It had been a rough night. No one had gotten a wink of sleep due to the nonstop fighting the team had to endure, fending off the infected villagers.

Mau felt rough around the edges, but it wasn't her first time pulling an all-nighter. It was almost comical how she remembered using that term back when she was a high school and college student in the boring, old, mundane world she had come from. Back then, it simply meant doing some dumb essay, paper, or assignment to prepare for the next day. Funny how not one of those assignments from back then ever carried over to being useful in the bullshit fantasy worlds she had grown so used to for the past hundred lives.

Here, pulling an all-nighter now apparently meant fighting for your fucking life against monsters and ghouls and ghosts and all manners of gribblies in the night.

"Suvdaa," Mau said as the raider busied herself, trying to pry a whining Dulguun from his hiding place under several blood-soaked blankets in the corner of the room.

"Little coward bear." Suvdaa huffed back in response before glancing over her shoulder back at Mau. "What is it, Mau?"

"How are you holding up?" Mau asked, concern evident in her tone before she glanced into the other room, where Andy and Penne were catching their breaths and taking a brief nap.

"I'm exhausted," Suvdaa answered honestly, surprising Mau. Usually, the raider shrugged off her concerns with a brusque 'I'm fine' or 'I'll be okay.' But this time, Suvdaa looked at Mau with haggard and bloodshot eyes.

"But I'll be okay with a little rest, " Suvdaa added. Mau nodded as she slumped into the destroyed remains of what used to be a sofa. Now, it was scorched and broken in several places from the fracas. Suvdaa joined her, practically collapsing onto the space beside Mau on what was left of the cushions; the two leaned on each other shoulder to shoulder in silence for a long beat.

"We can't stay here." Suvdaa pointed out. "We need to get going to those mines, but in the condition we're in, we'll likely get killed on the way if we're not careful."

Mau nodded. "We need rest." She said.

"Aye." Suvdaa agreed with a curt nod. "Andy is likely taking this the worst. Penne... They can handle it, but they could use a break, too."

"Mm," Mau replied as she hugged Suvdaa's arm to her chest. "We'll catch a short rest. Just long enough to get a second wind. Then we get going. It won't be an easy trip to the mines; there are probably more of those things out there, and considering the bear attack on the way into town... I wouldn't be surprised if this The Thing could infect animals and turn them into monsters, too."

Suvdaa nodded and shifted her seating just enough to rest her cheek on Mau's shoulder.

Mau tensed slightly, feeling the warmth of the other girl's cheek so close. The catgirl's blue eyes flicked to the raider's face to find the other girl's eyes closed and her breath softening.

"Hey..." Mau whispered. But there was no response. Suvdaa was already out like a light.

A little sleep, Mau figured, couldn't hurt. Especially after fighting for their lives all night... The party had earned at least a little respite.

Mau sighed, brushing Suvdaa's hair out of her eyes with her fingertips. "Guess I'm staying up to make sure nothing guts us while we're passed out." She said with a chuckle.

Staying up wasn't easy, not with Suvdaa's warmth leaning against her, but Mau soldiered on. She'd give them an hour- maybe two tops to get some snooze time in before waking the others up to soldier on out the door and on to the mines.

With a heavy sigh, Mau's head tipped forward.

"Fuck." She whispered to herself. This wasn't going to be an easy journey, and ever since her dawning realization the night before, she was going to be beside herself with worry about the chance that one or more of them would get hurt... Or worse.

"I'm such an idiot." She berated herself again under her breath.

She had just absolutely breezed through so many lives. The connections she had made- the bonds and travel companions she had come by in those prior lives... To her, they were fleeting and transient. But to those honest-to-god, actual people, they likely considered Mau a lifelong friend. The best she had treated them was based on whether or not she viewed them as beneficial to killing a Demon Lord.

"Guh."

Mau decided to stop kicking herself over it, for now, at least. She was different then, and she was different now. And though she was starting to realize the gift given to her in living as much as she had, she also felt so tired.

Her vision blurred, but she soldiered on, doing her best to not pass out and drift off next to the raider in her arms. The best she could hope for would be to dose on small bursts of microsleep, but she probably wouldn't even notice that happening if it did.

Enduring the next hour required mental and physical fortitude, and Mau knew it wouldn't be easy.

Cats sleep a lot.

But by the time the sun hit its crest in the sky, she knew that was about all the time they had.

"Hey," Mau whispered, gently nudging Suvdaa until the other girl stirred.

"Resting m'eyes dumb cat," Suvdaa mumbled as Mau shook her lightly. "Stop that..."

"It's time," Mau said gently. "We have to get up. We have to go."

Suvdaa sat up slowly and grunted irritably, but she eventually nodded while rubbing her eyes.

