None of them were especially reassuring — not Dag’s challenge to his friend; not Triomphe’s lack of explanation to justify the passageway he started down — but in the face of their willingness to follow Triomphe, Frisk cast a last glance between the remaining corridors and elected to come along, too. Making a blind selection to separate from them felt about as dumb as blindly following.

At least this way there were other bodies among which to spread the burden of it.

She took up the rear silently, and did not look back when they turned the first corner of the corridor, erasing the room from view.

For some time, the passageway did not seem immediately threatening. The air tasted cold, heavy with mineral, but quiet; the sensation of something wrong with the passageway didn’t come suddenly with the sound of thunder, but snuck up all the same — the slow awareness of the ceiling lower than it once was; the walls tighter until all she could see ahead of her was Dag—

She ducked her head to avoid the tip of a stalactite. Something soft and winged dropped from it, sleek as a shadow, smacked into her mane — squeaked in outrage—

“Oh, there’s fucking bats,” Frisk said, shaking like a wet dog; but it just latched on tighter, flashing pearly fangs — and somehow in the interim the passageway had tightened until even the motion scraped her flanks along the cold stone. She felt the claustrophobia crawl up into her throat, swallowed it back down. She was smaller than at least Triomphe — if they could fit, so could she.

Like hell she was gonna ask them to turn around first.

—

The corridor narrowed. Of course, thought Dag, lifting his dark head above Grindhouse’s hindquarters, trying to get a good look at Triomphe in the lead. He picked up his hooves, mindful of Stinky’s potential to get underfoot.

“Nice choice, pretty boy,” Dag grunted.

For all the pressure on his flanks, though, he hadn’t gotten stuck yet. Neither had the coursers in front of him. Frisk would be alright—she was small—if the bat didn’t bite her neck, anyway. Dag flicked his tail at a flurry of wings; hissed an apology as he felt Frisk’s face in the path. “Fuck. Sorry. Lizard—nngh—go on ahead—”

Chrrp! The dragonbat, dodging draculas, zipped ahead in the narrow slalom course of stalactites, and disappeared. He didn’t come back.

“It must open up ahead.”

—

For the first few minutes, Triomphe really thought he'd done it.

He strode carefully into the dark, ears forward and erect, waiting for the Dungeon to have its laugh at the Courser's expense as it often did-- but for a time, it was silent. No pits opened up to swallow them. No spikes erupted from the walls to impale them. He breathed deeply of the stale air and let out a sigh of relief.

Toulouse looked behind her as a shadow dropped from the ceiling, stirred by her master's breath.

So focused on the way forward was Triomphe that he failed to notice the walls closing in until the tips of his hair began to prickle with their proximity. It all fell apart at once. The bat he'd shaken loose screeched around Frisk's head; Dag had his say, blaming him for this latest trial as promised.

"The challenge was yours, no?" He kept his voice jaunty, but where no one could see, he gritted his teeth.

Damn, he cursed to himself, working to maintain his stride even as the stone pressed ever closer and his party piled up in chaos behind him. Delayed laughter, eh, Dungeon? Ha-ha. Have your fun. Just as I knew the way forward, I know you will not truly crush us.

"Hup--!" He jerked away as Lizard cuffed his ear, knocking his temple against the wall; Toulouse took off after the impact and followed the dragonbat like prey, though her quarry soon became the draculas in his wake. Triomphe's skin quivered. He fought the urge to run.

No. Compose yourself.

"Yes," he agreed with Dag. "If we follow them, we will be free of this."

–
Grindhouse's period of sheepish silence didn't last. Not long after he moved to follow Triomphe's glittering ass into the dark, the corridor began to close in and Grindhouse felt like the only one who seemed to notice. When the lack of commentary from his party grew too unnerving, the rock squeezed a nervous chuckle out of him.

"Probably should have skipped breakfast," he murmured, stepping carefully as Stinky wove between his legs, slinking under Grindhouse as the passage funneled the party into a single file line. "Gotta be, uh... Thinking thin." His ears pinned against his neck, his head snaking forward as if it would streamline the way through.

Every footfall was ringing heavy in his ears, and the lantern hanging at his chest only served to highlight tiny pockets of air between one horse's flesh and the next. Bright glow cut apart by close, dark shadows. Noise hampering his head. Stinky's anxious panting crowding against the backs of his knees. Every instinct fought his forward motion, and his advance lost momentum so that Triomphe pulled away ahead of Grindhouse into the dark. He laughed again.

The sudden burst of beating wings and clattering hooves behind him made him startle; he backed into the hollow of Dag's chest hard enough to force the breath out of them both. Stinky yelped as he narrowly dodged stomping hooves, and Grindhouse only found composure again when his eyes tracked Lizard and Toulouse into the passage ahead. He steadied himself, unaware of the laughter barking out of him until he tried to speak around it: "I hate this, man. Let's go."