“Run!” Owyn barked at Mr. Vernant.

The former swordsman acted on instinct, obeying Owyn’s commanding tone without question. He bolted away from the church’s members before remembering where he was and slowing down a second later.

Lady Bellamy and Barry continued urging him closer, much to his confusion. The members of the church regarded everything happening with a cool demeanor, not moving to stop him. Mr. Vernant just walked over to the panicking kids with a questioning look.

“What? What’s going on?”

Abby and Barry stepped between him and the church, clearly in defensive postures. Most eyes were on the giant cardinal with the glowing pupils. Owyn, being the tallest and therefore closest to his ear, whispered the answer no father wanted to hear.

“They’re the ones that killed Grant.”

A flash of anger followed by confusion overcame Mr. Vernant. “But… they’re the church? The dungeon killed Grant. The Baroness said so.”

“She’s enthralled.” Abby spat. “LUCID! LUCID, WE MIGHT NEED HELP HERE!”

“They’re calling for the dungeon for help?” The giant cardinal rumbled, amused. “This does sound promising. Well done on calling me here.”

“Thank you.” Franz smiled at the praise.

“What?” Mr. Vernant was clearly lost. Owyn couldn’t blame him. “She’s a thrall? But… Huh?”

“We’ll explain it later.” Barry told him. “We need to get out of here alive first.”

Franz laughed. “Oh, I’m sure you already know that you’re not getting out of here unless we allow you to.”

The cardinal stepped off to the side, pointing his staff towards the group of adventurers, but giving his attention to the horde of knights behind him.

“The dungeon may have taken an interest in these ones. Capture them, beat them, and present them to the core.”

Mr. Vernant clearly heard that. And while he still seemed a little hesitant, he seemed to side with the kids for now. He lifted his large sword against the church, standing firmly in the center of the adventurers. In his other hand, he held a wand with a light spell core on the end. Although, the wand was thick enough it should probably be considered a baton.

“Where’s Grant's body? Even his clothes would be fine. Did the dungeon take them?”

“Grant’s an undead.” Lady Bellamy said. “He works for Lucid now.”

“Are you enthralled?” He asked.

All four of them answered with some variation of ‘no’. Mr. Vernant grimaced.

“I’ll have to take your word for it.”

“Back up.” Abby told the group as knights began marching into the room. “Tell Mimi. She’ll pass on the word to Lucid.”

Owyn grit his teeth. “She won’t be able to reach him. A dungeon's ability to communicate with its monsters is proportional to the amount of territory it controls. I don’t know what happened to Lucid, but I don’t want to be optimistic.”

“To Mimi it is.” Lady Bellamy decided.

The group retreated into the next room, followed calmly by the knights of the church. Neither side seemed in a rush. The knights knew they didn’t have anywhere to go, and the adventurers weren’t willing to drop their guard. The leading priests waltzed in behind a dozen or so knights through the doorways and corridors, providing light from behind. More knights followed in behind them, and more lights behind that.

“How many are there?” Owyn asked Mr. Vernant.

“I don’t know.” He grumbled. “More than a few hundred. They were hard to miss, parading through town like that. I’d just assumed they went to the Baroness already, and so I asked if I could join them. To… you know…”

“Find what was left of Grant?” Barry joked a little morbidly.

“I was going to say get revenge, but that too.” His mood never wavered.

“Yeah, well maybe you’ll get to meet him again.” Lady Bellamy said. “Say goodbye, like the rest of us.”

“I wish you would have told me he was undead.” Mr. Vernant grumbled.

“Why? Would you have welcomed him home?”

“I’d have killed him myself.”

The group backed into Lucid’s core room, where Mimi was.

Abby called out over her shoulder. “Mimi, you should come with us please. The church is here.”

Mimi immediately rushed out of her sitting spot, charging for the group. Mr. Vernant, under the low light, panicked and flipped around to face her. She raised all four hands in a sign of universal surrender, slowing down her approach, but not quite stopping.

“She’s with us.” Owyn assured him with his actions, keeping his back firmly to the monster. It took an exercise of extreme trust for him to not even glance her way.

Mr. Vernant lifted his light baton above his head, to get a better look at the room around them. His eyes instantly landed on Grant’s giant statue.

