Mausoleum of Nature

Noru caught up with Itinit on the shore of the bay. The guy stood near the ship and did something on the virtual control panel.

“Creator, are you leaving again?” the dog girl asked. “You just returned recently.”

Itinit turned around and saw his character in front of him, surrounded by a fiery aura.

“I forgot to warn you,” the guy answered. “There were problems with the ship.”

“Even the ship doesn’t want you to leave here!” Noru was indignant.

“Put out the fire, otherwise you’ll burn.”

Noru showed a truly angry dog ​​grin, but still deactivated her aura.

“I want to be with you, creator!” the dog girl shouted. “And I want to be with my little sister too. But I don’t want to be with that dinosaur.”

“There’s also an arctic fox girl there,” Itinit reminded.

Noru turned away. Her tail slapped her buttocks several times.

“I will let you go only on one condition,” Noru turned sideways to the creator. “You will return with my little sister.”

“Okay,” Itinit sighed. “Just let me fix the ship.”

Noru stuck out her tongue. The next moment, she tried to jump on Itinit, but was stopped by a blue energy wall.

***

A hot fog, which consisted of steam, tightly enveloped the lake and its shores. Tuot looked around and saw nothing but his own hands with wings.

“Etinnei!” the dinosaur shouted. “I don’t see you!”

“I don’t see you either!” the voice of the arctic fox girl came in response. “Don’t be afraid, I’ll find you by smell.”

A few moments later, a small creature jumped onto Tuot's shoulder. The dinosaur noticed a fluffy white and blue tail wagging in front of its face.

“Etinnei, something attacked me!” Tuot shouted.

“It’s me,” a voice came from next to the dinosaur.

“It speaks with your voice! It's because of the mushrooms. It was like that in the game.”

“There weren’t energy mushrooms, but electric mushrooms.”

“What?”

At that moment, Tuot realized that the creature sitting on his shoulder was his playmate, just in a different form. A few dozen moments later, an arctic fox girl in almost human form and a dinosaur sat on the shore of the lake and held hands.

“Do you know what the creatures do at the hot springs?” Tuot asked.

“Yes,” Etinnei answered. “They boil themselves in water. The water is hot.”

Tuot looked at his girlfriend’s thick bare leg, which hung over the water, and imagined it cooked on the table.

“Do you want to cook yourself?” the dinosaur asked.

“No,” Etinnei took off her hood and shook her head, as if she was blowing out her hair. “I was just answering the question.”

“I'm sorry. I don't eat dogs, really.”

“I believe you. If you ate dogs, I wouldn't exist anymore.”

Etinnei looked at her friend, stuck out her tongue and closed one eye, but Tuot did not see this because of the steam, which was growing more and more.

“Minniges opened access to my memories,” Etinnei said. “I saw my creator, although I don’t remember much anymore. I want to find her and ask her something.”

“Is she human?” Tuot asked.

“At first she was a human and she had black hair, and then she became a doll and her hair turned red.”

“It’s kind of creepy.”

“Yup. I'm afraid that when I meet my maker, she will still be a doll with red hair.”

“But you change your hair color when you change your form from summer to winter.”

“Yup. But I can change this as I wish. Not always, of course. When I use ice skills that emit a lot of cold, my hair turns blonde. This is so as not to stand out among the ice. But the doll cannot change her hair color.”

“Do you want her hair to return to its previous color?”

“Yup. It's too scary. But I also want to talk to her. I want to ask why she created me. I'm afraid she created me for...”

“Why?”

Etinnei did not answer. Instead of words, a groan was heard in the steam mist, similar to the groan of dogs.

“What's happened?” Tuot asked.

“I’m afraid that she created me for that creature with a carrot nose,” Etinnei continued. “He’s her brother.”

Tuot shuddered and almost fell into the hot water. The dinosaur remembered that creepy creature in the mask with a long tongue that didn't fit in its mouth and a metal carrot nose.

“I fought him,” Tuot thought. “But I can't remember how the fight ended or where he went. Maybe Itinit came and he got scared.”

Etinnei also did not remember everything that happened on the day of the meeting with that creature, so she was afraid that he would come again. It seemed to her that a gray metallic carrot would appear from the fog and behind it a terrible mask with a hanging tongue and motionless eyes. Someone's silhouette appeared in the fog. The anxiety inside the arctic fox girl reached its maximum. The end of an icicle appeared from the sleeve of her top, which then became covered in an electric aura.

The silhouette was approaching. Etinnei jumped back and spread her legs wide to quickly retreat further, but then fell to her knees. The icicle in the sleeve of her top disappeared, as if dissolved in an electric aura. Fear again prevented the arctic fox girl from resisting, as when she met Kuttanai.

But the silhouette was not a man with a carrot nose. It was the head of a mammoth in an energy barrier-bubble. It was the same creature that met the travelers on the shore of the bay.

