesn’t mean ‘completely safe,’ though, just that you’ll have a slightly easier time of not dying. You’ll still have to deal with jaguars, chimpanzees, lemurs, eagles, pythons, beetles, mosquitoes, ants… You get the idea.”


    She paused to sort her thoughts—a somewhat difficult task with over a dozen people eagerly listening. “So, a lot of how I move around and deal with threats is reliant on my magic, but until we can figure that out, I’ll focus on non-magic things we can do.”


    With everyone ready to go, Lauren led the group of fifteen into the out of the stone buildings they’d constructed, and toward the stairway leading into the forest. She leapt up and out, and landed on the nearby branch. Savannah launched off the stairs a moment later, and one by one, everyone joined Lauren on the branch. Heather and Noah both flapped their wings midair, adjusting their trajectories.


    Lauren glanced at Heather’s bee wings and Noah’s bat wings. “How good are you at flying?” she asked them both.


    “We can’t fly,” Noah said, and moved one of his wings forward. “These don’t have enough size or power to actually lift me. No one with wings can fly.”


    People with wings can’t fly…?


    Heather nodded, “Gliding and turning is easier with feathered wings, from what I’ve heard. Wings like mine give better lift and maneuverability. And they supposedly help bees carry heavy loads, but I can’t really test that.”


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    “I see…” Lauren said.


    That really sucks. I want to fly with her.


    Lauren leaped through the branches with the group following behind her, leading them to a certain fruit tree with red, mop-like clusters growing from a few places near the top, filled with round, purplish fruits. “This is a bacaba tree. These fruits are delicious, but the bacaba trees in this area have changed to be poisonous. Not fatally so, but still enough to make you quite sick if your mana pool is small.”


    “That sounds like you ate some…” Maeve said suspiciously.


    “Uh, yeah. I did,” Lauren confirmed. “That was in my first year or two here, when things were a bit smaller and less deadly. I have enough mana now that the poison doesn’t affect me anymore, though.”


    Maeve facepalmed, and Heather tried not to laugh.


    Savannah stepped toward the edge of the branch to get a closer look at the fruit. “This is the tree the lemur keeps coming back to, right? Aren’t lemurs supposed to be intelligent?”


    Lauren shrugged. “That one in particular isn’t as intelligent I guess. It still comes here despite my best efforts to teach it not to.” She glanced around, half expecting to see the creature sneaking off with a fruit.


    She clapped her hands together. “Anyway, the reason I’m using this tree as a starting point is to give an example of how things in the jungle can be different from their mundane counterparts, and also so I can demonstrate the ways I’ve dealt with the lemur, which should hopefully be useful to dealing with the Explorer’s Association.”


    Lauren set her pack down and began emptying it, pulling out handmade tools—rope, tools of stone or bone, packets, and small crystals. With everything removed, she began demonstrating them. The tools were hooks and spikes for securing things in place, the crystals mostly either created a loud noise or a bright flash of light, and the packets were meant to drive things away with their stench.


    With everything explained, she left it to the group to work on setting everything up themselves, while she stood guard and answered questions. A few exploratory ants approached them while this went on, but relocating them was a simple task for her.


    “What do you think of these traps?” Lauren asked Emma, who was securing a rope around a branch.


    Emma glanced up at Lauren, but kept her focus on the rope. “They’re well-suited for this specific environment and your goals.”


    “You don’t have any critiques?” Lauren asked, tilting her head.


    Emma tightened a knot. “Nothing I’m sure you haven’t tried already, but I’ll wait until we’re back home and I can easily use the internet before I start that discussion. The one question I do have right now is why don’t you use another ward crystal to keep the lemur away from this tree?”


    “That spell doesn’t work in smaller crystals like these,” Lauren said, turning a crystal in her hand, “and the ward crystals aren’t infallible anyway. My house is fine because it’s in a place where animals don’t come very often, but in a place like this, one would eventually push through and attack it.”


    Emma leaped to a higher branch to secure the rope, “The internet’s not working right now anyway. Probably knocked out by ocean animals again.”


    “How do animals just knock out tech, anyway?” Lauren asked, keeping an eye on Dad Joke, who were carefully placing crystals in discreet locations. “I haven’t experienced it yet.”


    “It’s something about how mana interacts with technology,” Emma said. “We do know that a device that combines tech with mana crystals is less likely to fail, though.


    Once the traps were set up, the whole group moved to a different tree to keep an eye on their traps and surroundings, occasionally having hushed conversations. A piercing noise and a flash of light scared away a bird, and a gust of foul air drove off a beetle.


    Several hours had been spent in the tree, watching the traps. Lauren continued her explanation of how the traps might be used against a variety of creatures. Finally, they decided to end the day, picked up other fruits and materials for income, then headed for the EA.


    Outside the dome, there was a team of six all wearing sleek, pristine metal armor with logos on them. A camera shutter clicking resounded through the area as the team changed poses repeatedly. None of them were wearing their helmets so they could show off their conventionally attractive faces. Another team of Explorers stood nearby but out of frame, ready to protect the shiny group at a moment’s notice.


    …Corporate Explorers are strange.


    Lauren sighed and shook her head, then entered the dome with the rest of her group following suit.


    A group of Explorers approached them near the telepads. One of them—a tree-kin of some sort—headed straight for Lucia.


    “Hi Hayden,” Lucia said, waving. “It’s been a while. Sorry I haven’t had time to catch up lately. I’ve been kind of busy.”


    “That it has,” the tree-kin said, glancing at Lauren and giving her a small nod. Quietly so only those close by could hear, he asked, “Is there anything we can do with our positions as Federal Explorers to help hinder the EA?”


    “Hmm…” Lucia tapped her lip in thought. “I have some ideas, yes. To begin with…”


    As the two started chatting, Wine Witches and Dad Joke headed for the surface. Marama looked back and forth between those teams and the Wolf Pack, looking unsure about who she should stay with. She settled for sticking next to Heather. Hayden’s team greeted Lauren’s but didn’t say much else.


    Lauren turned her attention to Heather. “There’s a surprising amount of non-beastkin here…” Besides Heather, Marama, and Hayden, there were several others in the dome who also weren’t beast-kin.


    Marama scowled. “The government understands Explorers and magic even less than the general public does. They are under the assumption that ‘rare species’ equals ‘more powerful’. Being something rare, like a mushroom or a bee, does not mean we innately have more power. But because they invest more resources and training into rare species people, they end up becoming more powerful than many beast-kin, which then furthers their misunderstanding.”


    Heather gave Marama a hug, and Lauren added a small side hug. Marama cheeks were slightly red when they separated.


    Lucia and Hayden finished their conversation, and the Wolf Pack departed for the surface.