February 2019, Unnamed location, 25 miles North of Nashville, Tennesse.

The waiting room smells of tobacco and mold. The rickety furniture probably hasn’t been changed since the nineties if the ancient magazines on it are any indication. A far cry from the high tech server rooms and state of the art machinery they saw on the way. Nathan assumes that most business deals are done either at a pricey restaurant or on the futures markets. The fact that they are made to wait makes them the exception, a worrying sign.

An old woman enters the room with a frown of utter disdain marring her grandmotherly face. She takes in Barrett’s countenance and falters, then her glance reaches Seren and she freezes. Finally, her attention turns to Nathan who smiles politely.

“Mr. Forrester will see you now.”

They follow her through a corridor to an office overlooking a vast warehouse. The room is made of metal with a glass windows allowing its occupants to follow the gigantic harvesting machines and the men who work on them. A large desk crosses the room, on which seat two massive monitors. The chair is the only luxurious item in this otherwise functional place.

A man occupies it.

Well past his seventies, Harold P. Forrester, CEO, founder and owner of Forrester Inc has adopted the look of the Southern gentleman down to the weird bow tie. A well worn felt hat hangs from a coat holder in the corner. Two pale blue eyes inspect them from the top of an white moustache a walrus wound envy.

The woman leaves them standing in the middle. Forrester dismisses Nathan and Seren and after a few seconds asks Barrett.

“So which are you.”

“Rangers.”

“Hah. Danang?”

“Khe Sanh.”

Everybody remains silent and Forrester takes out a gum starts chewing frantically, apparently deliberating. Nathan does his best to keep a poker face although he has no idea what the fuck is going on.

“My cattle is disappearing without trace. You get ten thousand plus expense if you find out what the fuck is going on, nothing if you fail. Lewis will show you where that latest cattle disappear, and if you’re wasting my time you’ll regret it.”

The man goes back to his work. They are dismissed.

Twenty minutes later, the trio exits their rental Jeep to stand between two completely barren fields. There is no scarecrow, no wood sticks in the ground, nothing to break the expanse of brown earth and dried cow dung. The place is completely desolate. Lewis, a young executive with a deprecating smile leans against his own car.

“Found something?” he says, “take your time!”

The man smiles smugly, his voice dripping with scorn and Nathan simply cannot wait to wipe it off his dumb face.

His two companions wait for him to give the signal. Since he pointed the object of interest to them he is pretty sure they can detect it as well but the decision to go in remains his by common agreement. Nathan focuses his sense and the world comes alive. Besides the object’s aura, which feels like damp earth and fear, there is nothing in their immediate vicinity.

“Gear up.”

The group gets their equipment from the trunk and prepare with practiced ease. Instead of the armor they used during training, his mother had provided leather duster with a futuristic look, reinforced with chain mail and ballistic weave and completed by a military grade helmet. She had finished just in time for the mission.

As the armor settles on his shoulder, he frowns.

Seren raises her brow in silent question, but he shakes his head. They would have time to talk later about what he just found out.

First, that thing is fucking heavy.

It should not be surprising considering the amount of metal lining the insides, but still, wow, just walking around in that thing has to count towards cardio training.

That is not the issue however, the main concern is magic. The armor is infused. It’s subtle but it’s there. How is that possible? Did his mom… Nathan subtly checks the mail. Here and there he can see small symbols sewn in fabric or engraved. Huh. He will have to check later.

The corporate asshole is a little pale and Nathan quickly figures out why. Barrett is getting his firearm ready.

There are guns that you could reasonably assume a civilian would use. This isn’t one of them.

The veteran expertly deploys a carbine with an under barrel shotgun with a speed and precision born of habit. Not only is it black and menacing, but the barrel is lines with silvery lines and engravings patiently applied by Jericho. He completes the sequence by loading a magazine and arming the weapon with an ominous “click”.

At this stage Lewis is looking a little pale around the gills. That’s when he notices Seren’s sword, and his own spear. He staggers back and bumps against his car in alarm. In panic, he grabs his cell phone but when he turns back his eyes get as wide as saucers.

The three are gone.

The fields stand empty.

When it comes to magical concealment, monsters tend to be lazy. So far, only Gwahin has shown actual efforts to mix natural camouflage with the “look somewhere else” and “forget me” effects. The entrance to the cave was so badly hidden that Seren is pretty sure someone would have stumbled upon it by accident at some point.

Well, stumble into it would be more accurate.

The tunnel’s entrance is a two meter wide hole in the ground with a soft downward slope leading down for a few meters before getting flat. The tunnel itself is clearly artificial, although Seren herself has no idea how it was made. It’s not like engineering is her forte. The weird thing is the wooden beam support spread at uneven intervals. Either the builders were drunk or they instinctively knew where they had to reinforce to maintain structural integrity. She doesn’t know which option is the worst.

Barrett takes the lead and uses a mounted flashlight on his ginormous rifle, while Nathan’s own is fixed under the barrel of his pistol. Seren acts as rearguard, flooding the tunnel with a mag light.

“This is the right place.”

Barrett points downward. The tunnel has tracks, lots of tracks. Most of them are recognizable as cow, if the occasional cow shit wasn’t a hint already, but there are others as well. They look like children shoes.

“I’d say the targets are small humanoids. At least four but could be as high as fifteen, I reckon. Rules of engagement?”

Nathan turns to Seren.

“Tit for tat.”

She nods, they have prepared for this moment. If they don’t know what they’ll find they will rely on Seren’s sense of danger to decide whether to engage or not. If Seren says “Red”, they fight. It’s like a safe word for monster hunting.

