“Ok, Milo, we’ll let you rest now, ok?”

The Mule seemed to take a deep sigh.

Thraisly patted her snout affectionately, then began to lead her through the tunnel, everyone else following behind.

I wasn’t sure what had happened to the massive creature, but we had heard its roars for quite a while after leaving it behind, so we decided it would be best to keep moving since there were no injuries.

After some time of walking and taking a left at the next intersection, Keen, who was still tied to Symantha’s back, woke up.

“H..huh? What’s happening?” he asked, slowly moving his head around in a stupor. “We were going into the mine and- wait, did we get away?!”

“Of course we got away,” Symantha said, quickly untieing his restraint and cautiously setting the kid on the ground. “Otherwise, we would be in heaven.”

Keen unsteadily shambled around in confusion when he stepped down and was only stabilized when Symantha put a hand on his head. “Oh, ok.”

“Unfortunately, we’re no better off than before,” Symantha said, taking his hand and leading him forward so the group could keep moving. We explained the situation to the kid, who seemed pretty scared of our precarious position.

As we walked further into the passage, it got colder. Keen started riding on Symantha’s back again, partly for body warmth and partly for safety.

Chunks of ice began to line the walls and ceiling, and our breaths came out translucent. Eventually, the whole floor was covered in silky-smooth ice, making it difficult to move without slipping.

I was forced to cut the parts of the vine harness that had grown with [druid’s wrath] and were hanging off me, along with everyone else’s. Otherwise, we could accidentally trip on them, which would hurt.

The tunnel widened into an ice-crusted room, one where we could actually see the two walls with just our torchlight, which was a nice change of pace. We made out way through the cave, taking care not to slip.

Then, I heard what sounded like tunneling. I looked all around, trying to find the source of it. I didn’t see anything, but the noise kept getting louder and louder.

Eventually, Dota noticed. “Do you hear something?” he asked, his eyes moving all about his head.

Thraisly shook her head. “No, I have-”

I felt a vibration in my legs. I didn’t hesitate any longer to kick off the ice, stumbling backward. Then, instantly, a spike of ice arose from where I had stood, and countless more spread from it like branches on a tree. Had I not trusted my senses, I would have been impaled then and there.

I scrambled to regain my balance as another tremble occurred farther away.

The whole party took ready stances, but nobody seemed to understand what had just happened.

Whatever was attacking us was beneath the ground, but I was the only one who knew that. Unfortunately, I couldn’t easily communicate that. While everyone tensely looked for the source of the attack elsewhere, I hastily pointed my sword at the ground, humming panicked.

“What is it?” Keen asked, surprisingly being the only one who noticed.

Its under the ground, obviously!

“Down!” Cobaltio shrieked, catching everyone’s attention.

I heard another tremor, and Thraisly looked at the ground just fast enough to jump to the side as another ice tree sprouted up, then shot spikes in all directions, the tip of one making a cut through her pants.

“Ow! Everyone, she’s trying to say its below us!” she yelled.

Seeing it wouldn’t be the most useful tool in this situation, I clipped my sword and readied my slate and chalk.

I started trying to find a way to handle the situation. If the enemy was tunneling beneath the ice, I wasn’t sure how we could attack it, so the only reasonable way to deal with it was to make it to the other end of the room, where it would hopefully be unable to keep chasing us.

So, we needed a good way to dodge its attacks.

It was difficult to tell who the target of the tree spikes was because we were so close together, but maybe if we spread out, that wouldn’t be an issue.

I wrote as quickly as I could while everyone else was trying to figure out what exactly was causing the attacks. {Everyone, we should spread out across the r}

“The room? Why?” Symantha asked, before turning her head about to see that everyone, including me, had spread out, Milo following Thraisly.

“Just follow the Saya’s orders, toi mako!” Dota said, using some words I didn’t know.

Symantha shook her head like we were being silly but jogged along the ice to separate herself from the rest of us regardless. “Ok, now what?”

{Run, and dodge if you hear a tremor coming your way.} I wrote.

By separating ourselves, it would be obvious who was being targeted because they would hear the most violent tremors, so all it took was proceeding as normal and being prepared to dodge.

Everyone ended did so without complaint. I began to get a good idea of the pattern of the creature attacking us. I could hear the rumble of it tunneling through the earth, then the tremor of its attack just a second beforehand. With that in mind, we made it quite far without being in much danger.

The biggest issue with it, though, was how slippery the dang place was. I was struggling to keep up with everyone on my own, and although Cobaltio could use [death wing] to help keep me stable, it wasn’t a guaranteed method to success.

