At the foot of one of the smaller TNT hills lay something metallic. It glinted in the torch light, catching the being's eye. Lo and behold, the item was a discarded pickaxe, with an iron pick and a wooden handle. Ranboo took the tool into his hands. Despite the numerous dents and scratches, the sentient could tell the mining hardware still had good durability; it would do its job well. Ranboo lifted the pickaxe over his head, and in one, powerful swing, he struck the stone wall.
Due to the state of his tool, the sentient was able to dig three feet into the wall in about twenty seconds, an average time by mining standards. After reaching said checkpoint, the next swing cracked a thumb-sized hole in the wall- he'd struck an opening. Thank the gods. Ranboo continued mining until he'd carved out a suitable opening for himself. What he saw in the newfound hole floored him.
The sentient's crudely carved doorway had expanded into a huge cavern, one that doubled the size of Quackity's underground train station. Instead of the usual torch light, whoever had mined the space had hung glowstone lamps along the walls and high above as chandeliers. The strangest part, however, were the weird streaks of red crawling along the floor.
Ranboo didn't recognize the red substance; he'd never seen it before anywhere else on the server. The streaks were as thick as logs, but looked to be as soft as moss. Like an intricate web of roots, the red veins were spread throughout the cavern, dominating the space in a mess of crimson. They were arteries carrying blood to the heart, which stood proudly at the end of the cave, hidden in the shadows.
Something about this...thing had to be significant if Wilbur wished it gone. Ranboo decided to investigate.
The enderman hybrid jumped from his entry way down to the floor of the cavern. He scanned the area for humanoids, but found himself alone in the space. Good, he thought, That'll make my mission easier. Ranboo twisted and contorted his body, carefully avoiding any and all contact with the strange, crimson tendrils. The being had seen too many tragedies in his life to know what came from unchecked curiosity; he didn't want to become the next patient zero to an unnamed disease.
The closer Ranboo crept towards the back of the cavern, the thicker the vines of red became. They hung from the ceiling like streamers, reaching for the small humanoid down below. The tendrils were an infestation like none other; they wove this way and that, over and under each other in every direction. The sentient was lucky to find any untouched floor space at this point.
All vines led back to the mighty source, and indeed, the source was truly formidable. At first glance, Ranboo thought it was a giant crimson egg, born of a dragon and left to hatch. Considering how there were no dragon-sized exits from the cave, however, the halfling quickly dismissed the theory. It could have been a large, blood-covered fungus, but Ranboo doubted this idea as well. Molds and fungui typically held an odor- or at least, he thought they did, and yet the sentient couldn't detect any unusual scents. Was it a creature of some sort, perhaps a rare or extinct species? There was only one way to find out.
What do y'all think the red thing is?? A terrible creature or a harmless being??
Vote to protect our favorite mine explorer!! :DD
And, as always, thank you to everyone who gave this book a chance to read. Mysteries don't solve themselves. Thank you, Wattpad sleuths and detectives!! <333
[Image Credits] "Inside the Lake Saiko Bat Cave C-Point.JPG" (Cropped Slightly) by Sakaori (talk) (https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Inside_the_Lake_Saiko_Bat_Cave_C-Point.JPG)