Oasis

[Mahou-Shoujo]

Pearl seemed satisfied with the conclusion Ratty had come up with, at least enough to not try another explanation that could lead to dangerous results, and for a moment Ratty sort of almost felt a sense of pride? Perhaps Pearl was trying to make it feel proud, or even felt pride itself after managing to sorta communicate in a somewhat understandable way, it had only figured out that intentional communication was a thing fairly recently after all, only a short time after it realised it was somewhat alive and could think, despite being literally just a rock that a rat swallowed for all intents and purposes, of course with it's limited experience it didn't know WHY it might be weird for a rock to think, other than the weird 'other' memories in Ratty's brain, the ones that Ratty didn't seem capable of processing and using most of the time.

Pearl made use of another utility it had only recently discovered with the influx of magical energy, attempting to inform the rat that the water was safe to drink, by picturing it and invoking a feeling of safety and freshness, it was able to detect threats to it's host more or less, and felt that water was no danger at all, well other than drowning but if it was that concerned about safety it wouldn't let Ratty do anything, never mind sending it to a ruin like this full of potential unknown danger and still active traps.

Ratty had covered a good chunk of the floor they were on, and it seemed likely that the humans had disabled or stumbled into any dangers in the route they took, but there was the question of other floors, Ratty hadn't seen a single thing that looked like it could take it lower in the ruins so far, except for the hole in the water room, maybe there were more of the strange seemingly magical walls like the one in the burned room? If so it might need help from Lizzy to get through them, otherwise it might have to risk the hole.

Lizzy for her part first filled her water skin, before taking a long drink and washing her face and hands of the soot and dust that had gathered, she needed to clean her clothes too but that could wait until she was somewhere more sheltered, or until she had something else to wear other than her travelling robes.
"I umm, think I might stay here for a while, if you don't mind?"
Lizzy at this point assumed this was the Rat's home, other animals couldn't enter it, and the rat had showed knowledge of edible plants in the area and managed to even trigger traps in it's defence, so clearly it must have lived there already right?

 

[Fyrra]

Curious about its newfound ability to sniff out poisons and pollutants without using its nose, the rodent turned its gaze back into the river, aware that the water's source must have come from the surface. But the river flowed downward, and it appeared to be the only thing present that led downward, except perhaps this central sanctum it vaguely remembered hearing about but never noticed. Odd that the stone wall where it found the magic crystal was flammable, but then again, that could be a clue.

A clue, for when the lizard wanted to go exploring.

The rodent stood up on its hind legs again, nodding in response to the reptilian's request. Even if it wanted to let her know she wasn't welcome here, chasing down someone capable of conjuring flame and burning down the food supply out of spite seemed an unwise tactic. But, she seemed friendly enough anyway, and if the rodent hadn't energized itself, it would likely have taken a nap here as well. As it stood, it would rather continue exploring these ruins.

So, the rat spread its arms out again, spinning around once before mimicking a tiptoe motion. Then it touched its chest and pointed downward, before diving into the water and seeing just how far down it went.

Stay as long as you like, but be careful. I'm going down there.

 

[Mahou-Shoujo]

Pearl didn't seem willing or capable of explaining the new ability to detect poisons, but did at least have an explanation for the walls based on the memories it had picked from Ratty's brain, which was the single word of 'Magic' Pearl liked that work, it could explain so many things so easily and was the best excuse for when it only had a vague sense of what something was, after all, it had no idea what kind of magic created the false walls, or even WHY anyone would bother with a self sustaining magical false wall, but it didn't need to, just needed to ensure it was no threat and potentially find a way to get through one if it became a threat or impediment.

Lizzy was trying to get comfortable in a particularly warm spot made mossy by the nearby water, yet far enough away to not be constantly wet or too damp, clearly the woman intended on a nap to let her food digest and energy return, the earlier adrenaline having run out and left her exhausted and on the verge of a crash, even if normally she could have gone on a fair bit longer before sleep, it was odd how such things worked.

