/Author's Note: It's been long overdue that this fic gets some more love! Not as long as, say, the five year wait between chapters 4 and 5, but long enough to warrant checking in on our little Kardians - especially after that cliffhanger. Thank you again for all the thoughtful reviews, they are excellent motivators. Enjoy the chapter! End Author's Note/

- CHAPTER 10: Into the Darkness -

"We're here for dinner!" announced Rosetta, standing side-by-side with Mist, once Melody had opened the door to the bathhouse. The pair smiled cheerily at the witch, but their faces fell slightly when they saw her worry-struck state.

"I, um, wasn't expecting anyone for dinner," Melody murmurred, "I didn't even make anything for myself."

"No problemo!" Mist let herself in, and Rosetta quickly followed, and they placed a light wooden box on the small table in the entranceway, "That's what we're here for! The dynamic duo, Mist & Rosetta, here to save the day once again!"

"Mist, I told you not to say that. You are anything but dynamic, and you sound like an idiot, with a capital 'I'." Rosetta bopped Mist over the head with her fist and then turned to Melody again. "But for real. We figured you'd be holed up here, worrying yourself to death. You could use a distraction - Lady Ann says excessive worrying can give you, like, a thousand wrinkles. And gray hairs. And saggy boobs..." The blonde shopkeeper trailed off, pondering the words of wisdom and the hypothetical future that awaited her - it made her face crinkle in displeasure - then she returned to her initial thought: "So we got Emmett to cook up some food and offered to bring it over. Let's eat!"

"Yummy time, yummy time! Misty likes her yum-yum time!" Mist fist-pumped in rhythm with her sing-song words. Rosetta smacked her head again before picking up the box and heading further into the bathhouse, climbing the stairs at the far end of the hallway. Mist followed enthusiastically, in a way akin to a puppy.

"Emmett made some of his world-famous curry dumplings! I got him to throw in some turnips, too!"

"Idiot, how can they be world-famous when Emmett's never even left Kardia?!"

"Hey, they're world-famous to me!"

"Newsflash: you don't rule the world."

"Not yet, Rosetta, not yet..."

Melody blinked, still holding the door open, as she listened to the two bickering blondes make their way up to her living quarters. "Um... thank you?"

Without realizing it, however, the knot in her stomach had loosened - and maybe she could use that newfound space for some food. She smiled; it hadn't even occurred to her just how much she needed a distraction. Beneath their respective idiosyncracies, Mist and Rosetta truly were good people - good friends. Melody closed the door to the setting sun, sending out another silent prayer that whatever was happening in the depths of Carmite, Raguna and the rest were alright.

# # #

Raguna was definitely not alright.

Wherever they had landed, it was certainly not one of the more commonly tread paths through Carmite. The adventurer's eyes flitted open to Lara's face bearing down on him, eyes brimming with worry, features illuminated by the glow of healing magic.

"Thank God," she said, predictably. "You're alright."

Raguna tried to lift his head but the world spun out of focus around him and it thudded back on the cold ground of the cavern. Lara gasped and moved her hands to his head, pumping it full of healing energy. His vision returned, crisp and clear.

"Lara, you're a lifesaver. Literally." He sat up, rubbing his head and shaking the dust out of his shaggy brown hair.

Lara may have been on the verge of her usual spiel about how it was God's work and not her's, but she resisted, simply giving Raguna a deep and grateful nod. The tears that had clung to the corners of her eyes fell to her lap.

"Good. You're up." came Mei's calm voice from the other side of the chamber. Raguna lifted his head up to get a better look at his surroundings: they were in a round cavern with only one exit, and the ceiling from which they had fallen was impossibly high and shrouded in darkness. Mei had managed to keep a fire going, and had laid out bedrolls for the three of them.

"How long have I..."

"Not long. An hour, or so. Lara only woke up fifteen minutes ago, and the process was sped up once she was healing."

"Wow, Mei..." Raguna gave her an earnest smile, "You're one tough cookie. I can't help but feel like we're slowing you down."

Mei poked the dried twigs and plants she had gathered into her makeshift firepit, then shrugged. "You've had your uses." She said nothing more on the matter.

Raguna's eyes then went to the remains of the odd, bell-like machine they had encountered right before the quake. It was thoroughly smashed and lay in several pieces on the floor; it no longer whirred, nor emitted the mysterious energy it once did.

"I took a quick lookaround, beyond that tunnel," Mei's ponytail bobbed as she worked on the fire, "It's a rough path, but if we clear out some rocks and debris we should get back on track. I could see faint light through the cracks in the wall - this may have just been a blessing in diguise. Getting this deep into the cavern by walking would have been far more time consuming."

