The sound of slapping sprinting footsteps approaching from my side pulled me out of my moment of hesitation at the entrance to Brightenjaw’s territory. I might have once flinched and spun around wildly prepared to defend myself, but the lack of a red flashing warning from Max and my vastly diminished supply of fucks to give muted my response. I turned and glanced over my shoulder to see who was running towards us, and let out a sigh when I realized it was Jozoic.

  He slowed as we caught eyes, and came to a stop next to Hodak. He took a couple of deep breaths to recover from his sprint before speaking. “Lokra says you are sallying out. I am going with.”

  We looked at each other for a moment, and I weighed my options. Part of me responded with anger, he was ordering instead of asking and I was supposed to be in charge. Another part of me expected no less from Jozoic, I knew him well enough to know that he would want to be where the action was. Yet another part was filled with hesitation that screamed at me to just let the brave dwarv take over now that the planning was done and the wheels were in motion.

  Instead of giving myself more time to think about it or indulging in any of my conflicted thoughts, I nodded at the group and stepped forward into the tunnel. The ground was rough, scattered with small angular stones and pebbles that forced me to step carefully. Hodak, Jozoic, and one of the unnamed dwarves followed me into the hastily cleared tunnel.

  Unlike our side, the Brightenjaws had not fully excavated the jumbled blocks that had clogged each entrance to the tar chamber. We had to climb over boulders and crawl through narrow openings as we silently worked our way through the tunnel, listening to the growing sound of rippling moving water and soft splashes.

  After distributing handfuls of glow-goo and creeping silently through the lengthy connecting tunnel, we emerged into a larger chamber piled with removed stones. We found discarded tools, and a pile of some dark shiny ore that had been broken from the wall and abandoned in place. I briefly wondered why the dwarves considered it acceptable to shatter ore from stone but refused to give the surrounding stone the same treatment, and filed the question away as something to ask about another time. A hush had taken over the group, and I did not want to be the one to break it.

  My little team silently followed me as I led them through one of the two openings on the far side of the cavern, heading to the left and following the path according to my minimap. Max handily marked it with a golden thread and highlighted our target, and even showed a series of blue dots on the Hammerting side that I assumed was Kikkelin and her team. They had already made it halfway to the objective, and I felt a twinge of competitiveness prod the frozen anger inside my core. This was all my idea, and I couldn’t let them show me up even if I had given them the easy part.

  Picking up the pace we began to jog down the rough faux-natural tunnel to the next chamber. We had to move through two more rooms and a few hundred meters of corridor before we came to the water-lock and started the hard part. My adrenaline was already starting to get to me, pushing me into more of a run as I checked the location of our counterpart team.

  Just after we crossed the second open chamber and I sprinted into the next tunnel opening, something grabbed me from behind and yanked me backwards. My foot slipped and I nearly face planted, but managed to remain upright by scraping my hand and shoulder against the rough wall to balance myself. Whatever had grabbed me held on, and I spun around with a raised fist ready to fight.

  Jozoic was there, and he grabbed my forearm and pulled me forward from my already unbalanced stance with one hand, then pushed me back against the wall with a palm against my chest. “Calm yourself,” He hissed.

  I snarled and nearly hauled off and hit him. Who the fuck was he to be telling me what to do, we needed to get this done yesterday and he was never invited to the team anyway. It was just me and him, and I had nearly two feet on him. I could take him.

  Then I realized it really was just me and him, the other two members of our group only present by the distant sound of crunching footsteps and heavy breathing. He narrowed his eyes and stepped back from me. His fists clenched at his side, but he did not bring them up to defend himself.

  “Aggression is not what is needed here, Kaninak,” he said.

  His words were ice-water poured over my growing anger, and I realized I was being irrational. Why was I so angry? What would fighting with him even accomplish? I dropped my hands and lowered my gaze.

  “My bad… you're right.”

  He grunted, grinned, and gave me another push. “Water under the bridge. Aggression can be powerful, but is not for everything.”

  Max gave a curious head-tilt look in his little streamer screen, and more messages between him and Rin scrolled along the side of my vision. Max seemed like he was surprised and maybe even offended at the dwarv’s reply. Jozoic then pushed past me and continued trudging forward. I followed after him, wondering what the hell had come over me.

