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“Nobody panic.”

Kai’s voice was calming, projecting a sense of control over the situation as he turned toward the massive pair of shields that formed the gate. The golems acting as hinges for the stone carvings glared down on them, snarling faces projecting rage and determination to hold an invisible line. Small stones glowed at regular distances on the walls, just large enough to force someone to walk through a few feet of shifting shadow between each light.

“Ananya, set up a barrier in the tunnel.” The large fire mage continued, “Norah, back her up. Emiko and Djimon, I want you two to start examining those doors. Figure out if we triggered some kind of trap and if there is a release mechanism. We are in uncharted territories everyone, but that is why they hired us.”

“On it Kai.”

Ananya’s response was quick, and metal poured from her dimensional backpack with a sound half way between windchimes and heavy machinery. Rapidly, a wall of metal blocks began to construct itself into a rudimentary gatehouse, offering Wandering Horizons much greater protection than they had previously enjoyed.

Djimon approached from behind Li as he continued to stare at the gates they had just passed through, slapping him on the shoulder as he passed. On his way, he paused briefly to give everyone a thumbs up and a confident smile. Emiko was already at the gate by the time he arrived, writing small runes in fire trails on one of the doors.

Norah began wrapping vines around Ananya’s wall, reinforcing them while she approached one of the small windows to keep watch. When she noticed Li doing nothing, she gestured him over before having him set up in the other small window. Extending his senses, he watched for any sort of ambush by the monsters native to this area.

While everyone else worked on their various tasks, Kai himself pulled out two journals. The first was filled to the brim with his careful, flowing handwriting, while the other was only about a third full. After opening to the end of the writing in the second journal, he began muttering while rapidly flipping through the contents of the first.

Li had seen these notebooks before, though rarely. The first was a collection of notes he had compiled for this dungeon, something he had only occasionally referenced in the safer outer bounds of the dungeon where few things could threaten Wandering Horizons. The second was a log book of sorts that recorded what they had found while actually within the dungeon.

According to Djimon, these were the latest entries of two massive collections he kept in the Adventurer Guild Vaults. The vaults, located deep within a fortified bunker at some unknown location on the planet, could have their contents instantly teleported to any Adventuring Guild Hall on the continent. Even the Halls on other continents could have any desired content delivered within a day or two, though it required the services of more advanced mages with more powerful teleportation spells. The entire service was accessible for a comparatively minor fee in addition to the standard membership, as long as the owner of the vault was an adventurer in good standing.

Over the next hour and a half or so, Norah and Li continued to watch for attacking monsters approaching their location, while Ananya kept watch for anything coming from the walls or floor around them. Throughout the entire time, none sensed a single hostile creature. They were either safe, or being observed by something far beyond their ability to detect.

Emiko and Djimon, meanwhile, tried approach after approach to open the doors. Some subtle, and very much not so. At one point, Emiko attempted to blow the doors open with a compressed explosive spell Li had previously seen shatter boulders and the occasional golem. She didn’t use it often, as the spell was slow and unwieldy, but this was the first time Li saw a target completely unaffected by the power behind it.

It wasn’t simply an unflinching physical barrier however. Djimon had initially lamented the fact he had yet to unlock some spell called “Shadow Walk” which was supposed to compress your body into nothing more than a shadow and give one the ability to slip through small cracks and gaps. Then he had discovered his Shade Sense spell couldn’t tell him what was on the other side of the gates, something which seemed to unnerve him greatly. Additional testing had found that the great shields repelled all attempts by magic to bypass their barrier, something which likely contributed to their ability to withstand Emiko’s wrath.

Eventually the two called an end to their testing, declaring that as far as they could tell their small group had no way to bypass the door’s defenses. Even with all of Wandering Horizons working together, Emiko had been of the opinion the result would simply be a massive waste of mana. The two suggested a group attempt be made anyway, but one where they were careful to limit the amount of mana used.

Eventually rising from his studies of the notebook, Kai had agreed with their assessment. According to one of the notes he had taken, attempts had been made in the past to force the doors down. Those attempts had never resulted in success from what he could tell, with even a C Rank adventuring party being recorded to have only managed to leave a deep gouge in the great shields.

Their attempt had gone as expected. The gate opened inward, and offered no easy handholds for them to grip, so Ananya had crafted great metal pry bars to attempt to force the shields apart. Norah had then reinforced the grip of these pry bars with a great number of vines, and the rest had contributed muscle strength to the attempt.