Lizzy assumed the rat was just going to swim, and nodded at it, she too would love to have taken a swim, and the water was likely just barely deep enough for her to pull it off, but with no way to warm up, and the sun likely not going to stick around long enough for her to fully dry, it would be a bad move for a cold blooded creature such as herself, her path through the ruins had of course not led her across the heat and light stones, which was a good thing as her party may have pried them out to sell.

The water went quite deep indeed for a rat, though Pearl seemed to have enhanced it's ability to hold it's breath in such environments, so it was able to reach deep enough to see quite a large hole where the river had likely carried something heavy enough to break through the stone flooring, unfortunately as soon as it got this deep, the strong current created by the draining water caught them, pulling Ratty uncontrollably down into the hole and after a few frightening seconds of tumbling, deposited it in the water below, it was now in a much shallower flow of water in a flooded part of the ruins, it was dark here, no problem to Ratty's eyes at least, and it wasn't too cold, through certainly not as warm as the floor above.

 

[Fyrra]

Strange. The rodent could swim deeper than it remembered being able to before, before needing to resurface. It had been a diver before, but now the creature felt like it was cheating.... up until the drain-hole at the bottom put too much pressure on the curious rat. A few air-bubbles escaped it in a squeak as it tried to swim up, but all that accomplished was delaying the inevitable: a frantic tumble and a crash into a new chamber further below, where there was still air?

Swimming to the surface of the shallows, the rodent looked around for a dry spot and shook itself free from the soaking water. A frustrated squeak sounded into the darkness: it wasn't sure how to repair the damage done to that spot, but it would have to be fixed before younglings could be allowed in. Of course, these were ruins. Something would have to be broken. A touch more pressing concern would be finding a way back up, or simply digging a path back up.

For now, however? There was a whole new level to explore! More wonders awaited! The rodent couldn't wait to resume exploring.

 

[Mahou-Shoujo]

It sort of WAS cheating, the pearl had been steadily optimising it's body well beyond the mortal limits of any of it's kind, it could do so much more with a human body, but powering up a rat body was almost fun, well it would be if Pearl had enough emotional ability to be able to enjoy something more than the tiniest bit, as it was emotions were mostly far too complex for it to even think about, though it was slowly learning via leaking from Ratty and the strange 'other' persona it found remnants of.

Pearl apparently had suggestions for the repair job at least, most of the floor around the hole was fairly stable, so it simply offered up an image of dropping a large rock or similar object into the hole to plug it up, of course, something like that could cause the water to overflow, since so much of it escaped down into the ruins through the hole.

With a whole new floor to explore Ratty simply had to pick a direction, Pearl didn't seem to have any insight as to where it should go this time, it's own knowledge of the area hadn't even included a second floor, hell it had barely included the first floor.
There were several viable looking directions, one was following the water, which led down a hall that produced an odd smell, that Ratty would recognise as 'eggs' which was odd, rats very rarely got their paws on eggs, and Ratty certainly hadn't, at most they had smelled one and it didn't smell like that... Another was another much drier and less eggy smelling path with odd bits of light in the walls, maybe it was more of those shiny stones but a different colour? And lots weaker.
And finally the third viable looking path was through a dark corridor, Ratty could vaguely make out the existence of a room beyond it but even rat senses could only do so much against the seemingly unnatural darkness.
'Magic' Pearl offered helpfully in reference to the dark room.

 

[Fyrra]

Stone good, but leaky plug. Not urgent, fix later.

The rodent was starting to grasp more of its parasite's suggestions, almost to the point of conversing with it. It appeared they both recognized the drainage puncture as a potential danger, if not an immediate one. That the lower levels of the ruins were not flooded entirely meant that they were either much, much larger than either of them had predicted, or the structural integrity of the strange river had only been compromised recently. Both? In order to get to the root of that quandary, the rodent would need to follow the waterflow.