  The subtle dip along the lengthy mainline tunnel meant that instead of a sudden drop into a pool, the water started shallow and stretched out past where the dim light we carried could reach. Max’s enhancement to my sight let me see the slight grade dropped off by about a foot of height for every 20 feet, which Rin clarified in the chat as a 5% grade with some math that I didn't have time to question. I could see farther than the light thanks to the vision, but a bend in the tunnel stopped me from seeing to the point where the water rose to the ceiling.

  The water gently sloshed and shook, reaching out to our toes at the edge of the damp stone before retreating in small choppy waves. Little bits of material and what looked like sticks and clumps of expended glow-goo floated amongst the water. We grouped up at the edge, Hodak and our forth hand who I learned was a Hammerting dwarv by the name of Kona caught up to us as we examined the flotsam filled pool.

  We all exchanged looks, but no one spoke. I kneeled down at the edge of the water and pulled out one of the sticks, it was about a foot and a half long and maybe an inch thick with a bend partway through. It had small spines along one edge of the not-quite circular bit that I picked it up by. As I pulled it closer to my face to look it over, also bringing up my handful of glowing goop up to see it better, it flexed at the bend and twitched in my hand. With an undignified noise I managed to keep my grip and extended it out to the others for them to get a better look, trusting in my gauntlet to keep my hand safe.

  “A scolo leg,” Jozoic said.

  “Mmmm,” replied Hodak sagely.

  The choppy water began to bubble and thrash, the rhythmic lapping of waves turning to splashing undercut with something hard scraping on the stone. Five or six of the huge centipedes rolled down the corridor towards us, rising up out of the water as it became more shallow. They were in a fierce battle amongst each other, and all of them were missing plates or even segments from the end of their lengthy bodies.

  They wrestled in a brutal no rules free-for-all. Biting, stinging, and tearing at each other in an effort to rise out of the water, but the intensity of the struggle saw that none of them could fully climb out of the water and scurry up one of the walls or onto the ceiling. We watched the fight in silence for a long moment. I stepped away from the edge of the water, moving behind the three dwarves who seemed to be both captivated and concerned with the battle.

  I was too busy thinking to pay much attention to them. How many more of those things were going to be down there? I turned away and paced a few steps away from the group before turning and pacing back. What would happen if we ran into more of them while swimming through? Hodak had estimated it would be something like 60 feet of flooded tunnel until we could expect to come up for air. How the hell was I supposed to deal with a swarm of insects while trapped underwater in a dwarven death tube?

  The rest of my squad stood transfixed by the fight, and I felt a soothing rush of euphoria and numbness sweep through me as Max hit me with something to calm me down. I shook my head and gave Jozoic a glance, suddenly self conscious of the outright terror and anxiety I realized I was in the midst of. I absolutely did not want to swim through that tunnel, even before I knew it might be filled with the huge centipedes who seemed to be as equally frantic to be anywhere other than submerged in the water as I was.

  Despite whatever Max was giving me, my heart still hammered in my chest. The brawling insects fought and rolled closer to us, some of them falling still while the lone survivor crawled out of the water and up the wall until it was on the ceiling. It then wiggled along the length of its body and pulled itself close to the ceiling as it stilled it’s movements, then the thing completely fucking disappeared.

  Jozoic and I looked at each other as we had both realized the whole damn ceiling might be coated in the things. Max chose that moment to finally unmute himself and speak to me.

  Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

  “Oh, snap. How the f-… ooooh, that's why perception is a passive stat! That makes sense, normally I monitor for pings for moving stealthed actors. I guess it's different if they are stationary. Huh.” Max commented, finally choosing to break his silence now that he had something useful to say.

  “What are they doing?” whispered Kona.

  “Hiding,” muttered Hodak.

  “No shit,” I answered, my nerves causing my voice to come out a little harsher than I intended.

  “We must go, if we move with caution they will leave us alone.” Jozoic said, his voice low but not quite a whisper. We all looked to see if his volume would get a reaction, but nothing happened other than the choppy water calming back down to gentle lapping waves.

  “How long can the human survive underwater?” Kona asked bluntly.

