"We're getting close to the station." The driver hollered back to his passengers, even with his loud voice, it barely reached the ears of Caffann and Kitersha. At their high velocity, the wind roared over them like an endless rolling wave. At least it kept them cool for the ride. An hour aboard their rented ride had taken a toll on their lower backs. The ride itself, an all-terrain buggy made by the driver for the local cross-city races. Since it was offseason, ferrying people across the plains served as good income, always important in the Federation.

Caffann and Kitersha, long time friends and fellow migrants from the Haimarchy, had never taken this trip before. While they had lived in Kkrinth for a year, this was their first trip to the Karstway Basin. The eatery that Caffann had found herself in, requested an expedition to harvest some of the mycological superbloom that could really spice of the menu for the upcoming tourist season.

The trip was dangerous enough to allow Caffann to bring along one friend, and Kitersha was the natural choice. Kitersha did not work for the eatery, but instead utilized their knowledge to work the Meta tech that helped hold Kkrinth together.

The Kytherian moons kept them company during the ride, shifting the colors of the landscape constantly in their passing. The sun, Apollo, had been just a little towards the morning end of it's highest point over K'krinth when they left, and now sat comfortably in the sky. The moon Algia, with a nearly 24-hour phase, was the celestial body by which the planet set its clocks--it hung directly overhead them, reflecting a topaz glow over the landscape as Thalia rose from the eastern horizon, jasper tone red-shifted into a brilliant, bloody crescent. Ruby Euphrosyne was nowhere to be seen -- she lurked somewhere in the shadow of Kytheria, hiding from sibling Apollo.

— The Original Kytheria Campaign by Ademal

"Hope you guys brought lots of pills, the Mushroom's sporing real bad this year!"

Their vehicle cut through the long grass and the thumped over the occasional rock. In front of them rising over the distant morning haze was the Lotos Karstway Basin. Both Caffann and Kitersha recognized the Mushroom-shaped protusions towering over the jagged hills. That was their destination.

"That's such an impressive sight! But I'd love to get out of this buggy, my butt is killing me." Kitersha groaned and moved as much as she could inside this buggy. She's been pouting about it for the past 10 minutes, only allowing Caffann to hear it though.

"Sir! If happen to need to buy some pills in Lotos, where should we head to?" Kitersha screamed to make sure the driver hears her question.

Their ride tore over the plains, cutting through the tall grasses towards the towering clouds of spores and fog lit by the cresting of the sun and moons. The border hills rose taller as the miles dwindled.

"Buy?" Their driver cackled over the roar of the engines. "Not unless you plan on trading with pirates! Not exactly a lot of friendly faces in the Basin lately!"

"Hol' up. I got something." He reached down to his driver door, and pulled up a small inhaler. The action pulled his eyes off the road long enough to hit a nasty crevice in the dirt. The shock of the impact jolted through the buggy, even if the buggy plowed through it without injury, the same could not be said for it's passengers.

Apologies and curses of equal measures poured from the Driver. At least he maintained the vehicle, though it felt like controlling this buggy was more akin to making suggestions than actually driving. "Always keep a couple doses handy!" He explained, and offered it back to Kitersha.

"I've seen a couple of Mycologists go in there recently. Had to drive a Ral-mi and Gearheart not too long ago. Ankh was his name, nice guys even if they kept getting handsy in the back." The small talk continued if unopposed, until they began to approach the bottom of the hills. They spotted several other vehicles parked nearby, in varying conditions from old wrecks to new meissner vessels.

"It is indeed smart to have some spare inhalers, what would it cost?" Kit asked the driver before hitting her head with the buggy's ceiling and cursing under her breath, holding her head and staying as low as she could.

After finishing cursing under her breath, she realized that the driver mentioned pirates and some weird scientists? They better not bother them, bad enough was the travel there (and more than possible the travel back).

Kitersha slammed up against the ceiling and even with her going with the hit, it still left a nice bump just behind her ears. "Oh gotcha with that one? Nothing compared to the races I tell you." His musing petered out, and the importance of repeat business settled in. "Inhalers yours. Just uh, don't leave a poor review, huh? Roads out here aren't exactly maintained as you can see."

They pulled up to the hills bordering the Basin, and as the Driver said, not a road in sight even with vehicles strewn about. Most looked pretty old, but a couple looked like they must have been brand new. Recent vistors.

"Yeah, Kytheria's really got something special with the forests out here sciency folks are in and out all year round. Wildlife and flora, rare and fantastic!" He quoted a tourism poster that both Kitersha and Caffann had seen in the city of Kkrinth. The engine puttered out on their approach to the narrow pathways that led deeper into the hills and the Basin beyond.

