Bucket
Training… did not know go as well as Bucket had hoped, while Lemmy had learned to use a couple of abilities and did defeat the basilisk without any assistance… she seemed rather upset, she was a chimera, so not only should her body be resistant to pain but also have a decent regenerative ability. So what was she upset about? Perhaps Bucket pushed her too far, but Bucket knew she could survive practically anything down here if she needed, and if she couldn't it would've stepped in to protect her.
Bucket was carrying her back home, her body likely wasn't used to using so much mana in such a short amount of time, she should recover relatively quickly due to the high amount of mana in the area, though her mind would likely need a few hours to function normally again. Perhaps some dried slime could cheer her up? That always seemed to help, Bucket had noticed a decrease In slime wyverns, though perhaps if it went deeper it could find more… though of course there was the risk of it finding something far more dangerous, but as long as Bucket is careful the more dangerous monsters should ignore it, after all it's not like it had any flesh.
Bucket knew the cavern had plenty of places it had yet to explore, though the mana there was far too unstable to safely explore. The monsters this close to the surface were already mutating in unnatural ways, some began changing shapes, developing abilities that other members of their species don't have, or even displaying more erratic behaviors… it didn't wish to see what the ones in more unstable areas turned into, best case scenario was it was monsters that became even stronger from their mutations… though it couldn't rule out the possibility of a demon or even a mad mage. After carefully hanging up Lemmy by her feet, Bucket would prepare to gather some weaponry before heading out.
—
Unknown
Hunger, rage, fear, these three things were the only things keeping the beast alive, it remembers long ago it had a purpose, it remembers there were others like it, but it can't remember what's its purpose was, or what happened to its kind… not that it cared for it all that much, its memories had become more hazy with every year that passed, it can't even remember what it was, where it was, it can barely even remember what it's appearance looked if it wasn't for the fact it constantly saw itself whenever it drank from a nearby underground lake.
It was resting on the ceiling of the cavern, it's body began to ache whenever it began to move around too much, so it simply waited for prey to come by, sometimes it'd take days, even over a week for weak prey to come, but it would rather hunger than die fighting strong prey. Speaking of which, it heard something running… it's ears moved around until it could find the direction the sound was coming from and listened to every detail of it, found the pace of the footsteps, where they were getting louder or quieter, the intensity, the echos… it seemed it was a small, bipedal creature, their breathing was heavy. They seemed to be running this way, the beast waited for the creature to get closer and closer, it began to use whatever strength it had to pull a small chunk out of the stone ceiling and threw it in the creature's path as soon as it saw them.
It seemed to have a lot of bright orange hair on top of it's head, it reminded the beast of the other creatures that used to wander here. They traveled in groups a lot and put up too much of a fight, but this one was smaller, perfect prey! It's pitch black eyes focused in on the humanoid creature's small body, it didn't have much meat, but it'll sate It's hunger for abit. The creature tripped over the rock and soon hit the ground with a small thud, they quickly looked around in panic before suddenly looking, then finally they noticed the beast… The creature froze up, the beast knew they would flee if it did nothing, so it lept down at them in an attempt to kill them in a single hit!
Only for the creature to let out a high pitched scream and roll out the way at the last second, before fleeing deeper into the cave. The beast let out a growl of annoyance as the small creature ran away, if the beast didn't get her, surely something else would, it was already down from the ceiling, so it might as well give chase… Though it would quickly regret this decision, as it's muscles began to ache, it's joints felt stiff, and it's lungs began to burn as it forced itself to chase after the bipedal creature. It's wings slowed it down, dragging against the stale air this deep underground, they aren't even in any condition to fly, several cuts and scars across the membrane made it impossible to generate enough force to lift it up, or even glide, it was practically dead weight that slowed it down as it made it's way through narrow pathways that lead in several directions, almost as if they were made to confuse whatever being was forced to wander them.
It lost sight of the creature, though it could still hear it's two feet feet run, it's heavy breathing, the fear in it's voice… though eventually, the running stopped. Was the creature tired? Or perhaps something else caught it… no, the beast couldn't hear another creature nearby, they must be hiding! The beast rushed forward, ready to kill to small creature, only to find a empty chamber of the cavern. It was confused, there were a few glowing fungi but otherwise the place was empty, no rocks large enough to hide, not even a obvious crevice to hide in, did the beast's hearing fail it? It wouldn't rule it out, this wouldn't be the first time, but it couldn't give up after putting so much effort into the chase, it's chest was beginning to hurt more, something felt off, it let out a pained grunt and listened as the sound bounced around the cavern walls. It used the echoes to search the room quickly, though it's ears quickly perked up as it realized something, the creature was not only here, but also above the beast! She had crawled up the wall in a desperate attempt to escape from the beast only to corner herself. The beast slowly crawled over to her, she was several feet above the ground, so grabbing her should be easy, or so the beast thought.
