"Creeping Strangler!" Sera’s voice was shrill with panic. "They have a core, a bulbous growth in the main vine cluster. That's the weak point! Leo, shoot the core!"

  "Where!?" Leo was already bringing his crossbow up, but all he could see was the writhing mass of vegetation dragging Marsh toward the darkness of the ceiling.

  "High up! Look for the thickest part of the tangle where the vines converge!"

  There was no clear target. The ceiling above them was a nightmare of hanging roots and overpping vines.

  Sera dove forward, snatching the axe that had fallen from Marsh's grasp. The weapon felt heavy and unbanced in her hands, but she ignored the discomfort. With a wild cry, she swung.

  THWACK!

  The axe bde bit deep into a smaller vine. A thin, sticky green sap sprayed from the wound, and the vine convulsed, but its grip on Marsh's neck did not loosen.

  "Keep it from pulling him any higher!" Leo yelled, his eyes desperately scanning the chaos. Then, he saw it.

  Tucked amidst the tangle of rope-like vines was a growth. It was a bulging, sac-like bulb. A pulse, like a sickly heartbeat, emanated from it.

  There.

  The crossbow was already raised. His entire focus narrowed until there was only the target in his sight.

  Breath in. Hold.

  Leon squeezed the trigger.

  There was no grand explosion, just the solid thwack of the crossbow's release. The bolt's fletching slicing the air, followed an instant ter by a dull, wet impact. And the bulbous core erupted in a spray of dark ichor.

  Every vine in the chamber went limp. The wrestling stopped. The powerful hold on Marsh’s throat and arm vanished. He hit the stone floor with a heavy thud that made the three of them wince, followed by a series of hacking coughs.

  The creature was just a mass of dead pnt matter now. The dead vines that had been wrapped around Marsh's neck slithered to the floor like a heap of heavy, green rope.

  "Back to the main chamber. We need to regroup," Leo shoved a fresh bolt into the crossbow's groove and walked to Marsh, grabbing him under one arm. Sera didn't need to be told twice. She picked up her fallen spear, then the torch.

  Marsh was still gagging, his hands scrabbling at his throat, but he found his feet and stumbled along with Leo, half-dragged, half-running.

  They scrambled out of the tunnel and back into the openness of the rge, fungi-lit cavern. Their arrival sent a small flock of glowing moths flitting into the darkness. The other party was nowhere to be seen.

  "Here," Leo guided Marsh to a retively clear patch of ground, lowering him carefully down to the ground. Sera circled them, spear up, scanning the dark tunnel entrances.

  Marsh y curled on the ground, his hacking coughs echoing in the vast chamber.

  "Alright, breathe with me," Leo knelt beside him, gently pulling away the torn colr of the big man's tunic. In the greenish light of the surrounding fungi, the injury was stark. A dark ring of bruising already encircled Marsh's throat, purplish-bck against the flushed skin of his neck, like someone had tried to strangle him with a length of coarse rope.

  "Looks worse than it feels," Marsh rasped, wincing as he prodded the tender flesh with his own calloused fingers. "Probably."

  "Probably," Sera repeated, her voice still tight. She approached cautiously, her spear held at rest but her body was still tense. She knelt on Marsh's other side, peering at the injury. "Try to keep it still. We have a little water left to clean it."

  Marsh shook his head, waving away the offer. His coughing had subsided, repced by slow breaths.

  "Just... give me a minute," he leaned back against the ft wall of a fallen rock. His eyes closed. He looked ten years older in the dim light.

  Leo just watched Marsh. After a moment, he turned his attention to the glowing menu only he could see.

  [Energy: 108]

  The kill had given him forty-three more energy. More than the beetle, but also more dangerous.

  "Gods be damned," Marsh finally groaned, breaking the silence. He gingerly touched the ring around his neck. "Dar's going to kill me. She's going to see this and I'm going to be sleeping in the coop 'til the baby comes."

  The sheer mundanity of the compint, following such a close call with death, broke the tension. A huff of escaping air came from Sera that sounded suspiciously like the beginning of a ugh.

  A chuckle escaped Leo's chest.

  "You know what? You might be right. She'll have a lecture for you so long you'll wish the Strangler had finished the job."

  "You're a real comfort, little brother," Marsh grumbled, but there was no heat in it. A pained smile spread across his face.

  Marsh's gallows humor broke the terror. For a long moment, the only sounds were Marsh's pained breaths and the distant drip of water in the cavern.

  "Should we leave?" Sera asked at st. She then scanned the faces of her companions and figured out the answer herself. "Guess not. Let's keep going then."

  "And get some real treasure, so I can buy Dar something nice enough to keep her from throttling me when she sees this neckce," Marsh grumbled, touching the bruised skin around his throat.

