"I feel a little sick... like I've been cursed."
Theophilus, a layer of ash on his head, looked uneasy.
“It's just the Lower Hive playing tricks on you,” someone replied, trying to sound confident. “Besides, there are eight of us...”
"Ten..." Amy said quietly. "Counting Stray Dog and that Rat Person..."
"N-no, it's fine. We're not from the Lower Hive!" Theophilus stammered. "And with the two Earth Elementals, there are twelve of us!"
“What makes someone an Underhive Dweller? Coming to the Lower Hive? Surviving in the Lower Hive? If surviving in the Lower Hive makes you an Underhive Dweller, then for how long? Do Earth Elementals count as Underhive Dwellers?”
Being Mages made them good at using Wisdom to analyze patterns. Fear made them use Wisdom to analyze patterns in a panic.
Ignoring his teammates as they frightened themselves, Annan gazed with Alice toward Little People Town, where a nursery rhyme drifted through the air.
There were still people alive in the town... They had arrived ahead of the group from the Academy that was slaughtering its way through the Lower Hive.
"Do you know about this curse?" Theophilus was still asking Stray Dog.
"My lord, I've never heard of it..."
Curse or nursery rhyme, they would find out in town.
As they approached Little People Town, they spotted Lower Hive residents camped outside it. Most of the figures wandering or lying in the wasteland were young, their fresh faces still holding traces of longing for the town...
A few youths clutching stones blocked their path, fighting each other with crude weapons.
...But they had already taken on the Lower Hive's cruelty.
"Move!"
Stray Dog strode ahead with his nose in the air. The brawling youths scattered, retreating to corners to lick their wounds. They could tell who was