Two days after the Ithraxi attack, they were running dangerously low on water. Baldric and Luna were no longer eating as long as Annie and Elizabeth were, with them just taking turns sleeping so they could pass off the hunger. It was midnight on the eighth day, according to Luna’s pocket watch, when all of them were startled awake when the landraider began to speed up much faster than what they did during the Ithraxi attack.

"Ada what now?!" Luna said as they felt the landraider rumble and shake.

"As if all of you are so perfect?" Ada snapped angrily. "Can’t I make a mistake without any of you idiots breathing down my damn back!"

"What did you do?!" Baldric yelled as they felt the vehicle quake violently. Annie quickly hugged Elizabeth and Willow while he and Luna climbed to the roof. She then shot a flare into the air and what they saw made them freeze.

It was a colossal mechanical centipede with its head filled with terrifying, massive drills. Its sheer size filled the enormous cavern and decimated everything around it. Hundreds of red lights were on its thousands of legs, and its eyes were blazing red as it locked and charged at them. It let out a metallic roar that caused the area around them to shake.

"Annihilator!" Luna yelled as Baldric quickly prepped the landraiders' heavy cannon. "Ada watch over Elizabeth! Annie, get the high explosive shells!"

Annie climbed up with a bag filled with shells. Luna manned the arbalest and launched heavy explosives while Baldric and Annie manned the mortar. The three of them acted as a fire team and bombarded the monstrosity right behind them. As they loaded the cannon, the annihilator reared and spouted liquid fire from its mouth.

Ada swerved narrowly to avoid the jet of fire. The three of them continued the barrage, and each shell landed on the face of the mechanical beast. But it did nothing as it grew closer and closer, its grinding metallic screech becoming more ferocious.

"This thing just won't go down!" Baldric said as they hit the annihilator’s eye and reloaded the cannon. They faced the back of the landraider as the colossal centipede was right behind them. Annie looked at the front and quickly shook them both.

Coming from the front were Borwuks, giant creatures with four arms and stout heads with mouths filled with heavy fangs and tusks. It was charging straight at them, and all the three of them could do was hold on to each other and close their eyes. But the Borwuks ignored them and attacked the Annihilator head-on. Ada drove the landraider underneath the borwuks and they managed to escape. The three of them watched as the group of savage monsters destroyed one another.

"What was that?!" Luna said when all three of them got back to the compartment. Elizabeth quickly ran to them, and Annie gave her a tight hug.

"In all honesty, I did not think he would be that hostile. All I did was try to ask it for directions."

"Are you insane? That was an annihilator!" Baldric yelled.

"For you meatbags, probably. Did you forget that I am a GEA? What you call "annihilators" are actually navigator class GEAs. Their original purpose was to excavate and create passageways while keeping a detailed map of the area they were working on. I tried to ask it for directions, as that was its original purpose, but when it woke up, it started attacking for no reason."

"Why would you need to ask for directions?!" Luna stepped forward and grabbed the magnamap from Ada’s hands. "We have a map right here! All you had to do was follow the map!"

"Your defective map stopped being useful four hours ago! If you all wanted to just go around in the bloody dark and keep going in circles, then why am I trying so hard to keep you all alive?" Ada crossed her arms.

"Wait, what?" Baldric took the map from Luna and checked it.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

"Give me some paper."

Annie handed Ada a sheet and a pencil, and she quickly began to create a map. Within seconds, she had created a map of their entire journey, starting from when they entered the underempire. "I have sent some drones to scout the area ahead and I keep cross-referencing back to the magnamap and both don’t match."

Luna and Baldric studied the new map on their own, and Ada was telling the truth. The map they were following was wrong, and if Ada’s drones were correct, what was ahead of them was a dead end.

"Maybe if we try and backtrack, we can try to find a way to go back to where we were." Baldric said.

"I’d love to do that meatbag, but the navigator class has changed the route. Its rampage closed the old roads, so the paths we used to take are gone."

"Are you saying we are lost down here?" Luna said out loud.