"I'll wake Andy and Penne." Suvdaa volunteered herself for the likely impossible task of rousing the dog boy. Penne would probably be easier to wake, but Mau simply nodded as the raider stood up and trudged to the other room.

Mau slowly stood herself up. She stretched her arms over her head and felt her spine pop pleasantly in a few places as her tail flicked.

"Guhhhhhhhh..." She heard Andy groaning, the groan of the dead and damned, from the other room. She stepped through the door.

Dulguun was biting Andy's foot while Suvdaa gently shook Penne awake.

"Just five more minutes." Andy pleaded.

"We don't have the time for that," Penne muttered as they slowly sat up. "How long were we out?"

"Long enough." Mau huffed and covered her mouth to yawn big.

"... Did you stay up just to keep watch over us?" Penne asked incredulously.

Mau grunted at the hagling while Andy picked himself up off the floor.

"Maybe." She said.

Penne rolled their golden eyes and tugged their robes and cloaks tighter around themself to fend off the chill breeze that filtered in through the shattered windows.

After a few more minutes of cajoling Andy into being reasonably awake, the team was up, and they were out the door.

A fresh and thick layer of snow had piled on the ground overnight, and it was thick and heavy enough to bury most of the bodies of the villagers that had harried Mau and her friends. This was good; Mau would rather not see what kind of hideous body horror grotesque bullshit most of the corpses would likely be sporting after a night of fending off The Thing From Another World, and they trudged down the lonely road heading east in the direction of the mountains.

The mountains were already visible from the edge of town, which meant the mines wouldn't be too far off, but the biting chill winds and knee-deep snow made the trek miserable for everyone.

At least the cold would keep them awake and alert, and Mau could already feel a second wind coming upon her as she headed up the party.

The road felt like it went on forever, and by the time the party had the city of Bhelm behind them, they jumped at every sound and movement from the tree line.

"About how far are the mines, again?" Mau grunted as she slogged through fresh and untouched snow. Her feet were cold, and she was getting honestly very irate at the whole The Thing situation that she knew would likely be waiting for them at the mines.

"A few miles," Suvdaa replied brusquely while glancing at the map.

"The town was built close by, likely to make transport of ores easier for miners and smiths alike." Penne pointed out sagaciously.

Mau nodded as her boots crunched through the snow. A few miles would feel like forever in the cold, but at least the storm was over, so the party wouldn't freeze to death on the way. A brisk wind breezed by; the chill helped keep Mau awake a little more as her breath visibly puffed up like steam.

It was still a miserable trudge through the high snow as they made their way down the road, winding through trees and brush. Eventually, the trees gave way to the sight of the rocky mountainside. It wasn't too long after that that the trees gave way to a manmade clearing by the mountainside, revealing the open mouth of a cave in the side of the rockface. Several mine carts stood abandoned, full of ore, and piled even higher with snow atop them, while one cart lay toppled on its side, hastily abandoned in what Mau could only assume was the miners' last flight from the mine after the monsters attacked. There was no sign of a single soul, and the fresh snow hid any clues of what could have happened.

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"Well," Mau said. "Here we are."

The quartet stared into the dark mouth of the cave that led into the mines. The torches and lanterns were out and hadn't been lit for some time. Mau took a steeling breath and turned her head, feeling a hand rest gently on her shoulder.

It was Suvdaa, and the raider looked serious momentarily before her expression softened.

"We're with you, Mau," she said. Andy and Penne nodded. Mau nodded back to her friends as she took the first steps into the mouth of the mines. Though she, Andy, and Penne had the benefit of superior vision in the coming darkness, she knew it would be an issue for Suvdaa, who was only human.

"Andy, give us a light," Mau said before Suvdaa grunted.

"I will be fine," The raider said grumpily. "My eyes will adjust."

"Not as well as mine, or Andy's or Penne's. I need you sharp. Though your bow probably won't be much good in close quarters in there, I don't want us snuck up on." Mau said. Suvdaa was quiet for a beat before she nodded, and Andy struck up a divine light spell, illuminating the dark cavern in a soft white glow. The walls and cave roof were shored up with wooden supports, but with Andy's light spell, there was no missing splash marks of congealed blood on the floor as the party stepped further into the darkness. There was a lot of blood but not a single body to be found, and that concerned Mau. She didn't want to deal with more The Thing horrorterrors in a confined space again, but she knew it was only a matter of time before it would be bound to happen.

"That's... A lot of blood." Andy commented under his breath, chewing on his lip as the team moved in their typical marching order; Mau was at the front, Andy and Penne were in the middle, and Suvdaa was holding up the rear.

Mau clasped her trusted old short sword in her main hand, opting not to wield her new mithril blade. Its length would only be a hindrance in the tight spaces of the mines, especially if they got any tighter. Though there was plenty of space for now, thanks to the twin mine cart tracks that led in and out of the cave mouth, she wasn't sure how long that would last as the party progressed deeper. Mau would have to rely on the old short sword and some judiciously applied firebolts if anything lunged out of the darkness at her.

