The moment they followed Tenthé into the tunnel, all three slammed to a halt. They found themselves surrounded by hundreds of whole and partial skeletons poking out of the dried mud of the walls. When George reached out and touched a skull, it fell out to reveal even more bones behind.

“My gods,” breathed Isabell. “How many of these are there?”

“Lots,” said Tenthé, who’d returned after noticing the others weren’t with him.

“It goes on forever. Bones everywhere. Sometimes like this, sometimes packed into cubbies; all sorts of ways. The old gods had a lot of dead to deal with.”

“This is awful!” exclaimed Isabell.

Tenthé shrugged, turned, and resumed walking. Reluctantly, everyone followed.

A moment later, Tenthé’s voice drifted back.

“Get used to it. If you were wondering, don’t worry, I haven’t ever run into any old gods down here. They need worshipers.”

He looked around. “I mean, live worshipers.”

That was great, up ‘til now they hadn’t been worrying about it.

Occasionally, they passed more torches, supplying not nearly enough light to see by. The tunnel widened, and as Tenthé went through, a part of the wall collapsed behind him, leaving a dark hole. Isabell, Nik, and George stopped immediately, waiting for some monster to emerge. After a few seconds, a small spider crept out and waved its front legs at them.

The relieved laughs turned into screams when the little spider was overrun by a massive stream of slugs, worms, beetles, and more spiders gushing out and flowing across the floor in all directions. Isabell was closest, yelling and flailing as the flood threatened to inundate her. Dust, bones, and guts suddenly blew everywhere as Isabell screamed! She didn’t stop, continuing to render the bugs into a finer and finer mist.

When she felt a touch on her shoulder, she spun around, blasting Nik full in the face. Something flashed, redirecting most of the force. At this point, more than just bugs began to register with her.

“Stop, stop, STOP! They’re dead. Past dead. Just stop!” Nik was yelling.

She took a breath, and shuddered. “Bugs! I mean, BUGS! Are there any on me?”

She began dancing in circles.

“No, no, stop! There aren’t any on you, you’re fine!” Nik yelled.

Isabell spun to look through the dust in the direction they had been walking. This was when she noticed that her screaming had brought down the walls, partially blocking the tunnel.

“Tenthé! What about him? I blasted right where he was!”

“I’m okay,” Tenthé said, sounding close. “You did good. Maybe a little too… well, it worked.”

“Oh, I’m sorry! I’m so sorry!”

Past the rubble and through the dust, she could make out the top half of Tenthé. He appeared undamaged. In fact, he was eating something and paused to wave at her. Turning, she found Nik standing close, with George having made a strategic retreat down the tunnel, looking like he was ready to go even further if necessary.

She heard a noise and spun around again, but it was Tenthé casting a spell that made globs of bug guts, dust, and bones fill in the spots she’d destroyed.

“Nik, can you heat this up to help it set?” Tenthé asked. “Not too much. Might explode.”

Nik pushed past Isabell, raised his hands and played a mild flame over the slurry. After a little experimentation, they got it to stay, making the walls even better than before. While they worked, the odor of cooked bugs, bones and dirt permeated everywhere. Not as bad a smell as they expected, but not good, either.

When the repairs were done, they paused.

“Uh, Tenthé,” Isabell called out. “Why’d you fix the walls?”

“It stops the bugs from coming at us from behind.”

“Oh. I thought it was, I don’t know, to make things right for the Gods, or something.” She paused, then added, “Sorry. I should have asked: is everyone okay?”

George replied, “Uh, yeah. Kind of. You blasted Nik right in the face, though. His armor’s pretty good.”

“Naw, it isn’t. I redirected the scream,” Tenthé injected. “You gotta be more careful. We shouldn’t stop here, there’s a better place just ahead.” With this, Tenthé turned and resumed walking down the passageway.

It took a moment for the comment to register. No-one knew what to say. Realizing Tenthé was getting further away, the rest followed. Shortly afterward, they reached another room where multiple tunnels met. Tenthé sat against a wall and pulled out more food and flasks of water.

“You should tank up,” he told them. “Never know when we’ll get the chance.”

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No-one argued. After some unrestrained face stuffing, George broke the silence.

“That was intense! Not like training.” he said, then giggled. The other two joined in. “But, uh… I suppose we could have been a bit more… professional?”

“Yeah, I might have gone a bit overkill,” Isabell added.

“So, what else could we have done?” Nik asked.

“Um, do you think my armor’s good enough?” George asked.

Isabell responded, “Don’t know. Mine is. At least, for bugs. It’s supposed to seal to keep poisons and stuff out. I never really tested it, though. If any of those things got inside, I… yuh-uh-uh,” she shuddered.

Tenthé piped up, “I wouldn’t have let you guys come down here if your armor wasn’t good enough.”

“If we had a barrier, we could have slowed them down. You know, or something like that. Would have given us time to get ready,” George stated.

“Yeah,” Nik agreed. “Wait! George, you can do it. With your rope… things.”

That prompted a bout of discussion and experimentation. After a few trials, the trio discovered he could throw one end of the rope ahead and make it into a shield. It wasn’t the best, but might slow down the bugs for a moment or two. This let him stand behind Isabell, which, everyone agreed, was the best place to be when she was using her scream.

