Lyra took the lead as they advanced into the tunnel network, claiming her position at the vanguard. Alex followed a step behind, with Tirus bringing up the rear. None of them spoke. Whether due to their dreary surroundings, the shadows flickering just outside the illumination projected by the faerielight, or as a consequence of their recent life or death battle.

"Gods but I hate these missions." Tirus grumbled, thoroughly dispelling the gloomy pall over the group. "Why is it always underground? Can't we get a nice coastal mission for once, or maybe a den of very hard to find monsters up in Kavelin's entertainment quarter?"

Nevermind. Alex thought.

"Need I remind you that the current coastal mission involves repelling a very serious invasion on Oriusan soil?" Lyra said, focused on the path ahead of her.

Tirus's eyes flicked to Alex, but he sighed nonetheless. "Not that type of coastal mission. You know what I mean, Lyra. Beach, drinks, hot weather. Not skulking around in dark caves hunting weird bats."

"There's no beach in Seaport." Alex commented, suppressing a wince as a fresh surge of grief threatened to overtake him. "Have to go up the coast for that."

"Well, good thing we're not headed there then."

"Need I remind you that proper operational doctrine calls for silence, Tirus?" Lyra said. "For one 'higher in the pecking order' than I am, you forget that with alarming regularity."

"Does it matter? We're up against a pack of Rulers. I could be stealthier than the Hand and it wouldn't mean a thing."

"The Hand takes measures against Rulers." she replied.

Alex couldn't see it, but he got the distinct impression that Tirus rolled his eyes. "Obviously. You know any of them?"

A moment passed.

"No."

"Exactly. Why creep around in silence if it doesn't do anything for us?"

"I'm not opposed to some conversation." Alex chimed in, eyes flicking between darkened crevices as they snuck through the passage. "This place is a little spooky."

"Ah, I knew I'd like you, Alex." Tirus said.

"Well, I am. Energy spent on frivolous chatter would be better spent focused on our task." Lyra said.

Tirus chuckled. "Just because you're in a bad mood doesn't mean I'm gonna walk around this place bored to tears. Who pissed in your porridge this morning, anyway?"

Lyra's shoulders stiffened. *Uh-oh.* Alex thought, delaying his next step by half a second. He hadn't been with the group for long, but he reckoned the young woman possessed quite the temper.

"Just because you're excited about making friends with a deserter doesn't mean I am."

Alex recoiled. Her words echoed through the narrow tunnel, poor acoustics repeating the word back to him, over and over. Deserter. The whole unit had to know by now. News of Seaport's fate lingered on the tips of every tongue in the capital, and for those in the Army? It inspired anger, outrage, righteous fury over the violation of their sovereign soil. Those few others who'd been in the barracks with him the night before had blustered on about how the invaders would find themselves kicked into the ocean, and fast.

"Come on, that's-"

"The truth, Tirus. He's been given a pass by the higher ups out of pity, but we all know he turned tail and ran when things got dangerous. Who's to say he won't do the same to us?" Lyra spat.

Alex stopped walking.

"What the fuck do you know about it?" he said.

As if a taut rope snapped clean, tension slammed into the atmosphere. He heard a quiet exhale from behind him as Tirus narrowly avoided crashing into his back. He didn't care. Indignation bubbled in his gut - who was she to talk about that day to him? Safe in the capital, surrounded by a thousand thousand soldiers, and she wanted to pretend his options were anything other than live or die? He didn't even want to run. He had to run. For Ellie. Tumultuous thoughts stormed in his mind, stoking the fire with every passing second.

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Lyra's marching pace slowed to a crawl, until eventually coming to a halt. She turned, agonizingly slowly, and faced him.

"I know that you abandoned your home and your people. I know you violated the King's Law by deserting your town militia, and I know that you've displayed not an ounce of real pride about joining the Army since the second I met you."

"Really? You know a lot for someone who wasn't there. What would you have done, exactly, with a thousand armed soldiers were out for your blood? Wanted to kill you, and probably do worse to your little sister who refused to go? You would've stayed, let her die too?"

"Yes." Lyra said, frowning. "I would have."

Gnashing uncertainty flooded his system, guilt warring against anger. He didn't have a choice. Not only did his mother ask him to go, but Ellie really did need him. What would he have accomplished anyway? Another corpse on the pile for the invaders to burn, killed without a hope of even scratching their armor. Could the word of one man, King or not, really be that important?

The others stayed.

Did they really have a choice in the matter?

Shouldn't they have?