“Finally, someone has visited our hot springs,” Myuryuri said. “Did someone tell you about them, or did you just stumble upon the mushroom and try to eat it?”

The anxiety level inside Etinnei had dropped significantly, but the feeling had not left her completely.

“Isn't this mushroom meant to be eaten?” the Arctic fox girl asked.

“This mushroom is not for eating,” Myuryuri answered. “It is a lever that activates the hot springs. Instead of a bottom, this lake has an energy barrier that isolates the water from the bowels of the volcano. If you press the cap of the mushroom, the barrier under the water disappears. Hot water from the bowels of the volcano flows into the lake from underground channels and heats it up.”

Etinnei noticed a bright orange light in the fog. That was how the cap of the lever mushroom glowed.

“It's too bad you can't eat it,” the Arctic fox girl said. “It's so big. I thought if I ate it, I would be filled with energy.”

“There are special energy mushrooms for food that grow on the island,” Myuryuri explained. “Such mushrooms are small and not orange. Orange is the color of object activation.”

“I've seen blue, green, and purple mushrooms,” Etinnei admitted. “How are they different?”

“The color of the mushrooms indicates the color of the energy,” Myuryuri replied. “Purple energy is associated with the element of air, so it allows you to fly.”

“That's why I was flying when the purple mushroom exploded and a purple aura surrounded me,” Etinnei noted.

“Blue and green energies are pure. They are not connected to any element. But they have different properties. Blue energy can protect objects and create connections between them. You saw it on the cable car. And green energy changes the characteristics of objects that surround it. For example, it can increase speed and stability. It is often used by dinosaurs to better stand on their feet. They are very clumsy, so the green aura is especially important for them.”

As if to prove the mammoth head's words, Tuot jumped out of the fog in a green energy aura, with a short curved sword in one hand and a small semicircular purple shield on the elbow of the other arm.

Etinnei became interested in looking at the green aura, so she approached her friend. It also vibrated and was translucent, like blue, and at first glance, differed only in color.

“I saw her before, but I couldn’t see her,” Etinnei thought. “I wonder what it tastes like.”

The Arctic fox girl opened her mouth, closed her eyes and tried to grab the edge of the aura with her teeth, but it suddenly disappeared. Tuot noticed his friend in time, so he got rid of the aura and the weapon so as not to harm the furry creature.

But the price of this decision was too high. The dinosaur staggered, and then fell on its back.

“This is what happens when there is no green aura,” Myuryuri said.

Tuot looked up and saw the mammoth's head in an energy bubble.

“Where am I?” the dinosaur asked. “I was just sitting on the shore.”

“You are still at the hot springs,” Myuryuri said.

Only now did Tuot regret agreeing to go to the hot springs. He imagined them as they were shown in games. A naive dinosaur decided that he would sit in a pool with the characters he liked, but instead he talked to the head of a horned mammoth in an energy bubble.

“This is not how I imagined the hot springs,” Tuot felt sad.

“Today, the hot springs are free for you to enter,” Myuryuri said. “To activate the hot springs, we specially placed an invisible energy mushroom so that no stranger would detect it. But it didn't help.”

“Why are you hiding the hot springs?” Etinnei asked.

“The spirit of the mushrooms had a dream where a stone fell into the lake and broke through the barrier,” Myuryuri explained. “A statue of a stone bird emerged from the water, and the lake dried up. After that, the island sank into the ocean.”

“These dreams are strange,” Tuot noted. “Where do they come from?”

“It would be better to ask the spirit of the mushrooms itself about that,” Myuryuri replied. “In the water of these springs, you can see the dream that it sent to your brain.”

Etinnei crawled to the water on all fours and sniffed it. A white and blue penguin with a horn on its forehead appeared before her.

“It’s very hot here,” Minniges said. “Let's get out of here.”

“I can't get out,” Etinnei thought. “I wonder what would happen if I went into the water.”

“You'd melt, and I'd melt with you.”

“I'll just stick my paw in there. Nothing will happen.”

“Don't do that, refrigerator girl.”

Minniges disappeared. Etinnei did not listen to her brain neighbor, stuck her foot in the water and heard a loud bird cry, which deprived her of the ability to think.

***

After the food left Unana's stomach, she looked at Kimchan, who was lying on the floor near the refrigerator, and remembered her brother.

“If Kimchan is like this, then Yueret is not home,” the archer thought. “This dog is hiding something from me.”

Unana sat down on the floor and leaned her back against the wall. A small bow with a purple energy string and a white and blue electric arrow appeared in her hands.

“This will wake her up,’ the archer pulled the string.

The arrow flew out of the bow and hit the dog girl's tail. A plaintive dog groan was heard. Lightning flashed through Kimchan's body, instantly lifting her to her feet and then knocking her to the floor.

“Where is Yueret?” Unana asked.

Kimchan didn't answer. The dog girl writhed from the sudden impulses, and foam came out of her mouth.

“It seems the charge was too powerful for her,” Unana thought. “I should have released the bowstring a little earlier.”

