The cave was deep and dark.

“Let me throw an orb.”

Atn reached into one of his uniform’s many belt pouches and gently tossed a ball. The ball was actually a bound energy orb, fancier than the regular ones Theo used in her lair. These were programmed to a gadget on his person, allowing it to float about and follow wherever its link went. The orb flared to life and revealed the space around them.

The cave was deep but no longer as dark. The air was heavy, a bit humid, and there was a resounding silence as they took in their surroundings. But there wasn’t too much to take in. Even the orb couldn’t break through the thick darkness.

“Is that… dripping I hear?”

Zsig and Atn had to wait for Theo’s booming echo to fade before they could listen. But eventually, Atn could make out a faint plip.

“I think you’re right.”

Atn's voice was barely a whisper, far more cautious than Theo's.

Zsig’s brow knitted as he strained to hear but only shook his head.

“Keep moving.”

The light hovered onward just to the right of Atn’s head. The drawback to bound orbs was that they were not as bright. The energy required to keep it suspended detracted from its luminosity. It cast away the shadows in a 3-metre radius. Beyond that point, the darkness ate away at the light until there was only black.

Zsig and Theo trailed after Atn, breaking personal space boundaries to stay within the light's ambit. Through the cave's initial den, they entered a narrow tunnel. Further, they travelled into the belly of the mountain.

"Oh, what is that? Is it sparkling? I bet it’s crystals."

Theo threw caution to the wind and hurried toward a glowing shimmer outside the orb’s range. She pulled out the knife holstered to her hip. Like her satchel, she never went anywhere without it; alchemists always needed a blade for something.

"Theo, wait!"

Atn tried to whisper yell, but his voice echoed almost as loudly as Theo's.

She didn't respond, but there was an odd noise, like something scraping against a stone surface. When they reached her, she was already hard at work.

Theo carefully pried the organism from the rocky surface, easily peeling it away due to its delicate root-like anchors growing through fissures in the cave wall. It was a fruticose lichen with a bushy coral-like body but a bit floppy. It pulsed with a seawater-coloured light. The shade of clear, shallow seas, when you can still see the sand below. A sort of green turquoise.

Holy smokes, was this ever a find! Lichen was fantastic for all sorts of health-related remedies. She stuffed as much as could fit into a collection jar.

"Have you ever seen glowing lichen before?"

"I don’t make a habit of looking for plants."

Zsig’s tone suggested this was a waste of time, which Theo really didn’t like.

“It’s not a plant, for gilliflowers sake. Or at least, not fully. It’s a plant and a fungi.”

“I don't know what that means, and I really don’t care. We should be focusing on—”

Theo was gearing up to lecture Zsig. Growing flustered with his dismissive attitude. Granted, they may not be in the best of situations, but that didn’t mean he had to make it worse for the rest of them.

“I’m sure it’s a very useful plan—er, ingredient. What’s a gilliflower, Miss Theo?”

Atn adopted the role of peacekeeper.

“Gilliflower’s aren’t important, Atn. What’s important is this!”

Theo thrust the handful of glowing lichen sample out emphatically and waited for the moment of collective awe. But found her audience lacking.

Dejected, she stowed the jar.

“Let’s keep moving.”

“That’s what I was trying to say.”

Zsig threw his arms up, grumbling, as they trekked through the passage. It wasn’t straight; there were bends and larger open spaces, but there was only one path, no branching off. And that did not bring them comfort. They were sitting ducks if anything came from either end.

They followed the faint green-blue trail of lichen. As they approached a turn, the soft light decorating the cave walls stopped, leaving the tunnel in complete darkness outside the reach of the orb.

Beyond the corner was a pitch-black corridor and a muted light coming from the end. Cautiously, they approached an archway carved into the cave’s walls. Faux pillars were etched into the rock, and the top bowed and smooth—the first signs of sentient life since reaching this place.

“Maybe we should go back? The storms probably passed by now.”

