Chapter Text
Pitons, a hammer, and the toughest backpack she can find, all pilfered from a store for camping and rock climbing and such. A helmet with a light built into it supplied with some irreplaceable batteries, and several spares shoved in her pack along with a hand-crank flashlight to give her enough light to replace her helmet's batteries if it goes out. Two days of food (smoked meat mostly) and water is probably overkill, but she doesn't know how far down she'll need to go.
She knows from experience how steep the slope in Puppet's cavern can get, and also that it eventually ends in a near-vertical drop into darkness. This is complicated by the fact that the walls tend to be slick with moisture and have clearly undergone some erosion over the years making climbing a tough prospect.
Hence the climbing equipment. Amelia even has a climbing harness and all the knick-knacks associated with it. Granted, it took several days of experimenting to figure out how it all actually works, but that's in the past now. She's ready.
Now if only the others would stop worrying so much.
"This isn't the most dangerous thing I've ever done." Amelia explains, again, to the house-sized mermaid monster crouching at the cave entrance. "I'll be fine, Snap. I've prepared."
Snap is not amused, which is apparent enough by the fact she has a (soft) grip on one of Amelia's legs. Snap's massive clawed hands dwarf her entire body, but somehow manage enough tenderness to hold Amelia's limb without hurting her.
Mourner would probably disapprove, but Mourner is always excessively cautious. Her massive size demands it. She already treats Snap and Kite as if they're delicate, which they are absolutely not.
Kite isn't here at the moment; she's off on her usual flyaround. She dropped by in the morning to show Amelia a cool rock she'd found (and it was cool! It had streaks of all sorts of colors in it) and to aggressively nuzzle her for five minutes in some gesture of reassurance (which Amelia doesn't need, seeing as she's not the one worried about this) before flying off.
Mourner wanted her to wait until Puppet was awake to help her descent, but Amelia doesn't want to wait and waste one of Puppet's precious awake nights. Besides, navigating dangerous environments is normal for her and without a monster, a hostile monster, making things dangerous this should be simple.
"I'll be back in, like, a day or two, tops." Amelia assures the concerned monster. "I won't need to avoid any monsters or anything, I'll be fine."
Snap growls unhappily, but does release Amelia's leg. She watches from the entrance with big pleading eyes while Ame slips on her great and makes more than one whining noise (which sounds like cat screaming if Amelia is being honest) in protest.
"Go- I dunno- eat a dolphin or something. I'll be back before you know it."
Snap huffs. She flops on the ground in front of the cave.
"You're going to be waiting a while."
Another huff. Amelia can hear the sound of Snap's tail dragging across the stone.
"Suit yourself." She really hopes Snap doesn't sit there the entire time. Maybe if she acts calm enough Snap won't be worried. She could bring Snap along she would, but Snap can't fit in the cave.
(Once upon a time that would have been a good thing, and it still is, Amelia supposes, as insurance against any other monsters that might wander into the area. Not including Big Blue, of course.)
With everything double-checked, she waves to Snap one last time, enters the back cubby, and checks on Puppet's lure (asleep and unblemished like usual) before squeezing her way into the crack and into the cavern.
While it's not quite as ominous as it was the first time, the cavern is still unusual. The all-around smoothness of the walls makes less sense right near the entrance where there should, assumably, not be water rushing in to erode anything.
Unless the water rises high enough to flood this area on occasion… in which case she should really reconsider living in this cave.
A problem for another day.
Her first act is to smack a piton into the floor near the entrance of the crack and hammer it in good and tie herself off to it. Hopefully with this, she can always have a way out, even if she were to lose all light. Just follow the rope… and the cord from the back of Puppet's Lure's neck, which trails into the darkness in front of her.
That doesn't exactly make the descent easy. The slope gets steep very quickly which absolutely kills Amelia's pace as she has to move very slowly and eventually start crawling backwards to keep any sort of balance, but this was expected. The rope attached to her climbing belt is a huge mental help, allowing her to move faster than the snail's pace she would be restricted to otherwise with the assurance that the flick of a latch will hold her in place and stop any uncontrolled falls. Though moving faster than a snail's pace isn't exactly a high bar to clear and it's still painfully slow.
The slope is slick with condensation, though not active running water. Waterproof clothing is a blessing in times like these, and something Amelia only has on her due to her extensive scavenging and stockpiling in years past, not to mention Big Blue acting as a deterrent to any would-be thieves… even if anyone who stopped to watch could figure out her patterns very easily and work around them.
(Grated she's unfairly biased because Big Blue was actively looking out for her.)
