**[Rita, Day 1]**

The door swung open with disturbing ease. Horace had barely even turned the handle before they were gazing into the dark recesses of what appeared to be carefully crafted tunnels. The light from the sun above let her see the polished sandstone walls ending in a defined right angle with the smooth ceiling and floor. The weirdly square tunnel went an indeterminable distance forward, and she gulped at how dark it was inside. Together they shuffled forward, and a sharp 'thunk' from behind them caused the dim lighting to vanish completely. The guards had just sealed them in. She flailed at the feeling of something brushing against her leg, only to realize it was Aiden when she felt him recoil against her. It was pitch black, and her eyes were not ready for the transition. Terror turned her blood hot. She began to shake, but a sharp slap from an unknown hand brought her back. “Hey, get it together. Every monster in the region will hear you if you keep panicking,” whispered Horace sternly.

She hadn’t realized she had been making noise and focused on breathing slowly in and out like her old tutor would have her do when she would get overwhelmed. It helped draw her out of the fight or flight mindset she had been in, and her eyes began to see outlines of her two partners next to her. Looking around, she could see the dim lighting was coming from tiny bits of crystal in the sandstone surrounding them. It was not enough to see clearly, but at least they wouldn’t be completely blind. There were no visible threats, yet she knew that death lay around every corner. She could do nothing except clutch her wand tightly between her fingers and hope that when the time came, her magic would obey. No one moved for a couple of minutes until Aiden broke the stillness by walking forward. He muttered his reasoning to them as he passed, “No use waiting for death to find us, might as well see if we can find a good spot to hunker down that might give us an advantage.” She nodded instinctively at his words before realizing he probably couldn’t see the movement.

Horace hurried forward to keep ahead of Aiden since he was their primary fighter and his sword stayed raised before him. Aiden held no weapon that she could see, but he surely had a dagger close at hand or, barring that, could pull out his sword from its sheath. Her own dagger lay inside the bag on her back, where it was mostly useless. However, the wand was their best option for real damage due to their threats being higher leveled beasts that would mostly resist physical damage yet might be susceptible to magical damage. Horace or even Aiden might be able to do something since they had better physical stats and had the early levels in weapon skills. She had been relegated to the caster's position for their group despite her temperamental magical ability since she lacked any capacity to do harm otherwise.

The tunnel continued to go forwards as they walked with little inclination of any change in direction or depth. Finally, they reached a junction after the ages of anxiety-riddled creeping. Three square-shaped holes greeted them as they moved to the end of their tunnel. Horace was about to move them all forward as no dangers presented themselves when she felt herself begin to trip on the tiniest bit of grit on the floor under her feet. Giving a muffled gasp as she began to fall but breathed a sigh of relief at the feeling of Aiden’s hand on her arm. Cursing her bad luck, she was about to gesture for them to continue, yet had a momentary wonder at why her 'Murphy’s Bitch' trait would activate right then. Horace, unaware of her musing, took a step into the tunnel with his right foot and would have disappeared along with the floor if it hadn’t been for her last-second grip on his shoulder. His weight was too much for her, and it nearly sent them both careening into the abyss. Aiden's strength stopped their downward momentum and was needed to get the heavier boy back onto solid ground.

A sharp metallic smell made her realize that his leg was bleeding from where it had scraped against the lip of the trap, but otherwise, Horace seemed fine physically. The mental shock of nearly dying was more serious. “What was that?! How did you know what would happen, Rita?” Horace said loudly, the adrenalin made him forget about being quiet for a moment, but the sharp echo of his words made them all flinch.

Making sure to pitch her voice as low as possible, she responded, “When I nearly fell over nothing, I wondered why my trait would try to trip me since there wasn’t any reason to make that moment worse than another, so I panicked thinking there was something we could not see. Glad I reacted as quickly as I did. Who would have thought a trap would be this early.” Both boys nodded in agreement. They all took a second to peer down into the pit only a foot away.

