Early in the morning, Kara and I grab breakfast and fill up her [Pantry] using the rest of our coins. I’d rather have food and not need it than need food and not have it when in the Depths.

Having done some reconnaissance the last time I was here makes finding the mine trivial but arriving at the mine, we find ourselves facing another problem.

"I haven't been informed of any decision regarding the Dunecrawler problem you claim we have," the new manager says. He has a broad build and wears a black and grey suit, stained with ash gem dust. "Leave or we'll have to make you."

"Boss…" one of the miners overhearing us says before whispering something in his ear.

The Manager's expression rapidly changes as he listens to what his subordinate tells him. "No… they are kids, she wouldn't, " he mumbles before straightening himself out and turning back to us, "Alright, Sorry. Let's start from the top."

We shake hands and he introduces himself "I am Garry, Nathan's replacement. We don't know what happened but the Dunecrawlers have been weirdly aggressive, building a lot more nests than usual. They even built one completely disconnected from the rest which I've been told isn't normal."

"That certainly isn't normal, do you have any tips or rules for us?" I ask. I assume he doesn’t have much information on them seeing that he is new here and the problem apparently being somewhat recent.

We follow him to the entrance of the mine, he diligently reiterates the rules we must adhere to before entering the mines. His attention to detail is impressive, as he goes so far as to quiz us on the rules before granting us access to the mines.

He grabs a lantern and hands one to each of us. "Now, please take care of yourselves and follow the rules to the letter. Their territory starts with the webs, watch out for nets. I'll have the letter for you ready when you get back."

"Alright, we've got it from here," I reassure him.

And thus, we descend into the depths. I pull out my trusty little notebook and start to meticulously note down every twist or turn of the tunnels, exhilaration filling me at exploring the unknown. Even if the Hunters Plains are dangerous and filled to the brim with stuff that wants to kill you but if you manage to get into a habit to be vigilant and always prepared, it’s manageable.

The Depths, on the other hand, have a completely different host of dangers that can kill you no matter how vigilant you are. You can die from a quake, tons of rock crushing you before you can defend yourself with Skills or equipment.

It’s the first time in a while that I am having actual fun, seeing as it’s while hunting monsters in the underground with an apparently bloodthirsty vampire probably says a lot more about me than my childhood.

It doesn't take long for the first webs to appear in the tunnels, glistening in the light of our lanterns. The miners completely abandoned the mine days ago but kept smaller tunnels staffed until it became too much so the Dunecrawlers probably expanded even more aggressively. I have never heard of a territory this huge, not even in stories.

"Ugh, I hate webs," Kara complains, using a stick she picked up earlier to wipe the webs away before they can stick to her. Blood and Gore are completely fine but webs are where she draws the line? "Didn't he say we'd need to walk for hours to enter their nest?"

"I guess he hasn't been down here in a while," I reply, "but seeing the size of this shit, we might have to find a better way to eradicate them than our current one." We could try to poison them if we knew what they eat except humans.

"We can always get them weak enough so the rest of the monsters take care of them," Kara says, “That is a lot easier than killing every last one of them.”

A credible idea that would require weeks of hunting down their groupings or developing a new weapon.

"We should have gone in a different direction with our preparations," I agree.

We don't have anything to keep time but it feels like an eternity before we encounter the first Dunecrawler.

It's waiting in ambush, hidden in a Web alcove, a metre wide, stuck to the side of the tunnel. Its huge fangs glean in the light of the lanterns, the dark exoskeleton is accentuated with red stripes over its abdomen. Its main body is three feet long with legs twice as long, bend to fit into the alcove.

"I'll take care of this one," Kara says, causing it to shift its head towards her. It doesn’t attack but I can see it tense upon recognising us as a threat.

She straps the lantern to her belt with a grin and stalks towards the Dunecrawler.

The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

I pull my revolver out of my holster and put a singular bullet into the chamber, just to be safe.

It jumps towards her like one of the small Spiders Lily had me dispose of for her and sometimes crawls into camps, Creepy little crawlies that scare children and taste surprisingly good roasted.

She ducks under the trajectory of the Dunecrawler and I raise my revolver but she rams the knife in the underside of its abdomen. The momentum of the spider cuts it open, showering Kara in the gore as the spider drops to the ground next to her, legs twitching.

