The camp had been moving before. Slow and coming to a grinding halt every time a vespa got close, it had been moving at a snail pace. Slow enough that Martin intercepting them was pretty much a guarantee, and slow enough that the fairies probably would too.

The rage elemental’s appearance changed that. Darryl wasn’t sure what happened, he got only a few hasty and contradicting messages from the people there, but he could draw a conclusion looking at the blue dots on the map.

The camp scattered, and people were making a run for the Safe Zone in small groups or alone. He couldn’t see the ID of these dots, one needed the borough map to see the identity of creatures not within line of sight, but there wasn't much organisation beyond a few groups huddling together. And most of those were likely rallying around someone with a torch to avoid the darkness of the dungeon.

There were a couple of dots that remained where the camp once was, standing still or hesitantly moving around. People that were trying to organise things, perhaps, or simply froze up when everyone panicked. Darryl wondered how many people were stuck after the torch lights disappeared, terrified of the utter darkness that now enveloped them. Not everyone had torches, and some hadn’t even undergone the tutorial to have a minimap to rely on.

Most people were running in the general direction of Darryl’s location, though. They weren’t moving as one or necessarily even following the right path, as all but a few lacked the neighbourhood map for this region. Some even went way off course, making a run for the west. But they were still headed in this general direction, at least.

The vespa meanwhile were having a field day. Darryl saw eight dead crawlers already, and several people that were merely delaying the inevitable by trying to run away. Some managed to find a toilet and lock themselves in, but most weren’t that lucky. Especially considering that most nearby toilets were already occupied.

He focused on the small groups that he knew next.

One group, the lambs that he left with Belinda to go in any direction but the one with the vespa swarm, had thrown caution in the wind and was now biting the bullet by making a dash for the Safe Room avoiding the swarm as narrowly as they could. If they wouldn’t draw its attention, they’d make it here before anyone else, though.

The second group was pulling ahead of the tide with ease and moved with the certainty suggesting they had the map of the region. He wasn’t absolutely certain, but there was a good chance that this was Ben and his group of speed-enhanced auxiliaries. Elise might be amongst them, he wasn't sure.

Third were Martin and his new cronies. They initially retreated when they got the rage elemental warning, but then veered north to intercept some of the strays headed for their general direction. They hadn’t killed anyone yet, but this didn’t seem like a situation where anyone would be able to stop them from doing so. Damn it all.

The last group was the one that had Darryl’s undivided attention, though. A group much further south, moving towards the Southern Safe Zone. They changed directions when the warning came, moving towards a nearby tutorial guild instead. It almost seemed like an unnecessary precaution as the rage elemental was going to move past them entirely, but then it suddenly veered in their general direction.

Alexa: It’s going to get them! Isn’t there anything we can do!?

Darryl: They might make it.

Alexa: No they won’t!

Darryl: They’ll have to. And they’ll have to pick up the pace soon, they’re moving too slow. Nothing we can do.

Alexa: But they’re children! Most of them can’t even run for that long!

Darryl’s blood ran cold.

Darryl: I thought that there had been a change of plans? That the children would come up north with the rest?

Alexa: No! They went down with two guardians regardless of the whole incident, ignoring the ruckus. Parents didn’t get to come other than the one mother with a baby, but all the kids went.

Darryl: You sure they won’t make it? Maybe if they hear it coming, they’ll run faster.

Alexa: There was only room for twelve at the Safe Zone, and we had more kids than that. That’s why I was allowed by all those know-it-all adults to become a Lambda, I was too old to make it into the group. And I’m 11.

Darryl: So all of those kids…

Alexa: There is one well-armed crawler with them, he could’ve beaten most foes.

But none of them stood a chance against the rage elemental. Even Darryl would get one-shotted by a glancing blow, and he was the sturdiest person around by far.

Even if this guardian could dispose of the vespa by himself, already an assumption as they popped up after the kids left the camp, there was still nothing he could do against this overkill measure that Borant threw at them. And the rest of them, save for one young mother, would be too young to even fight at all.

Darryl felt angry. At Borant for this fucked up dungeon and their unwarranted measure against peeing in the halls. At the arseholes that made a run for the Safe Zone meant for the kids, only to then get themselves and a lot of other people killed. At himself for being unable to do anything but watch.