“Grant…”

“Lucid honors heroes.” Barry said simply. “He likes Grant. We’re friends.”

Mr. Vernant stared at the statue for a second longer, tears forming in his eyes.

“We need to keep moving.” Owyn muttered, uneasy with the distance the knights had gained during their short stop.

“Right.” He blinked away his tears, returning his hard gaze to the knights of the church. This time, they burned with hatred.

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Mimi led the group deeper into the dungeon at a slow walk, checking over her shoulder to ensure a proper distance was maintained. The walk into the moss room next door was through a narrow corridor, which the knights and priests entered without hesitation.

A loud boom sounded from behind the knights.

Screams of surprise and hurt followed. The sounds of battle ensued, much to everyone's confusion. Both groups stopped to look over everyone else’s shoulders into the core room. A stone blade swept past, knocking dozens of heavily armored bodies into the air. The light behind the first two dozen knights winked out for a second, replaced by a light coming from somewhere further down the procession. Cries of confusion and fear rang out as knights attempted to rush into the room.

A giant stone foot stomped into the ground just before the entrance before a grinning stone face peered into the corridor where the leading knights had followed the adventurers.

Grant’s statue kept that goofy grin on it, even as an arm reached in to pluck a knight out of the back of the procession.

The knight screamed, uselessly slashing his sword against Statue Grant’s stone wrist. Its hand wasn’t quite able to fully wrap around the knight, so it just held him with its fingers along the knight's back and a thumb around his stomach. With an effort, the statue squeezed, and everyone heard a snap, followed by a crunch, and then a gush of blood flowed out of the knight's stomach. The knight drooped limply in the statue's hand.

The rearmost knights pushed, shoving each other forward to get away from the thing, even as the cardinal spread his massive arms wide and laughed.

“WONDERFUL! THE DUNGEON HAS CREATED LIFE! A-HAHAHAAAAA!”

Franz seemed to revel in the cardinal's joy, sharing it with great laughter. The knights, desperate for something to do other than to fight the stone monstrosity, charged for the adventurers.

“Go!” Mr. Vernant shouted, urging the ranged dealers on.

Mimi led the sprint away from the knights, heading blindly into darkness. Owyn tried his best not to look back. To keep his head light fixed firmly ahead. They needed to turn there. The next doorway was on this wall. Straight shot. Through and through, the group sprinted away from the heavily clad knights, who eventually had to slow down due to the lack of light.

They weren’t safe though. As soon as the priests decided they’d seen enough of the statue, they’d resume their march against the adventurers, providing light and collecting their forces as they went.

“Where are we going?” Mr. Vernant asked.

“Hopefully to Lucid.” Abby said. “If not, maybe Mercy can help us?”

Owyn grimaced, doubtful. “Mercy is more like the dungeons I know. She’s likely to just try and kill us.”

“What the hell is up with that statue?” Barry asked.

“I don’t know.” Owyn growled. He hated not knowing.

“What’s the plan!” Mr. Vernant insisted, trying to get the kids on track.

“Get help from Lucid.” Lady Bellamy said.

Abby supplied a better explanation. “Lucid seems to have it out for the church. We don’t know why, but we’re not going to turn down some extra help.”

“How the fuck is a dungeon going to help!” Mr. Vernant shouted angrily.

If Mimi took offense to that, she didn’t react.

They ran through the corpse room. Or, what used to be the corpse room. The dried blood and smell remained, but there wasn’t a single body left behind. Lucid must have used them to regain the last bits of mana necessary for the fight against Depths. Hopefully he won.

The group skid to a stop at the edge of the cliff. Abby and Owyn both stood over the hanging edge, peering down into the darkness below. The caverns were silent, for the most part. It was hard to tell accurately with blood pounding through your head.

Abby sucked in a breath.

“LUCIIIIIIID!”

Mimi clicked her feet against the stone, drawing their attention. She pointed down the edge of one corner. Owyn leaned over, shining his light on a series of indentations in the stone, almost like a ladder.

“Abby?” Called Grant’s voice from the distance below.

Mr. Vernant reacted instantly, dropping to his knees and crawling to the edge of the stone. “Grant!?”

