Shlick.

The crawler's head made a wet, sickening noise as it slid from its neck. Ravina flicked her sword out to the side, sending flecks of blood to blot the dry ground.

She glanced around in frustration and bewilderment as her adventurers carved through the veritable horde of cave crawlers. They had come from nowhere, dammit!

The group was within sight of the canyon that Durthangrim rested within, yet they were assailed by hundreds—maybe thousands—of cave crawlers just before they could descend. Unless her eyes were deceiving her, they'd come from the very canyon that was their destination.

What did this mean? Was the entire city overrun? Did the crawlers open up an aboveground passage and decide to assault their group rather than the city? It didn't make any sense!

The adventurers handled the crawlers with a tactical precision, which made Ravina proud. Gone were the gaggles of freeloaders that would stand still while crawlers threw themselves at their blades. These were nearly a military outfit.

They stood with tanks in a line in front, damage dealers behind them, shooting shortbows or stabbing around the tanks. Mages and supports were the backline, and the formation was carving a path through the sea of crawlers toward the canyon. It was slow, methodical, and precise.

"Switch!" Ravina called.

The tanks shifted their staggered formation, the rested taking the place of the tiring. Their line was staggered, like the blade of a serrated saw. The front tanks, which Ravina called 'primaries', took the brunt of the assault, while the back tanks, the 'secondaries', mainly defended the damage dealers behind them, regaining their energy so that they could become primaries when needed.

Ravina might've been confident—if not for Gala. She hadn't joined the fight thus far. She stood off to the side, her arms crossed, her face a thundercloud. She seemed to look in the direction of the crawler horde, but Ravina was sure she was looking at something beyond them.

Gala did not adopt this demeanor lightly, and that made Ravina more nervous than any of the fighting.

Ravina opened her mouth to ask Gala what was wrong, but the ground began to shake. She braced herself and immediately looked toward the front line. If anyone lost their footing, the line could break, which would be catastrophic. Fortunately, these were all experienced adventurers, and a little shaking wasn't enough to throw them off.

The ground behind the cave crawler lines bucked and heaved before collapsing in on itself, as if a massive void had opened under the earth, and the ground spilled into it, running like water.

Out came another horde of crawlers, salivating and rabid. They loped across the cracked desert ground, their claws carving deep furrows. Behind them, Ravina could just make out a couple of people—dwarves—standing with their arms raised at the mouth of the hole.

Stone Tuners!

"Halt the advance! Shift to wedge formation! Brace! Let them come to us! Let them break against our formation!" Ravina called, jogging up to the front lines.

The long line of adventurers collapsed into a triangle shape, with a pointed tip aimed straight at the approaching crawlers. What remained of the previous crawler group disengaged and circled around, approaching the group from the back.

"Keep the formation moving! Don't let them flank us! Left march!" she yelled.

What was going on here? The crawlers looked nearly rabid, their minds completely gone, yet they were now using battlefield tactics? What crawlers had ever attempted to flank their opponents?!

And the Stone Tuners—those were Durthangrim forces. Why had they opened a passage to allow more crawlers to join the fray? Why had the crawlers completely ignored them and come for Ravina's group? Were they somehow working together? Were these some rogue faction within Durthangrim, or was the city itself aligned against them?

So many questions, and no answers.

The crawlers plowed into the front line of adventurers, where they broke against shields. They were stabbed and shot with arrows and magic, and their blood began to darken the ground, the parched and compacted desert earth refusing to absorb any. The blood pooled and immediately began to dry, leaving behind a brackish crust of crawler filth.

"Right march! Cut them off!" Ravina bellowed.

The formation of adventurers shifted, undulating like a wave as the tip of the wedge formation shifted from the center to the right, where a contingent of crawlers advanced behind their compatriots, attempting to flank from the opposite side.

The right side clashed against the attempted flank, and the entire formation began an organized retreat without Ravina's orders. There were some things in battle that had to be inferred. A troop relying on its commander for every micro-adjustment was sure to fall.

The battle would be a series of giving and taking ground, and this group of adventurers was experienced enough now to recognize that rather than attempting to break the entire force of the crawler's charge at once, it would be more efficient to give a little ground. Blocking an arrow in flight would cause a great deal of damage, but if you slowed it first, the damage would be far less.

After retreating for a few jogs, the crawlers' momentum was lessened to a push rather than a charge, which meant it was time.

"Dig in!" Ravina called.

The adventurers dug their heels into the ground and pressed forward, regaining lost ground at a steady pace as crawlers fell. Their bodies were kicked off to the side and stepped around, the blood slicking the bottom of boots. Fortunately, the slightly-alakaline desert ground blunted the impact of the creatures' acidic blood.

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The push and pull of battle dragged on for half an hour, the adventurers steadily gaining and giving ground in a sort of three steps forward, two steps back rotation. Progress was slow but consistent, and the group was soon in sight of the void the Stone Tuners had opened once again.

No sooner had they arrived than the ground shook once again. This time adventurers did fall, though not many. It was fortunate that the crawlers were also wary of the tremors, as they buried their claws into the earth and remained motionless, failing to seize the opportunity and break the adventurers' line.

A great groaning rang through the air, and the void in the ground collapsed further. Rather than falling into an even wider hole, however, the earth split to either side, then streamed upward—a river of rock that arched and intertwined before hardening into a massive arch, beyond which a now-smooth slope descended into the darkness below.

A rhythmic thudding propagated up and out of the tunnel, as though someone were hammering an anvil in the dark depths. However, Ravina had been around long enough to know what that thudding meant.

Infantry, she thought.

A sharp light brightened the darkness of the arch as the first of the troops emerged. They were dwarves dressed in full plate armor, which shined under the brutal desert sun. They marched in a barely-held formation, their numbers constantly shifting about as though they were unable to remain still.

