The Wood Wailers leave the carriage directly outside of the crypt after securing the area on the surface with you. With the bandits reported throughout the area, they dare not leave it unattended for long, and wish you the best of luck on your journey into the depths. They have been instructed to wait two hours for you, and if you are not back in that amount of time, they will be forced to assume the worst and send compensation to your families for ‘aiding Gridania.’

Cold comfort, you think to yourself, and K’yoko seems much more distressed by it. You reassure her that this is all perfectly ordinary, even if they could clearly use a bit more tact. Since both you and S’olahr are capable healers, you’re more than confident that you can handle any struggles that come your way.

The extended crypts of Tam-Tara Deepcroft are enough to immediately distress your companions, but you are unusually familiar and at peace with them. When you were a boy, you were positively terrified of such mausoleums. Mizu would coax you deeper and deeper into Erralig’s Burial Chambers beneath Arrzaneth Ossuary, or more commonly known to adventurers, the thaumaturge’s guild. At the time, she just wanted to play hide and seek, and over the years of caving to her requests, you suppose you grew a bit numb to it all.

For others, the hardest part of dealing with tunnels like these is definitely the lack of light, in tandem with the unnerving nature of what crypts hold. As a mixed-breed, your eyes are alright at navigating both light and dark spaces, but your lifestyle has caused you to be most accustomed to brighter areas. Your mother’s cruel, nature-defying habit of waking up at dawnbreak made sure of that much.

Since Erden is not quite as lucky to have the option, and both K’yoko and S’olahr are best suited for bright environments as Seekers, you provide the service of illuminating the path forward with sensory lights that you cast with an open hand. You bind one orb to each of the team, the spell allowing them to move the light with the tiniest use of aether-- something so simple, an infant could do it.

Erden seems a bit shaken by what could lie ahead, and you’re not sure if he’s playing it up for the others or if he’s genuinely afraid of the dead. You certainly don’t want to embarrass him, so you keep it to yourself, plus the thought of Eorzea’s darkest knight being afraid of some skeletons and ghouls gives you a bit of a chuckle; something you must have overlooked when you explored the ruins of Sil’dih together.

Erden scoops Brick up onto his shoulder and carries him ahead on the path forward. He struggles with the orb of light you gave him for a little, but eventually figures out how to make it circle around his axe and keeps it there for the rest of the journey. S’olahr not only moves it with excellent precision, he also creates a few more of his own, and has them circle around him in a large radius. K’yoko keeps hers in her open palm whenever she isn’t casting, and otherwise has it float just above her.

This crypt is very much so unlike any you have ever seen, and you have a hard time discerning what exactly is ‘normal’ and what has been drastically altered by the cultists who have taken residence. At the center of the network is a ravenous cavern which doesn’t seem to have a bottom, and an ominous orb of pure shadow sits at the cavern’s ceiling. A web of light beams appear to hold it in place, each connected to crystal balls which cultists guard with their lives.

The moment you head in together, you are rushed by adversaries bearing spears and staves alike. Erden swings the blunt end of his weapon wide, sending his target soaring back and knocking them over some dark ritual table they had set up. At the same time, Brick violently lunged at your other mark, tackling him to the ground and scratching wildly. The crystal ball which adorned it was subsequently pushed off and shattered on the stone floor, disrupting the ray it was producing. Needless to say, the guardians were not exactly thrilled about this, but they never got the opportunity to do much about it before S’olahr and K’yoko’s Carbuncle pushed them both off the cliff with a powerful blast of wind.

For the most part, this expedition feels rather routine. K’yoko and S’olahr repeat their wind trick every time you encounter a group of enemies, and on the off chance there’s not a cliff nearby, you chip in with your own spellwork. One by one, you destroy every crystal orb that is contributing to the ritual, and group by group, you work your way further and further into the Lamb’s base.

As far down as you are able to venture, you find a pendant of dalamud-- some rosary of the cult’s. You and S’olahr carefully examine it for any unique aetheric patterns, and hear a sharp gasp behind you. When you turn around, K’yoko is being held hostage with a knife at her throat.

“Drop your weapons!” The assailant barks. “Or the girl gets it!”

K’yoko trembles in fear, completely unable to act. The carbuncles all stand attentively, but dare not make a move unless ordered to. The primal look in the man’s eyes tells you he will not hesitate to follow through on his threat, so you drop your grimoire immediately and raise your arms up in surrender.

You slowly and motionlessly gather aether in your right hand to make a strike if the situation calls for it, but given the light-abundant nature of your casts, you have no doubt he would notice long before it went off. Instead, you search for an opportunity to present itself. S’olahr and Erden place their weapons on the ground and raise their arms, too.