“Dad!?” Grant sounded more surprised than Mr. Vernant.

Mr. Vernant barked a laugh, tears forming at the corners of his eyes. “Grant! Hey buddy! I’m here! Sorry I’m late!”

“I see you!” Grant’s voice called up from the darkness. “Wave your light around!”

Mr. Vernant quickly shook his baton. It didn’t last long though, because he dropped it soon after. “Catch! I want to see you!”

The light winked out as it fell.

“No!” Owyn half lunged for the falling object. He held himself back and just groaned. “Dammit, we could have used that. Thralls can’t use magic, and Grant’s an undead. If you want to see him, he’s going to have to light a fire the old fashioned way.”

Mr. Vernant looked up to Owyn, then back down to the darkness. “Oh…”

“I got it dad! But I can’t use magic anymore!”

“Yeah- we established that! Thanks Grant!” Owyn shouted. “Look, Mr. Vernant. I know you’re not really in a trusting mood right now, but I think we need to do as Mimi says. Come on, let’s get down the ladder.”

Mimi nodded, moving out of the way. Owyn stood above the corner, peering down. The distance seemed infinite, with the lack of light. He swallowed, looking back at the group. “Alright, who’s first?”

“How’s Mimi going to get down?” Lady Bellamy asked, worried for the giant mimic crab.

Mimi held up a hand, shuffling over to the edge of the cliff. Two shadows formed out of the void, joining her on either side. While one of them just looked like a dog sized blob of darkness, the other one had some definition. A humanoid body, with scales tipped with fur across every surface. The creature had well defined muscles, four large bat-like wings, and knives in either hand.

“Demon…” Owyn muttered, hesitating to draw his bow.

“That’s Subsonar and Depths’ boss monster!” Grant shouted from down below. “Depths is gone now! They’re friends!”

The shadow blob crawled formlessly up Mimi’s carapace, spreading itself thinly over her back. The larger demon flapped his wings, getting in behind her to tuck his arms beneath her human ones. The formless blob flared out previously unseen wings, and together, they all dropped off the edge of the cliff. Mimi’s body morphed, becoming one with the darkness as they flew away.

Armor clacked against armor.

The church was here. The remaining humans all seemed to curse mentally, turning around to face them.

The cardinal spread his massive arms wide, giving them a huge grin. “Has our new favorite dungeon moved? Is it down there?”

Franz lifted his nose at the group, noticing the lack of Lucid’s mimic crab. “If Lucid so values his own, do you think he’d appreciate it if we killed his human friends?” His voice seemed to indicate he was playing at something.

“I wouldn’t suppose so.” The cardinal smirked. His face dropped into something more serious as he lowered his spear-staff to point at the group. “Capture the kids. Kill the swordsman.”

Twenty knights flooded into the room, all of them with their weapons sheathed or outright discarded. A few of them held up decorated shields, preemptively blocking any chance of a ranged counter attack.

Isabelle screamed out a war cry, forming fireball after fireball with her wand. While the weak attacks did nothing against the superior armor of the knights, it at least inspired Owyn to begin firing off his own attacks. The three sword wielders of the group readied their swords.

The knights slowed down in their approach, but they never stopped. Abby’s sword slapped at the gauntlets of the knights, but nothing she did seemed to deter them. She needed more room. She took half a step back. Another. Her body pressed into Owyn’s. They were running out of room to fight back. The first hands reached her. First, they gripped her sword, pulling it out of her hands before they grasped her belt, her tunic, her arms. Abby’s struggles only jostled Owyn, who was relying on her protecting him. She needed to fight, but she was out of room!

Isabelle shrieked, a foot dipping off the edge of the cliff. Abby was too far away to help.

Mr. Vernant shoved against the knights, driving the point of his sword into their armor before abandoning it and taking a step back. His hands pressed against Isabelle’s back, pushing her and Barry into the awaiting arms of the knights, even as he fell back into the void.

Owyn’s presence disappeared from behind Abby’s back. His light arced, and he too, fell back into the void. Abby screamed, twisting in the grips of the knights to rescue him.

The last thing she saw was Owyn’s surprised face, and the void’s hands around his chest.