The Confused Explorer

These eggs slowly crawled and moved about, signifying that they were close to hatching after their mother's death.

As these small shrimp like creatures popped out of the eggs one to tens at a time, they very quickly filled up the surrounding area making the scene around the large dead mother shrimp into a scene of baby shrimp the size of houses as they swam and moved rapidly, like a tornado, around the area.

This process took an undetermined amount of time, by the time all of these babies were hatched it was like a school of fish that swam together up until the last hatchling came out. Once the last one came out, it turned into a scene of chaos and carnage.

All of the young very quickly and very decisively attacked one another killing rapidly and continuing on in a haze of dead carcasses and mangled shrimp flesh. Seemingly without end these animals killed their own brethren into a haze of colorless blood and empty shells. Until there was only one left from the hundreds. This single baby shrimp became the sole inheritor of its mother shrimps powers.

Its clear and soft carapace wasn't even fully developed and yet it had went through a war against its own kin. As this child had won, it swam to eat as much as it could of its fallen brothers and sisters in order to heal its hurt body.

After gorging on everything it could eat until it was overstuffed, it slowly walked away on the lake floor, creating very minute trembles with each step, looking for a place to build a shelter and call home.

✵

Moving around and making sure everything was ready to go, Mike and Turul were ready to head out onto the quest that they had given themselves, to head towards the mountain!

In order to get to the mountain they'd have to walk alongside the lakeside as it was straight ahead of them.

Along the way, just like they have been doing, they'd stop and look, or try, to scan anything interesting or fight strong opponents in order for both of them to level up!

Walking along the lakes shoreline, calling it a lake was kind of wrong since it seemed to be like an ocean in size, Mike looked at the still swirling pink galaxy not even bothering to look at what was ahead of him and almost tripping multiple times.

Under impulse, Mike Crouched down and cupped some of the water in his hands, Mike pulled up The Explorers Log and scanned it. Once the scanning initiated the bar seemed to zoom to the finish line, not even taking 1 minute to finish scanning.

Cl.i.c.k.i.n.g on the new log it was called 'Pink Water'.

--Pink Water: This water has turned pink due to small algae called Dunaliella that take in the salt content within the water and create a byproduct that has turned this water pink.

Environment: Needs Dunaliella

Effects: None

Danger Level: None

Rarity: Common

Laughing slightly, Mike had guessed that this water was almost completely normal, but he didn't expect The Explorers Log to tell him why it was pink!

Shaking his head a little with a slight smile, it was nice to see something so beautiful yet so normal every once in a while.

Progressing forward it seemed like Mike forgot about any worries that he might of had as him and Turul moved closer to the mountain.

✵

Days seemed to pass by them in a blur, though they weren't exactly days per say since the sky never changed, however they came and went all the same. These days were peaceful for the both of them since they didn't meet a single creature that wanted to eat or kill them.

Though most of the time they stayed and slept near the shore of the lake that seemed to stretch along with them endlessly, they still adventured out into deeper parts of the woods either to look at weird places that may hold special materials or to look at strange creatures.

Mike had managed to snag a couple more logs in The Explorers Log so he was pretty happy, though sadly neither him nor Turul leveled up once in the past couple days of no action or anything of amazing worth.

They were peaceful though and that's exactly what Turul and Mike needed after going through days of fighting, running, or surviving. Especially Turul since he went through a lot of fights in order to keep Mike from dying.

Mike needed it as well as these days had a sort of therapy effect on him since he never really had a chance to just relax since coming here, and with these peaceful days with Turul he had managed to relax and feel more safe than ever with his surroundings.

It seemed like not only were Mike and Turul were becoming more of a team, they were becoming more like adventurers, especially Mike. Ever since coming here he'd had nothing but hard time after hard time, after finally being able to relax for longer than an hour without sleeping, Mike finally started to pick up on the thoughts of adventuring, exploring, and finding awesome things as being fun as he was having fun as he explored the weird and cool areas of the surrounding forest, though they never found anything that really stuck out as an amazing item or animal, they still did enjoy the process!

The progress they made during these couple of days were hard to measure. It seemed like no matter how much they moved closer to the mountain, it always only seemed to get bigger but not closer.

Either they were farther away than they thought, or something was going on.

✵

The always slightly damp and yet barely cold surroundings of the air on this 'morning' woke both Mike and Turul up slowly. The fire was long extinguished yet Mike was able to sleep peacefully with the broad bear skin that he kept along with him on their adventures.

Shifting slightly under the large blanket/pillow, Mike rolled around unable to get himself to get up fully as it was colder outside than in the blanket.

