“By the blood omen, what is that smell??” Zooty said, trying to tuck her nose into her robes.

Shrapnel gave her some skritches behind her ear, which in hindsight might have been terribly rude if she hadn’t been distracted by the stagnant and musty odors emanating from the stairwell. Shrapnel was glad that there wasn’t any sort of methane buildup, or some other gas, given everyone had open flames rather than light stones.

The stairs wound down, turning at weird angles, for only a couple of flights. Once they reached the bottom, the passageway opened up into an underground cave system. The minibots could detect faint amounts of moisture in the air, maybe there was a river or lake nearby. The mood of the students shifted as they went deeper through the caves, becoming heavier.

The cave ceiling rose until the light from the torches was unable to reach it. The inky blackness weighed down on them like something tangible and the acoustics of the cave walls seemed to swallow up any sounds. No one said a word, though the group did huddle closer together than they might have otherwise.

BombShell scanned the area above the group, trying to watch the ceiling. The absolute dark and distance made it difficult to see anything, even with the infrared and ultraviolet overlays. The roof of the cave was completely covered in stalagmites but she could almost make out movement.

Something large dripped off of one of the reverse spires, just as Private Roger passed under it. The object changed shape as it fell, going from an amorphous blob to a needle-sharp cone, aimed for the center of the group. BombShell vaulted off of Priss’s shoulder, extending her wings, and flew to intercept.

Shrapnel threw himself off of Zooty’s back and rammed himself into the face of the harpy, Skipaki. Skipaki stumbled back in shock, just as BombShell landed on his shoulder, pulling him back and toppling him onto his backside. She threw a hand out and her small aura shield bloomed, deflecting the falling spike, embedding it into the dirt between Skipaki’s feet.

The ridgid spike turned soft and resumed a blob shape. Apparently alive, it pulled itself out of the hole it had made and slunk off into the darkness.

“That! The hells it was?” Skipaki shreaked.

“Shh,” Professor Rechts advised. “That was a lancer slime. A subspecies of the drop slime family. Like most drop slimes, they live on the ceiling of caves and--”

“Professor! Not the time for a bio lecture,” Trish hissed.

“Mhm, yes. Move quickly, class, and be sure to activate and charge your aura shield gems just in case. Automata friends, can I trust you to keep watch above for us?”

BombShell and Shrapnel gave each other a look then gave tiny salutes to the Professor.

“Ugh...” Skipaki groaned, rubbing his nose, which had swollen a bit and turned red after getting shoulder checked in the face by the beetle-bot.

Shrapnel gave him a bow, in an attempt to communicate that he was sorry.

“Worry don’t. Slime impaled better than getting it’s. Uh... I mean... It’s better than getting impaled by that slime,” Skipaki whispered.

Shrapnel gave him another little bow before hopping onto his shoulder and giving him a little tap. Skipaki nodded and got up as the rest of the class continued moving, though cautiously watching the darkness above them.

BombShell headed back to Priss’s shoulder at the rear of the group and tapped her on the side of the face before pointing upwards.

“You want me to watch out for the slimes too?” she asked.

BombShell nodded.

“I’ll try... but I don’t know how much longer I’m going to last... I haven’t been given any mana in a while and I’m nearly out,” she said, ruefully.

BombShell folded her arms in thought and quickly discussed things with her fellow proxies, mentally. She then climbed down the front of the maidbot, holding onto her apron, and banged on her chest plating.

“I don’t... I don’t know what that means,” Priss said, apologetically.

BombShell mimed opening a book as Shrapnel landed onto Priss’s opposite shoulder. When she looked at him, he placed his hands over his chest and motioned as if his chest was opening up.

“Ah. You want me to open up my chest panel?”

They both nodded.

“I don’t... um...” she said nervously, looking around her. “I guess what do I have to lose, right? Either I trust you to help me somehow, or I die... again. Right?”

Shrapnel gently patted her cheek as if to say “there, there” as BombShell climbed back up to the shoulder.

Priss’s shoulders slumped a bit, threatening to unseat the minibots, and she hung her head for a moment before correcting her posture and lifting her chin in forced determination. Carefully, she undid the apron strap around her neck and unbuttoned her blouse. Once the fabric was out of the way, a seam cracked open along the length of her chest plate and the plate assembly pushed forward a slight amount. It then split apart like barn doors, revealing her core systems and locked into an “open” position.

“Okay... What now little masters?” Priss winced.

