Awareness was an interesting topic, the examples were numerous. William had been awake for a few minutes, yet he still hadn't caught up with everything.
Specifically, he didn't even notice that there was some odd light, right above their head. It was fairly difficult to notice it as this chunk of illumination was dim, but it still took the boy too long to be aware.
However, once he acknowledged that odd light, the young snakezoid got both spooked and a tad happy.
At first sight he thought, "Oh this can't be it... can it? The system was right, luck really is weird."
Undoubtedly, this was the same tiny, white light he saw before. At first, the boy had spotted it while he fell from this large tunnel's ceiling. Likewise, it felt odd to wake up so close to this phenomenon.
That aside, he realised that it was tricky to reach this thing. The light wasn't far away, but it simply resided in another small muddy room, which was a couple of meters above their head.
William felt too battered and bruised to climb up there, the thought of it alone made him nervous.
That was why he called for the healers attention, and pointed up. "Can you help me climb there? I need to see something."
Although she was confused, Olivia had no reason to reject such a request. At first she agreed, and then transformed her arms into those big, long spikes.
"Hop on my back," The lady encouraged.
This time she didn't have to fully transform, the results would simply be disadvantageous. As a start, there weren't any more spare clothes which she could use.
And secondly, those spiky arms she had, were just enough to climb where they wanted to. So it would be a dumb move if she transformed entirely.
They managed to reach that spot under half a minute. Afterwards, the scene that blessed them was quite difficult to comprehend.
Once the lady helped him straighten up, William was the first to ask. "Where's all this light coming from?"
Olivia tried to come up with an answer, but for once she was clueless. It was difficult to understand what was the source, what caused this illumination.
Likewise she admitted, "I don't know, but it shouldn't be hard to figure it out."
The place they climbed into wasn't extravagant. It was just a small muddy room, which was inhabited by a few small creatures. So undoubtedly, there wasn't much to explore.
Although the boy was a bit creeped out by the several small, half-a-foot insects that crawled around here, he still craved to figure out the odds and ends.
Which was why he stated, "Let's stay here for a while, I wanna know where this light comes from."
"Eh, we don't have anything else to do anyway." Olivia was swift to cooperate.
The muddy room itself was about ten feet wide, so there really wasn't a lot to explore here. But that fact itself was nerve wracking as well.
Under these simple circumstances, they should be able to find the source of this light instantly, but yet they couldn't.
William peeked around for a while, but slowly grew unfocused. He wanted to concentrate, but these weird insects were a bit too creepy.
So he had to ask, "Would it be cruel if we killed these bugs? They're creeping me out."
"What's so bad about ratbugs?" The healer was swift to question.
Although he was slightly unwilling, the boy still decided to unleash a wave of sass. "Oh I don't know, maybe it's because they're bugs with rat heads? Seriously, wouldn't this shit give you nightmares?"
"They're harmless," The other stated, and she stretched out those couple of words widely.
Afterwards she shifted her spiky, long arms back into their pale, human-like form.
Once the lady did so, she picked up one of these odd creatures, and tried to play with it as well. Clearly, the intention behind such an act was pure, but she still suffered a nasty bite!
"Ouch ouch ouch!" Olivia screamed.
In further response to this pain, she swiftly flickered around that one hand, until she shook this aggressive critter off.
"Harmless ha? I guess ratbugs don't like you then." William teased.
"Why's everything here so angry!? Something weird is going on I tell ya." She followed along.
Blood puked out of her palm after that moment, and the quantity was alarming. Surely, the creature's rat-like teeth were enough to inflict some ugly damage.
In response, the lady first transformed her human-like teeth into snake fangs, and then she jabbed them on the wounded area.
Such a brute act made William flinch back, so he loudly whispered. "Ew! Why'd you bite yourself?"
This good woman sucked quite a bit of blood out of her palm, before she straightened up again.
After that point she answered, "I drank all the bad stuff, so it won't infect my skin."
Under a blink, the boy commented. "You're drinking rat spit? That's nasty!"
This overall scene only got creepier, and the snakezoid who experienced the most anxiety out of it, wasn't shy to express his discomfort.
Likewise he continued to complain, "Now you're gonna have rat breath! You're a healer, couldn't you fix that with some kinda magic?"
"This is my magic," Olivia stated.
Afterwards she reached out her palm for the other to see. The bite wounds had been completely sealed up, and there weren't even any blood stains on her hand!
"Wow," He muttered.
Quite unexpectedly, the lady in front of him got a little bit too close. Now, their faces were only half-a-foot apart from each other, and their eyes were locked as if for eternity.
Through a firm, low but yet bold tone, the healer questioned. "Besides, why would you care about my breath anyway? Bet you don't want to complain now, ha?"
Before he could answer, the lady puffed a mouthful of air towards him, and then bursted into quite a loud laughter.
As for William, he didn't know if he should piss all across the floor or throw up. He had been intimidated a bit too much.
Of course, he didn't want to admit any of that. That was why it felt imperative to shift the topic.
"Let's just forget about the bugs," The young man encouraged.
Afterwards he walked away to look for the source of this odd light. What he did not expect however, was to slip and fall like a heavy bag of wheat.
In response, most wounds sparked with pain and made his day a lot worse.
Right after, a couple of these half-a-foot long bugs, crawled right on top of him. So at this point, this disaster felt like a cherry on top.
As he was creeped and pissed off beyond preparation, William shouted. "Get these hairless shits off of me!"
The snakezoid was beyond nervous, these creatures got too close, just enough for him to understand how disgusting they looked.
These things had a bug-like shell across their backs, and they slapped the mud with soft, rat-like paws. In fact, most features of these creatures leaned towards the mammal side.
Thankfully these critters didn't have long, pink tails or else the snakezoid would have completely lost his shit.
"Try to relax, you're still in a pretty bad shape." Olivia demanded.
In the process, she rough-handled the boy until he moved appropriately. Eventually, he sat up and lightly kicked one of these ratbugs, he was beyond pissed.
Through a mild holler, William cited. "What in the ever loving fuck did I even slip on? I know it wasn't mud."
"It wasn't mud," The healer agreed.
Her focus darted towards a little item that was stuck in the dirt. At first it looked like a tiny gem, but that wasn't the case, this thing was just deep in the damp ground.
Without much hesitancy, the lady reached out for this bright rock and pulled it out right away!
What blessed their vision afterwards was a foot-wide, crystal pyramid. It was almost transparent and unleashed nothing but a dim, white light!