Screaming echoed down the tunnel.
Tam opened his eyes, but his darkvision was still shot. He couldn’t make out much from the screams, they were too distorted by the overlapping echoes to hear as anything but noise. He squinted, trying to bounce even a few spare motes of light back into his retinas, but it was no use.
His first instinct was to curl back up, hide away from whatever was causing the screaming. What could he possibly do on his own, blind and lost, wielding only a knife? It was the words of Kathonia that stirred Tam into action.
Live together, because a thousand hands clasped together cannot be swallowed by even the largest maw.
He had to protect Bow; he wouldn’t survive on his own. He wouldn’t pull away into the shadows while someone else died for him, not again. He wriggled out of his burrow by the river, and took a deep breath in.
“HEEEEY!” He screamed as loudly as he could, calling back into the dark.
The screaming in the distance went quiet, all that could be heard was the sound of water running over Tam’s feet. He took another deep breath, and bellowed.
“BO-”
A hand clasped shut Tam’s snout, and someone shushed into his ear.
Tam struggled against the assailant, and the distant scream came again, this time closer.
“HEELP!” They screamed. The voice was that of a kobold, not Bow’s.
Bow pulled Tam to the ground, shushing him, still keeping pinching the front of Tam’s face with his hand. Tam grabbed the wrist and pulled away the pudgy grasping fist from his snout. The beads shifting underneath his grip confirmed their identity to Tam.
“Bow.” Tam whispered.
“Raa sla d’i rwiir Bow!” Bow said in his native language.
“Di sywell.”
We help.
“Congay!”
No!
“Ewg sywt. La nichu, tyrsyw”
I help. You follow, make light.
“Diir slu hwid b’ij uupaad’!” Bow whined, his tone fearful.
Tam pulled the bracelet from Bow’s wrist. The screaming kobold was closer to them, near enough that Tam could hear the scrape of talons scrambling down the tunnel. Bow swiped back for their bracelet, but they were just as blind as Tam right now, with only a fraction of the experience travelling in the pitch darkness.
Travelling the depths with active darkvision made one stick out to other darkvision sensitive creatures. The emissive eyesight shone out just the same as a torch carried by an adventurer to the predators that lurked down here. A kobold scout did his best to limit the usage of active darkvision, instead learning to navigate by touch, sound, and smell.
Tam wasn’t a scout, and the running water underfoot would be a challenge to even someone like Sef, but the direction he needed to move was clear. He just needed to follow the voice.
“We’re coming!” He shouted. He didn’t want whatever was chasing the other kobold to know Tam was coming alone.
“HELP! SPIDERS!” The voice echoed back.
“Keep moving, I’ll handle them!” Tam gripped one of the beads of the bracelet, feeling the warm thrumming energy crackling beneath his fingertips. What had Bow said, to release the fireball?
“Assume!”
Nothing.
“Azure!”
Nada.
He couldn’t remember now, it had been a while since the kid said the word, and a lot was going on at the time that stuck in his mind better.
“Bow! O brur?”
What word?
Splashing footsteps came to Tam from both directions.
“Di sywell. Rúú nlin rwiir in kimnum.” Bow said, grabbing Tam’s elbow.
“Why are you just standing there?” The running kobold asked.
Tam handed the bracelet back to Bow, who was clearly poking and grasping around for it in the dark.
“Azum!” They spoke, and instantly Tam could see again.
Being able to see the spiders did not help the situation at all. There must have been dozens of them, each twice the size of Tam. Their eyes all glistened orange-red with the reflected flame. Bow recoiled, falling butt first into the water, and the flame went out.
Tam froze. He wanted to run, but he couldn’t abandon Bow. He dropped to the ground and felt for Bow’s bracelet wrist. When he had it in hand, he grasped a bead and spoke the word.
“Azum!” He shouted, but still nothing came.
He pulled Bow out of the water, the spiders audibly chattering as they closed in, the scream of the other kobold fleeing into the distance.
“C’mon Bow, Azum!”
Bow clung to Tam, the strength missing in their legs, and they held a bead.
“AZUM!”
A bolt of fire shot right into the mass of spiders, and once again a wave of blinding light and shocking heat ran across Tam.
They were in the dark again, but the sound of the spiders was gone, and so was the screaming of the Kobold. Tam hadn’t been deafened now too, had he? He couldn’t be, the running water still made it into his ear.
“Azum?” He asked Bow.
Bow didn’t respond, mumbling something under their breath.
“…slúú, lwig, rip, púb…”
“There might still be spiders, Bow, we can’t know without light!”
“Azum!”
The bolt of fire shot forward into empty space, the tunnel cleared of everything but curled bug bodies and the water that ran around them.
“Hey! You can stop running! We got them!”
“Who are you?” The voice shouted back.
“Mimirth?” Bow asked.
Friends?
“Ble, blewt tindiwfr mirth.”
Yes, they are friend.
Tam sure hoped they were, at least.
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