Baco rolled around like a puppy in summer grass once he was down, working out kinks and cramps. The net left some red marks and his armor bit into him a bit, but within minutes, he’s being himself, running back and forth, grabbing what worms he can from the edges of the hallway. Jes juggles her akon rods, bouncing them in the air in front of her in one hand. I may have to ask her to teach me juggling with my throwing knives. It’s probably a skill related to my weapon flair. After the minotaur, of course.

  As if there’s no possibility of getting gored like a blind matador on his first day. We have plans and skills and cool weapons and magic. We will face the minotaur, grab him by the ring in his septum and tell him who’s boss. I have no doubt.

  Jes has made it clear she has doubts. She seems to have several trunks full of trust issues. When I found May, my ex, on the beach lying way too close to former friend Devon, I had the same problem for a while. Jes seems to carry abandonment from her dad and whatever the issue is with one of her brothers. I get it.

  “You know, we need a modified set of tactics in the event that one of us…” Jes stops her sentence.

  “We don’t need new tactics, we just stick to ones that don’t rely on the, um, missing member.”

  “We can just call a scramble-regroup if we need,” she suggests. We agreed that scramble-regroup means unevenly scatter for cover and catch a breath to resurvey the battle situation.

  It was not a comforting discussion. Jes continued several times trying to introduce ‘If Sadie isn’t there’ as a new set of plans. Sadie pointedly ignored these moments, finding food in her stash to chew too loudly.

  I almost understand why Sadie keeps getting ticked off by Jes. In her mind, it’s the Sadie and Dom show and she doesn’t like the new guest star. Right now, tensions are more directed to our future encounter with Bullboy, so they seem to be working together against a common goal.

  Sadie has discovered that she can make toast by holding a hard roll and igniting it. Charred jerky tasted a bit like bacon. Unfortunately, the cheese we have is in little hard wheels, so I can’t get her to make grilled cheese. Man, I miss grilled cheese. With the right ingredients, she could use her hands as a panini press.

  The corridor has split off a few times, usually to a dead end after a few turns. Baco has proven to be invaluable in his ability to literally sniff out the best path. He points up a hall, we check another direction, dead end. He does this smug little toss of the head and leads us back down the way he picked. It’s some sort of piggy perception skill.

  “Haven’t levelled up in juggling for a long time,” Jes notes.

  “The better you are, the harder each gain is,” Sadie explains.

  Now that she mentions it, this has been the longest expanse of time since arriving that we haven’t been attacked. No sirens, satyrs, or even crawlers.

  “Baco, buddy,” I call. He trots obediently to my side. “Monster.”

  He bares his teeth and starts bouncing and rotating, a fat bouncing turret looking for a target. He very clearly understands me. I don’t know if it’s the actual English language he understands, or if he somehow telepathically gets the meaning.

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  “No,” I say, trying to calm him down. “I don’t see any. That’s the problem. Use you Baco senses. Are there monsters around here?”

  “It does feel like a long time,” Sadie mumbles.

  Baco chugs around, sniffing the ground then the air as we walk. A minute into his investigation and he stops and stands in front of me.

  “Nothing?”

  A grunt.

  It’s a whole lot of nothing. The only skill we’re possibly levelling up in is walking.

  “That hall,” Jes points.

  The hallway she’s pointing at has strange blue crystals crusting the outer edges of the entry where it intersects with our passage. It’s some sort of material we haven’t come across.

  “Pretty.” Sadie reaches out to touch the sparkling crystals.

  “I was here,” Jes clarifies. She slowly turns to me. “HE was here.”

  “The minotaur,” I intone, trying to channel Morgan Freeman. It’s a totally stupid thing to say. I know she wasn’t referring to anyone else. However, it feels like an important moment that needs to be marked by me saying something.

  I take a step toward the passage. Jes is frozen.

  “I don’t know if I’ve properly explained the size and danger of this thing,” Jes says.

  She’s scared. I heft my spear and give it a quick spin. We might be heading into something incredibly tough. I can’t let her see that concern. “We’re as prepared as we can be.”

  “No,” Sadie disagrees. “The original idea is we would wander, defeat enemies and gain skills. If that actually happened, we would be better prepared.”

  Sadie needs to learn when some things are best left unsaid.

  “That’s why there are no monsters,” Jes realizes. “We’re in his territory.”

  I shrug. “You said he smells bad. Maybe everyone moved away because of the smell. With all those dead end tunnels we’ve passed, that must have been where they lived, and the dead ends have no air circulation, so they moved from the smelly neighbor.”

  “Or he ate them all,” Sadie supplies in the most unhelpful manner possible.

  “We need scouting,” I decide, redirecting the conversation. I head into the crystal crusted passage, looking as nonchalant as I can muster, weapons all tucked in their spots but easy to grab if I need to.

  After a short entryway, the area opens into a massive cavern, comparable to the place I first appeared with the lake. It’s stadium-sized, with a huge ceiling obscured by mist. There are what I can only call tiki torches on the sides of the path. The air is dense and thick to see through. I’m not sure if it’s torch smoke or natural mist in the huge grotto.

  “I was in here,” Jes says, coming through the crystal hall. “I thought it was big enough that it would lead to the outside.”

  “It might,” I agree, starting up the path. The ground off the path is mossy, almost grass-like, with stalagmites instead of trees in an underground version of a forest. Shadows from the tiki torches dance in rocky outcroppings.

  “I didn’t stay long enough to explore it all,” she adds.

  “This is where you saw him get big?” I keep my hand on the stake in my belt.

  “A clearing somewhere,” she answers.

  “This ground is good,” Sadie says, rubbing up a sand cloud with her hoof. “Comfortable.”

  I do not say it out loud. It’s specifically comfortable for someone with hooves. Sometimes the minotaur is drawn with human feet. Sometimes hooves. But unlike Sadie, I know when to not up the tension. I hadn’t noticed her particular clip clop wasn’t sounding here. Perception skill seems to work only on things that might be dangerous.

  The path widens into a clearing that must be over an acre in size. Torches are placed unevenly about. Something whips overhead in the fog.

  “Bats,” Jes supplies.

  The ceiling is insanely high and the bats don’t seem interested in us. If they were about to start dive bombing, my perception would kick in. Probably. Hopefully.

  A boulder off to one side is the only point of interest in this football field sized clearing.

  “Let’s go over there,” I suggest. “I’ll climb on that big rock, see if anything triggers my perception.”

  We work our way toward the rock, watching bats flap erratically overhead. Something feels off . I can’t tell where the sensation hits from. It’s not like when I sensed the door or the pit, but more like…if I had to give it a name, overall dread might be the sensation.

  Baco screams. It’s like somebody just jammed on the brakes in an eighteen-wheeler. He’s drooling and vibrating. I feel it, too.

  Baco gets suddenly silent and his tail stands straight up. The hair on my neck stands up. The big rock stands up.