It doesn't have a choice. She'll push it all the way, if she has to.

It gets the message after a few pushes and goes in.

Nothing seems to happen to it?

Tyler definitely seems to be dissenting, though.

As does Blue.

He doesn't have a knife in his hand but it really feels like he does, y'know?

"Was that a personal friend of yours?" she inquires.

"Huh?" he asks.

She shakes her head and turns back to the arch.

"Never mind. Let's go." And she starts walking.

"Yeah. Sure," says Tyler, venom in his voice.

Doesn't seem to come through when Blue translates, but that definitely sounded like venom, ouch.

They're probably in it together, and Blue's trying to cover it up. She'll have to arrange to be the only one who comes out of here.

She might need to be careful, though – she saw what Tyler did to those fish. He could probably drill a hole through her if he tried.

But attacking him right now probably wouldn't be a good idea. He's watching her and seems to be waiting for her to make the wrong move.

Blue seems to be looking at her slightly suspiciously, but he doesn't seem quite as threatening as he did earlier.

He's got his keriol wrapped across his shoulders, though. Might be a useful weak point – not that he has any other powers, probably, just the weak light magic?

In fact, the only one of them who doesn't seem threatening is the one who's currently in the bubble, hugging his keriol.

He, however, is quite useless, as she well knows.

If the soul animal is a weak point for one of them, it's a weak point for all. Certainly something to bear in mind.

Further in, further in.

There is a rather dark tunnel! Nothing happens to the deer through it, so it's probably safe for them to go through.

In fact, the deer seems rather quiet. Still alive, but quiet.

She lights her saber. Just for the illumination, of course. Anything written on the walls?

There are a couple of small markings, but of course she can't seem to understand them. If they happen to have any meaning at all.

Blue translates anyway, obviously gloating that he has the translation ability. Look at him, so smug. He probably needs to be dispatched too, though she might be able to get some mileage out of manipulating him into things.

He came from Thario, after all, so he's probably quite weak willed.

The markings seem to repeat: Danger lies here for those with impure hearts.

Ominous, isn't it?

No witnesses would be safer, but she won't lock herself down to one course of action just yet.

It would be convenient if there were a fork in the path, a reason for them to split up.

It would be, wouldn't it!

… You know, eventually they'll probably stumble across one. Such as this one, right here. Can go left or can go straight on, both paths being extremely dark.

(But what will whoever separates do without the deer? Ooh, maybe Tyler should separate so he can use Thario as bait – that sounds like a safe thing to do, right?)

"We should split up here, search both at once."

Tyler looks down one of the paths and then back at her, obviously not thinking much of what she's said. "Any particular reason? Time doesn't seem much like a concern, here."

"There might be something that can restore a lost hand. If not here, then elsewhere. If Thario were present to have an opinion, I think he'd prefer we find it sooner than later."

"… He's already waited like twenty days, though."

He seems to say it very disparagingly. Like 'how can you be this stupid, of fucking course it doesn't matter, we don't need to be eaten, we need to stay alive while we look for stuff, ugh'.

"And that makes it better? I'll remember to take my time if you ever lose a hand, then."

Raised eyebrow. "It's better to have him wait another twenty minutes or something and for us to not die."