We took 8 hours to rest and let all of the sensory equipment recharge, Vurla and Ryan weren’t given a guard shift so that they would be at full focus in the morning and be able to properly make judgements. After all, it's their analysis we’ll be relying on to be able to find this dungeons heart, Sonya said in beast dungeons the heart usually takes the form of a bonfire inside an animal den, though there’s always a chance in any dungeon that it’ll take the form of a floating Kyrias nexus. We were told that the monsters we can expect in a beast dungeon are usually wolves, boars, snakes and hawks. Some have more exotic things like porcupines or badgers and sometimes they have monster rabbits but this dungeons rabbits seem to be mundane based on their droppings, there’s a low chance of a new-born dungeon having had the time to explore more interesting options so we should only have to deal with a couple different creatures thankfully. We packed up our things and left to explore, Vurla and Ryan did some tests to try and locate the heart but seemed to disagree on the results. Vurla mentioned something called a ‘Weave’ but Ryan said that this dungeon was too young to have developed one yet, Vurla said it was possible if it was tamed by a dungeon mage but Ryan called those a myth. They seem to have a lot of arguments but they thankfully came to a conclusion quickly enough this time and decided on a direction. After just a short while of walking we found something bizarre, a patch of grass and ferns that where completely snow white... I tried inspecting them but Vurla quickly pulled me back, the Phentamancer’s panic was evident on his face as he cautioned me.

“Those plants are modified! This dungeon is already editing its creations Alexi they could be anything! And for plants to survive in this environment that means the ambient mana is enough to sustain them, but we didn’t notice high enough levels for that! These cannot be natural! It could be a trap.”

I quickly ran my threat sense skill over the ferns but nothing came up, pausing a second to let the headache past I informed Vurla “My skills say they’re safe, are you sure you’re not just being paranoid? You guys are the ones saying this place is weird, right?”, I seem to have missed something here though as all I received was a scowl before he sighed

“Fine, it's not as if we can progress otherwise. We’ve got some general-purpose antidotes so if you feel off at all we can give you one, unfortunately Tetra’s malady detection won’t respond to any traces of poison though so you’ll have to notice on your own”

After being given the go ahead I plucked few leaves from the ferns and a couple blades of grass too, there was no immediate reaction so I used threat sense on them again and they were still fine, after telling the group there was no issue Ryan ran some tests on them before his eyes widened far enough that I thought they’d fall out, he pulled Vurla and Sonya over to show them something before they started harvesting the plants by the fistful and filling up small pouches with the stuff. Another two hours later and we finally found our first signs of life, a rabbit. It was mundane like id guessed before which was a relief but it was still rather strange, it was the same shade of pristine white as the plants. Not even a speck of grey on it from dust or stone. And it had these markings on it, hypnotising purple patterns. I felt myself getting lost in them as I stared at the animal. Thankfully, Ellias knocked me out of my trance by placing an arrow right in the eye socket of the bunny before holding it up by the arrows shaft and proudly exclaiming, “I caught dinner for us!” with a shit-eating grin on his extremely punchable face. Okay, maybe that was a bit aggressive but still! He pisses me off so badly. His comment about how the fur would make a coat that was “only fit for the nobility” rubbed me the wrong way too.

After that we continued on for most of the day, stopping every now and again to let the Phentamancers run their tests before Sonya called a break. She handed out rations to everyone and we made our way into another one of the alcoves and I searched around for any danger. Afterwards we made camp and separated into guard shifts. The order was: me and Wahuj; Tetra and Lee; Sonya and Sere then Karus and Ellias. Tetra was pissy about being given a middle shift but he had last shift yesterday so I honestly couldn’t carer less about him, I was just glad I wasn’t the one stuck with him. Lee seems to be the only one of us that can actually hold a conversation with the guy if through sheer perseverance alone so I figure that’s why the two were paired up today. Taking a position where I was pretty far from the entrance while still able to clearly see anything approaching was actually more difficult than I expected, the large mushrooms with their faint glow would create a glare at the wrong angle and the shrubbery disrupted uninterrupted lines of sight so I had to take a position closer to the entrance and further from the group than I'd have liked. Wahuj came up next to me and rested his spear of the wall before sitting next to it.

“You doin okay? Seemed abitspookd bout this whole delvin business when ya asked bout it”

“I suppose, seems to be a whole lot of nothing so far though. I’ve heard enough campfire stories about dungeons to properly relax inside one. Feels like we’re missing something, like when we least expect it the floor’s gonna open up on us”

He chuckled a little at that before tapping on his spear.

