OK so this might turn into more of a live blog at some point of me reading this series (I'm about half way through my first time rereading this in over 10 years)
This series starts off slow, it almost feels like an entire reading level or two lower than some of the later books. this doesn't mean its bad though. coming back at a much higher reading level than before I am realizing that part of what I loved so much when I was younger was how despite using much easier wording and vocabulary, it still embraces complex topics and themes.
A non exhaustive list of some of the more complex ideas include: Keeah (the princess from the magic realm) has both wizard (good) and witch (bad?) powers and doesn't magic away the witch powers or remove them by the end but instead they save her or her friends multiple times and in the end she just learns to control them (a great metaphor for the "evil" emotions inside us). almost every villain in the series is not actually evil and instead was just hurt in some way and don't know how to handle that, or wanted something and got lost in their quest to get that, not noticing how it hurt others. Eric has multiple prophecies about how he will help the main villain sparr, and while every time he does, there was context missing about how it was with good intentions, or to save something else more important.
Also I love that the main kids all get different powers. Eric gets wizard magic like Keeah, this makes him closer with her than the other two and I always shipped them but in like the hold hands in middle school way. Julie gets a assortment of different magic powers including flight [i'm jelly] and shapeshifting [see previous comment] and I think a few more later but I haven't gotten far enough for any of them yet, and importantly flight was always a lifelong wish of hers, the joy she takes in flying is so amazing; she almost has a hard time staying on the ground sometimes, which is super relatable. And Neil gets genie powers IIRC ---still havn't gotten there yet--- but also has a great sense of humor and some relatable moments about the fact that both his friends get powers before him; and he finds ways to contribute and help in ways that the other two can't despite having powers.
which leads me into my next love of the writing, They all are equally important. I have seen this compared to harry potter a number of times [fuck JKR btw, terfs suck] and I think that is a discredit to Droon, unlike in HP where Harry is clearly the main character and therefore when its time to save the day it's him doing it (his friends may help but he does the actual day saving basically every time), in droon everyone works together; Sometimes its Keeah who masters some new power and is able to use that to win, Sometimes its Neil approaching a situation in a unique (and very often silly and food related) way, sometimes its Julie with a clever plan to trick someone, sometimes Gallen just shows up and uses his crazy powerful magic, and sometimes its a side character who gets their moment to save the day and the group is paid off for befriending everyone along their way ---who doesn't immediately try to kill them that is---. Eric often feels like a main character, usually books are from his perspective [I can't actually remember at the moment if any aren't) but despite him being the narrator, he has about equal plot importance as any of his friends.
This series was way better than people give it credit for and I wish more people knew about it and gave it the love it deserves. this was the second book series I ever got hooked on [I have "Junie B. Jones" to thank for my reading obsession] and by far one of my favorites to this day. If you don't mind reading books at a lower reading level, or know a kid who needs a good book series, I Highly recommend this one.
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Hard to believe this is all that remains of Gallen Priory, County Offaly, a once-great religious house founded in 492AD by Saint Cadoc. After being badly damaged in the 9th century, the monastery here was restored by Welsh monks but several hundred years later, it came under the authority of the Augustinian order, remaining so until the Dissolution of the Monasteries in the 1540s and thereafter…
Etuuya Vannyn || KaningĂĄrd Cavern || Present Night
Tuuya drummed their heels against a rocky ledge high in the cavern wall, sighing. They’d let themself become bigger again…oh, they managed to think it was for practical reasons, and it was - a bit. But it was also because it was so much easier to drown their worries in the brief joy of eating, just for a little while.
How selfish. But shaming themself wasn’t useful now, not when it didn’t do anything productive, like they’d said to their matesprit.
Not they felt they did much of anything productive these nights, stuck as they were.Â
The drinker looked out across the quiet, stony place that had once been their thriving wrigglerhood home.
What else could they do?
The proximity sensors they’d set up all across the cavern went off with a persistent high chirping.
