It wasn’t shock I felt as gravity took hold of me, only anger. Anger at myself, for allowing this to happen; at Mikayes, for sending me out here on a false premise; on those insects, for being persistent bastards; at Arus, for not listening — I should’ve let the moron die; and at Georgie, for everything — I’ll kill that mute fucker when I get the chance.

If I got the chance.

Wa9n”ng! Str%ss Lev3ls…

I ignored the flickering warning as I dug my fingers into the crater wall to slow our descent, rough stone and bare earth shredding my hand. Not that I cared.

Underneath us, the shadows still moved to chittering cries. Even if I’d put a dent into their numbers above, the same couldn’t be said down here. Here, I still had dead weight to protect.

It was impossible to tell if the Ruskel leader I clung to was still conscious or not, but I couldn’t let him reach the bottom of that crater either way.

Even if I were alone, there were too many of them.

As such, just as the crater wall began to flatten out, turning our fall began into a rapid slide downward, I realigned myself, let go of my grip around Arus’ armor — I should really have let this moron die — and forcefully shoved him towards the nearest tunnel entrance.

He’d be safer there. Safer than me, at least, as I was pushed in the opposite direction by the shove, preventing me from bracing my own fall in any significant way.

It was stumbling and tumbling that I reached the bottom of that crater, and momentum alone threw me straight into the mass of shifting insectile bodies down there.

I’d only just extended my Cryak claws as that first shrieking maw came for my face, a pair of mandibles scissoring the air mere inches above my head.

The flickering impressions upon my glitchy interface – heat signals by the dozens, incomplete warnings and predictions – did little to help me. Where it failed, however, my boiling anger carried me forward. It left my skin flush, and injuries forgotten.

I could feel the pressure on my mind begin to build as something stirred inside of me, but my clawed fingers were already buried inside of that shrieking maw, ripping it open to a spray of insectile gore.

A second later, a heavy, chitinous body collided with my own, leaving me rolling across a crater floor where dozens of silhouettes mindlessly swarmed. Sharp limbs scratched the stone all around me, some ripping straight through my clothes and flesh as I got too close.

I barely kept myself from getting impaled by kicking off against a sturdy thorax that, though, it pushed me straight into a pair of snapping mandibles instead.

I only avoided decapitation by sacrificing the tips of my hair, yet the press of bodies around me was becoming suffocating. Soon, it’d be impossible to dodge whatever came my way as more and more shrieking and chittering insects swarmed towards me.

I’d barely gouged out a pair of minuscule eyes as two heavy carapaces collided a mere step behind me. The impact alone sounded like canon fire to my ears, and the scything limbs and mandibles that followed after were relentless.

Another laceration across my arm and side, and I knew I had to get away. My blood tainted too much of my surroundings, and my pounding headache was only getting worse.

A brief flicker of my interface was the only opening I got, yet I followed through without hesitation.

The insect whose eyes I’d just gouged out flailed its head around wildly, shrieking all the while. And now, its mandibles scooped towards me, like a spiked uppercut tearing through the ground.

Rather than dodging out of the way, however, I met it with my foot. I barely had the time to kick off as I was flung into the air, soaring meters above the swarming mass.

Once more, I could only praise the ease with which my new body twisted around to land upon the shielded back of another insect.

The Cryak mod was pulling its weight, and even as something in my hip felt like it’d just been shattered from the forceful launch, I never paused long enough to check as I kicked off across the mass of swarming bodies.

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It was like trying to run across a raging river, if said river’s rocks were polished smooth and able to move.

The ceaseless chittering cut into my ears, maws and mandibles snatched for my heels, and heavy bodies climbed over one another to reach me. Not that they ever managed to.

They were clumsy, I was fast, and my glitchy interface did enough to guide my feet. Another swinging head that I used to launch myself through the air, towards the same tunnel Arus had disappeared into earlier.

Soaring through the air, I threw a glance towards the top of the crater, nearly forty meters above, towards the furred silhouette standing there with impassive, yellow eyes.

I only just remembered to raise him my middle fingers as darkness consumed me.

𐫰 𐫰 𐫰

It was as if someone had pulled a blanket over the outside world as I tumbled across the earthen floor. The frenzied chitters had become distant in an instant, though, I could still hear sharp limbs scraping their way towards the tunnel entrance. They weren’t planning to give up that easily.

