"Look at all these plants."

Up, in the understory: a small golden shape could be seen vaulting between the trees. Her nicely groomed fur shone in the sparse sunlight, her crystal glittered over a scrunched-up child's face, and her delicate fingers moved swiftly from vine to vine. She was built for this.

They came from the First Cave, following the clusters of growing plants through a stony tunnel and into a cave opening. There was more greenery here than she ever imagined. The birdsong was nothing she experienced before. Even the texture of wood beneath her hands was new and interesting.

A splatter of water landed on her nose and she cringed. Definitely a lot wetter than comfortable, too.

Here and there her head flicked back towards her companions on the ground. It was nice having other people to exist with. Even if her stony face didn't show much. The Researcher scrambled atop a stalagmite and asked, "How large do you think this location is? Could it possibly--

--Umph!"

Researcher's voice cut off as her hands slipped, sending the gibbon skidding to the ground. Her paw reached out to push herself up, then clutched back as a dull pain started in her stomach. Weird. That never happened before. Maybe it had something to do with trees. But what caught her attention more than that was the massive clearing in front of her. Dirt! Stones! Weird, boxily-shaped trees! A far cry from the loud, noisy, crowded jungle surrounding it, but beautiful in its own right regardless.

Her foot crept over the sandy trail boundary, then stepped back tentatively. She tapped on her stone. "Do any of you know what this is?" her babyish voice echoed. "Looks weird. And interesting." Her finger waddled playfully at Assistant. "I dare you to go in first. That way we see how safe it is."

Researcher smiled politely as the saluki dog came over to help, giving her a few measured headpats in return for the licks. She wasn't terribly injured, barely injured at all even (her downy fur saw to that), but the moral support was still nice. 'Karyo,' correct? Well, Karyo was making some weird noises with her jaw, but the child figured it wasn't anything bad.

... And there she went, zooming off into the clearing. Along with Cortex. Assistant only squeaked.

Researcher wiped off the rest of the dirt from her body, shouting: "Hey, be careful! We don't know what's in there!" It seemed the universe was intent on answering her concerns, because right then a strange purple shape emerged from the underbrush. She gaped behind her stone. Purple flesh, shaggy fur around the legs and head, horns emerging from her skull... she looked like nothing she saw before. She looked like...

"Me!" her youthful voice blurted, seemingly out of context, before stumbling into the path with the rest of the gang. Except for the black cat, who seemed to be more interested in standing in shadows. "Ehem, you look like me!" Her attention spun between Karyo's barking, Cortex's stone-investigation, and the bleary-eyed faun in front of her. "No, none of us are designated 'dad'-- hello, are you an ape? At least, that's what I refer to my body shape as. Did you construct this location? How? Cortex says the trees were cut down, did you do that? Are there other locations like this? What is a dad and should we fear it?" Throughout the whole flurry of questions she was pacing about, hands bouncing with excitement and eyes locked on Thalia. She wanted to know everything.