With renewed vigor, we moved through the vine covered tunnels. The passageways had uneven ground and was regularly crooked. An occasional trickle of water descended from the ceiling, and was quickly absorbed by the abundance of root-like plants festooning the walls. Brynn and I were delighted to sip on the rare stream to quench our thirst. Blue rocks glowed from the ceiling. They were embedded throughout the whole cave. They were a lot smaller than the big green rock. I wondered if liquid would leak out if I broke one. I could probably get one since the vines were so sturdy. Just climb up and take one.

The vines themselves were an interesting presence. Their color was grey, and their texture was almost stone like, seeming alive but petrified. We ripped some grey vines off the wall in the way of weaponry. Lousy ones, but it seemed a sturdy material to hit something over the head with. Brynn had a hard time. I effortlessly ripped some off. She took a leaner stick, reaching up to her waist, rubbed off any moss covering it and started sharpening the point with her teeth. I contended with a bigger, club-like stick.

We sneaked along the sides of the wall, trying to keep out of sight, moving no faster than necessary. Meanwhile we saw some actual rats, which gave me some more insight on how big we really were, which wasn’t that tall, though much bigger than a rat. Unless these were giant rats!

At some point a big, white bug nearly flew in my face. In a burst of primal instinct my club blurred and the bug exploded into a mush. During this episode, I had squeaked a little too loud, earning me a glare from Brynn. All things considered, we maybe were a bit tense.

The pathway took us a few minutes to walk through before arriving in another small space connecting to two other paths. When I noticed Brynn searching for a stone on the ground I started ripping vines from the wall near the end of the hallway we came through. Brynn used the stone to carve a sign in the cleared spot. We didn’t talk about it, and I expected her to look for the stone as I clawed at the vines. We repeated this near the passageway we were entering. It dawned on me, this must be a part of the blessing as well. How else would we both know how to do this.

These conspicuous symbols were unique. They meant to distinguish between different spaces and passages, like the numbers one and two. when we’d reach another fork in the road we’d mark the next symbols in line so we could remember where we were. This felt like a labyrinth, we realized as we moved through the indistinguishable intertwining tunnels. Mapping these symbols would lay the groundwork for making an eventual map. We didn’t have paper or tools though, so… mental mapping?

We walked through the next passageway, still sticking to the walls.

'What do you think those stones are?' I asked.

'Now clue.'

'Do you think they're magic?'

'They're not magic, idiot.'

'Why? The big guy used it, right? Magic?'

'Yeah, but...' Brynn spluttered. 'That's because he was there. He was doing the magic. It wasn't doing itself.'

'Maybe someone did do it. Put them there.' I said warily.

'You're an idiot. There's no way someone...'

Out of nowhere I felt a burning sensation in my right ear, and my head snapped back.

‘Ow, ow.’

‘Look out you dumb knight.’ Brynn exclaimed and when I turned around I saw her holding my ear in her paw with an exasperated look on her face. Then she let go.

‘Don’t do that.’ I whimpered while gently rubbing the soft discus on my head. ‘Those are sensitive. Why did you do that?’

‘What? You really didn’t notice?’

‘Notice what?’

‘That. Notice that.’ Brynn said, pointing behind me. I turned around to look. Was the hallway important to her?

‘I don’t see. Anything.’

‘How the… just focus.’

So I tried, looking through squinted eyes. Fully focused on Brynns prank, I felt a static behind my eyes. Then I saw it. Something shimmered right in front of me. Stepping back a bit I could see near invisible strings forming a giant cobweb that was attached in the corner of a turn within the passageway, perfectly positioned between enlightening stones, keeping the glow from reflecting on the rag.

Then I noticed the eight pea sized shimmers, deep in the corner. I shuddered as it moved slightly closer.

‘I’ll take care of that.’ Brynn said, carefree as she raised her sharp stick to throw it at the shape. It landed with a plop, then the stick moved wildly while releasing a distressed hiss before stilling and falling to the ground. Brynn maneuvered through the invisible web, picked up the stick, and revealed the eight legged terror. It was the size of her head. ‘You hungry?’

‘Not anymore...’

‘Well, then take that piece of wood out of your mouth, you look like a moron.’

‘But it feels so good to chew!’

---

Brynn sat down with the grey spider in her lap. Slowly, she began to crack its chest to remove the poison glands with the point of her spear. Meanwhile, I had broken of a leg where some carapace hid a bit of meat. It was actually pretty palatable, as far as I remembered anything to compare it to.

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‘Do you feel we’ve done this before?’ I asked, while I tried to take down the spider web with my stick, resulting in my stick getting stuck.

‘It feels familiar, doesn’t it?’

‘It does.’

Brynn threw the now severed glands against a wall and tapped me on the leg with her stick. I turned around, giving up my hopes at retrieving the club from the sturdy web, and broke another piece from the wall. She grinned as she handed me another piece of meat, freshly salvaged from the spiders innards.

‘Hey dumb knight, this is a lot better than what you’re chewing on now.’

Annoyedly, I looked at my already weathered club, and grabbed the chunk of meat from her hand. I had to admit that she was right.

‘My name is Anite.’ I said, while chewing on my food.

‘You were a knighted man?’

’Yes! In my vision!’

‘You seem more like a benighted man to me.’ She laughed.

‘Just call me… Anite.’

Brynn’s mismatched eyes widened, and she stiffened, squashing the meat in her claw into pulp.

For a second, I just watched her, uncertain as to what had happened. Suddenly, she blinked confusedly. She then looked at me. Her brows crawled together and the corners of her mouth turned down into an angry grimace of sharp fangs.

‘Did you do that on purpose?’ She asked, her voice shaking with anger. I just grunted confusedly. ‘Did you. do that. on fucking purpose? I said!’