The initial descent takes an hour. Once the slope is steep enough, she's less climbing backwards and more just sliding along the stone, occasionally stopping herself using her harness and jamming a piton into the ground as another anchor point, tying herself off to it, and continuing down.
Eventually she finds the drop-off. The ground falls away entirely into a dark pit, accented by the sound of dripping water and the sight of Puppet's cord trailing off into the darkness.
Out of curiosity, she withdraws her hammer from her belt and smacks off a piece of rock from the wall.
It takes nearly five straight seconds of falling before she hears it impact water below. Not reassuring. Still, she checks her equipment one more time and starts descending the cliff wall in controlled jumps with the help of her rope.
Puppet's tube doesn't go straight down the pit. It continues until it's almost pressed against the back wall, and that's sign enough she's almost reached a new opening as the tube goes underneath the lip of a cavern and into the darkness once more.
A sheen of dark water greets Amelia as she slowly descends into the cavern. An underwater pond, or lake. Who knows. The smell of brine tickles her nose, and her helmet's light catches some stalactites that are very clearly made of salt (likely a result of salt water from the ocean above).
Puppet's tube also displays some signs of buildup. There are some very clear water stains on it, as well as a small crust of salt here and there. If she could reach it she would clean it off, but she can't. Not unless she wants to climb a wall for no other reason than to clean Puppet (which, while tempting, is simply not a practical use of energy at the moment).
Amelia didn't exactly bring diving equipment but her clothes are waterproof. While not the safest course of action swimming is technically an option, if one she'd rather avoid.
Her only other option seems to be to climb along the wall, which poses its own problem as the wall is slick with trails of water and plenty of condensation. Maybe swimming is the better option, and Amelia doesn't like that thought one bit.
"There's got to be an easier way, right?" Amelia muses. Puppet offered to guide her down the first time they met, so there has to be some sort of viable path. Or, perhaps, Puppet has a way to get herself and someone else through here easily?
With that in mind, Amelia starts scanning. There has to be something she's missing: something more than meets the eye, and not just a damp cave half-filled with water.
"Actually, how would Puppet have gotten us down here safely?" Amelia frowns. "Maybe I missed something up above?"
Great, now she needs to climb back up. With an exasperated sigh, she starts the climb.
The lock on her belt is essential for the return trip. Without the ability to lock herself in place there's no way she would be able to climb back up without a single slip entirely resetting her progress and dumping her in the water below.
At least she knows her pitons and rope system works the way it's supposed to. She already tested it all, but the peace of mind is nice.
Climbing up is far more effort than going down, and with no sense of time (no way was she risking her uncle's watch down here) she can only guess how long it takes to get back to the lip of the hole. An hour maybe? Either way, she once again sets to searching, trying to find what would allow Puppet to escort her down.
The answer is not at all obvious. All she sees is stone and water. The ceiling is not as smooth as the floor (littered with stalactites as it is), and the walls are an odd half-and-half… though it occurs to Ame that the water really should have worn a furrow through the stone over time, so it doesn't make much sense that the cave floor is one steady slope, almost like…
Amelia blinks once, then frowns.
…almost like it was man-made.
That changes the nature of her search. No longer is she looking for some path carved into the stone. Instead, she starts looking for oddities. Divuts, grooves, unnaturally straight lines. Anything artificial.
Her search takes a while with her limited mobility and light, but is eventually rewarded. There's actually a lever on the wall. It's easy to miss considering its coloration blends in with the stone, and actually dragging her way over to it across the steep stone slope isn't simple, but it's only a matter of time before she manages to use a few pitons to haul herself up high enough to pull the lever.
With a heavy 'clunk', Amelia pulls the lever down. A groan and a rumble follows, and she can only watch in mute surprise as a simple metal bridge rolls out from a slit in the wall, creating a narrow pathway across the pit to a doorway that Amelia knows wasn't there a minute ago.
Her anxiety is only compounded when she sees fluorescent lights flick on. Electric lighting is an extreme rarity, and almost always contained to battery-powered devices. How are these lights still running so long after the End? Why here of all places?
She suddenly feels a lot less excited and far more wary. Puppet must have known about this. This is the way down. Yet, her neck tube doesn't go through this passageway. Did her lure climb out from the pit originally? Why did Puppet never mention this?
After so long spent in the wilderness it's strange to walk along grated catwalk and hear the metal click and creak under her boots. The artificial lighting hurts her eyes, and the dull buzzing they let off is similarly unwelcome.
The pathway is rather short, and soon she's met with another door. Solid, metal, and heavy, with one of those big wheel handles that takes considerable effort to turn.
