Shortly after dealing with the miners and finding that none of them, besides the demi-human, had been infected, Mau and the party hunkered down for a short rest. Though they couldn't rest for too long in the cold murkiness of the mines, they were able to catch enough of a nap to be able to press on once the mining crew had left. Mau woke up feeling not quite refreshed but able to trudge on and rubbed her eyes with a big cat-fanged yawn.

"Good thing you're up, lazybones cat," Suvdaa said while sharpening her knife. "We were getting ready to think about leaving without you."

Mau stuck her tongue out as Andy gave a nice big stretch, where he was also beginning to wake up.

"I know you're just saying that because you're bored," Mau replied.

Suvdaa grunted a vague affirmation as she plopped down beside the lazybones cat.

"While you were asleep, Penne sent their moth ahead to scout for us. It hasn't run into any more of those The Things, but it did find something interesting." Suvdaa said.

"Ruins," Penne interjected as they adjusted their robes to stave off the cold a little better. "Mothra found ruins."

Mau blinked. "Well, that makes sense; we were told that this all started when the miners dug too deep and hit some of those. ... Also, you named your Familiar 'Mothra'?"

Penne shot Mau a flat look.

"Is there a problem with that?" They asked.

Mau, who was still reeling, shook her head.

"... Mothra is a fine name for a giant moth..." She answered.

It wasn't a whole night's sleep, but Mau felt refreshed enough to press on. Technically, she could have pressed on without the rest, but a pang of worry for her party mates like Andy made her adamant about the group catching a break while they could.

Once everyone was up and awake, the group pressed on. Mau took her usual place at the front of the marching order, with Andy and Penne following shortly after and Suvdaa watching the rear.

The mines were like a maze, but the miners had roughly sketched a map for the party before leaving, and Mau committed it to her memory. As a backup, Suvdaa also scribbled the directions on a sheet of parchment, just in case. The group took their time, stealthily creeping through the cave corridors and chambers to avoid any further contact with any more of The Things that might have been lurking in the depths, while Penne's familiar flew just ahead of the group. Between Mau's mental map and the path the moth had followed, it wouldn't be long before the group hit the ruins the miners had been so spooked to find.

Sneaking past several rooms full of monsters, the quartet delved another hour into the murk of the endless corridors and passages under the earth, following mine cart tracks and broken torch sconces before Mau paused.

"We should be hitting those ruins soon." She whispered back to her friends, earning silent nods in reply. Almost as soon as she said this, she felt the breeze coming through a crack in the rock wall to her side. Mau pressed herself to the cave wall and sidled her way up to a large crack that split into another section of the mines. Peeking around the corner, Mau pursed her lips.

Spreading into the vast expanse of a gigantic chamber under the mountain was a sprawling cityscape of ancient buildings and edifices, right where Mau's mental map said it would be.

"Yep," Mau said simply.

Andy was next to take a peek behind her.

"...Yep." He echoed as Penne took a look.

"Yup." The hagling said.

Suvdaa was next to take a look through the crack in the wall.

"Mhm." She sighed as Mau was already wriggling herself through the crack in the stone wall, tail shimmying as she clambered onto the platform on the other side of the stone wall. Andy followed her, and they both helped Penne through as the hagling was slightly bigger than the two of them, while Suvdaa kept her ears and eyes peeled. Once the three were through, Suvdaa came following after them.

The mining team that had begun the initial exploration of the ruins had left a rope ladder that descended into the darkness of the city below, and the party started their descent. Mau's boots quietly landed on a cobbled stone path, obscured by a thin layer of mist, and as soon as she touched the ground, her swords were ready. There wasn't a single sign of life in the ruins, but Mau's animal brain was going haywire with the feeling of threats from every direction. Andy shuddered as he landed beside her, his pale face contorted in a grimace. He was feeling the same thing she was.

"Mau, I don't like this," Andy muttered. "It feels like they're everywhere."

Mau nodded as Penne finished descending the ladder next.

"I know. Just stick close." Mau said gently as she set a hand on his shoulder.

Penne and Suvdaa joined them in the misty streets, and the party re-grouped in their marching order with an incredibly paranoid Mau and Andy in their positions.

Every gust of wind that whispered through the ancient buildings made Mau's skin crawl. She expected a The Thing to lurch out at her from the shadows at any second.

The buildings seemed to have been neatly hewn out of the mountain itself rather than built brick by brick, with solid walls and neatly cut square windows that peeked into yawning blackness. Mau was no stone worker, but she had seen enough dwarven ruins in her past lives to know what she was looking at when she saw the elaborate knot-like designs carved into the buildings.

"Whelp. We've got some ancient dwarven ruins on our hands." She said in a hissed whisper.

Andy clutched his staff with a white-knuckled grip. His floppy golden retriever ears perked up and swiveled for even the softest noise.

"... How old are they?" Andy asked, voice barely above a whisper.

"Donno. Hard to tell. I'm not an expert in dwarven history; I just know this place is 'old.'" Mau muttered as she paused, whirling to face where she thought she heard a noise. Penne and Suvdaa also jerked to look that way in the same instant.

