It was dark.

Nico was riding for his life. He looked back, they were still fighting. He looked forward, he couldn't help, he needed to escape. He needed to live.

The sandstrider that he rode was going as fast as its legs could take it. It wasn't fast enough. He was headed to a gap in the ring of stones, no, Teeth that surrounded them. They were all in the middle of the mouth of a Raithmaun. It was unfathomably large for an animal.

He was riding alone as the rest of them were fighting against some creatures. Were they snakes? worms? Tentacles with jaws? no, he read about this. They were tongues with pharyngeal jaws. The monsters were just the original tongue of the monster dividing into more and more...... Tongue-lets? The term doesn't matter. what does matter is that a few thousand tentacles with jaws were sticking out of the ground and attacking indiscriminately.

He was moving fast towards the only escape point. He had read about this on a page in his Bestiary. He only remembered that singular page but it was saving him right now. He was heading towards one of the corners of its mouth which was quite far away.

Such a huge beast shouldn't exist, it was so huge that Nico just couldn't fathom it. His ride was going as fast as it could yet the jaw hinges of the monster were still a minute or two away, it was time he couldn't afford to lose. The jaw was closing all the while. It blocked out a majority of the stars and most of the moon. he could just barely see where he was supposed to go.

He was so close. He was on the last stretch of sand but the jaw was almost fully closed and the area was getting too small for him to fit through. He would have to jump from above his sandstrider. He was readying himself to stand on the animal and jump when suddenly he was sent flying.

He landed on his face in the sand confused. When he cleared the sand from his face and turned he saw his mount just standing still. Did it stop abruptly? Why? Then he remembered that he had to escape. Turning away from the Sandstrider He just ran to the last space to escape.

The jaw was almost fully closed and the path was blocked by the teeth. He couldn't go through the skin as even if the rest of the group were with him even they couldn't cut through the leather of a Raithmaun. It wasn't hard but it took time. He couldn't climb the teeth because they were coated in a black oily substance secreted when they surfaced.

Was he trapped? He looked back and then up. He estimated that there was around a minute before the jaw was fully closed and the beast began to go to the labyrinth entrance. All the mages were probably on the last dregs of their mana while the swordsmen were probably just doing fine, the cavalry was.... well they were mostly dead or dying.

The maw of the beast had closed. A deep rumbling sound was heard as the Monster descended down into the depths of the sand. It was going to a labyrinth entrance. It clicked into place in his head, the army of rats and husks was because of a new opening. How unlucky could he be?

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The monster was moving deep underground as it went to the entrance. Nobody could see anything it was pitch black inside. Nico lost track of the fight as he curled up on the sand and tried to partially bury himself before tearing up.

He would most probably die in the labyrinth. He was nearly two days away from a class but he was going to die. What would happen after he was dead? Did it matter if he was not alive? He was trying not to panic. He almost forgot about the sandstrider before he heard donkey-sounding noises. He tried to make sense and became perfectly quiet or as quiet as he could be with his stifled cries.

More shrieking and baying and weird gory noises of flesh accompanied by the crunching of bones and pained cries of his sandstrider. He turned just a bit and tried to make out what was happening in the dark.

He couldn't see anything but then he felt a sharp pain in his side. He struggled and kept hitting whatever had attacked him. He struck at his side as the worm-like creature continued to bite his side.

He felt drowsy after a few bites. That lasted for a few seconds before he recovered from the drowsiness and saw the appendage unmoving on the sand beside him. The tongue-let? The tongue-let was lying on the sand with random twitches occasionally. Both he and the creature were covered in his own blood.

His blood clotted far too quickly but he paid it no mind.

He was confused about how did it die. Then he realized that it was capable of eating so it must have consumed some of his blood. His blood contained enough diseases, poisons, and curses that a single drop could probably kill a mid-sized animal.

He looked at the tongue-let as its skin wilted and rotted before his eyes. The body continued to feel the effects after it had died as involuntary muscle contractions took place. It shook from side to side as pieces were flung to both sides.

He realized that he couldn't feel anything as his body put him in shock, something he was used to. He just sat there in the sand waiting for any more of the tongue-lets to come and eat him but none came. He couldn't hear the sounds of fighting anymore. Was it over? Had they by some miracle managed to kill the beast? No, probably not. He could still feel the rumbling as the Raithmaun continued to dive deeper into the earth.

Then another thought popped into his head. Does it not try to eat poisonous animals? That would make sense with the super-toxic animals that lived in the desert. Either his luck was coming around or it was trying to be sadistic. He would survive the maw of the beast but would die due to starvation or to some random monster in the labyrinth.

He tried to laugh as if it would make him feel better but he was still injured. He winced as the pain resurfaced and then he went numb again.

After a while, the creature had stopped, and still, nothing came to eat him. He was in the labyrinth. It was the first time for a few things. It was the first time he was trapped in a Raithmaun, It was the first time in the Labyrinth, but not the first time he thought that he was going to die.

He remembered the first time that he thought he was going to die. His food was poisoned with a toxin so strange that his body had nothing to compare it to. It was the first time he had a neurotoxin. He had lots more after but he always would remember when his would-be assassin begged his father for mercy but his father was called the Red Terror for a reason.

He ground his teeth. He had survived death many times, he would do it again.