There were many things Dahlia could be doing in the morning. She could be harvesting reeds under the sweltering sun, working in the poorly ventilated forge under Smith Jaleel’s stringent orders, or just running errands for whoever needed someone with four arms to haul wares around—instead, she was dangling off a single crimson silk thread, trying not to bump into the sandstone walls of the well she was being lowered into.

  Eria reassured her.

  She gulped back in response, letting out a shuddering breath.

  It didn’t matter she had two firefly lanterns dangling off the back of her belt. It didn’t matter Alice was already waiting for her at the bottom with four more lanterns, shouting up at her to hurry down. Sure, a dozen townsfolk may be on standby fifty metres above in case something went wrong, but knowing the light around her could be snuffed out at any given time was more than enough reason for her to feel a little uneasy.

  To begin with, while she agreed with investigating how that water bug had gotten into the oasis, she didn’t understand why they had to go through the well.

  Eria said, pointing a leg forward as she was about to touch down at the bottom,

  Biting her teeth, she descended past the narrow shaft, and space opened up the instant she did. It was still dark past the edges of their firefly light, but most assuredly, the bottom of the well wasn’t just a muddy ditch—dark sandstone tunnels extended into the abyss on both her left and right. They weren’t natural tunnels. There were remnants of slates carved into the walls, cracked and rusted metal pickaxes left behind, and were it not for the fifty-metre-tall shaft above her head, she’d otherwise be able to jump and hit the three-metre-tall ceiling with ease. It reminded her of the sewers back in Alshifa; the suffocating humidity in the air was difficult to ignore.

  Only, even as she finally let go of the thread and landed hard on her pierced ankle—she winced a little, knowing she probably shouldn’t put so much weight on it until it healed—she realised the first thing wrong about the bottom of the well.

  “... Where’s the water?” Alice mumbled, her lanterns jangling behind her waist as she knelt and scraped dry sand off the floor. “If this is supposed to be a well, then we shouldn’t even be able to stand at the bottom like this. I’d to be drowning in cool water instead. Hey, wouldn’t it be fun if there was a current here and we could just ride it out and see where it takes us? We should play here with the kids next time!”

  Dahlia ignored the Hasharana’s ramblings and knelt as well, pinching dry sand between her claws. It really strange—they’d asked the townsfolk just a bit earlier about the last time any one of them drew water from the wells around town, and most of them had said the wells were still bursting with water just last night. It wasn't until the water bug showed itself last night that this morning, the townsfolk woke up and found the wells completely dried up.

  That meant the water from the tunnels disappeared only the water bug had been slain.

  Eria said, as she rose to her feet and steeled her eyes at the tunnel on her left; that was the direction the oasis was in.

  she thought, turning to glance at Alice for a second. The Hasharana stopped playing with the dry sand on the ground and bounced to her feet, nodding firmly.

  “... Let’s go, then!” Alice said, walking ahead of her cheerily. “Your Archive told you to investigate the channel, right? Mine told me to do the same. I’m trusting you to watch my back, alright?”

  Dahlia grimaced. “I’ll… try.”

  Slowly, quietly, the two of them headed down the left tunnel, leaving the glowing crimson thread behind. While Dahlia was so fixated on glancing around her every few seconds—beyond paranoid that something would pounce at her from the darkness—Alice kept her head forward, her pace steady, her arms swinging casually. Even when they arrived at their first fork in the tunnels, she didn’t hesitate a single moment before turning right, moving with such confidence Dahlia had no choice but to follow without question.

  She still frowned, of course, but didn’t voice her worries to the Hasharana.

  So they arrived at their second fork, and Alice chose the right turn again.

  They arrived at their third fork, and Alice chose the right turn again.

  They arrived at their fourth fork, and when Alice chose the right turn once again, Dahlia yanked her back by her dangling hood, forcing a pained out of the young Hasharana.

  “... Hey,” she said, voice tight with just a tiny, sliver of unease. “Do you… do you know where you’re going, or are you just guessing your turns?”

  And, to her horror, Alice simply shrugged.

  “I mean, the oasis can’t be far off,” Alice said, grinning back at her, and the shadow cast on the other half of her face was ripped straight from a nightmare. “We’ll get to the oasis if we just keep turning here and there, right? We turned right first, and then we turned… right… and then we turned right–”

  Eria asked as Dahlia pushed past the rambling Hasharana, grumbling under her breath.

  As she started walking with Alice following behind her—the two of them passing by the crimson thread they’d started their journey from—a small section of her status screen popped up next to her head.

  Alice peered forward with interest, but she angled her head in such a way that the Hasharana probably couldn’t see most of it.

  [// MUTATION TREE]

  [T1 Mutation | Swarmguard Deity Lvl: 1

  [T2 Mutations | Basic Chitin | Basic Antennae] 50P

  Eria vanished from her shoulder and reappeared on the hovering black boxes, crawling over the word ‘Swarmguard Deity’.

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  [T1 Core Mutation: Swarmguard Deity Lvl: 1]

  [Brief Description: Your blood has become alive, and you have grown two extra arms from your back. These arms are controllable, but they will also move to automatically defend you should you require their assistance. At level one, they have half of all of your current attribute levels. Subsequent levels in this mutation will strengthen them until their attributes are identical to your normal limbs at max level]

  Eria finished.