Tuuya almost blurred from how fast they clambered down, leaping with no regard to keeping their form together fully, half flowing down the steep wall.
FOREIGN UNDEAD INSECT TERMINATED, reported the security system over its speakers.
Good, the little laser drones were doing their jobs and all the tweaking of the bio-sensors had paid off.Â
Ailene and Uunive knew the drill - they’d gone over it with them at least a dozen times. Where to hide, where to avoid, how to use the swarm-killing weapons they’d given them. Tuuya had perfect confidence in their daughters.
Even if they worried a little for the limeblood, after what had happened the other night.Â
The cavern rumbled.
Tuuya hissed and grabbed a remote from their sylladex. KaningĂĄrd was partially built on rock, but they knew very well the swarms could find a way in by tunneling underground if they tried hard enough.Â
They deployed the stronger laser field around the entrance, but would have no way of knowing how effective it’d been until they saw the footage -
- a terrible noise came, a distant high shriek that pierced their skull so harshly they clutched their ears and their head, unable to not wail in pain. The remote clattered to the ground, and they curled up in a ball.
Then it cut off. They scrabbled for the piece of tech, entire body writhing from the aftereffects, writhing without their will into…spirals.Â
Their eyes widened. No, oh no, why was she here? Why was she here?
How dare she be here.
Fear and rage warred in the worm swarm as they grabbed the rectangular controller and pressed another button. Futile, probably futile, probably they were all dead already, but they had to try.
They ran wide-eyed and barely troll shaped, surging across the rocky floor trying to get to their daughters as acidic gas was deployed, the rest of the cavern beyond the entrance sealed off to prevent it from spreading -Â
- CLANG.Â
As they ran past one of said walls, it burst open in a spiral pattern, and they leapt high in the air to dodge the shrapnel, one or two pieces still slicing them open as they hissed in pain. Ears flattened against their skull, they looked at the two figures on the other side of the torn remains.
There she stood, that DeVille wretch who’d turned Uunive, tall and thin and grinning her jagged smile. Her horrible red spiral eyes sickened them to see, churning and twisting, as her long, sharp black claws crossed together.Â
The gas would come in here. The gas might spread, might hurt Uunive and Ailene, and then everything was pointless.
“You.” They breathed, soft and utterly full of hate.
Next to her was Gallen, in troll form and all over the place, but they didn’t care about him right now.Â
Tuuya whipped out their laser pistols to riddle her with -
With a surge of white and the sound of endless skittering legs on rock, isopods surrounded the worm swarm.
They knocked the gun out of their hand after merely one missed shot. Tuuya struggled and thrashed to get out of the crushing pressure, trying to abandon their troll form and clothes to escape.
It was no use. Gallen was too heavy, too numerous; they couldn’t slip through, not even as individual worms.
His troll form scratched his neck, looking slightly apologetic.
Tuuya spat at him with a distorted, writhing face, only barely held together after their escape attempts and from their rage, troll features warped and misshapen as they began to dissolve, acid drifting toward them now.Â
Gallen winced, but didn’t seem as bothered, and Klirro didn’t appear affected at all.Â
“You fffucking missscreants! I willl chhhew you to the baressst shhredsss -“
“You might have had the chance if fortune had not favored another path! We have not come to undo you, second worm, do not threaten to undo yourself.”
Klirro interrupted.
She quickly stepped in a spiral pattern, spinning, her long gold toga billowing out with her, and the gas spiraled into a funnel cloud and then dissipated into nothingness.
No more pain.Â
Tuuya paused, now baffled as well as enraged. They wriggled their face back into realignment, shaking their head in utter confusion.Â
“Why should I trust you bastards?” They said, voice hard and still rough. “I would love to see you both dead! Though I’m tragically aware that’s far easier said than done.”
Gallen took out his phone, tapped on it, and held it up to play his words.
“I know my mother is dying, no matter how much blood she gets. She’s been dying for a long time, losing herself, and none of us wanted to admit it. What she did to you…I’m sorry I stood by and let it happen. I’ve been a coward.”
