Cipher melted into the narrow, spore-lined burrow entrance like smoke dissipating into shadow. One moment they were there, a silhouette against the eerie green glow, the next they were simply… gone. No sound, no disturbance of the pulsing fungal mats. It was unnerving, their ability to blend so seamlessly with the oppressive darkness of the Undercroft. Their movement wasn't just stealthy, it felt fundamentally quiet, as if they could selectively dampen the noise of their own passage through sheer will or exotic tech.
We were left standing in the wider passage, bathed in the flickering green light of the Fulgur-spores, the rhythmic chink… chink… chink of the approaching tunnellers seeming to grow louder, closer, each metallic impact echoing ominously in the confined space. The air tasted dusty, faintly electric from the spores, and heavy with the scent of cold, damp stone. My own senses felt like bad radio reception, sounds had faint static edges, the green light pulsed slightly out of sync with my throbbing headache, and the texture of the rock wall I leaned against felt simultaneously rough and strangely smooth, like my tactile nerves couldn't quite agree on the input.
Okay, focus, I told myself, gritting my teeth against a fresh wave of dizziness triggered by turning my head too quickly. Tunnellers approaching. Cipher on recon. Anya tense. Leo observant. Me? Barely functional. My internal status report was grim. I tried to instinctively [Perceive Glitch] the approaching chinking sound, hoping for some clue about the source, but the effort sent a familiar lance of white-hot pain stabbing behind my right eye. I recoiled mentally, vision momentarily greying out at the edges. Nope. Definitely nope. Trying to use the debugging skill felt like deliberately jamming my fingers into a faulty electrical socket.
"Anything?" Anya whispered, her gaze flicking between the tunnel ahead where the tunnellers approached and the burrow Cipher had vanished into. She held her sidearm low, ready, every line of her body radiating tense preparedness.
"Just... noise," I managed, rubbing my temple. "Can't get a lock. Too much static… internal and external."
Leo, however, was peering intently down the main passage towards the sound, his brow furrowed in concentration. He tilted his head, listening not just to the impact, but the resonance. "The impacts…" he murmured, almost to himself. "They sound… shallow. Not deep excavation. And the rhythm is slightly off, irregular. Doesn't sound like automated machinery." He pointed towards the wall near us. "And see that darker patch? Like soot or blasting residue? But it's unevenly distributed, unlike a standard demo charge." He looked back at us, his eyes wide with dawning realization. "I don't think they're just tunneling. I think they might be scavenging. Breaking up specific mineral veins or maybe… maybe trying to extract embedded pre-Crash tech from the rock itself? Using crude, unstable methods?"
Scavenging inside the tunnel walls? That was a new level of desperate. If they were using unstable explosives or volatile chemical extraction methods down here, near explosive fungus spores… the potential for catastrophic accidents was terrifyingly high.
Anya absorbed Leo's deduction, her expression tightening further. "Scav-miners. Worse than standard Vultures. Often hopped up on whatever chems they use for extraction, paranoid as hell, and notoriously trigger-happy." She subtly adjusted her grip on her sidearm. "Changes the tactical assessment. Less likely to patrol predictably, more likely to react violently to perceived threats."
As if to punctuate her point, the chinking sound abruptly stopped.
Silence descended again, heavier, more expectant than before. Even the faint drip of water seemed to pause. Had they heard us? Had they reached their destination? Or were they just taking a break?
My bad reception senses prickled. The silence felt wrong. Strained. Like holding your breath underwater. The faint electrical buzz from the Fulgur-spores seemed to intensify slightly, the green glow pulsing a fraction faster.
Shit. Static discharge? My tired brain flashed back to Anya's warning. Disturbing the spores…
Then, Cipher's filtered voice crackled almost inaudibly through my comm bead, startling me despite the low volume. "Status update. Secondary passage confirmed viable, intersects aqueduct bypass approx 75 meters west, downstream from current hostiles. Minimal spore density beyond initial burrow. However…" There was a pause, fractional but noticeable. "…observed unusual energy signature within secondary passage. Consistent with localized temporal field distortion. Minor hazard." A small pocket of messed-up time, great. "Also detected faint residual bio-signs matching drag-mark profile. Source unknown, trajectory unclear." So, whatever took the boot owner might have used these side passages too. Fantastic. "Hostiles…" Cipher continued, then cut off abruptly with a sharp burst of static.
"Cipher?" Anya whispered urgently into her own comm. "Report! What about the hostiles?"
Only static answered. Harsh, digital noise, like a modem dying.
My headache flared. The visual static behind my eyes intensified, swirling into angry vortexes. Something felt deeply wrong. Not just the comms cutting out. The air itself felt wrong. Thick. Vibrating slightly. The spicy-electric smell of the Fulgur-spores intensified dramatically, becoming sharp, almost painful in my nostrils. The green glow pulsed faster, brighter, erratically.
"Spores!" Leo choked out, pointing towards the main tunnel floor where the densest mats grew. They were visibly shimmering now, crackling with faint blue sparks that arced between the fungal clumps. "They're building a charge! Something disturbed them!"
It must have been the tunnellers. Their cessation of noise wasn't a break, it was likely them hitting a large spore deposit or triggering a feedback loop with their equipment. And now, the whole area was turning into a giant, organic capacitor getting ready to discharge. Hallucinations, sensory overload, spontaneous energy release… Anya's warnings slammed back into my mind with terrifying clarity.
We needed to move. Now. But where? Back the way we came? Towards the Wraiths and the collapsed junction? Forward, towards the tunnellers and the potentially exploding spore field? Or into the side passage after Cipher, towards unknown temporal distortions and residual 'Apex Predator' signs?
Decision paralysis setting in… system crash imminent… A fragmented memory flashed through my mind – the infuriatingly cheerful error chime of a cheap office computer failing to boot. …requires immediate hard reset…
"Side passage!" Anya made the call, already moving towards the burrow Cipher had entered. "Risk the time warp! Better than becoming living spark plugs out here!" She grabbed Leo's arm, pulling him along. "Ren, move!"
My legs felt like lead. The swirling static in my vision made the burrow entrance waver like a heat haze. The air crackled, tasting like ozone and burnt cinnamon. Taking a step felt like wading through invisible electric syrup. Another step. The pulsing green light seemed to strobe now, trying to induce seizures. The pain behind my eyes reached a crescendo.
Just as I reached the burrow entrance, stumbling after Anya and Leo, a blinding blue-white flash erupted from the main tunnel behind us, accompanied by a deafening CRACKLE-BOOM! The Fulgur-spore field discharged its stored energy in a massive, uncontrolled arc.
The shockwave hit me like a physical blow, slamming me forward into the narrow burrow entrance, darkness momentarily swallowing everything as I instinctively squeezed my eyes shut against the glare and the concussive force.