According to Djimon they had succeeded in moving the doors a combined thumb width before the pry bars slipped and the doors slammed back together. At that failure, they had decided to camp out for the night to see if the doors would open on their own.

#

The meal they had that night was special, an assortment of food kept preserved by magic that had been intended a celebratory feast after defeating the guardian for the central section dungeon. It was meant to be a highlight in a moment of victory, and there was some amount of cheer at the good food. Beneath it all, however, was a underlying current of worry that Li couldn’t blame anyone for.

According to what he had been taught, any change to a dungeon was instant cause for concern. It meant previous experience could no longer be trusted and anyone exploring that dungeon was now advancing blind. An incredibly dangerous proposition at the best of times. Now there had been two major changes that the team had discovered in a relatively short period of time, and that meant there could be some very major gaps in the knowledge Kai had previously collected.

As they ate, Norah had told them that the experience was enough to spook Kai away from the mission. He was of the opinion they should abandon their dungeon dive and report back to the Adventurer’s Guild, avoiding challenging the dungeon again until a more experienced team was able to chart the new dangers.

Norah had not disagreed with him on the idea of abandoning the dive, but she had disagreed with his proposed methodology. Kai had been of the opinion they should continue to reinforce their current location, riding out the time until the doors opened again on their own. Norah had been of the opinion they needed to continue on in search of an alternative exit, as there was no guarantee the doors would open as long as they were present.

The two had asked the rest to think on these options overnight, and they would take a vote in the morning. With luck, the doors would open in the night and the entire argument would be moot, but Li had been of the opinion such an…optimistic outcome was unlikely. He didn’t like the way the sapphires each door post had in place of eyes seemed to follow him as they gleamed in the light of the enchanted crystals.

Doing his best to put the entire thing out of his mind, he had planned to spend the rest of the evening drinking his small allotment of wine, sharing stories, and making bad bets with Norah as she mercilessly crushed him in round after round of cards. Something that eventually changed when, in the background, Kai began singing softly as he played what appeared to be some kind of guitar.

The words were too soft for him to make out initially, but Emiko had confided it was an old folk tale about a living flame that had attempted to consume the world before a god of family trapped it to heat one of his faithful’s fireplace. The story told of how the flame had raged at first, attempting to consume the family, before slowly growing to love the work it did. Cooking food to keep the family strong, driving away the deep winter cold, and providing light that let the mother and father work deep into the night for the betterment of their children.

It was a bittersweet song, some lyrics crooning about the flame’s regret of a previously life of rage and destruction while other’s shared it’s joy and exhilaration at finding a new purpose. Kai himself proved to be a gifted singer, not on the level of the global sensations Li was accustomed to from earth, but far better than anyone Kai had personally known before. Eventually, when Kai had fallen silent, Li realized he had been drawn into the music and forgotten their team’s current woes. At some point he had ended up far closer to the older adventurer, and he politely clapped at the conclusion of the man’s song.

For a while he allowed the feeling to stay with him. Simply forget about tomorrows worries and live in the moment. The other members of the team seemed to feel the same and soon the energy filling their little feast had turned far more celebratory. Kai launched into a happier song, one about a young man going out to slay a great sea beast terrorizing his fishing village, and soon enough Emiko was singing along as well.

The most he could say was that she made up for lack of skill with an overabundance of enthusiasm.

With new energy he returned to his card games with Norah. To his pleasure, Djimon soon joined and proved almost as poor a player as Li himself. They finally got a small break when Ananya took pity on them and began revealing Norah’s cards, though that lasted only very briefly before the shark woman took notice and put a stop to it. In all, what had started as a rather sorry celebration ended as an evening Li would always remember with pleasure.

Something he wouldn’t be able to say for the days to come.

#

The next morning came, as much as a given time could be called morning given the entire lack of change in the surrounding tunnel, and as they had all expected the door had yet to open. A bad sign given the doors were supposed to open about every eight hours at each of the three entry bridges it connected to. The team would have to decide whether to continue waiting, or to attempt to traverse the inner maze and find an alternative exit.

“I think we should go. The doors already missed one scheduled opening and I see no reason to expect it to open at the next one.”

Emiko had been quick to join Norah in calling for further exploration of the mountain. Li couldn’t blame her, though in his mind she seemed a little over eager to leave. He couldn’t help but feel they were missing something, even if he didn’t know what. Could just be my mind trying to rationalize. Refusing to accept that we are trapped here with absolutely zero other options than continue forward. Feels like when I first entered the dungeon all over again.

