They strode down the dark corridors, their torches illuminating their way forward. Their exploration formation was with them in the center, the mushroom crocodile and werewolf skeleton in the front, while the zombie crab guarded their back.

After silently trudging through the corridors for half an hour and finding nothing, they arrived at a crossroads. Gruth spotted something and walked over to the leftmost path.

He crouched over some giant rat droppings piled up in a corner, scrunching his nose at the smell. “They’re fresh, maybe a few hours old.”

Mortimer nodded. “Let’s go that way, we can track it back to its nest.”

Doland turned to look to the rightmost tunnel. “I wish we had a map…”

Gruth snorted. “Even if you had a map, it wouldn’t have the rats circled on it.”

Five minutes in, their torches lit up a silhouette in front of them. They all snapped out of their thoughts and raised their guard. A wet sound coming from in front.

When they took a better look, they saw a giant eight-legged spider gorging itself on a giant rat. The rat was still alive, but unmoving.

It had been paralyzed by the spider's venom and had its stomach tore open. The spider had its head dug into its entrails, but stopped and turned around when it noticed the new arrivals.

The giant spider stood on its back legs threateningly and flashed its venom coated fangs. Preparing to leap on anything that came closer.

"I hate spiders." Gruth frowned. "It's all you, we don't want any friendly fire."

Mortimer had his skeleton step forward and approach it, followed closely behind by the crocodile zombie as support.

The giant spider leaped forward and saddled the front of the skeleton with its furry legs, making it stumble back from the momentum.

It immediately dug its venomous fangs into the skeleton’s neck but failed to pierce through. Venom ran down the gray bones, the spider frantically trying to stab through and paralyze its prey.

However, the skeleton regained its balance after a moment but its movements were awkward with the spider on top of it.

It ran its claws through the spider's front legs when it found a chance, bisecting two of the front ones. Dark green blood gushed out.

The lack of limbs dismounted it, making it drop back down on the ground. It writhed in pain and bared its fangs at them, trying to fall back but failing because of its unbalanced body. Doland’s crocodile lunged forward and snapped its teeth over the spider’s head, then dropped on its belly and twisted its maw.

It ripped the spider’s head off.

The headless body fell to the ground and twitched, a puddle of green blood draining under it.

After everything was over, the trio relaxed. Doland approached the corpse and poked its fur.

Mortimer turned to look at Gruth. “Anything worth taking other than their souls?”

Gruth neared the headless spider corpse and frowned. “The poison glands were destroyed by mushroom man.”

Doland rolled his eyes. “Would you prefer it had ran away?”

He walked over to the giant rat. It had breathed its last during the battle.

Doland pulled a pocket knife from his satchel and sawed its furry tail off. “This is an alchemy ingredient, worth about two petty essences.”

After giving the tail a strong squeeze and draining it of all its blood, Doland wrapped it in cloth and stored it inside his satchel.

Mortimer took two empty soul gems from his leather satchel and approached the spider’s corpse.

He channeled the soul trap spell, muttering the chant under his breath. The empty soul gem promptly absorbed the spider soul, a dim glow lighting up in the middle of the crystal.

Lesser Soul Gem: contains insect type lesser soul (giant spider, adult)

Mortimer told his teammates while he was trapping the rat’s soul as well. “We’ll split up everything when we get back.”

Lesser Soul Gem: contains beast type lesser soul (giant rat, adult)

Gruth grunted. “Whatever.”

“I got dibs on this tail.” said Doland while he was busy shoveling the spider bits and pieces out of his crocodile’s mouth.

“Why are these corridors so narrow? My undead is useless in here.”

Mortimer looked at the Gatling gun on the crab. “It should be useful to clear out a nest of rats. It’s actually what I’m counting on to deal with them.”

“You can count on me… but I want a bigger share if I do all the work.”

Mortimer nodded. “How much in debt are you to Gregory?”

Gruth gritted his teeth at the mention of Gregory. “I had to take another loan to buy the crab… I’m eight common essences in debt.”

“Good luck.” Mortimer snickered.

The trio regrouped and got back in formation. The rat droppings got more and more frequent as they followed the trail.

“We must be getting close, they’re everywhere now.” Mortimer warned when he spotted another one.

Just when they were about to turn the corner, Gruth gestured them to a halt.

“There’s something in front.” Gruth whispered. His vision in the dark was far better than his teammates.

There was a small silhouette just in front of them. They tensed up at the early warning and slowly approached, shining their torches on it.

It was the back of a giant rat. It didn’t move even when they neared it.

When they had a clear look at it, they were shocked to see what it was made of stone.

Gruth’s face turned pale, and he instinctively looked behind him.

“We should leave.” he whispered.

Doland approached the giant rat statue and hesitantly poked its stone surface. “This is definitely stone… and I don’t think anybody carved it.”

Mortimer looked at the pale-faced Gruth. “Do you know what did this?”

Gruth nodded at first but then shook his head. “I only know it’s a petrifying spell.”

“We should go, anything that can use such a spell is too dangerous for us.”

Mortimer nodded and shuffled his undead, preparing to backtrack and return to the gates.

“Forget the rats, it’s not worth risking our lives for it.” he sighed.