  She did as she was told, and the twin stabs of pain under her forehead were immediate. She’d gotten used to the feeling of controlling two extra arms by now, so she managed to keep herself from panicking when her hands shot up and felt two little dagger-like nubs starting to poke from her forehead.

  There was something more important to worry about, anyways; she found herself facing off against the first fork in the tunnels once again, and this time, as her nubs slowly lengthened and curled back over head like reins someone could pull on from behind, she ‘felt’ there’d be more empty space if she picked the left tunnel to go through instead.

  It was just a feeling.

  A tingle in her antennae.

  She trudged down the left tunnel, dragging Alice along with her so there’d be no chance of them getting separated.

  [T2 Core Mutation Unlocked: Basic Antennae Lvl: 1]

  [Brief Description: You have grown basic danger-sensing antennae out of your forehead. They will tingle and swerve in the direction of intense killing pressure at twice your perception level. Subsequent levels in this mutation will increase their sensitivity until their perception is thrice that of your perception level]

  [Aura: 536 (+65) → 586 (+65)]

  [Points: 53 → 3]

  Eria said.

  Dahlia stole a peek back at the Hasharana, eyeing the long, comb-like antennae jutting out and curling backwards from her forehead.

  Eria chided.

  “I have wings under my cloak, but I can’t fly, you know?” Alice chirped, interrupting at just the right moment. Dahlia couldn’t help but shudder as the Hasharana skipped up next to her, fanning her cloak back to show her the folded red and black wings underneath; they were perfectly camouflaged with the rest of her cloak. “See? I actually have wings, but I dipped my hands in the unfortunate lot and came out with something that just adds to my weight without doing much in return. I can unfurl them for a few seconds to scare insects away if I really need to, but if I have to keep flapping them, I’ll run out of stamina really quickly.”

  “... Right.”

  Eria said slowly, hesitantly, as though trying not to match Alice’s beat.

  They came across a second fork in the tunnels, and this time, the tingling sensations in her antennae told her to veer right.

  Eria said.

  Her head was a bit doozy with all the new information, but she felt she’d managed to absorb most of it in stride.

  Eria hummed in approval.

  “Yep. My dexterity level is pretty high compared to the rest of my attributes,” Alice interrupted once again, crimson eyes boring holes into Dahlia’s as she tilted her head and spoke. “What else is your Archive saying? I’d to know what another Archive thinks about me. Hey, do you think we should just let our Archives talk to each other and see if they’ll figure anything out about what we might find at the end of these tunnels?”

  Dahlia bit her lips, turning left at the right fork and letting go of Alice’s wrist as she did. “No… no need. We’ll see once we get near the oasis. You can just stay behind me and–”

  “I think I’m close to figuring out how your brain works as well!” Alice said, snatching her wrist and skipping ahead to drag her forward this time. The Hasharana turned and smiled at her with her own face; it’d never stop being eerie to see such a perfect reflection of her face on someone else’s head. “Hey, you should unlock 'Basic Chitin' as well! It's a handy mutation to have, since, you know, you know when you need to block a bullet or an arrow flying at the back of your head! Having chitin plates growing everywhere that also scale with your toughness level will definitely be useful!"

  Eria didn’t provide an explanation, and she didn’t press her Archive to do so either. She knew she was being overly cautious of somebody who was supposed to be her ally, but the way Alice was steadily predicting everything Eria was saying inside her head made her feel… concerned, to say the least. It was good enough for now that she had a basic understanding of her mutation tree, that she had antennae to feel out the correct tunnels with—she could finish the rest of her conversation with Eria when Alice wasn’t around.

  Eria muttered, prompting her to glance over at the little black bug on her shoulder.

  Eria looked up at her pointedly. Then the little black bug tilted its head, giving her a look of curiosity.

  Issam chided, whispering on her left,

  Amula said, swerving over to her right.

  Ayla chimed in.

  Aylee agreed.

  Jerie added, unhelpful once more.

  Raya said, almost dismissively.

  “Quiet, all of you,” Dahlia breathed, her head aching, her eyes focused purely ahead. “We’re close to the end.”

  Both of them immediately slowed down; surely, even Alice felt the massive open space in front of them.

  “I detect killing pressure in front of us,” Alice whispered back. “Ten… twenty… thirty of them. Stay behind me, alright?”

  Dahlia didn’t need telling twice. They were close enough to the cavern in front of them that she could see soft blue light being emitted from the bioluminescent reeds growing on the walls—and both of them ground their walking pace to a halt right at the edge of the tunnel, turning the dials on their firefly lanterns to dim their orange light as they peered down at the cavern.

  Immediately, she figured out what was going on.

  Normally, the large cavern several dozens of metres below them was to be the bottom under the bottom of the oasis, and it was to be filled to the brim by the small columns of water trickling in through holes in the sandstone ceiling overhead. The water that’d fill up the cavern would eventually overflow into the dozen or so tunnels carved into the walls—but now there were tunnels at the bottom of the cavern, draining all the water deeper underground so nothing could flow into the usual, horizontal-running tunnels.

  And, even without the bioluminescent reeds growing on the walls of the cavern, she felt she’d be able to recognise the mass of skittering bugs underneath her, digging and scraping away at the sandstone bottom to open even more tunnels.

  Their combined killing pressures were something Dahlia’s antennae couldn’t ignore.

  “... Fog-bask beetles,” Dahlia whispered, gripping her own arms. “I guess we found the ones draining the water from the well tunnels, huh?”