“Speaking of uling pitch bck,” Hester says, gng unfortably out of their small haven of light. “Does anyone else get a bad feeling from the darkness here? It’s pletely blog light from spreading. I couldn’t even see Emily approag.”

  “It’s even worse than it was above at night,” Tom adds. “And the numbness was horrible.”

  “Wait, numbness?” Emily questions, everyourning to him with questioning gazes.

  “Yeah.” Tom nods. “When I got down here, I lost all feeling: it was just like when I stuck my arm in that hole itom of the ke. If I hadn’t practically nded oer, I think I may have drowned. I regained feeling once I was in her light though.”

  Emily gnces around, pting his observation.

  “I see. There’s definitely something off about this darkness. I think it’s alive,” she says, pointing at the small tendrils of bess trying to force their way into the light before dissipating. “I don’t feel any malice though.”

  Her friends start iing the edge of the light as Juliana’s shaking finally subsides and she pulls away from Emily, tapping her shoulder to ask to be put down. She fshes Emily a tired, grateful smile as she steps away, which Ivor notices.

  “You okay?” he signs with .

  “Yeah, I just don’t like water,” Juliana signs back.

  With Juliana out of her arms, Emily pulls out the Diver’s tablet.

  “It worked! We’re on the same level as the Diver now,” she says, drawing her friends' attention away from the darkness and igniting a spark of excitement.

  “Really? Are we getting close to the end?” Tom asks hopefully.

  “I’m not certain, but I think so,” Emily answers, stepping out ahead of the group and p more mana intht spell to grow the illuminated area, taking advantage of her increasing passive mana regeion in the mana-dense darkness. “It’s still moving. We should get going. We’ll only know how close we are when we cover some mround and, hopefully, we finally close the distaween us.”

  Nobody voices any pints as they set off into the unknown. They mar, a quiet buzz of versation apanying their travel as Emily once agais up her scouts to watch for enemies. She pces her boat ier, and sends a spider out ahead of them, not trusting a bird’s sight to pee the darkness.

  An hour ter, as their excitement has started to die down, Emily calls for the group to halt as she spots the first mantolyc ahead.

  “There’s an enemy ahead,” she says with a vicious grin, holding out her hand. “One moment.”

  The sleek b of the Whisper appears in her hand from a light mist of spatial mana. Her friends fall silent as they watch her raise the rifle to her shoulder and line up a shot. The spider ahead approaches the mantolyc, tapping its feet periodically to send back a clear image of the unmoving creature.

  Try to bait me now.

  Emily flicks the gun into silent and pulls the trigger. She racks the bolt the moment the bullet leaves the barrel, adjusts her aim, and fires again, before repeating a third time. All three bullets vanish into the ether as they hit the b of darkness surrounding them, but Emily watches through her spider’s strange vision as three ks are blown from the mantolyc’s shell, scattering chitin and flesh as its legs go limp.

  Emily sends her gun away with a triumphant grin aures for her friends to follow her. They proceed forward until they reach the still-twitg body of the grotesque creature.

  “What is that?” Tom asks, stepping past Emily towards the body.

  Emily reaches out, grabbing him by the scruff of the ned yanking him backwards before he get too close.

  “Not a good idea,” Emily says before he object, stepping forward in his pce.

  A few steps ter, the monster’s arm suddenly shes out, aiming for Emily’s chest. She easily deflects it with one Cw before slig the limb in half with the other, pressing forward and doing the same to the other arm before it attack. She gnces over its body, quickly log the still-surviving brain in its torso, only half destroyed by the bullet still buried i, and fires a Cw at it. The creature goes pletely still as Emily turns ba, whose plexion has turned sickly white as her stares at the deadly scythes lying on the floor in front of him.

  “It’s a mantolyd they’re persistent bastards. They’re a third circle beast that’s been entered deep in The Gde, and in the south of the Lerus Isles. They have three brains, and the fact that it was still twitg was a sign I hadn’t destroyed all of them with my first three shots,” Emily expins, turning back to the corpse to begin stripping it for materials. “Never approach a living mantolyc. It will not end well for you.”

  “Yeah,” Tom says with a nervous gulp. “I got the idea when I didn’t see it move till you cut its arm off.”

  Her friends gather around as Emily peels ptes of armour off the beast. Tom offers to help, but she brushes him off, knowing he won’t have the strength to separate the chitin and flesh without several incisions. Emily gathers the armour, scythes, and undamaged heart of the beast before leading her friends onwards.