What was strange, was the lack of any signs of habitation on the first underground layer: devices lethal to humans, designed as a natural defense, and a few magical stones, but no clues as to why this place existed. At first, this lower level appeared to be more of the same: strange lights in one direction, unfamiliar smells and more water in another, and... something too dark to see into? Dark because of magic? If the rodent could frown, it would: the dark room was obviously the important one, or at the very least it was either hiding something or designed in an intimidating manner. Perhaps the rodent had enough energy in its reserves to adapt and respond to whichever threat was hiding in there, but it had no reason to rush in when it could gather clues elsewhere first.

It chose the dry room with the strange lights, beaming with excitement as it sauntered off toward it. If the pearl wasn't having fun, the rodent certainly was.

 

[Mahou-Shoujo]

To be fair, after what had no doubt been a very long time, signs of habitation such as wooden furniture would likely have long decayed into dust, and the room it was currently in was completely ruined by the partial roof collapse and flowing water that had dug a groove through the stone floor, clearly it had been there for a fairly long time, which meant it must be going somewhere other than this floor, maybe there were other floors that were thoroughly flooded or fed out into a cave somewhere?

The dry hall extended out into several other rooms, and the light seemed to be coming from numerous glowing stones in the walls and ceiling, interestingly they were varying in brightness, and some were completely dark, despite looking exactly like the bright ones otherwise.
The rooms were all roughly the same size and there were many of them, it was difficult to tell what they were for, though there were some odd rectangles of wood in some of the rooms, they looked big enough for a human to lay on if there was anything laid on it, interestingly the wooden things seemed more intact the further away from the water they were, there was also one large room with more of the wood things, this time taller, with a surface and accompanying short long rectangles, to a rat they were just random assortments of wood.

 

[Fyrra]

Erosion.

The rat blinked. This word didn't come from the pearl, but it popped into thought while examining the decaying furniture, and the damage to the stone flooring. Exploring all the little rooms didn't bring the creature much in the way of clues: the glowing stones looked like nothing more like magic lights, and the wooden structures only vaguely resembled anything useful. But, they did illustrate that people lived here once before, even if the only thing to survive was the wooden structures that didn't look very decorative or artistic.

The rodent leapt up onto the large, rectangular thing, poking and prodding about, but without anything resembling handles or anything to open, or even anything perched atop the wooden structures, it appeared there was nothing of interest. Interesting rooms, though: probably a good nesting grounds, if it could find a way back up to the surface. For now, it wandered back into the flooded room, following the waterflow further down its path of destruction.

 

[Mahou-Shoujo]

Pearl seemed content with staying quiet during Ratty's explorations, after all, a dorm was hardly a great archaeological find, there were likely some containers or such that had survived, but it was unlikely Ratty could even open them, so it wasn't really worth checking the many rooms just in case, on the way back they did see what sort of looked like stairs, though they were completely blocked off by collapsed stone, the few tiny holes too small even for Ratty to get through, and there was no way they could dig through without a lot of help, it was doubtful that even the entire burrow would be enough to clear that in any reasonable timeframe, besides, burrows were generally in softer earth, so rats didn't have a whole lot of experience digging through so much stone.

The first thing that became clear as Ratty travelled was the egg smell becoming stronger, it wasn't too bad or overpowering, but definitely might take some getting used to for day to day living, soon however the source became clear, once again the ceiling had partially collapsed here, but mostly it seemed only that more of those heat and light stones had fallen into odd holes in the ground, and some of the water had flowed into them, where it became hot! Not dangerously hot, in fact, if Ratty dipped a paw in, it would find the water to be quite comfortable.
The words 'bath tub' came to mind.

The water continued to flow onwards through another partially collapsed passage, this one Ratty could probably make it through, and another passage wound off towards a room with a much larger hole, this one more uniform, a giant rectangle that seemed intentional, there was no water in it though.