Lara perked up in an instant and beamed: "Now that's the right attitude to have, Mei! God certainly does shroud his divine blessings in mystery. Why, I'd wager He sent tremors through the earth just to help us out!"

"If that's how your God wants to help, I'm going to request that he not send us anymore aid."

"What were those tremors from, though?" pondered Raguna. "Do you think the village is okay?" Panic began to clutch at his throat as images of a ruined bathhouse flashed through his mind.

Mei sat on the balls of her feet, satisfied with the fire, which was now crackling cheerily in the dark and hollow earth. "I wouldn't worry about it. Whatever the source was... it came from deeper within. There were a couple of aftershocks while the two of you were knocked out, but they weren't of any significant strength."

Raguna breathed a sigh of relief, then instantly inhaled it again in shock. "You mean - There's something here? In Carmite? Causing those earthquakes? Here? Where we are? And we're going to- to-"

His dark-haired companion nodded, fiddling with her rucksack. "Yes. We're going to dispose of it, as well as any of the other generators we find."

Lara dropped to her knees and traced a cross over her body, silently muttering.

Raguna fell back into his bedroll, staring up into the darkness. "Well, we did volunteer..."

Lara's voice sounded no more enthusiastic: "...And it is our duty... If not to Godwin, then certainly to God..."

"Good," Mei nodded curtly, spreading out what she had been fishing for in the rucksack under her obi. Raguna and Lara turned to see what she had extracted; Mei was laying out Mist's turnips on an unfurled piece of cloth. With the kind of quickness she'd employ while slaying monsters, Mei speared each of the turnips with one of her throwing knives, then held them over the fire. She crossed her legs and watched the flames patiently, as the smell of cooking filled the chamber. "You'd better eat up then, and get some rest. Things are probably going to get nasty."

Raguna grinned sardonically into the imposing darkness above him; he hoped that whatever Melody was doing, her dinner consisted of something better than roasted turnips.

# # #

Mei had allowed the troupe a few paltry hours of rest in the raggedy bed-rolls. When Raguna awoke – disoriented by the lack of sunlight and unable to tell what time of day it was – there was no indication that Mei had at all. She sat by the fire, stoically wiping turnip off of her knives. Lara was roused, and the three unlikely heroes set off once again, this time through a much more narrow passage, pushing aside large rocks as they went. Mei proved, again, that her short stature had no bearing on her strength.

"The turnips were surprisingly tasty," Lara combed her length of grapefruit hair with her fingers as she attempted to make small talk.

"They really were!" Raguna agreed, "I mean, maybe I was just really, really, hungry, but they hit the spot." He made a point of telling Mist this when they got out; the girl would be exuberant.

"I'd have preferred it with a side of fish." Said Mei, "But they were sufficient."

"Oh? What kind of fish do you like?" Raguna took advantage of the topic to try and get to know his traveling cohort a little bit better.

"That's not of any importance;" snapped Mei, then her tone softened, "…But I... am partial Masu Trout."

Lara agreed with her shorter companion – possibly for the first time. "Masu trout is delicious! Especially baked."

"Skewered and roasted over an open fire," Mei mumbled, "That's the ideal way to cook it. Now stop talking about fish. I've seen too many a good soldier fall due to their minds being on their stomachs and not on their foes."

"It's not going to kill us to get to know each other a little better," pressed Raguna, doggedly ignoring her advice. "Are there any other foods you like?"

"Were you not listening to me just now?"

"I'm just saying, it wouldn't hurt to -"

"There's a spider behind you."

Raguna chuckled. "Nice try, but that's not going to work. Just answer the question."

"Before or after the spider, that is actually behind you, devours your face? After, I'm assuming?"

Mei had been quite serious. Raguna turned around, only to see a spider the size of a large housecat dangling from a thick web. He yelped and fell back; Lara overreacted, letting out a piercing shriek, falling to her feet, and pulling her veil over her face. Mei cut it down and it began scuttling around in a panic, clicking with its pincers and emitting audible hisses.

"How did you—"

"I saw it crawling on the ceiling as we were walking by."

"Then why didn't you—"

"You insisted on asking wholly unnecessary questions."

The spider, aggravated by the intruders in its home, clicked its pincers in an angry call for help, and then immediately attacked.

"Don't let it bite you," Mei said at once, "Its poison will slow your movements to a crawl."

Raguna swung his sword, but the monstrous spider was already scuttling up the wall, a blur of black legs and red markings. "They're fast!"

Just as it climbed to eye-level, Mei thrust her katana directly into its abdomen; "But not fast enough."

The farmer smiled wryly: Mei was, well, totally badass, and all appearances aside, she was totally enjoying it. More spiders were soon swarming around their legs, and once again ignored Lara, who trembled under her veil; Raguna assumed they had mistaken her for some strange, pale rock.

