Jul 17 2026, 04:46 AM
A big purple guy in Draco named Master Vargas had offered Mercutio a choice. Ditch the name, lose the right to travel, join the Chaos Forge, train for this thing called 'war'. Go to war, trained and ready. Or, figure it out yourself. Maybe don't even go to war at all. Seemed like a taxing thing.
He'd been polite. There was no judgment in making trades for what Mercutio found to be most valuable. The concept of sticking in one place for too long made their skin itch beneath their fur, so they'd decided to go it alone for now. Training seemed wise, too. Maybe if they couldn't figure something out, they'd go back. There was probably more wisdom in making an informed choice. Probably.
Speaking of wisdom and probability, Mercutio had been chasing down a tunnel runner for the past 30 minutes to an hour. The variety of life in the tunnels alone needed a little more appreciation. Navigating these winding trails, breezing past so many different climes, and the tunnel runner never lost track once. Mercutio had. A lot more than once. There were so many crazy things in this cave system.
Mercutio could move pretty fast, especially using his wings to occasionally give himself a burst of forward momentum. However, he was finding this chase to be really, really tiring. And he really wanted to stop for a moment to take a look at his surroundings on his own time. So he figured he ought to lock in and finish this up now.
They entered a pretty tunnel. It was really pretty. And, pretty uneventful in terms of obstacles. Great! Mercutio might be able to end it here, if they could just stay on target.