Octavius moved carefully as he climbed down the tunnel. Grooves placed every foot or so allowed him to use the wall like a ladder. His calloused fingers gripped the groove as he gently lowered his body. The tip of his right boot slipped forward into the next groove, and he shifted his weight onto it.

The climb was simple for him, even with the multiple pounds of gear and armor he wore. The separated halves of his spear were tied to his back in a manner that would allow him to remain flexible. He'd never be able to draw them quickly, but it wasn't as if a spear would be an effective weapon within the tight confines of the tunnel.

Wanting to conserve mana, he hadn't used his shadow sense spell. Without the benefit of light, he climbed down by feel like the other members of his party. The sound of slow breathing echoed through the tunnel, mixing with the scraping of boots and hands against the stone and the rustle of fabric. Looking down the tunnel toward the pinprick of light far below, he grimaced.

I hope there are no guards down there, he wished, or else they'll likely hear us coming.

His musings were interrupted by the sound of a body slamming against the wall above him, followed by a sharp inhale. Eyes shooting upward, he couldn't make out anything.

"You alright?" he asked under his breath, trusting in his teammates' perception and the echo in the tunnel to carry his voice to them. The response he got was shaky and a good deal louder than was necessary.

"Toby," Finn's voice hissed in a mix of shock and fear.

Octavius's attention snapped onto the status of his party members at the edge of his vision. Lines of red, blue, and green bars were stacked in neat rows. Most were nearly full. The blue bar under Caster's name was missing fifteen or so percent, and the stamina bars of the rest of the party were down about half as much.

The only bar that stood out was the red bar direct under Toby's name. By the time that his eyes fell on it, it was already a quarter empty. It was decreasing slowly, and he realized that it must be from loss of blood.

Oh, shit! What's going on up there? he shouted internally, It's supposed to be a distraction, not an all-out attack? Were they counterattacked?

His breath suddenly caught in his chest when the red bar dropped another five percent in an instant. It seemed to hover there before beginning to plummet in a way similar to Octavius's stomach at that very moment.

It didn't slow or stop as it decreased at a far too constant rate. His teeth caught his lower lip as he watched it decrease rapidly. Someone get him a fucking health potion! he screamed to himself.

The red bar emptied after only five seconds. The other status bars listed under the name of the lovable giant turned a stomach-churning gray for three long seconds before the name itself vanished from the party.

The shift of only a few inches at the corner of his vision felt like a punch to the gut. His fingers ached from how hard he was gripping the small ledge in front of him, and his forearms shook from impotent rage.

A soft sob from above him snapped him back to reality, and he inhaled deeply. He realized that they hadn't moved for the majority of a minute and swallowed thickly through a suddenly dry throat. As the person within him froze in shock and despair, the highly-trained operator took over. He'd have time to morn, rage, and blame himself later. At that moment, he had a responsibility. Thousands of hours of training snapped into effect without thought.

The mission always comes first.

Toby was just killed while, presumably, within the camp, he reasoned, Is the camp overrun? Was there a second tunnel?

His eyes trailed down the names of his party members until he found Jabir. The man's health and mana were entirely full, and he wasn't losing stamina at a rate that would imply intense combat.

So they aren't fighting for their lives, he decided, at least not yet. That just leaves me with the question of what to do next.

The mission always comes first.

But what is the mission? he puzzled, If the camp is about to be overrun, sneaking down here won't do much. On the other hand, if it was something else, this might be our best shot. The thralls will be entirely distracted by whatever they are trying to do right now. The fact that Jabir appears to be fine, along with the lack of other thralls trying to climb this tunnel, makes me think that it's not an actual counterassault.

The muscles in his forearms tensed as he made his decision. He would have to trust Robert and the others to at least survive while his team snuck into the Landing and sabotaged as much as they could. If there was an all-out assault that was ongoing, attacking the thralls from behind would probably be more effective than just joining the human lines.

"Alright, let's keep moving," he said in a soft yet strong voice, "There's nothing we can do to help just sitting here in this tunnel."

He knew that no matter how much death these seven men and women had seen over the past two months, nothing could prepare them for the unexpected death of a friend. He also knew that they all looked up to him. Even the cold Jean and the battle harden marines did. To them, he was the special operator, the most powerful human around.

If he let them see him calm and collected, they'd latch on to that. He could be the rock that kept the team going, and if as soon as the whole ordeal with the thrall was over, he'd go find a quiet corner to grieve, who could blame him? At that moment, however, he'd be strong. He had to be.

