Valeriya knew she hadn't seen the whole world, not even all of Alacritis, though she one day hoped to. She wanted to range East to West, North to South, and everywhere in between. At first it had been hard, leaving home the way she did, but now as she grew accustomed to it Val found that it wasn't so bad. In fact, being her own fae was more amazing than she could have believed, had someone tried to explain it to her. And besides, if she'd stayed home in Ebony, she would never have been able to find a place like this. The cavern's size and shape might have varied depending on how far she ventured in, but one constant were the magical mushrooms. She wasn't sure what exactly made them light up, but she was pretty sure it had something to do with the gods everyone was always rambling on about. She saw all sorts of different shapes and sizes and colors, but each emitted an eery glow that gave the subterranean expanse and eery blue-green hue. The air was moist and musty, and while there was no prey other than giant creepy crawlies, so far Val had been unable to bring herself to leave. "Talk" "You" Think

Pooka sat still in the dim light. He had come to these caves to collect some of the mushrooms, and some of the bugs. Several of the things had been trapped in a large leaf and he had used parts of the mushroom as bait to kill some of the bugs. The mushrooms were dangerous to eat so he had to be careful; but they had other uses if you knew what to do with them. In the smallest doses it could be used to treat certain ailments. Of course those had to be very small, and when wolves found his people carrying them around, they tended to assume they planned to poison other wolves with it. One of the many reasons his people had been scattered so thinly.

Having completed what he set out to do, Pooka had decided to take the time to enjoy the magic of the cave. To commune with the millions of tiny gods within it, and the magic it held in the soft light far beneath the earth where no light should be. The way air flowed in the stillness and life continued even down here. It felt like anything could happen in this place, and he enjoyed that feeling.

So Pooka sat still and silent in his small corner of the glowing caverns, nestled in a pocket of shadows between two mushroom patches so that he barely stood out in the darkness. He was upright and still as a stalagmite even as insects began to crawl over him. Pooka remained like this in a state of mild meditation, for an amount of time that was impossible to gague down here in the caves where there was no way to track it.

His state of calm stillness as he listened to everything around him was disturbed as a wolf from above wandered in the darkness. Pooka said nothing at all, his eyes silently watching as he wondered what they were doing down here. He remained still, wondering if they would even notice him in the dim light of the musty cave. A centepede crawled over his face and dropped off his nose, while other things slithered over his back and shoulders as if he were no more than a statue in the cave.

Finally when they grew close to him Pooka decided to speak in a voice that was almost a whisper. "Welcome to the land below."