"What is it?" Suvdaa hissed.

"It's this whole damn place," Mau grunted. "It's driving me and Andy wild. My teeth fucking itch like the time we ran into the old lady in town, except the feeling is coming from everywhere." She explained.

"Clearly, it's something only animals and demi-humans can feel." Penne mused thoughtfully as they looked to Dulguun, who was cowering in the shadow of Suvdaa's bear cloak. "I'm not surprised, as demi-humans are said to be more in touch with their animal side than humans are."

The group trudged through the mists, weapons ready for any surprises that might have been waiting to jump out at them, slowly wandering through the oppressive gloom and silence of the ruins.

"Do we even know where we're supposed to be going from this point?" Suvdaa hissed softly, clutching her knife close to her chest.

Mau motioned for the most prominent building in the distance, a tall grey ziggurat reaching up to the roof of the cavern, which she could just barely make out in the darkness.

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"That way. It's there. It's gotta be." She whispered before the entire party froze.

"That way. It's there. It's gotta be." Mau whispered again, which resulted in a series of funny faces from Andy and Penne.

"You just said that, Mau," Andy said quietly.

Mau grunted, "I didn't. I mean, that wasn't me the second time."

"Do we even know where we're supposed to be going at this point?" Suvdaa's voice echoed back at them in the darkness.

"What is this Predator now?" Mau spat as she took on a ready stance with her blades. Everyone formed up back-to-back and prepared for an imminent attack.

The shuffle of feet in the darkness immediately put the party on edge. It was a slow, shambling, foot-dragging noise that echoed in circles around the buildings, making it difficult to tell which direction it was coming from.

And then another set of feet joined the first. And another joined that. Soon enough, the city had come to life with the sounds of hissed breath and the rustle of movement.

A figure lurched out of the darkness and mist, which was horrifying to behold. The ratty and time-worn clothes said that the dwarf had been dead for a very long time; his- or her- beard was scraggly and dried out, and their skin was a hardened, reddened, mummified leather stretched tightly over their bones. The issue was that the mummy dwarf had three heads with two mouths, eight eye sockets, and gnashing fangs as it reached out with decrepit bone-claw hands.

It was not alone as similarly disfigured and deformed creatures, much like it creaked and shambled their way out of the mists.

"Nope." Mau decided and motioned for the party to retreat into the nearest building.

Andy, Penne, Suvdaa, and Dulguun all hastily agreed and rushed the open doorway as Mau flung a firebolt into the zombified crowd. One of the monsters went up in flames with a shrill and keening cry of dismay, and Mau didn't bother looking back as she shoved her way into the squat stone house.

"Up the stairs." She said as soon as she saw them. She didn't have to say it; Suvdaa was already chasing Dulguun halfway up with Andy and Penne hot on their heels.

Mau lunged up the stairs two at a time as the first of the monstrosities came through the door, and she found herself on the roof of the building. Dulguun squealed as Suvdaa picked him up and took a vaulting leap across a short gap to the building across the way.

Andy followed suit, quickly jumping the gap before Penne took their leap. Penne landed a little badly, tumbling into a sprawl, but promptly picked themself up with a huff. Mau followed suit once her teammates were across, and the party broke into a full-tilt sprint to leap to the next building. While most of the monsters were busy piling into the first building, Mau and company were already four buildings away, but the ancient city was now awake and aware of their presence.

When Suvdaa landed on the next building, she let out a noise of disgust. Andy made a similar noise shortly after, and then, surprisingly, Penne made one, too.

"The hell's going on over there?" Mau called over, trying to get a better look across the gap. Something glistened on the next building's roof, but she couldn't quite make out what it was. "Hold on, I'll be right over."

Another vaulting leap carried Mau the distance between the two buildings, and she landed and nearly slipped onto her ass. The entire building roof was coated in a slimy, flesh-like substance the color of old blood. Mau lifted her boot, and a thick, viscous film clung to it.

"Oh, ew." She grunted as she looked to the others. Andy looked mortified, and Suvdaa and Penne simply looked like irritated, wet cats.

That was when the dank smell of old blood hit Mau's nose like a freight train. Andy, whose sense of smell was even better than Mau's, gagged.

While the party had made some distance, a quick glance over the building's edge told Mau that the entire city was crawling with the decrepit monsters down below; she could see their indistinct and hideous forms shambling in the thickening mists, and her face tightened by a degree as she looked to the ziggurat the party was trying to reach.

Closer now, she could see that the following few buildings and the tall pyramid structure were coated entirely in the slimy, red, gore-like substance that coated the roof of the building they were on.

"That is concerning," Penne said blandly.

"Just a little bit." Suvdaa agreed while struggling with a now wildly panicking little bear in her arms.

"Shhhh," she shushed Dulguun until the fuzzball went still in her arms and turned into a trembling mass of brown fur.

"Let's keep going before these things remember how their knees work and figure out how to use stairs," Mau said as she geared up to take another jump to the next building when something flew past her head.