It was the first time she had let her distress show. Theo’s nonchalant facade was withering in the face of her exhaustion.

“We need to rest, it will take too long to backtrack and it wouldn’t be wise to sleep in the tunnel itself.”

“At least it looks like it’s been empty for a while.”

She tried to reassure herself.

A swirling lichen covered the pillars. This variety did not glow and was distinctly more moss-like than the bushy blue-green one.

On the other side of the archway was a cavern. The trio passed through and entered from relatively high up, the area extending downwards. A crude ramp declined along the room's perimeter, leading to a pool. A waterfall spouted from a rock formation in the cave's center, feeding the pool below.

“Whoa, this is beautiful.”

She really did try to whisper. But Atn and Zsig still winced.

There was a pulsing turquoise from the glowing lichen. It grew along the walls. The colour spread to dangling roots and moss hanging from the ceiling, naturally illuminating the cavern. The reflection from the pool's surface magnified the mild light further.

“I agree, it is quite a sight.”

Atn moderated his volume much better than Theo.

“None of the caves around Last Stand look like this.”

“You’ve been in a cave before?”

Zsig had never made it as far as Theo’s house, let alone to a cave in the Wilds. Few in Last Stand ever went outside the walls in their lifetime. The Wilds were not somewhere one usually went for fun.

“Yep, they’re a great place to collect fungi and ferns. But most aren’t nearly this deep and are generally dull—unless something lives in it, it’s not as boring then. This one is peculiar.”

The walls glistened with moisture, and droplets fell from stalactites, creating the echo that had carried through the tunnel.

Overgrown, as much as a stone room could be, sparse shrubbery aside. The pillars and ramp had deep chips and cracks. Stalagmites had begun building in the middle of the walkway. There was no sign of maintenance.

They couldn’t see much beyond the waterfall in the middle of the cavern, as the rock formation shielded what lay past. But, signs of life—the shaped walkways, the archway and the pillars—made the group wary.

“Atn, stow the light. Let’s not draw attention to ourselves. If Theo’s shouting didn’t already do it.”

Atn touched his bicep, and the orb dropped out of the air into his waiting hand.

“Any thoughts?”

He looked at his companions as he put the orb away. Then he reached into the next pouch and pulled out a cartridge that he attached to his armguard. One armguard was armoured over the entire forearm and hand to block close-quarters attacks. The cartridge allowed Atn to activate a shield that pushed back anything that collided with it.

The other armguard was a wrist bow. Small but deadly bolts approximately 15cm in length would be loaded into the flight groove, the arrow's track. When the trigger was depressed, electromagnetic acceleration silently launched the bolt through the air. If you could aim, it was a phenomenal weapon.

Atn’s B.E.E.P. perks and protector training meant he was pretty deadly with his wrist bow. He was no longer allowed to compete in Last Stand’s annual marksman contest because he had won too many years in a row. Contest officials deemed it unfair.

“Do you only have shield cartridges?

Zsig checked with Atn.

There were also charge shots for the wrist bow. The armguards had a little slot about the size and shape of a finger the cartridge loaded into. Depending on the cartridge type, a charge coated the bolt and added special effects to the projectile. There were incendiary, electric, and poison bolts—though poison ones were illegal. Some, like the master bolt maker in Last Stand, could make shots with extra special effects like the Flash-Freeze arrow or the Unmaker bolt.

Now that she thought about it, she could probably make unique charge shots using her potions. Oh, the possibilities! Could she make a charge out of the lichen? No, wait, that was for healing. That wouldn’t make sense on a weapon. But the idea gave her butterflies, and she quickly noted it to look into it later.

“We scout the area, see how secure it is, and set up a camp for the night. All of us are exhausted. We’ve been up for nearly two days now.”

Huh, she hadn’t even realized. She drank the yellow potion in her shop at nighttime, but they arrived in this new place in the morning. Then they had walked all day. Adrenaline and mild panic were the only things keeping Theo on her feet.