What greets her is a large, open room with a giant circle carefully welded into the metal floor which is otherwise totally wrecked. There are dents in the floor and chips taken out of the walls, and a doorframe on the far end of the room clearly once had a door in it, but little remains of it beyond some scraps of sharp metal hanging off the damaged hinges. One of the only undamaged objects in the whole room is a generator and a computer resting in one corner alongside a few rotting boxes of various knick-knacks like candles and chalk.
There was probably a room beyond the main one, but there's almost nothing left of it; a small strip of metal, and then the floor falls away into a dark cavern. Apparently this room used to be bolted to the ceiling, but Amelia can very obviously see where those bolts have been wrenched from their sockets.
(Amelia takes a second to try the computer. To her surprise it whirs to life after a minute of sputtering, but she's immediately met with a password barrier she has no way of solving. She shuts off the computer to stop it from burning power.)
A more thorough inspection reveals something more useful: a way down. It's no staircase, but the room was built close enough to a rock wall that Ame can descend from here, and poking her head over the edge already reveals walkable terrain below her, if not the smoothest in the world.
Another indiscernible amount of time is spent setting up her rope so she can safely descend to the ground. She has to be careful with her landing, as there are still fragments of metal strewn about the stone floor of the cavern from the destruction of the former room above.
There isn't too much space to work with on the ground level. Most of the cavern is still taken up by water, but she's afforded a much better view thanks to not being dangled like a fly in a spiderweb.
It's just enough of a view to see… something… in the water. It looms at the edge of her vision, just far enough out of her light so that she can only make out the gigantic silhouette. It's distracting enough that she almost misses the log-sized tentacle laying in the water a few meters from the rocky shore.
With a sigh, Ame resigns herself to getting a bit wet. She removes her backpack and anything else weighing her down (not her helmet, she needs that to see) and wades into the water until she feels it's deep enough to swim without too much risk.
It's only a short swim to the tentacle. It amuses Amelia slightly to know that a few months ago she would have been horrified of doing something like this, but now the sight of a monster- those fierce creatures that had her hiding her entire life and took her uncle from her- brings excitement and fondness rather than any sort of worry.
Well, when it's a monster she knows at least. The tentacle doesn't worry her because she has every reason to assume it belongs to Puppet.
With a grunt, Amelia hauls herself onto the tentacle. It's thick, but oddly not that slippery. It has a more sponge-like texture than anything. Pleasant to the touch.
(It's weird to think of a giant tentacle as 'pleasant to touch'.)
It's remarkably stable in the water. Her weight doesn't send the tentacle listing to the side like it would an actual log. She can sit on it and cast her light around for a better look at this giant shape.
As she's come to be used to with monsters, the shape is eerily humanoid… or at least the part she can see. It looks to her like a giant, house-sized head half-submerged in the water, but most of the features have been flattened out. The 'nose' is barely distinguishable from the surface of the face and amounts to little more than an odd ridge between the middle of two massive, albeit closed, eyelids. The ears look like those of an octopus, or maybe the head fins of an octopus. They're huge, bear a strange purple-to-orange gradient, and cover half the monster's head on their own. In fact, most of the monster is some gradient of purple, with only a few tubes visible exiting from beneath the water being flesh colored.
There's no visible mouth, though with Amelia's tentative knowledge of octopi she suspects it's underneath the water on the underside of the monster.
"Damn Puppet…" Amelia mumbles, sweeping her light over the monster. "...you don't look like a supernatural monster at all."
Most of the time supernatural monsters (those who get more active during the new moon) tend to be less animalistic and more… eldritch? Uncanny? But Puppet looks distinctly animalistic. She's a malformed octopus.
Then again, she does have a humanoid lure and can talk, so that's plenty supernatural on its own. Even Big Blue can't talk (from what Amelia is aware).
She can see where the body turns into tentacles, just underneath the surface of the water. Or, well, more specifically she can see all the dark shapes in the water that are very obviously tentacles only a meter or so away from the monster's body.
It might not be the smartest idea, but Amelia starts to swim closer. She's not scared of Puppet, and there's very little risk of Puppet accidentally hurting her considering Puppet is in a deep sleep. She gets all the way to the base of the main body; enough to actually start climbing up it.
Puppet's main body is squishy enough to be climbable at a rather sheer angle, and within a few minutes of careful footwork she's on top.
And she can quickly see there are a lot more tubes than she expected. A quick count totals up a dozen different tubes stretching off in different directions.
Considering what she knows is on the end of one of those tubes, Amelia realizes rather belatedly that Puppet must have multiple lures. She could follow those tubes to find the others, though Amelia can't imagine where they actually are in this cave or what they're doing. Puppet has been down here for so long Amelia imagines she must know every nook of this place.
