Maggie was an asset to all of them for a simple reason. It had fingers, so when the large reptilian head hissed and lunched towards them, it was a moment to give an order and watch the chaos. A small phantom hand moved with extraordinary speed towards the approaching serpent... To drive a finger into one bright eye. The snake roared, throwing itself from side to side and hitting every possible pillar, even damaging some of them.
"COME ON " Fetch shouted at the stranger, as they all sprinted out of the room. But... He only moved a bit, just enough to be out of the way of a disoriented and struggling reptile. His head was turned towards the creature and only when the phantom hand began to push the rather tall courser - he snorted slightly at it and moved after the other equidae, maybe glancing back once.

They passed through the rooms and corridors quite quickly, barely gracing them with their gaze. Why? They simply didn't have time for that, not when the giant monster could catch them at any moment. As far as he was concerned, they weren't losing anything along the way, although who knows - for one horse, trash, for another treasure.

When they finally reached a crossroads, Fetch looked back, relieved to find the stranger still present, and followed Pheobe, who decided to go on right. The path was darker than the other, completely absorbing their presence and leading to... a seemingly dead end. Only when Mortiz took out the light, in the form of a small glowing ball on a leather strap, they saw the grate on one of the walls. It seemed they could find a further passage behind it - there was one problem. It was embedded in the wall, so they would have to find something to break through the metal. It was a good thing that there were more things scattered here, and it was what interested Pheobe and Mortiz. Chestnut held the strap high, giving their companion light as she searched the area for something useful.

And Fetch?

Fetch... watched the stranger with a searching eye, who if it weren't for the fact that she had seen him move earlier, and his slow, barely noticeable breathing - she would have considered him to be a statue. A large, dirty, slightly smelly statue. The whole body was stiff, the head lowered as if the horse itself was not used to carrying it weight up all the time. His ears were back, and his eyes... she didn't know. His mane, which by the way was in a rather... interesting condition, fell over his muzzle covering them. Maybe he had fallen asleep? If so, he must have taught her how on earth he could simply snooze in such a place so quickly. As soon as she took a few steps closer, it wasn't hard to see that his ears twitched and his body subtly stiffened. So he was just resting. Honestly, looking at how he walked - it wouldn't surprise her if he had some old injury, or something more recent.
- Hey, everything's okayEEEY - She tilted her head, coming even closer... only to be met with loud squeals of something that flew out at her muzzle, surprising her quite badly, which made her own voice take on a squeaky tone. She staggered back in shock. On the bridge of her nose, with an almost outraged expression on her face, gesticulating wildly, stood a fairy...? Fetch didn't know the language of these tiny creatures, but she knew that... she was definitely being called every possible name... which made her lay her ears back with wide eyes. Honestly, this was the first time she had seen them THIS close. She had always seen them as just balls of light, and even this one actually emitted a delicate pink hue. From the corner of her eye, she saw Someone, because she didn't have his name but had to name him in her head something, raise his ears almost immediately as soon as the fairy jumped at her, watching her carefully with a bright eye.

She could have sworn that Mortiz and Pheobe were also frozen in place, staring at the action. Mortiz looked ready to step between them at any moment.... but nothing happened. The fairy finally stomped her foot, huffing offended at Fetch, then simply turned on her heel, and returned in the form of a small light.... to sit between Someone's ears.. who just tried to look at the creature unsurprised, relaxing as soon as she sat on his hair. Could this be the source of the light she had seen earlier, before the large snake appeared? She could have sworn there were more of them, in different colors...

Fetch heard a movement behind her, glancing over she saw her two companions slowly returning to their previous task, except Mortiz was now watching them closely. They remained in heavy silence for a long while before Pheobe finally found something useful. A piece of simple, thick, metal, with a thinner end, to act as a lever to see if the grate could be moved upwards.

As soon as she put the thinner end to the crack she wanted to push it into, they heard clicking. The clicking of hooves, teeth, something metal... it was impossible to tell. At first it was slow, then stopped for a moment, and with a violent rustle of metal (chains?) a skull appeared, which jumped to the bars, exposing only the place where the horse's nostrils should be with a heavy panting sound, Pheobe backed away with a loud gasp, almost tripping over the scattered things. The red eyeball also showed up from somewhere, trying to get attention of its owner to warn them about the danger.

He squinted at the situation. Apart from the skull itself, which looked as if it was filled with black mass and blue light was burning in the eye sockets, raging around it as if the ''horse'' couldn't focus sigh on anything around it, you could still see a piece of the neck and something that looked like withers, except that everything below the middle of the spine was covered in the same strange goo. As if it was melting from the light.

- H..Hel-p. Le...Le Let me o-o-out - The skull clicked, tilting its head every now and then in every possible direction, trying to extract a specific sound. None of the four moved, only he himself raised his head. It was a good thing it was behind a metal barrier because the sharpened incisors, very mismatched with the rest of its teeth - could have been deadly. - I...I... I i can help! I can be usefull!

This time the voice coming out of the skull was clear, but the tone was changing. One piece sounded like someone young, maybe even a foal, and the next it was gurgling like an old man. From that point on, all they heard was the same thing, like a broken record creature promising how useful it could be if only it were released. But despite that, not a single person in the room dared to speak, each of them had their own experience with dungeons and weren't stupid enough to reach out a hoof to something that looked like that.

But he was the first one to move, not fast, quite the opposite. Carefully, still keeping his eyes on the raging flames in its eyes, he moved through the room, lifting the stick in his teeth. Once it had probably been some kind of spear, now broken and abandoned by its owner, it was to be used as a weapon once again. He felt the chestnut's gaze on him as he passed the yellow mare, approaching the monster. At one point the blue ''eyes'' rested on him, only to go out immediately as the wooden stick pierced the skull with force. The entire body fell to the ground, and from between the bones, dark goo spread across the floor, just as what covered the rest of it joined the black stain, revealing twisted and deformed bones - now lying in disarray. Was it once a horse? Maybe. But it wasn't one now.

- I hate husks - A quiet rasping voice echoed through the room, surprising the others. Especially Fetch, who from the roughness hidden in it, what he had just done, and the posture the stranger had now... simply flinched.