Chapter 8: The Caravamel, the Cavern and the Chompers

It is not in fact that uncommon in Elcon to fall through a crevice, many a traveller has put their foot, tentacle or tail onto what looked like solid snow only to descend into the depths.

Apart from individuals, it wasn’t that uncommon to hear of whole villages falling into the depths.

If the land itself did not decide to do it, there were always reckless miners. It can truthfully be said that the number of denizens that mine the underground far exceeds the number that actually have any idea of how to mine even somewhat safely.

Still, the land, while quite mischievous is nothing if not merciful.

Thus the caravamel found itself in a cavern of earth, unharmed and curiously upright, the three frulids and their twipstrider were considerably less upright, but apart from a crack on the pot here or there, similarly unharmed.

The cavern was quite spacious, and behind them was a dark crack that could not be seen into, clearly the fissure they had fallen into had been more of a slide than anything else.

Adorning the walls were the glowing bulbs of a many coloured lightvine, curious for both being an upside-down plant and one of those curious darksorbing plants, that go through a cycle of eating darkness and then bleeding out light.

The odd un-named tuber and moss poked out around the cavern but apart from that, the lightvine reigned supreme. There wasn’t even much of the usual fungus.

There was however a greatly mysterious patch of orange orbs that seemed to be snoring and expanding and contracting like air-breathing denizens.

“Ohhh, underground? We escaped?” Yerdl asked.

“It looks that way” Ismi eyed the mystery patch and the tubers, sensing potential gains.

It was then that Kejo got up from where he had fallen.

There was something round and orange on his pot, placidly gnawing.

“My head hurts, and what is that clanging noise?” he asked.

“That’d be yonder chomper on your pot son” Yerdl helpfully pointed out.

Realising that something was masticating his pot, Kejo panicked and with a wail ran right into a tuber.

The tuber did not survive the impact, Kejo did, and the chomper held gamely on, not yet convinced that Kejo’s pot was inedible.

Chompers are not well known for their mental capacity. They come in many forms, but in general, fodder is fodder and most forms of chompers are in spite of a willingness to eat anything, one of the lowest creatures on the non-euclidean foodchain of Elconic creatures.

The most basic breed of chomper is simply a round ball with a tail that ends commonly in a diamond shape, but sometimes in other shapes. They don’t even have eyes or special senses to aid in the absence of such organs. No, they have a mouth. A jagged mouth to be sure, but a chomper is more likely to break skin through persistence than sharpness.

No, for the orange common or least chomper, its diet was mostly dirt, well, dirt and other chompers that somehow manage to get eaten.

You were only in danger of being eaten by a chomper if you were grossly incompetent or somehow rendered immobile for a few days.

“What do we do now?” Yerdl asked, ignoring his son’s non-existent plight and eying the fissure from which they fell with uncertainty.

“We catch some chompers!” Ismi said brightly.

“Won’t that Chilly Fancy person come after us?” Yerdl asked, even as Kejo continued running and smashing into tubers.

“Don’t be silly, a thing like that, coming underground?” Ismi scoffed, even as she inched greedily towards the den of chompers.

Back on the surface, Fancy Chill of course laughed at Ismi’s baseless confidence, had she not sent three snow knights?