But that was the truth of the matter. He couldn’t do anything. He couldn’t do anything. Not even something stupid that would get him killed for no real gain, like jumping in between the kids and the rage elemental to buy them some time.

Darryl re-centred and minimised the map instead of torturing himself by watching the event unfold. No one would benefit from one more person plagued by nightmares.

“Damn it!” He shouted, hitting the table with his fist loud enough that the sound echoed through the still empty room. A pop-up appeared telling him to refrain from violence within the Safe Zone, even towards objects.

Gritting his teeth to the sardonic message that had the audacity to end with a joke, Darryl took out a dagger and began to chip off the skin around his wound. The kruthik bite wound was still fairly deep, but he could no longer fit his whole fingertip into the joint.

Scrape, scrape, scrape.

He needed all of his attention to wield the dagger with his left hand and carefully scrape off skin without cutting any deeper. The angle was awkward, there was no way for him to twist his arm and neck to see the wound at the back of his arm while he had to awkwardly manoeuvre the blade around his arm or hold it upside down angling in a way that made it difficult to put any pressure behind his scraping at all.

He had been doing this for about five days now, and several times a day at that, but it wasn’t getting any easier. Especially considering that Ben usually did the backside that was all but impossible for him to reach.

Scrape, scrape, scrape.

But this time he was glad he had to do this chore. It demanded all of his attention, and the dull pain that was more an itch kept his mind from wandering.

A few times the anger of his powerlessness welled up, but it was immediately accompanied by jolts of pain as his cuts grew jagged or his hands started to shake. Then he'd take a deep breath and focus on the task again. It forced him to stay calm, and for once he was grateful for this chore.

Scrape, scrape, scrape.

The wound was healing nicely. Darryl already noticed before that he was once again capable of lifting his arm, though his strength was but a shadow of what it was before. Swinging a torch had been more a matter of momentum and pivoting his centre mass than arm muscles.

But at least he was regaining his ability to move it. At least he wasn’t completely restricted to using just his left arm any more, even if the right arm was just a glorified sconce right now.

The time it would take to fully heal was still troublesome, though. Volos initially estimated this wound to need about three weeks to a month to recover. Darryl’s high constitution and frequent scraping made sure that it wasn’t going to take a full month, but he wasn’t going to make a full recovery faster than twenty days.

Scrape, scrape, scrape.

Meaning that the initial prediction that he’d recover fully around the third floor was way off, and Darryl had to start worrying about his race selection circumventing the wound.

The floors usually lasted as long as the previous floor plus five days, meaning that they’d have ten days on the second floor and fifteen days on the third one. The first three floors would thus last 30 days in total, enough time for Darryl to fully heal before hitting what Volos called ‘the part where things stop being easy’.

When Borant chose for the minimal time extension though, Volos spotted the issue that Darryl initially hadn’t: If they kept rushing like this, his three weeks of recovery would last all the way to the fifth floor. And with just one hand, he probably wouldn’t survive for that long. Or maybe he would, if he was lucky. But that was literally leaving things up to fate.

Scrape, scrape, scrape.

Darryl hadn’t really given much thought to that problem yet, he intended to delay it until they got to the end of the level where they got to pick a race.

He still wasn’t too sure what that was going to be like, and what kind of options he’d be getting, but Volos said that your race could make or break your entire delve. Some races were apparently overpowered enough by themselves to allow one to shoot from a nobody into the top hundred. Meanwhile picking a race that resolved his wound could be very penalising, unless he unlocked some races that were great without arms.

Darryl mulled it over, but came to the same conclusion as before: He had no idea what options he’d get at character creation, so he should worry about it later. He hated procrastinating on important issues, but this one gave him little choice but to do that.

Scrape, scrape, scr-

The door opened, and two women stormed in. Darryl ignored the shallow cut that the knife left when his hand slipped, and placed it back into his inventory before turning to the two.

They were both late twenties, maybe early thirties, and the taller one named Sandra was awkwardly supporting the smaller one named Mandy. Mandy was clutching her side where acid was still dissipating from her half-plate, and dropped a steaming towel on the ground as they entered.

“Are you okay?” Darryl asked.

