"Not the time or place, Jim," Joxin sent as he hobbled as fast as he could to the only exit not blocked by enemies. As he sent the message, Jim's arrow landed in the chest of one of the creatures who leapt forward, downing it and causing the others to throw themselves back into the shadows from fear. There's no courage in these creatures, Joxin thought with a bit of scorn.

The thralls, on the other hand, were marching over the bodies of the dead like they were nothing more than large, wobbly stones, reinitiating their relentless pursuit. Not that much to worry about there.

But that wasn't entirely accurate. They were a terrifying foe that would wear anything down with their relentless, implacable march. But that was a problem for the future exhausted Joxin and team. In the short term, running away from them was easy.

As Jim carried the suntorch across the room, Joxin squinted his eyes at their objective. It looked like a shadow just… Stopping and pulling free an arrow from his quiver, Joxin knocked it to the string and released it just to the side entrance to the tunnel at a slightly dark parch. Joxin would normally ignore what looked like nothing more than a shadow, but recent events made him wary of them.

And he watched it appear out of nowhere. It was kind of suspicious.

A high-pitched cry of a wounded beast filled the room in response to his shot, and a dark figure fell into the light out of what looked like nothing more than a dark shadow on the wall. A frown creased Joxin's lips as he looked at the body. How did it get here?

He would have noticed one of the creatures sprinting across the chamber to reach the tunnel. Maybe it came from deeper down the tunnel? Or snuck around before I noticed them? Joxin thought, trying to convince.

Starting to hobble again, Joxin saw some movement to his right at the edges of the chamber where the two tunnels exited. Turning, Joxin saw arms and legs waving in the dim light, like the creatures gathering at the tunnel's exit were fighting with each other.

Joxin could only blink in astonishment as the lower half of a creature was thrown into the light before it scrambled back to the dim corner of the room where the rest of its kin were. They're fighting each other to make someone else be the first to enter the light…

It was a truly selfish desire these creatures displayed. If the creatures didn't rush forward now when Joxin and the others were still out in the open and spread out, then far more of their brethren would die once their fight entered the confines of the tunnel.

He could be utterly wrong in his assumption, and every one of those creatures could be a master of the blade… but no. Just no. Joxin could go into all kinds of details he noticed about them, but it would be a waste of time. First impressions and profiling worked for a reason.

Though Joxin did get something wrong, the next creature would be the sixth to enter the light. But that fact was neither here nor there. Even if the creatures had the numbers to kill the scouts, none of them wanted to be the next to be lying face down on the ground with the bloody shaft of an arrow sticking out of their back, so focusing on them anymore would be pointless.

"When will there be a better time?" Jim snapped back, appearing next to Joxin, "Either we die and, in the end, you all feel guilty for not believing me, or we live, and everyone will remember this moment along with the fact I was right. It's a win-win for me."

"Huh, is that how it's gonna be?" Joxin replied casually, not a hint of the pain shooting up his leg entering his voice. "You know, you should be constantly checking the shadows for those little fanged bastards. They seem quite stealthy, so you never know when they will jump out of the shado—

Pivoting to his left and tilting up as his point was proven, Joxin raised his bow and released an arrow while hopping back. A black form was lunging out of a crevice overhead that looked far too small for anything to crawl out of, only to be met with Joxin's arrow midair and be thrown to the side from the impact.

The creature's war cry shifted into one of pain before it abruptly cut off as it landed wrong, breaking its neck. Not that Joxin could talk about keeping one's balance, as his probably broken ankle had given out from the hop, and he was falling to the side, his arms flailing.

"I got you," Bellous sent a moment before his hand grabbed a clump of Joxin's cloak, pulling him out of his fall as he charged past Joxin to help the screaming Jim.

"Arughhh~!" Jim screamed in a mixture of pain and rage as he drove the pummel of his sword rapidly into the face of the creature clamped onto his forearm. Half of the creature's head was caved in, and the divot was filled with blood so dark it looked black and had chunks of white sticking out from the sides of the hole, but the creature was still hanging onto Jim's arm like a starving wolf latched onto its last bone.

Bellous reached Jim and stepped to the side before hacking the back of the small thing's neck. At the slash, the last of the life seemed to leave the creature, and it fell to the ground.

"See," Bellous smugly sent, "all you have to do is put a little force into your blow, and they lose all the fight in them."

