Well that turned out great! Just a minor diversion with the doors, but they’d managed to figure it out as a team. A fifty-fifty chance, and they got there in the end. Tamsin trotted along happily just behind Frisk, as the more well-honed corridors, gave way to rougher passages.

At some point, someone had stopped trying to make things pretty. Stopped carving into the walls in an attempt to make the places resemble rooms of stone or brick, as if the tunnels had been assembled around the occupants.

Some of them had, of course. There were vast cities of stone under the surface here. Castles built in dripping, moss-covered caverns, so large that they disappeared into darkness in every direction, walls only able to be seen when you were pressed right up against them. It reminded Tamsin, at times, of the places above the surface. Constructed by humanoid hands, not hoof, some things escaping them.

Maybe the ranger knew, or the wizard. Tamsin would have to ask when they next rounded back to their shops. That reminded them, turning their head to Spot, Tamsin grinned at the newcomer. This seemed like a good a time as any to get to know their newest companion.

Tamsin didn’t know how long he’d be hanging with them. Maybe he wanted to get back to the surface? But he’d said he’d heard Smudge was an adventurer… did that mean?

What did that mean? What is he to Smudge? What could he be?

You know what, Tamsin was just going to ask.

“Hey so I think we got a little distracted by the doors. Totally reasonable. They were talkin’. You and Smudge know each other from the surface? You’re a baker? That’s super cool. What’re you doing down here? Gonna join us?”

Just casual, totally normal questions here.

—

Well that turned out great.

Smudge watched Tamsin trot happily after Frisk, nudging Spot forward to follow after him and taking his place in the rear. Faithful did not seem to share his hesitation, skipping ahead to weave between Tamsin’s hooves in a game that had always been his favorite. Whether it was the danger of a misplaced step or that he took perverse pleasure in tripping up the Courser, Smudge had never really known but Tamsin had always been kind enough to entertain it and that settled him a little bit returning him to the new normal he’d settled into that had been set askew by Spot’s arrival.

Tamsins liked him well enough, and Frisk did too in her own way. Maybe Spot could too, even if he wasn’t the same colt filled with unearned bravado and lofty dreams that he’d once been.

There were better roles he fit into.

He stepped quietly behind them lost in his own thoughts as Tamsin asked their questions, realizing he’d been so wrapped up in himself he hadn’t even bothered to ask what Spot was doing down here. The last they’d spoken had been when he’d begun to take his career as a dungeoneer seriously and Spot had said he could never do something like that, he was built for the bakery. Smudge had only laughed, hadn’t encouraged or dissuaded him – who knew Spot better than Spot himself after all? 

It felt like a joke now, to think about, when Smudge hadn’t known himself at all.

Who is anyone, a voice whispered cruel and familiar and yet foreign all at once, You can only ever know when you make the Plunge. Are you ready? Can do you do it? Power is within your grasp, you just must reach out and claim it.

“Huh?” Smudge stopped in his tracks, suddenly feeling very cold, “Did you hear that?” it was a wary question, one he wasn’t sure he should be asking but he had to know if he had finally snapped. If it had all become too much and his own mind had betrayed him.

Or if it was just another trick of this damned dungeon. 

–

Unease settled in Spot’s chest like a small bird as Frisk decided which door to pass through. She was annoyed with him – perhaps she disliked him already. No, he hadn’t come out here to impressed the roan mare, but by the looks of things, she, and Smudge, and Tamsin were all…close. A party already, maybe. And if she didn’t like him, well– He couldn’t expect anything.

You shouldn’t be expecting anything, anyways.

The chestnut fell into silence as he watched his feet, placing each hoof carefully as he followed behind Tamsin and stay a bit ahead of Smudge. “Um,” said Spot, his ears flicking backwards at the sudden barrage of questions. His withers twitched like a fly had landed upon them. “Yeah. Smudge and I grew up together. Practically neighbors…” Might has well have been, as often as they played in the vacant field. “I, er, I quit, actually. They never let me bake. I just sold the bread.” His ears flattened out to the side. “I even had some ideas but–”

But they were bad ones, weren’t they? Just like this is. You aren’t a dungeon diver. Do don’t have what it takes to adventure. You probably couldn’t even get across this little crevasse. Couldn’t even make the Plunge. 

Spot stumbled, stopping a few moments after Smudge, his own dark eyes going wide. “Hear what?” he asked softly. Surely Smudge couldn’t hear his thoughts. That would be awful. Or had he said them out loud? He looked towards Tamsin and Frisk, praying to anything Smudge had heard…something else.

“We should keep going. This gap doesn’t seem that big. Maybe there’s a way down–”

You know the way down. Say it. Say it!

Spot twitched his withers again and shook his head, his ears flapping against his skull. He couldn’t just stand here, rooted like a tree; he forced his feet onwards again, trying to approach the edge before the cavernous darkness. 

“Well? Guys?”

Spot stared downwards into the abyss, and the abyss stared back.

–

Frisk was half-listening, flicking one ear around to catch the conversation.  Past the doors, Smudge hadn’t tried to take the lead again, and Frisk — annoyed about the hellhounds, annoyed about the abrupt addition to their party — hadn’t offered it. 

She didn’t miss Tonnerre, exactly, but the comparison came anyway.  The sharp edge of her competence, where this new Courser seemed unnerved just by Tamsin’s friendly questions.  The skill with which she had held her sword aloft in front of the Skull, instead of not even being allowed to bake bread. 

The dungeons had opened to cavernous dark, now.  Ahead of them, a chasm yawned underfoot, spanned by a thin bridge, but it wasn’t too bad.  She’d crossed worse, at least, so— 

Smudge’s voice stopped her. 

“Hear what?” 

Her ears flicked forward, puzzled.  She didn’t hear anything, not exactly, but—

But. 

There was an airless, voiceless thrum.  A hunger.  The darkness below them felt gravid with it.  Soft with invitation. 

Frisk blinked.  She barely noticed Spot passing her, craning his head downward to look into the chasm, and didn’t have the voice to stop him, anyway.  It wasn’t such a bad idea, forgoing the bridge. 

“A way down there—?”