How many fucking Reapers are there?! Caeden exclaimed internally. The flood just didn't stop. The manic laughter he had heard disappeared after less than a minute and filled Caeden with an overwhelming sense of dread. He knew he very well could have consigned Erik to death after leaving him alone in that tunnel. Erik was scrappy, creative, and brutal when necessary. None of that made up for the fact that this was not his ideal fight.

Caeden knew that when he left to handle the Reapers. He had no options. If he had one, he would have taken it in a heartbeat, even if it meant he fell instead. It was his idea to try and push that stupid sword back in. Anything that happened to his team, his friends, because of this monster hoard was on his head. They could have left, and everyone would have been fine, but he decided they had to mess with the creepy sword.

Now he had no idea if Erik was alive or dead. He just had to stew in that uncertainty while he fought hundreds of shadow monsters. His Sharp formshift had spread to cover his whole body, making that process much easier. Sharp's formshift changed him in a completely different way to Physical Enhancement. His second shroud made him a bigger, more muscular version of himself with a golden color scheme highlighted with purple. But he still looked mostly the same.

Sharp was different. Every single angular facet of his body became an edge. His elbows, knees, fingers, toes, and even the heel of his foot were all weapons now. His hair was a bed of razors, and even his normally square chin sharpened to a point. He slimmed down, but not like his speed form. That mnemonic gave him a runner's physique. Lean, but heavily muscled.

Now, he looked like nothing so much as a blood-soaked anorexic monster with razors grafted to his flesh. He was entirely a metallic crimson while his whole body lost all mass, leaving him like skin stretched over his skeleton. He lost none of his strength despite looking like he didn't have an ounce of muscle to speak of.

More than that, every defined bone all over his body had formed a ridge along his flesh, another edge to attack with. His forearms and shins, even his visible ribs, all of them had an edge running their entire length. His whole body was covered with sharp edges from head to toe.

He couldn't think of a better environment for this form. His whole body got the same treatment his claws had; every flesh blade had another invisible edge hovering over it that could lay into the Reapers like a landlord with an overdue tenant. Though he might have a higher survival rate. Those landlords were vicious.

He was getting a workout as it was, trying to manage the neverending flow. Every ounce of effort he could muster poured into using every edge, every facet of his formshift to maximum effect. Even as thoughts of Erik ate as his conscience, he tried to push that worry and what it would mean for his other friends from his mind.

He didn't know something had happened to Erik. He could have just been randomly laughing. Wouldn't be the first time. What Caeden did know for a fact was that if he let these Reapers past, his friends would almost certainly die. Lily was out of shroud, Cat was fully occupied holding a tunnel alone, and Erik was in the same shitty situation. An attack from behind would be devastating.

Too bad that was such a cold comfort. Erik only might be dead, and if Caeden fucked up, he would definitely be dead. Not exactly a stellar pep talk.

Worse, Caeden was losing shroud. Something he never would have dreamed of having to worry about with Sharp. His ability to use his thorns to regenerate shroud was a cornerstone of how he fought with it. The formshift, combined with the intangible edge, plus all the times he had to sacrifice thorns to cover gaps in his defense, all added up to him slowly losing shroud drip by drip.

He had ten minutes, maybe less. As he fought, his capabilities improved, meaning he had to use thorns to cover his mistakes less and less. He only wished he had managed it earlier before he hit the point of no return. Now he was beyond the curve, and making more thorns wouldn't be enough to cover his losses. After ten minutes, if all the Reapers weren't dead, Caeden would be.

After everything, this was all I could do for them. Caeden grimaced. He had dragged his first and only true friends into their deaths with his arrogance. What the unshrouded hell was he thinking, messing with a Heartstone and the insanely powerful sword that somehow sealed it? That was so far above his level. He had been out of his depth from the second they entered the chamber behind him; he could see that. Only it was too late. They were locked in now. It was win or die, and he was slowly losing.