"Heeey, Puppet." Amelia whispers, poking one of the giant ears. "You sleepy?"
No response. Not that she really expected any. Puppet needs her sleep. Ame quietly slips off Puppet, using the ear as a slide, and splashing into the water. She chooses a tube at random that doesn't veer off to the ceiling and starts following. A mere two minutes of swimming has her boots scraping something in the water, so Ame settles for a very slow walk on the floor of the lake that gradually grows more shallow until she's finally on dry- well, damp- land once more.
The terrain here is substantially more rugged and spiky than where she descended. There are now stalagmites to accompany the stalactites, and Amelia has to be very careful with her balance.
She tracks Puppet's tube around a series of stalagmites to find a familiar looking lure, identical to the one sleeping in the back room of her cave, propped up against a particularly large stalagmite, limbs crossed in a pose that suggests meditation more than deep sleep. The lure has a light dusting of salt across its head, which Amelia carefully brushes away.
It's also, with this touch, that Amelia realizes the lure is also squishy. It doesn't have bones and is pillow-like to run her hands over. She can squish in the head with no ill effects, though it does look quite strange… and it returns to its normal shape only a moment later.
Amelia uses all her willpower not to play with Puppet's lure anymore, no matter how much fun it might be.
A quick check doesn't reveal anything obvious Puppet might have been checking out with her lure. Maybe this is just a preferred spot. Still, Ame doesn't let it go to waste. She cracks off the top of a stalagmite and licks it. She squints, pondering the taste, then spits out the flecks that got on her tongue.
Salty, yes, but not pure salt. Disappointing really. A renewable source of seasoning would have been nice. She'll have to settle for the small scraps of salt she gets from boiling water. A shame.
A bit more wandering around the stalagmites quickly has the roof getting closer and closer until she has stalactites brushing her head, so Ame calls it quits and turns back.
It's a curious thing to see water droplets rolling down the stalactites as she moves around. Water somehow manages to leak through the rock above and into this cave… if she could just determine how high far below the surface this cave is, maybe something could be done about it, probably with Snap's help.
She'll have to ask Puppet if she can breathe underwater. That might be relevant.
Amelia retraces her steps out of the stalagmite forest and back to the water. She spots another tube off in the distance, and gets to swimming. Now that she's gotten her feet wet, quite literally, she's going to take full advantage and explore as much of this stupid cavern as she can.
Her efforts turn up minimal results. Much of the cavern is the same: rocky terrain, mostly flooded, with stalactites and stalagmites. That said, the fact that the cavern isn't outright flooded tells her there probably isn't a direct exit to the ocean, or at least not a large enough one to fill up the cavern faster than it drains.
Still, she does find some areas where the water dripping from the ceiling is more intense than others. That might be relevant. A thinner ceiling layer, perhaps? If Puppet can breathe underwater and the ceiling could be broken, that might be a way out for her, though Amelia has no idea how she's going to punch through solid rock.
Her uncle used to mention these things called 'explosives' that could apparently do such a job with destructive ease, but she has no idea where to get those sorts of things or how to use them. Maybe Snap would be able to help depending on the location, though she's not sure how much those claws can shred rock without hurting Snap herself.
"Maybe Big Blue could help." She muses. She's seen the aftermath of Big Blue's very few true fights and knows her stomps can punch straight through concrete with enough force. If they can break concrete, stone shouldn't be too hard, right?
Granted, that would involve getting Big Blue to pay attention and listen to her, which is a toss-up. Puppet says Big Blue is just shy, but Amelia has just been taking Puppet's word for it. She hasn't exactly had proper interactions with Big Blue yet.
She can't imagine being stuck down here for years. There's barely anything to do.
The whole descent, exploration, and return trip takes less than a day. The cavern is much smaller than she was anticipating. The sun is only just touching the horizon when Amelia squeezes herself out of the crack in the back of the cave and dumps her pack on the ground.
A screeching noise greets her exit, courtesy of Snap who is still at the entrance apparently. She can hear the thud of the monster's tail hitting the ground in excitement.
"See, I told you I'd be fine." Amelia calls out.
Snap growls. Her head is pressed sideways to the ground so one eye can clearly see into the cave. Amelia is hungry (she didn't eat down there), but she has to pacify Snap first. She sighs and walks to the entrance and rub Snap's scaly nose, which gets some whining noises out of the house-sized mermaid monster… and then Snap suddenly scoots away, Amelia stumbles forward, and she is abruptly grabbed (gently) by the beak of a giant flaming bird who pulls her out into the open before releasing her and flopping down next to her with a caw.
