Something was off, sure Noel had damaged the worm a decent bit, but would it really just disappear like that? There had been several instances of the ground shaking like this, and nothing ever happened, maybe the gnawing anxiety in the back of my mind was just that, anxiety. The tremors had stopped, even though we didn’t earn anything from the fight, not dying was pretty good.

I was looking at Mia, she slowly started taking on a distressed expression. I still didn’t understand what was happening, the dragon picked her up. I glanced up at him, his stern expression failing to hide the pity and sadness in his eyes. Then I realized that the worm hadn’t left. We were still in a battle. When I looked down the ground was falling away.

Reid! I whipped my head over to see my brother with obvious panic on his face, but he was fine, bracing himself for the fall. He was yelling something to Mia, but the only part I heard was “don’t come”. I looked back up at her as we started falling, she was reaching for us, her face contorted with fear and anger. I smiled, she was always so awful at hiding her emotions. They flew off as we fell, at least she was safe.

I shielded my head with my arms as I fell and twisted to the side. I hit the ground not long after. The hole wasn’t too deep, only a couple stories. My shoulder and ribs took the brunt of the fall as I hit a rock, tumbling over a couple more before I landed splayed out on the cold floor. Thankfully I hadn’t taken much damage, only about a quarter of my health was lost even though we fell from such a height.

I groaned and laid on the ground for a moment, looking up at the dim light filtering in from the dark red sky above me. My eyes weren’t adjusting to the new darkness around me. The rough sounds of rocks falling and that thing digging its way through the stone engulfed me, even if I hollered for Reid he wouldn’t hear me. I stood up, my legs were a little achy as I blindly wandered through the area.

“Caroline?” Noel’s voice was barely audible behind me. I whipped around, thankful for someone I knew being so close by. I reached my arms out in front of me groping through the darkness for him. He caught my hand.

“Can you see?” I asked, his abilities were related to shadows so he probably could see better than me.

“Yeah, you’re the first one I found. Do you know where Reid would be?”

“Hm.” I looked down out of habit while thinking, I fell and I rolled and I spun around to see Noel. My sense of direction was a little dampened, but I was pretty sure he was behind me to my right. I started to point, and felt silly, could he see well enough for that? “I think he’s this way?” I unintentionally turned it into a question.

“Okay, let's go get him.”

We walked forwards for a while, we were going at a slow pace as I stumbled over rocks and Noel tried to steer me away from obstacles. “Watch your feet.” He’d say, and I’d trip over a small rock anyways.

“What’s it look like in here?” I asked.

“What?”

“What’s it look like?” I asked again louder.

“Oh uhh, well we’re in a big mostly empty circle, there are a few big rocks around from where we fell, but the walls are covered in various tunnels. I haven’t seen the monster since we fell in here though.” He replied.

“Well we can certainly hear him.” I quipped.

Neither of us said anything for a while, we walked in silence. My eyes had adjusted a little bit, but I couldn’t see much further than a couple feet in any direction. The light of the ‘surface’ wasn’t bright in the first place, but it was even dimmer this far into the ground. It didn’t take too long before Noel just stopped.

“What?” I asked, it was nerve wracking. We had been walking in the den of some monster for at least a few minutes. Though, it felt like ages, and we still hadn’t found Reid.

“There’s blood here, but I don’t see him.” He said after a beat. My heart stopped. Where was he? Was he… After I didn’t respond, Noel asked, “Do you think he got up to try and find us?”

Hope bloomed in my chest again, “Yes… Yeah, maybe he did. Let’s follow the trail… Is there a trail?”

“It’s a little hard to tell, I think…” he stopped, when light appeared behind us. We stood there blinking against the sudden light after we’d gotten used to the darkness. Noel turned quickly pulling out his knife, but I wasn’t nervous. The warm light on my back was comforting, and I had a sneaking suspicion that Mia had sent Aureus to help.

My eyes adjusted again and a bloody scene was waiting for me. My breath got caught in my throat as my eyes scanned the surroundings. There was a trail, it went towards the edges of the cavern. Thankfully I didn’t see any of that monster blood around other than what was on Noel. That meant that he probably left of his own volition rather than getting scooped up into that worm’s belly.

It was concerning how much blood was pooled up, I understood why Noel had frozen when he first saw the scene. I swallowed my tears down and turned around to face Aureus, Noel had already lowered his guard and was looking up at the dragon as if it were his patron god.

