"I can't believe that tunnel just led us in a circle," Quill sighed as they walked back towards their camp. The sudden pit that had fallen beneath their feet what had forced them to turn back. If it hadn't been for Corven grabbing him and pulling him back, he never would have made it out alive. Elrim had been right there too.

"I think it led to more than just a circle kid. I think it's what almost killed you," Corven chuckled softly as he walked beside him, bumping up against him gently. He'd never seen that trap. Elrim hadn't warned them against it either which meant that he didn't have a memory of it. Either the dungeon was changing or both of them had a gap in their knowledge. He didn't know which one was worse, honestly. He didn't want to think that they would forget, but the alternative just wasn't a comfortable feeling. Already he'd woken up with a couple of years as a gap in his mind. He didn't want to think of what else was gone.

"I think there's more deeper in the tunnels there, but we need to find a way around the pit. We'll try again tomorrow. Carefully, this time." Elrim didn't know why he felt that there was something more, nor why he felt the need to come back. There was this feeling that he was being followed, but no matter which way he looked, there was no one behind them and no one ahead of them.  The dark corners remained dark and the shadows didn't move.

"You sure it's safe to go back there?" There was a hesitation to Corven's voice that caused Elrim to look again. A certain heaviness in his eyes, and the weight of his steps hit a little harder.

"Do you think it's a bad idea?" Elrim asked tentatively, watching his larger companion pause and look at him, holding his eye for a long minute before he shook his head.

"Nah, maybe I'm just tired." Corven knew that the Elrim of old never would have answered. Not the Elrim that was chasing power. Not the Elrim that had them so close to something other that none of them had walked out the same. This Elrim was more like the young horse he had met deep in the dungeons. He lacked the energy that he'd had then, a bounding step and dancing feet, but he had all of the empathy. It was the lack of it that had changed him.

Not that Corven blamed him then. He was carrying a curse so none of them had to. He had been dying so that they could live. Corven still wasn't convinced that Elrim had made it out of those tunnels alive. The courser who stood before him now wasn't the one that had once walked him into death.

Walter honked noisily from Quill's back as he took off into the air, large wings spread to attack, glinting dagger between his beak. There were certain things that would never get old. That was one of them.

"What's he see?" Corven asked, only for the question to be rhetoric when a courser's head turned the corner around their camp.

He heard the slide of the cleaver against the ground as Quill pulled it from his back and adjusted it. Elrim stilled beside him. They were messing with the wrong group.

Corven gave his head a shake as he loosened up his muscles, a grin upon his lips as he lowered his nose. "Oh, I've been itching for a fight," he growled. Hearing a stammering in the group of ruffians beyond the wall as he charged forward, hooves thundering against the ground.

The whole dungeon shivered as he moved, and Elrim surged with it. Gelatinous cube rushing beside him. The shadow's teeth snapping against the dark. Quill followed a second after, just a touch out of sync. There was scrambling and the dropping of items behind the wall, and Corven couldn't wait to show them a lesson.

----------------------------------

There was a sound of something scratching against the dungeon floor. The scrambling of hooves as four thugs stumbled around the corner, battered, bruised, but alive. The hound at her side bayed once, a long howl and a sharp bark to alert her, not that she wasn't already paying attention to them.

"Oh." The word was a quiet sound, the surprise in her voice almost deadpanned as she tilted her head, looking at the four of them as they eyed her. "They let you live." She cocked her head to the other side, ears forward, tail twitching once.

"Look, courser. We won't hurt you if you hand over your things and step aside," one of them growled.

Nautilya's laugh was like the ringing of a bell as she tossed her head back, shaking her head ever so slightly with the movement. Beads and stones in her mane rattled as she eyed the four again, sizing them up.

"Is that so?" Nautilya asked, dancing on her feet as she looked around the room. "Four of you, injured, against one of me." The hound looked at her, lips curled back in a snarl. "Two of us, apologies. Oh whatever shall I do?" She asked, her eyes going cold.

"We're not going to go easy on you!" One of them growled, pulling out a weapon.

"That's alright. Your soul quivers. It already knows that I don't show anyone mercy."

Not anymore.