Seera looked down. The place where she had asked Mister Shanahan to push through looked like it was the central shaft they had avoided using at the top of their descent. She didn't want to use it now, but didn't see any other way out of the dead in they were in except following the river course.

That didn't look viable to her except as something to do when she was desperate and didn't have a bunch of men to guide along.

“We're going to need a line down, Everett,” said Seera. “We don't want to stay out in this big shaft for long because of the creatures that might want to head out to bother the Wu Chi. I think we can reenter the cavern system somewhere about halfway down.”

“So we're going to drop down in this shaft and punch through to another tunnel we can use to get to the bottom of this,” said Everett.

“I'm going first,” said Mister Shanahan. He peered down the shaft. “We'll run everyone down the line as fast as possible. Wyndham and I will provide cover in case there is something in the new tunnel, and in case something tries to head up from the bottom. The Wu Chi can come down as soon as we have a position to use. You're going to have to keep an eye on things up here, Everett. Then come down last.”

“This is going to have to be fast, isn't it?,” said assistant number two.

“I think so,” said Seera. “We don't want to be in the shaft when one of those dragons decides to attack the surface. It could take us as a snack before we got away from it.”

She didn't state that Mister Shanahan could probably punch the head off anything that got close enough for him to touch, or that she had some of the things from Vassily's arsenal that would kill a lot of things. That would give them confidence they could take on anything. Then they wouldn't exercise the proper caution against threats that they should. And that would make things harder for her as their wrangler.

And things were already hard enough in her opinion. She didn't want to make things even harder without a good reason.

“Let me anchor a line,” said Everett. “I can spool it out until he reaches where you want him to go. Then he can press the other end there to anchor it.”

“Ready, Mister Shanahan,” asked Seera.

The marine nodded. He made sure the grip for the rifle was in front so he could just pull it in line and shoot without too much trouble.

Everett pressed the end of the line he was making into the cavern wall next to the hole that had been blasted out by Mister Shanahan. The other end remained in his hand as he fed more webbing into the rope. Shanahan grabbed the rope in the middle and dropped off the ledge.

Seera looked for the best spot for them to reenter the side tunnels. She called down directions as the web dropped her helper down. Her talent told her where they could dig without any problem.

“Right there, Mister Shanahan,” she called. She pointed at the wall. “A little more to the right. Right there.”

Mister Shanahan dug into the wall with his free hand. He pulled out stone and dropped it down the shaft. He stopped when he had a doorway for them to use. He stood in the opening, playing his light around.

“Shanahan,” called Everett. “I'm dropping the other end of the line. Anchor it and we'll move everybody down with you.”

He severed the line from his hand and the loose section fell free.

Mister Shanahan pressed the line into the side of the doorway as he stood guard. He stepped inside and out of the way. Anyone coming after the expedition from inside that space would be shot.

“I'm going down,” said Seera. “Everett, send Master Yuen and his associates next. Then come down. I'll leave it up to you if the line should be cut.”

“Right,” said the Spider.

Seera grabbed the line and quietly slid down to the doorway. She hooked a foot in, and secured her standing before she waved for the others to come down. She moved in to the tunnel, and kept an eye on the passage leading down from above. Her talent said there was some danger there, but it seemed content to stay in its lair.

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Master Yuen's first assistant came down first. He held a piece of paper in his hand as he looked around. Seera pointed him to go over to where Mister Shanahan had an eye on the tunnel leading down.

Master Yuen came down next. Seera pulled him in and gestured for him to join the other men so he would be out of the way. He nodded.

The second assistant came down next. He stepped to the other side of the tunnel from Seera. He held a piece of paper just like his cohort.

She spared a second of her power to define what the assistants thought they could do with their papers. Her power told her the papers were powers. She realized the two assistants were masters in their own rights.

She should have expected that, but she hadn't. She had thought the Wu Chi wouldn't spare three of their masters for the expedition. Now she knew better.

What did she do with the information?

She decided that she had to tell Mister Shanahan. He was her partner and he needed to know. He was also the biggest threat to the Wu Chi depending on what they had been trained to do. They would go after him first if they knew what they were doing and there was a falling out.

Whatever happened, she would shoot Master Yuen herself if she had to do that. It was one thing to let him gather information on Grandview's mesa as long as Emil saw everything too. It was another to have the three of them kill her and Mister Shanahan and leave them at the bottom of the cavern.

Everett would have to choose whatever side he thought would help him. And she didn't mind shooting him too if she had to do that.

The Spider came down the line. He stepped inside the opening and gestured for Seera and the Wu Chi to clear the opening. He sealed the door with webbing to keep out anything that might ascend the shaft while they were trying to go down.

“That should buy us some time if something tries to get at us,” he said.

“I'm going to go ahead,” said Seera. “You all should take a moment to catch your breath while I look around for a safe way to get down from here. We might have to descend the shaft in a fast roping action if I can't find a way forward from this spot. If that happens, we should expect trouble from the monsters we know patrol the ground floor.”

“So we might have to fight,” said Master Yuen. He didn't look happy at that prospect.

“We're going to do whatever we can to not do that,” said Seera. “I need you to keep watch to make sure nothing tries to get at us from above, and from the new door. I'll be back in a minute. The plan is to travel as far as we can in the next few hours and then bed down again. We'll see if we can reach the bottom tomorrow.”

“Are we that close?,” asked Master Yuen.

“We're close enough that we can get down the central shaft without worrying about what might try to go through us to get to the surface,” said Seera. “If we have to do that, we'll use Everett's web to drop down and see what we can find down there.”

“And it would speed things up,” said Master Yuen.

“And it will be potentially more dangerous,” said Seera. “Everett might have to pull you out of the cavern if things get too dangerous.”

“All right,” said Master Yuen. “I only have to get within sight distance to make part of a map we can use.”

Seera nodded. That gave them more options than she had thought. She might be able to just drop the Wu Chi to the ground area and then yank him back without worrying about the rest of them at the extreme end of her thoughts.

Seera walked to the front of the group. She switched on the lamp bolted to her rifle. She leaned in to talk with Mister Shanahan as privately as possible with the others in sight.

“The other two Wu Chi have powers,” said Seera. “I don't know what they are.”

Mister Shanahan nodded. The look on his face said he had expected some kind of double cross. It didn't matter if it was Emil's agent, or the paper masters.

“Worse comes to worse, we drop Master Yuen down to the monsters and yank him to safety if we can,” said Seera. “It's a last resort. I want to at least try to do what we were hired to do.”

Mister Shanahan nodded.

“I'm going forward,” said Seera. “I'll scream if I run into trouble.”

She walked down the tunnel. She sent her talent ahead of her. It came back with general uneasiness. She reached a fork and paused. The greater danger was on the left side. The right seemed clear. She shone her light down both tunnels. She didn't see movement. She would have to get the others up to the fork, and block both passages from trouble.

She backed up, but kept her light shining down the left tunnel. She wanted to be able to see any trouble she might have to shoot before the others came down to help her.

“All right,” said Seera after she rejoined her group. “There's a fork ahead. We want to take the right hand. The left hand has something down there blocking the passage. We're going to take the fork, then Everett, we're going to need you to seal the tunnel off behind us.”

“I can do that,” said Everett.

“We're going to go down and be quiet about this,” said Seera. “Whatever is down in that tunnel might attack if it thinks it can eat us.”

Mister Shanahan nodded as he started down the tunnel. Things had been quiet so far. It couldn't last forever in his opinion.