“Aureus!” he cried, obnoxiously loud. In response the dragon’s eyes narrowed, they trailed along our bodies taking stock of our physical states. He then looked past us at the blood on the rocks.

“I think he got up and tried to go somewhere, but I’m not sure why…” I offered looking up at the uncharacteristically stoic dragon. Over the last few days I had seen him many times, and outside of combat he usually behaved like a huge kitten. Even though I thought he was quite cute, seeing him here away from Mia was frightening. The way he was looking at us was so calculating I wondered if the sadness I saw in him as we fell was because of how upset Mia was at the time.

What am I thinking? Why would he be acting like a cute pet right now when Reid is missing? Of course this is no different from a battle for him, he’s on a mission.

I shook my head, too much had happened in such a short amount of time I was having a hard time processing it. He flew past the two of us towards the scene of Reid’s disappearance. I turned, Noel was looking at me with a huge grin before running after Aureus. With a sigh I followed behind the two of them, Reid was fine, he had to be.

We followed a snaking trail of blood for several feet, the further we walked the less blood there was to follow. At first it was a small trail, but now there was only a drop or so every few steps. He was healing! Thank god.

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More importantly though, “Where was he going?” I wondered aloud.

“It really does seem like he had a place in mind, huh?” Noel responded, I hadn’t expected him to be able to hear me over the cracking of rocks around us. I glanced around the cavern, the further from the center we got the more the area we were in looked like a purposefully made structure. Some areas even had columns. At first I didn’t think they were intentional, I thought they were an odd result of that thing eating the rocks. It wasn't long before I realized we had stumbled into something bigger than just some worm.

“Yeah… how did he find this place?” I asked spinning around and examining our surroundings, the columns we had found our way to were almost presentable. They had some simple carvings in them and archways connecting them close to the top of the cavern. Though with our small bubble of light we couldn’t yet see where we were heading.

“Don’t you think it’s a lot quieter here?” Noel asked.

“Wow… Yeah, I think you’re right. I hadn’t noticed it till you mentioned it though.”

“I hope we get something awesome from that place!” Noel beamed pointing through the darkness towards our left, where Aureus was suddenly turning towards.

“What? Is there something over there?” I squinted trying to look closer even though I knew there wasn’t a point.

“Yeah, there’s a huge door over here. I bet it’s got some crazy monsters or maybe it’s a town or something.” He was nearly bouncing as he explained, I half expected him to disappear on his own again. Though we made it clear we’d leave him if he did that again.

“And that’s where Reid was heading?” I was confused. How did he know it was here? Was it a coincidence?

“I guess so, maybe his fancy new magic eyes let him find it.” Noel offered casually.

“Yeah… maybe.”

The floor beneath us transitioned from flat stone to cobblestone as the door started to come into view. There was a wide staircase leading up to a huge pair of doors, they had to be at least ten or fifteen feet tall. A vague slumped over shape of a man started to come into view at the top of the stairs.

“Reid!” I shouted, I hadn’t meant to, but when I saw him relief flooded me and I was running towards him before I knew it.

“Stop!” He yelled and shot up at the sight of me. I couldn’t see his expression, Aureus and his floating torch were too far from me, but his eyes shone through the darkness staring into my soul.

“What? Why?” I slowed down as I asked, not far from where he now stood.

“You can’t come up here, you won’t be able to go back down.” he replied, his voice was steady but lacked his usual warmth.

“What do you mean? Are you stuck?” I asked, glancing back down to Noel and Aureus who were standing at the base of the stairs looking up at the two of us.

“Yeah, once you get up here you have to go through the doors. You guys should go back and get Mia first.” He replied and my stomach churned, his voice was cold. Was he upset?

“Okay, Noel and Aureus can go get her. Why don’t I stay here with you? It’s not like we’re going to leave you behind anyways.” I said taking another step forward.

“No!” he bellowed, I faltered in my step and took a couple steps back while regaining my composure. Seeing the shock on my face he added, “No one should stay here in the meanwhile. What if something dangerous comes, we won’t be able to run. It’s better for only one person to be a sitting duck.”

I took a few more steps back, something wasn’t right. He wasn’t acting like himself. Was someone threatening him? Were they trying to lure all of us somewhere? Aureus seemed to have picked up on it as well, since the space grew brighter with his flames. Several fireballs appeared in intervals along the stairs. Suddenly I could see him clearly, that wasn’t Reid. That was something else. Something hideous.

