[center][color=yellow][h3]Mad World[/h3][/color]
[@zarkun][@lazo][@kapuchu][/center]

Through the substantial ambient noise of skittering and twanging cables, Souta distinctly heard someone throw off his focus just as he fixed to pull the trigger of the miniature cannon he called Maelstrom.    He cast a withering look at the distant figure of Wrath, having not at all been listening to what he he said, but it seemed the Nephilim had already received his comeuppance in the form of a sudden spider assault.  His attention soon drifted to another one of his comrades, however, surrounded as she was in a screaming jetstream as she zoomed straight for him faster than he could finish the sentence, [color=teal]”What the shi...!”[/color]

Lily jetted straight past him, the wind and noise shocking the smith so thoroughly that he froze up for several seconds, not even breaking out of the stupor when a deluge of bug gunk splattered him.  After a moment, fortunately, he seemed to recovered his wits.  With his off hand he wiped the slime from his face, then put it to his ear in an exaggerated 'can't hear you' gesture.  Her appearance caught him off guard both in terms of unexpectedness and in looks, since he hadn't been aware of her shapeshifting capabilities.  Nevertheless, he received her question loud and clear.  The realization that her dynamic entry had saved his neck did not escape him, and he opted to go for a less confrontational response than he'd initially planned.  [color=teal]”Right.  I'll remember it for the quiz.”[/color]  He watched her glance at his array of gleaming blue shards stuck in the colossal vine.  Admittedly, the scene wasn't perfect for showing off, since he could feel vibrations through the vine that meant more spiders were on the way, but there existed a few moments still in which he could make a good account of himself.  The goop on his hand washed away in a swirl of water as he swung his arm, lodging the newly-formed Silverbeast claws into the vine.  Its metal fingers pierced the surface, sticking tight.  Closing one eye, Souta resumed his firing stance, saying, [color=teal]”Clearing the area.”[/color]  With that, he fired twice in quick succession.  Like little comets the two blue bolts flew through the area.  The first hit the vine directly, jamming into its surface.  A split second later the second bolt collided with it, detonating it.

The next thing Souta knew, the entire vine was up in a massive blue explosion, giving off plumes of black smoke and violently shaking this entire region of the Hanging Jungle.  Thanks to his claw, Souta remained where he was, though the vibrations flung him around severely, battering his joints and bruising his skin.  At least twenty seconds passed before the vibrations stopped and Souta, his entire body one big ache, was able to pull himself up.  Teeth gritted, he looked around, training his eyes and ears for any skittering foes, but he found nothing.  Just as he'd predicted, the massive tremor had coerced the spiders hordes into leaving, believing something greater to be afoot.

Souta was surprised again, then, when a shape dropped down not far away.  He whirled to face it head-on, but found it to be only Uhelei, the group's biomechanical guide.  On second glance he appeared to be covered in scratches and dents from head to toe, even in his mask, but judging by his free, trained movements the paralytic venom of the spiders did not affect him at all.  “You are crazy,” he told Souta.  “Almost killed me.  And then where would have you been?  Yet I am ashamed to say that crazy worked.”

[color=50C878]”What's more amazing is that it took that long to figure it out, and that out of everyone, it was the human that did it!”[/color]  The familiar and nausea-inducing voice of Panoptos heralded his arrival, drifting up from below like an underwater fart in a bathtub.  [color=50C878]
“Well, maybe it's not so surprising.  With everyone else being at least mildly competent at fighting, they probably thought they could hold the creepy crawlies off indefinitely.  Only reasonable that you had to weasel your way out of the situation, really.”[/color]

Wearily, Souta opened his mouth to sternly rebuke the watcher, but Panoptos bulldozed straight through him.  [color=50C878]”As much as I'd love to hear your comeback, we are on a schedule here.  While you lot were crushing bugs, I zipped back in the direction of the portal.  Just as I thought, we're not alone in the Undersky any longer.  So let's pick up the pace.  Which way, my little tin can?”[/color]  He clasped his long claws together, stooping plaintively toward Uhelei.

The exiled tribesman, though clearly aggravated, restrained his tone as he responded.  “We are about two thirds through.  We must forge on, reunite with your other allies, and reach the end.  Then there is the winding path, and after that, we will arrive at Wit's End.”

[center]-=-=-[/center]

In the distance, beyond the great tangle, a dark mass loomed that could only be another immense stalactite.  The agents of the Charred Council encountered no more spiders, but as they grew closer to there came to be a change in the vines.  These new, huge strands lay intermixed and sometimes wrapped around the vines to which the agents had by now become accustomed, appearing with greater frequency.  Alongside them, Souta also spotted chunks of rock ensnared in the vast web seemingly at random, similar asteroids floating in space.  Coming near one, he veered slightly off path to try to navigate its surface instead, and found the flat surface on its top to be far more manageable.  

At the far end of the large slab only the new vines were in range.  Hundreds of repetitions of the same technique made his motions mechanical as he slung a Trawler toward the nearest one, pulled himself up, and assessed his surroundings.  He decided immediately that he did not like this new vine.  It was somewhat softer than the old variety and much more rubbery, with a ribbed surface rather like an earthworm's.  Though dry, it was unpleasantly warm to the touch.

Of course, Souta was bringing up the rear of the group when this happened.  Farther up, the other agents, by now all also using the new vines, had come into range of a particularly massive, circular chunk of stone situated right in the way to the other stalactite.  The scene brought to mind, perhaps, images of the great railroads of the United States or other big countries.  Whenever the railroad companies, in the course of laying their tracks, came to a mountain, a decision had to be made.  Would they try and build over?  Or would they go around?  Or try to blast a path straight through the obstacle?  No route was without its cost.

Panoptos, leading the group, pondered it.  But he found his ruminations distracted by the obstacle itself.  The entire thing, gargantuan and very round, appeared to have a smooth surface laced with uncommonly straight cracks.  Copious amounts of very large vines fed into it from all angles except the one directly ahead of the group -where there was a clearing-, vanishing into yawning black holes.  As he stared at it with his wandering eyes, the principal watcher began to snicker.  His chortling intensified into a churlish guffaw, but it did not last very long, for he composed himself to say, [color=50C878]”Even in all my travels I haven't encountered something like this before.  I'll have to keep a close eye on this...or two, or three, or nine.  Say, underlings?  Do endeavor to make this interesting for me.  Let's see...how long, do you think?  I'm betting three.”[/color]

Uhelei's icy stare affixed him.  “Three what?”

Pure silence surrounded Panoptos for about a second.  Then he clarified, [color=50C878]”Two.  One.”[/color]

Dead ahead, roughly a hundred meters out, the rock mass moved.  In front of the Charred Council's agents, there opened a monstrous [url=http://pre15.deviantart.net/305a/th/pre/i/2016/193/1/9/sleeping_leviathan_by_ellixus-da7fumh.jpg]eye[/url].