Boundless Evolution: The Summoning Beast

The carrion beetle came out of the rubble like a sprung trap—half-shattered carapace, one eye gone to ash, its body leaking a foul stench of decay—but with those hooked mandibles still cruelly intact.

They shot out, clamped, and caught. The world lurched yellow-white with pain as jagged mandibles sank into Ash's hind leg, trying to tear flesh the way they would strip carrion from bone.

Ash let out a raw, guttural noise of pain.

He faltered. It was not dramatic—a stutter in his stride, a heel dragged an inch too long—but momentum and Veyra's weight turned a stumble into a spiral.

He snarled, twisted, snapped down with his jaws and raked with his foreclaws, trying to wrench free.

The carrion beetle shrieked, the sound like iron tearing mixed with the wet rasp of meat being pulled apart, and dug in deeper, its rancid odor filling the dust-thick air.

"Ash!" Veyra's voice was right at his ear, hot with fear.

She tried to twist, to reach an arrow, but there was no space; she could only hang on as he bucked.

A new concussion rolled the tunnel. The sound cracking through the passage like a war drum, louder and closer than any before.

Ash's clones turned sharply, pivoting in eerie unison, their eyes flaring as Veyra's cry cut across the chaos.

The rest of the party swung their heads toward her voice.

Ash, leg clamped in the carrion beetle's rancid mandibles, was buckling mid-stride with Veyra still on his back.

"Hold him!" Tholn roared, immediately vaulting from the clone beneath him.

"Help them!" Yvren shouted as the clones lunged forward. Even Kalrek, pale with terror, twisted in Riven's grip, staring wide-eyed at the scene.

The clones hurled themselves back toward Ash, claws scraping and teeth bared. They clamped his jaws onto Ash's scruff, tugging hard as they tried to pry Ash free from the beetle.

But every pull sent fire lancing up his leg, pain tearing through him worse than the beetle's bite itself.

Veyra clung desperately, arms locked around Ash's neck.

Tholn broke into a full sprint, blade raised high, ready to slash the carrion beetle's head from its body. His snarl cut through the chaos, a promise of steel and fury—when the tunnel convulsed beneath them with a deafening roar.

RUMBLE! CRACK! CRASH!

The floor didn't just sink like before—it completely crashed...

With a thunderous detonation the stone gave way, a deafening crescendo of splintering rock and shattering resin. The ground tore itself apart around the area of the debris and the beetle, dragging whole slabs into the abyss with a sound like mountains breaking.

The world dropped in a cataclysmic lurch, and suddenly the carrion beetle—still latched mercilessly to Ash's leg—was left dangling in the gaping void, Ash's body wrenched helplessly with it as rubble cascaded behind them in an avalanche of ruin.

He felt the carrion beetle's rancid weight dragging him downward, the pull irresistible. His paws slipped a handspan, and his chest lurched with the sickening realization that he might go under but just then...

The clones caught him, claws digging into his scruff and shoulders, muscles straining as they hauled him back just enough to stop the fall.

For an instant he steadied—then white-hot agony tore through his leg, sharper than before, as if the beetle's mandibles were sawing through bone itself.

His roar cracked through the collapsing tunnel, pain blotting out thought even as despair coiled like a blade in his gut.

Veyra clutched him with both arms and one knee, bow trapped between them, her cheek crushed to the line of his neck.

"Don't—let—go—" she gritted, and he felt her breath through the dust.

Just then the others skidded up to the ledge, coughing through the storm of grit. Kalrek's voice cracked high and frightened as he leaned forward, eyes wide. "Are you two okay?"

Hearing her, Ash's eyes widened as he realised Veyra was still clinging onto him.

'Need to get her up!' Ash thought to himself as he tried to use his remaining leg to pull himself higher up.

But as he pulled himself up, the ledge beneath his claws groaned and began to crack, splintering under the strain.

Dust spilled in fine streams from the breaking stone, warning that even the ground he clung to could not be trusted.

'I can't put any more weight on the ledge...' he realised as he hurriedly eased on pulling himself up. He felt every desperate tug, every dagger stroke, every clone's claws scrabbling, and he knew with a sick certainty that the rubble was winning. The beetle's mandibles are locked too deep...

Just then the others skidded up to the ledge, coughing through the storm of grit. Kalrek's voice cracked high and frightened as he leaned forward, eyes wide, "Are you two okay?"

Ash bared his teeth, voice cracking through grit and blood as he told them, "Take Veyra first—get her clear!"