‘Do what? The heck are you talking about?’

Brynn just glared at me a bit as the anger in her eyes made place for uncertainty, and she looked away.

‘I don’t fucking know, visions? Whatever, I don’t want to talk about it.’ So I just ate in silence. Brynn sat and stared for a moment until she ate her share.

Love it.

Finally we continued exploring.

Having lost my weapon to the cobweb, I ripped another stick from the wall. I could probably have gotten the original loose if I tried, but it might take the web down with it. Arguing that might rip stones from the wall, I chose to leave it on accord of stealth. No need to draw the attention of angry things, like minotaurs.

So we passed the cobweb. I was happy that it wasn’t the size of the whole hall. Not a sight I would like to see.

The remainder of the exploration went fine. We ran into some more cobwebs, but it wasn’t a problem, granted I could see the strings a bit better. We also saw a rat the same size of us, an actual rat, but felt it was better to not aggravate it, so we gave it a wide girth. Beyond that, we moved forward, marking walls at every intersection, until some point.

We just reached a T-intersection, one straight path and one path curling somewhat upwards. We started carving the so-manieth symbol in the wall.

Before we were done we smelled something off, coming closer to our location from the left. So, natural stalkers as we were, we hid in the shadows on the left wall and became dead silent, readying our improvised weapons. A far away sound followed, repetitive hissing. The sound eerily represented laughter.

Two creatures moved into the light.

In front of us were two lean, smoothly bronze scaled lizards roughly my size, so half a head taller than Brynn, standing up on lanky back legs. They wore trousers and armless vests. Their long fingered claws each held a stick with a sharp looking stone tied to the end of it. Long, lean tails dragged on the floor behind them, seemingly helping them maintain balance while they hunched slightly forward. As they hissed, their mouths revealed rows of small, sharp teeth.

They seemed to be conversing in a strange snake-like tongue, taking their sweet time before laying their eyes on us. One of them presumably told a very interesting story. As they turned their heads to the two sapphires and an emerald shimmering in the dark, their breath-like language got stuck in their throat.

Brynn and I did not hesitate and leaped forward. Brynn pierced one's throat with her improvised spear and my club ripped through an arm off the other, cracking in two in the process. Our movements had been an instant, they had no time guard themselves. While screeching from pain and fear, my opponent tried to make a break for it, back the way it came from.

Its body wobbled awkwardly as blood splashed from his severed shoulder. My claw shot out to grab its neck, and bashed the lizard’s head to the ground, cracking the skull, splashing eyes and remains over the floor. A wild grin split my face. If I was a knight, I was the greatest knight that will ever live.

‘Fuck, psycho.’ I heard Brynn whisper. I noticed her amused grin just before her eyes darted left with a serious gleam. I followed her gaze and could make out a third shape in the distance, running away from us. It had already gained a fair distance. In the corner of my eye Brynn made a swift move and the next moment a blur flew through the air, colliding into the lizardmans shoulder. The lizard stumbled but did not fall. It managed to regain his posture, and continued to run off with the impromptu spear still sticking out from his shoulder, wildly swinging back and forth. ‘Also, fuck.’

‘Amazing throw though.’ I mused aloud. Meanwhile, the muscles in my arms tensed with power as I also threw the remains of my weapon. It blurred through the air.

‘Well not good enough.’ Brynn said, while my club collided with a wall nowhere near target, producing a loud crashing noise. The lizardman got away.

‘And we lost our sticks.’ I observed. Brynn shrugged indifferently.

‘Doesn’t matter. I have a better new one anyway.’ She said, while eying the two corpses, a satisfied grin painted on her face.

‘And pants.’ I followed up dryly. ‘With actual tail holes. Hopefully, not shat on.’ I diverted my eyes from the corpses for a bit and looked into the left corridor where our prey just escaped to. ‘Should we catch up to that one? We definitely could catch up easily, even if it hasn't bled to death by now.’

‘Nah, I don’t see the harm. In fact, I don’t really know why we attacked in the first place. Some instincts, ey?’ She mused.

‘Well, it’s not like we could’ve talked with them. Maybe it's part of the blessing.’

‘Maybe they’re bilingual.’ Brynn said with a dry grin.

For a moment, we were simply fascinated by these other sentient beings inhabiting this place. Their faces were pretty weird. A smooth head with large mout, filled with rows of small, sharp teeth. Their thin, long limbs were leanly muscled. They seemed thinner than us due to our fluffy fur. Brynn’s target had had yellow eyes. We couldn’t find the eyes of mine, so it might not necessarily be a general thing.

We looted the bodies. The vests were a kind of cotton and fitted great, though they only covered our chest. The shorts were too long for Bryn and too thin for me.

While she adjusted her pants, by cutting the bottom off with the sharp spearhead, I inspected the insides of the many pockets that came with my brand-new wardrobe. In my trousers, I found a small pouch filled with carved up pebbles. Feeling I didn’t need a primitive lizardman’s stone collection, I dropped them about. The pouch would prove much more useful. At my left hip, I found a small dagger, made in the same manner as the spear. My vest contained some dried meat, which I thankfully stuffed into my face.

As soon as Brynn fixed her wardrobe malfunction, she too found a pouch in her pockets and threw the stones inside on the ground.

We decided to call it a day and head back home, both carrying a carcass each in case we were supposed to bring back something. I offered to carry the heavier lizard, but Brynn just scowled.

‘Keep your hands to your own prey.’ She sneered at me.

My worries of her not being able to keep up were misplaced as she was, though clearly wounded, fairly strong. When the long walk finally reached a conclusion, we carried our prey through the crevice between mother and the wall with considerable effort. However, seeing as the tunnel had been crafted beforehand, it was much easier than before. Nonetheless, we took a small rest.

King could wait.