Niko ducked backwards as sweeping claws raked through the air where his head had just been. He took another two strikes against his side, essence rushing through his feathers in an effort to keep venomous claws from sinking into flesh. The first scratched across his feathers, damaging them, but doing little else, while the second hit more dead on. Niko’s expression soured as he felt the claws cut into his flesh, not deeply, but with venom that was more than enough.

Immediately he worked his essence to stymie the flow of the Shadow Stalker’s venom, but he couldn’t do much more than try and throw up roadblocks with his attention divided as it was.

Niko took another few steps backwards, willing to cede tempo in order to get a better picture of what was happening with the others. The Shadow Stalkers now in front of him should have been hit with an arrow, a gleaming blade, or a dart. At worst, a flask of sticky goo should have sailed over to them to keep them from hitting him, so why–

‘What the peck is that!?’ Niko couldn’t help but squawk internally as he saw over the Shadow Stalkers’ heads, towards where his team was. A creature with leathery purple skin, a longer snout, and that stood upright was currently engaging Ronald, seemingly at a match with his strength. Decisively, Niko turned his attention back to his own fight, as the trio of Shadow Stalkers hungrily approached him. ‘Right then, I’ll take care of these first.’

Niko stopped backing away, and puffed himself up, trying to look as intimidating as possible. He didn’t expect anything to come of it, this kind of monster was unlikely to abandon a fight after it started. As expected, they only paused their approach, their blind hunger tempered by wariness as he stopped fleeing.

He could feel the invasiveness of the venom in his body, the heat that spread from the site of the wound. It was fast acting, but the dosage and his own defenses would keep it from affecting him with any meaningful speed. He’d gotten pretty good at fighting these creatures, after having hunted them for more than six hours at this point. Knowing how they liked to move and fight helped immensely, though he knew he’d gotten too used to getting support from the rest of the team. There were plenty of ways he could have engaged without leaving himself so open to attack.

Niko focused, sizing up the three of his opponents. They were all nearly identical to his eyes, save for the blood splatters on the one furthest from him. Considering Niko had split his companion with a kick, he wasn’t surprised at the mess left behind. To his right was the canal with deep, but relatively slow moving water. The left side quickly terminated against the wall of the waterways, and Niko decided that he’d rather put his back to something solid than not. After seeing the creature that the rest of his team was fighting, Niko had no interest in leaving his back even remotely open to attack.

As he shifted, one of the Stalkers darted in, trying to get a hit in. Niko recognized that it was trying to feint a strike in the moment, but contrary to what the creature expected, Niko not only moved into the attack, but committed to his own. Clumsily, the stalker tried to swing upwards, but Niko kicked out hard, catching it in the head and snapping it to the side with a loud crack. The body fell limply after the essence empowered strike, and Niko knew that he’d correctly judged the strength necessary to break its neck.

Enraged, the other two darted forwards, but Niko was already stepping closer towards the wall. They came in on either side, one seeming to want to attack high, the other low. The Phorus didn’t sit still, instead moving along the wall one step closer to the attacker on the left, leaving the one to his right even further away than he’d been.

The Shadow Stalker pounced at him, but Niko caught it mid air with another devastating kick. This one sent the creature over the trench and against the walkway on the other side, crunching against the wall, limp and very likely, dead.

The third then jumped forward, too, but Niko wasn’t able to get into position to respond. It grasped onto his right side, leveraging its clawed feet into his lower body against essence strengthened feathers. Niko bucked hard, trying to keep the creature from being able to bite him, while grabbing at it with his clawed wing-arms.

Niko felt the screech of teeth against stiffened feathers as it tried to get a good angle on him, before Niko’s head snapped backwards. With an outraged squawk, Niko’s beak-pattern flared just before he struck downwards.

He cleanly carved through the creature's forehead, blasting through bone and brain matter with a spike of force. Instantly, the Shadow Stalker dropped, and adrenaline kept him from feeling the many, many new scratches along his side too acutely. Niko was preparing to sprint to his team's aid when he felt a much more significant burst of essence from further up the tunnel.

