To creep along in the dark, shuffling and snuffling through the seemingly endless murk, is a pretty good metaphor for the stumbling and fumbling way that most sentient beings experience their existence. Without an illuminated perspective, it's difficult to get back to where you've come from, to find the right way forward, or know how to ready yourself for whatever lies beyond the bend.

There are just two choices:

You may allow the void to consume you.

Challenges can possess you with anxiety, and feeds a desperate longing for the comfort of familiarity lest elements beyond your control wrest your peace away forever. This fear lives in all beings, carved into their making for the purpose of survival.

Or, you might embrace the unknowable.

It is an impossible task to know everything there is to know, and to be prepared for every possible outcome. Change is the only constant in perpetuity; all else is temporary. This concept is fragile and easily forgotten, but worth remembering for the sake of living.

Caliginous places have a tendency to bring this internal, individual struggle to the forefront of ones mind—even that of a Courser born to heed the bewitching call of the abyss.

Whether it had been days or only moments since Lancer had ventured into this extraordinarily aphotic corridor, the time was absorbed with the taking of great care prior to the placement of each hoof, and the occasional pause to listen for tactile perils amongst the clamoring of his own thoughts.

The tunnel was eerily devoid of life, until it wasn't.

A clattering across the pebbled floor plucked at the delicate threads of Lancer's nerves, but the prick of an ear determined that the fiend stampeding toward him in slow motion was only another Courser in panicked flight. Distracted by trying to determine how to announce his presence in an inoffensive way, Lancer tripped as he tried to move out of the way. The two Coursers crashed into each other. Startled hooves lashed out, with a sharp squeal and fleshy thump, to landed a pair of bruises on Lancer's chest.

"Oof- hold your hooves! I think you'll find I'm much more agreeable than most things that lurk down here..."

"Shit! Sorry—I'm sorry! I heard something coming and I thought I was about to get eaten-"

The voice belonged to a young and high-strung Courser, no doubt having just recently found their feet and gathered enough courage to venture into the void.

"Are you being chased?"

"N-no… I don't think so. My light went out and I couldn’t get it lit again… Wait- why don't you have any light?"

"This path is simple enough to follow."

"Aren't you afraid of the dark?"

"Sometimes, certainly. But it is less frightening if you keep moving, and remember that darkness is only temporary... Even when it feels as though it may never end."

"What if you run into something scary? Or fall and get hurt? What if you die down here?!"

"It happens. That's the way of the Dungeon."

"I don't think I'll ever be as brave as you..."

"Walk with me for a while, then. And when you are ready to find your own way, I hope you'll remember that a little bit of help can brighten someone's darkest day."