  I felt another pang of fear rise up through the numbing fog at the thought, but tamped it back down. “Maybe two minutes?” I guessed.

  “Poor bastards.” Hodak said, now looking out at the floating forms of the dead creatures. “Blessed by the deeps but not by understanding.”

  “Now’s not the time for philosophy, either.” Jozoic replied as he pulled one of our bronze shields out from his inventory. He gave me a look and asked. “Still have a weapon?”

  I nodded and pulled my two handed pick back out from my inventory, then looked around to the others. “Yes, I’m…” I hesitated, my fear causing the words to catch in my throat before I shook my head and forced my way through it. “I’m not sure how useful I’ll be if we run into trouble underwater.” I held the pick out to Hodak.

  The surly dwarv took the tool with both hands, examining the bronze head of the weapon. He hefted it as if it were something unfamiliar to him, frowning the whole time. “Interesting,” he said before banging the end of the handle against the ground until the head slipped free. He pulled the handle into his inventory and gripped the end of the head, trying a few test stabs instead.

  “Clunky. Better than nothing.”

  The others looked to me in the hope that I might have more weaponry, so I pulled up my inventory and looked through the dregs of equipment and supplies I had carried from the forge during our repositioning. As far as metal objects that could possibly be used as weapons, I had a few different flavors of hammers, a set of very crude iron tongs with long handles, and two wrought iron pry bars with welded steel chisel pointed heads. I read the list aloud as I scrolled through it.

  “The bars would be best. They’ll serve as makeshift spears,” Jozoic said.

  I nodded and removed them from my inventory, handing one to Kona while Jozoic took the other. Unsure what weapon I should use myself, I went with the one handed hammer I had used earlier.

  “I will be the point, with Kona and Hodak following.” The serious dwarv then fixed me with an expectant gaze.

  “That… that works,” I answered, eyeing the murky water and feeling another surge of dread rise up. “Should I follow after?”

  I knew I was showing weakness, showing a crack in my ability to lead and disgracing myself in the eyes of these few who had chosen to follow me into danger. I just couldn’t help myself, the dark pool terrified me. I’d never been scared of enclosed spaces, but the idea of being stuck in a tight space that was also dark, filled with water, aaaand vicious enemies was too much.

  I’d never really learned to swim. Wading in a creek no deeper than my knees as a pre-teen was the closest experience I’d ever had with this kind of thing. I grew up within a short drive of the ocean, but had never spent any time on the beach. I didn’t have the time or energy to waste a rare day off on a trip to the beach when I could use the time to relax my labor-beaten body.

  Jozoic seemed to sense my fear, and I braced myself for the scorn and insults I knew I deserved. He gave a sharp nod and turned to the other two dwarves. “We will clear the submerged tunnel and message you to follow once we are on the other side. Do not dally.”

  Hodak looked up at the ceiling and shifted his grip on the prybar he carried. He looked like he might speak, but instead just watched the ceiling where the scolovian had hidden itself. Everyone's gaze slowly joined his and we stared at the ceiling for a moment before Kona broke the silence.

  “You are sure it will not drop down on us?”

  Jozoic nodded. “It will need to recover from the fight. Do you not smell their stress?”

  Hodak grunted and Kona shrugged her shoulders. Jozoic gave me one last look as he pulled out a foot-long spike that looked more like a huge nail than an actual weapon. He shoved it through one of the straps of his harness, then turned and waded into the chunky soup-like water. The other two followed after, with Kona giving me a slightly anxious look over her shoulder as they walked deeper into the water and moved around the bend.

  I checked the clock once they moved out of sight. We had about three quarters of an hour left before Max’s warned that the water-traps would fail. Nothing dropped down from the ceiling to attack the group as they moved under where the scolovian had disappeared, which gave me some amount of reassurance as the noise of their sloshing footsteps ceased echoing down the hallway to me.

  Let me tell you, being all alone in the dark cavern did not calm my nerves. Every noise drew my frantic gaze. During one particularly violent motion in reaction to a stone falling from the ceiling and splashing into the water, I squeezed the fist that was filled with my borrowed glob of glow-light and burst the bulb like a rotten tomato under my armored fingers. Specks of blue light peppered myself, the tunnel, and floated in the water. The bank of the pool was a little brighter for a moment before the smaller and less efficient bits of phosphor gel quickly began to fade and left me with even less light than I started with.

