The fun began almost immediately on the second floor. The formerly dark single tunnel was now filled with a light blue glow and the humans were clearly shocked by it. The light blue glow was created by the stupidly named ‘Blue Light Worms’ and the humans were surprised by the creatures.

The human that carried the staff even picked one up and examined it! The hive never intended them to be a distraction but a distraction they were. As the humans were examining a Blue Light Worm, a Giant Bat swooped down and attacked the group. 

The hive don’t know about other caves but the humans were clearly surprised by the attack. As they panicked, one of the humans stepped on one of the traps. The ceiling caved in and crushed the human beneath. The spirits within the hive cheered! The werewolves thought the traps were useless! Ha! 

Even the eventual death of the Giant Bat failed to dampen the mood. The worm distract; the bat attacked; and the trap killed. It was perfect! The fact the combination was due more to accident than design does not matter to the hive. The spirits within the hive knows this was their instinct at work! As the spirits laughed, the humans were looking in shock at the sinking body of their comrade. As the hive absorbed the human and his weapon known as a “spear”, the spirits wondered why humans keep doing this. The human began speaking among themselves. Since they weren’t moving, the hive decided to listen in.

“You can’t detect traps?”

“Nope,” the human with the small bow said. “I can detect them but I’m just not very good at it. I can see them better than any of you but when under attack…”

The Boss of the group sighed and put his hand on his face. “Right, you use bows, not traps. You more of a bowman than anything.”

“No such thing as a bowman Boss,” the human with the axes laughed. “Only warriors, hunters, and mages! Well, according to those idiots in the cities!”

The group laughed lightly, and the human called a bowman replied. “Not a bad thing really. If not, what are we going to have in the future? Bowman, thief, maybe they will begin calling you an Axeman instead?”

The human raised his axes proudly and said. “Look at these beauties! If we are going to call each other different things in the future, there’s worse things to be called than an Axeman!” 

The human with the staff then asked. “What about me? I’m a shaman.”

“No such thing. You do not exist!” the human with the axes replied. “Which actually is quite accurate since you hardly do anything in battle.”

The group laughed out loud this time. The hive was perplexed by this group of humans. They just saw one of their own died and now they were joking and laughing. The hive decided they need to speak to the wolfgirl on these humans. The spirits wanted to know more about them. 

As strange as these humans were, they weren’t stupid. The group procced further into the tunnel with care. The hunter was now closer to the group and the group managed to get to the room of Smoky without any more death. There were 2 further attacks but the bats were easily disposed of by the humans and the distraction/attack/trap combination the hive thought it stumbled on proved to be ineffective. 

Some of the spirits within the hive also wondered aloud if they should have placed some other creatures on the second floor. The spirits remembered that the mage Jundal said the sole long tunnel was over 300m long and they wondered if it was, like the first floor, too simple. However, that was a question for a later date as the group had now reached the room of Smoky. The hive also noticed that the group didn’t seem that perturbed by the walk. Instinctively, the hive thought that maybe the blue light of the floor had caused the walk in the second floor to be easier than previously. 

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As the group entered the big room, smoke began coming into the room from the back tunnel. The humans got into their loose formation with the two humans with swords standing in front and the human with the axes behind them. The human with the bow was behind alongside the human known as the shaman. The humans looked on disbelievingly as the smoke began to form a shape but just as Smoky began to form into a wolf; the shaman shouted, “Don’t just stand there you idiots! Attack!” 

The shaman was not the Boss of the group but their members did what he said immediately. They attacked! They didn’t even wait for Smoky to properly form! The hive thought it was rather bad form for the humans to do that and resolved to fix that in the future. For now, there’s a fight on.

Smoky immediately disappeared and the Air spirits moved the smoke to the back of the room. As Smoky tried to reform, the humans attacked again. Smoky disappeared and the smoke moved to the left side of the room. The humans again attack and again Smoky disappeared. After a few rounds of this, then the humans got “smart” and the Boss stationed his men at each end of the room with him in the centre. The air spirit controlling Smoky was smart too and tried to reform between two humans. The humans nearest to it attacked and Smoky disappeared again to reform at the opposite end of the room. The humans at that end attack too, and once again Smoky disappeared. 

The spirits within the hive were laughing out at this! These humans were so funny, chasing after Smoky like that. The spirits within the hive decided they liked these humans. The humans however were irate and they were giving the hive good energy with their irritation. Then the Boss shouted for the group to gather in the centre of the room. The smoke floated around the outskirts of the room but the humans stayed in the centre. The hive was less delighted by this development as the humans were no longer chasing Smoky. Oh well, it’s time to get down to killing.

Smoky formed at the back of the room and this time, the humans waited for the spirit beast to fully form before attacking. The moment the green spirit wolf formed, the two humans with the swords attacked. The swords went straight through Smoky.

Before the humans could recover, the spirit beast countered. One of the humans that attacked was the Boss so Smoky attacked him as he looked to be the most important member of the group. Claws slashed against the Boss chest, but instead of retreating, the wounds seems to enrage the Boss. He gave a cry and then began attacking Smoky with abandoned. The other human with the sword followed his leader in the attack, and the other humans followed suit.

Arrows flew but like the swords, they just flew through Smoky. Then, the shaman casted another spell and the attacks suddenly began to hurt. Smoky was surprised but the air spirit controlling the spirit beast countered instead of retreating. Unlucky for the humans, the spirit beast this time was made with Stamina and the spirit beast gave as good as took.

One on five, the results was never in doubt but at the end, two of the humans were dead. The human with the axes, and the other human with the sword. The hive was happy enough with this result but unhappy the shaman survived. He was the human the hive really wanted. 

Still, as the surviving humans began laughing again, the Fire spirits within the hive laughed too. A group of humans had finally reached the third floor and this time, the werewolves were not around to spoil their fun. Then, one of the other spirits had to be a spoilsport and asked, “What about the Ratlings?

Oh damn!

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