Their armor covered their entire bodies, but their faces just below the nose were visible, and Ravina could see that each and every one bore unsettling smiles, though she was unsure what specifically was unsettling about them.

Maybe it was the fact that she was in a life-or-death situation, so seeing others smile was disquieting. Perhaps it was the nature of the smiles themselves, which seemed to contain too many teeth. Or maybe it was the fact that every single soldier, without fail, bore an exact replica of the smile his neighbor wore.

What the fuck is going on?! Why is the military here? Are they here to deal with the crawlers?

Before she could turn her thoughts into action, Gala walked past her toward the front. She wore the same thunderous expression and held her arms to the side, palms out.

"Are ya mad?! Don't—" Ravina started to say, but she stopped short at the sharp look Gala gave her.

"Do not worry for me. There is Life even in the most barren of deserts," Gala said, her voice placid and tranquil, despite her serious visage.

The ground once again shook, though this time the vibrations were more localized. Ravina could tell that they came from just below her own feet. Simultaneously, more vibrations were felt from farther out in the desert, and they were rapidly closing on the battle.

Huge scorpion-like creatures burst from the ground, their pincers clacking as they charged forward faster than a horse could run.

"Left-face! Brace!" Ravina shouted.

"Peace. They do not come for you," Gala reassured, halting the adventurers' formation shift.

The adventurers, despite Gala's assurance, hunkered behind their shields as the scorpions closed on the group. They maneuvered between and around all the adventurers without slowing, their sharp legs shaking the ground as they passed. There must've been at least a dozen of them, and they were all larger than a warhorse.

They moved through the group of adventurers quickly, as though they were mere obstacles in the terrain, before pouncing on the crawlers. Their huge pincers picked multiple crawlers off the ground at once, bisecting them, their exoskeletons sizzling as the acidic blood rained down. Their tails—twice as long as their bodies—launched crawlers to and fro, as Ravina might kick small rocks aside.

They surged through the lines of crawlers before slamming into the dwarven formation, sending dwarves flying and carving a bloody path into their lines. The dwarves never dropped their smiles, even as their fellows were chopped in two by giant claws or stabbed through flesh and armor by a stinger the size of a spear.

They thrust and swung their halberds at the scorpions, seemingly in relish. Most bounced off the hard carapace, but a few well-placed strikes at the joints went through, spraying green ichor across the battlefield. The scorpions screeched, a horrible trill that sounded less like the noise a creature might make and more like the way wind whistles through a canyon.

Ravina and the adventurers stood, many with mouths agape, unsure of what to do. However, gasps of shock and surprise rippling throughout the ranks drew Ravina's attention to the back of the dwarven formation, where a lone fighter emerged.

He was much larger than the other dwarves, though still shorter than a human. He wore a harness that barely covered any of his torso—in fact, it might exclusively be used to sheath the enormous ax on his back rather than as any kind of clothing. He wore cloth pants reinforced with steel plates strapped around his legs, and his head was completely bald, missing even a helmet, which Ravina would argue as the most essential piece of equipment.

He advanced with that same, wild grin on his face, drawing his ax from over his shoulder before bracing his legs, as though preparing to charge. Rather than charge, he swung his ax so hard and fast that Ravina barely saw it, merely tracking the arc of the attack rather than the weapon itself. What she didn't miss was the pressure wave that came blasting out the mouth of the tunnel, splitting a scorpion completely in half.

Suddenly, Gala leaped into the air, her arms still outstretched, and vines and roots shot from the ground. They grew longer and thicker as they traveled, and they seemed to multiply. She appeared as a spider in the air, with an enormous web of plant life beneath her. She thrust her hands forward, and the web of plants surged into the lines of dwarves.

They wrapped dwarves and scorpions up as they flowed like a liquid into the tunnel, where even more straw-colored vines wrapped the entrance up. The flora grew so thick and abundant that, rather than a web, it began to remind Ravina of a tumbleweed, or the way threading used in clothes wrapped around itself to create thick, strong fibers. Strangely, she couldn't sense any mana—none of it made sense.

After only a few seconds, the entire tunnel was completely wrapped, not even sound escaping from it.

An eerie silence settled over the adventurers, only the horrible squelch of boots in pools of crawler blood breaking it.

Drip. Drip. Drip.

Ravina glanced to the side as Gala slowly descended to the ground, which was darkened by a slowly-growing pool of blood. She looked up and gasped in horror.

Gala was covered in blood—it seemed to come from every orifice. It dripped from both nostrils, ran down from the corners of her mouth, and even made tracks from her bloodshot eyes.

Gala touched down, clearly resisting a stagger as she got her feet underneath her.

"I see now why Uncle decries the limitations of prototypes," she mused to herself.

Ravina ran over, thinking to take her arm for support, but Gala held out a hand, her fingers bloody, as if blood were even squeezing out from underneath her fingernails.

"There is no way for you to help me. Only I can heal my vessel. For now we must retreat. The city is lost—Durthangrim is lost. We cannot retake it on our own," she said, her voice like a thundercrack in the muted silence, flecks of blood spraying from her mouth as she spoke.

The silence lingered for a few moments, adventurers exchanging looks, before Ravina spoke up.

"Well? Ya heard her—get movin'! Organized retreat! Make it quick, but keep your eyes peeled! Just because the enemies are gone right now doesn't mean they're gone for good!" she barked.

The group began to retreat back into the desert, small bits of whispered conversation among the adventurers filtering into Ravina's ears, as she walked with one of Gala's arms draped over her shoulders, blood still dripping from her fingertips.

"...Was that Dunstraag?" one of the adventurers asked.

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