I lead the surviving seventeen by a hundred paces. The clatter of all them boots, all that huffin' and puffin', it was like a dinner bell to anything looking for rich meat and pure mana. Told Lottie to lead them close. That if they heard shots they should just hunker on down. If I didn't come back up to fetch them soon after...

  Plan for the worst.

  I set foot in the dome, the rotunda as I had started to call it. I tossed a magelight out into it's center with a soft click. The sound was mirrored by the pistol in my hand, hammer cocked.

  A long moment passed. My eyes flicked between the three doors and the twelve vents above.

  More had opened here too.

  But nothing moved. Couldn't even see any spirits here in the gloom. I could smell the water, hear the drip and slosh of the cistern though.

  Louder, more insistent. More and more seemed to shift in this blasted snakeman ruin. It was like we were all pieces on some great board. And someone was fuckin' with the rules.

  I stuck to fingers between my lips and whistled like I was callin' in the pigs, the signal for all clear.

  Minutes later, the explorers filed in.

  "Gods," said a balding man, "this pristine. Why wasn't it noted by the survivors of the first expedition?"

  "Look here, a chronicle of the chattel slavery practices of the Anasisi, finally we can prove..."

  "I can't believe it, where's my charcoal? I need to make a rubbing."

  And then more voices as survival was forgot, ambition and a thirst for understanding driving away that human hunger. Who needed tomorrow when you had the endless wonder of today?

  "Order!" Lottie snapped, reining in her flock of fools, "We are in grave danger. Do not forget. Do not lose sight of that. Until Mister Roche has identified and eliminated any remaining threat," she looked to me with a cool nod, "we are not to stray far from each other. The... 'buddy pairs' as he has described it."

  I had to stifle a snort at that. She acted like my suggestion that folk should stick to groups of two or more was some revolutionary insight into group organization. Like buddy pairs weren't just a common sense way of makin' sure you weren't a lone target. Even pig-fuck farmers back home knew that. Most predators prefer an easy mark, and four eyes was just plain better than two.

  Never mind two rifles over one.

  I caught Lottie’s eye as she answered a question from one of the scholars about our new rules. Explaining it all again. There was something odd about her manner though, like she was-

  Wait.

  That smile. She hadn’t needed me to explain shit. I was preachin’ gospel to a learned Mother and she was just makin’ me feel useful.

  Weren’t you just learnin’ about the danger of arrogance, Roche?

  Remember that overconfidence is a slow and insidious killer…

  "We'll be moving in a column, two by two. We're going to be heading towards that cistern. We follow at a hundred pace trail behind Mister Roche. No wandering. No stopping to examine the art or the architecture. Questions?"

  A single hand raised, a young girl of maybe nineteen, her hair in long blonde braids, "Ooh! Ooh! How old is this place?"

  I could see Lottie's face twitch.

  "Old. Marianne. Very old. Any questions that aren't absolutely pointless?"

  Silence, a flush at the little blonde girl's cheeks. I felt a little bad. Hated to see a young lady in distress.

  I spat the juice from the plug of ghostleaf chaw I'd saved for times like this, "Miss Shorty said before the, uh, First Epoch." I glanced to the young woman and she looked confused.

  "Era you mean?" cut in the bald man, "you must mean Era. Before the Ascent then, this is, well incredible. We had no idea the Anasisi culture predates the Trinity, we must-"

  "Gods it's a bombshell of a discovery!" Cried another woman.

  "Mister Smith, Miss Sinclair," Lottie said through clenched teeth, "we will discuss it all, later. Mister Roche," she said, pink eyes full of wrath and sin, now fixed on me, "perhaps save the explanations for the end of the walk, yes?"

  Opps.

  I nodded and turned on a heel.

  "I'll holler if I die," I said with a wave.

  "Try not to," Lottie called back, "a pistol shot will carry better.”

  Oooh, cold as ice. Just the way I liked them. But that was a worry for another time. What I was worried about, besides looming death, was that slow expansion of my role here. That Guild missive said guard dog and locksmith, in so many words.

  But what the fuck was I now?

  Leader? Not me. I was just a man with a gun. And I wasn't being paid enough.

  I stalked down the corridor, keeping the fall of my boots on the seems between the heavy stones. The trick worked better when walking on boarded wood, but it still helped to muffle an approach. And, well, old habits die hard. I wasn't sneaking into the Chantry to pilfer offering wine anymore, but I supposed I still had the instinct of a boy who'd spent too long doing just that.

