“Yahhhhhh...”

The echoes of a creature’s yell followed us down the stairs. We just had to keep running.

It wasn’t long before the stairs ended, being replaced by an expansive room where I could hear the sound of water pouring down. The ground beneath us turned into damp gravel as we walked in, and I could feel the humidity rise the deeper we ran.

“Yee-haw!” Milo suddenly stopped, alerting the rest of us, behind the mule, to halt too.

“What...” Dota said, atop the mule. “Is that...a pit of spikes?”

Symantha nodded and walked to the edge’s side beside me. “Dungeons will sometimes generate traps, but they only appear on lower levels.” Symantha held a hand out to Dota. “I suggest you let me take the lead from here. I’ve explored a dungeon before.”

Dota handed her the torch, surprised. “Why would you have done that?”

“I was in a similar situation a long while back when I still had parents.”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Dota apologized. “I didn’t mean to bring anything up.”

“Of course you didn’t. It isn’t like I care -both of them were scumbags anyway.”

Much sympathy for you.

Symantha began leading the way through the cave. Nobody could rest, though, as the roaring of whatever was behind us wasn’t fading away. I tried to run alongside Symantha, staying close to the lead where I was needed.

We crossed a stream of water and waded through the small creek, only for us to hear a flock or startlingly high-pitched sounds berate our eardrums, little squeaks coalescing to make an aggravating mess of sounds.

It seemed we all recognized the sound and jumped to action to defend against what was approaching, readying our weapons as three smaller fell bats swooped through the shadows towards us, their wing lights turning on to blind us.

My plant harness shot out and wrapped itself around one of their wings to drag it closer to me. It spat acid as it was pulled towards me, so I blocked with my shield. It kept the light out of my eyes, giving me the chance to blindly cut at its wing when it got in range, my blade cleanly slicing off the appendage, making it plummet to the ground.

Another one of the fell bats was shot in the face by a crossbow bolt and began to spit acid all over the place. Symantha simply approached it with a hand towel, using it to block the attacker’s unconcentrated acid and flailing light, draped it over it, then chopped down with her great axe, dirtying it.

You gained 4 Exp.

I walked backward, then dug my shield hand into my charcoal pouch, casting [fire manipulation] to send Dota’s torch flame at the remaining one, which was swooping towards an immobile Dota.

I couldn’t even tell if I had hit over the blinding spotlights of its wings, but I heard Milo gallop out of the way and [nature’s wrath] grew from Dota’s plant harness, flinging the remaining airborne bat to the ground.

We finished them off without much trouble, ending with Symantha plunging a battleaxe into the final one.

You gained 8 Exp.

You won!

“YAHHH!”

I heard trembles as something massive approached us, attracted by the sound of our fight.

“Oh, no, we need to get out -hurry!” Symantha said, running as fast as she could away from the sound of the approaching monster.

Was it really something we couldn’t handle as a team?

Realizing I was staring into the darkness while the rest of them were running for their lives, I dashed off after them.

“Yeeeeeee!” Milo yelped as Thraisly slowed him to pick me up, leaving Symantha to run onward.

Milo seemed to run just a little faster than whatever was chasing us, and Symantha actually managed to keep up, though that wasn’t much of a feat considering the exhausted mule was trying to carry three people at once.

I and Cobaltio looked back as something approached us, just barely in the vision of Dota’s torchlight. I saw a gaping maw of molars and massive, beady eyes, its head alone far larger than my whole body, and close to the ground. The creature’s head raised higher as it opened its mouth and screamed.

“YAAAHHHH!!!”

Its yell reverberated through the cave like an earthquake, spittle and hot wind blowing from its gaping mouth.

When its mouth closed, Cobaltio nervously barked, “Die!” like a dog.

Yeah, what he said!

“Oh, by Maophas’s treason, that thing is a beast,” Dota yelled. “Ahh, umm...” he loaded his crossbow awkwardly with his torch in hand, then shot it at the creature, only for the attack to barely scratch its face, deflecting off its skin.