“I would rather we wait a bit longer,” Djimon, on the other hand, had taken Kai’s side and called for them to wait it out. “I can go ahead and do some scouting. Try to map a path out while you all wait at the doors. I can move a lot faster than the rest of you, especially now, and then if we did have to take an alternative route, we could already have it mapped out.”

“What? Are you never going to travel more than an hour away?” Emiko questioned, “You can’t get too far from us, otherwise even if the door opens we can’t leave. We may as well go as a whole team.”

“If the door opens for you, it will inevitably open for me. I can wait it out on this side while the rest of you get to safety.”

“That’s a stupid idea and you fucking know it!”

Li could sympathize with Djimon wanting them to take the safe approach, but he emphatically agreed with Emiko on this point. There was no way he would leave without the rogue, and it was either incredibly foolish or overly hopeful to even suggest they would. He would much rather take the risk as a group than force one person to shoulder it.

A sentiment Norah obviously agreed with if the energy with which she nodded in agreement with Emiko was any indication. Kai on the other hand only seemed thoughtful for a long moment, something passing behind his eyes before he firmly put his hand on Djimon’s shoulder and shook his head.

“They are right,” the big man said. “We are either all in this together or not at all. I can agree to you scouting our immediate vicinities, but there are no circumstances where I am going to let you go off on your own to search for an exit route. Besides the difficulties with time limits, this part of the dungeon is significantly more dangerous. There is no guarantee you could safely scout that far. I am afraid we are back to regular check ins and utmost caution. We move together or not at all.”

Something about the way he said that made Li think the other man was hiding something. A slight sadness around the eyes maybe, or the way he broke eye contact with Djimon a little too fast. He knew Norah, at the least, had seen it too. She gave him a long look of her own, frowning.

Djimon himself seemed rather upset for a moment, clearly unhappy the others wouldn’t let him take on this risk. Li watched as the emotions slowly bled into understanding though, recognizing that just as he was trying to protect them, they were simply watching out for him. He clearly didn’t like it, but he accepted it and was grateful they cared.

“Fine,” he said. “But I still think our best bet is scouting out a path to leave the mountain. If you won’t let me take the risk on my own-”

He paused, clearly hopping that in some twist of fate they would change their minds. When none did, he continued on.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

“-then we will just need to go together. I am changing my vote. I believe we have a better chance of finding a way out elsewhere.”

With that, Li and Ananya quickly spoke up with their own support. Even Kai, who had been the original proponent for staying put, seemed to be agreeing with them. If Li had to guess, he had had a similar plan to Djimon. Go out looking for an alternative route himself, while the rest stayed behind for safety. He would even believe the other man was doing it out of some imagined guilt for getting them all into this situation.

Like he could have known what would happen…

Decision made, the group began to tear down their temporary camp. Ananya began recalling the metal wall she had formed and Norah allowed her vines to retreat into the earth, rapidly disappearing. The various members of the team changed into their armor and began casting their defensive spells. There was a new air to the group, one Li had only really seen while the hunted the Garja’lu previously. A seriousness that they had previously lacked. Nobody was pushing Li to the front to act as a spear head or cracking the jokes he had grown so used to.

It was like the entire party had been replaced with some sort of dangerous, multi component machine.

“Li, you’ll be in the middle today.” Norah spoke as she pulled a leather strap holding three different wands onto her forearm, “Unfortunately, we no longer have the luxury of training you. From here on out, we’re doing everything to the best of our abilities. At least until we have a solid grasp of just how dangerous this part of the dungeon has become.”

She paused to pull on her boots, and for the first time he noticed that one had a sheath for a dagger running up the side while the other had yet another wand. He’d never really asked why she carried so many of the things, but from his lessons with Emiko he guessed that each was highly specialized. The woman was practically a walking armory in that sense.

“Not to downplay how much you have improved, and you definitely won’t be dead weight in our coming fights, but you still aren’t on the same level as the rest of us. That means you’re a vulnerability, so we’re going to need you to stay where that vulnerability can be most easily defended. Stand next to Emiko, listen to what she tells you to do, and only join Ananya and Kai in the melee if Kai or I give you the go ahead.”