Shrapnel held his hands, palms up, against his body, like he was holding an infant, then pointed to her. She nodded and adopted the requested pose. Both Shrapnel and BombShell hopped off of her shoulders and landed in her arms; the arm shelf providing a place for them to stand while they worked.

BombShell looked back up at Priss and pointed to her own eyes, then up at Priss, then at the cave ceiling.

“Oh, I should keep watch while you work. Is that it?”

BombShell gave her a thumbs up.

“Ah! There’s--” she panicked.

The aura shield around Nur flared to life as a slime impacted it. The shield cracked and the slime broke through, but its fall was slowed enough that Nur was able to hop out of the way. Her evasion was accompanied by a loud squeak and ended hanging on Long’er’s arm.

“Maybe a bit more warning next time Miss Maid?” Long’er said coldly, glaring back at Priss.

“Eeep! Sorry my lady, yes! My apologies!” Priss said, hurriedly.

She nearly bowed, as was the habit, but managed to stop at only dipping her head before tipping the minibots to the ground.

The group picked up the pace and moved quickly. Priss did her best to watch for falling slimes and called out several as soon as she spotted them, though she wasn’t very good at determining where they would land or who should dodge. Mostly when she would spot one, everyone would leap in a panic away from the center of the group. A handful of aura shields gave up completely and would need to be recharged so the students tried to pair up when they could.

Shrapnel and BombShell examined Priss’s core systems and the mana collection unit had been removed and replaced with a simple mana transition plate. The conversion looked sloppy and was clearly “aftermarket”. She could still absorb mana, but only if mana was pushed directly into the plate, rather than naturally absorbing the atmospheric mana of the environment.

Shrapnel set about pulling out connection lines to make them easier to get to while BombShell disconnected and removed the plate. Priss’s mana cycling system was also replaced with one that was intended to underperform so that she wouldn’t be able to keep as much mana in her system at once.

Thanks to Rom back at the AutoForge, BombShell was able to pull a replacement mana collection unit from [Inventory] that had once belonged to a Jamnasian "soul golem". They worked quickly to replace the sabotaged part as Priss would suffer a mana leak for as long as the unit was disconnected. They couldn’t replace her cycling system while they were walking though without having her completely shut down and reboot, so that would have to wait. At least she would be able to return to operational levels, even if they were low and she couldn’t do much beyond that.

Priss’s arms started shaking violently and the minibots had to take flight before settling back on her shoulders and grabbing onto something. Priss refused to look at them and stared into the darkness, though her whole body was trembling. Shrapnel and BombShell both gently stroked her cheeks until she calmed back down.

Once the tremors stopped, she glanced at the two proxies and whispered “thank you”, but started vibrating again. Shrapnel leaned over and tapped on her open chest plating, signally that she could close things up. As soon as they unlocked to swing back into place, he flew off and settled on one of Long’er’s horns. She glanced up at him but otherwise didn’t pay him any mind.

The ground beneath their feet went from hard and rocky to loose and gritty. Eventually turning to silt.

“Ah! My shoes are getting wet!” Gary yelped.

“It would seem that we’ve found a river,” the Professor pointed out. “Young Private, do you recall where we should go from here?”

“Uh...” he floundered.

KickBack patted his face and pointed in a direction. Thankfully, he’d been paying attention to the Commander’s notes each time that Roger had pulled them out.

“Right! Yes! This way!” Private Roger said with more confidence that was warranted. “It’s not much further, is it?” he whispered to KickBack.

KickBack thought for a moment and shook his head.

They trudged along, the water reaching up to the average knee. Many a complaint was voiced along with desires to go home. Some of the smaller students were forced to ride the backs of the larger ones when they passed through deeper watered areas.

Roger raised a fist and stopped suddenly, halting the group. KickBack pulled out two kunai, ready to fight and scanned ahead. Everyone froze in place, not daring to move a muscle. In the distance before them, they could hear the faint sounds of something moving in the water.

“Nur, [Flare] please,” Rechts requested.

Nur complied and shot a magic ball of light into the air above them. The cave lit up revealing several emaciated-looking white creatures ahead of them. The creatures didn’t take any notice of the light and appeared to be fighting over something.

“Cave wraiths,” Meleek whispered.

“No big deal,” Nur said nonchalantly. “We saw a bunch of those things when we were testing IronHide and they were barely an annoyance.”

“Nur!” Kiyohime hissed. “The cave wraiths were no big deal when we were testing Mister Hide, because we had Mister Hide with us.”

“Oh yes. We did, didn’t we...” she responded, shrinking back.