“Oh, neat, claustrophobia. I wasn’t expecting to experience any of that,” Ben muttered as they arrived, finding what was actually a fairly large space once they stepped through the gate. There was no risk of hitting his head on anything, the cave was a bit over two stories high and seemed to stretch out for a while, even if the buildings around made it hard to tell for certain how vast it was, but that didn’t change two inescapable facts. There was a rough, stone ceiling over his head with enough dirt and rock above it that none of Ben’s senses were strong enough to tell him how high above the surface was, as well as the fact that the very thing that had ended his life on Earth had been a cave-in.

  Neither of which was enough to paralyze him, but being there lent no comfort either. He felt suffocated in a way that was distracting more than anything else and left Thera to take his hand in concern.

  “You okay?” she asked, knowing all too well the details of his death, even if she hadn’t been prepared for anything to spring up from it like that. But then, how often were they in any caves together? It was something neither could have expected when taking the quest, even if Ben tried to reassure her.

  “Don’t worry, it’s just a teeny bit of discomfort. I’ll be fine.”

  “You sure? It’s not too late to tell the guild we won’t do this one.”

  “Ha, we’re literally right here; it’s definitely too late. Really, I’m okay. I just wasn’t expecting to be remotely uncomfortable. The fact coming here made me feel anything was just a bit of a surprise.”

  “Mmh, well, if you’re sure. In that case, just don’t let go of my hand while we find the guild, don’t want you getting lost.”

  Given the nature of the races down there, what light there was was low, kept that way for their comfort with only the minimum given for both the species that needed at least a little as well as any visitors like themselves. Except for any eyeless species living down there, of which there were more than a few already around, something comparable to the sun or even the sort of simple lamp Ben would have made for a room would have been too much for anything adapted to the dim they found themselves in.

  A darkness that barely affected Thera, holding her dark sight to help her navigate as well as her other sense skills to make up a picture of the world around them, but then, it didn’t affect Ben either in any real way. He had his awakened material sense to tell him where anything was, his mind reading and soul sight to point out the people in his range, the senses that came with his authorities and as much as any of that, his alien sense, the strange conglomerate skill that replicated the various senses of each race he’d connected to, even if in a far more limited range. He didn’t need to be guided anywhere; he knew Thera was just using it as an excuse to try and lend a bit more comfort, but he was happy to let her, having no reason to be against it. If he was at all uncomfortable then why not rely on his partner in times like that? It was a far nicer option than dealing with it alone.

  He couldn’t deny that it was helping either. Seemingly as a side-effect of their environmental desires, the buildings were close enough to keep the streets tight as they made their way through them, making bumping shoulders with others also going on their way an inevitability as they searched the area, eventually finding the guild near enough to the gate they came in from and let themselves inside, once more waiting in line before eventually being taken to the leader of that guild branch, taking a seat before him as they began.

  “Thera and Ben,” Thera introduced themselves, handing over her card. “The first ranks brought on to help with the structural issues you’re having here. We’ve come to ask for the specific details of the quest.”

  “Thank you for arriving so fast,” the moleman told them, bowing gently while his small eyes glittered in what little light the office held. “I take it you haven’t heard much then?”

  “We’re based out of a smaller town without a gate, it seems like the priority was getting us out here instead of trying to get us the full picture. Why? Is something more going on?”

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  “Mmh, I’m not sure I’d say that; it more comes down to what’s affecting our cave system to begin with. It’s sturdy, but in a lot of ways, it’s also quite delicate. There’s a balance to it, and unfortunately, burrowing demons are coming through and disrupting it.”

  Of course this is a demon issue, Ben wanted to complain, not giving the thought voice when Thera was comfortably taking the lead on things and let her go on.

  “They’re tunnelling through your walls then?”

  “Through, above, below, beside, there’s a lot of directions for them to go to weaken our setup here and all of them could have devastating long-term effects. It’s manageable now, but eventually, it could mean a cave-in across the entire city, something no one wants to deal with.”

  “So part of the quest means helping manage your demon problem,” Ben clarified, getting a nod for the remark. “And from there, trying to reverse some of the damage they’ve done as well?”

  “To whatever extent you can,” the guild master told them. “Of course, if you don’t think you can or you’re not confident, then we’d prefer you didn’t. I understand that one of you has some experience as a craftsman or something of the like, but one wrong move could mean people in this city dying. If it comes to it, we do have workers specifically trained to repair any damage to our cave system.”

  “Gotcha, if we don’t think we can do it then we won’t touch it,” Ben agreed, fully committed to fixing it now that all of his effort had been chalked down to nothing more than a bit of experience, even if the guildmaster hadn’t meant any slight. “In that case, unless there’s anything else you think we need to know, let us know where we’ll be staying and whatever restaurants the guild has made arrangements for us at and we’ll get to work and hopefully come back with some good news tomorrow.”

  “So I can see you taking that a bit personally,” Thera said as they wandered the streets, exploring the vastness of that underground land and the people who inhabited it as they explored, finding a structure unlike anything they’d find on the surface. While it was undeniably a city, it was also spread out through a series of larger interconnected caverns linked together by smaller walkways that created an arrangement that no city above ground would ever have.

  Though maybe some of the aquatic races have similar arrangements in the ocean, Ben thought as he answered, his mind largely elsewhere as he probed the thoughts of every person living there he could.

  “Only a little personally. It’s fine.”

  “I don’t think the guild master meant anything by it.”

  “That’s the worst part. If he’d said that to get a rise out of me or egg me on then I could have ignored it. Just genuinely doubting what I can do though? Now I have to fix this entire freaking place. Which is already looking like it’s going to be a lot of work, by the way. Not like, hard work or anything, but just so much of it.”

  The entire point of walking around like that was to build multiple mental models of the settlement, combining his senses with Thera’s to get a current model of the cave structure, showing him where everything sat as far as passageways, holes, and more minute rock damage was, as well as a model of the area from before the invasion started using the memories of every person he passed, probing the deepest depths of their minds to make it, the contrast between the two already showing their differences.

  With those differences managing to boost his bit of claustrophobia more than anything else he’d seen, finding the scale of the damage that whatever demons had come through had done to be extensive, to put it mildly. It was to the point that he was making additional models in both his mind and his realm to try and judge just how at risk they were of the ceiling collapsing on them then and there, seeing what tweaks would need to happen before it would come down and finding that at least as bad as it looked, it was stable enough that he didn’t need to fear it coming down on their heads while they were there.

  It just means that this is going to take a bit longer than I wanted tomorrow too. Let’s see, we’re going to need to try and pull any nearby demons without damaging the area too much more, fix what damage we create while doing that, along with the damage we’ve already found, and then make it harder for any more to come back in, even if we won’t be able to make it so none can. Alright, got the plan, which means we only need to do it.

  “Okay, I know how we’ll deal with all this, we just need to be prepared for it to take all day tomorrow,” Ben said. “I’ve gotten everything I need, so if you’re feeling it, why don’t we see what some subterranean cuisine is like and then turn in for the night so we can get started on this early.”

  “Sounds like a plan. You’re not thinking of turning this into another food tour, are you?”

  “I mean, I kind of was.”

  “... Alright, yeah, then I guess let’s see what they have.”