Bug

Bug let out a huff as he stumbled into the large chamber, frowning slightly. “You sure this was the direction of that scream?” He asked, ears swiveling around nervously as the light from his lantern fell on the massive skeleton blocking their path. Nervously, he took a few steps back, snorting warily as his gaze fell to Frel, Smudge, and Tamsin.

Whatever the creature once was, Bug had never seen anything like it. Still, it didn’t seem to be alive like the bone creature that had attacked him months ago, and aside from being an obstacle in their way, it didn’t seem to pose much of a threat.

“Any of you ever seen anything like this?” He asked the other three, tentatively stepping closer to nose at a bone that had crumpled to the ground.

Frel

“Of course I’m sure,” Frel answered, pleasant, “As sure as I always am.”

From their back Little Man croaked a warbling, feeble cry, and Frel suddenly frowned. 

“You just ate,” they turned to the toad, who croaked once more, somehow more pathetic than the first, “I am no longer sure.”

They turned to rummage into their packs, searching for the worms they’d collected on the previous floor, and running directly into Bug. Little Man rolled from Frel’s back, flopping onto the ground with a squeak that was far more surprising to the pink puck than the bones that littered the floor.

They’d grown used to the strange and unusual.

“Nope,” Frel said, almost uninterested in the mystery they’d found themselves in. 

More violence, that had led to more death. 

They hadn’t thought this adventure would be as gruesome as it had been, but perhaps that had been their fault for not ensuring that Little Man was not famished before they’d entered the unexplored. “It’s a shame it came to this,” they said, folding limbs beneath them to nose at Little Man who dutifully climbed up their snout to settle atop their head in his place of honor, “I would have liked to meet them.”

Smudge

 As they stepped into the next chamber, Smudge breathed out a sigh to find that whatever it was that was there to greet them was already dead. It was a cowardly thing to feel, but the bay couldn’t quite find it in himself to care after all the misadventures they had encountered thus far. 

It would have been worse, he thought, to fail the same test twice.

At least this time he and Tamsin both had prevailed, even if it had been on a fluke and they had saved no one. They themselves had not become the ones in need of saving.

“Huh,” he murmured, taking in the great alien creature, as he stepped forward snuffling softly, “Not even in the stories,” he said almost to himself, before turning to Tamsin, “Have you?” 

It should have been thrilling, he thought with a huff at the irony, to find something his mother never had. 

All he felt was dread at what might come next.

“Well, either way, it’s blocking our path.” 

It was easier to focus on the practical than the existential dread of how infinitesimally small they were compared to this great thing. If even this creature was felled, what did it mean for – 

“There is no way around it, but. We might be able to go through,” he reared, gently placing his front hooves on the sword and testing his weight against it. The fight with the apparition had taken more out of him that he had imagined, and he knew that even with all his might, he would make a fool of himself if he attempted here. 

He returned to the earth, taking a step back and gesturing his head towards Tamsin, “It’s precise but,” he smiled something charming for his longtime companion, “You’ve handled worse.” 

Tamsin

“Woah,” Tamsin murmured, taking in the skeleton that loomed over the room. How had it even got down here? What would it have been like to be born in halls that you would one day grow too large to traverse? To look down passages you had once walked, only able to peek your head inside.

If… that was indeed the head. Was that a tooth? Oh, yeah, no, that was a sword. 

Tamsin blinked his attention away from the remnants of the creature, shaking his head a little as Smudge asked him a question. He’d vaguely heard the Pucks talking to one another, but he was sure if they’d come up with a plan they’d fill him in. Or he’d figure it out once they started doing it. The stories?

“Nope. Nothin’ like this,” Tamsin said. Now that was a pretty cool thought, huh? Maybe no one else had ever been into this room. Or… was it creepy? To know they were stepping into a grave that had not yet been disturbed by the path of Coursers before them. Nah, it was cool.

There we go, Smudge had a plan. Smudge always had a plan.

Tamsin grinned happily as his friend urged him forward, clueing onto what it was he was supposed to do. Through the skull. “Yeaaaah,” Tamsin said, drawing out the word in a slow, nonchalance that didn’t quite hide his excitement. “I can do it.”

Turning away from the sword and skull, Tamsin backed up towards it, making a few minor adjustments to his angle, pausing to hear feedback… and then kicked the sword with all his might, hoping to cleave the skull in twain.