She gave him a hard look at that last bit, clearly expecting him to protest. When he didn’t, only giving her a serious nod, she seemed to relax a little.

“Good. I have high hopes for you, but they won’t mean anything if you go and get yourself eaten by the first Cuda-beast you come across outside the bay. For now, you need to stay safe. You’ll be plenty ferocious with just a little time.”

She gave him that smile again. The one that terrified him so much, despite all the friendliness and care she put into the words. Li couldn’t imagine anyone being dumb enough not to listen to what she said after one of those.

Soon enough the entire group was ready to move out. Kai and Ananya held the front of their formation, Kai pulling out a shield Li had never seen before and shifting his sword to a one-handed grip, both of which blazed into hungry life with a single word. In the back of their formation, Norah stood menacingly. She rode what Li could only really describe as a ‘wave’ of vines that increased her already imposing height and were ready to defend the group at a moment’s notice.

Emiko, surrounded by several constantly shifting rings of fire, stood in the middle with Li himself. Her staff was raised, ready to be used to cast spells in any direction. The small flames that could be seen through seeming cracks in her skin had grown in strength, small tongues leaping from her and into the surrounding air. The ends of her hair glowed like embers.

A few hundred feet in front of their group, Djimon scouted the path. If Li hadn’t watched him leave and heard the plan, he never would have known. No sign of the other man’s presence was visible, as he stealthy moved from shadow to shadow. Even without activating any of his spells, the changes the other man had gone through were telling. If he stood in a shadow he didn’t disappear, but he almost seemed to bleed into it. His outline became fuzzy and the living shadows crawling on his skin would shift to closer match the surrounding shadow, until he was a barely visible spot to onlookers.

The entire thing instantly had Li’s back up and he could feel nerves attacking his calm as he attempted to match Emiko’s every footstep. Each moment it felt like something would come leaping out at them, screaming for their blood. He could barely hear anything over the sound of his own breathing and footsteps, and his skittishness was obvious.

For the first half hour at least.

The thing Li had never thought about was how exhausting it was to that nervous. He had spent months getting used to moving with every sense focused, constantly on alert for danger. He had figured the pressure of seeing his team in the same state would be good. That it would keep him sharp and ready for action.

Instead, he found that it only fried his nerves. Left him with less energy than he would have while moving at calm readiness instead. Every second of it drained much more from him than it was supposed to and soon he realized he simply didn’t have the energy for it anymore.

By the end of the first hour he felt himself fully relax. He wasn’t careless, he had simply returned to the same state he was in anywhere else in the dungeon. Ready, but not constantly walking that razor’s edge. His reaction times might suffer when something did happen, but he would be able to keep it up far longer.

“Good,” it was the first word Norah, or anyone, had spoken since they left the campsite. “I was hoping you would calm on your own. It is a high-pressure situation, and your only direct experience of something similar was right before we fought the biggest, nastiest thing you had ever seen. I was would stay twitchy like that forever. It’s a bad attitude. The hallmark of prey.”

She gave him a long look.

“You aren’t prey anymore. Trust in the party, we know what we are doing. Our attitude may be different here, but it isn’t fear that you are seeing. Respect for the potential dangers, recognition that if we are caught off guard it could be dangerous, but not fear.”

The dangers of the place had brought out a more brutal side in the woman, Li observed. The same side that had made her design the…training aide she had previously used on him. Not cruel, not really, just hard. A survival mentality that Li could only wonder about the origins of.

Emiko was slightly more jovial about it, telling him it was good to see he had put on his big boy pants and was ready to actually be of use.

Thankfully Djimon had returned before the ribbing could get much worse. He had found signs of their first monster in the mountain, and he wanted everyone aware of what they were walking into.

“It’s something serpentine,” he said. “Definitely moving around on its belly. The scales are sharp too, rough enough to leave gouges in the stone floor. My best guess is that it is an Archimedes Basilisk, but that doesn’t make much sense. They’re supposed to be deeper in than this.”

“If one is this far out, it would explain why a Garja’lu was outside the mountain. It might have been pushed out by the basilisk, or multiple basilisks if there was a population explosion.”

Kai began asking for a few details, but Li was more focused on recalling everything he could about basilisks. After the incident at the bazaar, he had been regularly asking the adventurers about other monsters that could be expected in the mountain. The Archimedes Basilisk had been one of the creatures that came up.

