Velara had used the ring to rever to human form, and together you carried the crate into the tunnel. Nothing grew on the walls; Velara explained the rock here secreted something toxic that caused plants to die, so there was no reason for animals to come here either. “If you touch it, make sure to wash your hands before you eat anything.” She added. “It’s not healthy for animals either.” The tunnel ended in a small cavern with a round platform in the ground, a pedestal in the center. After you and the crate were on the platform, Velara casually tapped the pedestal, causing the platform to start lowering into the ground. “This is entirely too many fingers.” Velara chuckled as she wriggled her fingers in front of her face.
Soon the platform arrived at its destination, another small cavern somewhere deep underground. The two of you carried the crate off and towards a small steel door in the cavern wall. Velara knocked and got someone on the other side to open it. On the other side you found a large cavern with an artificial light, its own jungles and farms, and a small village, as well as a few buildings scattered about. Most importantly, you heard no screaming animals, though there was no shortage of non-human creatures. Velara led you straight to one of the shops in the village, and bartered with the shop keeper, a snake person you couldn’t tell was male or female. After a heated argument, Velara eventually agreed to a price for most of the items – one she obviously felt was inadequate, but had no choice but to accept – and you then traveled to a different store, where she used most of the money to buy a potion. Finally, she led you to her house, a small somewhat ramshackle building on the edge of the village. One of the walls was in fact the village palisade, town guard would be walking on her roof in the event of a battle.
She casually led you in, throwing the leftover items on the lone, worn couch without looking. “You can leave your jacket and your sword in the closet by the door. There’s some stuff left in the pantry, help yourself if you want. I’m going to help my friend now, I’ll be right back.”
The couch and wooden floor were badly scratched, and several wooden chairs had been positively mauled by years of clawed creatures using them as perches. You noticed only now that several of them were nailed to the floor, probably to make better perches. The pantry had some cheese, salted fish, crackers, and a few jars with some kind of fruit in them. You put some cheese on a cracker and ate it – the first proper civilized food you had had in a while.
Velara returned a few minutes later, looking brighter than she had before. “My friend will recover. The potion worked, but it’ll take some time.” She helped herself to a piece of salted fish, struggling to grasp it with clawless human hands. “How do humans do anything with these?” Once she had swallowed the fish, she sat down on one of the most damaged perch-chairs. It didn’t look comfortable. “I’m sorry about all the mystery, but my friend is afraid of humans. I don’t want to cause her needless stress. Once she’s better I’ll ask her if she wants to meet you, okay?”
You nod and tell her that’s alright. Meanwhile she had already gotten off the wooden chair. “Hey, what do you say we go out and get a meal. Something that isn’t disgusting for a change?” As if on command, your stomach growled. Velara laughed and started putting on some awfully mismatched clothes. At no point had anyone in the village commented on Velara being nude, even though most of the villagers wore clothing. When you asked about the clothes, she chuckled. “I know humans get embarrassed when people are naked. You’ve been blushing the whole day, I think it’s burned into your face now.
She led you to a restaurant in the center of the village. The fare was quite varied and alien, but Velara helped you with some suggestions. You chatted about the day, and you told her about the events leading up to your arrival in the jungle. Velara was especially curious about the aircraft the humans of Earth built, and suggested exploring the wreckage tomorrow.
In turn, she told you about her history here. She had been born in this village, where the insane magical rules of biology don’t apply – an entire area existed under the jungle where things were still ‘normal’. People tried to live more or less normal lives here, though they also used the surface for farming sometimes. Some of the more adventurous types would go out into the jungle to explore ruins, bring back magic or gold, and sometimes got eaten. It was a very dangerous way to make a living. When Velara’s friend and roommate had fallen ill she had started adventuring with the hopes of making enough money to buy the cure. She had been largely unsuccessful, and had eventually ended up in the sticky situation you found her in. Had you not found her, she would have at the very least lost most of her feathers.