"You're both overreacting." Amelia groans as Kite nuzzles into her and almost knocks her over. "Don't tell me you were both waiting for me?"
Kite makes a deep clicking noise. She carefully maneuvers her beak towards Ame and nips at her wet pants.
"I'm just wet, it's nothing." Amelia mumbles, trying to push Kite away to absolutely no avail. Honestly, they fuss too much.
Kite is far from dissuaded. She rubs her head against Amelia's leg, bathing it in heat from her flames (fully controllable by her, thankfully) to keep Amelia warm.
"At least let me change into something dry and eat first." Amelia complains as if she's not rubbing Kite's head fondly right then. Snap whines, and Amelia sighs and reluctantly (ie: not reluctantly at all) extends her other hand to rub Snap's chin.
The duo do eventually release her so she can change and eat (she forgot she packed food in her backpack. Oops. Ahh well, at least it's still edible) before walking back outside so the monsters can fuss over her more.
Sundown is by no means a signifier of when she sleeps. Her sleep schedule has long since shifted to something more in line with her companions. She wakes up just before noon now and rarely goes to sleep before midnight, so she can spend at least some time with Mourner when she's awake.
Mourner does not disappoint tonight… though it might help that she told the giant wight (she would say skeleton, but Mourner does have skin, just pulled extremely tight) what her plan was last night, so it's not really a surprise when Mourner looms over the trees and crosses the distance to her cave in less than ten steps.
As always, Mourner does not sit as close to the cave as the others. She has a regular spot at the edge of the clearing her cave is located in, as evidenced by the trampled flora and packed ground. Due to her immense size Mourner feels the need to keep her distance… which is absurd, really. She can handle bugs without hurting them, so Mourner should be able to handle her.
(Still, it is slightly terrifying to be carried by someone the size of a skyscraper. It's only happened to her once when she got caught in the rain and mud and Mourner had to pull her out, but it was a uniquely scary and exhilarating experience she's not likely to forget soon.)
Mourner has, thankfully, accepted that Amelia is determined to get close to her and no longer panics and backs away like she used to. Instead she sits very still while Ame determinedly climbs into her lap and flops onto her back to look up at Mourner's gaunt face.
Somehow, Mourner always looks so alarmed whenever Ame does this. Maybe it's just the way her face is structured with the exaggerated eye sockets thanks to how gaunt she is.
While her actual body is quite boney, Mourner's cloak is nice and thick like a blanket, and shockingly weather resistant (or maybe that's just magic) and kept clean by both Mourner herself and some help from Snap and Kite every few days.
Kite is sort of a neat freak, but Amelia suspects that comes with having so many feathers to keep in order.
She can feel when Snap crawls up on Mourner's lap alongside her, and then Kite hops up to join and provide some welcome heat.
It's not the first time, and probably not the last, that she slumbers under the stars with giants looking down on her.
###
Asking Puppet if she can breathe underwater isn't the hard part. It just involves waiting for a new moon. (She can breathe underwater, by the way.)
The hard part is getting in touch with Big Blue and finding out what she needs to break to potentially get Puppet free, and if it were so simple to point out she assumes it would have been done already.
Then again, she has no idea if Big Blue and the trio ever had any real contact before she connected the two of them… and it's quite hard to talk to Big Blue in the first place.
Amelia understands that she's shy, but it's frustrating to try and talk to someone who looks like they're not listening.
"Bluuue!" Amelia shouts, trying not to whine at the giant head firmly pointing the other direction. She's literally standing on Big Blue's shoulder with Kite soaring around nearby, and Big Blue is still pretending she's not there. "You can't ignore me forever!"
Big Blue takes a long step along the coast, steadfastly staring out at the water. This is outside her usual pattern. Amelia isn't fooled.
"Blue! BLUE!" She stomps her foot, even though she knows it makes her look childish. "I know you know I'm here! I need your help! At least listen!"
Another long step. No response.
"We're trying to get Puppet out! We need your help!" She shouts. "Blue! Come on! Please!"
Still nothing.
"Pleeeaaase!"
Big Blue's head twitches.
"Bluuue!"
Nothing.
"Biggie!"
Big Blue doesn't have a mouth, but Amelia swears she can hear a huff.
"Bluey?"
No response.
"BB!"
An exhaling noise.
"I know you can hear me!"
Big Blue continues to stubbornly ignore her.
"Do you not care about Puppet!?" Amelia shouts, starting to get genuinely frustrated. "About me!?"
Still nothing.
"I'll pay you back somehow! I promise! If that's what it takes!" Amelia offers, starting to get desperate. "I know you've always had to look after me, so I'll compensate you this time, alright!?"
