The thunder sounded on the verge of breaking, an agitated animal about to snap.

“This isn’t actually very good,” Leira said through a mouthful. “It’s way too chewy compared to normal lobster. The ztuff does elevate it, though.”

Gwil tore off a chunk of meat and set it on the ground between his legs, with which he’d formed a sort of corral for his captured crab. The critter had managed to remove the grass-reins from its legs.

The crab clicked over to the piece of meat and began hacking with its claws and stuffing its face into the smaller bits.

“Don’t feed it lobster, Gwil,” Cort said. “That’s cannibalism.”

“Eh? I don’t think it cares. Don’t animals eat their own babies sometimes?”

“Making allowances for cannibals… That’s messed up, man,” Cort said, shaking his head.

Gwil laughed. “That’s cool how crabs have weapons for arms. Look how smart it is, using them to help him eat. Oh! Leira, give me a fork.”

She passed him a three-pronged metal fork that they’d brought from… from… huh.

“This is a perfect weapon for me,” Gwil said, twirling it with his fingers. “If it doesn’t shrink with me, I can still lift it. And if it does, it’s still sharp.”

“Ahh,” Leira said. “That’s clever, Gwil.”

Gwil swiveled his wrist, giving the fork a few practice swings and stabs, then he slipped it into his pocket.

“Hey! Where’d my crab go?”

Cort held up his hand to show the crab scuttling around in his sizable palm. He brought his hand closer to his face and narrowed his eyes at the crab. “Gross little cannibal.”

“Damn, Cort,” Leira said. “What’d you have against cannibals?”

Cort’s eyes snapped to Leira. He inhaled as if about to launch into a tirade. But at that very moment, the crab hooked one of its claws around Cort’s septum piercing.

“Bahaha!”

Cort screamed as the crab dangled from his nose, its pincer clamped tight around the ring-shaped piercing. His fingers fumbled, too big and cumbersome to get a grip on the tiny claw.

“You asked for it,” Gwil said.

Cort leapt to his feet and began swinging his head around like a maniac. The crab whipped back and forth before flying off.

Eyes watery, blood trickling from his nose, Cort grabbed his hammer and stomped toward where he’d flung the crab. “Time to die, you little shit.”

Gwil chased after him. He leapt onto Cort’s back and wrapped his arms around Cort’s neck, trying to wrestle him to the ground. “Don’t kill it! You shouldn’t have called it a cannibal.”

Cort spotted the crab and slammed his hammer down. Cracks splintered through the bedrock, but the crab had skittered out of the way. The critter faced them, brandishing its claws in a taunting way.

Leira joined the fray. She grabbed a fistful of Gwil’s hair and knotted her other hand in Cort’s shirt, trying to pull them apart.

Cort charged the crab, dragging Gwil and Leira along, and his hammer struck again.

Gwil felt his stomach lurch. All three of them were falling in a tangle, plummeting amidst chunks of rock and a shower of dust.

Cort smacked down hard on the ground, belly first, landing with a guttural whimper. Gwil and Leira lay in a heap on his back. Leira had clung to Gwil as they fell. Her fingernails still dug into his shoulder, and she’d ripped out a clump of his hair.

“Idiotic children!” she shrieked.

Gwil rolled away and spotted the crab. He dove for it, but the little shit escaped through a crack in the wall.

A man-made wall, formed of hewn blocks. Gwil looked upward and saw darkened fog through a big hole in a ceiling. They’d fallen about four meters.

“What the hell…” Cort said, standing up while clutching his nose. There wasn’t even that much blood.

They’d landed in a hallway that extended into soft darkness in both directions. A pile of fractured rock and broken blocks surrounded them.

Ten paces away, a flaming torch hung from the wall. The distant pinprick of light that was the next torch revealed the immense length of this hall.

The ground was gritty with a layer of damp sand. Gwil brushed it away with his hand to reveal a paved stone floor.

The walls and the floor were both formed of irregularly sized, but precisely fitted blocks. Their color was a dark gray. No mortar filled the gaps, yet Gwil could barely slide a fingernail between the seams. The surfaces showed some wear and were covered with lichen and moss.

Leira’s eyes darted between the pile of smashed rock and the hole that they’d fallen through. “Look—you smashed through the ground and the ceiling. Idiot.”

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

Grimacing, Cort scratched the top of his head. “My bad. Sorry.” He fidgeted with his piercing. “That fucking hurt, though.”

“All good,” Gwil said. “The crab survived, and you found something amazing!”

Cort massaged his ribs while looking down at his feet. “At least we could shelter from the storm here.”

Leira pointed down the hall in the direction they’d been traveling while above ground. “We can walk without having to swim, too. But all our stuff is still up there.”

“Just get it with the jetpack,” Gwil said.

“The jetpack is up there, too,” Cort said. “Shrink and I’ll throw you up.”

“I can jump that high,” Gwil said. He squatted, jumped, and the moment his feet left the ground, pop. He shrank and soared through the hole. Trying not to think about it, Gwil ran toward their camp and, pop, grew back to size. Easy.

He grabbed his and Leira’s backpacks, carried them to the hole, then went back for Cort’s pile of stuff.

“Ready?”

“Yeah.”

Gwil tossed down the three backpacks, then said, “The rest of this stuff is fragile, yeah?”

“You mean the collapsible refrigerator, the Kaia torch, and the jetpack? Yeah, all those things are fragile and expensive.”

Gwil put on the jetpack and then picked up the Kaia torch and the folded-up fridge in each of his hands. He jumped into the hole and flared his Nirva.

He did not even stagger upon landing, his legs as rigid and sturdy as iron. Gwil grinned. Maybe he was getting the hang of this.

