章 99: 99. Cultural Shock
The winds rich in sulfur and ash slammed against the Voidwyrm and its passengers as they advanced in a dark grey sky of the most volcanically active region of Pandora.
It was a region that was opposite to all that was seen on Pandora, even the desertic bone graveyard where the weak, diseased, and old let themselves die. The Obsidian Valley was a place that fit the description of apocalyptic and nuclear winter almost to a T.
Endless desert of toxic ash, granite, fragmented obsidian, and many more randomly separated by crevices, some only a few meters deep and dozens in length while others were bottomless and ranging in kilometers for length and dimensions. Many lead to caves forming impossibly complex labyrinthine undergrounds.
The sky was in a constant state of thunderstorms, dark clouds crackling with thunder and hiding the two suns as acidic rain was ready to pour down at any opportune moment on the fauna and flora adapted to this rather extreme environment.
The most present were three species of plants of the same genus, vain pods, puffball trees, and puff daddy, all of those names to depict plants that stored methane to help them synthesize their own biological matter, the most peculiar aspect of them all was their sacs full of light gasses that let them partially defy gravity and also make them very prone to explosion if their was just the hint of a spark.
All around were the trunks of long-since dead Hometrees that had fossilized creating massive dark grey pillars every five or so kilometers reaching toward the sky or broken on the ground creating bridges for the crevices. But since long dead trees were only a small portion of the desolate paysage, volcanoes were the most flagrant part of this entire area.
They were of all shapes and sizes, from barely hundreds of meters in height to kilometers the vast majority were completely inactive but the ones that weren't were creating rivers of bright red yet rapidly cooling lava and toxic fumes.
"Are you both sure there is anyone living on that wasteland? I don't think even the most hardy of beasts would even survive a few days.", Jake suddenly asked if the harsh wind, toxic air, and smog did not bother him as the Tek Belt filtered everything harmful out, letting him not suffer and die slowly.
"That's because that is exactly this. Only insane individuals would live here when the smallest of breezes can lead to deep cuts and breathing stupidly sharp pieces of glass. The Ash People are cave dwellers far from obsidian shards sandstorm.", Grace explained with fascination as she was very curious about the ways these people live in such conditions.
"Huh… That makes sense.", the ex-marine nodded, the simple explanation was enough for him even if that happened to several other questions.
"Look at our goal, you two.", Liam said pointing one finger at the largest volcano appearing on the horizon the Voidwyrm was rapidly approaching, its size and height comparable to that of Mount Everest, and its dark grey and obsidian black body was adorned with massive arches of stones as the smaller rocks orbited all around like moons.
"The <Yawnyewla Txepìva'ram>... The Ash Mountain of the Heartbroken is directly translated. Rather poetic for such a devastated, pretty fitting.", Grace said the name of the volcano in question, her eyes glued onto it as if trying to glimpse beyond without much success.
After a few minutes of steady flight, the Voidwyrm slowed down and descended as their destination was a few hundred meters before them. Liam's Tek Helmet unfolded over his head letting his gaze behind the base of the volcano, the hundreds of tunnels all clear for him to see.
"Why did we stop?", Jake asked and the post-human first answered by mentally commanding his wyvern to fire a concentrated beam of pure blue energy at a very precise location in the ground. The beam hit its target, melting the area of impact.
"There is no true entrance so I'm making one and we can't progress further on Carnifex's back.", Liam said before jumping down, the two tetrapterons on his shoulder flying off at this exact moment, a soft crack was heard as the mechanical energy generated by his fall was all but absorbed by his Tek Boots and dispersed outward, as for the others too… Well, the Voidwyrm was moving closer to the ground to a point where it was safe for them to jump.
Once the beast of metal and pure technology landed a Cryopod appeared in Liam's left hand and he began storing the Tek wyvern, while he was doing this Jake, feeling adventurous to explore, not before having informed the other two.