Thankfully, the inside of the mines were at least warmer than the blustering winter wonderland outside. It was still cold, but Mau could at least warm up by a few degrees as the party slowly crept down the lonely corridor inside the mountain. Soon enough, the corridor started branching in different directions, heading deeper into the mountain's depths.

"So, which way do we go?" Andy asked, keeping his voice low and quiet to avoid attracting any attention to the party.

Mau paused momentarily, glanced down another roughly hewn stone passage, and took a breath.

"Mau would know," Penne spoke up. "It's her sword, after all. It's part of the story; the hero knows where to find what they need when needed."

Mau tensed briefly.

"I hate being called a hero," the catgirl muttered under her breath but shut her eyes tightly. Penne was right. In her prior lives, when she came within distance of the holy sword made by the gods, she just knew where it was.

She glanced down at the cave floor when she opened her eyes again. A faint glimmer caught her attention.

There was a chunk of mithril ore on the ground at her foot. Another sat several feet away down a tunnel leading north, and her eyes made out the faint shimmering trail of mithril chunks leading further inward.

"That way," Mau said, nudging her chin toward the ore chunks.

With their path chosen, the party moved in silence. The caves were stone silent, quiet enough for the four to hear their hearts thumping in their chests as they waited with bated breath for an attack at any second, an attack that came as soon as the new path opened into a small chamber.

"RRRRAAAAAAAA!" A voice shouted in the darkness. Mau's ears twitched. She had heard the dwarf's controlled breathing well before he took the swing, and she nimbly hopped back while parrying aside the pickaxe that had been aimed at her head.

With a firm boot to the middle, the old dwarf crumpled with a cough, but several more stirred in the darkness, making Mau realize that he hadn't been hiding there alone.

"Hold up! We're not infected!" Mau said hastily, holding up her hands in hopes that the miners were of sound mind.

"Gah, blast it!" The fallen dwarf huffed with a scowl as he picked himself up. He looked like he was gearing up for another swing when a scaled hand suddenly rested on his shoulder.

"Please forgive us," a dragonkin spoke as he stepped into the torch's light.

"We've been hiding here for days; our food is running out, and those things are still out there. We thought we'd never see a friendly face again."

Another dwarf with a shovel in her hands and dust-covered red hair lurked at the periphery of the torchlight, glowering at Mau and her party suspiciously.

"Make them prove it!" She snapped. "How do we know they aren't infected?"

Mau blinked.

"Uh. How exactly are we supposed to prove that?" Mau asked skeptically. "It's not like we can do blood tests in a mine."

"Blood test?" A Demi-human miner in the shadows asked, his bunny ears pricking up curiously.

"Look..." The pickaxe-wielding dwarf said as he stood up with a wheeze, clutching his graying beard. "I'm sorry I swung at ya, but we can't be sure who is or isn't one of those things... They could be anyone, yer neighbor, yer best friend, they could be you, they could be me." He huffed while catching his breath. "For all we know, they're already... Among us."

Mau stood there, balking for a beat. "Sounds sus to me, " she muttered before shaking her head. "But The Thing still did this first."

The dwarves, bunnyman, and dragonkin stared at Mau like she had three heads.

"Please ignore the dumb cat's movie antics," Suvdaa said, stepping past Mau. Her bow was in her hands, ready to fire at the next sign of aggression, "But we are not here to harm you, nor are we here to rescue you; you are on your own for that; we are simply passing through."

This made Andy blink.

"Wait, we're not going to help them?" He asked.

Penne shook their head, "We have a quest to fulfill. We can't dawdle."

Everyone stood in tense silence before the dwarf woman heaved a sigh.

"If you're not gonna help us, then at least tell us, is the town safe?"

Mau shook her head while Andy, Suvdaa, and Penne stared exhaustedly into the mid-distance like they were suffering from shell shock.

"Don't go back to town," Mau said very quickly. "It's completely overrun; we barely got out of there, ourselves."

The dwarf stared at her in disbelief.

"Then... Where are we supposed to go?"

"Anywhere other than Bhelm," Suvdaa said tersely.

"... Unless one of you is infected." Mau suddenly realized that if the infection spread beyond one town, it could be disastrous for the rest of the continent, if not the whole world.

"... Because if one of you is infected and this spreads...," she trailed off as everyone came to the same realization.

"Wait, wait, wait!" the bunnyman said suddenly. "We've been around each other the past week; no one among us here is infected!"

"... Sus," Mau whispered.

"The hell does 'sus' mean, anyway?" The older dwarf grunted while Mau eyed the miners dubiously.

"Okay, here's the deal," Mau sighed. "On the chance that one of you IS infected... We can't just let you out into the world."

