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

Shrugging, Panoptos let go of Uhelei.  The tribesman brushed him off brusquely, but even with a mask obscuring his features his relief could be felt.  After just bearing witness to the Council's agents in combat, even when not fighting with their full power, he knew that the casualties should they decide to bulldoze through the villages would be catastrophic.  That said, the idea of traversing [i]that place[/i] sent shivers down his proverbial spine.  Few realms posed the kind of constant threat that the Undersky could, but even then there existed some regions that the inhabitants just didn't go.  Still, he would do it without complaint, for it meant that his race would lose no children today.  His own resentfulness at his exile did not even begin to factor in to this consideration.

Wordlessly, then, Uhelei began to move.  Panoptos hovered for a moment before following behind him, and one by one the other agents fell in.  Their guide led them across the uneven surface toward the edge of the massive stalactite, then counter-clockwise along its rim.  A somewhat narrow path spiraled slowly upward, and the group hurried along it.  All the while, an odd wind swept across them, and what may have been miles beneath them the yellow-tinged clouds whirled like a maelstrom.  Eventually the spiral path led to a semicircular clearing, and at an angle perpendicular to the stone face a manmade catwalk extended straight out over the void.  For hundreds of meters it lay suspended without any sign of support over the open void.  At its opposite end it adhered to a similar platform on the edge of another, small stalactite.  From this distance, something could be glimpsed behind that stalactite, too, but any efforts to discern what it was aside from black, fibrous, and ominous would turn up nothing.  Onto the straight path Uhelei strode fearlessly, and while Souta balked for a moment, he -as the second lightest of the groundbound agents present- followed suit.  His clawed gauntlets vanished in a stream of bright water, replaced by the warhammer Escre.  With it in hand he walked right in the center of the long, lonely road.

Before too long, the group arrived at the second stone formation.  Rather than a route that skirted its edge, free to the air, this stalactite harbored a dark tunnel straight through.  Its walls, jagged and haphazard, made for irritating going.  As he trudged carefully along, Souta wondered exactly what could have made this tunnel.  It certainly seemed like nothing that a tool could do.  Given its size, which easily accommodated the large frame of Fenn, he wanted to think that it might be the product of some kind of vehicle, but in a place like this it hardly seemed likely.  Lost in thought, he nearly ran into Uhelei, who'd stopped just before rounding a corner of the winding tunnel illuminated by the Undersky's bizarre light.  [color=teal]”What's the hold-up?[/color]

Glancing back, Uhelei moved aside to let him pass, and Souta stepped out of the tunnel onto a substantial cliffside.  At once, he realized why the light cast into the tunnel had been so sporadic.  Before him stretched a seemingly infinite tangle of vines, fully three-dimensional, mobile, and rather daunting.  With no solid ground in sight, the brownish-green expanse reminded him of a colossal jungle gym—or a spider web.  About a dozen vines connected to the cliff on which he stood, but their manner of mooring caught his interest.  Instead of growing out of the rock like plants, they appeared to be stuck there, as if pasted on by a massive glue gun.  Tentatively he approached one of the vines, and with his hammer he poke it.  Individual fibers separated around the spike, but try as he might he could not jam it in.  [color=teal]”It's like steel cable.  Hey, what is this place?”[/color]  He cast a dubious glance at Uhelei.

“The home of your terrors,” the guide replied, his mechanical voice low.  “We call it 'Viranhk Voknosto—the Hanging Jungle.  The path to the seal is on the other side.”