Charley had seen a news article were a group had gotten stuck in a cave. The most important thing, he remembered, was not to panic.

He heard something scratch and some rocks move in the distance.

Oh god; he was going to die in here. His low brain spiked a message to his adrenal glands, saying things like ‘fire’ ‘dark’ and ‘nightmare fuel.’

There were *things* deep below the ground with him. His hippocampus promptly flooded his system with incredibly helpful calming things. Like dopamine, adrenaline, and oxygen.

“Oh fuck. Oh Fuck!!” His breathing got out of control, and he started hyperventilating.

There was more skittering in the distance. Charley knew why he was panicking so deeply. There was this knowledge that was just sitting at the edge of his acknowledgement, waiting for his forebrain to catch up to present circumstances.

He was in a dungeon.

He felt a thickness to the *mana* in the air, something undeniable, primal. It was something that was encoded in his genes and all he needed to do was be exposed to the right stimuli, and he knew it the way he knew his name and that fire was hot. Maybe his [Deep Intuition], maybe something else, he wasn’t thinking clearly.

“Okay, stop.” He flicked on his [Meditative Focus]. Almost immediately some, but not all, of the anxiety turned down from an eleven to a manageable four out of ten. He let out a long, slow breath.

The guild had dropped him in a dungeon.

Inventory control. He slapped himself down, and then frowned at what he had on him.

[Fiona. Runes: Origin, Flow. Increases the likelihood of discovering new runes].

[Cheshire. Runes: Origin, Flow, Growth. Can be used to chalk temporary runes. Chalk point is everflowing.]

They hadn’t taken his toolbelt. He felt a flood of joy and a little anxiety. Probably because those items were useless to anyone who wasn’t a runic enchanter of some kind, and it would make it more believable if someone found him, with tools. Boots, belt, seven thick iron nails stuck in one of the pockets. The incredibly small kunai with his blood still on it.

Directly underneath where the man had repelled back up the two hundred foot shaft, there was a mud brown backpack. Charley tore into it. Four containers that had once held rations, and an empty wineskin with a puncture on the bottom of it, for good measure.

Charley moaned softly. “Frame up job.” The fucking pricks.

Without his [Focus] on, he didn’t think he’d be taking this nearly so well. Or even processing most of the information. He oriented on the problem. Who knew how long he had, and just moving in a random direction wasn’t ideal. He needed an edge, or safety, or a weapon, and he needed one of those three now.

He pulled out his chalk. Necessity was the mother of invention. And he had a powerful need to be hidden right the fuck now.

He knew light. He flicked the rune out on the ground in front of him, almost complete but not quite. He didn’t want to draw any more attention to this spot than he had to. Kind of the opposite of what he was going for.

He needed darkness. Complete, impenetrable, hopefully hostile.

Fuckoff levels of darkness.

And he didn’t have time. The skittering came louder from behind him, and he did the only thing he could.

He started running.

He bolted down the passage ahead of him. The faint light of the sky receded almost immediately, and he shot his hand out to the wall, running his hand along its surface so he didn’t slam face first into rock, his [Nimble hands] keeping him from ripping off skin.

His feet made thumps against smooth stone, splashing occasionally in thin puddles.

“God I am such a fucking idiot for staying at level five and getting lost in crafting.” He dodged some barely visible stalactites nimbly, realizing that the level of light was staying dim and present. Algae on the walls, he realized. Phytoplankton.

He passed a few different passageways, but didn’t turn or even glance far down any of them. He wasn’t sure he could find his way back if he took one.

Five solid minutes later he slowed to a stop, as the passageway he was running down got larger and turned into a cave.

The room’s ceiling was fifteen feet tall and covered in more of the blue moss and dripped water. The floor had huge rock formations -- sedimentary rocks that had formed layer by layer of dripped deposits, and pressed upwards in wide pyramid blocks.

Charley took cover behind one of the pyramid rocks and peered uncertainty down the corridor. There wasn’t any sound of pursuit, which was great. A heavy stench hung in the air, like bat guano and engine oil. Two minutes later he tentatively unclenched his body, letting his breath regulate.

“Wooh. Close one.”

He turned around and saw the beast.

It was beautiful. It’s head was a manned lion, with bright red and green plumage leading down into a black body that was lizard-like and sprouting wicked wings, and finally to a mud brown scorpion tail. It laid in repose, casually atop a carcass of some kind.

And it was just staring at Charley, amusement and interest shining in its eyes.

