“I say we block off one of our accesses. We would better keep the scoundrels at bay, more easily focus on the beasts.” Bomilik rumbled out, turning to the freshly awoken Kazek. I couldn’t help but notice how rough his translator handled the message, and wondered why he had seemed so much more clear through his text messages.

Sallis was the first to weigh in. “Aye, and I say we shut the route to our main zone. If we collapse the vertical shaft, we can focus on holding the scolo in the divide and push them towards the dusted raiders’ territory.”

Lokralda, who had also only just woken from her comatose recovery state, replied, “And what if they collapse their tunnels? The swarm would be forced into our territory with no way out.”

“Leaving both open is the way.” Kazek agreed after finishing a long drink of murky water. He shook his head from side to side, his short beard shedding some of the concoction that had run from the corners of his mouth.

“We should push House Bassaldourn out of our territory and hold here.” He pointed to the intersection near the enemy raiding camp that I had stopped in earlier before turning back around. “Trapping ourselves with no line of retreat is a fool's strategy. Even as we are now is too risky, we are outnumbered and have been denied information for too long.”

Bomilik looked down at the ground, seemingly a little hurt by Kazek’s harsh assessment of what had transpired under his command while he recovered from his injuries. Everyone else exchanged nervous glances while Kazek settled his scowl onto me.

“Kaninak, what information did you glean during your infiltration?” He asked, and everyone turned to face me.

I glanced around at the group, feeling put on the spot. How much could I afford to tell them? I knew far more than I really should thanks to Max’s access to the game files and tweaking of the system for me. I needed to be careful with what I said. Using the information to break through the enemy territory in the first place was risky enough.

“I… saw three on my way through their territory, and passed by a number of groups.” I paused for a moment, gathering my thoughts. “I saw one House in the connecting cavern gathering mushrooms and tar. The Bassals had more resources than us, but much of it lay unrefined when I passed through their forge.”

Kazek and Bomilik exchanged a glance, while Sallis slapped me on the shoulder and laughed. “That’s really how ‘ye got through? Punched straight through their forge, ay? Ha-hah, I thought ya were joking with your message. Way to pull their feelers.”

I smiled at her, and was about to reply when Max interrupted me. “Ya know, these Zk’Aek are pretty freaky–kinda gross really–but I like this one. She gets it.”

My smile waned. “Yeah, I just blitzed through without stopping to fight. I dropped some flaming tar to slow them down, but it didn’t work all that well.”

A couple of them grunted out cynical chuckles, and Lokralda’s normally stern face cracked with an amused grin as she answered my implied question. “No wonder, soft shell.” I frowned at her use of the new term. “We’re born from a world of heat and pressure, we sometimes bathe in flame. The deposits after such a dirty flame would be unpleasant, but unless you caught their fingers it would not cause many harms. Though you may have scorched their deco, hah.”

“Ugh. This damn translator… she didn’t say fingers, but feelers. Like… the long tentacle things that come off the back of their heads. They’re the only soft bit outside of the shell, which you did manage when you dropped that last bottle.”

I frowned and nodded to buy some time while I listened to Max. “What do you mean deco?”

Lokra and Kikkelin exchanged a glance, before Kazek broke back in with an answer. “Decorations, what you see as our hair and facial fringe as well as what you call clothes. Symbols of pride, honor, and accomplishment that we must earn.”

I must have given him a stupid look, because he shook his head and raised his hand to stop me from questioning further. “It is no matter of concern. We must decide and act.” He glanced towards the tunnel in the direction of the horde of bottlenecked centipedes. “We will take shifts in pairs keeping the scolo at bay before making a fighting retreat. Sallis and Kaninak, you have fought these before, take first shift on that side. Work on completing your bonus objective then report in to switch out. Lokra and Bo, I want you refining the last of the blast powder, Jozoic and myself will test the enemy position. Kikk, you will hold the high ground with grenades and cover our retreat if needed.”

“You should send me, Kazek.” Bomilik interjected, which caused the recently returned Jozoic to switch from a grin to a scowl. “The frontline is not your place, you’re needed for strategy.”

“No, my friend. I am the stronger fighter and we need to make our best attack.” Kazek replied in his much more natural sounding voice. “We must move from this chamber, the migration will seek paths upwards.”

He pointed at the model map, and the two spires that rose to the tallest points. One of which was the staircase that had been our entrance to the trials in the first place, while the other was the very room we stood in. The towering chimney set above the vents that accepted all of the heated air and gas given off by the vents made for a pretty clear path-of-least-resistance for the swarming giant insects to move upwards.