According to what he remembered, the monsters were considered uncommon but of middling danger for the mountain. With only mediocre strength proportional to their three-foot length, the creatures were not a physical powerhouse. Their strike speed was terrifying, but when it came to actually moving they weren’t particularly impressive. Their scales were a powerful defensive tool, especially against earth magic. Unique to the species from this dungeon, one of these monster’s natural magics caused stone to break down into dust when in contact with them. The scales had little effect on skin or other biological materials though. On the other hand, their offensive abilities were far more dangerous. The creatures were highly poisonous and could spit acid capable of reducing solid stone to a puddle. The last would have been more dangerous if not for its fairly limited range and the fact they could only manage it two or three times a day.

They were one of the few creatures to predate on Garja’lu and Lapitari, with their unique abilities making them a bane to creature that would usually be considered far above their weight class. Or a good number of the other monsters that called this mountain home. Anything without a ranged attacking option was destined to have difficulty with the beasts, but it left them highly vulnerable to a capable adventuring team.

“Oh, are you thinking the doors might be stuck closed as a containment attempt by the dungeon?”

Emiko had jumped into the conversation, which seemed to have moved toward hypothesizing why the dungeon might have changed. Emiko’s guess was a good one. From general lessons about the dungeon, Li knew that Archimedes’ Labyrinth was one of the more responsive dungeons. This was likely a byproduct of the dungeon’s mechanical theme, or the mechanical theme was a byproduct of this dungeon’s more hands-on approach.

Another chicken the egg situation. Realizing he was letting himself get off topic again, he returned to concentrating on the conversation the others were having.

“It is possible.” Kai sounded cautiously optimistic, emphasis on the cautious, “We should not make any plans that rely on such a thing being the case, but if we run into a higher-than-normal number of the basilisks it may well be worth checking on the door again after we clear them out. Their poison is dangerous, but Norah’s anti-venom spell should mean that they are far less of a danger.”

“You could almost say that poisons are my specialty,” the large woman explained to Li. “Many plants have toxins or irritants as defensive adaptations. As such, almost any plant mage focused on healing will quickly pick up a spell meant to defend against them. I actually have two. The first, anti-venom, will delay most poisons or toxins from affecting the body. My second spell, purge, while unpleasant is highly reliable for removing them. All that without accounting for the actual healing spells.”

“It’s one of the things we keep in mind when picking jobs,” Ananya chimed in. “Thanks to those two spells, we can often deal with challenges usually considered too dangerous for people at our rank. Protection against poisons is one of the most valuable things you can have, and something that isn’t guaranteed just because you are a higher rank adventurer.”

“She is right. If you ever get a chance to learn a spell that will protect you from poisons, I would suggest you take it. They can change otherwise dangerous fights and battle grounds into a tactical advantage for you and your team. Normally, even a weaker basilisk species’s venom would kill you within minutes. Adventurers do not consider it that much of a threat, because detoxification potions mean it will almost never have time to actually work and they need to get within melee range to apply it. In other words, the fight is all about mitigating exposure.”

Kai’s voice had taken on a lecturing tone, those his eyes never ceased roving the surrounding. Obviously while they were no longer prioritizing Li’s learning, they were not going to let opportunities to teach him go. That was comforting to Li on some level, as it meant they at least felt they had enough leeway to take some extra time with the conversation.

“With Norah’s Intermediate spell, however,” The big fire mage continued, “an Archimedes Basilisk bite would take at least a half hour to start having an effect. That lets us do more than simply mitigate risk by slowly wearing the things down from a distance. For our group, Archimedes Basilisks might be the ideal enemy to face in here. Not that we are likely to get lucky enough to only fight them. Not unless a truly incredible overpopulation of the things has occurred.”

#

The Archimedes Basilisk was more...imposing than Li had expected. He’d been told to expect a three-foot-long snake with scales that glowed at the edges. What it turned out to be was more akin to if you took a boa constrictor with the head of king cobra, fed it nothing but steroids for five years, and made it spend eight hours at the gym daily. It was the first snake Li had ever seen that he swore had abs.

That wasn’t even taking into account the fact its scales looked like nuclear glass with a radiation glow or that its horrific mouth had teeth more in common with broken glass than a normal mouth. True, it still had two massive fangs but they seemed more in line with a sabretooth cat than the foldable injectors of a normal viper.

Not that any of that had helped the creature in the end.