"Slow on the uptake, aren’t you? Yes, we are. And without food and water, I hear meatbags die pretty quickly."

"We’re lost?" Elizabeth said, and all of them looked at her. No one wanted to answer, but it was Luna who confirmed it.

"Yeah, we’re lost."

"If we’re lost, we can use this." Elizabeth showed her the star-shaped diamond pendant on her neck. "My mama said that if I’m lost, it will guide me until I am safe."

Baldric laughed, and everyone looked at him.

"Sorry, sunshine, just desperate is all. How do you know that necklace works?"

"Me and my mama used it before. Look." She removed the necklace, held the pendant firmly in her hands, and closed her eyes. All of them were expecting something to happen, but nothing did. Elizabeth just pointed straight. "It says we need to keep going forward."

Baldric laughed again.

"It really works!" Elizabeth said to him.

"Ok, let me try." She handed him the pendant, and Baldric closed his eyes. "Yeah, nothing. Sunny, I think the lack of sunlight is affecting our brains."

Luna picked it up and tried it. There was nothing. She asked in her mind where they should go, and suddenly she felt safe. It was as if something was assuring her. She then heard a very faint whisper that she almost missed. It called to her and said to just keep going forward. "I think she’s right."

"What?" Baldric looked at her.

"It’s incredibly faint, but there was something." Luna handed the pendant to Annie to try. Annie closed her eyes, then shook her head and handed the necklace back to Elizabeth.

"I say we try it. What choice do we have?" Luna said to them.

"Normally I would say it is insanity to follow a whispering pendant, but seeing as how we have no further options with our water almost gone, I say what the heck. Let’s all go die in the dark." Baldric surrendered.

=0o0=

They followed Elizabeth’s directions, with the child and Luna switching to act as navigators. For two days now, they followed the pendant, and they finally ran out of water. Baldric and Luna stopped eating and drinking and gave the last few rations to Annie and Elizabeth. Even Annie stopped eating to make sure that Elizabeth got both.

The child keeps offering her rations to all of them, but they declined so the child won’t go hungry. She tried to join them in not eating, but everyone insisted she continue to do so. Luna also watched that Willow, throughout the entire ten days in the dark, did not even eat or drink and yet somehow acted the same.

=0o0=

By the morning of the eleventh day, Baldric and Luna were now feeling the effects of not drinking for two days. Luna’s head had a permanent migraine, and Baldric looked pale. Even sleeping started to hurt, as Luna felt immense pain in her joints. Ada suddenly stopped the landraider.

"Dead end." She said to them.

"What?" Baldric got up from the couch.

"Dead end." Ada repeated.

They all stepped down from the landraider, and they were greeted by a dead end in front of them. Luna and Baldric looked at Elizabeth.

"It says, keep going forward." Elizabeth closed her eyes and tried again. "I promise it says, keep going forward."

"There is no forward sunny." Baldric said softly, as his throat was dry and hoarse. "There is nothing in front of us."

Elizabeth tried and tried. "It just keeps going forward." She started to sniffle. "I’m sorry." While Annie comforted Elizabeth, Baldric and Luna stared at the cave wall in front of them.

"This is my fault that we will all die here." Luna admitted.

"As long as you know it, But at least it’s no longer hot down here."

"Huh?"

"What?"

"No, what did you say, Baldric?"

"It’s no longer hot down here."

It struck Luna. It was no longer hot, but rather cold. She closed her eyes and felt a-

"Was that a breeze?" Baldric picked it up too. They both walked towards the cave wall and started feeling the wall. Baldric felt something, a little hole barely bigger than his finger that had a breeze coming out of it. "It couldn’t be." Baldric looked at Luna. "You don’t think?"

"Prime the cannon." Luna said as all of them rushed back to the landraider. Both of them climbed to the top and loaded it with high-explosive shells.

"Oi, you two serious?" Ada said, as Annie and Elizabeth watched from the inside. "You do know what happens when you fire an explosive inside a cavern, right?" The two of them ignored her as they prepared to fire.