Ronald was virtually glowing, his essence patterns surging with power, and his glaive almost seemed to vibrate in Niko’s eyes. He and the others were unharmed, no doubt thanks to the shield that hovered around Ronald, which now had several almost ethereal looking cracks that misted with essence from the construct.

“Niko!” He heard Skye’s worried voice, “Are you alright!?”

Niko cawed loudly, “I need antivenom, again, but other than a few scratches I’m fine. What was that thing?”

Ronald replied, breathing a little harder than usual, “Evolved form of a Shadow Stalker. Not old, though, so I think we caught it early enough that it isn’t a problem.”

“What’s it called?” Mithel frowned as she sat down next to it, already getting her carving implements out, “And any idea what’s valuable on this thing?”

“Everything, I guess,” Ronald shrugged, “I have no idea. Harvest whatever you can, we’ve cleared our quota and then some.” Tiredly, he then added, “Also, it’s a Bleak Stalker, high tier two, maybe low tier three. They tend to show up and form tribes of Shadow Stalkers.”

“Isn’t that a really big deal?” Skye frowned, “Considering what’s happening outside of Greenleaf right now?”

Ronald shook his head, “No, nothing like that. They’re not a big deal generally, and the tribes stay small. With this one dead, it’ll be months before another forms down here. There’s just not enough here to feed their growth.”

“Except through the underground?” Mithel asked.

For several seconds the big man didn’t say anything, but he did sigh, “Except through the underground… I guess we really do need to find that entrance.”

By now, the group was very, very much less enthused with their trip. The darkness, echoing sounds, and the relative humidity made for an overall unpleasant experience, albeit not nearly as bad as it would have been in the sewers above. Still, they’d made their quota three times over, and if the underground was causing the numbers of Shadow Stalkers to be higher due to availability of food, it’d be even more important to find the entrance to it. If they couldn’t find it, then a team who was more familiar with the waterways would be assigned. The problem of the moment, though, was that they had no idea if the Guild could even spare the manpower. Plus, the Wyldwalkers were already here.

Mithel pulled out an antivenom for Niko before she got started on carving up their kill, and Dachna helpfully applied it on his wounds, and then gave him the rest to drink. He’d initially been worried about overdosing on these things, but apparently many of the reagents that were used in antivenoms were specifically made so that one could take them in mass quantities. Niko likely wouldn’t have even needed to take this one, having taken a dose only a few hours prior at that point. Still, none of them wanted to risk having to fight off the venom unaided.

“After harvesting these, I’m calling for a break,” Skye gestured to the intersection ahead, noting that this one had a large support beam in the center, surrounded on all sides by rust-resistant iron grating. “We’ve been going long enough without stopping, and we’re not even through a quarter of the waterways yet.”

Dachna and Niko both simultaneously groaned at that, “I could have sworn that we’ve walked the span of Greenleaf twice over by now.”

“We have,” Mithel volunteered, trying to sound peppy but falling a little flat, “The waterways are pretty huge, though.”

“Who even does maintenance down here?” Dachna fussed as he plopped down on the ground beside Mithel, helping to harvest the monster materials around.

“City workers, mostly,” Ronald stretched, “Dad generally has a guard contingent escorting them along work sites, but not much usually needs to be done. The worst it gets is when the aqueducts flood out, but that still doesn’t do much here. This place was overengineered.”

“As is proper,” Mithel nodded proudly at that, “Everyone should aim to over engineer civic projects. No sense in having to come back in and fix the whole thing every decade.”

Niko had to admit that was hard to argue with, and no one else had anything negative to say about that either. “So, does Bleak Stalker taste any better?”

The group looked at Niko with consternation, to which he fluffed up with a shrug, “What? It could be good?” He said, but even as he looked at the thing, he doubted that himself. The snout was slightly longer, filled with a double row of crooked fangs. Its claws had elongated to being more like sickles, and its digitigrade legs had short spurs along the joints. Somehow, it looked even more gangly than a Shadow Stalker, and there certainly wasn’t much meat on the thing.

