'Ellen, what time is it? The sun had not yet risen, but the camp was still awake all night, even brightly lit. Reggie, who had been able to fend off the sandman in the first half of the night, could no longer do so and had to return to bed for a short nap. On the other hand, he was worried about Alan. He could not quite understand why Alan had to risk his life. He thought it was Alan's own choice. But the decision had been made, and with the thought of not having Alan play with him for the rest of the way, Reggie did not sleep well.
"Half past four." A little soberer, Alan was wearing all Abel's equipment, feeling like a gold warrior, but still apprehensive. He did not quite know why Abel wanted to take him with him, but he was afraid he had no real choice. The word "guest" was not only a benefit, but in many cases, an obligation, and Abel had said so much, but he could not bear to refuse. When he went out, he also knew that adventure always involves risk, or how can it be called risk if there is no risk? Only he had not expected the danger to come so quickly, and so violently, though the reward would be great. "Why don't you get some more sleep? We're probably leaving in half an hour." In the camp, the mercenaries with the team have changed into the temporary work of the demon boots, to ensure that the forest will not fall into the strong corrosion of the bacteria bed, the logistics manager for each person prepared three days of dry food, it seems that everything is in order, will soon be ready to complete.
"It's okay, I'm awake." The boy of fourteen pulled himself out of bed, pulled on his Arcane robes, and rubbed his sleepy eyes. Alan and he had met by chance, and might not have known each other at all if April had not slowed down and Alan had left home in anger. Although it has only been more than a month since we met, the friendship has not been estranged because of the short time. On the contrary, Reggie values Alan.
He is the genius of his generation. Most of his peers are estranged from him and bear too much pressure in the absence of anything. Politeness was his protection at the first meeting. Alan did not know him, was not an aristocrat in the true sense of the word, and had no sense of politeness, so from the very beginning there was a little natural separation between them, and even a kind of friendship between them. Their conversation gradually spread from arcane theories to personal stories, with all kinds of jokes and sarcasm. Especially Alan to force himself to pick up his own fell unconscious, let him secretly laugh, but also think Alan is a friend. Abel was surprised to see her nephew so close to the outside world for the first time, and even when she first met Alan, she wondered if Reggie might accidentally say something he shouldn't, and tested it with Alan's accent. Of course, Alan didn't know anything about this and thought Reggie did it to everyone.
For half an hour they sat outside, watching the convoy break into three parts, watching Grenn and his men familiarize themselves with the equipment, and watching Abel and Shevell make the final arrangements and confirmations. Just as the sun was opening its eyes, the troops crossing the McCaber Forest were the first to set out, each armed to the teeth, and arguably the best squad of the family yet. So two people in the silent respectively, no farewell, no greetings, so flat light to go their separate ways.
A kilometer walks down the waterway by the side of the mountain leads to the McCabe forest, which has been mentioned in countless epics. The blanket of fungus near the entrance to the canyon is not too thick, just a thin layer that at first glance looks like normal ground, but anyone with experience knows that any further down means unknown.
Alan was a little relieved. He kept a careful eye on the whole journey and changed his position in the group several times, but there were a few familiar faces who kept their eyes on him, not even the protectors of the less effective technicians. Abel did, as he had promised, put a bodyguard on the team.
Before entering the forest, the techies collected some of the bed slimes for analysis when they got back to the family, and Alan pretended to get some, even if he didn't know it, it would be a good souvenir. On the edge of the forest, slowly can see many unique organisms of the forest, poison frogs, tree snakes, and all kinds of insects that remind me of a line of people, the forest is not as serene as it looks, and even organisms do not have a long time to land, must have the ability to jump and walk through the mushroom tree.
Wearing windboots, people can be slightly free in the forest shuttle but compared with the grassland, the ground conditions of the fungal forest can be said to be very bad, even if the windboots float, but also feel walking in the rainy season of mud. It was clear that the Deco family had no previous path to follow and had to pioneer it, only that the tracks would soon be covered up again by the beds of fungus.
The sellswords went first, always paying attention to the surrounding situation. At the same time, they split the various kinds of mushroom trees in the way with a knife. If they were taller and stronger, they cut off the large pieces of mushroom that resembled the crown of the tree. The smaller ones are cut off together with the stalk, and the cut fungal tissue falls into the bed of fungus underfoot. The green slime quickly recollects the tissue that was originally part of the fungus forest as if it were alive. After a few months, the fungal tissue that has left its mother body will regrow somewhere in McCabe. At first, the task of cutting the road was not very troublesome, for the thin river helped with the orientation, and one could easily follow the river without worrying about getting lost. Moreover, it was not a completely untrodden area, and there were more or fewer traces of the past.
As you move along, the problem gets worse, and more and more tall mycotic trees appear. Layer upon layer of mushroom trees, let a person can understand in a moment, here is not deficient is called the fungus forest, fungal forest worthy of the name. At first glance, these mushroom trees have about three layers, 15 meters high, about six meters high, and about two or three meters high, and then some shorter, more like the trees of the forest weeds and shrubs. This arrangement allows plants to use energy efficiently without encroaching on each other's space, which is good for nature, but tricky for outsiders like the Decos.
Layers of large pieces of mushrooms are dense and opaque, unlike the forest canopy, more or less a little sunlight will leak in, and even a ray of sunshine can be felt in the morning on a sunny day. In McCabe, three layers of mushroom slices can almost completely block all the sunlight, and the view in front of everyone becomes dim immediately. Even the air is not circulating, so the whole is limited and stuffy. Only occasional sunlight can penetrate through the gaps in the mushroom slices. The small mushroom trees along the river, or stream, are getting denser and denser, because no one has entered for a long time, and the wild mushroom growth makes it very difficult to open the way. In addition, the mushroom stalk was sticky, and it was not easy to find support, so they had to put on gloves and walk closely along the stream. Before long, everyone was sweating, covered in sticky mushroom tree bacteria, and trouser legs or leg nails were stained with some of the splattered bacteria blanket liquid. Sweat and mucus mix, keeping clothes and bodies together, and people are eager to take a shower if they get the chance.
After an hour's advance, the terrain deteriorated again and again, and the blanket thickened rapidly, finally reaching nearly a meter thick, which was not a blanket at all, but a complete bed of bacteria. And the flow inside the slime quivered and quivered so intensely that it became visible to the naked eye as the fluid increased. Even with the help of windboots, everyone could feel the beds of bacteria churning under their feet as if a huge mouth were trying to swallow them all up. Relying on this as the source of life of the river to this flow, according to the Sellsword group figure man member Luan Zhuo said, the river has been unable to separate the bacteria bed, into an underground river, and further forward is not suitable for biological survival. Then they remembered that they had long since stopped hearing the sound of the insect frog and had not seen the serpentine gray line on the mushroom.
"Let's stop here," Abel said, looking at his weary team and deciding to take a break. "Shen, take out your communications, and we'll send a message to Secowibo."