The driver locked his parking brakes, and looked back to the Sauthei and Hiserabi. "So, you've got my number. Signal gets kinda crap back there, so give me a shout when you are heading back so I can meet you."

The passenger doors unlocked with metallic *clunks* and they were free to step onto the dirt and grass below.

Kitersha almost jumped out the car, eager to not be sitting anymore nor to be travelling on a shit road. She stretched her arms and then dropped to her fours and stretched her legs like cats do while a long yawn covered her face.

"Thanks for the drive. I think by tomorrow we should be done, when could you come get to us tomorrow?" she said to the driver while taking a look at her surroundings. She wrinkled her nose when seeing so many cars, it might not be a peaceful trip after all if there are so many cars.

"You are too interested in that sound." Kit sighed, "Come on, open the door, surely it has heard us or the buggy." She knows how Caffann is usually guided by their curiosity and how impulsive is, so she doesn't even try to change Caffann's idea.

She started walking behind Caffann, to position herself in a place where she'll see whatever might be inside the truck. Always with her hand close to her wand, ready for any aggression sign.

"Eh... I'm not sure they are pets? Although at the same time, I guess they could have tried attacking us if they weren't pets." it's a bit hard to understand Kitersha since she's covering her mouth and nose with her hands. "This is such a bad smell. But, as we say, what we find today might be useful tomorrow. Or later. I don't think anyone is coming back to this truck anyway. Lemme try grab it quickly so we can leave this stench, last thing I want is to smell it on my fur all this travel."

Caffann looked over the moldy ruins of a days worth of ingredients wasted. At the back of the van, a removed panel near the meissner mounting point had been ripped off. Those little raptors were no pets, more like racoons drawn in to an easy meal. Kitersha hopped up into the back.

The 'easy meal' squelched beneath Kitersha's boots, even in the spots that looked clean, a thin layer of grease and grime made movement through the rot a harrowing proposition. They walked through the small corridor between grill and prep station.

"I'm gonna have to clean my boots... Well, at least I hope I can clean them. Let's just get away from this stench." Kitersha said after getting out the truck, while trying to "clean" her boots with the dirt. At least, Kitersha thinks, dirt doesn't smells bad.

She packed away the medical kit in her backpack and looked at Caffann. "Any plans? Or we are just going to go in a line to try find some mushrooms? Or you plan on checking more people's cars?"

Let's be honest here, all the warning signs? They made Kitersha worry a bit. Pirates, dinosaurs, fungal asphyxiation... Kit didn't mind the pirates too much, but she can only guess that other Synthisaurs not necessarily would run when bothered and the fungal asphyxiation? She kept a hand on her pocket, where she had stored the inhaler. But she trusts Caffann, and in theory, they knows what they are doing, so Kit tried to ignore all the warnings.

"Make sure to not eat all the mushrooms we'll get or your group will get angry." said Kit with a laugh. "Come on, let's make this quick so you can taste them." she gave a friendly pat to Caffann's head, between their horns, before start walking towards the path her friend pointed to.

The spores were watering Kit's eyes and made her sneeze almost constantly. It was hard to walk around and see where one was stepping! She kept trying to not sneeze, which ended up making her whole face hurt. At one point, she grabbed some loose cloth pieces from her backpack to cover her face, to try to sneeze a bit less, but there were a lot of spores around them...

Seeing Caffann about to fall off, a panicked squeal left Kitersha as she quickly tried to grab her friend with her tail, by surrounding Caffann's torso, and searched for something she could grab to help her not fall while trying to help her friend.

Something in Kitersha brain connected and she remembered the inhaler. After a quick use of it and readjusting the cloth to cover her mouth and nose, Kit started following Caffann towards the outer path. Only one thing crossed Kit's mind; "I wish the outer path as less spores than in here" she muttered to herself.

As she caught up to where Caffann was, she started paying attention where both Caff and her were stepping, last thing both need was a broken or injured leg if they had to climb back from where they came from.

"Caffann? Caffann where are you? Is this one of your games? We are on a job, this is no time to play..." screams Kit to the nothingness around her.

After waiting for a bit (a short time, she doesn't have lot of patience) and getting no reply from Caffann, worry started to creep under her skin and decided to follow their steps backwards to try see what happened to Caffann. The spores have her nose rendered useless and it bothers her quite a lot, would be faster (she thinks at least) to find Caffann with her nose, but alas, beggars can't be begging.