The damp, clinging, cloying, cold, clawed at Castalla, Logue, Fetch and Terrence as they pressed forward into the dungeon's shadowy maw. A tense quiet, broken only by the distant drip, drip, drip of water seeping through cracks in the ceiling, had settled over the group. Their last adventure, or rather misadventure, had ended particularly poorly when they were defeated by a shadowy challenger. Castalla's shoulder still ached in the cold from a blow she'd been dealt, and even Terrence's bravado seemed unusually tempered by the peril that loomed closer this time.

The passage narrowed around them, pressing in tighter, tighter, tighter on all sides, until they were forced to walk in single file or face fighting for room to breathe. Castalla pulled in front, ever focused, ever determined, with Terrence right at her tail. It wasn't long before their procession came to an abrupt halt, Terrence accidentally shouldering into Castalla before he realised she'd stopped. Iron bars, rusted and worn but holding firm, blocked their way forward, oddly intact and out of place in the crumbling remains of a former kingdom.

"Just our luck," he muttered, voice soft upon the quiet. "I can kick it down." He pressed closer to Castalla, intending to squeeze past.

"Wait," Logue called out from the rear, eyes squinting into the unseeing face of darkness beyond. "I think something's moving."

Craning her neck, Castalla stalked forward, blinking as she peered curiously through the gloom. Movement caught her eye, a shadowy form, and suddenly a head was shoved through the bars, twisting and turning frantically. Castalla jerked back in surprise, hooves clattering loudly on the wet, cobbled stones. It was almost Courser-like in shape, but there was something horribly wrong about it. Flesh was pulled in strings across a skeletal face, bleached and mouldy, it's hollow eye sockets glowing with a desperate, unnatural light.

"Who are you?" Castalla asked in a low, cautious voice.

"Please," it rasped, its voice scraping along their bones like a sword-tip on armour. "Please, let me join you. Don't leave me here...alone in the dark."

For a second, pity lashed through Castalla. Was this a Courser of old, caught between life and death with no understanding of its nature?

"This thing isn't right," Terrence hissed, managing to squash himself between Castalla's pale form and the cold, dank walls. His eyes, like the red of a bleeding sun, regarded the skulled creature with distrust. "We cannot help you," he growled.

For a moment, the creature stilled, its unholy gaze fixing Terrence with a burning intensity. Then, without warning, it lashed out, its jaws snapping through the iron bars with a speed and force that defied its crumbling form. The creature's bony maw closed around the closest thing it could grip - Castalla's foreleg - its bite like a vice, cold and unyielding.

Castalla snarled, trying to pull back but finding herself wedged too tightly against the wall. Terrence moved in an instant, shouldering forward to strike out at the skeletal form, but the ceiling was too low for him to rear up fully. Still pulling and thrusting her leg, Castalla disguised the cry of pain with a frustrated noise, trying to ignore the way its teeth clamped tighter and tighter the more she struggled.

Fetch's voice, soft and surreal, echoed over the chaos. "It doesn't want to let go. It's trapped. Trapped in the dark." They moved forward to help, pushing into the space left by Terrence.