Green asked Thomel “Ready to go in?” .Thomal had been pondering for a while whether Green was assigned to act as his escort or some sort of watch dog, but now he was almost certain of it.

Not that he was complaining, he wasn’t arrogant enough to be insulted by having a more experienced hunter watch out for him. It actually made him feel a great deal safer.

Hunting alone tended to be fairly dangerous work even back on Earth, let alone on these alien worlds.

At least the benefits matched the risk, there was no way he could get this degree of experience back on earth. Literally and metaphorically.

He just didn’t know if it would really amount to anything.

Dying on some alien plane of existence seemed far more likely than him getting out alive and living a happy life.

Realising he’d been in a daze for a while, Thomel hastily nodded his head and said. “Yep.”

Green beckoned him inside with an outstretched hand and Thomel obliged him, heading into the mound with cautious, slow steps.

Green brought up the rear behind him, his headlamp shining onto Thomel’s sand-covered back.

Once again, Thomel got the feeling that he was more of a soldier than a hunter.

Clad in a heavy, black coat with an enchanted oxygen tank clamped to his back and a mask covering his face. He must look like some aquatic PMC.

The sonic weapon he held only added to the look, since that was the main underwater weapon utilised by most aquatic forces for the past half a century.

He felt his bones rattle for a second time, one of the dyed brotherhood must have engaged some of the scorpion sentries.

“Remember, you’re just meant to tell us if a sandworm is coming or not.” Green said, noticing Thomel speeding up.

“Ah, right.” Thomel replied, slowing down.

He didn’t know why he bothered, it’s not like the scorpions were that much of a threat, only ones above level one hundred were even considered dangerous according to the company article. Before that point they just didn’t really have the boons to survive a single, glancing hit from one of the Hawken-Fives.

That didn’t mean he lowered his guard though, he kept his head on a swivel and his finger on the trigger.

Coming across a crossroads, he carefully swept his gun left and right before he slowly walked into the middle of it alongside Green.

“There’s nothing to be tense about, if you weren’t here I’d be doing this alone. Don’t think of them as threats, think of them as money bags.”

Thomel looked over incredulously at him, even if nobody had died to these chitinous creatures that wasn’t for a lack of trying on their part.

“Was just wondering where to go.“ Thomel retorted, gesturing broadly around them at the three different tunnels.

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“Oh sorry, it’s actually pretty simple, we just follow whatever path leads left, then if we get lost we just go back the way we came and follow whichever one goes right.”

“How long have you been operating with the brotherhood for?” Thomel asked curiously, Green seemed to have a great deal of trouble recalling just how little Thomel knew about their operations.

“Honestly, I don’t know, there was some mind magic mess at some point and everything before the brotherhood is just... foggy. Maybe a year, give or take a month or two.”

“Mind magic mess?”

“Yeah, some big screw up which ended up with half the brotherhood dead and the rest of us pretty devastated. No one knows what happened, we just remember waking up in this warped reality and activating the discs. It’s difficult to explain and none of us can properly recall but just imagine swimming in honey. That’s what it felt like to walk over there; hard and slow, sticky and sweet. The corporation considered it too expensive to heal us and just left us with our foggy memories. That and our debts.” Green sounded nostalgic and afraid at the same time.

“I’m very sorry to hear that.” Was all that Thomel could think of in reply .

He found it rather suspicious considering the efforts the corporation put into restoring his own body. He’d already ruled what happened to him as being somewhat normal since that’s what they did to Volly after she got into some brutal accident which she refused to specify.

And they apparently offered roughly the same level of treatment to anyone who required it. Mind magic was difficult to deal with but it shouldn’t be to the point that the corporation couldn’t heal it.

“Relax, I’m just messing with you.” Green said with a wheezy chuckle.

Thomel abruptly stopped staring at the ceiling and turned around to stare at Green.

“Fish is still affecting me so I’ve gone overboard, but still relax. We’re going to be fine.” He said, lifting up his right hand in a peace gesture.

Before Thomel got the chance to say anything he heard the skittering sound of chitinous limbs and spun around to face the oncoming scorpion.

His torch beamed off its black-plated form, it would have blinded him if not for the thick visor of his helmet.

There was no threat posturing from the scorpion, it didn’t rear up, or snip its pincers at him.

It just ran at him.

And with a simple pull of the trigger and the feeling of his bones jiggling, it stopped.

Skidding along the hardened, sand floor it came to rest just a dozen feet in front of him, mandibles open as drool and blood escaped from them.

“See, we’re fine. These things die easy.” Green enthusiastically said, walking up and slapping Thomel on the back casually.

He wasn’t wrong, the scorpion was the size of a large dog, it came up to Thomel’s chest and if it could stand on its hind legs like a bear could, it would be a whole head taller than him.

Pulling out his knife, Green got to work chopping off its stinger, sawing at the small segment in between chitin plates.

“How many do you think are left?” Thomel asked, cautiously standing guard behind Green. He couldn’t tell if the scratching sound he was hearing was just his imagination or more of the overgrown insects.

“Maybe like fifty, bit hard to tell since nest populations vary a lot. This is the first one we’ve faced today though, and we’re pretty far into the mound so chances are this isn’t a big one sadly.”

The scratching sound had been steadily increasing while Green talked, causing Thomel to sarcastically say. “You sure?”

Pausing to listen, Green leant his head to the side, then slowly stood up and backed closer to Thomel.

Back to back, he calmly said. “This will be over soon, just watch your sides and I’ll watch mine.”

Thomel wasn’t too sure about that because, apart from the loud, raspy, scratching sound, he also could hear the faint thumping sound of a person running.