Tensions immediately spiked as the miners clutched their tools tighter. But Mau shook her head.

"I don't want to kill or hurt any of you." She added quickly. "But we can't take the risk of this The Thing... Plague or whatever it is spreading."

The miners glanced at one another dubiously.

"And how do you propose we prove to you that we're not infected?" The dragonkin pointed out.

"Got a pan?" Mau asked. "Because I've got an idea."

There was a beat of silence and stillness in the cave before the dwarf woman rummaged among their collective belongings and pulled out a small cook pan.

"Turns out..." Mau said. "We are gonna do a blood test."

"Uh. How?" Andy asked, raising his hand like a boy in class.

Mau sheathed her short blade and pulled out a dagger. She didn't even wince as she slashed her thumb open and let the blood dribble into the pan.

"So they figured it out in The Thing," she explained, but she was quickly interrupted.

"WHAT thing?" The Miners all demanded in unison.

"--I'm NOT explaining that again!" Mau snapped.

"You barely explained it the first time." Penne groaned.

Mau glanced over her shoulder and shot the hagling a withering look while she bled into the pan.

"ANYWAY. If someone is infected with this... plague, every part of them will fight back when threatened. Even their blood."

Mau's blade suddenly glowed red hot as she funneled her magic into it; she dipped the dagger's tip into the bloody pan...

It sizzled quietly and without issue.

"As a sign of good faith... Suvdaa, Andy, and Penne will all go next."

"I don't want to cut my thumb," Penne noted.

"Please don't make this difficult." Mau sighed.

"And if we don't do this?" The old dwarf asked, once again clutching his pickaxe.

Mau shrugged, "Then I'm going to have to assume you're infected." She said side-eying him. "And then you have to die."

The miners started to sweat, self-preservation instincts kicking in, but terror kept them in place. They had no idea how well-equipped or effective Mau's team was in a fight, and all they had was some shoddy mining equipment with no real weapon training among them.

"Fine." The older dwarf spat.

Suvdaa cut her thumb next on her own knife. The result was negative when Mau tested it. Something Mau was silently glad for.

Andy winced when his turn came up, and to his credit, he only gave a small yelp at the cut. He then heaved a visible sigh of relief to discover that he, too, was not infected.

Penne grimaced but let Suvdaa cut their thumb last. Again, the result was negative.

"This doesn't prove anything!" The bunnyman suddenly snapped. "What if it doesn't work like that?!" He demanded, voice raising with frustration.

This immediately put all the other miners on edge, readying themselves for a fight once again, but Mau held up a hand,

"If none of your blood reacts... You can walk right out of here." She said.

"Or?" The female dwarf pressed her.

"Or..." Mau sighed, setting her on the hilt of her long blade to make the threat visible without needing to be spoken.

"We can TAKE them!" The bunnyman said, "Just rush the catgirl!"

"I really wouldn't do that," Penne said, tone completely mild. "Mau has killed worse things than a Jabberwock."

"It's a lie!" the bunnyman snapped. "Come on, guys, we can take them and run!"

"You're next," Mau decided as the other miners suddenly turned on their comrade. Fear and suspicion swayed them to act on their instincts and drag him closer to the party rather than risk all of their lives.

The instant the bunny came close, Mau could feel it. A subtle wrongness to him, a nagging, clawing suspicion at the back of her animal brain that made the hairs on her neck stand on end. Andy's lips curled back, and his tail tucked behind his legs. Penne and Suvdaa exchanged looks.

Dulguun growled. The little cub was put just as on edge as the rest of them, and Mau immediately knew why the bunny was so keen on trying to take her on while Suvdaa held the cub back from rushing at the Demi-human man and snapping.

Mau quickly took the bunnyman's hand and cut his thumb before he could protest.

When she dipped her red hot blade in the blood, it sizzled and leaped up at her with a screech.

Mau saw it coming a mile away and was the only person who didn't jump back from the pan when it happened.

In the next instant, the bunny flung his companions aside with inhuman strength and a wailing cry. But he wasn't fast enough.

Before Mau could draw her blade, the bunny screeched in agony as he was suddenly engulfed in a brilliant golden flame. Limbs flailing as they distorted grotesquely, he cried and moaned in pain before collapsing to the mine floor. Unable to roll out the divine fire, he smoldered and sizzled until all that was left was a charred and mangled corpse.

Mau looked over her shoulder. Andy's hands were trembling, and they clutched his staff tightly.

"Goddamn, Andy, quick on the draw," Mau said proudly.

"I'm tired," Andy replied. "I'm scared. And I'm not going to let one of these The Things hurt my friends!" The dogboy snapped, still growling.

Mau patted him gently on the head to soothe him.

The rest of the miners quickly lined up to have their blood drawn.

Mau felt so tired.