“Sallis, let Kaninak complete his side quest first and then send him back. I know you’re well read on these things after your first encounter.” Kazek turned to me. “Nick, I also know that you have an upgraded inventory. Once you have your objective, return here and pack away everything Lok and Bo tell you is worth bringing without continued access to the forge. ”

He looked around at the group, and when no one decided to speak up or add anything, he gave a serious nod that reminded me of Ali in a way. “If the raid has retreated we will return and take our turns achieving the bonus objective, and then make a push for one of the intersection caverns not on the main path.”

Kazek accurately spat out a series of tiny globs of the glowing light goo that splashed onto a couple of the modeled caverns. They highlighted the more out of the way rooms with more than one way out, one of which was the squam room with the steep chute for an entrance.

“Hmm, I see what he's getting at. Here…”

Max added his own visual assistance to my view of the map, and I switched focus from listening to Kazek to keeping my face straight. First, he layered on more of the rest of the map that only he could see, filling out the neighboring territories on either side of ours as well as the tar room at the lowest point of the maze. He then faded out 80% of the model and highlighted in red a single strand that wound through all three of the territories in a smooth flowing shape that was only blemished by a steep vertical cavern once in each territory.

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“This is like some kind of highway, it runs from the tar pit, then a vent room, to a gorge, through the next vent room, then back to the tar pit, and then crosses over to the next territory in this kinda spiral flowery shape. The Bassals kind of got screwed too, if you ask me. Their elevator chamber is the only one between their vent room and the gorge, all the others face the tar room side of the through line and give the height advantage to the vent room defenders.”

Kazek must have finished his speech while I was listening to Max. Everyone chanted, “Rock and stone!” and snapped me out of Max’s visualizations.

Sallis caught my eye and waved for me to follow back the direction I had just come from, towards the giant horde of bugs armed with a little more knowledge. We made a stop at the forge, where she picked up a large hammer and handed me a one handed rock pick. She looked… angry.

“Can’t say I like the idea of messin’ with these things again, could be good to just get it over with though.” She muttered just loud enough for me to hear as we crossed through into the tunnel.

She popped an acorn sized chunk of some glossy black mineral into her mouth and chewed it loudly. I gave her a look, unused to seeing the dwarves eat much of anything. “Having a bit of a snack time first?”

She laughed and shook her head. “Just some more carbon. We don’t have much and were conservin’ it for blast powder.” She reached out a hand and snapped her fingers at me. “Spare me a drink of that high quality H2O you’re carryin’ too, would ya?”

I nodded, shuffling the pick I was holding in one hand to the other so I could reach into my satchel and remove the copper canteen full of water I’d been given earlier. It was only about half full after having used some of it in the process of cooking up the chemicals used for the web bridge. I felt a pang of mourning as I found the clip to my lantern still attached to my chest and realized that the rest of the lamp was missing. As someone so used to electricity powering everything I’d thought the little thing was pretty cool, the fact it ran on bits of metal and a slow drip of water was novel to me despite being a hundred year old technology. I’d only barely noticed smashing it to bits when I fell onto it after crossing the bridge earlier.

Luckily Sallis had her own lamp, which she lit after refilling it with water from my flask. I may have been a tiny bit jealous, being dependent on her for light was a little worrying, but it was still preferable to our earliest foray when all we had between us was a handful of glowing spit.

“When we get near to ‘em, let me show you how to handle these bastards. I did some reading on them after that one nearly cracked yer stones in the border cavern.” Sallis explained, pausing for a moment and making a strange concentrated face before letting out a large belch that strangely freshed the cavern air as she dumped excess oxygen from some internal reaction.

“What’s the plan, then?” I asked.

“We hit ‘em with the menthol breath and drag out one or two of the ones that conglobate. Then make with the smashy smashy.” She hefted the sledge hammer she’d picked up from the forge.

I laughed, and she grinned back at me as the noise of the vents and others faded into the echoing whispers and faint rumbling that blew around the network of caverns. I must have taken it a little too far though, because before I stopped laughing she gave me a less than amused look.

She followed up with a more serious look. “So, what happened back home? I heard’a people getting their Links plucked before, it normally ain’t some quick mess to clean up.” She asked.

I fought down the manic laughter, shaking my head to clear away the remnants before fixing her with a serious look. Truthfully, I wasn't sure telling her the whole story would be a good idea. I’d likely be viewed as less useful without the connection to my old Faction giving me diplomatic weight. Yet out of all of the dwarves, I felt like Sallis was the one who saw me as a capable member of the team, rather than a gangly burden, mysterious outsider, or pay-to-play tourist who bought my way into the group.