Sighing and forcing himself up, Mike stretched and proceeded with his morning routine like yawning and scratching his back as he slowly woke up.

After a little while of moving around and getting prepared, Mike and Turul were prepared for this day, though they seemed a lot more relaxed and less bothered with the surroundings.

Moving forward once again on the slightly pink tinted sand, they seemed use to this by now as they had been doing the same exact thing for days now.

Seemingly so relaxed, Mike had to battle sleepiness as they moved along the barely changing road.

Luckily it seems like Mike had been able to get in more practice with his abilities as he had more control over them as they didn't disappear upon his deviating thoughts, though there were a couple times in which they seemed like they were slightly vanishing as they released minutes amount of gray gas.

As the day passed slowly Mike and Turul seemed to be having another one of those days where nothing happens.

Finally after walking for almost the entire day, Mike and Turul stopped at their next camp site in which they'd rest for the night.

Pulling out all of the materials needed and grabbing some nearby flammable material, they had a full blown fire before them.

As Mike set up the campsite, Turul spent his time catching the dinner for tonight.

After cooking, eating, and planning for tomorrow, Mike and Turul set out for sleep.

✵

Morning quickly approached for both of them as they seemed to have a repeat of the same morning from yesterday.

Quickly packing their stuff they headed on.

However, the plan for today was different. The plan for getting to the mountain was that every other day they'd just walk, however on the days they didn't walk closer towards the mountain they'd search the surrounding area.

Very quickly they veered of course towards the surrounding area in order to check it out for anything worthy of noting.

Walking on the soft ground of moss as they headed deeper into the forest, it seemed so peacefully quiet with only the sound of jingling from their bag, their almost inaudible footstep, and the occasional gust of wind that brought about an earthy smell.

The trees were spread far apart as they were very large making a lot of room to walk, along with good line of sight, even if it was slightly darker with the trees blocking some of the starlight.

Everywhere they looked to be the same with large fluorescent flowers and grasses growing illuminating the ground ever so slightly as the large trees cast weird shadows onto the land below giving a somewhat somber and dark atmosphere. The rare crunch of leaves the fell from the sparse tops of the trees did little to change the surroundings look or feel.

Mike however was used to the sights, but he still knew how to appreciate how beautiful it was.

✵

After half an hour of combing the surroundings looking for anything noteworthy, the only really out of normal thing they had found out of it was an arachnid.

This spider was about 13 centimeters long that almost blended in with the surroundings, almost.

This spider seemed uninterested in them, however it web that it created spanned from three trees, making a large net the seemed to span a very long distance.

Standing about 6 feet away from the spider, Mike pulled out the explorers log and scanned it for the sake of logging it and leaving, as he didn't want to stay close to this disgusting little creature.

Staring at this spider it had long spindly yet terrifying looking legs. It had a small head and long oblong torso that seemed to kind of hump where it meets the head. This creature was a vibrant black with splotches of slightly glowing light like the surrounding plant colors.

Standing there for a little bit, Mike backed up away from the spider slightly as to not be in its danger zone incase it was something that was really dangerous.

Waiting for about 10 minutes, the scanning process finally finished to showcase the name under 'Fauna'. It was called an 'Ebb Spider'.

--Ebb Spider: This spider is commonly known for its mythologically named background. It is said that millions of years ago this spiders species had intelligence that put it above humans and thus they prospered immensely, however all of that changed with the tragic fate of the new spider queen. When she first came to power she had a mighty yet kind rule over her subjects, but when tragedy struck her life she shut herself in the castle, never to be heard from again woefully spending her days alone and in isolation from anyone else. With the loss of their queen the race slowly faded from rule and has become just another arachnid species. This species has a very weak venom that can only affect prey smaller than it, it however makes up for this with very sturdy and strong webbing that stretches for upwards of tens of feet. This spider makes up for its weak body with a natural camouflage to its surroundings, making it very difficult to see it at all.

Environment: Hot, and Damp

Effects: N/A

Danger Level: Low

Rarity: Uncommon

Mike was slightly stunned, The Explorers Log never usually did things like this where it told the background, maybe it had leveled up or something when he didn't notice? Or maybe this species of spider has a lot more to it than meets the eye.

In any case Mike was happy he'd been able to find and scan this little spider as it had been a while since he had found something this worthy of noting, even if it was only of a uncommon rank for its species.

Picking himself up lightly, Mike took one last look at the hanging threads of spider webs and the small and almost unnoticeable spider that stood still on its web, waiting for prey, before finally heading out under a dim and beautiful night sky.