"Are you sure you can hold them? They're not exactly… web material." A familiar voice spoke from behind him, followed by an unfamiliar one.

"Master, I assure you, their intangibility will not limit the effectiveness of my webs."

Caeden couldn't help it. His grimace shifted to a frown, then a smile, and finally, he started laughing. Overwhelming relief unwound every ounce of fear and self-loathing he had been hiding in the back of his head. Despite that, Caeden kept fighting. He wasn't about to stop just because he knew his friend was fine. "Erik, what the fuck? Did you seriously clear out that tunnel already?"

"Nahh. Well…I mean, kinda?" Erik waffled.

"Every monster that attempts to enter the final one hundred feet of the tunnel is automatically trapped, but I lack the capability to efficiently discorporate them." The other voice spoke up. Caeden hadn't seen the source yet, focused as he was, but it was distinctly female and not one of their teammates.

"That's nice. Here to help?" Caeden asked. He could resolve the mystery of the new woman that had somehow showed up miles underground in the middle of a deathtrap once this tunnel was secure.

"Of course. It will take me only a moment to set up the layers." Thick panels of string shot out around him, passing Caeden by inches. They coated every Ash Reaper, sticking to them and sticking the monsters to each other. Then they got stuck to the wall. Soon, the overwhelming army of endless shadows was reduced to mounds of struggling string stuck to the tunnel walls. More Reapers flooded in, only to get literally stuck in the same situation as their fellows.

"Well," Caeden stared. He...had not been expecting that. "That was extremely effective."

"My restraints are powerful, but I have very little offensive strength. Unfortunately, I can only kill them with my poison one at a time, which would take quite a while." The woman sounded almost apologetic.

The current crisis settled, Caeden finally turned to get a look at the new addition. She was even more surprising than the power of her webbing. Caeden could hardly believe he was seeing a real arachne. The only thing he knew about them was how rare they were. The sentient spider people almost never left their islands, being extreme isolationists. Caeden didn't blame them, as all their neighbors were racist humans.

"Hello, I'm Caeden." Not really knowing what else to say, he decided a proper introduction was a good place to start.

"I am well aware." The arachne smiled, "Perhaps my own introduction will clarify some of the questions I'm sure you have. I am Sauma, Incarnation of Stitch."

"Oooooooh." Caeden nodded. "That makes a lot more sense. Also, seriously Erik?" He put his hands on his hips, casting a disappointed look in his friend's direction.

"What? What did I do?" Erik immediately got defensive.

"A pretty spider woman? That's your Incarnation? I can't say I'm surprised." Caeden shook his head in mock disappointment.

"It's not like I got to choose!" Erik defended himself.

"Does that mean you don't like me, Master?" Sauma immediately turned on him, looking deeply hurt. If Erik hadn't been so flustered, he might have noticed the corners of her mouth twitching, trying to hold back a smile.

"Whoa, whoa, I never said that." Erik raised his hands placatingly. "Honest, I'm just saying, you are what you are. I had nothing to do with it."

"Well, it sure sounds like you don't like her." Caeden jumped in, fanning the flames.

"Yes, I agree. Have I done something to displease you, master?" The arachne's eyes watered, on the verge of tears.

Wow, this lady deserves a medal for acting this good. Caeden couldn't help thinking.

"No, Sauma, no!" Erik looked truly upset. "There's no way I could ever…" Erik suddenly stopped talking, mouth open.

"...Are you ok?" Caeden asked.

"You're fucking with me, aren't you?" Erik said quietly.

"Pfft." Caeden broke. "Yeah, absolutely, dude. I was surprised Sauma stepped into it so easily."

Erik looked inordinately proud, "She's been with me since I was born. Obviously, she knows how to mess with people."

"Not really something to be proud of," Caeden noted.

"Hey, I don't have much; I'll own what I got." Erik huffed.