He shifted his weight and started to climb down again. Although he couldn't see any of his team members, he could imagine what they looked like at the moment. The sound of his voice, followed by that of his continued climb down, seemed to snap back into motion.

Soon, the sounds of boots and hand against the tight stone confines started up again. This time, however, they were joined by shaky breathing and even the occasional quiet sob. Octavius didn't know who made the sound, but he wouldn't begrudge them for the time being. They were still far enough away from the bottom of the tunnel that they wouldn't be heard by any guards.

Octavius led the climb after that at a slower pace than before. He would've like to continue quickly, but it would be too easy for one of the distraught members of his party to miss a single handhold and fall down the thin shaft. He wasn't sure whether anyone would be able to support the falling body without being knocked down themselves, but the risk wasn't worth the few minutes that it would save.

Slowly, the pinprick of light resolved itself to a single floating orb embedded into the wall opposite the ladder. The members of the party seemed to understand the need for silence, and Octavius didn't even have to warn them of their proximity to the bottom of the tunnel before they began to focus on breathing evenly and quietly on their own.

Once he was ten feet above the ground, Octavius drew the elite thrall's long knife from his belt and dropped. His knees belt to absorb the impact as his boot smacked silently into the stone floor. His eyes scanned the bottom of the tunnel for any guards, but there most definitely weren't any.

The tunnel itself was only half a dozen inches wider than his shoulders were broad. If there was an invisible thrall within the tunnel, he'd be standing on it. Knowing that the majority of his group couldn't see him, he elected to tap on the stone wall. His armored elbow gently tapped into the wall, letting out three staccato clicks.

The signal had been set up long before during their initial training together. Even with their minds clouded by Toby's demise, the soft sounds of their descent stopped.

The small orb of light was above him, and the wall was cast in his own shadow. Even then, he was able to make out an irregularity in the wall to his left. Turning, he reached out with his free arm and felt the smooth grain of wood.

A door? he wondered as he began to run his fingers along it. His search came up empty; there didn't seem to be a knob of some sort on the wooden surface. When he first touched it, it failed to move, and he had assumed that it was a closed door. However, during his search for a handle, he realized that the smooth wood had a slight amount of give to it.

He pushed it with a good deal of his superhuman strength, and the wood let out a scraping sound as it was pushed forward along a stone floor. As soon as the sound reached his ears, he froze. The noise reverberated up the tunnel as he listened for any other sound that might herald the coming of thrall guards.

After a dozen long seconds of nothing, he ran his hand along the edges of the wooden plank. It had been pushed forward enough for a five-inch gap to form on the left side of the doorway. The right side had a much more insignificant one-inch gap, and he wiggled his arm through the gap on the left.

Pressing himself up against the wooden surface, his arm disappeared until his elbow. He had to duck in the doorway that was far too low for his over six-foot frame. His fingers curled slightly, and he realized that it was the corner of the wooden object. No light streamed through the gaps at the edges of the object, so he didn't fear putting his body weight into it.

The scraping sound that followed sounded almost like someone was dragging a plank of wood across asphalt. He halted again the moment that the gap on the left side was just large enough for him to squeeze through. Carefully, he sheathed his knife and untied the halves of his spear from his back to prevent them from scraping against the stone wall.

Inching laterally, he moved until his eye peeked out from behind what he realized was a wooden crate. The room was rather small for a storage room and held five more boxes of similar size to the one that he was behind. Each one was maybe seven feet tall and five across. It was difficult for him to determine their width due to the low light. That light only came from the right side of the room, and its source was blocked by the box.

Not seeing an immediate threat, he squeezed himself out from behind the box, then between it and the one next to it. Once he stood on the main walkway of the storage room, he could see that the dim light was supplied from the crack at the bottom of a door on the far side of the room.

Turning, he pressed his head into the gap between the box and the wall and half-whispered, half-yelled, up to his party.

"Alright, we're clear for now," he softly called out, "One down one at a time. There's a low doorway to the side at the bottom. You'll have to squeeze between the wall and a wooden box to get out. Be careful not to make too much noise."

The two soft taps that reached his ears as he finished speaking signaled at least one of their acknowledgment. Turning to the door, he quickly reconnected the two halves of his spear. He kept his eyes on the door as the rustling of Marcus slipping out from behind the box filled his ears.

Octavius turned his eyes to the marine and studied him. He couldn't see much more than a vaguely humanoid shape holding a short wooden spear. Nodding to the man once, he turned back to face the door.