Another twitch. Big Blue's stride slows. Kite is watching; silently circling. Maybe she shouldn't have told Kite she'd handle this herself.
"BLUUUE!" She shouts, now angry. "BLUUUE!"
Big Blue has stopped walking. She can feel her shoulder flexing in some unidentified motion under her shoes.
"I THOUGHT- YOU-!" Amelia sputters, and stomps again. "YOU'RE A TERRIBLE MOTHER!"
She knows her face is red and her eyes are watery. She's being unreasonable. Big Blue owes her nothing, and here she is throwing a tantrum over not getting yet another favor. She's trying to leverage a relationship she hasn't earned.
And of course, it's only at this point that Big Blue finally turns her head to look at Ame. Those giant, featureless blue eyes look down at her passively as Amelia sniffles like the insolent child she's made herself out to be.
She's never heard Big Blue speak, she doesn't know if she can, but the soft hum that rolls over her is unmistakably from the giant. A moment later a massive finger gently pats her on the head, soothing her.
"Now you're making fun of me." Amelia growls weakly.
Another hum. The massive finger slips down under her chin, propping it up so Amelia is looking up at Big Blue.
Not for the first time, she wonders if Big Blue can talk at all. She doesn't seem to make those same screechy noises as the others, or god forbid clear speech like Puppet.
There's a sudden groaning noise that would make Amelia jump if she wasn't being held in place. She watches in awe as the spikes on the back of Big Blue's head start turning faster than they usually do, all spikes whirling around multiple times.
If they were the hands of a clock, they would be turning around…
"Two o'clock, three days from now?" Amelia ventures. The significance of the date clicks in her mind. "Ah, the next new moon."
Another hum. The spikes slowly rewind back to their time-accurate positions. This coincides with Kite landing back on Big Blue's shoulder and Big Blue removing her hand from under Ame's chin.
It's not the smoothest first 'conversation' they could have had, but Amelia is just happy it's out of the way.
###
Amelia has to dive into her stack of stockpiled gadgets to find something to help Big Blue pinpoint where to hit. She doesn't even know half of them work, but she does manage to jury-rig something.
She's never been more thankful for her uncle's insistence on teaching her how most tech works. Wires, batteries, power generation… she has to make use of all of it to get this to work, and getting it through the cave to a useful location is a hassle in itself. Pulley systems, a makeshift raft, all in service of a generator and a pair of speakers hooked up to a keyboard she can press to make a very low sound. Low enough to rumble through the ground, hearable through the stone ceiling and up into the ocean above where Snap can pick it up and direct Big Blue on where to stomp.
This whole operation is probably going to sacrifice the speakers, the keyboard, and the generator, but it should get Puppet out.
The only role Amelia will play in this whole operation is hitting a few keys on the keyboard and then getting out as quickly as she can once Kite alert's Puppet's lure topside, and Puppet passes the message onto her. She's got ropes hooked up to make it easy to climb out, and she'll have Puppet's help if need be.
Puppet herself is strangely calm about the situation, or at least not anxious in a way Amelia can discern. Her main body languidly strokes the water with her massive tentacles, making small waves, while her lures hover near Amelia, watching.
"Right, this should be good enough." Amelia mumbles. She can't really get the speakers up high in any practical way, so she has to settle for shoving them in a deep end of the cave where the ceiling slants to meet the floor and pressing them against the ceiling as much as possible.
The base is set so low she can feel her chest vibrating when she presses the keys. Hopefully that should work.
She presses the keys a few more times and nods at one of Puppet's lures. "Good to go. Tell Kite."
"I already have, Little Thing." Puppet murmurs. "I await the response."
Amelia flexes her fingers and starts pressing keys. She holds each of them for a full minute before lifting and repeating, and makes a conscious effort to favor the deeper notes.
"Kite has confirmed that Snap can hear it." Puppet murmurs. "You best leave, Little Thing."
Amelia gives the keyboard one last press before turning around and booking it (well, as much as she can while weaving around Stalagmites and then carefully walking across a thick tentacle so she doesn't get wet in the underground lake, and then climbing her rope up to the broken facility and across the bridge then up the steep slope back to when she can eventually start walking again without needing to hold onto something.
She hears the first impact about halfway up the slope. It shakes the ground, which is impressively terrifying considering how much force that must take.
Amelia pulls herself out of the cave (Puppet's usual lure nods and moves inside, quickly disappearing down the tunnel) and into the open. Kite lets out a screech to tell the others that Amelia is there, and Amelia is treated to the sight of Big Blue rearing up on one leg, the other folded tight against her body, only to lurch forward and slam down that leg hard enough to punch right through the water and sends pretty sizable waves lapping up on the shore, not to mention the sheer noise from the stomp itself as well as all the water displaced.