She was tough, adaptable, and familiar with surviving and exploring dangerous places, but was reaching her limits. Now that someone brought it up, her brain took inventory of her body and didn’t like what it found.

Zsig used silly little hand signs and descended the ramp to their right.

Atn, understanding the signals, followed at a short distance.

“Please walk in front of me, Miss Theo, but stay close. Zsig will check ahead for any concerns.”

“Just Theo, Atn.”

———

Atn winced with every step Theo took.

The waterfall made noise, but very little, which was strange. But the lack of crashing water highlighted Theo’s very limited capacity for stealth. She stepped on cracked rocks, crushing them underfoot. Her gait was exceedingly heavy for such a small woman, almost like she was stomping—Atn was relatively sure it was unnatural. And a healthy fear of dangerous situations was something she lacked.

For all her quirks, she was among the few people who interacted with Atn as an equal, not something lesser. Zsig being another of those people. Some of Theo’s potions also worked on him, which was usually impossible for Biomechs; her ability to market to them favoured her in the B.E.E.P. community.

“I feel the need to emphasize the importance of being sneaky in this current moment.”

“Atn, you wound me, I am practically invisible over here.”

She even winced at her echo that time.

Zsig came storming back to them. Quietly, it should be added.

"Theodora, shut up!"

"Pah, stop being such a pooshkapoo."

She waved him off, striding past him down the ramp.

"A what? Nevermind. Forget it. Just. Be. Quiet."

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

He chased after her, refusing to let her walk off without enduring his chastising. The delivery was a bit aggressive, but Atn had to agree with the sentiment. Theo was a loud human.

Like the mature 20-something-year-old she was, she stuck her tongue out at Zsig and proceeded to ignore him until they rounded the waterfall.

On the other side was a large, flat shelf with two archways carved into the back wall of stone. Cautiously crossing the uncomfortably empty landing, they went over to investigate.

“We should go left. If there is a trap it will definitely be down the right tunnel.”

“How could you possibly know that if you don’t know where we are?”

Zsig’s skepticism was evident.

“Most everyone seems to pick right when given a choice. So, the best odds of trapping someone would be to the right I’d think.”

“That’s your logic?”

She shrugged.

“Put up your orb and let’s see.”

“Only if you do not make a single peep.”

Theo and Zsig ventured down the passages, just a few metres in, leaving Atn to look around the walls for anything hidden. Nothing was disturbed. The place seemed abandoned, yet something had unmistakably lived here once.

He returned to the arches and noticed an odd patch of stone next to the left tunnel. Letters were carved into it. Time and moisture had corroded the wall, making some bits barely perceptible. But it looked like a marker of sorts.

Atn did not recognize the word, and the letters he could make out differed from those he knew, though they had a similar shape. But if this passage had a label, the other must as well.

After scrapping away a bit of lichen—as he now knew to call it—beside the archway on the right, another carving was revealed in the stone.

𒄈𒋰𒇽𒍇𒇻

What did this mean? And why was it so different from the other marker?

Zsig and Theo returned from their brief excursion down the left tunnel while Atn investigated the strange characters making up the second label.

“Have you guys seen anything like this before?”

Theo and Zsig crowded behind Atn, peaking around him to see the writing.

“There is another next to that doorway, as well, but it’s different.”

Theo brought out her notebook, folding back the cover and pages until one blank page stood alone. She took extra care not to rip the page from the book.

Theo laid the page over the first carving, then gently rubbed her pencil over it. Atn saw the writing from beneath appear on the paper in the negative space. Theo was creating a copy of the script for her notes. She was clever, even if she was a little erratic. She did the same to the other marker, then slipped her book away.

“Should we make camp here? We can set up a makeshift trip wire to alert us if something comes down the tunnels.”

“I’ll get some water.”

Zsig and Theo stayed to make a camp out of the limited supplies they had on them. Since Atn was a B.E.E.P., he could protect himself and do tasks alone in relative safety. Theo and Zsig, on the other hand, were natural humans; thus, those two were safer in numbers.