They set out.

After a minute, Seren realizes that this is no small cavern but a veritable complex.

After five minutes, something strange happens. The tunnel slightly twists and curves around, reducing their visibility and making her feel lost. The world is reduced to their breathing and footsteps, the smell of damp earth and the walls around them.

Aren’t those getting smaller?

She can still walk upright, so probably not my much but she feels oppressed. No, that’s not it. It’s just an impression. Her nerves must be getting to her.

Barrett’s raised fist interrupts her thoughts. His torch shines on a recess in the tunnel, slightly to their right. The three move forward to inspect his findings. Three rays of light fall on a small opening, barely the size of child. It would be facing towards their back if they were to continue to follow the tunnel.

So that whatever took the cows could sneak up on them.

She doesn’t want to see this. She doesn’t want to be in that opening. She could get stuck in it, her body constricted until either thirst or whatever built this ends her agony. They should seal it. Actually they should seal the whole fucking plain. Dump a truckload of mustard gas then collapse the entrance.

“Seren.” Nathan whispers.

“…Yes?”

“Draw your sword.”

“Huh?”

Nathan fixes her with his chocolate eyes. His expression remains calm, no not calm: confident. Assertive. Even as he speaks, his light shines on their back while Barrett covers the front.

“Right.”

Seren draws the true steel sword. Its handle lodges itself comfortably in her hand. She knows the weight the sharpness of it. The familiarity settles her and reminds of who she is.

She nods at Nathan who accepts it without comments. They set out again, though this time she stays in the middle.

After what felt like hours, but probably closer to ten minutes, the tunnel widen into a dark maw. Once again Barrett signals but this time, he doesn’t stop.

“Breach.”

They rush in a larger space and immediately turn right. Their lights sweep the cavern while they keep their back to the wall.

They stand in a cavern. The open space is roughly circular and the low ceiling is covered with sturdy support beams made of wood. There are two entrances on the opposite side and the whole place contains only three things. The first is the smoldering remains of a large fire pit. The embers still shine red and provide the only artificial light they saw since they entered this wretched place. The second item of interest in a small pile of dirt, from which emerges a half buried horn. The third she cannot see yet, but she can definitely smell. There must be something around with enough feces to fertilize one of old Forrester’s fields.

Still no trace of whatever took the cow.

“Barrett I need to check the pit.”

Barrett nods and they move forward in triangle formation.

Nathan inspects the pit, then the ceiling, the dirt pile and finally, a seemingly empty corner of the room. That must be the latrines.

His hand grips a blackened bone from the ashes and turns it around.

“Alright.” Nathan says in a low voice.

“From the leftover auras and the rest we can deduce this. There are seven of them. They are the size of a child and carnivorous, with sharp teeth. Some of the bones have been broken to reach the marrow so we can expect basic tools and probably weapon. They are smart enough not to kill the cattle but to lead it here first. There’s barely enough here for a cow so most of the animals must be somewhere else.”

“Hostile?” Barrett asks.

“We’ll rely on Seren to be sure but I’m going to go with yes. Probably territorial too.”

“Ok.”

“I think we should switch to a more defensive formation. No breaching. We stay close, and one person always checks the back. If we get attacked we fight defensively and engage at range and if they swarm us we fight back to back.

“Roger that.”

“Fine by me.”

Nathan walks back to their entrance and marks the passage with white paint. Just as he’s done a noise breaks the silence.

Seren jumps in freight as a screech like an insane puma echoes through the cave systems. The humans group up, back to back.

The silence is deafening.

“Something changed. They know we’re here.”

“We should move fast, force them to react.”

“Alright, most of the cattle went that way. Let’s go.“

Is it that those men don’t know fear? Seren shakes her head in disbelief. They don’t even know how many creatures they could face. There could be hundreds of those down there, thousands! Crawling around and under, ready to burst from the wall like an alien from a chest cavity, swarming them until they are drowned under a squirming wave of idsgustung thing and eaten like Sarah’s arm, piece by piece. Or worse. They could just cave in a section and let them rot, entombed under a metric shit ton of dirt until they choke or start eating themselves.

“Seren.”

Are those tunnel walls closer? They must be getting closer. Even the oxygen has to be rare here. She has to breathe harder. Maybe there are toxic fumes.

“Seren!”

“Yes! What!”

Barrett’s hand is on her shoulder and the human contact is a little bit soothing. His blue eyes drill into her mind, not unkindly.

“You don’t like tunnels, do you?”

“…No.”

“Use that danger sense of yours.”

“I’m always using it.”

“Well what does it say?”

“… We’re fine. For now.”

“Exactly. So listen. I’m old. I’ve been at this for a long, long time, and I’ve made my share of mistakes but I’m still alive. I’m still alive despite the efforts of others. Now I’m telling you, Seren, that there is no one else I would trust at my back to do what we’re doing. You guys are gifted and you still trained hard for this. I believe in you, else I wouldn’t be here. So chin up.”

Right. She has her sword and the paths.

“Hum Seren.”

“Yeah?”

“You know I can feel auras. So, basically, as far as I can tell you’re the deadliest thing in those tunnels right now.”

“Oh.”

Well she sure doesn’t feel like it. This place is giving her the creeps. Big time. They are right though, she is panicking for no good reason.

“Alright let’s go.”

They follow cow tracks in one of the tunnels in silence and the way does eventually start to shrink a bit, forcing them to lower their head a bit. The sound of their breathing is still the only thing breaking the eerie silence. How long have those things been digging to make such an extensive systems. Months? Years?

Generations?

How comes they only surface… Shit.

“Red!”