  Leo and Sera shared a smile and shook their heads.

  They gave Marsh a few more minutes to compose himself before moving. The earlier scare had an effect on them. Their movements were quieter, and their heads were on a swivel.

  They passed the entrance to the tunnel where the Creeping Strangler had hidden. After making sure that it was dead, Leo and Marsh took guard while Sera harvest its parts.

  Around fifteen minutes ter, they continued on, moving through the winding tunnels.

  Their next encounter was twenty minutes ter.

  It was another pack of Thorn Beetles, this time three of them, emerging from a nest of glowing fungi that pulsed an angry red. This time, there was no shouting, no contradictory orders.

  The beetles clicked and skittered forward, sensing an easy meal.

  "I got the big one," Marsh rumbled, and stepped forward without being told. He held his ground in the center of the corridor and roared, drawing their attention. The beetles obliged, all three turning their clicking heads toward the rgest and loudest threat.

  Sera was already moving, circling to the right, waiting for her chance. Leo stood behind Marsh, crossbow raised.

  As the first beetle lunged at Marsh, its thorny legs scuttling on the stone, he simply held his ground, using his axe to parry and block. A thorn scraped past his arm, drawing a thin line of blood he didn't even seem to notice.

  "Fnk's open," Sera yelled.

  Thwack!

  The lead beetle staggered back, one of its multi-faceted eyes shattered, bck ichor bubbling from the wound.

  Then the second beetle went after Marsh's leg, but he noticed it.

  Marsh spun, the ft of his axe smacking the creature hard enough to send it reeling, leaving its side exposed for just a moment.

  Leo’s bolt took it in the abdomen, punching through the softer chitin between its leg joints. The beetle let out a wet chitter and colpsed, its legs twitching.

  "Two down," Leo called, already nocking another bolt.

  "One to go. Don't let it run!" Sera shouted.

  The st beetle, seeing its pack decimated, turned to flee back toward its nest.

  "No you don't," Marsh lunged. He swung his axe, using the ft of its head to swat the beetle sideways, before moving ahead, blocking its path.

  The creature skidded to a halt, confused and trapped. Sera took the opening, a final, clean thrust through the weakened joint where its shell met its head.

  Marsh prodded the beetle's corpse with the toe of his boot, nudging it onto its back. Its legs twitched one st time and went still.

  "Hell of a shot, little brother," he grunted. The praise was rough, but sincere. "Right in the guts."

  "You were on point. Kept them busy," Leo replied, a small smile on his lips. He retrieved his bolt, wiping the dark ichor before sliding it back into his quiver. "Sera. You were so fast. Good job."

  Sera, who was cleaning her spear tip with a rag, looked up, a faint blush coloring her cheeks even in the dim light.

  "Thanks to my father's training," she said, offering him a smile of her own.

  It was their third such fight in an hour, and by far the smoothest.

  "Alright," Marsh said, shouldering his axe. "Let's harvest them then move before something else crawls out of the walls."

  They encountered another small group of beetles half an hour ter, dispatching them with such quick, brutal efficiency that the fight was over before it could truly begin.

  Their stride was confident, the rhythm of their boots a steady cadence in the dark dungeon. Then, they heard it - a high-pitched, annoying buzz.

  It started as a faint hum, then rose in pitch and volume until it filled the entire corridor.

  "Wait," Leo ordered, raising a hand.

  From a dark crack in the ceiling ahead, a cloud spilled out. It was a swarm of thumb-sized gnats, glowing faintly with an angry orange light.

  "Gods above," Marsh swore. "Flesh-biters."

  "I've heard about these," Sera said, her grip tightening on her spear. "We can't fight them as we are. There's too many. Their bites carry a mild poison. You only need to get bitten a few times to pass out."

  "Then we run," Marsh said.

  "Run!"

  They turned as one and sprinted back the way they'd come. The swarm was faster than they looked. The buzzing intensified behind them, a wall of angry wings and sharp mouths. Marsh let out a roar of pain as one of the gnats nded on his neck. He swatted at it, and another nded on the back of his hand. Leo felt a sharp sting on his own arm and spped it away.

  "There's a crack in the wall ahead!" Sera yelled. "We can hide in there!"

  She pointed toward a narrow fissure in the stone wall, barely wide enough for a man to squeeze through. Without hesitation, she ducked into it. Marsh and Leo piled in after her. They pressed themselves back into the darkness as the swarm buzzed past the fissure, their furious humming slowly fading as they continued down the tunnel.

  They stood there in the tight, dark space for several long minutes, listening. The only sounds were their ragged breaths.

  Finally, Marsh risked a gnce.

  "They're gone."

