I lead the way with Nerissa at my flank. Shortly after entering the black, I began to see crystals. Purple in colour all around. In the ceiling jutting out of the walls. Some were the size of a pebble, others were massive, building height.

"So all of this will be used in communications?" I asked.

Nerissa hummed in affirmation. "Yes. The bigger ones will be collected by galactic scale business’ like Kun-co. They will use the crystals as part of a closed network and even add other crystals into that network through quite an interesting task that blends together Psionics with modern tech. They will also be bought by communicator manufacturers and ground down into flecks and placed into public communicators.

The smaller crystals though, the ones that can fit in a hand for example. Those are actually the more expensive ones funnily enough."

"Really? I wouldn’t have guessed that. I assumed that big one means more profit to be made."

"For the average citizen? Yes. That would be the smart choice. Its why tech companies use the big ones. But the smaller ones? It becomes easy to notice if the gem has been cracked. How many times it has been split up. It’s harder to get a clean cut. Meaning that then if you split it in two, only two individuals can use that gem. You can only contact each other.

But if you keep the gem intact, you have a fully encrypted device. Untraceable by almost all means. It takes some Psi-tech to get it up and running, but thats the core concept."

Listening to Nerissa I nodded my head. "Hmmm~ Yeah, that went totally over my head. All I got was Big gem, lots of people. Little gem fewer people. Tech is still too alien to me. I prefer sticking to my genes and my science. Leave the tech stuff to the tech nerds."

"Hmm!" Nerissa squeaked out a laugh behind me that actively forced me to turn around because it was cute. She then spoke as I looked at her. "Have I ever mentioned your mind is an enigma to me? You know so many things, but lack in others? It amuses me to no end."

I chuckled at being called a dummy in one of the more polite ways to do so. "Yeah, but I don’t mind. I focus on what I enjoy and I am good at the things I enjoy. If I was good at everything, I would probably get bored or depressed really quick. So I take my limitations in stride and have decided that when it comes to tech, I am perfectly fine staying an unga bunga."

"A what?" Nerissa asked breathily, clearly amused by my words.

"An Unga bunga. You know a cave-"

*ROAAAARRR*

Nerissa and I immediately took a defensive stance as a roar, or more a screech echoed through the cave system. The echo reverberated for a few moments before I relaxed. "What was that?" I asked, looking in the direction we were traveling. 𝙛𝒓𝓮𝒆𝔀𝒆𝙗𝓷𝒐𝙫𝒆𝙡.𝒄𝓸𝓶

"No idea. I have no data in my armour for such a noise. But what I do know is it is definitely not Drakoshi."

"Should we regroup with the others?" I asked.

"While the intrigued part of my brain is begging me to push ahead, the logical side has won the battle today. Regrouping is wise. We have to go this way anyway. So if that roar is a threat, better to deal with it together."

...

*ROAAAARRR*

Nerissa played an audio recording of the roar to the rest of the Nymphs as we arrived towards the top of the cave system.

"Hmm, sounds scary." Marnes stated. More as a fact compared to his own feelings.

"Well, this might turn out interesting then. Scary often means deadly. It will be fun to get the Psionics pumping since Nerissa blew up all the fun." Aeteos followed up.

"Do we have anything like this in our data of the local fauna Phoebe?" Nerissa asked and Phoebe shook her head.

"No. So be on alert. Not much can survive on this planet with the intense gravity. So we are either up against something small that can make an incredible amount of noise, or we are going to be fighting megafauna."

"So pessimistic sister! There is more than a fair chance we won’t even encounter the roaring creature. Let us focus on the primary mission. Collect the Praedoxite and any geode we can find of it to transplant to another suitable world." Rhapso said before turning to me.

"These Nymphs are all so old, they get a bit bleak at times. Don’t worry Apollo, I am still full of optimism as you will come to find out."

"Old!" Marnes yelled out in shock.

"We are only two hundred thousand years older than you!" Aeteos followed the trend. "I mean Nerissa and Phoebe alone are..."

The surroundings suddenly began to feel dangerous, but I didn’t even care as I began to resist the urge to rub my eyes of the stress.

’Only two hundred thousand years he says... By Jewels tits I literally still cannot comprehend living that long.’

"Enough!" Phoebe spoke in a stern tone. "Now is not the time for jest. Especially in exalted company. Apollo may know of our race, but that does not mean we should lose all decorum before him. This is a warzone, he deserves our utmost best since we invited him along."

"Oh.. Right yeah. My bad." Marnes rubbed the back of his head.

Aeteos proceeded to do the same. "Yeah, I kind of forgot he wasn’t one of us to be honest. All armoured up, didn’t bitch about a close range nuke. Not complaining about radiation afterwards..."

’Huh? I am curious about the affect of radiation on my body now... Possible testing in the future... *Gasp!* I wonder if I will get superpowers?’

...

I didn’t linger in my thoughts for too long, especially since we began moving again. I offered my balls to everyone present and each of the Praetorians seemed eager to fondle them, enticed by their uniqueness. With fire lighting the way we made our way down the descent for miles. We heard the roar a couple more times, but nothing came of it.

Even with my enhanced hearing, the roar must have been coming from so far away, as I could not pinpoint its location of origin.

As we continued to descend I began to feel a sense of home. While I was a bit sick of caves after eighteen years, home world was still my home and being underground felt... Right.

It felt like at any point a big buggy beauty was going to pop out from around a bend and give me a tappy dance upon seeing me.

*Sigh*

I sighed, reminiscing. ’I love the hive so much.’

"You alright Apollo? That was quite a loud sigh." Marnes asked from my side.

"Oh, yeah. Sorry. Just being underground reminds me of home. I spent pretty much all my life till eleven months ago underground with my sister and my carers. It feels natural for me."

"Oh is that so?" Aeteos chimed in. "You would get along great with some of the other Nymphs then. What’s his name *snap snap* Cocytus! Big water Nymph. Build that, dare I say, rivals some of the gods... But super into underground water specifically. The way it carves through rock over centuries, builds tunnels like this. I remember overhearing a conversation he had with..." Aeteos then paused in confusion before turning to the leader. "Hey Phoebe, what ever happened to the Lampades? I haven’t seen them in decades now that I think about it."

Phoebe continued to walk without turning around and replied. "Not sure. Heard they all said they were going on a mission, all within a month of each other. Haven’t seen them since. I recall Orphne being one of the last I saw leave. She seemed a bit peculiar now you bring this up actually. She had lost some complexion... Enough chatter, I can hear a change in the echo up ahead, I think we are reaching a cavern."

After five more minutes of walking, Phoebe was correct. The tunnel we had been following downwards opened up into a cavern that, while not much wider than the tunnel we came out of, was much taller and was filled with a strange bioluminescent light from above.

The rest of the cavern was filled with small flora and a large scattering of red crystals as far as the eye could see into the distance.

"By the gods..." Rhapso muttered. "There shouldn’t be this many... Right?"

"N-No... The last time we were here, two centuries ago... Th-There were only six. A huge haul... But there are thousands here..." Phoebe seemed to be shocked.

Everyone was, meanwhile I looked around. Something felt off...

Looking around the large vertical cavern, I couldn’t shake off the feeling I was being watched. I then proceeded to notice that a piece of the wall above began moving... Only to realise it a moment later it wasn’t the wall...

Following the pattern I could now see in the rock I looked up hundreds of feet and I then noticed a pair of compound eyes, bigger than my body, staring down at me.

I proceeded to draw Zircon and got myself in a combat ready stance and warned.

"Um, guys... Can you leave your stupor till later? We have company... Directly above."