Emily looks closely at the flower, utilising her enhanced eyesight to trace the dire of the smear. It points into the tunrance before her. A familiar chill runs down her spine as she gazes into the darkness beyond.

  Time to find out what’s creepi.

  Standing up with firm resolve, she steps into the tunnel with an orb of light following above aheion watg the path ahead. She quietly creeps through the tunnel, sing the floor and finding a few small sptters of blood close to the start.

  As she desds further, she finds small bits of blood smeared on the floor and walls, until she stops finding any at all. Emily’s caution increases twofold five minutes after seeing the st drop of blood. However, as she tinues walking, her caution slowly morphs into fusion as her instincts calm slightly. She finds nothing at all iunnel, and soon rounds a bend to see the weling light of The Waters.

  Stepping bato the river’s wide tunnel, Emily looks around fused, still feeling the odd disfort in her gut.

  How did that lead into here? Nothing could have entered here without being spotted by the group in the light.

  She sees the group sitting together thirty metres dowunnel and starts walking towards them as she pushes the feeling of ao the back of her mind.

  There’s definitely something else in these caves with us, but I’ll just have to wait till it either approaches us or leaves us alone.

  As she reaches the group, Oscar, Ivor, Enzo, and Dante all stand up and walk over to meet her.

  “Are you alright?” Oscar asks. “You were gone for a while there: we were starting to worry.”

  “Yeah, I’m fine. I think something’s following us again, but I only ran intlers,” Emily answers with a slight scowl.

  “Wait, you saw something?” Enzo asks.

  “No.” Emily shakes her head. “I just have a gut feeling. I followed it and found blood in the cavern we came from that definitely wasn’t there when we left. It led into one of the tuhat came straight here, so I have no clue where this thi, but there’s definitely something out there.”

  “Why are you so sure it didn’t e in here? Maybe it passed without us seeing it,” gests with a frown of his own, gng up the tunnel cautiously.

  “Some of the blood was wiped on the wall around one and a half metres off the floor. Whatever it is, it’s not small. You’d definitely spot it.”

  “Ah, that makes sense.” He nods solemnly, not liking the sound of a human-sized moalking them. “Let’s get moving the not to hang around here for too long.”

  He turns on his heel and heads bato the group, calling for everyoo get in formation and prepare to move.

  “I told you your instincts were good,” Dante says proudly.

  “You’re not meant to be happy I’m right about this,” Emily says rolling her eyes. “What’s going on? I thought the tunnels gave you the creeps.”

  “They do! But I much prefer knowing I have a target to blow up than feeling scared of nothing!”

  Emily shakes her head and walks past him, towards her pce at the head of the group. The others follow her, and, after one final check, they set off downstream.

  Travelling through the bright cave proves far more peaceful than the rest of their trip so far. They don’t enter a single beast or mohe river appears lifeless, and nothing steps into the light from the shadowy tunnels joining it. However, this pealy serves to ule the group.

  As night falls outside, the glow from the river beside the group fades. The crystals on the ceiling dim to release no more than a light shimmer, only illuminating a few timetres around themselves. And the shadows. The shadows e alive, reag out from the eg tunnels and swallowing the cave in darkness.

  As they set up camp in the evening, Emily approaches Oscar at the edge of the sound isoting barrier. He’s standing on the border of Nora’s glowing light spell that illumiheir camp, gring at the shadows fiercely attag all light in the cave and f a discerting image of motion in pce of the still night.

  “There’s meant to be more living here, isn’t there?” she asks quietly, joining him in watg the shadows.

  “Yes,” he agrees relutly, gng over his shoulder cautiously before turning to Emily and talking quietly. “We’re meant to spend a week going deeper then head back, but holy, I’m starting to have sed thoughts. This feels wrong. First, the groglers, then whatever you felt following us, and now this!”

  Emily nods silently, reag out and patting the stressed mage on the shoulder.

  “Well, it’s your expedition. Make whatever choice feels right for you. If it helps, I think those things are all ected.”