The pool was picturesque. It twinkled with the reflection of the pusling lichen. The falls flowed into the water below with the barest of splashes. There was no visible bottom to the pool. Atn couldn’t determine whether it was swallowed by shadows or far deeper than it appeared.

Hold on, was that shadow moving? Atn stepped closer to the edge, but the pool looked empty. He waited a moment. Nothing happened.

“Fatigue must be getting to me, too.”

He knelt and filled the two borrowed flasks with water. Theo carried a small assortment of alchemical equipment with her. Among those were titration flasks (she was very insistent he learn the proper name) used to mix and boil liquids and a tiny burner—but it ran on charge, not gas, as they used to before scientists learned to harness the energy. How she fit it all into her purse bag thing, Atn could not begin to guess. He knew it was a compression box, but it still seemed to carry more than it should be able.

With containers full of water, he returned to the makeshift camp just as a flame shot towards the ceiling.

“Wow, that was larger than usual.”

The flame returned to an average size, and she waved her hand over it, gauging the temperature and keeping quiet dialogue with herself.

“That is much hotter than usual, as well. Maybe I am just ultra-sensitive from sleep deprivation. Or was it insanely rapid oxidation that would mean the air contains...”

Zsig just sat there, watching their surroundings but looking a bit zombified. He was worn down. In truth, he looked worse off than Atn and Theo. His usually straight posture slumped, and his head drooped as he scanned the area. This place was weird, and all of them clearly felt it, but they couldn’t fight the need to rest forever.

“Atn, good you’re back! Hand me those flasks, and I’ll boil them for later.”

She passed out some green sticks while they waited on the water. The sticks were a pale sage colour with white freckles, long but triangular, thick but with some give, like something was inside. Atn didn’t recognize the leaf thing.

“What is this?”

“Food. Sort of. It’s a wota leaf. Tastes pretty bad, but the green part will nourish us, and the goop inside is very filling and hydrating.”

“Did you have to call it goop?”

Zsig complained as he crunched the stalk-like leaf. He clearly struggled to force it down, but he got there.

It was awful. Pretty bad was a horrendous understatement. Starving to death almost appealed to Atn more than eating the leaf. But he did feel much better after.

“I’ll take first watch.”

His endurance was enhanced, and his need for sleep, nourishment, and other biological functions was lesser than Theo or Zsig. His internal system was developed to be much more efficient than a regular human. He could last a few more hours while they got some much-needed rest.

“Wake me in a bit, Atn. I’ll take second.”

Zsig bunched up his uniform coat into a pillow and shut his eyes. His exhaustion carried him to sleep almost immediately. And Theo wasn’t far behind. She stored her supplies, laid down and was asleep within seconds.

———

At some point during their rest, Theo woke to a scuttling sound. She looked around and found both Atn and Zsig asleep.

Uh oh.

They didn’t mean to all fall asleep, and laying blame would be fuel for a later argument. For now, the sounds were the most pressing issue. And was it getting louder?

Theo threw a small rock at Atn, trying to wake him quietly. It was a lousy throw; the angle was all off, and the rock clattered to the floor instead of covertly waking up the protector. The cavern went silent except for the faint splash produced by the waterfall and the echo of the rock.

A minute. Then two. Maybe she was just stuck in a dream?

The sound returned, but much closer. There was a multitude of clicking now, moving faster.

The opportunity for stealth had passed, aided by Theo.

“Guys. Time to get up!”

Atn was the first to wake. The sound had already been leaking into his subconscious.

Zsig was roused by Theo more than anything.

“What’s going—”

That’s when he heard the noise.

Both protectors jumped up and began checking their gear, preparing for anything.

Theo noticed Atn loading a cartridge into his wrist bow and readying several bolts for quick use. His shield guard was already ready from earlier.