Jim looked blankly at Bellous and then to the caved-in side of the creature's head, bone chunks clearly visible. Then Jim exploded with annoyance as he said, "You didn't free shit! You just finished the job that thing started by ripping off the chunk of flesh in its mouth!"

To prove his point, Jim held up his left arm, where what must be a three-inch wide and two-inch-deep section of this tunic and flesh was missing.

"Why aren't you wearing bracers?" Joxin thought into the Union as he saw Jim's uncovered arms while still making his way to the passage and keeping careful watch around him. He didn't want a piece of his arm bitten off, after all.

But his comment immediately drew everyone's attention just because of the sheer stupidity of it. "You don't have your bracers on?" Sathera's mental voice was too neutral and calm, and it sent a shiver of sympathy down Joxin's spine as he felt Sathera's attention focused solely on Jim.

"I was being optimistic," Jim quickly replied, his mental voice becoming enthusiastic like he had just thought of the best argument possible. "Just like you always say! I expected today to be a languid one out in the grass where we sit and relax!"

"Are you using the fact I frequently say hope for the best and look on the bright side of things as a justification for why you didn't put on your bracers?" Sathera asked. "Did you forget legion training to always prepare for the worst? Or were you too focused on being comfortable and not having your forearms all sweaty as you sat in the sun all day?"

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“…No," Jim stated with only a hint of pain making it into the mental network, but his word was overflowing with uncertainty. Everyone could already tell that there wasn't a way out for him, so he tried to change the subject. "But shouldn't you lot be more concerned about the gaping wound in my arm weeping blood instead of scrutinizing what led us to this point?"

"Be optimistic…" Sathera said sweetly, "It will grow back," then, with a dismissive flick of her hair, after only glancing at the wound, she turned away and moved to take up a position next to the tunnel, looking into the chamber.

"It's just a flesh wound," Bellous grunted as he walked into the tunnel and the darkness, eyes fixed forward.

As Joxin passed him, he flicked a tendril from his hand to sweep over the ground while Jim stared at the other two in betrayal. "You dropped these," Joxin sent to Jim, tossing him the bitten-off chunk of arm and the suntorch. "Maybe the healers can put it back on."

Jim's mouth opened and closed a few times as he juggled his chunk of flesh and torch before finally snapping his mouth shut and slipping the meat into a belt pouch. As he started walking, he started muttering about how unfair this was and the blatant lack of concern around here, which everyone ignored.

Finally getting the point, Jim pulled out a bandage and wrapped up his arm while moving into the passage, with only a few hisses of pain. The best teacher in life was pain and suffering, and if Jim was going to make a stupid mistake, he might as well learn from it. Even if he was right about their being little black creatures running around under our feet.

Picking up the torch from where he dropped it, Jim joined Joxin in the middle of the group. With Joxin hardly able to walk and Jim down an arm, them being at either end of the formation wasn't practical anymore.

"Bellous," Sathera mentally called, "Move back until you are in the light. These creatures have far more advantage in the dark than us."

"Understood," Bellous replied, and Joxin felt him slow and start to move back to the group from down the tunnel before he added, "Watch your steps. This tunnel isn't as well crafted as the others, and the floor is uneven."

But the warning came too late. Jim released a small scream of shock and slammed into Joxin's back, who was unable to bear the weight on his bad leg, causing them both to fall to the ground. A moment after they hit, the tunnel was thrown into darkness as one or both of them covered the suntorch.

"What happened to the light?" Sathera immediately snapped before calling out again, "Contact rear!"

"Get off me," Joxin said, trying to turn and push at Jim as he attempted to disentangle their limbs, but he missed in the darkness.

As they moved about, beams of light from the torch made it past their bodies, revealing parts of the tunnels… and the creatures crawling out from a crevice overhead.

"Above us!" Joxin screamed into the network as he wrenched at his bow, trying to pull it free. Unable to budge it from under Jim, Joxin used a third of his psy to form a tendril, which he used to hook into Jim's harness and toss him to the other side of the passage before raising his bow and removing an arrow from his quiver with the tendril.

Realizing he would never get the arrow onto the string and draw it in time, Joxin dropped his bow and fumbled at his belt while he drove the arrow up with his tendril.

The first creature to fall, and perhaps the only brave one of its kind, met his arrow with its neck, which Joxin used as a lever to twist and push the creature back, causing it to land at his feet instead of on his chest.