  The choppy water had stilled, and the waves came more slowly as I waited for a message from Jozoic. I checked my clock again and realized only twenty seconds had passed. Closing my eyes for a moment, I tried to calm myself down as Max hit me with another dose of whatever he gave me to calm me down. It helped a little, but not much.

  “Man, you’re gonna give yourself a damn heart attack if you can’t get a grip. You’re fine, the dwarv squad is gonna carry you through this last bit of poppycock.”

  I blinked in reaction to his words, momentarily pulled out of my panic. “Poppycock?” I asked aloud.

  Max grinned up in his little streamer cam. “You heard it here first, live from studio “inside-yo-mind”. This is a bunch of bull-oney.”

  I grimaced and closed my eyes for a moment. “I don’t have time for weird slang or bad puns right now, Max.”

  “What do you mean? Now is exactly the right time. Your heart rate has already dropped a little.”

  I sighed and rubbed my temple, using my forearm rather than my gauntleted hands. This was Max trying to be a helpful distraction. His intent was in the right place, even if he was being annoying. This was a me problem, a deficiency of my own. My anxiety fueled anger screamed at me to push back, but the calm rational side of me knew he was right. At least, I thought it was a part of me. I was starting to question just how much we had bled into each other with our minds linked as they were. Perhaps those thoughts weren't even my own and were only another blinder Max had saddled me with.

  “Hey man, that’s not cool. Yeah, sure, I may have manipulated and coerced you into this all in the first place. I’ll admit I’ve used some hormones and other chemicals to nudge your nerves in the right direction as well, but I have made zero attempts to actually force myself into your psyche. I promise, dude. Even I know that’s just straight up evil. We’re both in here, and the only things that have crossed the barrier are surface thoughts that somehow make the leap. I don’t really understand it fully yet either.”

  I closed my eyes and dragged a deep breath in, and sorted through his words. I reminded myself that I had never caught Max in a lie, and that we shared every reason to make this work. I could trust his intent, if not his occasionally na?ve execution. A wave crashed a little heavier at my feet, splashing up over my bare toes and startling me. My eyes opened and I jumped back, watching as the water began to writhe and undulate much like it had been when we first approached.

  The hammer's grip creaked in my hand as I clenched my fist around it. I felt the fairly soft sportrell “wood” compress in my hand as my gauntlet's sharp angles deformed the material. The urge to flee warred with the drilled reflex to rush to my squad’s defense and left me nailed to the spot. I waited as the waves lapped against my feet, nervously switching my gaze from the end of the tunnel and the ceiling.

  As suddenly as the motion had started it began to calm again, the waves and ripples losing momentum as they bounced between the narrow walls and spent their energy. I typed up a message to Jozoic asking if they needed my help, then fretted and worriedly test-swung my hammer a bit while I waited for a response. The clock ticked over another minute. I counted thirty breaths instead of watching the clock. Nothing happened.

  My chat tab finally pinged with a muted notification, the tone for some reason coming through as a weird throaty, almost bubbly, honking noise that threw me off for a second. It was a goofy noise that I couldn't quite place. I rolled my eyes, but also cracked a slight grin as I opened the message.

  Jozoic: We have cleared the tunnel. Follow if you are able.

  I closed the message tab and steeled myself for what I knew I needed to do. Until I noticed that there was some kind of chart up next to Max’s little video screen. He was muted once again and back to talking animatedly to my friends. I looked over the chart and sighed when I saw the largest bar was labeled as “rubber chicken”. The rubber chicken’s bar stretched out far ahead of the other more stubby bars underneath it in the chart.

  Notification Alert Poll:

  Rubber chicken - 63%

  Clown shoes  - 23%

  Slide whistle  - 11%

  Wet fart    - 3%

  “Damnit, Max…” I muttered to myself, before typing a message back to Jozoic to tell him I was on my way. I then choked down my fear and waded into the water, squeezing my hammer’s handle tight enough for it to creak and flex under my hand again as I forced myself to advance. Just because I was scared was no excuse. I told myself this was what it meant to be courageous, and put one foot in front of the other as the dark chunky water deepened with each step.