After a while, they might notice that the plants are spreading from a single area, currently dominated by dry, easily breakable, bushes that they can pass through with minimal effort. Between the bushes smaller plants of various sorts grow, lush green.

The dry bushes are a bit concerning, possibly being parasitized by a smallseed, but nothing else seems affected so they're probably safe. It's odd that the little plants are doing so well that close to the ground. Skei inspects the ground at center of the area with her lamp.

There is a depression on the ground, hard to indentify how deep given all the dried vegetation.

Suddenly, a bizarre creature emerges from a nearby tree, it looks at Kyeskei with black curious eyes.

She calls out a warning and backs away very quickly.

There shouldn't be any new creatures, and she thought they'd catalogued everything that existed. It could be what's killing the bushes, or making the plants so strange.

The creature's beady eyes follow her movements.

In her hurry to back away she takes a step towards the wrong direction, her feet can't find solid ground and she loses balance. She falls.

All the dried plants scratch her skin as she breaks her way through the branches, but they end up cushioning her fall too, during a brief moment she sees a perfectly circle of light above her, then it disappears.

For a moment the place she is in looks like a cave, then a chasm, the wall on her right is natural steep stone going almost vertically. The wall to her left looks natural at a glance, but it's made of large stone boulders and looks very old, the place is damp and intermenently covered with the kind of plants she was examining just a few seconds ago. Otherwise this location is completely unfamiliar.

She screams and tries to protect her head as she falls. Once she lands, she stands up and investigates the walls, rubbing her arms and hoping the cuts don't get infected.

Where is she, and what are the walls even made of? Painted wood, or something that already grew like that? It's so tall. How is this place here and hidden, and why? She looks around, trying not to touch anything.

Plants block one direction. The wall doesn't look like painted wood, it is a weird almost bark-like substance, dark-gray, hard and solid if she inspects it closely. And there more she looks... there hard is to justify how a place like this could be hidden anywhere in the area she was just a moment ago.

She couldn't have fallen through the planet, the fall wasn't nearly long enough. This probably isn't actually a hole someone dug in the ground, the light has to be coming from somewhere. She looks up.

The sky is a blue-ish purple doted by distant orbs of bright light, the sky's view is narrow, but she can see at least a dozen of them.

What.

Okay so right now she is going to assume that this is, despite all improbabilities, a giant hole someone dug and reinforced with weird hard grey trees and lit with something that glows blue with white flowers or something. She leaves a quick note on soft-paper explaining what happens, in case Tsond comes here later or whoever dug this has an explanation and a way back up, then starts walking, keeping the bizarre wood-or-whatever to her right.

the narrow and long corridor she is in keeps going until it abruptly opens to a wide open space doted by more examples of the weird wood-or-whatever, the ground is mix of mud, puddles and plants like the ones that were flourishing in the area she met the bizarre furry creature.

Speaking of bizarre creatures. There is a man in this field, he inspecting a shiny object that he apparently just dug up from the mud. His complexion is oddly pink-ish...

An underground tunnel dug out by someone really good at making weird trees-or-whatever, and some way to get light to everything even without actual sky light, and a blasphemous side project? Well, he doesn't seem to be suffering, so at least whoever did it was probably good at it? It's probably safe to talk to him. She calls out, "Hello?"

He looks up, is momentarily surprised but call back a word that sounds like a greeting. He approaches and now he is moving towards her she will notice how tall he is, maybe eight feet or so.

Oh wow, not just a minor cosmetic change. That's not a language she recognizes, so he's probably not a creation of the other nation, violating safety standards even further than usual. She waves and starts walking toward him.

He meets half way, holding some sort of metallic box that has seen better days under one arm. He tries a couple more languages, none of which she recognizes, he has a very persistent and genuine smile.

What is that box made out of? She could probably make something that looked like that. She shakes her head at the languages, but smiles back once she notices his expression. "Trade language?" she tries.

He shakes his head. He points at himself "Izakin" he says then he points at her.

She points at herself, "Nenfe", then taps herself twice, "Kyeskei Tsi-Dyu Mekto. Kyeskei."

He observes this and imitates her, "Nenfe?", he says inquisitevely pointing at himself, then he taps himself twice, "Izakin."

She points to him and repeats "Nenfe?", looking a little dubious.

Izakin shrugs and then says "human" pointing at himself and then "human" again pointing at her.

There are probably categories that apply to both of them, so she repeats, "Human?"

She pulls out a sheet of soft paper and offers it to him.

Izakin cleans his hands (He did just dig up something from the mud). He writes something and shows her, maybe in hopes they can read-or-write a common language.

The alphabet is completely unfamiliar to her.

She shakes her head and writes a few symbols. When it doesn't look like he understands those either, she draws a few rectangle-clad stick figures, which she smudges over with sticks of teal and yellow until they look green, then another taller stick figure in yellow and pink. She points to the green clump and says "nende", then points to the reddish stick figure and says "Izakin?", and offers him the paper and color-sticks.

Izakin takes the paper and color-sticks.

He makes a couple more reddish stick figure, one with long hair and more feminine curves, another shorter than the other two.

He points at the three reddish stick figures and says "person". Then only at the first one "male". Then to the second one "female". He points at them both "person". He points at himself "male". He points at her "female".