Lightning gradually disappeared from Kimchan's body, and she trembled less and less from the electric shocks. But the terrible grimace on her face frightened Unana. For the first time, the archer felt that she had done something bad to someone other than her brother.

***

Yueret and Halankuo were sitting on a fallen tree trunk that lay on the river bank.

“You called me so urgently,” Yueret said. “I didn't even warn my sister. If we don't hurry, she'll be here.”

“I caught the creature that made my parents disappear,” Halankuo said.

“Eh?”

Halankuo opened a virtual screen and showed the model of Taikuron in the inventory window.

“I saw something similar when I was going to the city,” Yueret noted. “But I'm not sure it was him. My memory is bad, so I might confuse him with someone else.”

“This creature was in Yenekit,” Halankuo said. “It spoke to me through my thoughts. And this creature I caught spoke to me that way too. And their abilities are similar.”

Yueret looked at Halankuo. The girl was wearing only a long T-shirt with a cut on her thigh.

“Your clothes are torn,” Yueret noted.

Halankuo didn't react to this. She was looking at the model of Taikuron and seemed very worried.

“It seems to me that even from there it will be able to send signals to my brain,” Halankuo said. “It's very scary when you hear a voice from nowhere.”

“You need to get rid of it,” Yueret suggested. “It's dangerous to keep such a creature inside the program. What if he gets out?”

“That's why I asked you to come here. Stay with me a little longer so I won't be so scared.”

“I can't be with you all day. Unana is waiting for me. If she doesn't wait, she'll come here and shoot electric arrows at you and me. They hit painfully.”

Halankuo grabbed Yueret's hand and looked at him with fear.

“I can’t sleep,” the girl said. “I imagine a creature with antennas. I can’t hear its voice now. But I’m afraid that if I close my eyes, that voice will sound in my head again.”

Halankuo snuggled up to Yueret. The guy felt something warm and soft touch his shoulder.

“Unana isn’t like Halankuo,” Yueret thought. “When she pressed herself against me, I didn’t feel so pleased. But Halankuo is so gentle. I feel sorry for her. Poor girl... It’s not her fault that she met such a creature.”

Halankuo laid her head on her friend's lap and closed her eyes. Yueret put his hand on the girl's head and began to stroke it.

“It's like I have a kind Unana,” Yueret smiled. “I would like a little sister like that.”

Yueret was so deep in thought that he didn't notice how much time had passed. The guy bowed his head and began to fall asleep himself, but then he saw something foreign in the background.

Yueret was overcome with fear, which made him suddenly raise his head. In front of him stood a doll with green hair, in a green mask that covered the lower half of her face.

“Someone, have you seen someone with horns like that?” the doll put her hands to her head and showed the horns with her index fingers.

A rectangular oval shield appeared in Yueret's hand, which was then surrounded by a blue energy aura.

“That's the doll that attacked my house,” Yueret remembered. “What's her name? Oh... Well, never mind. There must be another one somewhere.”

“I came here on a signal,” the doll continued. “Then my signal disappeared. I don't know where to go. So I just came where the signal said.”

“It doesn't look like this doll is going to attack,” Yueret noted. “But it's better to leave here with Halankuo.”

Yueret grabbed his friend by the shoulders and forced her to get up from his lap. Halankuo opened her eyes, saw the doll, and somehow ended up behind her friend.

“Your sister has become so scary,” Halankuo said.

“It’s not her,” Yueret replied. “It's some doll.”

“You are some, and I am Aibi,” the doll introduced itself. “I want to find someone like that.”

Aibi imitated the horns on her head with her hands again. Halankuo felt alarm.

“She's looking for Taikuron,” Halankuo thought.

The girl noticed an open screen next to her. Either because of her stupidity or because of the angle of her vision, Aibi didn't notice it.

Halankuo reached out to close the screen, but she heard heavy footsteps behind her and was forced to turn around out of fear.

A doll with purple hair and a mask of the same color that covered half of her face stared at the open screen with a model of Taikuron with motionless eyes.

“You've already found someone,” the doll with purple hair pointed to the screen. “Here it is.”

Aibi walked up to a fallen tree trunk and turned her head in an unnatural position to the side. The doll's body remained motionless.

“Yes, it is someone with horns,” Aibi confirmed. “But why is it there?”

“I don't know why there is someone with horns,” the doll with purple hair said. “We need to ask it.”

The doll with purple hair walked up to the screen and tilted her head to the side.

“Someone with horns, why are you there?”

The Taikuron model did not answer.

“Someone with horns doesn’t answer,” the doll with purple hair looked at Aibi.

“You’re stupid, Suturu,” Aibi said. “We should free someone with horns, and then ask why it is there.”

“You’re the stupid one, Aibi,” Suturu objected. “We should ask why there is someone with horns, not free it.”

While the dolls were arguing, Halankuo closed the screen and, together with Yueret, disappeared behind the trees.