“What’d you think this place is?” Leira asked, her voice echoing. “A passage to get through the Stormlands?”

“Maybe. Hopefully,” Cort said. He examined the sconce on the wall. “But it’s not as abandoned as it looks. This isn’t magical fire or anything. It’s just a normal torch. They must get replaced with some regularity. We could still jetpack out of here and forget we found this.”

“No way,” Gwil said. “This is perfect, Cort. We’re safe from the storm and we get to explore.”

“I’ve fucking had it with the rain,” Leira said.

They shouldered their gear and set out down the passageway in the direction that they hoped was north.

The green lightning flashes still shone through the collapsed ceiling, giving them some flickering light as they entered a darkened stretch of the hall.

Their footsteps splashed and sloshed through claylike sand and the occasional rodent skeleton. Bugs and various little crustaceans kept them company. Gwil spotted a couple of crabs, but not his crab. Thick patches of mold stained the walls, and curious fungi sprouted all over.

The air was foul and rank with rot. They’d done this place a favor by smashing open that hole and letting in a breeze.

They came to a four-way intersection, where an identical featureless tunnel crossed with their path.

“Not just a passageway then,” Leira whispered. “Let’s keep going straight.”

Gwil bit his lip. “Aren’t you curious, though?” He used Mir to look down the three paths. Each was a tunnel of swirling green, frothy with sprites of decaying life.

“No. It’s gross,” she said.

“Aw, c’mon, Leira. This place is crazy. Why’s it even here? We should split up and check down each path.”

“What? Idiot. I left you alone for thirty seconds in Podexia and you got yourself thrown in prison. Something much worse could happen here.”

Cort wrinkled his nose while looking from side-to-side. “I think that’s a decent idea.”

“What?”

“Hear me out. This crossways path makes me… a little less confident that we’re actually going north. We could’ve gotten thrown off course. I think we should take a quick peek down each way. And we can just shout if something happens. Our voices will carry down these halls.”

Leira fiddled with her eyeflower. “Fine. I’ll go straight. But we shouldn’t go too far. And Gwil, do not take any turns. This place could be a maze.”

***

Leira squinted against the darkness as the torchlight behind her dwindled into uselessness. She couldn’t see for shit. Not that there was anything down here besides bugs and grimy wet gunk.

She sighed. She’d preferred walking in the rain compared to this stifling cesspit.

Leira took a step, and it felt like her insides had splattered at the force with which her whole body clenched. She smacked her hands on the wall and threw her weight against it to catch herself.

Gasping for breath, heart racing, blood rushing in her ears… As she clung to the wall, Leira pointed her toes downward and lowered her foot until it brushed against something solid.

With a slow exhale through pursed lips, she relaxed. A staircase. She’d missed the first step and panicked at the sensation. That was all.

And it explained why the visibility had been so piss-poor. The tunnel dead-ended here with a wall; the stairs were set down in a well, leading to a lower level.

Leira patted herself on the back for not screaming in her fright. Then she screamed anyway. “Fucking hell! I found stairs!” Her voice echoed about a hundred times.

She cupped her hand to her ear, and after a few heartbeats, heard Gwil and Cort’s furious flurry of footsteps.

Leira spit on the wall. What kind of idiot wouldn’t think to hang a torch at the top of the fucking stairs? If she weren’t so deft and graceful, she might’ve broken her neck.

She went down a couple of steps and crouched to get a better look, but it was too dark.

Gwil and Cort were getting closer. Much closer. She could hear them splashing through the darkness.

Leira whipped around and yelled, “Wait, stop!”

Flying toward her in a blind sprint, Gwil stumbled to a halt, sliding on the slick bricks. Then Cort, flailing his arms like a goddamn clown, slammed into Gwil from behind.

Leira dove out of the way as the two of them crashed to the floor and tumbled down the first few stairs.

“No torch at the top of a fucking staircase?” Cort yelled as he recovered himself.

“I know, right?” Leira said. “What’d you guys find?”

“Nothing.”

“Same.” Gwil went a few steps lower, cupped his hands around his mouth, and made a bleh-bleh-bleh sound with his tongue. “Woah. It goes deep.”

“Let’s get the fuck out of here,” Cort said. “This is too bizarre to be anything good.”

“Agreed.”

Gwil frowned. “Huh? Don’t you guys wanna find out about the crazy storm? Jayson said he’d lived near here for his whole life and they had no idea what caused the storms. That must be what this place is about.”

“Nope,” Leira said. “It stinks down here, and I don’t wanna die.”

“Agreed.”

Gwil scrunched his face up. He had his arms crossed around himself, and he was scratching at his biceps, feverishly, as if he had a rash. “Fine. We’ll go back up where we fell?”

“Yes,” Leira said. “We’ve just got no business here, Gwil. There’ll be plenty of other craziness that we’ll be forced to confront. When we’re given the chance, it’s okay to take the easy route.”

He nodded. His teeth were chattering audibly. Leira swept her sweaty hair back and furrowed her brow. It was hot as hell down here.

They started making their way back. They had not gone ten steps when Gwil said, “Wait. Lemme check something.”

Leira and Cort stopped to watch as Gwil went a short way down the staircase. Then, he vomited and fell over.

They ran to him. Cort grabbed him under the arms and heaved him out.

“What happened?”

Gwil wiped his mouth on his sleeve. “I-We gotta go down there.” He winced and took a few breaths. “Something awful.”

“What? No. That means we were smart to run away,” Leira said. “You don’t need to run headfirst into danger every time.”

“We have to,” Gwil said. “This time, we have to.”

“What is it?” Cort asked.

Gwil shook his head. “I’m not sure. But it’s not something stupid, I promise. Please come with me.”