A clicking sound had Monaco's ears flicking. Coleo's quiet little rustling of his elytra that clued Monaco a sense of something different, if he hadn't already tasted it in the air. Both of them were creatures of the dungeon, beetle and courser both part of the vast network that spread underground.

Coleo could not talk. Was not alerting Monaco in the way some well-trained dog would, he was yet a beetle. He was merely unsettled, and that was something to notice.

Turning his head slowly, Monaco listened. The first and constant step to traversing the dungeon unharmed was to merely listen. Water dripped gently down a side hallway, from the underground lake that lived a few caverns above them. Getting there by hoof would take some days, but water and time cared little for such things.

Wind whistled softly some distance away, from the narrow crack down that ran straight to the surface from here. They were not too far from the entrance…

Coleo's claws scraped against one another, a restless fidgeting… so whatever Monaco was searching for was near. On soft hooves, Monaco picked a direction that seemed almost too quiet. Deadened… for whatever reason.

The hole, when he saw it, a dark pit ten feet across that extended too-quickly into blackness, was not unfamiliar to Monaco. Last he had seen it, however, it hadn't been here. He'd noted its location so he could nudge newer adventurers away from it when he saw them. Not by telling them, merely by making strange noises so they would prefer to choose another fork in the road than the one he trod.

Steeling himself, Monaco approached the hole. It tugged at the base of his sternum, the desire to go in trying to pull him forward, to get him to act. Monaco was not immune to the effect… he was merely strong enough to resist it.

But this close, he did finally hear what had alerted Coleo to something off.

Faint, distant screaming, echoed up from the hole, seeming to get further and further away with every second and yet never ceasing. Stark, blatant fear in the way that the sound seemed to tear through the throat of the thing inside. Courser? Something other? In reality, it did not matter.

Monaco stood vigil until his torch sputtered out. The screaming, when it stopped, was not with the impact, merely with exhaustion, as whatever the hole had pulled inside continue to fall eternally.