“You wanna try it? Be my guest.” Mithel chuckled, gesturing at the thing.

Niko warily eyed it for a second, before clucking once and darting down with his beak, stabbing at the Bleak Stalker’s thigh meat and tearing off a chunk.

“Oh, he’s doing it.” Skye’s flat voice greeted Niko’s ears, but he pointedly ignored her in favor of testing the meat.

Niko paused mid bite, humming thoughtfully, “Huh… That doesn’t suck, actually.”

“Is it poisonous?” Mithel asked, now much more curious.

He swallowed after tasting it, and waited several seconds for any telltale disturbance in his gut. After almost thirty seconds of staring at the wall in concentration, he clucked and shook his head, “Not that I can tell. Seems fine.”

Mithel carved off additional bits of flesh, putting it into a side bag. Ronald sighed at that, mumbling something about how he was going to get stuck preparing it.

It took them a few more minutes to finish up, with Dachna, Skye, and Ronald all looking at Niko and Mithel with something approaching concern. Niko huffed at that, ‘Not my fault you lot don’t keep your options open.’

As they finished, they piled the bodies together and Mithel poured another concoction over them. It was a slow acting acid, but it would effectively dissolve the tissues over time without filthing the place up. She hadn’t even had to make that one, the Guild provided such potions for free to any teams going into sensitive places like the waterways. There were filtration sigils throughout the complex, but nobody wanted to put any more pressure on them than necessary.

Moving down the way into the intersection, everyone was more than ready to take it easy for a bit. Everyone pulled out a bed roll or cushion, Niko himself got a hand in getting the rods off of his back. With those removed, the lanterns in place were taken and then placed on the ground at the edge of their makeshift camp.

“I miss forest camping,” Niko complained, “Dirt is so much softer than stone and metal.”

Skye snorted, “You’re telling me. At least you have all your feathers to work with.”

“I think it’s less about my feathers and more about having more comfortable positions to lay down in.” Niko teased, “You all have to worry about back pain a lot more than I do.”

Mithel made a sour expression as Skye translated Niko’s words dryly, “Ugh… don’t remind me. I think I’m investing in a hammock, next.”

“Oh, that’s an idea,” Dachna nodded, currently lying down on a bed roll from his own pack. “I think we can make that investment just fine. We’re pretty rich, now.”

“Don’t get used to it,” Skye warned, “We’re not exactly replacing that money quickly at the moment.” She then reconsidered that, “Well, actually we are making a lot of money with this. Mithel, how are you doing on space?”

She shook her head, “About full up.” She thumbed over her shoulder at the very large box-backpack she carried with her. “I’m glad we invested in this thing, but Niko or Ronald are going to need to carry it out of here. Even with the sigil lightening it, it’s still really heavy.”

Niko and Ronald both exchanged looks at that, both hoping the other would volunteer. Ronald sighed, knowing that Niko was already carrying two narrower, smaller boxes on his back. In the future, Niko wanted to get a pack that could be removed easily by him or someone else, because while what he had currently was nice, it had slowed him down during the fight. It was set high enough on his back that the Shadow Stalkers hadn’t managed to hit their cargo, but he knew his vest had taken some damage. It’d be easy enough to have it repaired, and it was also good to know that they needed to have the issue addressed now, instead of in the middle of the forest and much further from town.

“I’ll carry it later,” Ronald said, “For now, let's get some grub cooking.”

Ronald pulled out his cookware from his own pack, setting pieces out that he then assembled in short order for the essence stove. Mithel provided the meat, which he tentatively grilled on a pan before taste testing.

“Huh. It is good. Weird that Shadow Stalkers are awful, but Bleak Stalkers aren’t.” Ronald noted with a shrug.

“Don’t you have a poison test kit, Mithel?” Skye asked suddenly.

Ronald stared at Mithel pointedly who after a few seconds sheepishly answered, “I, uh, forgot.”