And so he walked into the hole dug, Septen following behind by Liam's order, the ground of the made-up tunnel was paradoxically cold, and if it wasn't then the heat would need to be quite high for the shield to be overpowered as such he had the freedom to advance without any hindrance and that is what he did.
His almond-shaped iris dilated to accommodate the lack of light while he trailed his finger on the solidified molten stone, then he arrived at the end.
A massive cavern lay before him, plants and mushrooms he never had seen before grew in great numbers from every direction. It was a shock to him, he did expect life but not this much, there even was water.
And it wasn't only the flora that seemed to flourish since as soon as he took the first step his ears twitched, creatures were close and he didn't have to wait for long as one showed itself to him.
It was a smaller and brighter than usual viperwolf, its body was ebony black and white dots adorned its body, it stared at him curiously with two pairs of eyes then its frills spread open at the exact moment a bright flash of light exploded at Jake's confused face and wide-open eyes.
<Aren't you-ARGHG!?>, he screamed out in both shock and pain, his vision whitening and his cornea hurting to a point he never knew was possible, it felt like his eyes were burning from the inside out, and didn't have the time to process anything that something pounced at the back of his neck.
He didn't panic at the realization his neck was going to be bitten off by whatever creatures blinded him, he still didn't when more came jumping down on him, swarming him with numbers to compensate for their size.
He didn't feel the pain nor was he injured; the only thing that was felt was the searing pain behind his closed eyelids, the pressure where he was attacked, and the sound of animals trashing, growling, and barking as he fought back trying to not kill them.
Then the sound of air being ionized reached Jake's ears with the sound of whimpering as the viperwolf scattered away in fear of being killed like one of their brethren that was trying to rip the Avatar's throat. Septen was flying above, its cannon above its head ready to shoot at anything approaching.
"I didn't know a similar variety of viperwolves of the ones below the Great Plain has evolved here.", Liam said, the Cryopod he was fiddling with in his hand switching for his Tek Phase Pistol that he used to fire a concentrated green beam of plasma at Jake's eyes.
"Fucking hell! Wasn't it supposed to protect against all harm?", Jake said scratching his healing eyes as his vision progressively came back to him.
"It doesn't, I don't do magic sadly and a bright light flashed in the eyes of nocturnal creatures such as yourself would have hurt in any case. Some tweaks might be of use still. You're stupidly lucky I can heal injuries like this, otherwise, you might as well be blind for the rest of your life.", was the response from the post-human, his face hidden by his visor made it impossible to know what he was thinking.
"Yeah… Sorry, and thank you.", the Olo'eyktan of the Omatikay said bashfully with a light chuckle as he scratched the back of his. He didn't look the part of a father of three, a military man, or even a leader and that was relaxing.
As he stood up his eyes trailed briefly over the viperwolf corpse. It wasn't a pretty sight, the head and upper body were gone and the wound on the remaining part blackened to the point it could be confused with charcoal. If the tetrapteron was just a little off, it was a terrifying weapon for it didn't care about what was made of what.
"Fucked around and find out oh mighty Toruk Makto but I appreciate your sacrifice, now I won't need to feel my eyeballs melt in my skull.", Grace's sarcastic voice echoed from behind with a strange mix of pity and schadenfreude.
And so after this minor problem, the three of them advanced in those dark tunnels where the only light source was of biological origin. At multiple points, they were attacked by the local wildlife, such as by a pride of fanged mongrels, a type of large predator habiting the same ecological niche as thanators.
Each and every time something of the like happened Liam made them flee by using the Stun Mode of his Tek Phase Pistol.
Nearly unknown to all, their little group was being followed and observed by the owner of two piercing black cat-like irises hidden behind tinted glasses, she was gazing down upon them from the fossilized roots of plants such as mainly but not only Hometrees.
The lithe figure frowned before snarling, her three good canines would have appeared briefly if not for the mask over her face and nose, from her satchel took a thin piece of coal attached by plant fiber to a meta cardinal bone, the largest of the index finger bones.
