Finn yawned, stretching his lanky arms as he trudged forward, his glaive resting lazily over one shoulder. His steampunk respirator muffled his voice, but the annoyance was clear.
"Ugh… Why're we stuck exploring the Great Pit again, Captain?"
Captain Kaleth, a grizzled man in his forties with salt-and-pepper hair, didn't bother looking back. His greatsword—etched with old scars—gleamed dully in the abyss's pallid light. The shield strapped to his arm bore the sigil of a lantern, its paint chipped from decades of use.
"Because that's what the Exploration Unit is for, Finn."
Behind them, Lina adjusted her glasses, flipping open a thick ledger. Her voice was crisp, clinical.
"Captain, reports confirm eighteen novice hunters were killed here recently. They'd just descended from the second stratum."
Goran, the bearded dwarf, spat on the ground, his obsidian axe already unslung.
"Tsk. Fools. Thinkin' they're ready for the third stratum just 'cause they've gutted a few Skavrith. Bet none of 'em even faced an Alpha."
The four moved cautiously, their boots crunching over brittle bone and shale—until Kaleth raised a fist.
"Wait."
Something was wrong.
The air was too still. The usual skittering of lesser beasts had gone silent.
Kaleth crept forward, peering into the yawning darkness of the Great Pit—
—and froze.
A Nyx-Terath.
It was hauling itself out of the abyss, its many mouths gnashing in discordant whispers. And for a heartbeat, Kaleth saw something else—a small, pale creature dangling from one of its tentacles, struggling weakly.
Then the horror dropped it, its floating yellow eyes locking onto the humans.
"Shit."
The Nyx-Terath surged toward them.
Kaleth's roar split the air.
"FALL BACK!"
Goran shoved the two younger hunters behind him, his axe already humming with latent runes.
"Lina! Finn! Get your sorry arses outta my sight—run, damn it!"
Lina hesitated, her hand gripping the runic staff strapped to her back. "But—Captain Kaleth—!"
Goran barked a laugh. "Worryin' about him? Girl, that man's killed worse than this stinkin' squid on his breakfast breaks."
Ahead, Kaleth stood his ground, his greatsword flaring to life with a crimson glow. The Nyx-Terath loomed, its acidic breath melting the stone at his feet.
He grinned.
"Alright, ugly. Come to me."
The Nyx-Terath shrieked as Kaleth's blade severed one of its writhing tentacles, black acid spraying like rancid ink. The captain didn't wait for retaliation—he ran.
"Move, Goran! We can't fight this thing in tight quarters!"
The team fell back, weaving through narrow tunnels until they burst into a sprawling cavern. Carrion birds scattered at their arrival, their screeches echoing off the stalactites. The beasts here were numerous—scavengers, insects, things with too many legs—but none posed a real threat to seasoned hunters.
Kaleth skidded to a halt, spinning to face the tunnel they'd just fled. "Form up!"
The team moved as one:
Kaleth and Goran took the front, shield and axe gleaming under the eerie bioluminescence.Finn and Lina fell back, the latter already murmuring under her breath.
Then—the Blue Song began.
Lina's glasses slid down her nose as she raised her staff, her irises flooding with cerulean light. The air hummed, vibrating with a sound like distant chimes—or perhaps a choir singing just beyond the edge of hearing.
"Pilgrim's Grace," she intoned.
Azure energy erupted from her staff, swirling around her teammates like liquid starlight. Finn gasped as the magic touched him, his muscles thrumming with newfound speed.
"Damn, Lina—you're the best!" He flexed his fingers, his runic glaive humming in response.
Goran rolled his shoulders, his obsidian axe hungry. "About time ya did somethin' useful, bookworm."
Kaleth didn't speak. He just smiled, his shield steady, his sword eager.
Then—the Nyx-Terath arrived.
The horror surged into the cavern, its remaining tentacles lashing, its many mouths gnashing in dissonant fury.
The battle began.
Kaleth moved first, his shield deflecting a whip-like tendril as his greatsword carved a glowing arc through the dark. The blade bit deep into the Nyx-Terath's core, eliciting a screech that made the very stone tremble.
