Auriga crept quietly in Rukbat’s wake. It was only her third time in the dungeon, and her nerves were obvious. They hadn’t gone deep enough to encounter anything truly dangerous, and Rukbat had taken care of the few creatures that had emerged to harass them. Honestly, she still wondered why he’d decided to take her under his wing. It didn’t stop her from being grateful, though. With every dive, her fear ebbed and her curiosity flourished. There was so much history here, and so little of it truly explored and documented. Many of her fellow Coursers, Rukbat included, didn’t seem to hold so much wonder for the dungeon’s great expanse. To them, it was just a source of resources and treasure, a mine to be exploited for survival and growth. But to Auriga, it was a living document of a history long forgotten. Perhaps one day, she would know enough to share her knowledge with other scholars and patch some of the myriad holes in her tapestry of knowledge.

Her gait began to slow and her eyes began to wander. There was so much life around her for a place untouched by sun. Glowing moss and fungi glinted off the carapaces of shiny beetles or refracted through creeping oozes, filling the cavern with a greenish-blue glow so eerily unlike the sun above. Rukbat had told her to stay close, but something was drawing her off to a side passage. It felt… inviting, somehow. Friendly. Few things in the dungeon felt like that. Auriga cast a furtive glance toward her mentor, and peeled off towards the passage as soon as he rounded a corner and disappeared from view. With any luck, he wouldn’t get too far by the time he noticed she was gone, but hopefully he wouldn’t come rushing back to chastise her too quickly.

The side cavern lacked most of the natural glow from the dungeon’s native flora, but Corona flitted dutifully around her, its light dancing and flickering against the walls. It made the whole cavern seem alive the way the shadows moved and shifted around them. The wisp dipped behind her for a moment, and Auriga stumbled briefly upon a shift in elevation. She paused and nickered for Corona to return to her side, and as it did so, its glow revealed what looked like a large step. She craned her neck, but could not quite make out what might be at the top of the steps. Perhaps it was a pyramid of some sort? She’d heard tale of the mysterious structures, though no one really knew what purpose they served. Something spiritual or ritualistic, maybe. Auriga braced herself and made a short hop up the stairs, though her muscles froze from just how loud the echo of her jump was. After a few moments, nothing leaped out to attack from the shadows, so she let out a quivering exhale and began to step forward once more.

“LITTLE COURSER.”

Auriga froze stone-still. Where had that deep, booming voice come from?! With the cavern’s echo, it almost seemed to emerge from the very walls themselves. “Corona… go up,” she whispered. The wisp took a moment to process the command, but once it did, it rose, and its soft blue light illuminated a huge face. A decidedly un-equine face. Auriga gasped. A… human? Not a real human, of course, but one carved from the stone of the dungeon itself. Was this some sort of magical artifact from the Time Before? As she gazed up at the face in awestruck wonder, the statue’s lips seemed to turn upwards at the corners. What did that mean? With no large ears to signal with, reading the emotions of this flat-faced thing seemed nearly impossible. “WHERE IS YOUR KNIGHT?”

“My… knight?”Auriga’s ears flicked, and she stuttered over a potential response. “I don’t -- I never – I...” All she eventually managed to squeak out was “I don’t know what you mean.”

“YOUR RIDER, LITTLE COURSER. YOU VENTURE ALONE. WHY?”

She at least understood what ‘rider’ meant. But why would this thing assume she should have one? “I… I don’t have one. I don’t need one. None of us do. We can fight by ourselves.” She pondered. “Did we used to have them… before?”

“AURIGA! Where are you?!” Rukbat’s voice carried from beyond the small cavern.

Auriga stamped her foot and swished her tail, glancing between the statue and the entrance. “...I have to go. I’ll come back sometime. And...” she gazed back to the entrance. “...We’re not alone. Not really.”