It was at least five feet in diameter with a steep drop of more than ten feet before Horace would have hit a series of sharpened rocks littering the bottom. Rita could feel her shoulders hunch at the thought of what could have happened. In the heat of the moment, it had looked deeper, but ten feet onto sharp rocks would kill them as surely as fifty. She wished something would just attack them and get it over with. The tension of waiting for it to happen and then just to have the floor go out in front of them was too much. Surprisingly, it was Horace who moved them forward again despite his near-fatal accident just moments earlier. The pit would make the path difficult, but it did not go all the way into the junction. She watched as he carefully moved his injured leg onto the lip of the pit and shuffled along the wall until he was safely on the other side. Aiden pushed her to go next, and soon they were all beside Horace, who had stayed perched on the far side of the hole.

**[Horace]**

His leg burned something fierce, and the act of balancing on the side of the pit was making him begin to shake. His breathing eased once the others joined him, and he could grab Aiden’s arm for balance. Testing the ground in front of them carefully, he pushed his weight onto his foremost foot and began to slide it forward slowly. Aiden kept a careful backwards tension on the arm Horace was holding, which kept him stable. He successfully moved a few feet forward. Doing the same for Aiden, they gradually made their way around the clearing, and only once did he feel a fragile base beneath his foot. That had happened on the tunnel adjacent to the one they had entered from. Huddling closely to his team, he spoke nearly silently, “Which one?”

Rita and Aiden shared a glance, and he shrugged, pointing to the safe passage across from the one they had come from. Horace moved to go that way, but Rita's firm pat made him stop, scared that he was about to fall into a trap again. “Why did you choose that one, Aiden?” she said hesitantly into the silence surrounding them.

He responded, “I just picked the one that felt best. Why?”

She huffed audibly and asked one last question that tied everything together in his mind, “One of your negative traits is called Good Intentions, correct? I do not know exactly what that means, but just like how I knew mine meant something sinister must be happening, yours might be giving you a good feeling about the worst path. I vote to pick the one with the pit in front of it. If it has the most hidden danger, then maybe it has less actual danger.”

Finding no error in her reasoning and appreciating the backhand use of their negative traits, he began to scout out the edges of the second pit trap. It would be best if they could avoid setting it off, so he led the group carefully around it step by step. On the other side, they saw no difference between it and their tunnel. Moving on down, they began the stressful trek once again.

Minutes passed with nothing happening, and Horace could feel himself checking out and losing his focus. The sword that had previously been held high in front of him now hung loosely in his hand. Aiden and Rita’s steps were hitting harder behind him as they too gave in to the exhaustion that was setting in. At the moment where he was just beginning to search out his surroundings for any threats, he felt the faintest surge of alarm go through his body. Gripping the sword and bringing it forward, he only barely avoided being skewered as a large mass barreled into him from above. Aiden squealed from behind him, and Horace could not tell if other monsters were attacking or if the boy had been startled by this one. All his focus was on the furry creature currently attached to his arm. He could not spare a glance to see at his partner's fate. Long glinting nails were going through his muscle, making the limb hang useless. Pain, unlike any he had felt before, almost made him forget to move, and that wasted moment let the creature stab him another time with its back claws.

Reaching his left hand up and down, Horace slammed into the monster’s head again and again. A sharp slash caught his attention as Aiden began to assault the rear end of it near his hand. He tried to focus on it during the respite Aiden was granting him and saw its information slowly appear.

[Unknown Monster]

Level: 8

Status: Heathy

When nothing else showed up, he grimaced and continued to fight against his assailant. The status of healthy meant they were not causing much harm, and the six-level difference made him wonder if they would be able to kill even this minor creature before it killed them. Deciding to try a new method when the beast remained undeterred by them, he threw himself down and used the corner between the floor and wall to pin it. This gave Aiden an easier time attacking without worrying about cutting him even though there was little left to risk at this point, which was further confirmed when a new message popped into his vision. A new sensation took hold of his arm as the pain suddenly vanished, leaving only an empty feeling where his arm once was.

Status change: Monoplegic

“Ahhhh!” His scream of torment and rage emerged unbidden from his lungs, shocking his companions. Aiden’s speed increased, and the skin he was stabbing was finally beginning to bleed. A brilliant light blinded them and caused the sharp smell of burning flesh to invade his senses. The sudden light, followed by pitch darkness, left him reeling in confusion. He wasn’t sure if the creature was still alive or not since he had lost all sensation in his arm, and his mind was begging to lose the battle against the shock his body was going through.