2 the snake, and the necklace

Warlin was totally out of breath, he was breathing heavily in a crack he found along one of the corners and the contorted wolf thing with bright fiery blue eyes ran right past him, crashing into the walls as it skidded to the front of the tunnel which was a dead end.

Thankfully he realized that it was there before he reached this point, or he would have been cornered with that thing blocking his only way out.

He calmed himself down and began to walk quietly back to the first room he was in and went into the other, much darker tunnel that no longer gave off the chilling vibe from before and he used his hands to feel his way through the darkness.

The tunnels were more maze-like than the first area he chose to walk into, the ceiling was lower and there were only a few random crystals that were scattered across the ceiling and floor were much lower. At some points, he even had to crawl through small holes scattered through the maze in order to get to the next tunnel.

Eventually, he found the way out. It took about thirty minutes but he made it to the mouth of the cave generally unscathed and he put his arm up to shield his eyes from the light shimmering from. The twin full moons waiting for him outside.

'Wow... its so... I can't explain it.' He thought as he stared in awe at the giant purple field of grasses waving in the wind as twin suns spun around each other in the dark red sky above.

Blue wisps of energy flowed with the wind as he walked through the field. Purple colored insects flew away from him as he stumbled through the grass and tried to reach a forest he spotted in the distance.

'I can see a river near the forest... good!' He thought as he began to change course towards the massive stream he noticed while running down a hill...

He cloaked man walked into the woman's room, knocking on the open door and holding a portable small holoscreen made out of glass and grumbled in a unamused tone, "he made it out." And the woman instantly bolted upright.

"So, the cute one, H143672, survived?" She asked him, sliding on her cloak as she spoke, although her face and body were also obscured by the black mist that seemed to pour out of their skin. "What do you mean by... cute?" The man asked, totally confused at her unorthodox way of asking that.

"Can you ever take a joke?!" She began to fume a little as her voice became slightly higher picked, a great sign to tell one that she had enough of his blatant but logical ignorance. She took her axe and swinged it at his neck, but he disappeared instantly and reappeared right behind her holding a dagger to her throat.

"I win." He stated as the dagger began to draw blood from the exposed, ashen colored skin on her neck and he instantly let go and spartan kicked her away from him, exuding and oozing confidence.

"Fine... but I'll get you one of these days." promised the ax wielding woman before going to the main holoscreen and she began to watch his subject more closely than he ever would. It honestly kind of creeped him out a bit.

Warlin made it to the river, he began to kneel down before he realized that there was a massive necklace located on the bottom of the lake attached to a unnatural looking rock set near the bank of the river furthest away from him.

'Should I? Or, should I not?' He wondered as he began to debate what he wanted to do in his head.

Eventually, he decided to try and get the necklace because he didn't see any real harm in going after it and began to slowly wade into the shin deep waters that the river currently possessed.

He approached it and reached down to grab it, but the unnaturally shaped rock began to uncoil itself and bared its snake like fangs at him. 'Why you little-!" He thought before instantly deciding to kick the serpent in the head and stomping on it several times for good measure.

"What in the heck was that?!" He panted as his heart was rapidly racing out of his chest.

He felt horrible, but something was flowing out of the serpent and began to pool in his chest and head, causing him to feel more empowered than before.

"I feel... weak, but strong at the same time." He muttered to himself before he walked up to a nearby tree and punched it, splintering it in mere seconds as he continued to vent out his anxiety on the poor thing.

When he stopped, he realized that the trunk of the tree looked like it was made out of... gold. 'This is awesome! A gold tree?! Even the inside looks like gold!' He thought as his eyes lit up and many ideas began to rush through his mind.

'If only I had a... oh?' He thought before noticing something odd in the grass that surrounded the forest. It gleamed silver in the twin moons and he was sure he recognized the shape.

He walked over to it and picked it up, turning the blade over in his hand. "How did you get here?" He asked it, questioning how he couldn't see it earlier when he came out of the cave. It looked like it was one of his favorite carving knives back home! He tested the blade on his finger and it was still extremely sharp for a knife that was supposedly abandoned. So he took it over to the tree and began to chop it in half in a couple of well placed swings and he pushed it the rest of the way to the left and watched as the vibrant purple leaves shuddered as it fell to the ground.

"I like him better already!" The woman said, satisfied with Warlin's apparent mental breakdown and she began to bellow with laughter at his dumbfounded look when he found the knife.

"What did I warn you about earlier?" The man warned, he appeared from the other room he sat in earlier to have some peace from her loud sleeping habits...

"Never... interfere with each others subjects?" She seemed unsure, it had been before she went to sleep several days ago after all and she always seemed quite aloof anyways. He sighed and face palmed himself. "He just got his first essence, and he should be connected to the HIVE by now, so don't mess with my test subject!" He stomped his foot and pointed to the other room, he gripped the holoscreen he was currently holding so tightly that even the thick polymer began to crack under his own temper tantrum.

She immediately picked up her ax and swiped the holoscreen out of his hands. "Since you want to be at the helm so badly, why didn't you say so earlier?" She asked with her face puffed up and her ax behind her back. He was about to throw his dagger that he stuffed in his sleeve earlier at her if she didn't leave, but she did, to his surprise, leave. He sighed and continued to observe the subject, interested in how the subject would interact with the others.

"First, subject A341 attacked him and now subject H269 was killed by him. How unnaturally strong is that human?!" He mumbled aloud as he snapped his fingers and a bag of fire salted popcorn drifted into his hands and he began to eat some of them as he watched.

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