The Favoured Lands - Death Peddlers 5

Fitz zipped in low and, what was to him, long tunnel that lead to an opening between two high thorn walls and just around the corner from a fairly long narrow passage way. He almost went too fast for the human eye to seem but landed easily and gently onto a thick vine just a little ways inside. He stopped close to a large wide thorn. Even though, he was almost twice the size of an organic bee, the thorn was still large enough to do serious damage. He took note to adjust his speed accordingly.

He was almost the exact replica of an Asian bumble bee - four legs, two arm, except his two arms had tiny three digit hands at the end and, of course,  four wings. He easily navigated his surroundings. Being a small inscect, in his humble opinion was a perfect form for an AI. Humans could never process information quick enough to navigate at the speeds that he was capable of. Nor could then navigate the uncertain world of a tiny creature.

A few centimeters farther along the vine, a large sparkling spider's web glimmered its dark funnel waving in the gentle winds. Fitz made another mental note of the hazard, then hastened along in order to take advantage of the fading twightlight, Afterwhich, his visibiltiy would be limited. He also preferred to be closer to Rusk after dark.

Fitz quickly flew to the other side of the entrance to get a better look at the maze of small open spaces behind the largest and outer the brier wall. The entire maze was a massive natural structure more than 50 square kilometers of thorny black berry bushes that stood between Koran and Rusk and Omeless to the west..

"We might as well get comfortable." Rusk began looking around for a good place to settle in while Fitz has his look around. 

"I think it's dark enough that I am not going into the Thorn Agregate tonight, and I got dinner right here." Koran lifted the eel from his shoulders. "There is no good reason that I can think of that I need to start out in there after dark."

"The cache is only a few hundred meters in," Rusk dismissed Koran's worry as paranoid. Something second nature to Koran, although admitedly it had kept the two alive more times than Rusk could count . "Hand me your rod." He got on his knees and used the both his and Koran's sticks to reach ahead and tap around the edges of the short tunnel walls in front of him. It wasn't long, two meters or so, 

Knowing that Fitz would have already alerted them had there been some danger in the entrance tunnel,  he leaped through the Agregate entrance in one quick motion, pushing off with both his hands half way through. His feet only touching the ground once as he passed to the other side adding just enough momentem to gracefully torpedo out the other side landing smoothly into roll and springing to his feet. 

"What, are you doing?" Fitz's voice suddenly called out to him in their own language through the head set.  "Get back." The Cache has been compromized.."

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