“Do I look okay?” Mandy grunted.

“Yeah, guess you do.” Darryl shrugged.

His question had been a surface habit, archaic now that they had the ability to see one’s health bar. Mandy’s was yellow, but it wasn’t dropping any more so she just had to sit still for a while and let her regeneration do its thing.

Mandy gave him a sour look but didn’t say anything, and sat down to dab her acid wounds with a clean towel.

“What’s the situation out there?” Darryl asked Sandra.

As he asked the question, Ben and Carter came in carrying a balding man named Phil. Unlike Mandy he was barely conscious and his health was in the red and steadily dropping. They quickly lay him down on a table and Carter took out a bottle of water that he poured over the still smoking wound.

“That. The situation is that.” Mandy said. “And we’re lucky, as most of us are able to fight and move quickly. I bet most people are worse off.”

Darryl opened his minimap and enlarged it. She was right, while he kept himself distracted the situation had progressed as expected. He saw at least a dozen crossed blue dots, and there were probably a lot more that he wasn’t seeing or which were currently obscured by red dots eating their fill.

The door opened again and the lambs poured in, tailed by Thomas and Elise. There were several faces missing, though Darryl didn’t know them well enough to remember who, but fortunately none shared the condition that Mandy and Phil were in. A few people were still regenerating lost health and had healed acid wounds, but nothing serious. Except one man who lost two fingers, that is.

“Seven dead, I’m afraid.” Thomas said, as if reading Darryl’s mind. “Belinda amongst them, and one of the more promising Lambdas they called the ‘axemen’. The group was too slow, allowed themselves to be pinned down by singular vespa, and their slow and steady approach backfired as the larger swarm that you lured away noticed their presence.”

“Still, it could’ve been worse. A whole group dodging acid without means to block it was doomed from the start, but they handled the vespa pretty well in close range.” Thomas continued. “So with the remaining five, you, me, Elise, Carter, Ben, Phil and these two, we’ve got thirteen people here. Room for seven more before the Safe Zone won’t let anyone else in.”

“Think we can rescue Alexa and get back before that many arrive?” Darryl asked, looking at the many blue dots moving around the map. “She’s trapped in a toilet and I doubt that the lambs lured the whole swarm away.”

“Maybe.” Thomas said. “As you can see, most of them are running blind or taking refuge at the first unoccupied toilet they find. Few have the map to this region, and many went off course the moment they ran into a vespa. There’s going to be a few stragglers finding their way here, but I think many will need several hours and some luck to find this place.”

“Then I’m going. I couldn’t do anything for those other kids, but I can save Alexa. I appreciate any help, but no one has to come if they don’t want to.” Darryl said, getting up and heading for the door.

“There’s still about a dozen vespa left in that area and you’re not yet able to defend and attack at the same time. I’ll come with you.” Elise said. She then elbowed Carter, who initially frowned but then nodded and got up as well.

Elise: Ben, could you stay here? I think Carter could be a good addition to the group, but we need to see him in action a bit more to be sure. If you’re there, you’d probably outshine him in scouting and skirmishing.

Ben: right, sure

“Well, I guess… Uhm… I think I’ll stay here and keep an eye on the map. If someone nearby needs help, I’ll go get them.” Ben said. “But good luck, doubt she’s going to get lucky by herself like those other kids.”

Darryl frowned at that.

“You didn’t see it on the map?” Ben said.

“Wait, so the children survived?” Darryl asked.

Ben’s expression hardened at that. “Well…”

“Some did, against all odds.” Thomas said. “Turns out that those rage elementals attack every living thing they see, including other rage elementals. Needless to say, several of the kids fell behind and panicked when the grown-ups bolted and left them in the dark, and some pissed themselves.

“There were five rage elementals at one point, which killed each other until one was left.” Thomas continued. “They still killed some of the children before facing each other, but the distraction allowed a few to make it to the tutorial guild.”

“I see. That’s… That’s better than expected, at least.” Darryl said, still saddened by the confirmation that several of the children hadn’t made it.

“Yeah, we’ve got to count our blessings right now, meagre as they may be.” Elise said. “One of which is that there’s still another little girl that we can save.”

“Yeah, let’s go.” Darryl said.