“I don’t like it, but I know what we’re supposed to be doing.” Ben said, looking down the hole.

After defeating the four woefully disoriented Reavers and the big but not actually that threatening Cleaver, we found that the pit they appeared from led into a large and stable tunnel. As the quest hadn’t completed itself, it wasn’t too difficult to grasp what the dungeon was expecting of us.

“We could just not go down there.” Elise tried, her build not really optimal for enclosed spaces if she had a choice.

“We’re not paying you until you finish the job, and this looks like it will just churn out more of the bastards.” Martha said. Tolley apologetically nodded in agreement next to her.

“It’s not optimal, but for all we know every quest is going to be like this.” Thomas said.

Elise sighed. “Yeah, I know. Let’s just get this over with.”

___ ___ ___ ___

“I’m starting to see a pattern.” Ben said, shooting another alarm-focused Krutnik in the back with his crossbow.

“Yeah, we all do.” Elise sighed, giving the juvenile Reaver in front of them a wallop.

She couldn’t insta-kill it when she wasn’t falling down from above with a lot of momentum, and the narrow tunnels didn’t even allow for much of a swing without risking friendly fire. She could go on ahead to swing all she wanted, but unlike me she was wide open and vulnerable to a Krutnik bodyslamming her. Even if she’d kill it in a single hit, its momentum and weight would still pin her down allowing the others to finish the job.

I kicked the bonked Krutnik in the face and it was shoved backwards a bit, giving me just enough room to stab it with my spear. Elise followed it up with another bonk and I stabbed around its corpse at the Young Reavers behind it.

The larger Juvenile Reavers were ironically less dangerous than the Young Reavers we already faced on the first floor, at least in these narrow tunnels. The tunnel was just broad enough for a juvenile, but it was effectively one against our group as it plugged the tunnel until we threw it in our inventory. The wolf-sized young ones meanwhile could still swarm us with four or five at once, and their corpses didn’t provide as much of a barrier. Outside the bigger ones would likely be more of an issue, but their own tunnels were working against them here. Even better, they weren’t spitting acid in their own tunnels.

With the juvenile barrier giving us some reprieve, I took the opportunity to stretch my shield arm. Even after turning to metal, my muscles still got sore from holding up a big hunk of metal for longer periods of time. I didn’t need the break as much as Alexa though, who relied on several skills that needed a few minutes to recharge.

The Krutnik were churning and growling behind their felled brother, but weren’t trying to climb over it yet. They learned from the last few times, and how my Spartan Kick could push this makeshift barrier just as easily when it was dead. Prone and tumbling Krutnik made for easy kills. A few of them were undoubtedly going to burrow under us, unlike the first floor the loose soil we walked on allowed for it.

After we entered the tunnel, there hadn’t been any resistance for a good fifteen minutes. But then we encountered a new variant, a rabbit-sized and well-camouflaged Krutnik variant who bolted for it when it saw us.

Krutnik Leaver, lvl4.

From all the insectoid life forms that aren’t sentient or behemoth size, the civilised lands don’t fear any the way they fear the Krutnik. These bugs are nigh impossible to exterminate entirely, rapidly numbering into the millions if allowed to fester in the deep wilds and always having at least a few subterranean colonies deep down that are overlooked by even the most capable bug-hunters. Meaning that if these creatures ever plague a planet, they will always plague a planet!

The Krutnik Leavers are the lowest and least threatening of the Krutnik, and act as much as emergency rations for the others as they are scouts and lookouts! In their territory and tunnels, the Leavers find themselves a spot to hibernate and jolt awake if anything gets near them! In cities, they scurry and skulk everywhere looking for survivors so that the Reavers don’t have to search every nook and cranny themselves. Fortunately for you, these trash mobs are just loud and fast but not dangerous. If they’re alone, that is.

The Leaver returned a few minutes later, with several friends. Its name seemed like a coincidence, until we ran across yet another new variant.

The Heaver was very slow and bulky, and it didn’t attack us. Rather, it belched out acid. As the vomit wasn’t a projectile my shield didn’t attract it, and even if I were to block the stream it would pool to corrode everything up to my ankles anyway.

Krutnik Heaver, lvl11.

These obese-drunk-acting bastards are a defensive variant of the buggers, tasked with sealing off tunnels if the enemy seeks to invade! These rarer Krutnik rarely come out to the surface, unless escorted by a whole cohort of Reavers that bring them to bunker doors that claws and fangs can’t break through! Their acid is more acidic and produces toxic fumes, and they produce a lot more of it!

The massive quantity of acid it vomited created a pool, and the smoke trailed in our direction. Fortunately, the Heaver killed itself in the process of sealing off the tunnel, heaving out its intestines along with the rest and its mouth already half-corroded before it finished.