[Congratulations, your party has killed a Dunecrawler Sentry- lvl 19]

Why do the legs always twitch and curl up when a spider gets killed?

"Well done," I say, passing her and holstering my revolver.

She follows me without an answer, probably flipping me off but I stop directly after the next bend, causing her to bump into me.

In front of me is a huge cave, filled with the corpses of over a dozen Dunecrawlers, a singular puddle of burning oil flickering in the middle of the room. Thin Stalagmites and Stalactites are spread around the room, some joining together to bridge the distance, nets spun between them. Most of the nets have burned down, covering the ground in ashes around the puddle of oil, clouding the upper half of the room in smoke.

"Woah," Kara exclaims adequately.

I strap my lantern to my belt and pull out both of my revolvers before making my way down towards the nearest corpse, staying crouched to stay below the smoke line.

There is not a single wound on the first corpse, no stabbing, bullet entry or exit, or even any signs of blunt force. I flip it over and check the bottom side but it's flawless, not even the fangs are chipped.

It looks like it just curled up and died without any fight.

We quickly check up on all the other corpses and find them similarly stainless, all except one.

The last one -or what remains of it- is stuck between a Stalagmite and the wall, turned into a steaming pool of gore.

"What the fuck did that?" She wonders out loud, poking the puddle with her web-removing stick that is thoroughly coated in webs by now, causing the webs to dissolve off of the stick.

None of the monsters I know kills like this, maybe dunecrawlers if they were to cannibalise but that would still leave the exoskeleton in one piece, maybe there's someone else down here with us. Someone driving the Spiders to be more aggressive. But why would someone do that?

"Let's keep moving before what- or whoever did this shows up," I say, already moving to the next tunnel and drawing a little skull on my map.

Kara does something with the corpse puddle while I wait at the tunnel and returns with a small, black gem. Onyx, dark-attuned Gems. "That was definitely no monster."

I grab the gem to examine it and find it unnaturally smooth, an artificial gem. Either a monster learned how to create and use Elemental Gems or we have someone down here with us. "We keep quiet, do you know Diver hand signals?"

She does some sort of hand signal which I assume means yes.

"Great, you can teach me," I say.

She rolls her eyes but quietly starts explaining the basics of Diver hand signals to me. All the Signs you have to use in combat are really easy but it also has more complex ones which she keeps for later. They'll still be useful once out of the mines and I've been thinking of learning them either way but it does make me wonder where she learned them.

We sweep through dozens of tunnels, clearing them of Dunecrawlers, getting two dozen kills and even a level for Kara in one of her subclasses. The Sentry we saw earlier was the highest levelled one, the others seldom reaching level ten and thus not being able to hit Kara or me at all unless they were to trap us in an ambush.

There are five dead Dunecrawlers that have no obvious signs of struggle or wounds we find. Each of them has an Onyx embedded in their head, right between their eyes. I pocket all of the Onyx and some of the firegems that are already revealed from the walls. Cinder isn’t paying us enough for this so I might as well steal Gems.

We decide to take a rest when we start to feel exhausted, having no concept of night or day makes a sleep schedule kind of obsolete for us right now. We retrace our steps until we reach a little cave offspring which was completely empty when we came through here earlier.

We check for any surprises but once sure there are none, I sit down at the entrance, silently volunteering to take the first watch.

Kara quietly accepts as she has been doing the majority of the fighting and summons a ration for both of us before laying down on her bedroll.

[Grant: Siro, do you have any stories about the depths below?]

[Siro: Of course! The Depths are a treasure trove of stories and monsters! Why, I remember myself, a freshly made deity, strolling…]

They continue to tell me all about the Depths and their first excursion down below, meeting up with a group of Divers he had to kill when they met Princess, the Gatekeeper of Sorym. He doesn't have anything to say about Dunecrawlers but that might have something to do with him running out of Mana than a lack of stories.

I spend a few minutes in silence, bored out of my skull but I suppose it's better to be bored and vigilant than entertained and distracted. I check on Kara and find her still asleep, lightly snoring.

A screech of pain rips through the mines, followed by a war cry unmistakably Goblin. A wall of sound with no rhyme or reason, just pure rage.

Kara sits up just as I was about to wake her up, almost butting heads with me, woken up by the war cry.

"It sounds like a small group, they are already fighting something else, " I say," Interfere or flee?"

"Fight," she replies with a vicious grin.