“I feel the same in a way, I hate bein in tunnels like these. Makes it real hard to use my spear the way I was taught. Bein somewhere yaaint used to makes ya real paranoid doesn’t it? Just keep a good head on your shoulders, worryin’s good. Stressins not.”

I scoffed at him trying to sound all smart, “Easier said than done, genius”

Honestly, as if he’s not just repeating something he heard from someone else. I suppose I appreciate the effort. It’s a bit awkward to just say that though, isn’t it? Eh, whatever. He looked a little lost for a second before laughing, laughing! He laughed at me, honestly. I ignored him to focus on maintaining my kit.

When the morning came it was just more of the same, honestly the worst part of all this was the boredom. It was all so repetitive, the constant crackling and bursting noises made by the pop lichen was really grinding away at me. Lee asked if he could just raze the lot of it and at this point, I'm willing to agree with him. Me and Ellias had begun to make something of a competition out of hunting the rabbits and at this point the patterns didn’t even distract me anymore. It was right after I’d went to fire my crossbow at one when I accidentally twitched and my shot went wide “Tsk, tsk. Cheaters never win Alexi. This should show you not to use such a barbarous tool. You have enough skill to have no need of something so crude” Oh yeah, had I mentioned that Ellias hates crossbows? Like, really hates them. He thinks they ‘sully the noble art of archery’ or something and always has a comment whenever I use one. ‘Still, I shouldn’t have missed there. I just seemed to lose it for a second there, I wonder why?’ As I had that thought I felt a chill run down my neck and activated danger sense, the rush of information immediately making my head pound. “ATTACK!”. I bellowed out as I gripped on my skull that I felt was about to crush my mind. As I shouted the group immediately fell into formation, Sonya on one side and Wahuj on the other, Karus and Sere behind them with me, Ellias and the mages in the middle. Vurla announced locations “3 ahead, 10m. 2 behind, 3m. Another 5 right on the edge on my range!”. Wahuj tensed up when he heard how close some of them were to him as we heard a faint growl come from one of the sidetunnels we’d just passed.

As we focused on the back, 3 wolves quickly charged Sonya. They were thinner than the wolf's id seen in the forest by my village and they held themselves completely flat to the ground . Their claws where a little bit shorter and duller while they had sharper teeth that could be seen as they held their mouths slightly open like hyenas. One stayed back as the other pounced on Sonya’s shield arm and its teeth crushed down on her arm, it left a row of dents all the way along the bite. A slight trickle blood ran down Sonya’s arm the wolf immediately fell back as she tried to smash its skull using her hand-mace, the blow only glanced the beast due to its hasty retreat, breaking one of its legs like it was a toothpick. The wolf immediately ran away down the tunnel as its partner raised its hackles and postured with a deep growl.

While Sonya was still dealing with the first of the wolves, the third had dashed past her in order to target Karus. It easily evaded the unwieldy bardiche and slipped behind him to land a deep bite into his calf, the gambeson he wore absorbed most of the blow but the beasts' fangs still managed to pierce the skin. As the ambushing wolf jumped back to retreat it tore with its maw, mangling the flesh it’d manged to get a good grip on.

While Sonya was distracted by the posturing wolf, she heard Karus cry out and turned around to see the third wolf making it’s get away, spryly dodging a firebolt that had been launched in its direction. While she was turned away the first wolf escaped and the second let out a bark and hopped forward to snap at her legs, forcing her to ram it away with her shield. This bought enough time for the wolf that had crippled Karus to escape.

As the wolves dashed away me and Ellias both fired our bows, my arrow was flying straight into the injured wolf's leg just before it turned the corner and was out of sight but the ambushing wolf that hadn’t been hit yet jumped in the way of the arrow, taking the blow into its flank. Ellias didn’t get much luck either, he was overambitious with his shot and aimed for the creature's head. Sine he needed to predict their future movement to be able to hit such a small target the wolf was able to slow down and have the arrow go completely wide. After that we managed to land a few arrows in their hides but didn’t deal any major damage. Tetra immediately rushed to Karus’ side to give him healing but he was completely pallid afterwards, the injury may seem small but due to the extreme tissue damage it almost completely exhausted his mana.