  He nods at her words, sighing and turning to return to the others.

  “They probably are. We’ll keep going. I’m sure we’ll find some answers further in.”

  Emily watches him leave before turning back to the darkness. She sits down on a nearby rock jutting out of the ground, ready to stay there till her watch is done. Ivs her some food, ohe camp is set up, then heads off to sleep. The camp quickly falls into darkness as Nora dismisses her light spell and everyone climbs into their sleeping bags.

  Emily is left alone, listening to the silence of the night with only one core awake, maintaining her vigince as she watches for approag enemies. Her infra-sight and periodic eartheion pulses pick up nothing, tinuing the peace of the daytime. However, an hour into her watch, she spots a flicker of movement in the distance.

  At first, she thinks it’s just the roiling shadows and ig. But then, she sees it again. She rubs her eyes before fog on the darkness, tuning out the moving shadows. After a few more minutes, she sees it a third time, and this time she catches what it is. Two dim, gssy balls of light that fsh past her vision in the distance before vanishing into the night.

  A chill runs down Emily’s spine, and her instincts begin screaming once again. She activates infra-sight, waiting for the sighting, but sees as the orbs appear briefly again.

  Then, she switches to eartheion, holding the spell on full power until the creature reveals itself. The orbs flit past her vision again, but her spell doesn’t show even a slight disturbance.

  She clicks her tongue and prepares a light spell instead. F the magic circle in her first circle but not casting it, she waits with bated breath. The instant the orbs appear again, she releases the spell, tossing the ball of light into the air before her and p in mana.

  Light floods the cave, banishing the shadows back to g to the walls. Unfortunately, as the darkness recedes, so does any sign of the creature. The cave is empty.

  Emily keeps the light spell running for five minutes, befiving up and releasing it, plunging the cave bato darkness.

  Am I just seeing things?

  As a seed of doubt buds in her mind, the two orbs reappear. This time though, instead of moving quickly, they remain motionless, staring back at her.

  Are those eyes?

  As the realisatios in, Emily rises, preparing to fight the creature. Then, as suddenly as they appeared, the eyes vanish again. She sits back down and stays on high alert for the rest of her watch, but nothing else moves around her.

  After waking Ivor and Fionn, she warns them about what she saw theles on top of her sleeping bag to meditate.

  ***

  The m arrives, made obvious by the sudden explosion of light recapturing the cave, and they once again break camp a off to follow the river.

  Ivor and Enzo both report spotting the creepy eyes watg them at some point in their shift, so the group remains on edge for the whole day, carefully walking around every tunrahey pass aedly sending gnces behind them. All versations are quietly whispered, and every noise eg through the cave sets off a buzz of nervous chatter.

  Their caution proves unwarrahough, as they still don’t enter a single enemy. They do, however, find a few lesser water crystals, at the edge of a small hole in the wall that appears as if torn into the earth by a set of cws. They carefully harvest and pack the crystals into their dimensional ste, along with a few magical herbs they find lining the water’s edge.

  Night falls, and Emily is once agai alone in the darkness. She watches her surroundings, anticipating the re-emergence of the eyes. For the first half-hour of her watch, everything is still, but before she wonder if their pursuer has relented, a haunting screech echoes through the one-way sound barrier.

  The screech is high pitched and drawn out, scratg against her ear drums and sending a shiver down her spi slowly fades into the background, but the damage is already done. Several members of the group jump up from their sleeping bags, scrambling to prepare for an impending attack. Emily ighem, sing the cave and brag for an attack herself.

  They wait unfortably, but the expected enemy never es. After ten mihe group slowly starts climbing bato their sleeping bags, trusting Emily to alert them if anything happens. Silence falls again, but after only a short wait, another screech wakes everyone.

  Emily casts her gaze around the cave again calmly, clig her tongue when she finds nothing.

  It’s pying with us. Shit! If it has enough intelligeo do this, it’s probably third circle.