More than that, however, I heard a Ruskel’s angered yells and curses. If Arus had been unconscious earlier, he certainly wasn’t right now.

A smaller variant of the insects outside, with a prolonged abdomen and an extra set of limbs, was slowly pulling the ginger man deeper inside the tunnel by his foot. Not that Arus was taking it laying down.

His other boot kept smashing into the insect’s face, earning himself more than a few spits and hisses. Then, one kick hit better than the rest, causing the creature to let go.

Rather than give up and retreat, razor-sharp pincers began to snap after Arus face instead. A result the Ruskel clearly hadn’t expected as his curses now turned into screams, leaving him to desperately shuffle away those angered snaps.

I reached them before the company leader’s face could be violently restructured, but rather than take it as the insects outside had, this smaller variant dodged out of the way before I could reach it.

Its mouth opened wide in another hissing spit, but without any heavy carapace to fall back on, the knife I sent twisting through the air left it a twitching heap on the ground shortly after.

I’d still been working with a glitchy interface of blinking lights and impressions, but as I went over to fetch the weapon, it abruptly snapped back into focus. Several new notifications suddenly filled my vision.

The latest of which — blinking and written in bold letters — read:

Harvest (y/n)?

I’d barely registered the word as Arus, having only just gotten back on his feet, came staggering past me. He was walking backwards, staring at something with wide eyes behind me.

“H-hey, guard-human,” he nervously huffed. “Shouldn’t we be running about now?” Besides his demeanor, the mere fact that his tone was somewhat polite was enough to put me on edge.

Snapping around, it was only to see a first pair of sharp limbs claw their way inside the same tunnel opening I’d just entered through. Those insects seemingly refused to give me a breather.

Now, as a large maw opened wide to another shrieking cry, echoing down the tunnel and cutting into my ears, I snatched up my knife and set off in a sprint. Away from the creatures, deeper into the darkness.

There was no need for me to see the rest of those swarming limbs, making their way inside, for me to accept my defeat. Just like how Arus didn’t need any encouragement to follow at my heels.

For such a short guy, he sure was quick when he needed to be.

𐫰 𐫰 𐫰

Five restless minutes of running down tunnels that constantly diverged into dozens of others — be it through split floors, open ceilings, or walls that wound and twisted in impossible ways — and I’d started to realize just how deep this pile of shit we found ourselves in was.

The moment we’d left that dead insect behind, my interface had begun flickering and glitching again. Without it, navigating these tunnels became nearly impossible.

As I briefly stopped to take stock of our surroundings – panting, heart pounding, and with chittering cries all around – Arus had shot past me without hesitation, running down those tunnels as his armor’s floodlights led the way. Our only light source.

He’s a Ruskel, surely, he has some way of finding his way? Or so I’d thought as I set after him, letting him take the lead as he confidently ran us in two perfect circles, into a water-filled dead-end where the water splashed on its own, and into several stray groups of insects.

I could’ve cursed him, but my strength was already running thin from just keeping up with the man and fighting off whatever dangers he led us into.

I’d lost too much blood, the relentless pressure over my mind was only getting worse, and even aiming my pistol was becoming a guessing game of weak limbs and blurry eyes.

Not to mention ammunition that was rapidly bleeding out, along with the scraping and chittering of our persistent pursuers that filled the tunnels around us.

Not that Arus was faring much better in the lead. The Ruskel had been thrashed around nearly as much as I had, and what pieces of his skin weren’t covered by ginger hair had turned ashen and sweaty.

He was breathing heavily, as was I as we ran deeper and further, all to get away. And then, we suddenly did.

Just as it seemed we wouldn’t be able to lift our feet anymore, the chittering and scraping at our heels simply disappeared. As if it’d never been there.

Arus seemed relieved about the fact where he wasted no time sliding down against the tunnel wall, the floodlights on his armor outlining his heaving figure in perfect clarity.

I wasn’t as content as I followed suit— bleeding, hurting, and with a splitting headache. Besides the fact that we were lost somewhere deep underground, and that my UI behaved in ways I couldn’t explain, I was too much of a pessimist to believe that those insects had given up on us without reason.

That’s not how the world I knew works. No matter what lay behind their sudden departure, I had an ill feeling that it didn’t bode well for our future.