“You forgot.” Ronald restated, “You…” he sighed, relenting on what might have been a mounting tirade, “It’s… fine. Just test it now?”

Wordlessly and with immense embarrassment, Mithel took the meat back and took a sliver of it. She extracted a small amount of some clear colored liquid that flowed like syrup, dropping it from a stopper on top of the meat. It remained clear for several seconds, before sizzling and turning a golden brown color atop the meat.

“Clear, no poisons or threatening chemicals present.” She said, smiling sheepishly, “E-even if it wasn’t, I totally have plenty of stuff to help counteract most things.”

Ronald simply shook his head and took the meat back, and Niko could tell that he, at least, wasn’t exceedingly upset. Though, for Niko himself, he hadn’t even considered if the meat was edible for humans or not. Thus far, his nose had warned him of anything that had smelled off about what he was eating, and he trusted that sense quite a bit. Perhaps that was a little naive, but he didn’t think it was as much of an issue for him as it would be for his humanoid companions.

“So, Bleak Stalker steak and some greens?” Ronald asked, clearly signaling that he was fine.

“Sounds good to me,” Skye shrugged, “Are you going to try to cook like Camille told you to?”

Ronald nodded, “I’ll give it a try.”

“When we get back, I think I want some mashed potatoes and gravy,” Dachna said as he helped feed some of his essence into the stove, raising the temperature more quickly, “That sounds really good right now.”

“I have some of that powdered stuff we could try?” Ronald offered

Niko squawked, “How long do we want to break for?”

“We could just set camp here,” Skye offered, “It’s probably evening outside anyways, so it’s not like we’re off schedule.”

The others all agreed, having decided that they were not going to be finished with this quest in one day anyways. In the first place, Niko knew that they wouldn’t really have much to do topside, what with Orson having forbidden them from leaving the city for the time being in the first place. While Niko didn’t know the ins and outs of being an adventurer, he did understand that a certain level of danger was inevitable.

Point in fact, their foray into the deeps had already yielded a higher level of danger than they’d expected to find. The only reason why this was any different from the situation with the hornets, was that they themselves were the only ones in overt danger, rather than the entire city above.

Dinner was served before long, and Niko was digging in as he stared at the oven with appreciation. Smoke from the supplementary logs they’d put into the thing drifted through the air, providing the mild, but pleasant scent of a campfire. While the stove could run exclusively off of essence, it was far more wasteful to do so, and Niko liked how cozy it felt burning logs, anyway.

As he was staring at the stove, however, he started to notice something odd with the smoke. It wouldn’t have even occurred to him if not for the fact that the entire time they’d been down here, the air had mostly been drifting in one static direction. Here, however, the smoke was traveling in another direction entirely, and Niko noted that the air itself seemed to pull a little more.

“Huh… Is the exit close to here?” Niko asked Skye, who frowned and pulled out the map they had.

With a shake of her head, she said, “Nope, we’re far. Why?”

“Well, look at the smoke. It’s not going the same way as the rest of the air has been until we got to this area. Is that normal?” Niko turned to look at Mithel as his words were translated.

“Uhh… hmm.” She frowned, “I don’t actually know that much about our structural engineering. Maybe there’s another ventilation shaft over here?”

“Or it’s our exit to the underground,” Dachna suggested, “That could be possible, right?”

Ronald nodded, “Then we’ll check in that direction tomorrow. For now, we’ll set up a watch. Two shifts sound good? Dachna and Mithel, then Skye, myself, and Niko?”

The group agreed to that without fuss, and the three of them set up a quick standing tent against one of the walls of the intersection, keeping away from the statues and the pouring water that came from them. Niko worried briefly that he wouldn’t be able to sleep on the hard concrete and stone, but before he knew it, he was already fading into unconsciousness in the tent, with Skye and Ronald briefly poking fun at him for not having to do anything to get ready for bed. Niko just hoped that the night wouldn’t bring any unwelcome surprises.