Mortimer pulled the blue tracking stone and held it in his palm. He was hit with an odd intuitive feeling. All he had to do was follow it and he’d be led to the stone’s twin. Mortimer looked at the stone in amazement, he’d never heard about a material that could affect the psyche like this.

Gruth slapped his thigh. “Snap out of it, we should go.”

While Gruth and Mortimer were discussing, Doland was still by the giant rat statue.

Just when he was preparing to reunite with them, he spotted something with the corner of his eye. There was a one-inch wide hole in a well-hidden spot on the statue, with a tiny gray tail sticking out.

Intrigued, Doland pulled on it and dragged out a tiny dark gray lizard. It was three inches long with eight stubby legs and a tiny row of boney spines on its back.

Doland widened his eyes at the sight, his favorite species to use as undead were reptiles and he had memorized the characteristics of all common species. However, he had nothing in his mind that corresponded with this one. This meant that it was a rare type of reptile just in front of him.

The reptile nerd had a wide grin on his face as he stuffed it in his satchel. He looked at his teammates, but they were focused on the stone and paying no attention to him. Doland let out a breath of relief, he didn't know the tiny reptile’s value but he knew it would be sky-high.

He wanted to raise it to adulthood and turn it into his undead. What if they asked him to sell it and split the profits instead? Doland returned to his group, trying hard to curb his excitement and not appear suspicious.

Mortimer began guiding the group towards the gate by following the tracking stone. Nobody paid any attention to Doland’s odd behavior.

They walked in total silence for fifteen minutes, at the beginning every sound they heard startled them, but after a dozen false alarms, they let their guard down and relaxed. Those tense minutes felt like hours to them and tired them out mentally. It was too much for these inexperienced neophytes.

The party arrived at an intersecting crossroads node. Mortimer pointed towards the one his intuition highlighted but paused in his tracks when he felt a strong sense of unease.

A large eight-legged reptile pounced from its hiding place in a dark crevice. Its dull eyes glowed with a pale green light, targeting the mushroom crocodile. Everybody recoiled back in terror. However, the stone-eyed basilisk paused when its ambush failed, the petrifying gaze had no effect on the undead creature.

This pause allowed the party to get a good look at the monster.

It was dark gray-colored, with a single row of boney spines lining its back, and a curved horn atop its nose. It had a robust body and was two meters tall and four meters long.

Doland’s face paled when he saw it, and he let out a shriek.

Mortimer’s hands were shaky, and his heart was beating out of his chest. Facing this creature reminded him of the feeling of terror Igor’s experimental abominations gave him.

Doland gritted his teeth and willed his crocodile to lunge forward and bite down onto the basilisk’s front leg. “Attack it!”

The werewolf skeleton leaped to flank it from the side, unleashing its sharp claws onto the basilisk’s hide. All the claw attack did was inflict shallow scratches on its skin. It did not even draw blood. The crocodile fared much worse, its teeth sunk it and some chipped from its skin toughness. However, when it twisted its maw to rip off its flesh, most of its teeth remained embedded in its hide.

It lost a majority of its teeth and the basilisk remained unscathed.

Mortimer and Doland were shocked at the sight. This was a futile battle.

The basilisk roared. While its petrifying gaze was recharging, its bodily strength was not to be underestimated.

It stomped down on the crocodile that was flopped down in front of it, smashing its head into meat paste.

It then swung its tail with a crack.

Mortimer had already commanded his skeleton to retreat after its failed attack, but it was not fast enough to completely dodge the tail swipe. It held its hands in front of it to defend and they took the brunt of the glancing blow.

The Iron wolf’s clawed hands were smashed into hundreds of pieces.

The tail of the basilisk continued unhindered and smashed into the catacomb’s wall, kicking up a cloud of dust and quaking the ground. Mortimer stumbled back with his ears ringing. He saw Doland turning around from the corner of his eye. He had a frightened expression on his face and was preparing to make a run for it.

When he turned his head to look for Gruth, he realized that he was long gone. He spotted his slow crab skittering away in the distance after him.

Mortimer knew that he would undoubtedly die if he was left to face it alone.

In a moment of desperation, he grabbed the back of Doland’s robes and hurled him back with as much strength as he could muster.

“What are you doing!?” he screamed.

Doland stumbled through the dust screen and fell down on his behind, right in front of the basilisk. The basilisk was startled by the toppled over human that suddenly popped up in front of it. However, It’s petrifying gaze had just finished recharging, and it instinctively used it on him.

Its eyes lit up with a pale green light, engulfing Doland’s horrified expression in stone.

Just when it was about to charge through the dust screen and continue its hunt, he smelled a familiar scent on its newest statue.

It was what attracted it to stalk them in the first place, else it wouldn’t have bothered to spend the effort, it wasn't even hungry.

It sniffed closely for a long time, but everything Doland had to his clothes and satchel had been turned to stone.

The basilisk grew frustrated when it couldn’t find the reason. It swung its tail and obliterated the statue in thousands of pieces.

When it turned to leave, the familiar smell suddenly grew stronger.

Following its nose took him to a pile of stone pieces. In the pile, it discovered the crushed body of its offspring.

The basilisk stood there in a daze.