The creature was holding something in one of its small hands, and despite the fear in their eyes, the creature leapt at the beast! The beast was caught off ground, that combined with the beast's aging mind, left it barely any time to react, and soon the cavern walls were covered in black blood as a shard of stone pierced it's equally black eyes, the beast screamed in agony "RRAAAA!" as it hit the creature with one of it's claws, causing it to be thrown into one of the nearby walls and seemingly killing the creature. It's small, motionless body laid on the stone floor, bleeding out liters of red blood and painting the area around its corpse red.
The beast was happy for a moment that it managed to kill the annoying creature. It would've preferred to keep it's eye, but it's vision was far from perfect, so it's not like it lost much. Though the pain in it's chest was still there, not only that, but the pain was intensifying. The beast breathed heavily, it's muscles had begun to tense up, and what was left of it's vision began to fade. It quickly collapsed onto the floor, it could feel it's body giving out on it despite the beast trying to force itself to move. Then that was when it saw something, it was the same shape as the dead creature laying nearby, but it was taller, larger, it was hard to make out any details, but the beast could see it was showing off it's teeth for some reason. Perhaps it felt threatened for some reason? No, it must be here to eat the beast, atleast that what it thought, it tried to get up and strike at the blurry creature, but the beast's body refused to even budge, even as the beast struggled to survive, it's body eventually gaveout completely, and it's vision eventually was completely gone. Then, it's vision slowly come back, but it wasn't near the girl or it's usual resting spot, no, it was In a cabin. Hundreds a memories flooded it's mind, then it remembers, it was a she, and she was Lemmy.
—-
Lemmy
She hated these dreams… both of the girl and the beast, whenever she dreamt of the girl she felt alone, scared, and would always wake up drenched in sweat. But with the beast, she felt angry, hungry, and confused. Both feel like memories, as when she was both the predator and prey in the same hunt. She didn't know why she'd have the same dream as both the victim and monster, but she wanted this to be the last time… yet something in her told her this was far from the last time, and she hated that.
Landing on the ground, she felt a lot better, at least physically, she was still upset with Bucket for making her fight the Basilisk, though right now her mind felt like mush. She rubbed her forehead to try and think more clearly, how long has been asleep? There wasn't really a good way of telling the time, not that it really mattered, she looked around for any notes Bucket may have left from the worn down furniture to the floor, though there were none, anywhere. Maybe they went out to hunt? Though Lemmy could easily eat a basilisk, they weren't very tasty, but they are far from the worst thing Lemmy ever ate. Perhaps she could go check on them, or atleast look for them.
She stepped out of the shack and looked around, Bucket wasn't anywhere nearby, the only thing Lemmy could see were the bones of various monsters they fed her, some random stones, and a few exits that lead to parts of the cavern. She wasn't an expert at exploration, but she could at least try to look for Bucket, after all she did take out a basilisk, so what else in the cave could hurt her?
—
Bucket
Bucket had severely underestimated how much unstable mana was in the cavern, it wasn't sure if something In the cavern was simply generating unstable mana, or if it was destabilizing the mana in the cave. Either way, it had forced… something to come closer to the surface. Bucket was doing everything in their power to flee, because it was far too powerful to even be considered a demon, perhaps it was some sort of mutated mage? Either way, Bucket would be instantly destroyed if a single attack landed on them, so they weren't taking any chances.
It was following slowly, it kept mumbling with its hundreds of mouths in hundreds of different languages, both ones Bucket knew, and others he never even heard. Once it saw Bucket it suddenly began to chant instead of mumble, suddenly Bucket sensed a dip in temperature, they threw their body to the left to dodge and watched as a ball that was constantly shifting from a ball of ice, fireball, a large stone, magma orb, then back to a ball of ice before shattering onto the ground. However, fragments began to transform into different states of matter at different rates. That thing began to get closer as Bucket hid behind a large stalactite, they weren't sure if or how it could see, but they didn't wish to find out. Bucket could hear it walk by before suddenly stopping, did it know Bucket was there? If Bucket had a heart, it'd be pumping out of their chest right now, the stress of the situation alone could kill a person. Yet after several moments of a tense silence monster began to… sing? It sounded like it atleast, hundreds of different voices singing out random words that have similar sounds, yet absolutely no meaning, as if it knew what words sounded like but had no idea what they meant. Bucket would hope it left soon, they weren't sure if its disharmonious song was more or less disturbing than absolute silence…
—
Lemmy
A song, that was what Lemmy heard while looking for Bucket, it was distant, unintelligible, and sounded horrible, but Lemmy could tell it was someone singing something rather than a monster screaming like she usually heard when exploring with Bucket. She ran towards the singing, hoping to find whoever it came from, maybe they had food, or even knew a way out! She avoided pitfalls, went through small crevices, used hidden shortcuts, all to find this new person. She even sneaked past a slumbering Arachnoid before taking another shortcut, rushing down a rather large cavern path, and turning the corner only to encounter a… thing
It looked like a large pile of worms in a humanoid form wearing what looked like something a wizard would wear, along with a fake beard, some had more human-like mouths while others had leech-like ones, yet all were singing for some reason. The monster was even doing some sort of strange dance that involved a lot of spinning and bending in ways anyone with a skeleton would break attempting. Lemmy felt immeasurable disappointment, it was just a monster, or maybe a swarm of monsters? Lemmy wasn't sure, but she didn't care all that much, it was just a monster, and it didn't even look edible! It continued to do it's weird dance for a few seconds before one of the worms noticed her, then the monster stopped as all of the worms seemingly stared at her despite not a single one having any eyes. Lemmy felt strange, her heart began to pump as she felt something was wrong, but it was just a bunch of singing worms, Lemmy didn't think they could be that dangerous.