Elise floated over the pool while holding her breath and with some effort managed to lift the Heaver to put it in her inventory. The rest of us then held our breath and jumped over before continuing on our way. This would probably be a bigger issue if the Heaver did this on a hill to spread the acid over a longer stretch, but I suppose that the AI wanted us to at least get to the boss before dying.

And now there was yet another new variant, hiding behind the Juvenile we just killed and a bunch of smaller Young Reavers. It was as small as a fox and barely armoured, but that just made it more intimidating until we knew what it did.

As Elise got rid of the Juvenile corpse in the way I stared at it, and as it came forward a bit it finally got close enough for me to read its description.

Krutnik Feaver, lvl8.

The Feavers are the trippier variant of this vicious species, and would no doubt be a heavily exploited creature if it was possible to breed them without condemning a planet to regular city-scale massacres! Excreting a hallucinatory spray that sends you on a trip, duuuuuude~, these guys can be really fun when alone or give you your last few moments of joy if they brought friends!

As the AI enthusiastically narrated the description, it spat out a sparkly mist. I stepped back a bit defensively, but the pack of Young Reavers immediately charged forwards and forced me to stand my ground.

The sparkly fog didn't obscure much, and as it enveloped me nothing happened. I held up my shield and thrusted out my spear, staggering the Reaver charge as one of them dodged to the side blocking two others. The Reavers on the other side, being the instinctive pack hunters that they were, stopped moving as well instead of charging ahead and getting singled out.

“I’ll take the ones to the left, you guys take the right!” I said.

“Darryl, Ben and Elise are out of it!” Thomas shouted from the back. “I’ll cover your right!”

I glanced over my shoulder, seeing Ben leaning against the wall staring at the ceiling with a big goofy smile on his face. He was completely open and vulnerable.

I grunted a curse and turned back to the five Young Reavers. This would’ve been a lot easier if this happened with the Juvenile, but I guess it was too much to ask for these monsters to not know what would work best for them.

The Young Reavers charged forwards as one, and I raised my shield and stabbed forward again. This time, the one I stabbed at jumped back while the others kept going. I managed to pull back my spear before it could bite the tip like a dog pulling a toy rope, but the others had already gotten too close for me to attack again.

Behind me, Elise started to incessantly chuckle while she amused herself by slowly floating upside down. Her chuckling was infectious, and Ben began to chuckle as well.

Two streaks of fire flew past me and struck the right-most Reaver. The other right flank Reaver faltered, and with the narrow tunnel my shield and body could hold the other three back.

They pulled at my shield, but with 20 strength I was no longer budging like I would have on the first floor. One of them bit into my leg, but my skin held while it bit its teeth blunt. I took some damage, but it was paltry and barely an itch. I kicked the easiest situated Krutnik, and it yelped as it flew back.

“Darryl, grab Alexa!” Thomas shouted.

I quickly popped my spear into my inventory and grabbed the little fairy out of the air as she tried to fly past me into the mob of Krutnik ahead of us.

“Lemme go! I wanna chase the dragon!” Alexa squealed, squirming half-heartedly in my grasp and reaching out her arms at the Feaver further back.

The Reavers, sensing the distraction, pressed forward again. I stopped one with my shield and kicked at the others, but they weren't letting up this time and with the five of them they could easily block and dodge my every means of attack while the others attacked. At least, without my spear or even a fist, I couldn't stop them. One of them even leapt up to bite at Alexa, forcing me to hold her up high. Alexa laughed and roared as if she was DiCaprio standing on the Bowsprit of the Titanic.

With my shield locked in place by two Krutnik and my poorly telegraphed kicks no longer stopping the others, the other three now surged to get past me and at Ben and Elise.

Magic Missiles flew past me, the Reavers falling back when the first one's head splattered from a direct hit. Cuddles screamed and jumped onto one of the Krutnik and bit into it. The Reaver seemed more confused than threatened, but the demigriff had since grown the size of a labrador and could occupy one of these young ones at least.

Capitalising on the distraction, I turned around and activated my Phantom Phalanx.

Alexa screamed in fear and confusion as I threw her back into the hallway as far as I could, and I turned back to the danger before I saw if she landed or remembered that she could fly before that happened. A yelp and a thud suggested she didn’t.

A streak of frost struck one of the Reavers, and while the surface damage didn’t seem to do much against their carapace, the extreme temperature jump from the Scorching Ray striking the frozen spot hurt it more than usual.

Before it could react, I stabbed my spear through the frost-rimmed searing spot, the tip finding less resistance before plunging itself into the soft innards underneath. The Krutnik died as the others jumped back when I swung my shield at them. Three to go.

Then we heard more skittering from the tunnel ahead, and the survivors fell back to regroup. I tipped over the two wrestling beasts and stabbed the Krutnik to death before it could scratch Cuddles any further. Thomas quickly cast a Poison Fog into the hall ahead of me to dissuade them from attacking too quickly.