  Several hours ter, after a few enters in the dark with some groups of sed circle beasts, they pause to harvest a small patch of vothral weed they find growing along the riverbank.

  “You know,” Hester says, dropping a stalk into Tom’s bag and gng out into the darkness. “As uling as this darkness is, it’s quite o be able to see my footing again.”

  “Agreed,” Tom chuckles, pulling a stalk free as Ivor softens the ground around it. “I’ve actually mao go a few hours without tripping on something.”

  “It was inve,” Juliana adds. “But I quite liked it. It made some iing patterns while we were walking.”

  “Fair point,” Hester cedes. “There isly much to look at down here. I think I’d go insane if I was stu this darkness alone.”

  “Insane enough to eat someone?” Emily asks with a sly grin, standing at the edge of their small zone of light staring into the darkowards an approag group of moles.

  “Hmmm,” Hester hums as if ihought, befng towards her brother. “Depends on how annoying the person is. I’m sure I could make some great food from Tom.”

  “Hey! I’m sure you’d taste better. There’s more m-“ Tom cuts off as he receives a swift boot to the shin, making everyone ugh at his misfortune.

  “Thinking about it though, mages probably taste alright,” Dante says as the ughter dies down. “All other mana-infused flesh we’ve eaten has been nice, so I ’t see why humans would be any different.”

  As a debate on the health bes of eating es starts, only Ivor and Juliana notice when Emily slips out into the darkness. She shuts her eyes, walking ahead while pletely relying on her spatial awareness and the vision of her spider to track the moles she detected ahead as they rush towards her, diving into the ground to close the rest of the distaween them.

  Emily takes a deep breath, rooting her feet in pd holding both arms out at her sides, releasing the Cws’ bdes aing out their reels till their tips lightly caress the ground. The left bde’s tip vibrates, and the dark tunnel bursts into motion.

  Emily takes half a step to the side as a mole bursts from the ground below her, its cws pressed together to form a sharp point. A flick of her wrist sshes her bde through the beast’s soft flesh, biseg it as a dozen other moles rise from the ground around Emily.

  She twists as a mole lu her, ing a wire around its throat and sshing two beasts behind it in one movement. Her bdes weave between the moles, avoiding their cws and rending their flesh with ease, taking apart their offensive and leaving the beasts crumpled in a pile of blood and guts within seds.

  Emily lets out the breath she was holding as she draws her ons ba before moviween the corpses, cutting out their cws to save the valuable bck iron. She returns to her friends soon after, stepping into the light to find them waiting with no weeds left in the ground.

  “Are you okay?” Juliana asks with , fusing Emily for a moment before she gnces down ahe blood coating her robes.

  “Oh, this isn’t mine,” Emily says, casting se and removing the red sptters in an instant. “I just dealt with some moles. If you guys are done here, let’s get going.”

  They tiheir trek through the dark, the shrinking distah the Diver and the tiily’s pocket watch the only signs of time passing in the void. Emily deals with most of the fights, her friends struggling tet enemies ich bck. The evening arrives with no visible ges to the tunnel around them, but Emily watches the time on The Clod calls to set up camp at the usual time.

  They keep their sleeping bags close together, as the light from the barrier disc doesn’t spread very far, a up a campfire in the tre of them.

  “How long till we catch up to the Diver?” Enzo asks as he takes a bite from a skewer of bug meat.

  “I’d say about a week to its current position with the pace we’ve been going, but it still appears to be moving so I ’t be sure,” Emily says, knowing it will vanish the following m, hoping that signals it’s reached its destination.

  “Are you hoping to find something at the end?” Juliana asks, drawing out simirly curious gazes from their friends.

  “Not really.” Emily shrugs, unwilling to tell them about her quests. “I just wao sate my own curiosity.”

  Her friends' shoulders slump slightly, but no one seems too disappointed.

  “Haha,” Juliana giggles, leaning into Emily’s side. “I wouldn’t expeything else from you.”

  “Leading the most successful expedition into The Gde ever just to satisfy your curiosity. You really do never cease to amaze,” Enzo says in a tired tone, making Emily chuckle and roll her eyes.

  “I try my best,” she responds, tossing her finished skewer on the fire.