Goran was a whirlwind of violence, his axe shearing through acidic flesh with dwarven precision. Every strike sent splashes of black blood sizzling against the ground.
Finn, enhanced by Lina's magic, darted like a shadow. His glaive struck with surgical precision—jabbing eyes, severing tendon-like cords.
Lina stood firm, her staff pulsing as she chanted. The Blue Song wove around her allies, mending minor wounds, sharpening reflexes.
But the Nyx-Terath was no mindless beast.
It adapted.
Tentacles regrew, thicker now, their mouths spewing toxic mist. One grazed Finn's arm, and he hissed as the fabric of his sleeve dissolved, the skin beneath blistering instantly.
Lina's voice rose in pitch. "Finn—fall back!"
"Like hell!" He gritted his teeth, plunging his glaive into the monster's nearest eye.
The Nyx-Terath recoiled, its movements suddenly erratic. Its wounds weren't healing as fast—the Blue Song was disrupting its regeneration.
Kaleth saw the opening.
"Now!"
With a roar, he drove his sword straight into the nucleus at the creature's core. Black blood geysered, splattering his armor, eating through the metal like acid. He didn't flinch.
Goran's axe followed, splitting the nucleus in two.
The Nyx-Terath screamed—a sound that seemed to come from a dozen throats at once—before collapsing into a pool of bubbling sludge.
Silence.
Then—
"Tsk. That all?" Goran spat on the corpse.
Finn clutched his injured arm, grinning through the pain. "Yeah, yeah. Save the boasting for the tavern, old man."
Lina sagged, the light in her eyes fading. "We need to move. That noise will draw every predator in the stratum."
Kaleth nodded, wiping his blade clean. His gaze, however, lingered on the tunnel they'd first emerged from.
Something gnawed at Kaleth as they regrouped—a quiet, persistent thought.
That thing the Nyx-Terath had been dragging… it didn't belong in the third stratum.
Lina's breath was ragged, her fingers trembling as she raised her staff once more. The Blue Song flickered to life, its cerulean light washing over Finn's wounded arm.
"Dawn's Restorative Touch," she whispered.
The energy knit his flesh back together, sealing the acid burns with a cool, soothing sensation. But the effort cost her—Lina swayed, her glasses slipping down her nose as the glow in her eyes dimmed.
"Good work, Lina," Kaleth said, steadying her with a hand on her shoulder. "Finn, help her walk."
Their return to camp was uneventful, marked only by the occasional skirmish with lesser beasts—nothing that required more than a few swings of Goran's axe or a precise thrust from Finn's glaive.
The camp's gates loomed ahead, torches casting long shadows over the palisade walls. Waiting for them was a figure who commanded respect without uttering a word.
Ysmera Varkharn.
The Guardian of the Camp was a woman carved from war itself—streaks of silver in her hair, a scarred eyepatch over her left eye, and a curved greatsword strapped to her back that had cleaved through horrors even Kaleth wouldn't dare face.
"Report," she said, her voice like gravel. "What happened?"
Kaleth dropped to one knee, fist pressed to his chest in salute.
"Lady Ysmera. We reached the Great Pit, but encountered a Nyx-Terath. We neutralized it, but…" He hesitated. "The rumors were true. Beasts from the lower strata are rising. And I could've sworn I saw a Vraalmur whelp in its grasp—alive."
Ysmera's eye narrowed.
"Interesting."
She paced a slow circle around the group, her gaze lingering on Finn's freshly healed arm, Lina's exhaustion, the black acid still eating faint holes in Kaleth's armor.
"What in the abyss could scare creatures from the depths enough to drive them upward?" she mused, more to herself than to them. "Or… lure them?"
The silence that followed was heavier than the darkness of the pit.
Kaleth kept his head bowed, but his mind raced.
Vraalmur whelps didn't just wander into the third stratum. Nyx-Teraths didn't abandon prey unless something worse was hunting.
And now, something had the abyss itself running scared.
Ysmera turned abruptly, her cloak snapping behind her.
"Double the sentries. Rotate shifts. I want every scrap of intel on stratum movements—especially from the fourth stratum down." She glanced back at Kaleth, her eye glinting like a blade in torchlight. "And Captain? Good Job".