"Still, being a pain in this ass is not an admirable character trait." As they talked, Caeden worked a host of thorns down the tunnel, obliterating masses of trapped monsters. Since they couldn't strike back, Caeden didn't have to worry about the constructs getting destroyed. At the same time, he dropped Sharp's formshift and returned to using Physical Enhancement to resist the heat.

"So, how are Cat and Lily doing?" Caeden asked. He assumed he had been Erik's last stop.

"Oh, fine. Sauma pinned all the monsters in Cat's tunnel, too, so she was busy working her way through them like you are. Lily has got her mojo back, so she went to start working through my tunnel while I came to bail you out." Erik explained.

"Great! That's great. I was worried. Actually…Erik, I'm-" Caeden started to apologize.

"If you're going to apologize for leaving me, you can shut up." Erik cut in. "I knew what I was doing. If you hadn't stopped these crap-sacks," He gestured at the piles of Reapers, "we all would have been dead. It was a shit situation and a shit call you had to make, but as far as I'm concerned, you made the right choice. To be honest…"

Erik sighed. "I almost died. Like, for real. None of the weak-ass almost death that happens to me all the time. I lost a leg, part of my shoulder, and got a nasty gut wound. It was rough."

"I-"

"Let me finish!" Erik shot down Caeden's second attempt to apologize. "I had a moment right then, before Sauma Incarnated. I…I haven't ever really thought about dying. "Erik looked deeply uncomfortable. "I mean, I've thought about the process a bunch. Most of my life has been one long attempt to avoid fatal injury. But I never thought about what happens when you die. Or after. I don't really buy into the Church's whole shtick about us all returning to the One True Shroud."

"I'm sure you know what unshrouded think about dying with the whole heaven and hell thing. Honestly, I think the idea that we get judged when we die is much more likely than anything else. What other point to being alive is there if it's not some kind of weird sadistic test?"

"Anyway," Erik shook his head, "I was thinking about that, and I realized, if I had died at that moment, defending my best friends while we tried to stop an entire town of innocent people from dying, I think I could be ok with that."

"Don't get me wrong!" Erik shot Caeden a hard stare. "I'm not gonna die any time soon! There are far too many beautiful women that I haven't met and way too much popcorn to eat for me to die yet."

"I never got the popcorn thing." Caeden interrupted. "What's up with that?"

"It's the perfect medium to consume all the best things in the world!" Erik proclaimed. "Salt, butter, caramel, other things! You have no taste, heathen! But you're distracting me." Erik's serious, subdued tone returned.

"My whole point is, don't beat yourself up, ok? We all wanted to be here. Well, maybe not here here, in a stupid hot cave under a mountain, but we all decided together that we wanted to be the best we could be. Helping people, fighting monsters. You didn't force us here, and you've always done your best to keep us alive. So cut yourself some slack. It's been a shit day; no need to beat yourself up on top of everything else."

Caeden dropped his head, staring at the ground. He hadn't expected the emotional intensity from Erik. It caught him by surprise. "Yeah, ok."

"Ok?"

"Ok."

"Great! It looks like this is almost done."

Caeden turned to look back at the carnage. Indeed, the endless stream of Ash Reapers had slowed considerably. Since Caeden had been able to discorporate them so efficiently with the help of Sauma's webbing, they had been able to flood the tunnel even faster than before. Caeden had been cutting down hundreds as he and Erik talked. "There's no way I would have been able to handle this much on my own. I would have dropped eventually."

"Yeah, no shit. That's a stupid amount. How were there so many down here?" Erik looked at the tunnel floor, which was invisible under the carpet of discorperating Reapers.

"Well, they had made it all the way up to the human-occupied tunnels. There had to be thousands." Caeden reasoned. For some reason, the Ash Reapers just ranged out farther from the Heartstone-infected tunnels and caverns.

"That's bullshit. Why couldn't it be thousands of Wolves? I could deal with a thousand of them." Erik complained.

"Hey!" A call came from inside the cavern. "The Knights are almost done!"

"Oh shit!" And Erik was gone.

Caeden chuckled and shook his head. Then he followed after.