 

[Fyrra]

What a strange smell this was. The rodent didn't have a word for it, or it wouldn't, had the reptilian up above not said something about an egg-like smell near the water. With collapsed stone blocking many of the other paths it could take, there couldn't be any harm in inspecting the warm water a bit closer. When the pearl retrieved a term to describe this pool, its host couldn't help wondering what the lizard would make of this: reptilians needed heat, which should be in short supply this far under the surface. She might need to be shown at some point, if only to gauge a reaction.

Finding the large room, the rodent took its time looking around.... and decided it didn't want to dig deeper while there was still so much of this floor to investigate. Still, this made four floors: the surface, the entryway with the sunstones and greenery, the current floor with the miniature rooms and the bath (which would make fixing the leaks even more troublesome), and whatever lie beneath. But still, no path back up.

Into the collapsed passageway the explorer crept.

 

[Mahou-Shoujo]

Whether Lizzy would find it helpful or not was only one potential option for the pools, assuming Ratty could keep them functional after repairs, the pool would be incredibly useful during winter, allowing the rats to warm up and swim at the same time, there would be no more deaths from the cold during winter! Or at least, significantly less deaths, even a huddle couldn't keep everyone alive when the cold got particularly bad, just one more reason to move.

The Rat very nearly went over the edge as it exited the hole through the rubble! It appeared that some seismic movement had shifted the very earth, opening up a crack beneath the floor that had likely been the cause of the cave in, there was still a small ledge connecting the two sides of the pit that looked stable enough, and across from that was a set of stairs leading up, likely the way to the next floor, despite the massive hole everything seemed as stable as you could hope, it also explained where the water was going, as it flowed directly into the pit, probably mixing with some underground stream, or slowly flooding a cave somewhere.

 

[Fyrra]

As useful as the pool might be, the rodent surveying this strange ruin found more concern with the danger of reaching it: it nearly walked over a ledge when emerging from the collapsed rubble, and soon after learning that this was the intentional path into the area. Was the intentional path. With the crack in the flooring opening up to reveal a deep pit, the rodent felt a little bit safer knowing that potential flooding wouldn't be an immediate concern, but hesitant about investigating the depths of this pit. Presumably it would have to venture down at some point, but for now the debris made for a nice barrier against predators trying to sneak in, even if it meant this place couldn't be shown off.

The creature squeaked in surprise when it saw stairs leading up, and after carefully moving across the ledge, it scaled them. Was this the way out?

 

[Mahou-Shoujo]

The pearl was already calculating ways down for future reference it seemed, showing several ways a determined rat could slowly and more or less safely climb down, plus the much more dangerous option of simply jumping, which would probably break several rats worth of bones, or at least drown Ratty, but it WAS technically an option.
It also felt like it should point out that there were no predators in the ruins, or even near them unless you counted the two who had fled and could potentially be lurking nearby, the pearl had been prepared to fight whatever was driving everything away, even saving up all it's energy to do so by going dormant, and was surprised to find it didn't need to.

A few small pebbles slipped into the abyss as Ratty crawled across, but overall everything stayed completely stable, the stone work was incredibly well done, and if not for whatever seismic event had torn that hole into everything, would likely have still been perfectly intact.
The stairs led up to a simple hall, Ratty could see several traps, one of which had clearly been triggered judging by the scorch marks adorning the wall opposite it, well this was definitely the way up, Ratty could actually see a small spot of sunlight through some broken ceiling.

 

[Fyrra]

Another hallway. No door? No false wall? No gate? The rodent puzzled over how it missed this hall in its previous bit of exploration as it turned back, realizing this must have been what put the other explorers in disarray before their encounter. With the path out secured and Pearl's insistence that no danger lurked in these ruins, the rat settled on exploring one more chamber before it would call this adventure complete. Funny, that they were both preparing for a fight that simply wasn't waiting for them, unless one counted the trespassers.

Back down the stairs the creature crept, then through the collapsed corridor, up the stream, and after a minute or two of staring into the chamber of darkness in an attempt to adjust its eyes, in there as well. Slowly. Navigating by hand upon stone, blind if need be.

