Lt. Commander Orson Marshall - Magnificent Tree of Death
Jo Marshall
((Caves in the Forests, Rogue World))
The "small" chamber was, as expected, definitely small. Smaller than the first they'd walked into when they'd reached the inside. Crates were still stacked in the corner weathering the underground storage as if they'd been placed there only the day before. Layers of dust on top of them marred only by smaller hands and fingerprints in decades of dust.
Off to the other end stood another opening and passageway, leading further down into the cave system beyond. Bending his ear, not literally, Bear tried to listen to the emptiness, as if it would reveal itself in thunderous boot stomps of Jem'Hadar shoulders rolling in with their anti-coagulant weapons and decimate them all in a matter of seconds.
Nothing sounded as bleak and empty as the passageway, however. Falling rocks continued, the odd duft of stones cascading down to the floor, the tremors still shaking the planet from the core.
O. Marshall: Battlefield caves, I imagine. ::He kicked one of the crates gently with the side of his boot.:: Cardassian symbols on here, supplies inside. If this place was safe enough, it was probably a command post. Plan the action from here and not be in the thick of it on top. Too bad it's not an armoured vehicle and a dozen shield emitters.
Fortune: Cross our fingers, perhaps we’ll find it buried somewhere among all this.
Kelley/Josett/Alieth: Response
As before, another rumble began to shake through the core of the cave, tremors at first, growing in intensity as the seismic events increased in their wave pattern. Deeper in the cave it felt harsher, as though they were gripped hold of and shook around, rattling inside their stone cage. Bear threw an arm across Lena's shoulders and backed her up to the cave wall, only to look up to the ceiling to see the crack they'd seen before emerging anew there.
Following swiftly, by a glowing, bioluminescent tree root poking out of the cracked rock.
Fortune:…I didn’t hit my head but anyone else see the glowing root above us?
O. Marshall: That tentacle-looking thing is a tree root?
Kelley/Josett/Alieth: Response
Fortune: Fascinating. Does-wait, does this mean we’re under the forest now?
O. Marshall: It would make sense, given how far we've travelled under here. ::He peered up at it, eyes narrowing, face unbelieving.:: It doesn't look like one of the forest trees, though.
Kelley/Josett/Alieth: Response
Without warning, as if a tree root would give a warning something was about to happen, it moved, pushing further into the small chamber through the crack in the roof, glowing all the while. Under the illumination of various tricorders and flashlights, it seemed to reach out for those specs of light, as if trying to absorb their energy. Seep it inside. Make it parts of itself.
If Bear didn't know any better, he would've said the blue fluorescing inside reminded him of deuterium slush inside a warp core, mixing and melding together.
Fortune: I think we should just…keep going. And hope it doesn't touch us.
O. Marshall: Slowly. It might be… watching…
Kelley/Josett/Alieth: Response
All due haste given to avoiding a mysterious root pushing itself out of the ceiling, the team of interlopers moved through the "chamber" as it was, into the deeper parts of the cave where the air felt thicker. Bear took a lungful, tasting the stale, ash-like texture coating his tongue, and the smell of something… familiar, though he couldn't quite put his finger on what. Something eerie. Something strange. He glanced at Lena in the dim light, communicating his confusion with the pinch of his brow, as if his partner could read his mind.
Kelley/Josett/Alieth/Fortune: Response
Wider again, the cave walls opened up before them until they could see bioluminescent roots embedded into the floor alongside them, some running just beneath the surface of the rock, while others pushed through, creating craters and ruptures of displaced stone. Thicker and thicker the roots became, crawling across the ceiling, thrumming with energy, as though they could whisper in a thousand voices through space and time.
Until the cave opened up entirely, and there, standing before them, in aching breath-taking magnificence, stood the oldest tree Bear had ever seen, and one of the most decaying living things he'd ever had the misfortune to encounter. Taller than the cave itself, the trunk twirled upwards, vine-like as it wrapped around itself, sickly-looking branches stretching off in all directions, light shining down from a crack in the impossibly high roof.
Momentarily taken aback, he swallowed and flashed his flashlight over the living trunk of the tree from their position way back, before speaking in the hallowed, his own voice echoing back to him.
O. Marshall: The hell is this place?
Kelley/Josett/Alieth: Response
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Lt. Commander Orson Marshall
Intelligence Officer
USS Gorkon
G239304JM0