“Damn, that was close.” I said. “If it weren’t for me being completely immune to that tripping venom or whatever, that little bastard would’ve been the end of our party.”

“No kidding.” Thomas said. “It’s a good thing you chose that race.”

Neither of us said anything for a while as we stared into the billowing purple clouds and waited for the effects on Ben and Elise to run out, Elise chuckling all the while.

The poison fog billowed in front of me as if it hit an invisible wall, and the Young Krutnik were scurrying in the obscured area behind it without advancing.

Thomas wandered up next to me and placed his hands on the dirt below us. “I don’t feel tremors; I don’t think they’re burrowing this time. At least not yet this far.”

“Darrrryyyllll…” Alexa slurred, flying to me as if she was drunk. I grabbed her to prevent her from flying into the poisonous cloud, and she didn’t resist as I placed her on my shoulder. “Darrryyyyyllll, what was that just now? It was fun, and… fun! Can we do it again?”

“No, we shouldn’t. That effect is like weed, it gets you high. We definitely shouldn’t be high when we’re fighting massive bugs.” I chided her.

“Unless my class would make me stronger that way.” Alexa chuckled, and then chuckled some more as she found her own joke hilarious.

“I can feel them burrowing now.” Thomas said.

I handed Alexa over to Thomas and hovered the tip of my spear over the ground as Thomas directed me to where I should strike. After a few moments he snapped his fingers and I thrust downward.

I hit resistance and the Young Krutnik screamed, thrashing as far as it could do so in its enclosed space. The others immediately began to burrow upwards when they realised that the gig was up, and half of them emerged in the middle of the poisonous fog.

I stepped into it to stab at the Krutnik while they were still half-submerged and unable to fight well, and noticed that my health bar didn't drop. Right, poison immunity would also apply to Thomas’s spells.

Thomas quickly climbed onto the wall to hang from the ceiling, preparing to strike down any that would burrow in near Elise and Ben, while Alexa began to sing some kid song.

The Krutnik had really had gotten easier, I realised as I stabbed one to death in just two thrusts while I Spartan Kicked another one back into its hole.

A Krutnik crawled out of the ground and I intentionally turned my back to it, stabbing the Krutnik I kicked back into its hole as the one behind me lunged only to find a phantasmal me appearing to block them. Tsk, my class’s namesake skill still hadn’t levelled up.

I wondered if turning my back on a singular enemy and just blocking a few hits would also count. We usually didn’t let ourselves be surrounded, so practising my Phantom Phalanx wasn’t that easy. Not while it was still this basic and with me fighting in a group.

I turned to the backstabbing Krutnik and kicked it in the face. It howled in pain and I stabbed it once. The fog needed just a few more moments to finish the job, and a few moments later Thomas dismissed it as this last Krutnik died.

The effect of the Feaver ended up lasting for over two minutes before Ben and Elise came back down to Earth. Elise recovered first thanks to her higher Con, but once Ben came back he turned into a shadow and shot forward to take out that damned Feaver.

He returned a minute later, having killed the little fox bastard before it even noticed him. Fortunately it was lightly armoured and easily dispatched.

That was the last resistance we encountered for a while as we kept pushing further into the tunnel. Probably because Ben scouted ahead and killed the Leavers this time, the hive stopped sending in waves of resistance.

A good twenty minutes of walking through this long and non-descript tunnel later, Alexa recovered from the effects of the Feaver too and returned to her not all that different base personality. There didn’t seem to be an addiction effect for this enemy’s attack, or at least none of us triggered it, and she hadn’t been hurt otherwise.

“Be sure to immediately fall back with Thomas when you see another one of those Feavers.” I said. “They affect you real bad, and I don’t know if I’ll manage to catch you in time again.”

“Yes, dad.” She drawled, rebellious but clearly not in the way that she wasn’t going to do what I said when the time came. “Can we just hurry up and get to the nest? This is boring, and the monotony is hurting my views.”

“I second that.” Elise said. “The boredom and getting to our quarry already, not necessarily the views… Scrap that, I agree with that too.”

“Uhm, guys?” Ben said, appearing out of his own shadow in front of us. “So, I went to scout ahead and I found the nest. It’s just a few more minutes.”

“Yay!” Alexa cheered.

“So, do you remember what I said before?” Ben asked.

“Let me guess, there’s a Weaver?” Elise asked. “Some kind of spider in an otherwise bug-infested hive, barricading our way with webs and nets? At least Thomas will probably be able to handle that, even if they can restrict the rest of us.”

“Not exactly. I expected something like that too, but... think you guys should see this for yourselves.” Ben said, gesturing at us to follow him. “This one’s really weird.”