Abruptly something grabs her by the back of her shirt and hauls her into the air. Amelia flails for a moment, though it quickly stops once she's deposited into a large, gaunt, gloved hand.
The moon hasn't fully risen, but this being the night of the new moon has given Mourner enough energy to rise early.
"CAAAREFULLLL." Mourner rumbles. "DAAANGEEEROUSSS FOOOR LIIITTLE THIIING."
She's gotten a lot better at parsing their speech over time. Mourner was the easiest to understand, and Snap was (and still is) the most difficult. "I didn't get this far by being easy to kill, geeze…"
Still, she takes a seat in Mourner's hand and waits. It's not like she could get down if she wanted to.
Another loud crash rumbles their surroundings as Big Blue takes another stomp. Water sprays up in the air and reaches far enough to splatter on the rocks in front of her cave.
Kite is circling Big Blue's head, and she can occasionally see Snap surface in the water, keeping a fair distance from where Big Blue is striking but close enough to notice any changes.
All there is left to do is wait.
Big Blue has immense power, but the water slows her progress quite a bit. It's just deep enough to slow her stomp just a little before she impacts stone.
Still, even the water isn't enough to truly stop Big Blue. It takes half an hour of repetitive stomping, but Amelia can tell when Big Blue punches through by the way her leg jolts and she sinks forward a notch.
Immediately Big Blue pulls back, and Amelia can see bubbles in the water as it drains into the interior cavern. Snap's tail breaks the surface a moment later before she dives down to find the opening.
Tense minutes follow as they all wait for Snap and Puppet.
Two minutes.
Three minutes.
Four.
Five.
At seven minutes, something finally breaks the surface. Snap's head pops up, and in her mouth is a tentacle. Big Blue quickly leans down to grab something out of the water, pulling up a rather limp mess of tentacles and lures a second later and then moving and carefully depositing Puppet on the beach.
Puppet looks quite a bit different in the moonlight while collapsed on the beach as she is. She almost looks small from Amelia's current perspective up on Mourner's hand, though her tentacles alone cover a massive swath of the beach. One tentacle is easily longer than Snap's whole body, and could probably reach up half of one of Big Blue's legs.
It's hard to make out Puppet's face with how squishy her body is and how it folds on itself. Only one eye, droopy and barely open, sleepily scans the beach. The only part of Puppet that could be called active is one of her lures which is already cleaning itself off and exploring her surroundings.
"Puppet!?" Amelia calls from her position in Mourner's hand. She peeks over the edge of the giant's fingers (fondly rolling her eyes a bit at how Mourner's other hand hovers underneath, ready to catch her). "You okay!?"
"Quite!" The wandering lure calls back. "It will take me a while to regain the energy to move my main body in any major capacity. Thirty years of immobility and lack of 'food' will do that to a monster."
"How long will that take?"
"I am not sure, Little Thing, I have not done this very often." Puppet replies with a hint of sarcasm.
"Alright, alright." Amelia mumbles. "Geeze."
It's funny to see Snap bound around Puppet like an excited puppy, or Kite land in front of her and try and wrap her wings around Puppet's huge head. Mourner also joins, using one hand to gently stroke one of Puppet's ears.
Big Blue merely watches, still and silent as a statue.
###
Having Puppet around is a strange learning experience, because with regular moonlight Puppet is suddenly awake almost every night, and even sometimes during the day.
Puppet is perpetually sleepy after the new moon. Even when she's awake, both she and her lures don't move much. She can hold a conversation, and maybe walk around with one lure (her 'main' lure as she calls it; apparently the one she used to talk to Amelia and the others is easier to emote and move with because of muscle memory).
"The purpose of the room is unknown to me, Little Thing." Puppet whispers, her lure sitting across the cooking fire in the cave from Amelia. "When I first awoke, it was there. It has stayed there. While it was accessible, I saw little reason to after the first year. It is not as if there was something left for me to use, much less anything to explain its purpose."
Of course, nothing can have a simple answer.
"...so we can just say you're the result of some super-cool cult ritual then?"
"If you are so inclined." Puppet says with obvious amusement.
"Nice." Ame says. She checks the squirrel cooking over her fire, and, seeing it done, plucks it off and bites down. Not the tastiest thing she's ever had, but meat is meat. Can't be too picky.
