The same scene repeated itself a few times as the paladin's pressed forwards, the mineshaft had long begun to branch out into a twisting maze of tunnels that rose upwards, spiralled downwards and sprawled there way through the dirt to make something resembling an ant hive.

Atleast, that's what Kor'Ak understood from the map that he regularly saw Sergeant Hard checking, everytime there was a fork in their path, the dwarf would bark a direction to the front of the march and they'd take the path he told them. Sometimes left, sometimes right, sometimes forwards.

Always down.

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Steal followed on behind the men that marched ahead of him, listening to the occasional burst of noise as a cacaphony and dry scratching sounds and light, dull footsteps flooded the tunnels. The shorter man, that the other men called a 'dwarf' would bark a few orders, the sounds of cracking bone and clashing steel would rise for a moment, before returning to an eerie almost-silence.

The goblin felt a gentle caress, someone, like a soft finger running it's from his skull to his spine, the somewhat-chittery voice of his new, eight-legged familiar sung it's way through his brain.

Hey, Steaaaaaal, what's the deal with this, I'm your familiar, and you haven't even summoned me, I figured I'd get to spend some time in the mundane-ahem-material world, summon me already!

Steal grumbled back as the arachnid's rapid chitter carried on. Adolfus was rather reserved with him previously, but after she was bound, she didn't seem to stop talking.

It was annoying.

Extremely annoying.

It felt like he had two completely seperate minds within his own, he could feel a throbbing, the beginning of a sudden, understandable headache.

Grumbling, he conceded.

He felt the energy, the heat well again up in his chest, felt words he didn't know, but somehow understood find their way to his tongue as it twisted and flicked in ways he never thought it could. It was a worrying feeling, to feel something so... unnaturally odd come from him as if it was instinct.

Adolfus chittered happily for a moment, before she cut the gleeful noise she was making off.

Actually, this is sort of an extremely... nghhh... uncomfortable feeling? Feels like getting stung by a dozen venomwasps... or getting raked by a few hundred deathweeds.

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A smile, one that some might describe as sick found it's way to Steal's maw as he heard the spider groan. She didn't appear to be suffering, so he wasn't worried for her condition, though he certainly felt it was something she perhaps deserved for insistent nagging to be summoned.

Something flashed on the ground just infront of him as he fell behind the rest of the group. Small purple and red images that seemed to merge and mingle in patterns and shapes he couldn't quite understand. They span and merged, lifting from the ground and forming a small, glowing ball, that slowly squished itself and reformed into an eight-legged, purple shape around the size of Steal's bulbous head. The red and purple hues dimmed and darkened until they became Adolfus' dark black body and hair, then shifting again to form the blue stripes of hair that decorated her legs, abdomen and thorax.

There she was, eight legs tapping on the cold stone floor as her dozens of eyes shifted, looking far off behind them into the dark, and slightly ahead where the knights, and Kor'Ak marched on. Finally, her eyes found Steal.

You look a lot uglier in the dark.

The goblin's smile shifted to a sneer, he was ready to retort, until he noticed that Kor'Ak's back was getting smaller and smaller ahead of him as they kept walking.

"Follow Steal, we follow... men."

Why?

"Why?" His feet were already slapping against the ground as he hurried ever so slightly to keep up to the group of steadier, longer-legged individuals. Adolfus skittered after him, though she didn't move with anything close to the sense of urgency that Steal felt.

You're clearly different, you're a goblin, they're humans...

She seemed to note the smaller, much louder figure at the back of the procession.

And a dwarf.

"Kor'Ak... good to me, help me."

Mhmm, if he's so good to you, why are you covered in fresh wounds and marching after a bunch of men down a tunnel.

"Because..."

He probably sees you as expendable, the cost of feeding you properly doesn't outweigh the value of an additional sword-arm and a potential meat shield.

The men ahead seemed to be entering a much more structured tunnel that went downwards at a steady angle, although still rocky, the walls ahead looked much smoother, more uniform.

-Why aren't you responding? Seems to me like you're just following after someone because you don't really have a purpose.

She was annoying the goblin now, she rattled on at him as he walked, pounding him under a barrage of words. His mouth changed again, this time into a snarl, he couldn't think, couldn't-

Hmm? Seems like I'm ri-

His voice came out in a sharp hiss. "Quiet. Quiet. Now."

All he heard was a soft chitter, Adolfus pulled back a little, standing a bit further behind him as Steal pressed on, he was still a distance behind the group as they filed out into a large, cavernous dome, it felt vaguely familiar to the cavern of the Wretched, though instead of reeking of feces, rot and blood, the air was dusty, stale, stagnant.

The paladin's were filing out into a circle as Steal reached the border between the sloping tunnel and the cavern.

Just fast enough to hear one of the younger paladins lower his shield, wipe his brow and mutter "I thought the scouts said the whole place was just tunnels." before watching the man turn into a fleshy pincushion as six arrows howled through the stagnant air, finding their mark as an arrowhead slipped between a slit in the boy's armour and burrowing itself into his neck.

The boy screamed, his voice buried beneath the screams of many, many more arrows.