“I think I fucked up!” Erramir yelled, altogether abandoning stealth. “Get ready to fight!”

Carson stared at him with terror and anger battling for control of his expression. As Erramir ducked into the passage, he saw the anger win out.

“What the fuck Err! Didn’t you see me waving at you to stay the hell back! Why in all the nine hells would you do the opposite? And then–” Carson cut off, and his mouth worked silently as his fists clenched and unclenched.

He gestured out toward the pipe, looked back at Erramir, and exploded, “A belly-flop! What the fuck?!”

Carson’s hands tightened in his hair, his face was red, and a bit of spittle hung off his bottom lip as he quivered and stared holes through Erramir.

Erramir hadn’t seen his friend this mad since 7th grade when Chris Flynn snuck up and smeared his face with peanut butter just as he was asking Emily Young to the spring dance. And, as was the case back then, Carson was not free of guilt this time either.

“Car, I ran over because you were waving like a madman. How the hell is that supposed to communicate, stay where you are?” He glared back at the mage, meeting his intensity if not his anger.

“In all seriousness, Car. We’re in a creepy abandoned mine with some unknown threat imminent. If you want me to stay still, just hold out a damn hand.”

Erramir pushed between his friends and grabbed up his shield. “I only freaked and bolted because you looked like you were in trouble. I’d been augmenting my twitch while I was sneaking around, but I switched it to strength when I saw you freaking out. The switch made me clumsy for a moment, then I tripped toward the pipe. When I jumped… I miscalculated; Thus, my ill-timed belly-flop. I could jump much further with my twitch cranked up.”

He looked meaningfully at Carson, “I’m sorry, I screwed up.” Then reiterated, “But you definitely didn’t look like you wanted me to stay back.”

The wind leaked out of Carson’s anger, and he made a small whimper as his hands slid down over his face. “Alright.” He exhaled a groan. “I guess I did freak out a bit.”

“Yeah, you did,” Erramir said with a nod. “But, it doesn’t matter now; we’re definitely going to have a fight on our hands.” He looked anxiously out the passage, shield at the ready. “So, what are we fighting?”

“How the hell should I know? I just didn’t want you to touch the death pipe that was oozing strange essence.”

Erramir looked back at him, annoyed. “Yeah, why didn’t you mention that sooner?”

“I don’t know. I... I just didn’t see it when we came down.” Carson said, shaking his head and looking down. The admission reeked of guilt, and Erramir immediately saw the truth.

His friend’s anger was an attempt to redirect that feeling of guilt. He already blamed himself for not warning Erramir about the pipe.

Carson turned towards the stairs, “When we got to the bottom, I got distracted by the dots on the wall. Then we decided I should work on the spell, and I’ve been sitting back there with my eyes closed ever since.” He turned back towards them, still distressed.

Erramir raised a hand to calm him. “Car, it’s okay, bud. The pipe probably wasn’t glowing when we got down here. If it was, you’d have seen it right away, probably would have been the first thing you saw, and you never would have picked up on the rust spots.”

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The look on Carson’s face tempered some. “Ahh, maybe you’re right.”

A thought came to Erramir. “Are those spots still glowing?”

Carson moved to check, and in his peripheral vision, Erramir saw Val pull back from the passage exit with a suddenness that seemed abrupt. But she just looked down, so he kept his attention on Carson–one problem at a time.

“Nothing,” Carson reported. “The essence is completely gone from the spots.” He looked back at Erramir, “Do you think it was disbursed around this whole underground city? Then our climbing around made it collect in the pipe?”

Erramir nodded. “Yeah, that’s basically what I was thinking. From your description, I don’t know how you could have missed it. You said it was basically glowing, right?”

“Actually, I think I said oozing, but yeah, glowing about nails it too. When I looked up, the thing looked pretty friggin’ intimidating, all creepy tendrils of dark essence, melting and oozing in and out.” Carson twisted his face into a sneer and curled his arms, hands, and fingers in a disturbing comedic demonstration of what he’d seen.

Erramir was equally bothered and bemused by the display. “Ahhh, right. Like a Lovecraftian version of a million-legged squid with ephemeral tentacles. It seems you can undeniably see it better than I can.”

Carson put a finger on his nose and pointed and him. “Boom. Exactly. Totally freaky and gross.”

“Okay... Well, that’s alarming enough for me to wonder if the wise choice might be just leaving.”

Val cut it, “Boys, Virg changed his tune, I don’t know what to think about this, but now he’s relieved, he keeps saying ‘Bugs gone, better now.’”

She offered a pained half-smile, “Although, I’m not sure if it’s actually a good thing or if Virg is just too simple-minded to understand the implications.” She looked between the two of them, uncertain. “What do you think?”

Erramir looked at Carson, who he judged to have the best grasp of the situation.

“I’m afraid it’s the latter,” Carson said. “Virg just doesn’t know enough to understand. I think he was talking about the strange essence right from the start. It makes sense with my theory of it being disbursed throughout this whole place. Could have easily been too thin for me to see, except for the occasional dense patches, but not too faint for Virg to sense.” He nodded to himself. “Yeah, I’ll bet the essence was the bugs he didn’t like.”

Carson moved his head slowly from side to side, weighing his thoughts. “The fact that the essence concentrated in that pipe would indicate that it has something to do with controlling it. Maybe there’s something intelligent living in the pipe?”

A massive metallic clang echoed through the canyon, with an accompanying vibration shaking the ground beneath their feet.

“Well, that sounds scary as fuck. I think we’re about to get an answer to my first question.” Erramir said softly as he moved to peek around to the passage opening.

Val crept in behind him. “Yeah… I think you’re right.” She crouched to also look down the long canyon toward the origin point of the noise.

Carson stood back and looked between them, annoyed. “What first question? About why I didn’t warn you about the glowing pipe? Didn’t we just solve that?”

“No,” Erramir whispered. “About what we had to fight.”

“Oh right. That first question.”

Erramir stared into the distant darkness, not seeing anything. From his elbow, Val caught her breath. He looked at her, “Can you see it?”

“Yeah, I can see it.” She paused to breath. “And it’s not good.”

“What does that even mean?” Carson asked bitingly. “Not good? Were you expecting puppies?”

Erramir shot a look at Carson, then back to Val, and found her expression grave. It set anxious flutters loose in his stomach. Then he heard something; it was distant but steady, almost like static.

Erramir focused his attention back down the canyon into the dark. A circular shape began to resolve out of the darkness, and the noise was definitely emanating from it. “What is that?” he whispered, half to himself.

“Ahhh, what’s that noise?” Carson asked.

Val answered them both. “It’s the sound of a colossal metal sphere that’s rolling right toward us.”