Zsig pulled out a small cylinder and pressed a finger to the scanner. A wicked double-sided blade—resembling a really long spearhead— shot out from both ends of the baton-like device. Each blade was nearly a metre long and radiated a charge that would add force to his strikes.

Theo took all this as a hint to pull out her knife. Knife was a relative term in this case. It wasn’t like her small alchemist knife. This was her self-defence knife, for when she was exploring the Wilds.

It resembled a short katana, 30 cm in length. A plain leather was braided on the handle to provide grip. The worn but carefully maintained blade had been passed down from Theo’s father—she had taught herself a move or two. She usually always had this on her, as well. But she was a one-trick pony. Take her knife, and she was pretty helpless. Scrappy but weak nonetheless.

Zsig was momentarily shocked by Theo’s weapon.

“Where were you stashing that thing!”

Theo gave him a wicked grin that faltered when something dark and elongated emerged from a crevice in the far wall.

As a body left the narrow opening, it expanded into a thick tubular shape.

“Is it a snake?”

Atn called over the cacophony.

“No.”

A chill ran down Theo’s spine, a clenching in her gut. The amount of scuttling did not match just one creature—

The wall exploded. Rather, countless black worm-like shapes burst through the crack. Each inflating to a size much larger than the trio. The spindly legs of the creatures became visible, and oh, there were many. The body was segmented, armoured in thick chiten, and a pair of legs extended from each reinforced section.

Theo recognized the shape, but her brain took a moment to piece it together. She had seen these before in Triahkel, but never like this. Giant centipedes, truly monsters of their kind.

They clicked across the stone as their numbers swelled. Their forcipules, snapping together, ready to inject venom into their prey.

Atn aimed down his wrist bow as Zsig made space to swing his blade staff. Theo just gaped.

“What the—”

The centipede at the head of the horde reared back. Lifting the first half of his body into the air, it hissed and waved its antennae in what was probably supposed to be a threatening manner. A mouth far larger than possible was revealed when the creature's mandibles opened wide to screech.

A bolt flew through the space between them and the giant centipedes, straight into its gaping maw. It lodged in the back of the creature's throat and detonated. Exploding the centipede from the inside.

Any centipede too close was taken out in the blast. Pieces of deep crimson chitin and sickly caramel-coloured mucus-like blood rained down around them. Bits of leg flying everywhere.

“That is disgusting.”

Theo gagged.

The spellbinding display broke when the storm of blood and guts ended, and the enraged centipedes charged.

Zsig raced forward to meet them while Atn covered him with the wrist bow, also keeping the creatures from getting too close to Theo.

He fought with his weapon like it was a bo staff. The enhanced metal allowed him to fight in many ways without risking damage to the blade itself, like sweeping an edge across stone might usually do.

A centipede reared up, preparing to strike. Zsig flung the stave up in a reverse arc. He brought the weapon down diagonally across his body and jabbed backward, below his left armpit, to spear a centipede trying to circle him.

He leaned right, dodging the first, rearing centipede's attack and thrust his weapon out. The timing was just so that the monster impaled itself onto the blade.

Zsig spun in a circle to build momentum and, compounded with the charge, collided with the side of the next centipede, cleaving it in half.

The movements were precise yet graceful. It could almost be mistaken for a dance if not for all the bodies dropping like flickerflies and slimy insect blood puddling onto the cave floor.

“Do they train all keepers like that?”

She whispered to Atn as she stared at Zsig, completely agog.

“No, they do not.”

That was all Atn said as he focused on keeping the creatures at bay. But Theo thought Atn looked mildly surprised, as well.

———

A shout from Zsig.

A centipede bit him, injecting its venom, but he kept moving. Fighting. Protecting his team, as he was trained to do. He couldn’t take them all, though, even he wasn’t foolish enough to believe that, and a burning spread as the venom worked its way through his veins.

Left. He dodged, then flipped the staff over his shoulder, slicing down the centre of a centipede. Reverse stab into one behind him.