“Hey, guys! I’ve got ‘em!” The man yells back to his crew, not breaking vision from our group. You eye Erden from the side, hoping his studies with dark magic might be able to work an invisible miracle here. You can’t tell exactly what, but he’s clearly focusing on...something. K’yoko begins to weep uncontrollably. “Shut. UP!” The man hardens his grip and presses the knife tighter against her neck, causing a small trickle of blood to leak down. She chokes involuntarily and struggles to remain quiet.

Her eyes are desperate, terrified, and nervous. You hear a series of footsteps encroaching in the distance, and understand that this is about to get much worse. In your peripherals, you barely see shadows move across the ceiling unnaturally, and ready yourself for what is to come.

The man screams in pain as a shadow-like blade pierces into his chest and raises him off the ground. In a final act of hate, he pulls K’yoko closer and slits her throat. She falls to the ground onto her knees and instinctively reaches for her throat, gasping for air that refuses to fill her lungs.

S’olahr immediately grabs his crook and channels everything he has into healing, and you do the same with Clemency. You had hoped not to be reminded of your desperation with Erden so quickly, but nevertheless you give it all you’ve got. Your combined efforts prove fruitful, and the fresh wound rapidly closes, preventing any long-term physical harm that could be done.

Erden picks his axe back up and throws it with all his might into the weak man in front of you, sticking it squarely in his chest. The dark spike which held him twists higher upward before it churns down, slams him into the ground, and recedes into nothingness. His mangled body lies dead thrice over while the approaching mass grows louder still.

K’yoko is still despondent, clutching her own throat and struggling to catch her breath. You try to snap her back to reality by gently shaking her, but it’s no use.

“Come on, K’yoko! We’re not out of the woods yet!” You assert, before picking your tome back up and quickly flipping through the pages. Erden rips his axe out of the man’s corpse and then stands ready at the entry waiting for the grunts to corner you. S’olahr quickly picks up whatever loose rocks he can find from the ground using his cane and raises them above his head, ready to launch them at a moment’s notice. Brick scrambles up on Erden’s shoulder again, while both of K’yoko’s carbuncles stare at her, unsure what to do.

Erden, understanding the stakes at play, channels lightning through his axe and raises it up in anticipation of the first person walking through the door. The moment he does, he immediately swings it, cutting his head off, and sending a wave of levin through the people just behind them. As the next stumble forward, S’olahr launches his rocks, piercing through them.

A volley of fire is launched back in response, and you rush forward to block it with Ward, preventing the inferno from filling the chambers. When there is a reprieve, you immediately drop the barrier, allowing Brick and S’olahr to hurl increasingly large rocks through. K’yoko meekly turns to her carbuncles and whispers that they need to help you.

Your enemies begin to block your attacks using a barrier of their own and slowly push forward through the opening. Erden is forced to retreat as they grow closer, his weapon not so much as scratching the shield. K’yoko’s emerald carbuncle manages to knock back any more magical projectiles with well-timed wind blasts, but that does not halt their advance.

In a last-ditch effort, you launch a blast directly at the cave ceiling above them, causing debris to rain down. S’olahr and Brick quickly catch any segments of stone that threaten to land on all of you, launching them off the side of the cliff you stand on. When the dust settles, the cavern is completely silent, and the entryway is completely covered.

S’olahr quickly gets to work making a new stone path that you can use to cross across the abyssal gap, and channels for a great deal of time to solidify it into something pathable. You help K’yoko up, and Erden gathers the carbuncles one by one, making sure their gems aren’t damaged.

K’yoko’s purple doublet has been stained around its collar with her own blood, and the man who tried to murder her’s blood soaks its back. Now that everything has calmed down, and she has time to think, she begins to sob uncontrollably, and you pull her in for a tight hug, leading her out of the cave.

The crypt is now barren of any habitants, and the only relics that remain are two more crystal balls. Erden smashes both of them with his axe, and the beams fully dissipate. All that remains is the orb of darkness floating above, though it seems largely inert. Erden reaches out to it and draws the coalesced aether into himself slowly until it vanishes altogether. The energy of the void crackles up his arm as he does so, pittering with sparks of lightning. S’olahr and K’yoko seem to linger on this, but don’t say anything, especially after they turn to you and the best you can muster is a resigned expression.

The four of you slowly trudge out of the dungeon and back up to the surface-- whatever the Lambs of Dalamud were attempting to conduct here, it’s easy to say that you all were far too quick for them to succeed.

The two Wood Wailers who were escorting you eagerly await your return, and when they see K’yoko, they immediately inspect her for any wounds. Sapphy leaps from Erden’s arms and into K’yoko, who holds them for the rest of the walk back. You try to think of something to say, something to make everything that happened alright, but nothing can. You all head back to Gridania in silence.