The others slowly filed into the room until they filled it. There wasn't much space that wasn't taken up by the large wooden boxes, but they stayed as spread out as they could. Octavius studied the faces of the group in the dim light that streamed through the crack below the door.

Wetness on the cheeks of multiple of his party members caught the light, but he didn't comment on it. Instead, he made a shushing motion with his free hand and crept up to the door. Once he reached it, he placed his ear against it.

The cool wood was still and silent as he concentrated. After a few long moments, the only thing that he could hear was the quiet breathing of the other humans in the room with him. Finished listening, he slowly moved onto his stomach and peered under the door.

He took in the relatively dim hallway. His eyes scanned back and forth as he tried to identify his location from what he knew of the Landing. It took him a long moment to realize that it was the main corridor that ran through the entire underground complex. It looked entirely different without the bright lighting. In fact, there wasn't a single magical light with his admittedly small field of vision.

Standing back up, he approached the other humans and gestured for them to crowd around. Quickly, they formed a loose circle, and he spoke softly.

"Alright, I'm sure that you've all noticed, but Toby has died," he whispered, letting the smallest bit of his sorrow enter into his voice before he banished it and continued, "But we need to continue on what we need to do. With some sort of combat operation going on up there, we probably have the best distraction possible. This is our chance to cripple them, not to mention pay them back for whatever they did to Toby."

Determined nods bobbed around the circle, and he returned them. Did he feel discomfort when using the recently deceased member of his own team to manipulate them? Most definitely. Did he regret using it to keep them sharp and focused on the immediate mission? Absolutely not.

"What about the boxes?" Finn asked, his voice weak and slightly dull, "Maybe they hold something important."

Octavius nodded in affirmation and turned to study the nearest box. "Maybe," he said, "But how would we open them?"

The younger man was silent as they studied the box in the dim light. It was a perfectly formed rectangular prism that towered silently without borders or embellishments. The lack of any way of mechanically opening the box without damaging it made them all think of wood shapers.

"I think that there's something important in them," Jean said, her voice still the cold monotone that he'd only seen her break once, "Why else would they make them so that only wood shapers could open them?"

Octavius nodded; that was exactly what he'd been thinking. Eying the door speculatively, he turned to Bill.

"Can I borrow your hatchet?" he asked. The old man withdrew it from his belt and tossed it to the special operator silently.

"Thank you," the younger man said, "Go guard at the door, please. Just look under it and warn me if you see so much as a shadow move."

Bill nodded and strolled calmly toward the door and positioned himself on his stomach. With Bill's lean form blocking most of the crack under the door, the room became even darker. Octavius considered using his shadow sense but decided not to. Instead, he allowed a trickle of mana to flow through his arm and into his spear. The others, having seen the trick before, merely gestured in appreciation of the soft white glow.

Octavius swung the hatchet experimentally and studied the various boxes. After a moment's consideration, he moved to stand in front of the box in the far left corner of the room. With a smooth motion, he leapt on top of the box and landed in a crouch. His head grazed the stone ceiling for a moment before he lowered his body even more.

His eyes flicked over to Bill, and he found the man silent and alert. The others all looked on in curiosity and even a little excitement. Octavius brought the hatchet up and swung it down with his superhuman strength. It passed clean through the wood, splitting it along the grain that was luckily still present.

He yanked the small axe free and swung again slightly to the left. Moving efficiently, he set the hatchet down and reached into the small hole he made. Gripping the inch thick wood with the fingers of his right hand, he began to pry it open. The wood groaned for a single moment before snapping.

Every eye snapped to the motionless Bill, and the room was filled with relieved sighs at the man's lack of reaction. Octavius brought his glowing spear up and peered into the small opening that he'd made.

The milky white glow of his spear caught on the pure white skull of a canine and he flinched slightly. Shaking his head at himself, he leaned back down and studied the contents of the box. It was filled with bones.

There were skulls and ribs and every other type of bone from dozens of different species. He noticed the skulls of canines, deers, and a few ones that he couldn't name. The one that caught his eye, however, was a human skull with a massive fracture running along its scalp. His fist tightened around his spear, and the light began to shake before he forced himself to calm down.

Many of the bones were broken or even shattered. The only thing that they all had in common was that they were perfectly clean. It was as if every bit of meat and connective tissue was carefully removed, and then the bones were cleaned again. Someone or something put a lot of effort into making the bones appear as clean as possible.

"What the hell?" he muttered in morbid curiosity. The single box had to contain the bones of hundreds of creatures, and it was obvious that they were important for some reason.