Chapter 486: A truth too hard to handle (tw-gore)
Kellen blinked several times, trying to figure out if what he was seeing was actually true. Was it really a core? Or was it a fake, an illusion from the toxins in the air. Gwen seemed to be wondering the same question, before she just shrugged.
"We won’t know till we get close to it, right?" She said, and Kellen hesitated. She was right, of course she was right in this circumstance, but he just...
"Let’s take a moment to gather our breath. We have plenty of time before we need to head back for safety reasons. We can observe the area a bit longer, and then we can make a move." Kellen suggested and Bree and Gwen nodded.
"Of course Kellen." Gwen agreed easily. "You’re the expert here. I was just suggesting it." She said with a shrug. They remained silent as Kellen documented what he observed. 5 minutes, 10 minutes, and then 15 minutes passed without anything happening and Kellen decided that it was time.
They had to go investigate the outer edge of the clearing. Kellen needed to know if that was the core, if the rest of the outer edge was as ’safe’ as this side was, and many other things that he needed to record.
So, they marked the tree on their side, and then began to move. They went the full way around, starting as far away from the ’core’ as possible because Kellen was a cautious person and didn’t trust anything. Bree and Gwen didn’t ask any questions about his motives, and instead asked questions about the reason he was going the way he was, what he was marking down, those kinds of things.
Learning, observing. Kellen was proud that even in this situation they were still wanting to learn. Grow.
Kellen made sure that he explained the reasons behind what he was doing and why he was doing it the way that he was. They even walked past the ’core’ without investigating it because he wanted to make sure the space between where they had come in and where the core was was safe. Gwen and Bree appreciated Kellen’s insights, and listened with curious ears, even as their gaze was slightly dazed by the poison in their system.
When they got back to their marked tree with information and not a single vibration from the ground around them, Kellen turned towards the core.
This was something he had been working towards the whole time he’d been in the gate, but now that it was so fucking close, he was worried that it was all a trap.
That the real core was somewhere else. Underground, maybe? It was a worrying thought, and something that Kellen hated that he’d even thought up as a possibility. But, he couldn’t lie to himself. As much as this gate was a true fucking nightmare, it hadn’t actually been that difficult.
What was a little bit of poison in the grand scheme of things? He’d literally watched monsters stampede before during a mating season. This was fucking nothing. Too easy.