  The scent of fresh water was stronger, the sound of dripping more like a gentle rain.

  When I finally re-entered the chamber, I found just that.

  Rain.

  Well, mist anyway. A gentle shower fell from the ceiling to dance across the waters of the cistern and impact upon the bare stone. The leftovers of the last expedition camp were soaked, waterlogged. Some part of me had wondered what use tents were underground, but now I had some answer to that.

  The surface of the cistern shimmered, still just as inky and dark.

  My bag of stinking bait was gone, and no new monster lay dead and steaming from the hydradile's venom.

  Not great. Whatever took it was smart enough not to just start eatin', or else it was so big it had swallowed it whole.

  And survived.

  The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

  Every figure added up to trouble. I'd probably be the one to find out how much, shame I was shit at numbers.

  I shone my magelight on the vents above and found some hint of what might be afoot. Trails of wet mud and lingering whisps of pale mana were all the clue I needed to know that my trap had been sprung. Something had come through those vents, stolen my bait, and gone to ground.

  Maybe the same thing that had taken the first expedition.

  And our missin' folk.

  Couldn't help but notice the smear of a long, smooth tail across the floor and up into the dark. It was about as thick as my thigh, meant a big predator at the very least. I’d seen snakes that size in the marshes, but not many.

  What were the odds them Anasisi weren't quite dead? It did look awfully Anasisi sized. Good odds.

  Better’n the odds I was gonna walk under the sun again, I'd bet.

  I went back, and an hour later I was watching over just short of a score of wet scholars and their hired hands. Most were in good spirits. Much better than hours before.

  Seemed these folks thrived more on knowledge and discovery than warmth and bread.

  A curious thing.

  "Have one of the rock mages seal them vents," I told Lottie as we sat just beyond the unnatural rain. It seemed to just bleed from the rock above, "and maybe get one of them to try and stop that downpour. Wet feet rot. Wet food spoils. Wet powder is useless. Cannibalize the old tents and build a covered fire pit. We need wards, even if they don't work against..." I breathed deep, drawing in ghostleaf smoke, "whatever else."

  "Yes." she said and plucked the crumpled cigarette from my fingers. I watched them lips purse around the soggy paper, watched her draw the last smoke from it, and cast the butt aside, to sizzle in the rain, "Thank you," she said as the smoke curled from her nose, "I expected a lot less from the guild, truth be told. But you can rest assured we are capable of defending ourselves and handling at least some of this disaster without you. That said, I am grateful for you being here, Roche. I mean that."

  My lips split in a devilish grin, "Don't too thankful, we don't even have a tent."

  Her smile was small, but it was there, "Hmm. I require more than a tent, I'm afraid. Get me back to Augustus' Hope, get my people back and then," she drew near, I felt her hot breath on my neck, "I'll consider being thankful."

  "Miss Lottie," I said, "that is a scandalous proposition."

  She laughed and stepped away, "You are an awful man, Mister Roche. A competent, pragmatic, and yes, even funny man. But you are a tom cat as sure as I am a lady. Now," she turned back to her people and clapped her hands, "back to work. You, you and you. With me, we're going to put a fire on the right side of that rain while the rest scavenge for what we can use."

  I watched her direct the others while I smoked my next to last cigarette. There was a joy in this, one I couldn't forget. It had been a long time since someone saw anything in me but a tool or a convict.

  I was, in that moment, a man.

  A good one. I brought security and hope.

  It was a... Lie. Yes. But it was a lie I could live with, one I would strive to make true.

  I'd get us all out of here.

  Or I'd die in the attempt.

  I took the hall and passed through the rotunda room. Spared a long look for them twelve vents, trying to make the beginnings of a map in my mind. I guess there was some network of them, likely connected to some central space, and maybe to the outside. There was a strong chance I'd need to climb on up at some point, but not yet.

  Didn't do well in small, dark spaces.

  Not no more.

  I took the passage on my left, directly across from the stairs, and did my usual slow walk. I kept my gun low and ready, my eyes up, and my ears focused.

  This time I did find traps. A set of spikes as long as a man's hand jutted out from the floor just a few paces down the hall. Old blood and rust cling to otherwise suspiciously clean metal. I bent town and tested a point with a glove.

  Still sharp. You'd think a thousand something years of neglect would dull the edge of even an enchanted blade. When my fingers came away something foul and oil clung to the fingertip.

  Poison. No idea if it would even work after so long, and I didn't mean to ever find out.