"It shall be strange to have movement for the first time in my memory." Puppet muses while Amelia eats. "I explored such things a very long time ago back when I first came to be in this body, but moving in such a limited space as the cavern tells me very little about what I can do."
"Maybe you can teleport."
"I would hope not, or else spending so long in the cavern was entirely unnecessary." Puppet says dryly.
"I mean now that you have the energy for it." Amelia says. "You're a supernatural after all. Sometimes they have fancy powers."
"I suppose. Your guesses are just as valid as mine." Puppet hums. "Though I would, perhaps, temper your expectations slightly."
Of course. How dare she dream the giant monsters, some of which can create fire that doesn't burn or have a functioning clock as a hairpiece, might be able to teleport.
A small silence follows as Ame finishes her roasted squirrel. She lets the fire keep burning. She needs it for heating anyhow. It's started to get cold in recent weeks, and she's put off thoughts of how she's going to deal with winter for a while already. Now that Puppet is out, she really has no more excuses to stall.
Sounds like a problem… for tomorrow.
"Has Snap stopped nesting around you yet?" Amelia asks. Ever since Puppet has been dragged up onto the beach, Snap has taken to curling around her as best she can when sleeping, even if it's not that comfortable sleeping on rocks.
"No." Puppet sighs fondly. "She's going to hurt her back like that."
"Can you guys even get sick, or have back problems?"
"I am unsure, but I would assume so." Puppet muses. "Though as far as we can tell we do not age, so perhaps physical issues are unlikely. I imagine illness is just a matter of time for something to evolve the capability of sickening us."
"Fair enough… though I have to ask now: that's a reference to evolution, right? How do you even know about that?"
Puppet pauses. Her lure cocks its head, thinking. "Once more, I am unsure. I presume it must be leftover knowledge from Before because I certainly have not had the chance to learn much in my prison."
"Do you know how to read?"
Again, Puppet pauses. "I assume so. I can remember the alphabet and how to form words, though I could not explain where that knowledge comes from. It is the same way I know how to speak."
Interesting. She has no memories, but learned skills and concepts remain from (presumably) her former life.
"Though I imagine any reading would still be tricky after such an extended time not practicing such a skill, not to mention the difficulty of finding something a being of my size could read." Puppet continues. "My 'vision' from my lures is limited. It is less true sight and more echolocation. I do not think they could parse letters on a page, so I would be forced to attempt to read with my main body."
Huh. That… makes a certain amount of sense, actually. It explains how Puppet could 'see' her despite her lures not having eyes. "You said 'more echolocation' but not 'entirely echolocation', so it's partially vision?"
"I do believe my lures have eyespots somewhere. I do have a faint sense of light and darkness and general shapes from them, but nothing precise."
"Weird…"
A faint grinding sound interrupts them as Snap drags herself out of the water and across the stoney beach. It's rather late already; both Snap and Amelia have long since adjusted their schedules to go to sleep just after midnight so they can spend at least some time with Mourner, and it's close to that time now.
"NNNIIIGHHHT LIIITTTLLLE THIIINGGG!" Snap screeches out of the darkness.
"Goodnight Snap!" She calls back.
"You should sleep as well, Little Thing." Puppet murmurs. "You have been keeping long hours to provide me with company when you should be sleeping."
"Alright, alright." Amelia sighs. "I'll see you when I wake up then."
"Sleep well, Little Thing."
###
It's rare that Big Blue instigates anything, so seeing her kneel down in front of the cave just after breakfast is an attention grabber. Big Blue has never purposefully tried to interact with her before except to be a roadblock, so to say Amelia is nervous is an understatement. This is uncharted territory.
Puppet's Lure is keeping her company as always, but shows no sign of surprise. Maybe she was expecting this.
"Uh, hey Blue." Amelia says awkwardly, staring up at the giant, blue, pupiless eyes boring into her. Is she in trouble? Big Blue is sort of her mom in a roundabout way. "What's up?"
Big Blue hums. Her eyes shift to Puppet's lure for a moment, then back to Amelia.
"Blue has a request." Puppet explains. "She wishes for your assistance."
Another hum, this one harsher.
"Now now, you are asking for help, you are not 'informing her of somewhere she could be of assistance'." Puppet says with a hint of a laugh in her voice. "It is not polite to lie to others, much less your daughter, Blue."
Big Blue's eyes flick to Puppet for a moment, accusingly.
"I said I would translate your intent, but I did not agree to tell lies." Puppet hums.
Big Blue is hardly what Amelia would call expressive, so the slight twitch of one of her giant hands is fairly telling that she's frustrated. She hums again while turning back to Amelia.
"She wishes for you to accompany her on a trip to visit another little thing. She believes you can help them."