“So,” Symantha began, skitting further down the cave. “Why did that [drake] just talk?”

I wasn’t really interested in conversing, primarily because we were in a dangerous, albeit easy to handle, situation.

I heard a tremble and saw Symantha tense up and say, “I’m going to jump!” to Keen. He held on tight as she jumped backward, avoiding a spike of ice. Then, the ground beneath her cracked. “Wait, did the ice just-ahh!”

She fell into a pit.

“[barrier]!” Thraisly yelled before running to the hole Symantha had fallen into. Dota and I both ran to her side, hoping they were alright. When I looked into the pit, I saw it was about twelve feet deep, with ice spikes on the bottom. Symantha and Keen were looking down at the spikes, practically hyperventilating and lying atop a yellow barrier.

Thraisly quickly used [nature’s wrath] to grow Symantha’s harness to her hands, then she began to pull her up.

She froze as we heard the earth tremble. Then, we broke into a panic.

I searched for any sign of where the creature might attack while Thraisly frantically helped Symantha out of the pit, but Dota stood still, leaning far backward.

Seeing there wasn’t any good way to tell who was going to be attacked, I ran in the direction I thought the tremor came from, just gambling I’d make the right choice. I tried to shove Milo to the side, leaping over the hole to her, but as I did, I saw the spike appear.

“Fraaah!” Symantha yelled in agony as it shot horizontally into the bottom-left of Symantha’s torso, sending her spinning and screaming on the rope.

I quickly changed my priorities to helping Thraisly drag her out of the pit, my heart beating in a decidedly unpleasant manner.

That feeling wasn’t thrill, it was fear...or...guilt. I felt ashamed I couldn’t pinpoint the location of the next attack, and even as my mind raced, trying to think of some way I could have avoided letting Symantha get hurt, I couldn’t think of anything.

But if it was unavoidable, why did I feel so bad about it? Why did it feel so personal?

“Oh hell,” Thraisly said worriedly, looking at Symantha’s wound with a scared expression, “A-are you going to be alright, Symantha?”

“I-its nothing,” she lied before grunting when Keen fell from her back.

“Symantha!” he yelled, louder than he really needed to be, “Y-you aren’t...” he began, not knowing what to say.

Then, I felt a tremor again. “Quickly, separate!” Dota said, skitting away. I followed suit, along with Thraisly, but when Symantha held a trembling hand to pick up Keen, he swatted her away.

“You need to rest! I-I don’t...you’re bleeding a lot, Symantha...” he said, stating the obvious.

“Keen, you’re in danger if you sta-” Symantha held her wound suddenly, and took a step back, clearly resisting a surge of pain.

Then, a spike of ice erupted directly beneath Keen. In a blur, he seemingly teleported almost five feet further down the tunnel, cleanly dodging the attack. “See, I’m fine! You need to get out as quickly as possible!”

“B-but-” Samantha began-

before she was cut off by Thraisly, who began to shift further down the tunnel with Milo. “Symantha, you’re a [maid], not a combat class. You can’t take as much punishment as the rest of us.”

“F-fine, then...” Symantha drew her battleaxe and then used it as a cane, keeping herself stable as she weakly made her way through the cave. Thraisly and I exchanged glances, giving me the feeling she wanted me to keep an eye on the [maid], so I made sure to stay closer to her.

Things got harder once we were forced to look out for thin ice, but we managed to avoid the ice trees, each of us ducking to the side when we heard the vibrations and succeeding in staying safe. The air was tense most of the way, as it was frequent for one of us to briefly step on thin ice and be forced to skitter backward in fear before it broke underneath us. We ended up taking Symantha’s cane idea and using it to check for pits, which worked wonders. The trip down the path didn’t get any less tense, as Symantha continued to bleed from her wound and looked drowsy by the time we reached the exit. Thankfully, she wasn’t attacked many times, possibly because the creature tracked us through sound. I didn’t voice my thoughts, though.

But that should have been obvious.

We finally made it out of the ice-encrusted room a few minutes later, and Thraisly helped Symantha move across the ice, holding her by the shoulder, and into the narrow exit, where the two stumbled onto the stone just as a spike burst from the ground behind them and split into shards.

“Ok, let’s get you patched up,” Thraisly said, walking Symantha past us as we waited to see if the aggravating pest beneath the ice would resurface with drawn swords. Unfortunately for my sore ego, it never did, and I heard the tunneling noises trail off, the creature waiting for some other poor victims on the other side.

Little runt!

Little runt! I heard cobaltio mimic.

I chuckled and scratched Cobaltio’s chin. He seemed to prefer the back, though. That’s ironic, coming from you.

???(audible confusion)