“Haha, aah. First, what does conglobate even mean? That sounds like a made up word. But…” My voice fell as I thought about everything that had happened during our escape from the city. “A whole lot happened, really. My city was attacked, and I was forced to flee with some friends. I’m pretty sure my place was blown up. Plus things… got complicated.” I hesitated to go any farther, which she must have picked up on.

She gave me an apologetic glance. “Ah, horrible business. With me pap’ flying around and visiting your human cities, I’ve been reading up on how often ya fight with each other. It’s both impressive and horrifying, kinda seems to be tied up with yer whole deal though.” Before things could get too serious, her joking grin returned as she answered. “And conglobate means to like, you know, roll up in a little ball.”

“You really have been doin’ a lot of reading lately, haven't ya?” I replied, dropping into an approximation of her affected accent.

She chucked, shaking her head. “Evidently more than you! Hah, shouldn’t you be the one teaching me new vocabulary? N’ books and vids are what I have to work with, it’s not like they’ll let me out of the underhome to go see for meself. Yer accent is terrible too, by the by, ye should leave it to the pros.”

I laughed again, this time more naturally, and we continued joking with each other as we strode down the tunnel. Each trying to distract ourselves from the looming fight, or slaughter, or hunt, or whatever we wanted to call fending off and harvesting the swarming centipedes.

Sallis reminded me in some ways of Tevin. She had an easy going nature about her, and was the only other dwarv amongst the group who would occasionally engage in some playful banter with me. Her seemingly singular goal of following in her father’s boot-steps and becoming a pilot reminded me of Tevin’s single minded focus when he was younger. He always wanted to be a soldier, to protect the people and in his own words “be the biggest badass on the block.”

We let the banter fall away as we neared the migratory swarm and the sound of scraping chitin and clacking mandibles took over. On my map, it looked like some of the giant insects had managed to cross through the chemical screen Bomilik had left in the wake of our retreat. Thankfully the few individuals that had made it through seemed discombobulated on the map, their markers spinning in circles or just wobbling in place.

Despite knowing I should focus on the task at hand, I still couldn’t put down the worry over Tevin and the rest of my friends back in reality after I had picked it back up. No matter how much I trusted them, or how capable I knew them to be, I couldn't help myself. They all had thrown away so much to follow me into exile, trusting the flimsy proof of Max’s meddling and my promises. Yet I was finding it difficult to return that trust. I needed to focus on finishing this trial with the dwarves to secure the last connection my little group of reluctant rebels had, but couldn't stop myself from turning the worry over and over in my mind.

Sallis shoulder checked me into the wall, knocking me out of my downward spiral. “Get yer head in the game, Nick. Now’s not the time to be fantasizing about glory and gold, or mourning yer past burrow.”

I pushed myself off the wall, even more reminded of Tevin by her now. “Alright, alright. I get it, save the fight for the scolo. We can spar later, unless you’re afraid of losing to a ‘stalactite scraper’ like me.”

“Bah, join me for dogfight practice in the sims someday and I’ll give you a proper rattle and roll. I heard you humans sometimes lose your lunch if ‘ya get a good shake.” She shot back, but her grin gave away her amusement.

I grinned back at her. “Deal, but only if we both pass this… trial.” I stopped myself from dissenting and complaining about this whole thing and my grin quickly faded. I still didn’t know how the dwarves would react to me likely being branded as a traitor by my old faction. The old slowly smoldering fear adding its weight to the bright new inferno of terror that burned in the back of my mind at the thought of approaching the swarm again.

The sound of the skittering horde of insects grew louder as we neared, and one of the scolovian’s appeared at the edge of the lamp's light. The thing was thrashing around on the floor, partially curled up into itself and turning over in an unsettling motion that reminded me of a seizure. Another of the huge insects was revealed a few seconds later, running in a spiraling pattern from floor to ceiling in a frantic circle. Seeing it all messed up like that lessened the urge to run away screaming, but did not dispel it completely.

“Fair, let’s get this over with. At least we get to smash these creepy crawlers, not be forced to dote on them like the stupid slugs.” We came to a stop a dozen meters or so from the pair of creatures. She elbowed me in the ribs and gestured at the creature flailing around on the ground. “Alright, ya gangly bastard, get in there with your little hook and drag one of em back here.”