"That's enough, you two." Tirus said, stepping between Alex and Lyra. "I wanted a bit of chat, not a war to break out. Sort it out on your own time. We do have a job to do, after all."

Lyra grunted. Her eyes never left Alex's own. As she returned to her forward march, embers of undirected anger smoldered in his belly. He felt... powerless.

Hanging his head, lost in the confusion of turbulent emotion, Alex kept walking.

***

Sliding his blade from the corpse of a lone monster, Alex grimaced. He didn't enjoy the methodical delivery of death that this aspect of their mission required. Not that he felt particularly empathetic for the monsters - after all, they'd kill him in a heartbeat - but he could have done without the sensations. The foul tang of iron-laden blood, exposed viscera, and stomach-churning sound of a blade slicing through skin made him want to vomit.

"Good catch. Didn't spot that one." Tirus said.

The beasts didn't make their job easy. Isolated and alone, they didn't pose a real threat, but their ability to squeeze into narrow crevices and dangle from the ceiling made them hard to spot. Some would flee only to be greeted by a fireball. Most remained hidden, depending on their natural camouflage.

He dropped to his knees. His hand found the creature's broken corpse in the dim light, and he began the process of extracting its natural energy. He'd have liked to harvest from some of the original monsters, but Tirus had shaken his head.

"Didn't think about it. Doubt the Sergeant missed it, but usually these Bronze-ranked swarmers aren't worth the time once you hit Silver. For you, though? I'd grab everything you can."

He did, though Lyra had complained about the lost time at first. Reaching into the monster's fading core, Alex touched upon the energy within, tasting its composition before he jumped right into absorbing it. He didn't need another repeat of the chaotic experience with the Feirwolf.

Hunger. The most prevalent note, accompanied by a surprising second in lust - for energy, not the more mundane variety. Absorbing a creature's vital essence revealed its psyche, the drive behind the beast, and offered a surprising window into the nuance of monsterdom. Mitovampyria, for example, lacked the violence of a Feirwolf - absent the need to rip and tear. They didn't even particularly look to kill. Death as a consequence of their energy vampirism rather than the end goal? He hadn't expected that, honestly.

Separating the toxic death quintessence from the greater whole, he worked to purify the energy as it entered his body. Blood aspected, mostly. It flowed into his system where it met his own neutral power, grappling with the imbued will of the monster. Like before, his goal was to strip out these lingering vestiges, leaving behind only pure, unsullied quintessence. It took him a minute. As he crushed the final echoes of lingering consciousness, he felt the walls of his core tested ever so slightly - a lapping wave against the confines of his soul. Little growth, but growth all the same.

"Are you done yet?" Lyra said, tapping her foot against the stone.

"Just about." Alex said, frowning. He hadn't forgotten their earlier conflict, and didn't intend to forgive just yet. Instead, he kept his temper wrapped in chains of willpower, bound by iron to remain sealed beneath the surface. Even if he wanted to make an issue of it, Tirus had been right. This was neither the time nor the place.

"Give him a break, Lyra. He's new at this." Tirus said.

"I had energy extraction mastered by fifteen. A full minute to clean up a Bronze swarmer?"

"Not everyone had the benefit of your particular mentor. You know that."

Alex let the commentary wash over him. Whether Lyra thought his extraction took too long didn't matter, because *he* thought it took too long. He doubted he'd have many opportunities to hunch over a corpse for any length of time in dangerous territory. He'd been working on improving his speed throughout the mission, and had knocked the time down substantially already. It all came down to strength of will.

"All finished." Alex said, wiping his dirtied hands over the tunnel wall. The monsters secreted some thick, viscous oil through the skin. Nasty stuff. "What's that, eighteen?"

"Nineteen." Lyra said. "I think we're done with this floor. Look here."

While he'd attended to harvesting the monster, she'd obviously done some brief scouting ahead. They'd walked all the way to a dead end, the tunnel ending at a pock-marked wall that revealed only scant traces of the glittering iron that had seen the mine opened in the first place. Clearly, this particular vein had been exhausted. A ladder descended into a dark hole.

"That's good. Now, uh, the obvious question." Tirus said, squatting in front of the hole. "Do we press on?"

"Unwise. We should regroup with the sergeant. We're not a full-strength unit." Lyra said, gesturing toward Alex.

His brow furrowed.

"I might only be Bronze, but so are most of the monsters. I can handle it. Besides, Campbell said we should only retreat if we run into something we can't handle. Are you seeing anything we can't handle?" he said.

"Not seeing much of anything." Tirus muttered.

"Then let's figure out what's down there."