A damp trail of hoofprints followed Aranka through the dungeon. She had spent a fair amount of time in the ancient reservoir and moisture clung to her body still. Aranka shook her head, flicking water from her face and forelock. The droplets that landed on stone and moss were immediately absorbed.

She was retracing her steps back to a crossroads of sorts. Lucent’s wandering directions were no easier to follow in reverse, but Aranka wasn’t worried. She was well versed in pathfinding and navigating. While lacking the ability to draw her own map of the dungeons, her memory was quite sharp. Aranka had been continuously building a mental map of the first dungeon level ever since her first proper dive. Reaching the conflux of tunnels, Aranka reviewed said map.

Two passages remained unexplored at this junction. Aranka scented the air and listened hard to see if she could garner any further information about what lay ahead before making her choice. One passage angled downwards and the floor of the tunnel was slick with a fine layer of damp silt. The second passage veered sharply to Aranka’s left and she could hear a faint creaking sound coming from it. The noise was too regular and spaced out to be speech or the sound of something approaching.

Curiosity made the decision for her. Aranka took the second path. It was a narrow passage that at times was little more than a crevice between walls of stone. Aranka didn’t encounter any spaces that were too tight for her, thankfully. The thin path opened quite suddenly into a vast space. The cavern Aranka stepped out into was easily three times the size of the cistern she had recently visited. It was absolutely gigantic.

The creaking noise was loud and unmistakable here. Its source was a truly massive tree in the center of the cavern. Aranka gazed up into the swaying boughs overhead. She marveled at the towering giant. Nowhere else in the dungeon had she come across proper trees, let alone one that was thriving as clearly as this one was. The tree’s roots plunged right into the living stone that floored the cavern. Cracks spiderwebbed outward on the ground from the tree, with the rock closest to the trunk already reduced to no more than chips of gravel.

Despite all the movement of the tree’s branches, the air in the cavern was still. Aranka could find no source of wind whistling through the tunnels to cause such swaying. Her eyes narrowed and she immediately went on high alert. Something was in among the branches causing them to move, then. The dungeon was full of dangers and it would be naive to assume that whatever was up there was benign.

Carefully, picking her way through all the treacherous tangle of roots and jagged stone, Aranka approached the tree. She was ready at any moment to lunge and kick anything that decided to attack, but nothing emerged from the tree’s canopy. Cautiously, she peered upward. The branches swayed and trembled and… buzzed? Aranka caught flashes of something shiny through all the leaves. Were those wings?

“Bugs?” Aranka wondered out loud.

At the sound of her voice, all the buzzing and shaking abruptly stopped. When the tree settled into stillness, Aranka was able to see exactly what was above her. The tree was chock full of giant, golden beetles! They glittered like jewels and hung about the tree as if they were its fruit. Aranka was fascinated. They had responded to her voice, so perhaps…

“Hello?” She ventured aloud.

The beetles exploded into movement. Hundreds of them buzzed into flight and fled from the tree, Aranka, and the sound of her voice. She watched, mystified, as all of the golden bugs disappeared up into the dark reaches of the cavern above. All except one, that was.

A single beetle had not taken flight with the rest. It ambled down the bark of the trunk and clambered over the mess of rocks and roots to stand before Aranka. She looked at the beetle. It looked back at her. The beetle lifted its wings partially and let out a soft buzz, like a cat purring. Worried that it was some sort of threat display, Aranka stepped carefully backwards. The beetle paused its buzzing to watch her. When she stopped, the beetle again approached and stood nearby, softly fluttering its wings. It didn’t seem the least bit hostile.

“I’m going to keep exploring,” Aranka told the beetle, “I’ll get out of your way.”

She walked away from the tree and towards the nearest side of the cavern walls. There was no telling how many other passages might split off from this space, but Aranka intended to find out. As she approached the stone wall, there was a sound of scuttling on the floor nearby. Aranka looked down to find the beetle following alongside her like a faithful hound. It stopped when she did and looked up at her inquisitively.

“Oh, you want to come along?” Aranka asked, amused.

The beetle buzzed softly again and waggled two of its forelimbs in apparent excitement.

“Well alright then, let’s go exploring together.” Aranka laughed.