At its death, the shrill battle cries of its kin overhead filled the tunnel, blocking out the sound of his clattering bow and Jim's moans of pain as they pushed off the ceiling.

Where in the void did they come from? Joxin managed to think before he used his tendril to pick up his bow and knock one of the figures falling toward him into the wall.

The creature's hands snapped up, and its body writhed to try to stop or dodge the bow's impact, but it was pointless. They were the ones who chose to drop helplessly through the air, and avoiding an attack while hanging in the air this close together was near impossible.

But Joxin didn't even think that it would be possible for them even if they had the amount of psy of a City Lord, as the only clothing the creatures had on which they could tug on with a tendril were simple loincloths and some threads over their chests that could only be generously call bags. Simply grabbing the clothes with a hand and slightly pulling would tear it off, let alone a tendril that had to move one's whole weight.

Speaking of weight, moving Jim and the two creatures had taken its toll on the psy he pushed into the casting, and now it was all but used up. Joxin didn't have the reserves or willpower to continue being so frivolous, so he dropped the casting to form a new one out of his right hand.

Joxin wrapped the forming tendril around the hilt of the combat knife clutched in his hand, which he finally had a good grip on. He yanked it free with a jerk of his arm and started rapidly kicking his good leg into the ground. To his amazement, Joxin actually found a ledge in the floor for purchase, allowing him to scoot back a few feet.

Sitting up at the last moment, Joxin stabbed out with his knife at the chest of the fanged grinning creature falling toward him. While his blade was still sinking into its chest, he twisted his body and flexed his will through the tendril to assist the motion.

Joxin felt the bones of its ribcage collapse at the sudden force, giving way like a wet bag as if Joxin was hitting the thing with a sledgehammer instead of a standard combat knife.

Once he was sure the creature would come down at his side instead of on top of him, Joxin bent to the side and nearly spun a one-eighty on his backside to get into position to slash at one of the creatures clawing at Jim.

"Why am I always the target!" Jim desperately screamed as he flailed out with his knees and elbows at those above him while trying to protect his face and neck. He was doing a pretty good job at it, too, as the creatures screaming and flailing down like wild animals with their dark claws were only rending up his unprotected arms, not anything important. That is, so long as you operated under Jim's belief that you don't need bracers while going on patrol.

Slashing across the ribs of the closest creatures from hip to shoulder, Joxin made the thing scrabble back with a scream of pain.

Taking the opening, Jim thrust out with his bloody arms, knocking back his other attacker far enough for him to pull his legs to his chest and slam his heels into its collarbone, flinging it back.

Before either Jim or Joxin could move to finish the two off, a flash of warning burned through the Union, alerting them to more danger.

Joxin leaned back and threw up his arms to cover his face. A moment later, he felt a burning trail run down his left forearm to his chest as the latest wave of creatures fell onto him. At the same time, the light in the tunnel drastically decreased, filling the tunnel with shadows as something finally covered the suntorch, all but forgotten on the tunnel floor by everyone.

Slamming his elbow down onto the shoulder of the creature, it let out a squeal of pain from the impact. Taking the distraction, Joxin wrapped his arm around its back and under its arm before it could squirm backward and pulled it tight. As he smashed it to his chest, he pumped his right arm, quickly stabbing his knife into its chest and throat repeatedly.

After a half dozen stabs, Joxin stopped at the sudden lack of movement and silence filling the tunnel. Slowly letting go of his death grip on the creature and allowing it to slide to the side, Joxin took a second to lay back, panting into the darkness at the sudden exertion and drop of his psy pool. Though he could not see it, Joxin knew he lay face to squat, pain-filled face with the latest creature he killed.

"Get up and move!" Boomed Sathera's voice in his mind, startling Joxin out of his slump. "I'm falling back!"

Fishing into the pile of bodies, some of which were still moving, Joxin, following the glow, grabbed onto the wooden shaft of the torch before pulling it out of the bodies and fully lighting up the tunnel again.

Seven of the creatures lay bleeding out around Jim and Joxin, with another two farther down the tunnel behind Bellous. Taking a few quick steps forward over the bodies while sheathing his sword, Bellous reached out to Joxin and Jim to get them to their feet.

"I hate these tunnels," Joxin groaned to himself, taking the offered hand.