He bowed his head, retracting himself to free the worm swarm, and Tuuya blinked, completely thrown. Glad to not be pressed down with that awful weight of armored segments as they wriggled themself back into all the right places and shapes on their skeleton, but even more suspicious of the man standing across from them. Their bright green eyes shone warily, their ears flicking slightly.
The rest of him slowly scuttled around their feet on the stony cavern floor, his many sets of mandibles drooping sadly. While the tailor knew it was absurd, they could have sworn the creatures looked just as apologetic as their troll face did.
Suspicion whispered it was a trap, a trick, but why would the pair need to bother? Klirro was clearly strong enough to break in without Gallen, and the two drinkers together were far more than a match for the worm swarm.
They fixed the horrorterror with a glare.
“All right, let’s say I believe Mr. Woebegone’s sob story. What’s yours, you absolute hag? Why did you kill my daughter?”
Klirro pressed her long, narrow hands together, looking intent as she explained in her singsong, up and down voice.
“The lime needed to be turned or else have been consumed by Ozryel, died entire but for her soul and her scraps left to linger! I was her luck that night! She will be ours in return.”
Tuuya seethed, rippling beneath their skin in rage.
“Uunive’s not doing a thing for you, you great bloody wretched - ”
“The lime is gone to do for herself first.” Interrupted Klirro again, cheerful and unusually calm.Â
“She must settle the death of the old self before she can be truly reborn. So the beetle ascends her shell! So a fresh resurrection halts an ancient one! How Ozryel undoes herself with her own distant kin.”
“Shut up.” Growled Tuuya. “Uunive’s right here and she’s not going anywhere unless she wants to.”
A silence filled the cavern entryway. Tuuya’s ears twitched nervously.Â
Why had they both gone so quiet? Even the isopods on the stone had become deathly still.
“Uunive’s right here.” Said Tuuya again. They tried to not let their voice crack.
Right here.
She was right here.
Their baby, their darling, their little girl -
“She has gone.” Said Klirro, so soft and gentle that Tuuya wanted to cry and rage at the same time because how dare she?
“No! Why - why would she - “
Yet they stopped, breathless, considering…remembering…Jaskir, the fight…Uunive had been so upset, running away to her room.
They hadn’t seen her since.
Not even to bake, or to wander the cavern.
“No.” Said Tuuya, trembling. “No.”
“Such a weight on the mind.” Murmured Klirro. “It is easy to run one’s thoughts in bitter spirals, until it all wears down to the quick.”
The worm swarm turned and ran to their older daughter’s room, practically leaping down the rocky passages, clinging tight to their bones in sheer fear.Â
They didn’t know if the other drinkers followed them. They didn’t care.
Their rapid footsteps echoed in the quiet passages as they came to a halt in front of the limeblood’s quarters.
“Uunive!” Tuuya called with forced cheerfulness. “Uunive, is it all right if I come in?”
No coughing or shuffling. No stifled sigh of impatience. No rustling of sheets.
Tuuya shook again, knowing they were at risk of disassembling. They gulped in air, forced themself to coil together again, and stepped into the room.
Empty.
The room’s emptiness hurt like a physical thing, it was so reduced in possessions, it was so crushingly bare.
A hole of all things lay in the middle of the room. They ran over.Â
A tunnel. A deep, dark, roughly dug tunnel wide enough to fit a troll stretching down into the earth. They were unable to see the bottom, even when they flared their glow as high as it would go.
A letter laid next to it. Tuuya snatched it up and read it, clear tears bubbling up in their eyes.
As they finished reading, it slid out of their slackened hands to land back on the soil below. Tuuya did not care to pick it up.
Tuuya did not care for much of anything at the moment.
Only one hazy thought penetrated their gloom.
Ailene.
Leadenly, they turned and faced the door of their missing daughter’s room. Stiffly, awkwardly, as if a puppet used by an unskilled conductor, they went to find their younger child.