There was a beat—just long enough for the order to land.

Tholn's eyes flicked from Ash's torn leg to the splintering ledge, measuring risk.

"We can pull her—two count," he snapped.

Yvren immediately joined in as he stuck out his staff for Veyra to grab onto, "Brace the edge!"

Kalrek blurted, "Wait—what about—"

"Do it," Ash snarled, forcing the choice.

Veyra shook her head once, stubborn even with dust streaming in her eyes.

For a heartbeat she hesitated, her grip tightening on Ash as she registered that he was putting her safety before his own.

"Ash's call," Tholn cut in, voice like steel, "On her."

The tree of them, holding onto Yvren's staff, reached for her at once.

Veyra's hand stretched, fingers brushing the staff, almost finding her balance on the brink...

'Almost there!'

Just then, the ground gave a final scream.

The ledge shattered with a sound like a world breaking, and both Ash and Veyra were torn from their grasp, swallowed together as the ground gave way.

The collapse roared like a beast, stone and resin smashing down in a furious cascade.

A colossal plume of dust and smoke exploded outward, swallowing the tunnel in choking darkness. Chunks of shattered ceiling slammed into the floor, sparks of fractured aether lighting the storm for an instant before vanishing.

The rest of the party reeled back, hacking and blinking as the rolling cloud of grit enveloped them, stinging their eyes and burning their lungs.

For a long heartbeat they were stunned, caught between the ringing thunder in their ears and the blindness of the dust storm. Shapes shifted as they tried to get their bearings.

"Roll-call!" Yvren's voice cut through the chaos, hard and commanding.

One by one the survivors answered—Kalrek groaning as he pulled himself upright, Tholn slowly getting up onto his feet as he patted the dust off of himself.

No other voices...

The silence hit harder than the collapse. Faces turned to the ruin where the ledge had stood.

"No…" Kalrek whispered, eyes darting across the fractured stone, "They were right there."

He was the first to move, stumbling forward to the edge where he fell to his knees, the dust caking his face as guilt hit him like a hammer.

His usual sarcastic tone vanished, replaced by a broken rasp, "It's my fault… I should've timed it better… I should've—"

Yvren strode up, voice sharp but steady, "Kalrek, calm down. This isn't on you."

Tholn planted a firm hand on the rune-smith's shoulder, dragging his eyes up from the rubble below, "We would all be beetle food without you, don't blame yourself. We need to move or we'll lose them for good."

Kalrek's lip trembled as his thoughts spiraled darker. In his mind, he saw Ash and Veyra already crushed, lifeless beneath the stone.

"They're gone… I killed them…" he muttered, the guilt choking him harder than the dust.

Yvren dropped to a knee beside him, voice firm, cutting through the despair, "No. Ash is still alive—I can hear it, feel it. Don't you dare write him off."

Tholn's hand clamped harder on Kalrek's shoulder, his glare steady as steel. "He's right. Ain't no way the prophesised one will die from rocks..."

Kalrek swallowed, the wild panic in his eyes dimming as the weight of their words steadied him. He gave a shaky nod, trying to force himself to calm down.

As he slowly got up onto his feet, another seam split overhead with a teeth-rattling crack. Fragments rained down, forcing them back even further.

It was clear the tunnel was still unstable, like a wounded beast ready to finish collapsing at the slightest provocation.

"Options?" Tholn hissed through clenched teeth.

"The most logical option is to head back, hurry back to Verkath Hollow and get reinforcements," Kalrek offered, his head deep in thought as he began planning "Consider that the tunnel fell downwards, means that there are more levels and that means more beetles. We will need more man power."

He then continued, "But then the longer we spend outside is the longer we will be putting Ash and Veyra at risk of the beetles... we need to decide fast."

Kalrek's voice immediately chimed in, a rare spark of seriousness plastered over his face, "So either we risk killing them or we abandon them. Not happening."

His tone carried no room for dissent.

The three fell into a grim silence, each weighing death against failure, until Tholn finally spoke, voice low but steady, "Then I guess we'll go looking for them. We'll head back from the way we came from and take the other tunnels, there may be another route to where they fell."

"Understandable, we'll take that approach. No one leaves," Yvren declared, after hearing the opinions of the two Kin spoke out through their words of comradery, "We go deeper, we find another path, and we bring them back."

Together they turned from the broken ledge and pressed into the dark, their footsteps echoing as they ventured deeper in search of Ash and Veyra.