As the rest of the team had predicted, the creature proved to be little challenge for the group. Ananya had approached it first, forming long metal bidents which she used to telekinetically trap the creature. The inherent magic on the things scales still broke down the metal, causing flakes to separate off or even breaking parts into a fine dust. It was slower than with regular earth or stone however, giving the woman plenty of time to coral the creature as it attempted to slither away.

When ever it attempted to get close to the mage, Kai would send streamers of fire streaking from his sword and slam the shield down in the creature’s face. Based off of how quickly the swordsman was moving, Li originally thought he could have taken the slow moving snake’s head off. Then he saw how fast it could strike, and Elijah knew a clean shot at the things head was unlikely for any of them to manage.

It was like an entirely different creature as the head shot forward with such speed he almost thought it was leaving after images. It was so fast it was like the pair of new puncture wounds on Kai’s leg had simply magically appeared. Kai’s counter attack with the sword had only left a faint scratch on the thing’s scales, attesting to just how powerful of a defense they provided.

The things plan was obvious, as it backed off while hissing angrily. Norah had said they were fairly intelligent, especially for a lizard type creature, but no more so than a well-trained dog. Eventually it would likely realize the poison wasn’t working as fast as it should and either attempt to flee or go for another bite. For now, though, it would curl up and attempt to either intimidate them or endure whatever attacks they might throw at it.

That was where Emiko came in. Several of her stronger spells took time to prepare, and were comparatively slow. They required set up, communication, and team work to put to their full affect. Or a target that wasn’t interested in moving. Luckily for them, right at that moment she had both. Over thirty seconds she had rapidly constructed flaming runes on the ground around the creature, which the beast had initially attempted to bite before giving up. When the last rune burned into existence and the circle completed, a blue glow had begun to build.

That had gotten the basilisks attention, and it had begun uncurling in an attempt to slither away. Which is when Ananya and Norah started dropping metal blocks and raising brambles to keep it contained. The creature had been begun forcing its way through the obstacles, but with nowhere near the speed required to escape before the five second build up time completed.

When a spiraling blue column of all consuming inferno rose within the circle, the serpent had still been trapped inside. It had lasted longer than Li had expected, continuing to squirm and wriggle as the flames slowly cooked it. In the end, the scales had still been unmarred when the flame finally dropped, though much of the flesh within had been burnt to ash.

“Hard to believe those things predate on Garja’lu huh?” Djimon said next to him, “But I suppose its just the way nature works right? Everything has its niche, and these things are just too specialized to be a real challenge for something outside their biome.”

“Like mice and albatross on Marion and Gough Islands…” Li said to himself.

It made sense. Creatures that were an absolute terror on islands could be absolutely decimated by an invasive species from the larger, more competitive continents. It was why mice and cats hitching a ride on ships could have such devastating effects on indigenous wildlife, the local population simply didn’t have the depth of species or populations to force evolution at the same speed.

From the sounds of it, dungeons could be much the same. These creatures sounded like they had specifically adapted to deal with the large number of golem, golem-esque, and stone magic wielding monsters that called this place home. Now their party was taking advantage of an evolutionary oversight to take down something that would normally be an apex predator in their area.

While he had been thinking to himself, Djimon had been begun searching the area. The rest of the party decided to take a short break, and let their highly capable scout do his job. For the next hour, the shadow mage ran up and down the nearby hallways, slowly exploring and mapping out their surroundings. When he eventually came back to talk to them, his face said he had found something important.

“There are more signs of Basilisks all over the place. And I know this one didn’t make them all, since I’m seeing a lot of different sized tracks. This one was a little on the small side, and I’m seeing more than a few that would be bigger. A hell of a lot of smaller ones too.”

“We will need to be careful. Even with Norah’s magic, we can only deal with so many bites.” Kai smiled at Djimon, clapping him on the back before continuing, “Good work though. It supports our theory of a population boom, and suggests we’re one step closer to figuring out what is going on.”

“We’ll need to make a plan,” Norah spoke up. “If we can, I would like to cull their population. Prevent any more tragedies like what happened at Rosewater. If we can’t we can at least gather as much information as possible. The more we can report to the guild, the better prepared they’ll be to fix the issue.”

Kai nodded along, “I agree. At the very least we should try to determine what caused the shift in population. It almost sounds like we are on the outskirts of a nesting ground for the monsters, and one of those definitely should not be located this close to the bridges.”

“We camp here for the night then, and discuss what your book says. In the morning, we’ll vote on a plan.”