My eyes went wide, and the creature’s face scowled. Reid. Where’s Reid?! I was taking another step back while my eyes swept over my surroundings in search of my brother. I couldn’t find him anywhere. My eyes settled back on the monster, it was roughly Reid’s size, it wasn’t wearing clothes and had small sharp fins on its forearms and the sides of its calves.

It’s face was a bastardized version of my brother’s, it was covered in nearly translucent scales that were tinged with green as the light glinted off of them. If I had seen it from its left side I might have been fooled, but the right side was just… wrong. The bone structure warped as I looked at it, trying to form Reid's likeness and failing. Reid’s eyes were there though, this fish looking thing had gotten his eyes just right. The only part of his eyes that it failed in was the glowing. Its eyes didn’t glow, they reflected the light Aureus had created. It was shocking seeing them like this though, staring down at me like I was a bug in his food.

Reid’s now ashy blonde hair was puffing out of its scalp on its left side, but the right was just covered in green scales. A fin-like ear protruding from much higher on the skull than it should have. I thought back to old myths and stories from my childhood, had this thing eaten my brother? Was it trying to take his place, and wanted us to leave so it could complete its transformation?

“How disappointing. Well, it’s not a complete waste of this appearance, I’m sure it will be useful either way." Despite its words there was no emotion behind them, fury was taking over me as I watched it continuing to contort into his form. Skin ballooning up in areas that were covered in scales, bones bending and reforming as it tried to perfect its mimicry of my brother.

I cast Void String as I bit my quivering lip, I didn’t want to cry during this fight. I could cry after I found out what really happened. My fingers wrapped around the string, and whipped it towards the monster above me. Looking up at those cold and unfeeling eyes that resembled my brother’s created a strange mixture of feelings in me. I decided I would make it look up at me. I would make it kneel at my feet and tell me where my brother was. What it had done to him.

With a quick step back it avoided my attack, but Noel was there behind it, a sharp spike of shadow appearing with a wave of his hand and piercing its shoulder. It clicked its tongue as it jumped away from the both of us, landing on all fours and opening its mouth in a particularly disturbing and inhuman way. Its jaw disconnected crunching as its mouth expanded to several times its original size, and a deafening screech erupted from its throat.

My jaw clenched up as I tried to block out the noise with my hands, it was insane. How could such a small creature make a sound like that? I could feel the sound in my chest, my bones felt as though they might break from the vibrations. Finally it stopped, I opened my eyes to find it impaled with a large rock. Its limbs were lengthening and squirming around in odd angles as it tried to pull itself around the rock to escape. Human-like red blood dripped from its mouth and covered the ground around it.

I looked up and Aureus was there, a large ball of fire floating to his right. He was staring down at the creature as it writhed. “Wait!” I screamed, then reached up to touch my throat. I screamed right? My throat was fine, I didn’t feel any strange injuries, but I couldn’t hear anything. Not my scream, not my breathing, not even the consistent wingbeats that had always been there. When I looked down at my hands, they were covered in blood. My blood. I lost my hearing.

Aureus’ familiar face popped into view behind my blood soaked hands. He was looking up at me, waiting. What was I supposed to say? How could I interrogate that thing in this state? I looked past him, the creature was almost all limbs at this point, pulling itself up the rock in an attempt to escape. I walked over to it, looking down at the mangled face of my brother. My spell cut through the rock and the monster alike, in just a couple seconds I had sliced it into multiple different small pieces. I had to finish it quickly, I wasn’t going to let this thing see me cry.

Blood pooled around my feet, I released my spell. I stood there for a moment just zoning out as I cried looking at the blood that might have been my brother’s. Maybe it had just taken over his body and this really was his. I sighed, it didn’t matter either way I needed to get it together. I was turning my head to look back to Aureus and Noel when a slight tremor caught my eye. The blood rippled. A second later a few small rocks fell down from above me landing in the pool of blood.

My body moved instinctually as I cast void string and sliced through the worm that was falling towards me. I managed to slice it clean in half, though I didn’t manage to stay clean. Similar to Noel I had become the second of our group that day to be covered in monster blood. I winced as I looked to the shape shifter next to me, well maybe the third. I felt a hand on my shoulder, when I turned and found Noel already ugly crying. I nearly laughed, or maybe I did. He was trying to comfort me while looking like that? We hugged despite the grossness of it all.