Their first encounter was already too much for the three of them.

“Run! Retreat!”

Zsig tried to shout, but his voice couldn’t travel through the fighting.

Sweeping the staff in a semi-circle across the ground, he kicked out, using the weapon as a support to add extra power to the blow. The impact knocked the giant centipede back, but again, another replaced it.

There was no end to them.

His protector uniform blocked most hits from the cutting legs and even the bites of some of the younger, smaller centipedes. But the suit’s charge wouldn’t last forever, and it wasn’t strong enough to save him from the adults.

Zsig’s muscles began constricting, the burning sensation transitioning to a numbness. He couldn’t force his arms to move fast enough to bring the other end of the staff back up and around, finishing the move.

The delay cost him.

Another centipede attacked, but Zsig grew slower and couldn’t dodge in time.

Another bite, more pain. Paralysis from the venom was overtaking him.

Zsig managed to take down two more centipedes before his vision waned. He glanced back towards Theo and Atn but only saw a bold, fiery yellow flinging about—Theo’s hair.

“Maybe they’ll survive after all.”

He stumbled and glimpsed something coming from the tunnel to the right. Zsig tried to yell a warning, but the others were surrounded. It was a wasted effort.

Zsig fell as the moving shapes burst from the tunnel, and the world darkened around him.

———

Theo could no longer see Zsig, but she was too busy to really search.

She was panicking just a tiny bit. It wasn’t that she had never seen action before, just never against so many opponents. Sure, she fought off a bot or three in the Wilds, but she wasn’t ready for this level of monster.

“Atn, what do I do?”

Before she got an answer, a centipede lunged for her.

She slashed out with her blade. Her strike was exact, almost as good as Atn’s. She cut through the centipede, right between two segments of chitin. The knife's razor-sharp edge partially severed the insect, insides leaking from the slit. It went still.

A sudden pain as she sidestepped, avoiding a centipede advancing on Atn—his wrist bow no longer helpful for such close range; he was now dual-wielding knives and stabbing out fast. Too fast. The incoming bug didn’t stand a chance.

She glanced down and saw one of the centipede's back legs retreating. It had tried to grab her with its caudal legs, but she unknowingly missed it when she dodged, instead taking a deep gash from the sharp appendage to her side.

Theo retaliated by beheading the monster, a maneuver fit for her weapon.

“Got it!”

Theo yelled to Atn.

“Me too.”

A section of centipede landed with a thud next to Theo. A leg still twitching.

“Show off.”

A new sound joined the symphony of battle. She whirled and saw something racing towards them. Insectile legs sprinting down the passage.

The scuttling was even louder than the centipedes and had a slightly different cadence. The monsters attacking Theo and Atn were suddenly distracted by this new threat.

She caught sight of something odd flooding from the right tunnel. Flesh and something else. She couldn’t make it out, but the figures barrelled fearlessly into the mass of giant centipedes.

Theo didn’t stop moving long enough to think it over; she was still fighting for her life. Even if the foe was now preoccupied.

The battle didn’t last much longer, though. The new arrival quickly dispersed the centipedes; the ones that didn’t die fled now that their mortal enemy had come to stop them.

The fight lasted only five, maybe ten minutes at most, but that was more than enough.

Bloody and battered, Theo stumbled over to Atn. He barely had a scratch on him, but slick chunks of centipede innards were sliding down his uniform.

“Where is Zsig?”

Theo scanned the sea of chitin littering the floor, looking for something a little squishier and less insecty.

She spotted him at the same time Atn pointed him out. He was amongst the bodies, lying there, unmoving.

Together, they picked their way to Zsig.

“Zsig? Hey, Zsiggy?”

Theo squatted and touched his shoulder lightly.

His eyelid twitched, but the paralysis held him as the venom burned through his system. He could only lie there while he slowly died. A fever already eating away at him. He passed out again. Though no one could really tell the difference—paralysis and all.