 

[Mahou-Shoujo]

Most likely it had been in part of the ruins where the human party had been exploring, meaning Ratty had likely had to avoid it for their own safety, it was surprisingly in pretty good shape for a ruin, the stairs and hall leading from them were seemingly completely stable, and barely even had any holes other than the ones some particularly hardy plants had made, clearly whoever built this place had known that stairs were pretty damned important and made sure they'd survive.

A few things became clear to Ratty as they explored the dark room, first, their eyes weren't adapting, the darkness was so thick and all consuming that they couldn't see their paw in front of their face, whatever it was, it was not natural, secondly, Ratty was feeling... Tired? The energy from before kept dropping and then rising again, Ratty would be hit with feelings of exhaustion and a desire to sleep, only for it to be chased off by a surge of energy as Pearl fought the exhaustion, too focused on keeping Ratty awake to give advice.
And finally... And most concerning, Ratty couldn't tell where the exit was anymore, perhaps it had just not paid attention, or had fallen asleep for a micro nap and lost track of things, but in this darkness it was lost, the pulses of exhaustion almost seemed to emanate out like ripples upon a lake when something fell into it.

 

[Fyrra]

The trick to navigating a room made of complete darkness was a simple one: relying on memory, a sense of direction, and one's non-visual senses made puzzles like this an exercise in patience more than anything else, and a trivial one at that.... that is, if the rodent wasn't feeling disoriented and lethargic from the overwhelming presence of darkness in the room. Strange, that it felt so lively before entering, yet thoughts of sleep drifted in, their presence as difficult to ignore as they were at the end of a very long swim and the following trek back to the nesting grounds. Even the stone floor didn't seem too uncomfortable for a quick slumber.

Yet, a burst of energy kept the rodent afoot, but still confused and disoriented, and a little bit worried that it didn't remember which direction it had walked in from. It could have turned at any point, or rested its eyes for a mere moment while a wobble knocked it off-course. It didn't make sense. But, like most things that didn't make sense, the pearl had a word to describe this: magic. The rodent wasn't paying attention earlier, but as it pulled itself upright, it looked around again, feeling for the direction this lethargy was washing over it from: waves must have had an origin point, after all.

At the next wobble, the rat turned to face the direction it believed this exhaustion to be originating from, and skittered forth. If there was any lesson it had learned today, it was that magical stones and crystals were to be eaten.

 

[Mahou-Shoujo]

Despite Pearl's best efforts the powerful allure of sleep was slowly overpowering Ratty, the dusty stone floors felt like the softest of beds and every blink threatened to put the rat to sleep, a sleep that it was very likely to never wake from, this may have been the deadliest trap in the ruins, especially as most anyone who made it to them would be at least a little tired and maybe not question why they were so desperate to sleep on such a strangely comfortable floor, interestingly, despite the oddly clumpy, gritty dust, there was no sign of corpses around, so it must not have had much opportunity to be used.

Using it's exceptional Ratty senses and a bit of human ingenuity put there by Pearl, Ratty was able to correctly deduce the origin point of the strange waves of exhaustion and darkness, coming upon a particularly ornate piece of stone with a dark stone in a crescent shape, the stone had a large crack on it, that seemed to be the source of the waves, one of which almost knocked Ratty out for good with how close they were.
It was then that Ratty showed just how corrupted by Pearl's influence it was, as without urging, it ate the stone, the waves intensifying for a moment before Pearl took over and seemed to quarantine it, cutting off the sleep inducing effect and the darkness at the same time!

The room Ratty was in was quit different, it had more of those weird wooden rectangles, except smaller, and with tall side bits on them... At least the few that hadn't crumbled into dust did, the rest were barely intact themselves.
It was as Ratty was looking around that part of the wall moved... Forming itself into a massive, terrifying looking golem that glared down at Ratty, crushing some of the odd, white dusty shards on the ground as it moved towards Ratty.