  Emily’s face falls into a scowl as she looks back at the mages unfortably sitting up in their sleeping bags and unsure of what to do.

  “Go back to sleep. Try and ighe screeches: I’ll alert you all properly if we’re attacked,” she calls out, reassuring them.

  Most of the mages heed her advid slide bato their beds, but Oscar leaves his and approaches her. She watches his glowing e form approag, fumbling slightly in the dark.

  “Hey,” he says as he sits below her on the ground.

  “Go to sleep,” she responds curtly, turning away from him to watch the stirring shadows.

  “I will. But first, I’m going to sit through your watch with you. You’ve realised tht?”

  “Yeah, we’re being pyed with.”

  A small light suddes between them, and Emily abruptly snaps her head to it.

  “Ah, sorry, didn’t mean to startle you,” Oscar says with a sheepish smile, gesturing to the glowing crystal dle he’s activated. “I thought it would be o have some light.”

  Emily sighs, releasing her building frustration and nodding.

  “Thanks.”

  Their versation ends there, and they listen to the silence of the cave as they gaze out into the oppressive darkness, now g at the edge of their small bubble of light as well.

  A dozen mier, the silence is once again broken by a screech. Several of their groupmates stir, but up.

  “Tsk,” Emily clicks her tongue. “We’re gonna be in no state to fight tomorrow if no one sleeps. Do you have a way of making this barrier two-way?”

  “Yes, but we won’t be able to hear anything approag.”

  “It’s fine, our maiiohods are visual arasensory. Besides, we have two people on each watow, so one person check outside the barrier every now and then without being picked off before they alert the group.”

  Osods iant agreement and stands up.

  “Fine. Eae of the barrier’s stakes has a sedary activation sequence. Just deactivate them like normal, thehree short bursts of mana instead of one long pulse.”

  Emily stands up and jures an orb of light.

  “Take your dle and we’ll go opposite ways, meet at the other side.”

  They both set off around the camp, deactivating the barrier when Emily uproots the first stake, before reactivating each stake again. They glow a deeper greeurned on this time, and as Oscar fihe st one, a lightly shimmering barrier bubbles up around the camp.

  They return to their inal resting point, and Oscar sits down again. Emily instead walks to the edge of the barrier and sticks her head out. She hears nothing but familiar silence for a few seds. However, as she starts to pull her head back, a distant drip shatters the silence.

  That’s new.

  Emily pulses eartheion and locates the drip a hundred metres back upstream, falling on the rocks at the entrao a nearby tunnel. She pulls bato the barrier pletely and g Oscar over her shoulder.

  “I hear something. Stay here.”

  She steps out of the barrier pletely, leaving the radius of Oscar’s dle and being swallowed instantly by the shadows. Ign the now familiar feeling of pressure as the darkness colpses around her, Emily carefully makes her way towards the faint dripping, keeping her guard up.

  When she arrives at the source, she drops eartheion and casts a light from her hands. As the spell illumihe tunnel in front of her, she sees a limp grey arm with the hand enveloped up to the wrist in the roof’s stone. Nothing is attached where the owner’s shoulder should be. The violently torn flesh oozes dirty redish-brown blood into a small pool below.

  Emily quickly checks her surroundings before staring up at where the arm joins the wall. She examihe stone and sees an odd ripple like pattern surrounding it.

  Did it softeone like mudscraps do with dirt?

  Her thoughts are interrupted by a loud shout ing from the camp.

  “Hey!” she hears Oscar yell.

  Instantly, she spins on her heel and bolts towards the barrier. She switches to infra-sight as she runs, finishing casting the spell as she bursts through the barrier and into Oscar’s haven of light. Her eyes snap to Oscar’s startled form, scrambling to cmber up from where he was sitting.

  “What’s wrong? What did you find?” he asks quickly with fearful .

  Emily freezes at his question, her scowl deepening in fusion.

  “Wait, why did you shout to me?” Emily ignores his questions and asks instead.

  “What are you talking about? I haven’t left the barrier.”