Tar tapped her bottom mandibles together in disgust at the sight and smell of this chamber. Though the entrance to the thin ledge was tight for her Sangheili frame and light was sparing, the stench from this pit threatened to overwhelm her senses. A pool of water below lapped against the rocks - with her eyes now adjusted to the low-light she could just about make out the bodies suspended in it. As she watched, a mesh of vines floated to top all along the pool’s surface, in between the bigger carcasses.

“Look. Grenades won’t reach the bulb.” Tar pointed as more vines began shaking all around them. She knew that if something fell on top of that mesh, it would sink under the water before trapping whatever it had caught. Countless animals would have drowned in pure panic down there.

A glimmer of light reflected off a shiny stone embedded in the exposed stomach of a beast in the pit. Tar looked up. An opening was just visible on the other side of the chamber, angled up towards the sky. “There is the path up the mountain!” Tar gestured to the chute, and began looking for a way across. For some reason, she remembered there being hand and foot holds across, but couldn’t see any beneath the melee of vines coating the walls.

“Move back!” Tar growled as someone from the team behind her pushed out of the throat and onto the platform to assess the situation. She dug her heels in and spread her arms wide, which unfortunately coincided with a vine surfacing from the groove it had been resting in. It took her weight, then abruptly reared up and pulled back towards the bulb. 

Tar lost her footing and slipped over the side of the platform. She turned as she fell, and her hip clattered onto the ledge. Making a split-second decision, Tar dropped the blade in her hand and used both to grasp at the rocks as she fell. For a heart stopping moment, it didn’t feel like she had anything. One hand passed by the edge of the precipice, but her left arm juddered in its socket as she held firm on a point of rock on the very edge. She could hear her sword snicker against an outcrop below her, then plop into the water with a loud fizz, cutting through a clutch of cilia.

All hell broke loose in the chamber. Every vine which wasn’t yet moving burst into action, either actively seeking out the intruders or trying to deny any purchase on the rocks. The smell intensified, and the sound was that of guts slopping around in a bucket.