“Just focus on getting away!” Symantha yelled. “We don’t stand a chance if that thing...” she just swallowed her breath, exerting her body too much to keep yelling.

If that thing catches us, I guessed.

Milo ran through the gravel for another half minute, and though a few fell bats joined the chase, the creature batted them aside like flies, apparently disinterested in their help.

Then, it began to catch up. The creature eventually got in full view of the firelight. Like some type of armadillo, it had armor protecting its vitals and the majority of its head. It also had large spikes jutting from the armor because of course it did. Its legs were practically stubs, making it galop with all the grace of a rock, but despite being small, they were thick.

Well, not thick compared to its body, which was wide enough to crash down a house.

I had to wonder just how its knobby legs could handle that sort of weight, but I figured there were smarter things to think about at the moment.

It kept getting closer, and Milo began to run out of energy.

Well, it was my job to hit the enemies!

I stuck my hand into my charcoal bag, and commanded [fire manipulation] to sear the creature’s eye. I looked back without seeing the result of my magic, and tapped Thraisly’s shoulder, pointing to my harness, then the creature’s other eye.

“If you say so!” Thraisly said. “[nature’s wrath]!” she yelled.

The harness speared towards the creature’s eye. At the same time and with no prompting, a crossbow bolt from Dota followed suit, aiming at the other, already damaged eye.

I watched as the plant’s attack was dodged by a twist of its head, causing it to harmlessly stab into its thick neck, while the bolt managed to barely lodge into the top of its eyelid, making the creature yell in anger and run forward even faster.

“I can see the entrance!” Samantha said, speaking over the fading roar’s echoes “Just a little further- it may not be able to fit inside the passage!”

Closer and closer, it approached. In agitation, I got ready to jump off Milo, hand on houndcleaver.

I was afraid to jump toward the colossal monster, but fear became thrill once I smiled. I didn’t know if the monster had any other skills, and I really didn’t want to let it get close enough to find out.

I saw the creature open its mouth and took my chance, leaping off Milo much to everyone else’s dismay.

I gritted my teeth as I landed atop the creature’s snout for a brief moment.

Three spikes on the back of its shell immediately began to grow as I landed on it. They curved towards me, accelerating until they were half as fast as an arrow.

Immediately, I swiped at its eye with my falchion, baring my teeth in aggravation as I cut a nasty scar into its left eye. I leaped off of it, avoiding two of the spikes, and bared my teeth as I narrowly deflected the last with my shield. I couldn’t put as much power into my swipes with a one-handed sword, but the shield kept me safe when I overextended, and that was nice.

It snapped at me as I landed, Cobaltio’s [death wing] keeping me balanced, but I was just far enough for its molars and enormous canines to clack against each other a foot from the back of my head. I hit the ground running, and sprinted as hard as I could, outrunning the beast alongside Milo, who struggled less with only two atop her.

We were just a dozen feet from the tunnel, so close to what seemed to be relative saftey -a shaft too small for it to pursue us.

It opened its mouth once more and yelled.

“YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAR!”

An earthquake, seemingly caused by the creature’s roar, dioriented me, and I tripped.

Not again...

Not even Cobaltio’s [death wing] could save me from tumbling to the ground while the rest of the party managed to escape into the tunnel.

It snapped at me.

Shit.

I raised my shield and tried to hide my body behind it as I landed back first on the ground only a moment before its mouth closed in on me, ready to squash and break me in one lethal bite.

Something wrapped in darkness impacted its skull, sending it reeling into the darkness rather than towards me, then deflected off it, landing out of my vision.

“[nature’s wrath]!”

As I gaped at the sheer strength of the hit and unconsciously scrambled to my feet, my harness grew again, launching another vine in Thraisly’s direction. She grabbed it and pulled me away from the behemoth.

The creature’s attention seemed to have changed to the thing that hit it, and it began to chase the new object of its hate into the darkness.

“YAHH!”

For now, we were safe from it.

Once I was close enough, Thraisly grabbed my wrist and threw me onto Milo.

A minute later, we stopped at another light rune and rested after realizing the creature wouldn’t come after us, at least not for the moment.