Water collected on the ceiling, probably ground water and rain working its way through a fissure on the surface, pooling until gravity won. The steady drip did not echo the way Phoebe's hooves did, the iron of her shoes striking the worn stone of the Dungeon hallway. Some Coursers preferred to go unshod, citing the annoyance of needing shoes changed and hooves trimmed, but Phoebe found that she much preferred the extra protection when traversing the Dungeon; the solid stone floors were a far cry from the hard-packed dirt of the surface. She didn't think of that, however, not with pursuit on her mind. The hymns had complained of an interloper in the overgrown caverns that marked the first levels of the Dungeon, one that should not be there. Something ghastly, they had murmured, their faded voices overlapping like half-forgotten dreams. She'd always wondered about them, their wispy shapes, their mournful sounds. The Wizard said, when one dared to ask, that they were the ghosts of things long dead, creatures that had destroyed themselves in their hubris; their remains still littered the Dungeon, evidence of those who had fought—and died—to conquer it. Sometimes, the hymns gathered enough strength to form themselves into the shapes they had worn in life, upright bodies and grasping hands, but no faces. Phoebe had never seen a hymn's face, and she wasn't sure she wanted to. There was something that felt terribly wrong about it, as if looking into the spectral eyes of a hymn would destroy her, somehow. 

But there were no hymns down here, not today, and Phoebe was to find out why. The lantern clamped between her teeth flickered as she marched along, methodically checking each corridor, every opening in the wall. According to Courser legend, they had once held treasures—the blessed, thecursed, and theperfectly mundane. Certainly the Great Hall boasted a handful of such treasures, weathered and worn by age. But now those shelves were empty of all but dust, dirt, and the occasional skeleton, remains of the mice and rats and other small creatures that called the green levels of the Dungeon home. Periodically, she stopped to relight the torches that past generations of Coursers had installed in the walls. 

A squelch—so unlike the sharp sound of her hooves, or the water dripping from the ceiling—brought her to an abrupt halt. Carefully, she put down her lantern, setting it off to the side where she was less likely to trip on it. With a snort, she scraped her front hoof against the stones, striking sparks with the movement. 

"Who goes there?" she challenged, baring her teeth just a little. The hymns had not been descriptive—they rarely ever were, collections of emotion rather than thoughts, their own personalities subsumed by the passage of time. So she did not know, exactly, what to expect. 

A pause, a silence filled with the danger of the unknown. Hooves scraping the dirt encrusting the stones beneath her feet, Phoebe shifted warily, angling herself to have the best possible striking distance with her forelegs should the squelcher enter the ring of light cast by her lantern. 

More squelching, inching closer, until the wet, blue-green edge of a slime appeared from the shadows, bits of debris and bubbles and who knew what else trapped within. The creature edged forward until it could peer at Phoebe with its lone eye, a dull muddy brown at odds with the almost-lovely color of its body...not that she could call the body lovely, of course. But the color reminded her of a dragonfly's iridescent exoskeleton, not quite green and not quite blue. 

Rigid with tension, Phoebe snorted, tossing her head in confusion. Slimes were not particularly intelligent, but most seemed more inclined to try and suffocate you (or was it drowning, to be engulfed by a slime?). This one, however, simply stared up at her, unblinking with its single eye. 

Slowly, the slime crawled away, turning back to look at her. After a moment of confusion, somehow, she understood; it wanted her to follow. Phoebe bared her teeth in frustration. It could very well be leading her straight into a trap, if it wasn't half so guileless as it seemed. Or it had something innocuous to show her, although she couldn't imagine what. 

Her tail swished back and forth, as if she could whisk away these what ifs and see the correct way forward. The slime squelched back toward her, resuming its unblinking focus, waiting patiently for her to make a decision. 

Phoebe snorted in disgust, and stepped forward. She was not so stupid that she didn't suspect anything; she was one of the finest scouts in the guild, and if a mere slime got the drop on her, it would certainly be her own fault! Just before she followed the slime into the darkness, she remembered her lantern, seizing it roughly to illuminate her way. The slime led her, inch by torturous inch, down a long hallway, lined thickly in moss and overgrown roots from the surface. Glowing fungi dotted the carpet of moss, and Phoebe had the strange sense that she should take care not to step on them...