Unfortunately, Nik’s abilities were ill suited for the current situation. His black bolts were a pinpoint weapon, a poor choice for dealing with a million bugs. He could also generate flames, which might do some damage if they could get the bugs to stand still for a few seconds. That didn’t seem likely.

Most importantly, they’d calmed down and done some planning. Which was fortunate, because in the very next tunnel they were attacked again. When the bugs streamed out of a side passage, George created a barrier to deflect them until Isabell converted them into goo.

During the battle, Nik found his magic wasn’t entirely useless; the bugs were afraid of fire. He could help control the flow so Isabell could blast more bugs and less surroundings.

The next few skirmishes went much more smoothly, although there was still a bit of screaming from everyone who wasn’t Tenthé.

When their armor became too crusty, Tenthé would cast a spell to clean it. Unfortunately, clean armor didn’t apper to affect the bugs’ ability to find them. They had also discovered the bugs ignored any of the stealth spells Isabell or Nik had. Maybe they used smell, or vibration; things that most spells didn’t target.

As the afternoon wore on, after innumerable battles, they eventually found themselves at a dead end.

“Hmph. That’s kind of a letdown,” George proclaimed. “I figured after all we went through, there’d be a treasure, or something. What do you say, oh glorious leader?”

“Don’t know,” Tenthé admitted. “I’ve never gone this way before.”

“What!”

“It’s boring doing the same things over. I wanted to see what was here. Are you sure the tunnel’s a dead end?”.

“It looks like it. Maybe. I’ll check,” George volunteered as he pushed past.

Lying on the floor, he commanded a rope to move ahead. Instead of stopping, it slithered around a hidden corner and kept going.

“Hey, there’s something here! It’s tight, though.”

He re-formed the rope into a small shield that he used as a shovel and began scooping sand and gravel out of his way. He inched forward until he’d maneuvered himself past the corner, continuing on until his feet disappeared.

“It opens up out here. Looks like a big cave,” his voice echoed back.

Tenthé threw himself down and wiggled out of sight. With George pulling and Isabell shoving, Nik managed to scrape through. Isabell followed.

They found themselves in a large, very dark, underground space, surrounded by piles of boulders sitting on a floor of sand and gravel. Behind them, the ground rose until it was vertical, but in every other direction the boulders went on as far as they could see, even with Isabell’s light floating above them. They were in a cavern, and it was huge.

After looking around, Isabell peered at the hole they’d crawled out of.

“That’s small. If we start exploring, how’re we going to find it again?”

After some discussion, they decided to make a few piles of smaller stones which would be easy to find if they followed the wall. Hopefully, they wouldn’t be so lost as to go in the wrong direction.

At that point, Tenthé spoke up. “Turn off your light for a moment,” he ordered.

Shrugging, Isabell did so. After a minute or so, George was the first to speak. “Hey, there’s something on the boulders that glows.”

After investigating, they found the faint light was produced by some kind of moss. It was just enough to make it possible to move around, if they were careful.

As Isabell turned on her light again, Tenthé dropped a little bit of news. “Another thing. There’ll be a few skeletons and maybe some dark wraiths in here. They’re tough, but you guys can handle them. They stay by themselves, so that makes it easier.”

As if that were a signal, George yelled and pointed behind Tenthé, who spun around to see a crowd of the very same wraiths and skeletons rushing toward them. Tenthé gestured, and the slight glow of a shield appeared in front of the group. Everyone got ready as best they could, then stared in astonishment as the creatures dodged past and dove for the tiny hole they’d used to get into the cavern. Clawing at each other, the creatures fought until the last one squished down and disappeared into the tunnel.

Tenthé spun around, did something to put out Isabell’s light, and hissed. “Quick, hide!” as he ducked behind a boulder.

The trio looked at each other, then ran for cover. After sitting in the silence for a few minutes, a bright yellow light emerged from a passageway on the other side of the cavern. The glow moved along the wall, then more lights came out of the same tunnel.

The glows progressed through the cavern, keeping to the far side until they exited through another passageway. When Tenthé said it was okay, they huddled together.

“What was that all about?” Nik asked. “Are we safe?”

“I don’t know,” Tenthé replied. “Could be anything.”

Isabell demanded, “Who is it? One of the families? Smugglers? “

“Well,” Tenthé began. “There’s something else. I could feel an old god over there, and I think I know which one.”

George interrupted, “An old god! Are you sure? We have to tell someone! Let’s go back! We can’t deal with a god! The bugs were bad enough!”

“Uh, there’s a problem.” Tenthé stated.

“What?” Nik asked.

“Try making a flame.” Tenthé directed.

Nik didn’t understand, but he followed Tenthé’s directions. After a few tries, it was apparent that his magic wasn’t working.

“That’s not right,” he said. “Do you know what’s going on?”

“Do you feel the heaviness?” Tenthé asked.

Isabell and Nik did an internal audit, and yeah, they felt something. On the other hand, George had no idea what they were talking about.

“That’s a dampening field.” Tenthé explained. “It makes magic hard to do,”

“What? Didn’t the people we saw, leave?” George asked.

“Yeah, but they weren’t alone.” Tenthé responded. He turned his head, “Were they,” he said loudly.

“Oh, you’re a smart one, aren’t you?” came out of the dark.