"The fuck?!" Mau spat as she ducked from the glob of red slime and sharp bone that hurtled past her and splattered harmlessly on the roof. Before she could try to retake the jump, another blob arced up from the ground and hit the side of the building with a splat.

Mau peeked into the gloom below to see that the The Things had started gathering, pulling pieces from their rotting bodies, and hurling them up at the party from the ground.

"Oh, they can't use stairs, but can they remember to do that?" Mau grunted irritably.

The party was beset by these hurled globs of nastiness as they crossed to the next building and the building after, forced to time their jumps to avoid the deadly slop being launched up at them from below. But every building they crossed brought them closer and closer to the dwarven ziggurat in the distance.

The closer the party got to the ziggurat, however, resulted in a very distinct change in the environment. More of the building rooftops were covered in sticky red slime; soon enough, the walls were coated in the same gunk, and it spread down to the streets below. The temperature was warming noticeably as the gunk gave off a nasty, smelly, and steamy humidity that made the fog thicken the further they progressed.

"Ugh, it smells like old blood," Andy complained, covering his nose as the team made another leap.

That's when they learned the hard way that the slimy substance wasn't exactly good for ancient stone and mortar.

Suvdaa led the charge across another gap and jumped, landing with a little slip on the next rooftop before she frowned.

"The stone is shifting under my feet. It's unstable- find another way around-" She started to say before Andy landed beside her.

Their combined cry of dismay echoed through the cavern and likely drew the attention of more monsters as the roof collapsed beneath their feet, plunging them into the darkness below.

"Shit!" Mau spat as she skidded to a halt with Penne. "We've gotta get down there."

Penne nodded grimly before they followed Mau down the side of the squat building. Mau landed first and then turned around and caught the hagling princess-carry style as they jumped down next.

"... Put me down," Penne muttered, pale face flaring with a fluster.

Mau quickly obliged, and they both ducked under a hurled slimeball before they ducked into the doorway of the building Suvdaa and Andy had fallen into. The creatures inside barely stirred from where they were glued to the stone walls, a morass of tangled limbs oozing sticky fetid sludge from every pore; their sunken eyes stared at Mau as she stepped into the squat remnants of the building. Andy was out cold, bleeding from his forehead, and Suvdaa was already dragging him toward the doorway.

"Out out out out out!" The raider hissed, breath quickening with panic as a barb-tipped tendril of flesh lashed out from one of the wall-bound creatures. The creature moaned victoriously as the tentacle shot out with enough force to take Suvdaa's head clean off her shoulders, but then its cry turned into one of pain as Mau's blade was quicker.

The severed tentacle flopped bonelessly to the floor, spraying ichor from the cut end as it writhed and twisted. But then the other wall-bound monsters revealed similar razor-barbed tentacles ready to lash for Mau next.

"-Out out out out!" Mau said as she backpedaled away from the horrific sight and crossed the door's threshold. Just as she cleared the door, a tangle of deadly tentacles stabbed into the ground where she had been just seconds before.

Breathless and blood pumping with adrenaline, Suvdaa and Mau staggered away from the door with Andy in tow. Penne was already reaching into their rucksack for something and pulled out a small vial. Snapping the vial open in their fingers, they held it under Andy's nose, forcibly awakening the dog-boy with a sudden gasp.

Andy quickly reached for his throbbing skull and groaned but was back on his feet with the others in the next second. The ziggurat was just a stone's throw away, but the monsters starting to crowd the slimed-over streets would make it a nightmare to get by to the great stone doors.

Mau drew her short blade and twirled her mithril longsword in her main hand.

"I'll cut us a path, Suvdaa, Penne, help Andy keep up."

"I'll be fine," Andy said stiffly, still holding his head. "I don't want to be a burden anymore."

"Good on you. Do you think you can keep up?" Penne asked him.

"I can try." He replied.

"That's all we ask for," Suvdaa said with surprising gentleness.

Mau lunged forward, both swords flaring to life as they burst into flames in her hands. Ichor and cauterized limbs flew as she whirled into a mass of the The Things in her way. She ducked gracefully under scythe-shaped bone blades, slid under flung gunk and acidic bile, and hacked out several creatures' legs from beneath them as she skidded past and cleared a path for the others.

Several monsters erupted in golden holy fire and jet-black balefire as Andy and Penne followed while Suvdaa chased hot on their heels. The ziggurat doors were just within reach, and no sooner than Mau had cut a path for the team, she slammed herself into the stone doors full force.

The doors budged, and she hurled herself against them again, with Andy and Penne's weight joining her.

"Hurry!" Suvdaa hissed as she joined the others, forcing the doors wide enough for Mau to squeeze through and grip the edges of the door from the inside. With their combined effort, the heavy doors scraped the stone floors with an audible grinding as the rest of the team forced themselves through and then heaved to slam the doors shut with one last resounding thud of stone on stone.

Panting breathlessly, one of them just a little concussed, the party took just a second to recover... Before they turned to face the darkness ahead and whatever the inside of the ziggurat might hold for them.