She was absolutely fascinated when you showed her your cellphone and the games on it – things like these had fallen out of the sky from time to time, boxes with glass windows, rectangles made of some weird material, and more recently, black rectangles with pedestals to stand on. Nobody had any idea what they were for. Velara explained she was very fond of board games, but of course there just weren’t a lot to play down here. The civilization above – when it was alive – probably had countless games, but they had only gathered a few. Board games were obviously not a priority when explorers’ lives were at risk. The two of you played some of the games the restaurant kept around, enjoyed some desserts and drinks, and shared stories the rest of the evening.
The next morning, after breakfast, Velara said she wanted to go back up and do more exploring. “After buying the potion, I’m still basically broke, and I need new furniture, a bunch of other… stuff, and honestly I’d like to move out of this dump. I’ll split the money with you?”
True to her word, she had split the money left over after the potion and dinner, which was just enough to buy a few sturdy bags. On the elevator ride up, she took her clothes off and stuffed them in one of the bags. Once outside, she changed back to her true form and stretched her wings; she looked to be very glad to be back in that form. She turned to look at you and smiled. “Ready to go?”
Riding on Velara’s back, you held on to her feathers as she scoured the jungle. You passed over several ruined castles, all covered in barbed vines and flytraps big enough to eat cows. A bit later she found a more open area, where she could fly closer to the ground. There wasn’t quite as much growing here for some reason, though animals still roamed the area. Velara spotted a herd of some type of hoofed animal and dove right in. “Hey, aren’t we supposed to be looking for treasure?” You shouted at her, but the air rushing by made it unlikely she heard you. Or perhaps she simply had other plans. The giant harpy grabbed a pair of hooved animals in her talons and landed nearby where she promptly started devouring them whole. It turned out, there actually was a building here, or the ruin of one anyway, half buried in the ground. While she was eating the animals, you looked inside, hoping to find something valuable. As you were filling your bag with anything remotely interesting, you heard the earth start to tremble. Walking over to the nearest hole in the wall, you saw a great mass of animals coming this way, followed by a dust cloud. The herd was coming this way! You ran outside, where Velara, instead of preparing to leave, charged the herd right back! This was going to be an… interesting battle.
Velara scarfed down victim after victim, using her mobility to avoid getting run over by the herd. It struck you that the herd had animals of a wide range of sizes, but none of them were truly immense; perhaps they refused to leave this area, and as such were stuck eating the limited vegetation here? Velara didn’t seem to care, merely swallowing an endless amount of cattle like potatoes, and then like candies. There was so much to eat, and she was eating it so fast, she visibly ballooned right before your eyes, her footsteps becoming thunderous, her talons growing so large it wasn’t even practical anymore to grab individual prey; she grabbed a whole bunch at once and scarfed them down like popcorn. Her body was expanding at a rate that shifted her proportions, again. Her head and wing-hands grew slightly slower than the rest of her, and her belly, legs, and tail grew slightly faster, though her chest became deeper, causing her to look more and more like an overweight, oversized dinosaur with wings. At some point she simply stopped avoiding the herd; they couldn’t hurt her anymore. She simply let them crash into her feet, accepting the minor injuries caused by the hundreds of animals chain-crashing themselves against an immovable object and making themselves easy prey. There was nothing for you to do outside so you went back inside to finish looting the building. When you came back outside a few minutes later with several bags full of what you hoped would be valuable, Velara was finishing up the herd. She towered over the last one of the creatures, a hundred feet tall or more, and massively thick. Her humanoid body shape had been entirely replaced by that of a giant bird or dinosaur, her only human features being her skin tone and the four enormous breasts on her chest. She roared triumphantly as she brought an enormous talon down on the last prey and bent down to pick it up and swallow it like a piece of candy.

Next part:
(not yet created)
back to previous chapter:
https://aryion.com/g4/view/427667
back to start:
https://aryion.com/g4/view/427656
If you want to support this and other works, join my Patreon:
https://www.patreon.com/Meanybeany

Please login to post a comment.