Their weapons were once again drawn and battle ensued. The spiders could hardly withstand more than one or two blows, but the terrain proved to be the real obstacle: unlike the large, cavernous pathways they had crossed on the cave's ground level, these tunnels were tight and fraught with pointy stalactites and stray boulders. Trying to evade a spider flying at his face sent Raguna careening right into the hard, unforgiving wall to his back. Dazed, the boy didn't realize the spider clinging to his leg, all eight of its own curled in a tight clasp. Its numerous eyes all looked alarmingly hungry.

Mei batted away her current assailant with her arm in an attempt to get to Raguna, but she was a moment too late; he screamed as jaws pierced flesh, and once more as venom began pumping into his bloodstream.

"Kick it off!" yelled Mei as she bounded towards him.

"I – I can't!" Raguna had lost all feeling in his leg, holding onto the wall behind him for support. The spider was slowly making its way up his thigh. He felt lightheaded.

Mei let out a battlecry and aimed a precise kick at the spider, sending it flying. Raguna winced as she did; had her aim been even slightly off, certain… precious cargo would have been damaged. He didn't even want to imagine Lara's reaction to being asked to apply her healing down there.

Next thing he knew, Mei was hoisting him up on her back. He resisted out of habit, but the intense pain was becoming impossible to ignore.

"Lara, follow!" The petite girl, effortlessly holding up the significantly-heavier farmer, sped off, stomping on spiders and dodging the ones that hung from the ceiling. She heard a chorus of muffled shrieks follow her, and took that as confirmation that Lara was following instructions.

Mei kept running, turning back only to throw her poison-tipped knives into the throngs of arachnids behind them. She tried – but not exceptionally hard – to avoid Lara, who was foolishly running with her veil still over her face, giving her the appearance of a very distraught ghost.

The tunnels were widening, but not quickly enough, and even Mei had her limits. The poison was making it progressively harder for Raguna to hold himself up, and soon he was pressing his entire weight onto her body. This would not do.

With a free hand, Mei reached into her belt and pulled out one of the pencil-thin vials they had been given by Melody. The darkness of the cavern made it impossible to tell which potion she had just pulled out – an Antidote potion was dark, violet, and murky, but all the potions looked that way in the cave's poor lighting. She craned her neck to look back at Lara, who was still shrieking and darting around like a headless chicken – the white veil covering her head only lent to that image – and Mei knew she'd be of no use in her current state. She looked down at the potion in her palm again, her legs beginning to strain; it was a gamble, but Mei wouldn't have made it this far in life without taking a few gambles.

Snapping open the vial with her finger nail, she stuffed it into the mouth of the head lolling on her shoulder. "Drink!" She commanded to the boy while he still had a sliver of consciousness. She heard him take a few weak sips and cough at the liquid's bitterness. "Drink, or we'll all be spider food!" He drank significantly more quickly.

With the remnants of her spider-driven adrenaline, Mei kicked down what she suspected was a brittle wall – and was relieved when it crumbled. She barreled through the rubble and into another chamber, with Lara following clumsily behind her, a barrage of spider still at her heels. The monsters tried to clamber through the hole at the same time, getting caught on each others' limbs in the process.

The warrior girl dumped her cargo on the ground and kicked the spiders back into the tunnel. Her legs ached with every movement, but she was determined to drive them back. Defeating the horde was out of the question in their current state, and Mei's mind was racing as she tried to figure a way out of their current predicament.

"Mei! Look out!" cried Lara unexpectedly. Mei wasn't sure how exactly the situation could get worse, but fate had given them little reason to underestimate its cruelty. She heard something coming at her, and fast as her reflexes would allow it, she ducked, her hands touching the cold hard ground; what felt like a searing hot blade of energy passed over her head, singing her ponytail on her way down. The magic caused rocks to dislodge and tumble over the hole she had created, sealing up the spiders and silencing their endless clicking and hissing.

They were safe. Mei lifted her head, coughing through the dust and smoke that had risen following the landslide. Through the dust and the darkness she could barely make out the figure of a human – or at least, so she hoped – who stood with an arm outstretched and a long staff pointing at the cavern wall. His face was familiar.

The man lowered his staff, leaving a faint glow of magic trailing in the air. The clouds of dust and debris scattered, receding into the corners of the chamber and dissipating into the darkness.

"...Raguna?"

The man answered in an unfamiliar voice: "No... No, not quite."

"Who are you?" Mei struggled to her feet, a hand on the hilt of her blade.

Stepping out of the shadows, the stranger put forth a proposition:

"I'll answer your questions, if you answer mine."