She was safe. Hidden exactly where she should be, a sealed alcove almost impossible to see from most angles. They whispered words of encouragement, a quick update on the situation, and sealed her back behind her cover, a protective shield.
They turned and found themself staring into Klirro’s eyes mere feet away.
Tuuya lost what little composure they had left and launched themself at the horrorterror-possessed corpse.
“GET AWAY FROM HER! AWAY! AWAY! DIN ELÄNDIGA STACKARE! DU KOMMER INTE ATT TA HENNE OCKSÅ!”
They clawed at Klirro as a troll would, bit at her like one, their form stable even as they sobbed between their yelling, because she would not hurt this one -
They were plucked off with a strangled yelp and squeak, into strong, thick arms that held them so gently, terrifying in their tenderness.
They struggled for a moment, then stopped, sobbing more.Â
“No…no…stay away…” Their throat choked up, their body shaking, feebly scrabbling at Gallen’s arms.
They looked up at him, angry, yet pleading.Â
“Let me go.” They said, barely more than a whisper.
Gallen merely hummed and rocked them a bit, and they shakily wiped their face with their sleeve. A few isopods crawled on them, and a few worms crawled out to meet their fellow swarm units. The individual isopods were just as gentle as their troll form, stroking the worms protectively.
Tuuya hated that they felt calmer, but they did. They shook their head, worms retracting. The isopods scuttled off of them, and Gallen set them down gently.Â
Klirro seemed utterly undisturbed by the attempted mauling. Even as they watched, the wounds they’d left sealed, and it was as if they’d done nothing at all.Â
Silence filled the air for a minute.
“Where did she go?” They uttered, completely lost, ears drooping. “Where did my little girl go? What did you do to her?” Their voice almost rose to a wail at the last sentence.
Klirro tilted her head, for once not smiling in her usual way.
“You ask if I have changed her further? No, second worm, not I. The beetle must experience the alchemy of the self on her own terms. We must not interfere, not yet. She knows so little of herself, and she must find her heart while looking with her own eyes and no one else’s.”
Tuuya gritted their teeth, a bit of stability returning.
“Where. Is she.” They demanded, hoarse.
Klirro looked down, to where spirals slowly fanned out in the dirt beneath her.
“Where there is one Semreh, there must be another. Luck is a dual thing, of ebb and flow. Blood always returns to where it came from for shelter.”
The worm swarm frowned.Â
“She has signmates?”
They said disbelievingly.Â
Limebloods were rare enough, and for there to be more of a bloodline extant that the caverns hadn’t somehow caught? How could this be?
“The first, second worm, the first of them! Back in times you would feel were ancient, when he was not hunted.” She corrected cheerfully.
Tuuya’s overwhelmed brain slowly put together the pieces.
“Her ancestor?” They said wonderingly.
Klirro nodded.
“He does not breathe! His paper words speak, they are his body and memory now.”
The younger undead considered this, trying to wrest meaning from it.
They sighed.
“We’ll never find her, will we? Not when it would be bad luck for her if she did, the way she sees it…I hope wherever she’s going, to this ancestral place, that it’s safe.”
Klirro smiled again, if not as wide.
“You came back from the firebird. You ate her heart, and it grew again. The cycle plays out anew, for it runs in the bloodless bond of your line.”
Tuuya closed their eyes, finding little anger left in them at the moment.
“What are we going to do?” They said quietly, scuffing a shoe against the rocky floor.
“I will return to my coven.” Stated Klirro, positive and direct. “I will tell them the things to accomplish if they are to break Ozryel’s cycle. Gallen will tell you what the butterfly is trying to do. You’re not alone, second worm. You have never been alone.”
With that, the ancient rainbowdrinker swept away. Gallen stood a moment longer, nodding to the worm swarm, before he walked out of sight - he signed that it was to give them space.
Tuuya stared at the rocky cavern ceiling, then down at the dirt below.
Klirro was wrong.
They were alone. They were empty. They were meaningless.
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