  After the meal, everyone slips into their sleeping bags, leaving Emily and Juliana together by the fire, using its warmth to fend off the chill spreading through the tunnels.

  “It’s a lot colder down here,” Juliana says, pulling her robes tighter around herself as she presses closer to Emily to steal her warmth.

  “It is.” Emily nods, poking the fire with her mana and guiding the rising smoke to form shapes.

  They fall into a fortable silence for a while, her of them doing anything but enjoying each other’s pany and watg the fire, until Emily finally breaks it.

  “Hey, Jules... are you okay?” she asks carefully, her firag patterns along Juliana’s shoulder and feeling them tense as her question falls.

  Julias out a sigh, lifting her head from Emily’s shoulder. Emily’s heart rises into her throat at the separation, before rexing as Juliana lowers herself down to y her head in Emily’s p. She remains silent for a few seds, gatherihoughts as Emily gently strokes her hair.

  “Not really,” she finally says, freezing Emily’s hand in pce. “I really didn’t want to go uer, especially not being pulled around by a strong current like that.”

  She starts shaking again, jolting Emily bato motion, her fingers weaving in a calming rhythm across Juliana’s scalp.

  “I keep thinking that I’ll probably o do something simir to get out again, and whenever I do it starts feeling hard to breathe,” Juliana whispers, her hand rising up from inside her robes to csp onto Emily’s thigh for fort. “But I hate feeling like a burden. I came on this expedition because I wao spend time with you. I wao see what it was about this pce that had you so excited to e back. But ever since arriving here, I’ve just felt useless.”

  Emily opens her mouth to try and fort her, but pauses as Juliana tiurning her head to gaze into Emily’s eyes.

  “You slip away to deal with attag beasts when you think no one’s watg. You went into a dungeon alone because you thought we may have to fight on our own. You have a mae or spell prepared for every situation we run into, and if you don’t you make ohin hours. It’s not helpful for you to have us here. We aren’t providing anything you ’t do better alone. You don’t need us,” Juliana says, her voice getting weaker as tears form in her eyes, and her wetting faster as they slice away at Emily’s heart, the fresh seed of hope that she has only just began to nurture turning rotten and poisoning each word. “On our first night in The Gde, I thought I found something I could do. Whealked about you leaving, you looked so sad, and angry, and fused! It hurt to see you like that, but, as much as I hate myself for it, I also felt hopeful.”

  Tears roll down Juliana’s cheeks as she turns her gaze away, shame bubbling up in her chest as her words tio spill out. Emily bites her lip at mention of the all too familiar form of guilty self-loathing, sug in the blood that flows out so it doesn’t fall on Juliana.

  “As horrible as it is, I thought I’d finally found what you need. Found your one weakhat made you need someone else. Need me. But, even then, you didn’t. The day you put your walls back up a going as normal, and now you’ve spent more time on this trip f me than I have you. I know you’re still hurting inside. I know yht us all along because you feel lonely, even if you refuse to admit it. But, I just don’t know what to say. I don’t know when the right moment to talk to you is when you always look so brave and strong, and I just don’t want to be the oo ruin that.”

  Juliana falls silent, her body still, without a single quiver, as she turearful face back up to look at Emily. She breaks into a sad smile, a mix of acceptand grief settled in her eyes.

  “I’m not strong enough, Emi. Not just as a mage, but as a person.”

  Juliana reaches up, brushing a tear from Emily’s cheek and ing her arms around her neck, pulling herself up to sit in Emily’s p.

  “I love you, Emi. And I do think you love me. But you don’t need me. You need an equal. A partner. Someone who’ll jump into the fires of hell with you when they catch your curiosity.”

  Despite herself, Emily ’t help the chuckle that spills from her lips along with fresh tears. She opens her mouth to try and respond, to refute the words she knows to be true, but Juliana pces a finger on her lips, notig the torn edges aly running her finger along them before pulling Emily into a hug.

  “It’s okay. I don’t need you to e, for once. I know you realised I couldn’t keep up with you ages ago, you’re far too smart not to have, but I guess it just took me a while.”

  Emily silently cries into Juliana’s shoulder for a while, the fusing mixture of guilt, anger, sadness, and longing slowly blending into a muted sense of acceptance as she focuses oears soaking her own shoulder in turn. After a few mihe two pull apart, each running a hand over the other’s cheek, wiping away the tears.

  “I love you, Jules.”

  “I love you too, Emi.”

  KeroKeron