Then they started chanting, Lemmy tilted her head as the worms chanted something she couldn't understand, but quickly grew disinterested as nothing happened. "Uh… are you done or-" then that's when she saw its many mouths light up, she stepped back as she saw Bucket peek their head out, what were they doing here? Before she could ask anything, multiple beams of light shout out of the worms, time slowed down again, she tried to dodge but she could only move so fast, felt a small burning sensation as multiple beams pierced her arm. "NGH- my arm- it hurts-" she said cried out in pain as she clutched her now deformed arm, it hung limply off was left of her shoulder as she looked back up at the strange worm wizard, it was slowly spinning as it came closer to her, Lemmy doesn't know why but almost playful mannerisms made her feel extremely uncomfortable.
She began to back away, she wanted to run, but yet her body froze, why couldn't she get up?! Her heart began beating harder, the worms began chanting as they began to get closer and spin faster. Lemmy's crystals began to light up as she let out an ear piercing screech at the monster, yet it seemed to barely acknowledge her attack, only pausing for a second before chanting again. Lemmy didn't know what to do, could she hit it physically? Would it even have any effect? She listened to every word it said as she tried to think of a way out, her breathing became Heavy, and the numb pain from her mangled arm wasn't helping her think. She tried to force her body to move, maybe she could outrun it? Though as she looked down, she realized why she could get up, one of the beams shot through her leg! She was trapped, was she going to die here? Just after beating the Basilisk?!
Lemmy had almost given up hope, her mind filled with memories of her rather short life, she didn't want to give up, but what could she do? But that was when she remembered, Bucket was here, she looked over at them and saw them charging towards the worms. Almost as if everything was in slow motion, she watched as they slowly pulled out a blade and slice through the wizard worms, before sprinting towards Lemmy, picking her up over their shoulder, and running back in the direction Lemmy came from. "R-run! Get us out of here! I found a shortcut to get here!" Bucket nodded as they tried to move as fast as possible. Yet despite that, Lemmy would soon hear a strange yet rapid sound, it sounded like something squishing things rapidly. It was the worm wizard thing chasing after them, its sprint was exaggerated and looked almost like it was skipping towards them rapidly. Lemmy wished she never came this way, not only did she nearly died, but was now being chased by something that creeped her out, she knew unnatural things lived here but… this thing makes everything seem completely normal by comparison! She turned her head to look where they were going, and pointed at a small hole Bucket was about to pass "There!" She screamed out, causing Bucket to stop and practically throw her threw the hole before trying to squeeze through themselves. Lemmy used her intact arm to try and help Bucket get through, especially as she heard chanting "Come on Bucket, get out, COME ON!" She said before finally, Bucket managed to get through, just before an explosion shook the cavern and the short cut collapsed into a pile of rubble, Lemmy was dead silent for several moments, before they began to hear singing again just behind the destroyed wall.
Lemmy trembled in fear, she looked over at Bucket who simply picked her up a silently carried her back to their cabin, not saying a single word on the way there. Lemmy noticed that her broken bones were slowly reforming, followed by her flesh, fat, and eventually skin and fur. When they finally got home, Lemmy healed enough to at least stand, though needed help walking, Bucket placed her down on the couch, and that was when tears began to form in her eyes. "Bucket… I'm sorry- I'm sorry for saying I hate you… can we leave?" She said, causing Bucket to tilt their head. "This cave, I don't like it here, the monsters are scary, and I don't like the idea that one of them could just stumble here while I sleep…" she said, causing Bucket to look out one of their makeshift windows, Lemmy couldn't tell what they were thinking, but eventually, they began to write down something. "We could, but we might have to fight something really dangerous." Lemmy looked down and was silent for several moments, before yelling "I don't care! If you need to… train me more!" She demanded, causing Bucket to look up in surprise.
"Are you-" Lemmy grabbed Bucket's hand, stopping them. "Yes, train me, I- I don't want to get hurt, but if it gets me… us out of here, I'll do it!" She said, attempting to stand up and give Bucket a serious look. Bucket looked her in the eye, and then nodded. "Okay, it might take awhile, but I'll help you get strong enough to escape together"