  I knew a trick or two about traps. Specifically the kind to kill men.

  In my days of poachin' and thievin' I had to contend with them more often than not. Some folks just liked the idea of a body being impaled on a spike or hung from a spring-drawn noose. Got real creative about the ways to make a person dead or wish it was so.

  Best way to deal with any trap was obvious, spot it, avoid it. But for equally obvious reasons, you can't rely on that. The next best way then, is to spring it and leave it harmless. That's a tricky bit, but I was an experienced and tricky sort of fellow.

  I had taken a long tent pole from the camp, along with a few other odds and ends. I tied a heavy rock to the end of my pole and held it in place with some wire. I leaned over the spike trap and poked the floor tiles just beyond it.

  Click.

  Zip. Zip. Zip.

  I about shit my britches as I looked down at the trio of darts embedded in my monster hide vest. I could just feel the points through my shirt.

  A moment passed, a few breaths, and then I took a few more to make sure I wasn't poisoned.

  Nope. Still alive and kickin' and smarter for it. As I picked one of the feathered barbs from my chest and sniffed it I recognized a familiar scent. Poison again. I searched the dark hall for any sign of it's source and found a little brass cylinder clinging to the wall by a runed arm.

  Odd that my arcane sight didn't catch that. Now that it was deployed the damn thing glowed like a dying ember in the dark. It must be some kind of trap that could sense and adapt to intruders. And worse, conceal itself from their eyes, but-

  I squinted a little harder at the mechanism. One of the runes on the trap’s arm was smudged now. Expended maybe? Skulduggery, or that sense in me it granted, seemed to suggest yes. A flaw or limitation in the design, not tested and perfected.

  Made in haste maybe?

  You didn't design traps like that for run-of-the-mill graverobbers. You built them to keep out people with a knack. Made them to kill experts and mages. Folks like us.

  No... Folks like me, more like.

  Ain't no one else on this cursed expedition got magic sight. And no one but the Guild, and the explorers themselves ought to know that. But what if someone did? What if those traps were keyed specifically for me?

  Put those missing three egg-heads in a new light. Had they been taken maybe? Scooped up and pried for information? How could that even be done…

  Oh no I did not like that. Monsters didn't take prisoners. They didn't ask questions.

  Whatever stalked the dark, whatever slithered in the vents, it wasn't just smart...

  It was reactive, planning, thinking. Capable of formin’ and askin’ quesitons, of getting answers.

  All together, it made me realize-

  We were being hunted.

  And that shook me right down to my core.

  But there was work to be done, and dwellin’ would only slow me down. I needed to find a way out, even if that meant deeper down.

  It took me hours to clear the hall and I suffered a few more near misses. Probably would've ended up full of holes and choking on my own rotten blood if I hadn't figured out the trick with the dart traps. See, they targeted mana, but not just the kind found in a living being.

  Turned out a magelight was enough to fool whatever spell drove them.

  Didn't do much for the deadfall or the spring-activated razor wire though.

  By the end of my crawl I half expected to find a goddamn door labeled 'This way to the snake people's secret lair and treasure vualt'.

  That would've only been fair.

  Instead, I found a spiral of stairs that descended into the darkness below. The air smelled fetid, earthy rot and stagnant water. Heat and humidity seemed to rise from the black, along with the barest whisper of a hot breeze. It was almost imperceptible, but in a tomb like this, noise was noise.

  I was tempted to take a look now, to satisfy that part of me that couldn't help but look into a void and see whatever stared back.

  Instead, I was distracted by a concealed panel on the wall. Honestly, the silence and work had almost made this ruin feel safe. I felt more myself doin’ this work than I did even in a fight. Realized I really liked playin’ with locks, traps, and wards. I opened the panel, and found a switch.

  I wasn't stupid enough to touch of course. Pretty easy to guess what it did. Didn’t even need the sharp gut feeling Skulduggery provided. It was likely to-

  Pop.

  So soft I could barely hear it.

  I focused tryin’ to decide if some mechanism I hadn’t thoroughly disarmed was about to-

  Pop. Pop. Pop.

  Shots in the dark.

  Another and another, rollin' and echoing in the way only a rifle round can. And there was only one place they could come from. The expedition was under attack. Lottie had been sure they could defend themselves without me.

  More shots followed, desperate and overlappin’ and I thought I almost heard shouts and cries eachoin’ after.

  Fuck...

  I needed to move.

  I needed to run.