In the dark cave there were steady footsteps, preceding a figure, confidently moving forward as though the low visibility made no difference. As the figure was walking through the damp and stale tunnels, it suddenly stopped.

Veric looked to his left and his eyes flashed in recognition. He turned his right hand upwards and a small crystal appeared seemingly out of nowhere, and a breath later it started to glow after a bit of energy was channeled into it. The crystal soon bathed the surroundings in light and floated a small distance above Veric's head as he looked down at a familiar patch of the cave floor that seemed to be dyed a darker brown than the surrounding rocks and dirt that had claw marks that belonged to both beasts and man.

He followed both the suspiciously dyed ground and claw marks to the nearby wall and found four parallel claw marks that were no bigger than four inches. Veric found himself being drawn to place his left hand to trace the marks as he heard a light refreshing voice that seemed to resound in his head and throughout the tunnels with slight pearls of laughter, "I remember when you made your last desperate struggle to survive, it was quite intriguing to see."

As Veric's hand reached the wall, a metallic tap was heard, and under the crystal's light a crude looking mechanical hand with a faint glowing between the gaps was exposed and was trailing down the marks. "So do I, Serena", he said as the corners of his lips lightly curled upwards. 'But do you have to laugh about it?', he complained to himself. His grey-white eyes wandered over the surrounding rocks of the cave, seemingly playing out his memories that would drive him to this point.

---------------------------

*Heavy breathing* "Fuck, fuck, fuck!! Eloi fire your arrows at the stronger looking ones while Rachel and I try to fight off the ones that get too close. Damn it Josh, why the hell did you have to stir up the beasts?! If you weren't dead already I would have ripped your head off and pissed down your throat!"

"He's already gone Anthony, so shut your vulgar mouth and help me!" screamed a woman who was wielding a staff and saying incantations. She was chanting her fastest to summon stone bullets to bombard the pack of wolf beasts that were chasing them through the tunnels. Cowering behind the three who were giving their all to fight off the wolf beasts was a scrawny kid with long stringy black hair and grey-white eyes. He was barely able to breath due to the speed that he had to maintain just to keep up with the others. He had never seen someone torn apart as aggressively as the adventurer named Josh was. It was such a sight that he couldn't hold his tears and stomach any longer and turned to the side as his stomach churned and let out the delicious food that he was able to get the leftovers of not too long ago. Because he was still out of breath he ended up breathing while vomiting and choked, causing more pain.

"Damn, we aren't going to make it if we keep going like this, we need to collapse this tunnel." Anthony lamented as he threw forward three knives that had glowing red lines, each streaking towards a giant wolf beast that was leading the pack. Two missed their target and struck the surrounding rock which resulted in small explosions that did nothing but spray pebbles and debris, but the third managed to hit one wolf beast in the shoulder and exploded in a small fashion drenching the wolf nearby with blood and little bits of shrapnel. There was a pained howl that came from the resulting smoke that drew the attention of the surrounding wolf beasts. Anthony looked elated, he wasn't too skilled and his sorcery level was low for an adult but the fact that he hit made him ecstatic.

The smoke seemed to linger in the air as though trying to make a dramatic reveal, and it did its job just fine because after two breaths a paw stepped out and was followed by another. Eloi looked at the beast and her long elven ears twitched. She saw that its shoulder, while damaged, was non-fatal and its bloodshot eyes no longer looked at them as merely food anymore. "You just pissed it off Anthony! Collapse the tunnel before it gets here!"

Eloi looked at the beast as it slowly walked closer to them while continuing to urge the others to pounce and rush the annoying food in front of them. Anthony threw a couple more daggers that were covered in red runes and exploded on contact, some lucky enough to hit the actual targets; the others, not so much. Rachel kept firing stone bullets and making small stone spikes stab from the ground, but all it seemed to do was irritate the beasts even more. The only one who could even slightly penetrate their flesh was Eloi and that was because she was using her innate wind sorcery to accelerate her arrows. However, that was still far from enough to deal with these furious and hungry wolf beasts. Rachel and Anthony looked at each other briefly and understood that if they couldn't find a break in the attack to even try to collapse the tunnel, they would die here.

Veric was watching everything that was happening with a deathly pale face. He was just a dimensional-porter, he didn't have to fight many life and death battles even when he went with other adventurer groups. He only had to carry what he was told in his dimensional pocket and keep his head down. Occasionally he would have to use a stick to keep monsters at bay until the others could help him. Now he was in a situation where he didn't know how they would be able to get out alive. 'Maybe this group can turn this situation around' Veric thought hopefully. He didn't see the sinister look that Anthony was giving him at that moment.

Anthony looked back at Eloi and Rachel, "Hold them off for two minutes, I will get something to distract them so we have enough time." The women just nodded in response and Rachel who saw where Anthony was looking had a small smirk on her face. Anthony walked over to Veric and pulled out a palm sized metallic looking tablet. "Little Ric, when Josh was taken down, you picked up everything right? The equipment, weapons, and valuables?" he asked with a smile on his face that seemed out of place given the situation.

Veric looked at him and only noticed his smile, "Yes boss, I m-managed to pick up everything before we left j-" at that point he choked up and couldn't continue as tears kept pouring. Josh was the only one who wasn't indifferent or cold to him, he even started to give him some fighting advice though his team members were saying he was just wasting his time. Suddenly he started to feel a familiar sting around his neck, and as it kept on growing he looked up at Anthony and noticed that the smile that he noticed earlier looked a lot more malicious.