With that, she began writing and drawing a very basic sketch of what she was seeing and their likely direction on a piece of skin. Her writing was not English, it was another one all on its own, in its working, it was more of an advanced and complex set of symbols akin to hieroglyphics or runes.
In the end, she wrote her name, Laìo Zuät'ä'itan for it was mandatory unless she wanted to be harshly punished. Or worse… Go to the pit where a swift death in a fight with a beast was the best option.
Once it was done Laìo delicately and swiftly rolled the skin into a scroll before knotting it together then she attached it to the collar of a very colorful six-legged lizard that was sitting peacefully on her right shoulder.
It was a male sävllwuk, a species that could create Psionic bonds with their mate, with which they could communicate at long distances and know each other's location, for example, they could alert the other of predators. This one was trained and knew several codes for several situations, such as this one.
<Invaders… Parasites.>, she hissed under her breath with as much venom dripping from her voice as she did with the sävllwuk ordering it to send a specific set of codes to its mate back at the main camp and once this was done she gave it the task to deliver the message.
Its color shifted and it blended in the flora before skittering away and disappearing. Now her focus was back on the three trespassers and the two metallic flying creatures on the metal one shoulder.
Down below a two third of the groups remained completely oblivious to their stalker and utterly fascinated by this strange subterranean world.
Grace in particular stopped every dozen meters to either take samples of plants such as one that looked like a living or to take a photo. She was like a kid in a candy store.
Almost an hour flew by and the ground was now cracked or straight up broken but nothing was collapsing, be it either thanks to the roots or the local powerful magnetic anomaly. And many of the floating stones were very morbid objects.
"Skulls, Na'vi skulls.", Jake spoke in shock at the sight of dozens of skulls impaled on an obsidian spike, each of different size, some being of literal children even younger than his daughter. This made his blood run cold.
But that was only the start, the spike was of masterful craftsmanship, and on it was a story carved in image. A story that spoke of who these Na'vi were and how they died. His first thought was it was a cemetery, a unique one but still, the sight of more such spikes with varying degrees of 'aesthetic' changed it.
At first, it might have reminded him of the Anurai and their bones-based art but it was far from it, so horribly far from it.
There was the skeleton of three Na'vi infants mixed with that of various animals to create a chimera, a mockery of what they once were, and the obsidian structure those were on showed the tale of what appeared to have been a sacrifice.
Grace was not doing much better on her side, her eyes widened in shock as she gazed upon the skeleton of a small child with a broken skull and the story drawn on the obsidian. The child was murdered then eaten and put here as some kind of twisted trophy.
She was not one prone to judge others' culture's most unusual custom but here… It was hard not to and as she observed more of those 'art pieces' it became even harder. The child was eaten alive in what appeared to be a ritual.
She was feeling fury rising but before it could reach any kind of breaking point a faint cry was heard in the far distance and an arrow stopped one meter in front of her face, Liam having grabbed it before the impact on her shield.
If he didn't it would have kicked her into the depth of the earth below and before she could swear or say thank you Liam's Tek Armor emitted a pulse of energy that stopped once their little group was engulfed.
It was a shield she realized by the obvious tapestry of blue hexagons making the bubble of hard light protecting them from the Omni-directional arrows rain.
"Orien and Septen go, rip and tear, you are free to do as you please as long as none die. They have attacked first, let's hope an understanding can still be made.", his voice cold and emotionless echoed with the slight distortion of his helmet only adding to those words' effects.
*
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クリエイターの想い 
The_Bip_Boop2003
The_Bip_Boop2003 Hello, here are the Ash People, and since there is nothing on them but that they are infamous I made them this way. Though don't worry it gets worse, no noble savage BS here. They are people and people can be both self-sacrificing heroes and absolute degenerate monsters no matter their backgrounds and the Na'vi are not exempt from this rule.
Bye-bye!
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