  Emerging back into the corridor, they were on high alert again. Their steps were more cautious, their eyes sweeping every shadow.

  "I think it's time for us to get back," Finally, Leo suggested. He didn't know exactly how long, but it might have been hours since they first entered the dungeon. They didn't prepare for a long trip, and needed to get back to town before it got dark.

  He never really missed a clock before, but he did now. Unfortunately, that wasn't something a farmer could buy with their meager earning.

  "Already? Well, okay," Marsh just shrugged. "I've had enough of this god forsaken pce anyway."

  Backtracking was somehow more unnerving than exploring new ground. Soon, they re-entered the rger cavern where the Strangler had been defeated.

  "Wait," Leo said, his eyes catching something that he didn't notice before, a glint of metal.

  "What is it? I swear if you see another flower I'm going to..." Sera’s words died in her throat as she followed Leo’s gaze.

  There, tangled in a big mess of vines and fungi near the far wall, was something that didn't belong. A patch of worn leather, dulled and damp with mold and fungus. As they got closer, the shape resolved itself into a humanoid form, one arm pinned to the wall by a dead vine as thick as a man's wrist.

  "Gods," Marsh breathed, stopping short. "Poor bastard."

  The body was desiccated, the skin shriveled and clinging tight to the bone. From the state of it, he'd been here for a long time. The smell was faint but unmistakable, the dry scent of old death competing with the dungeon's damp rot. A rusty, broken short sword y near a skeletal hand, the fingers still curled around its hilt in a final, desperate grip.

  Leo looked down at the dead man. He had not been in this world long enough to think of these kind of things, but....

  "I'm taking a look," he said, walking towards the corpse.

  "Leo!" Sera’s gasp was full of surprise.

  "What? He has no use for it," Leo replied.

  "But... that's..."

  "He's gone, Sera," Marsh said quietly. "Whatever he had won't do him any good. It might keep us from joining him."

  Sera fell silent. She looked away, her jaw tight, unable to watch as Leo knelt by the dead man's side.

  Leo was surprised to find out that he didn't mind the sight as much as he thought. Years in the hospital, seeing all kinds of sicknesses, injuries, and even deaths had hardened him without him knowing. He started with a pouch on the man's belt. The leather was stiff with damp and grime. Leo worked at the knot, then simply cut the leather strap with Sera's knife.

  He peered inside. A few lumps of metal, green with tarnish, clinked together. He upended the pouch into the palm of his hand.

  Coppers. And among them, a few glinting with a silver sheen. He counted them out. Sixteen coppers, and two silver coins. A small fortune compared to what they'd started the day with.

  Leo felt another lump deeper inside. He reached in and pulled out a small, well-banced dagger. The leather-wrapped handle was rough but solid, and the bde, while dark with dried blood, showed no signs of rust.

  "It's a good knife," Marsh commented.

  Leo just nodded in reply. He gave Sera back her knife, before strapping the new one onto his belt. No one protested.

  "Keep moving," Leo said, tucking the coins away.

  They continued their retreat. Their path took them past the alcove where they found the Moonpetals.

  A little further on, the passage led to the tunnel where their first clumsy fight had taken pce. But the evidence of that battle was already being erased. Where the Thorn Beetle corpses had fallen, there was now a writhing carpet of pale, glistening fungi. They were consuming the remains, dissolving them in a slow decomposition. One beetle's twitching leg was still partially visible before being engulfed by the fleshy, pulsing growth.

  A collective shiver ran down their spines. They picked up their pace. And soon, they found the final set of stairs.

  The air changed, growing warmer. Ahead, a square of pale light marked the entrance back to the outside world.

  They scrambled up the steps, their boots echoing on the stone.

  The sun hit their faces with a sudden warmth. Leo squinted, raising a hand to shield his eyes, letting the clean air fill his lungs.

  "Gods," Marsh breathed, letting his axe fall until the head rested on the ground. "I never thought I would be this happy to see the damn sun."

  Sera leaned back against the cool stone of the entrance wall, her spear resting beside her, and closed her eyes. Her face, smudged with dirt and sweat, softened.

  "Not bad for a first run," Leo smiled at them. He then scanned the immediate area. Several parties of delvers were scattered about. One group, four grim-faced men with rust-stained armor, were bandaging a comrade’s leg just beyond the treeline. Another, three women carrying crossbows like Leo's, were heading confidently toward the entrance, their footsteps kicking up small clouds of dust.

  He watched the other delvers nodded occasionally at each other, but no one stopped to chat.

  All strangers, must be mercenaries from other vilges and towns, Leo thought, feeling a little relieved. He didn't want word of them going into the Pit getting back to his parents so soon..

  Though with Marsh's wound being so visible, Dar would know soon, then his parents.