 

[Fyrra]

The most pressing danger had passed, though part of the rodent worried about the stone's presence so close to the nesting rooms: this magical device was designed with an integral purpose in mind, yet to have it so close to the heart of the ruins (functioning as a deathtrap no less) struck the creature as a very odd thing. But, evidently not odd enough to consider that eating such a thing might prove fatal. Perhaps it still wasn't the brightest creature in the jungle, but it felt sure of itself for being smarter than a crescent-shaped rock.

Magical stones were for eating, after all.

A quick survey of the room only raised more questions, mostly pertaining to what such a device was supposed to be protecting: the room itself was devoid of anything practical, magical, or interesting. Just more wooden structures. After a few moments of looking around, the creature jumped up in surprise when the walls themselves began to move. The clash of stone against stone, crushing the shards of... something? In a vaguely humanoid shape?

Magic Rock. Too big to eat. - A critical error had occurred.

The rodent couldn't fight such a creature. It was huge, hard, and any structural weak points that could have been present in the form of joints, vital organs, or nerves simply couldn't be taken advantage of because this creature was born of the land itself. It could dodge a leg stomping down, or an arm slamming into the ground, but to what end? A proper tangling here would bring down the walls around them both.

Calm, calm. No panic. No panic.

The ratling trembled, looking around. It wasn't doing a very good job of hiding its own fear, but it didn't want to run just yet. Perhaps there could be another way, than to destroy the one creature native to these ruins by tricking it into the many traps that were strewn about, or to lead it into the deep pit?

 

[Mahou-Shoujo]

With the desperate battle against the stone's effects finished, and the stone itself being rapidly analysed and broken down in quarantine, Pearl was able to communicate again and gave Ratty another wave of accomplished feelings, clearly approving of the way it responded to the threat, and apparently gave Pearl lunch, at least judging by how it seemed to be more active after eating magical rocks like that.
It seemed to have an idea about the stone, and showed am image of a sickly rat, driven partially mad by it's illness, and the pictured the stone next to it, doing it's best to convey the idea that it was broken and not working properly to the rat, but not having the words to explain as much to such a simple creature.

Pearl seemed to have a moment of panic at the sight of the golem, sharing it with Ratty before managing to clamp it down, something that big and heavy could damage pearl if it crushed the rat! And it would almost certainly never find another host with the odd barrier and many traps that littered the ruins, at least not before it ran out of magical energy and became an inert, normal pearl, it would have to work overtime to make sure Ratty got away from that thing and removed it's threat.

Running over what it knew of the ruins, Pearl immediately dismissed the various traps, they were clearly designed for use against humanoid intruders who were much more fleshy than the walking pile of ancient stone that now threatened them, the abyss was possible, but would be difficult to reach, Ratty would have to either trick the golem into smashing through a wall or the stones, or find another way to reach it, at least it wouldn't be able to follow Ratty up the stairs, even if it cleared the gap the stairs were too small and it's range of motion too limited.

 

[Fyrra]

Dodging an incoming limb's descent, the rodent wasted little time getting back to the room's entry point, with only a little bit of frustration in sharing the pearl's panic, when it specifically tried to suppress that emotion: yes, the golem was huge; no, it did not have huge guts (presumably?). It was only a danger so long as the rat was careless.... or crazy enough to go toe-to-toe with such a monstrosity. Then again, the pearl must have felt its host weighing their options and searching for some sort of weakness before drawing that conclusion.

But if the smaller rock was sick, perhaps this one was too?

With no time to investigate, the rodent made its way back to the wet room, leading the creature of stone to the pile of rocks that blocked this chamber off from the rest of the ruin, and the abyss behind it. It was unfortunate, but left alone, the golem would either be a danger to any who dared enter the vicinity of the only source of heated water, or it would bring an entire chamber down chasing after a rat. All the rat could do, was hope gravity would be enough to disable the stone creature.

So for a moment, the rat waited, until it was sure the golem was drawing near. Then, it dug its way through the rubble, before moving out of the way to see what the golem would do, so close to both the barrier and the intimidating ledge.