After the battle we took a short break to recover, bandage up Karus’ leg so he doesn’t accidentally reopen the wound. Magical healing can be a bit unstable for a short time after it's casting after all. Next Sonya took a moment to apologise for allowing one of use to be injured and then make some plans to counter act this situation in case of a repeat. “These wolves are smart, they baited us by having one group distract us and the other launch the attack. In addition, they seem to be willing to slowly exhaust us. We need to slow down our pace to win this war of attrition. Don’t take risks to try and land a heavy blow on one of them, we need to reduce injury on our side as much as possible. Any attacks landed on the wolves is simply a side benefit, they’re not the focus. Got it?”

After we all answered in the affirmative, we got up to start moving again when I had that same tingle on the back of my neck before a wolf dashed out of a nearby patch of ferns hidden in the shadows of a side tunnel and pounced for tetra, clamping its jaws round his neck and tearing. We instantly retaliated, but another 5 wolves attacked from the surrounding. As I fired my crossbow of at one of the wolves that I saw approach from a left side tunnel behind us it immediately backpedalled, disappearing into the shadows. Another came from the same side tunnel as the first to grab the arm Wahuj was holding his spear in, stopping him from being able to pierce the ambusher. Next was a group of 3 that came from ahead of us, I recognised the leader as the one that had body blocked my arrow in the previous attack. Things immediately descended into chaos.

First Sonya raised up her slightly damaged arm to slam down on the wolf that attacked Tetra with her hand-mace, as she stuck with a slight flick in her wrist the spiked metal came into contact with the beasts' flank tearing its hide slightly while crushing their chest with a gut-wrenching crunch and throwing the wolf a couple meters away. There were still some clumps of meat stuck between its teeth as it snarled before dashing away. At the same time, the wolf who had targeted Wahuj dug its claws into his side to jump of, landing clear of his wide slash and only getting grazed on the snout by the following thrust. Next it lunged at Ryan, who panicked and flinched backwards and then it used the opening by him to disappear into the shrubbery.

Behind the 3 wolves that had already grouped up, I saw the three that had fled appear behind them from various points in the tunnel network before they joined up with their pack. Next, another 2 pairs of wolves emerged. Bringing a total of 10 wolves packed into the corridor and just as I slowly pulled back my bow to prepare for an all-out battle, they started to retreat. Keeping facing us during the whole process before the last disappeared behind a corner and they dashed off. They’d retreated easily but not without cost, Wahuj’s arm was out of commission and Tetra's throat was wrecked.

I was the one with the next most experience treating injuries in the party, even if I'd only ever really used a stint on broken limbs or bandaged gashes before. I immediately scrambled through our supplies for any healing items I could find, first I bandaged his throat completely and then tried to force feed him a healing potion. The red liquid just leaked out his throat with the blood however, being mostly ineffective as our party's healer coughed up blood and chunks of his mangled oesophagus covering my hands with a nauseating, sticky, gunky red liquid that was uncomfortably lukewarm as well as globs of meat. I was used to dissecting, skinning and gutting animals but something about this experience was far more visceral. As I began to feel a little fainter and my thoughts became woozy Tetra started to slump in my arms as they light in his eyes faded. In a panic I forced another couple potions down his throat as I pressured the gaping wound closed, the main use of potions was to replenish vitality rather than heal wounds so I hoped this would give him enough energy as I fought to keep him conscious. Another few minutes of holding onto his shredded neck and praying, praying to whatever god he served to do their own damned due diligence and keep their priest alive and Tetra’s eyes closed but he still had breath.

He was unconscious, there was still hope. I placed him down in a position with his head slightly tilted to the side so his blood would flow out from his mouth rather than choke him and tried to stick closed the separate flaps skin left. I managed to reduce the size of the wound considerably but it soon became clear there was just too much lost, as I scrambled for other solutions his faint breathing slowly came to an end and I sobbed. I sobbed selfishly. I didn’t cry for him, or for his death. I cried because I was scared. I cried because what happened to him could now happen to me without a healer. I cried because I felt guilty, I felt like I should have been able to make it work, I felt like I should have acted quicker to tell everyone when I noticed something was wrong, I should have acted quicker to block it when that wolf burst out the shadows, I should have acted quicker to kill it when it latched onto to Tetra, I should have acted quicker after he was free. I cried because I couldn't do anything else.

As I cried Sonya came over to me and rested a hand on my shoulder before she muttered “We will purge this place”, and for the first time. I wholeheartedly agreed.