Shadow Slave

The convoy had stopped once again. This time, however, there was one significant difference to the place Sunny had chosen to set camp - it was situated near one of the side passages, which they had avoided at all costs in the past.

Currently, the Irregulars were gathered around the dark entrance, staring at it with gloomy expressions on their faces.

Sunny did not look too enthused, either.

After a while, he sighed and glanced at his subordinates.

"Have any of you noticed it?"

They looked at each other, not sure what to say. After a while, Dorn spoke in a somber voice:

"What exactly were we supposed to notice, Captain?"

Sunny silently shook his head.

In the past few days, he had been observing the side passages attentively as the convoy passed them, trying to see if there was a pattern to when and where they appeared. The tunnel looked to be endless, after all, so it seemed that there was an endless amount of these branching paths, too... which was a bit weird.

in the process of observing the side passages, a sinking sense of suspicion took hold of his heart, and by now, that suspicion was all but confirmed.

He frowned.

"Well, i don't blame you. It's pretty hard to notice."

Then, Sunny pointed at a particular spot on the stone wall of the tunnel, right where it made way for the open chasm of the entrance to the side passage.

"There's a small protrusion there, and on the opposite side, the stone is chipped near the floor. There's also that crack over there."

They stared at the spots he showed, not quite sure of the meaning of these small, barely noticeable features.

"What about them?"

for

you watched closely, you would have seen that these exact imperfections are present at each of the entrances we passed in the last couple of days. The first one we saw during the initial scouting had them, too. With how rough the walls of the tunnel are, it is only expected that there would be nothing smooth about the side passages, but still. Exact cracks. at exactly the same spots, at

chipped portion of the

it. Did someone leave these marks on

Sunny shook his head.

hundreds of entrances. There's just one entrance, and one side

After a long stretch of grim

are being

carefree

being lured

The swordsman just shrugged.

invitation has to be alluring, right? Otherwise, no one will

at him with a deadpan expression for a few moments, then turned to

we

making her

Sure, it all seems like a dreadful trap... after all, the damned tunnel more or less left us no choice but to try and explore the side passage. It's an ingenious food delivery system, if you think about it... the food delivers itself. We are the food in this metaphor, of course, and we are going to deliver ourselves to

Belle's eyes glinted.

eat it

Sunny cleared his throat-

try to only he eaten

that his plan did not

He coughed.

as soon as the thing trapping us inside is found and

each other, trying to guess who will be assigned to which team. Luster was their best pilot, so he would have to remain with the Rhino... Samara's Aspect was less useful

looked into the darkness, and then asked

to accept the invitation,