It was strange to travel the dungeon alone. Tamsin wasn’t quite sure what to do with himself in all honesty. No one to talk to, to watch out for. He missed Smudge… and Spot and Frisk. But he’d needed to head back to the surface, cross the Shifting Sea to return home, The tall, bladed grass of the Shifting Sea always made his hide itch. Brought up hives across their flesh where the ochre-yellow grass brushed against them.

Home had been nice. Their sister Kensa hadn’t been home, visiting some nearby town, Tamsin’s parents had said she’d been gone for a little while, longer than usual, but they hadn’t been concerned… It hadn’t quite alleviated all of Tamsin’s concerns, however. So he’d swung through the town on his way home, only to be told that he’d just missed her.

Well, at least she would be home now.

Nothing to be worried about on her behalf. Kensa had always been able to handle herself.

In the heat-haze of the Earthen Furnace, a black shape shifted across the opposite side of a bank of crusted, molten magma. A Courser in the shadowed tunnel?

“Hello!” Tamsin called brightly. Perhaps they could travel together for a time, it was always safer to adventure underground with company. Like Spot. Tamsin couldn’t imagine how difficult it must have been for Spot to travel alone before he found Smudge again. 

The Courser (to be determined) paused, stilled, and Tamsin could have sworn it shifted in a way to turn in their direction.

“Hi! Are you traveling alone?” Tamsin’s voice echoed in the cavern, bounced gently off the walls.

The crack that sounded from deep below was not gentle or soft. The echo of the magma splitting apart shattered the rest of the silence Tamsin had tapped on with his shout. With a roar of sound, the rush of the flowing lava river released from underneath the hardened shell, the ground wobbled beneath Tamsin’s hooves.

On his back, Musca squeaked, little claws clinging to Tamsin’s mane as the bay struggles to right himself. From the crack on the surface, magma spilled in a long arc, curling upward, floating spots of hardened rock, an armour-like casing forming on the surface.

“Run!” Tamsin called to the Courser in the shadows, but they were already gone. 

They followed their own advice.