“Chim-er-Ah, fuck.’

It’s wings unfurled and rewrapped themselves around it’s torso. Charley also realized that all four of its paws were covered in blood and viscera.

They stared at each other for a moment.

Charley licked his lips. He tried to think through this situation.

His brain straight up refused. Nope, sorry. No one home. Kindly forward messages to the next available agent.

He turned and ran.

A strange chuffing sound echoed behind him.

He made it seventeen steps before he felt the beast behind him.

Immediately he twisted his body in reflex.

His leg collapsed underneath him.

Waves of pain rolled off him and he lost the feeling of gravity and connection with the ground.

He threw his arms up to catch the ground. The ground never happened. His legs and spinal cord seized up and stopped obeying his commands.

His sight went black and he lost consciousness for a heartbeat, his [Focus] breaking.

He blinked the blackness back, fighting the wavy nerve pulses of fire and agony. He realized that a mud brown stinger had pierced almost completely through his leg, and he was dangling in the air.

The [Chimera] had caught him.

His heart beat. His legs and torso froze and locked in position, no longer moving at all. Paralyzed.

His heart beat, this time slower.

Poison.

The [Chimera] gradually pulled its prize back and above its head, and daintedly, slowly, began to strut down the passageways.

Charley bit his lip clean through, trying to diagnose what was happening. He struggled to stay cogent as the Chimera turned down various twisty passages. It was hard to keep track, held askew on the tip of a stinger and with most of his body paralyzed.

He lost track. Time stretched and rolled, tortured out of its normal shape as he focused only on breathing. It was getting harder to do, the more he felt the poison from the stinger move into his veins.

The [Chimera], finally turning into another small cave, flung its cargo into surprising softness.

For a moment, Charley just breathed, fitfully.

Finally, after an uncertain amount of time, he took stock.

His heart beat, thundering in his ears, was slowing down. The turgent wound on his right leg, at least, was slow and torpidly leaking. Also affected by the paralysis, probably. So at least he would die from his heart being unable to beat, instead of blood loss.

He could move his left arm, and almost nothing else. Probably only because it had been pinned against his shoulder and was furthest from his penetrated leg.

He sighed. Blood loss was an easier death. Once his assessment of his body was done, he turned his attention to his environs.

The softness was a lie. It was brown straw, dead men’s clothes, a swath of burlap, and other unidentifiable material. A mag-pie’s nest of horror.

The [Chimera] laid nearby, unconcerned by its almost-frozen victim. It slowly licked the blood from his extremities, catlike, not even looking in Charley’s direction.

He wasn’t going to die from paralysis. He was going to be eaten. Alive.

“Fuh thaa--” His tongue didn’t move right in his mouth, which could only open a few centimeters.

He inched his hand to his belt. Pulled his chalk from its harness. It felt fuzzy in his fingers, the sensation only partially registering. He rested for a moment.

Then dragged his hand and its cargo next to where his head laid against straw.

Pause again. Carefully he set the chalk down, and cleared debris from an area in a small one foot circle.

He took another rest. Then took up his chalk and started drawing. His hand, even with the [Nimble] effect in play, was unsteady.

The rune was rough, and ungainly, and incredibly unstable. Instead of a smooth glow, it was a fitful light. A Sundering rune in the center of the cleared space.

He didn’t stop and make corrections, smooth any edges, or straighten sections. Just moved the chalk to the north of the small circle and started drawing again. He made an Origin rune, small, fitful, another flickering construct, connected loosely to the center. His hand hesitated. He had never done multiple Origin’s before.

He made another Origin rune to the East. This one didn’t flicker, even as he connected it to the center. He didn’t slow down, just started a third to the west. And then a fourth.

The rune structure was giving off flickering light and a sound like metal grinding rose and fell. Charley tasted raspberries and rust. Just the right edge of his mouth twitched up into a hint of a smile.

The [Chimera] growled menacingly. It didn’t like the emminations and glow. It took up its meal in its jaws, pulling Charley away from the site of his work and to a different corner of the cave.

The Monster deposited him in a heap on his side, then slinked back to its nest and settled in.

The Chimera looked pleased. It made eye contact with Charley. It’s body language seemed to say, ‘now what?’

Charley cast his hand on the floor in front of him, not wasting the energy to move his eyes. His fingers found a small pebble.

“Fuh youh, in parthiculaa.”

Charley threw the rock underhanded at the rune circle.