The iron gates groaned shut behind them with a sound like the whole world exhaling for the last time.
Or rather, Kaelen would’ve heard it in his borrowed bones if the situation weren’t so completely hopeless as to make the very term pointless.
The damp limestone walls wept slow trails of black-green mineral water in every direction, glinting where the tunnels were lit by crude torches, and the air carried an unfamiliar smell – until Nix provided a name for it without needing to be asked.
[Ambient Analysis: Miasma Concentration – Elevated.]
[Warning: Biological decay will accelerate due to prolonged exposure in unstable host tissue.]
Of course it would, after being exposed to for eighteen hours already.
Further down the passage, past the nervous, swaying column of guides and the six armored knights that protected Valen, strode a man who carried no concern for any of it.
The advisor from the street, Kaelen would’ve called her if he hadn’t already marked the name in his borrowed mind as soon as he heard it.
Mage Selene.
Watch her.
She’ll watching you, that’s for certain – he saw the same calculating look in her dark eyes as she passed him closer than once.
“She’s watching”, he told himself, as the dull weight of another name dropped like a stone in his ribs, “that can wait for the moment”.
Talia fell into step with a wordless sound only he could hear past the steady drip of water in the tunnels.
“You’re paler than you were an hour ago”, the knight murmured, “That’s not the torchlight”
“I noticed”
“Corin – ”
“Not now”
He knew what it was like to be poisoned from the inside by slow decay, to feel the edges of eyesight going numb and grey at the edges every few minutes – but Corin had never been this tired.
[Vessel Structural Decay: 40% -> 51%.]
[Cause:Ambient Miasma Exposure – Rate accelerated by 300%.]
The warning bell tolled louder in his ears, and with it came the taste of copper in his tongue.
“Kaelen”
Another knight, but no words.
“Six hours, at most”, murmured Nix, ever-pleasant as ever.
“Miasma exposure has exceeded your personal estimate by a substantial margin”
A solid six hours of tunneling, and then what?
Whatever Valen had hoped to barter for would be considerably less valuable than his bloods.
“You will require immediate biological reinforcement or you will not live to see the circumstances of your intended acquisition”
Food.
I’ll need food.
He found the necessary nourishment crawling along the lower walls of the tunnel an hour later, in the form of pale leeches the length of his forearm that fed leisurely on the minerals in the stone.
Dungeon leeches, low-value, low-threat parasites that were likely to keep going in their predictable path, undetectable by any of the expedition.
The thread slipped free beneath his nail, and a quiet, unassuming little sound told Kaelen the leeches had seen him first.
[Ding!
Micro-Feeding Initiated.]
[Target: Dungeon leech (x3).
Biological Value: Low.
Emergency Sustenance: Sufficient.]
As he slipped back into his place behind the others, crouching to avoid sight of the pale strand curling into the nearest writhing mass, Kaelen knew that this much nourishment wouldn’t carry him to the end of these tunnels.
But it should last long enough for Talia’s screams.
[Vessel Structural Decay: 51% -> 46%.]
[Estimated Time to Total Failure: Extended – approximately 9 hours.]
“Nine hours is better”, he said, pretending to listen to whatever the guide ahead of him was muttering about, “Not good enough”.
He fell in line with the others before they began, pretending his thoughts carried any weight at all in the scheme of things.
The trap came forty minutes later and there was no sound to warn them.
A guide ahead, younger and thinner than most, fell without warning on a patch of ground that did not appear any different than the rest.
Then the tunnel opened up into a dry, chittering mouth of black insects swarming in clucking clouds of hungry, living flesh.
Scarabs.
There were hundreds, pouring from cracks in the limestone like the tunnel walls themselves were alive and eager to destroy anything that had entered its domain.
“Formation”, one of Valen’s knights shouted but the guides were not soldiers, not trained to obey a commanding officer with any kind of instinct in the face of such a monster – and they scattered.
Their screams filled the narrow passageways as the creatures swarmed hungrily at the exposed throats and bellies, tearing away skin and muscle and scattering bones across the tunnel floor.
[Ding!
Mass Casualty Event Detected.]
[Multiple compatible hosts available.
Harvest Opportunity: High.]
Or rather, the thought was as simple and cruel as the System chose to deliver it.
I could let them die, he decided, the realization settling somewhere cold and unpleasant in his borrowed stomach, they will still die, regardless of intent, and this thought alone is worth far less than if I could ensure I would have someone to take in my place when this body fails.
There should not be such a choice but Kaelen knew well enough how quickly he would make it, with as much deliberateness and ease as if the matter was not, in fact, life or death.
“Get away from them!”
Talia’s scream rang through the commotion and Kaelen looked up to see a dinner-plate sized scarab attached to her forearm with a sickening, audible pulse of muscle as it worked its mandibles at the leather and flesh beneath.
She followed me down here
He didn’t wait to decide if it was true or not.
Corin’s decaying body might not be swift, might not be strong, but it was solid.
The scarab already attached to Talia’s arm was wrenched free with a sound, torn back into the mass of its writhing cousins, its thick carapace crushed between hard, borrowed fingers.
Around him the guides still fell, still screamed as the things carved their soft bellies open and fed, but the world around him was silent and distant.
He could feel the loss as an annoyance as if someone might bother asking what was wrong before trying to stop him.
“You are choosing to save one and ignore eleven”, Nix remarked, unfazed.
I know what my choice is.
The swarm of insects emptied out, receding as quickly as they came with a sick, buzzing sound, and Kaelen stood trembling in the remains of the carnage.
Seven bodies littered the floor, their skin split opened and emptied of their warmth, their eyes still in the places their bodies might be considered whole.
Talia stood with his help, the torn leather of her arm cleaned of insects with no permanent damage, and turned to look at where Valen knelt before the bodies of his men with grim, satisfied eyes.
The man actually smiled.
It was a small thing, hidden in the harsh shadows of the deeper tunnels, but it stretched the corners of his mouth in an unhurried, satisfied manner.
A look, Kaelen knew, that was reserved for plans that worked more often with blood and bodies than without.
[Ding!
Behavioral anomaly flagged.]
[Target reaction to Mass Casualty Event: inconsistent with stated expedition purpose.]
That wasn’t, he decided, the look of someone disappointed by the waste of life.
Not when the expression was still there as Valen rose to his knees and looked toward the tunnel entrance.
Not after he turned, already dismissing the mess, to speak brief words to his mage and advisor.
That was the look of someone who had seen what he wanted to find, already in his hand.