**[Rita, Day 5]**

“That Dumbass!” Rita was seething. Aiden had gone off without thinking and set his mind on such a deranged plan. He would get himself killed and probably them as well since they would be a man short. Horace had not spoken a word in the time since they had left Aiden in that weird space hidden in the dungeon, but she had been holding in her aggression without an outlet for hours. Swearing made her feel rebellious and powerful, so she let herself break the silence in the name of sanity. She almost wished they would be attacked; then she'd have something to take her anger out on.

They had failed to find anything new in the regular tunnel other than some traps and crossroads like the one they had slept at. She was beginning to think this dungeon was a dud because she had never imagined it being this empty. Monsters should be hiding around every bend and waiting to ambush unaware adventurers. She had long lost her ability to stay vigilant but was somehow still alive. It went against everything she knew about dungeons and made her curious about why this one was acting so abnormally.

She stared forward into the gloom and realized she was bored. A feeling she had not expected to feel, yet there it was. Acute boredom caused by hours of walking with nothing to look at or do. She would kill for a torch or even a small candle to allow her to see her surroundings. The blasted crystals in the walls gave off the most subtle of lights that allowed for only limited visibility. “Should we stop for a break? There is nothing here.” She asked Horace with little effort to muffle her voice. He did not respond but gave her a pointed glance as he continued his determined stride forwards. She huffed with annoyance despite being well aware of the dangerous situation they were in. There was so much that had happened to her in the last few weeks, and right now, she just wanted to take a break from it all. Aiden separating from them had broken the small knot of control she had felt. The old adventurers' adage ‘never split the party’ made her wonder if their luck would turn due to their choices the previous day.

As if summoned by her very thoughts, she heard loud noises echoing down the tunnel they were traveling through. Horace’s remaining arm stopped her from moving, and together they held tense, waiting to see what was going on. What she was hearing seemed to be a compilation of various tones that were jumbled from the sound bouncing off the tunnel to reach them. She poked Horace and gestured that the source of the noises was likely a ways down the tunnel, and they moved to retreat. The sounds followed them for quite a while before they reached the nearest crossroads. Choosing to take a left turn, they soon lost track of the voices, and both of them relaxed.

They trekked on, yet before long new sounds started again, and the occasional bark made Horace grasp her hand tightly in his own calloused one. He could not understand the risk like she did. Her father had hounds at their estate. She knew what the sounds of a hunt were, which made goosebumps rise on her exposed skin. Something was being hunted, and she could only pray it was not them, but what else could have prompted such a strange phenomenon?