"All right, lads, get your gear ready and take whatever you think you'll need. We don't know what's waiting for us down there."
David shouted to the rest of his men. They were a troop of 15 combat-trained mercenaries, and it took them just a few minutes to get completely ready: bulletproof vests, torches, climbing equipment and, of course, weapons, assault rifles and pistols.
"Mr. Bell and Mr. Ashley, you two will go to the centre. The rest of you will form a fan formation, half in front and half behind."
"All right, everyone, let's go."
After giving the orders, the team advanced. The door to the Faun was no longer in place, revealing a long tunnel that went deep into the mountain. Everything looked man-made, with smooth floors and walls.
There were 17 members in total, advancing and lighting their way with their torches.
"In this part, we have to descend by abseiling, Is there a problem, Mr Bell?" (David)
"No, we've done it before. Get everything ready. We have about 50 minutes before they get here." (Mr Bell)
"Who?" Soldier A
"Anyone who heard the explosion." (Mr Bell)
The team prepared everything from the straps to the detonator. The plan was to reach the end of a cylindrical hole located at the bottom of the initial tunnel. There was no ladder or anything else that would allow them to climb up or down, so they depended entirely on climbing ropes.
"Half of you will go first. Once you're down, secure the place. Then it will be Mr Bell and Miss Ashley's turn. Finally, the other half will go down" (David).
"It wouldn't be advisable to leave someone on guard, Captain" (Soldier B).
"It won't be necessary. Everyone go down" (Ashley).
The whole team made it safely to the bottom. They decided to go down at least 20 metres. The place they arrived at was different from the previous one. The walls seemed to be made of roughly carved stone. It was a completely dark and somewhat damp place.
"What the hell is that smell?" (Mr Bell).
"Brrrrreeww"
A bleat came from the darkness. It sounded like a simple goat, but in such a place it seemed horribly sinister.
"Everyone on alert, let's move forward slowly."
"Ready to fire."
They began to advance again, and the creature that had let out that bleat also found them: a muscular goat, standing upright on two legs and with fingers instead of hooves.
It cried out excitedly before running towards them, holding a stone in its hands, its intention being to crush their skulls with it.
"Fire" (David).
David was the first to shoot, followed by the mercenaries around him. A torrent of bullets bathed the beast, leaving it riddled with holes. It collapsed in a pool of its own blood.
"Brrrrreeww" "Brrrrreeww" "Brrrrreeww"
"More are coming, don't lose your cool."
David crouched down and rested his rifle on his knee. The rest took similar positions. More of those monsters ran towards them, all ending up like the first one.
David saw everything in slow motion, like the mercenary furthest from the group, flying right in front of him towards the wall behind them, his head exploding like an egg as it hit the wall.
""Splat!!!!"
A huge bipedal goat sent him flying with its wooden mace. Unlike the rest, it made no noise when walking or attacking.
(Satyrs, the records didn't mention anything about this.)
Mr Bell rubbed his expensive walking stick, one shaped like a dragon with a large ruby embedded in its forehead.
(Perhaps they came from some other underground tunnel.) (Mr Bell)
"I'll take care of it, Father."
"Freeze!"
Ashley calmly stepped out from the centre, raised both hands to the large Satyr and stopped it inches before it crushed the next mercenary, her psychic force imprisoning the Satyr and holding it in place.
"Could you please shoot?" Ashley asked with a smile to the mercenaries, who were frozen in surprise. No one imagined that this beautiful lady could accomplish such a feat.
"Fire!" (David)
The team concentrated their firepower on the head, and the enormous Satyr's head was blown to smithereens.
"Boom!" The large body fell to the ground.
"All right, guys, let's keep moving."
Ashley moved forward, swaying her wide hips. She had a perfect, very attractive figure.
"All right, you heard the lady, let's move on." (David)
Outside the tunnel, Former Faun Gate.
"Right, 15 minutes have passed, time to follow them."
William got up from the car seat. He had been watching the armed team enter the dark tunnel. He quickly searched the cars, but found nothing that would reveal what they were looking for or who they were, except for the two names he heard when he arrived: Mr. Bell and his daughter, Miss Ashley.
(I wonder what they're looking for. Maybe it's some kind of Indiana Jones-style treasure hunt.)
William moved forward calmly, even putting on his headphones. His new friends took care of clearing the way, descending the vertical cylindrical tunnel without ropes. William took the form of an owl and flew down.
(Wow, they really had fun, hmm, what's that?...)
The road is littered with corpses shot dead, a slight glint caught his eye, a steel cable attached from one end of the wall to the other.
(A tripwire with a Claymore, quite dangerous)
A Claymore was an anti-personnel bomb used in traps, you would lose a limb or die if you detonated one.
(I figured as much. Blind as a bat, these Satyrs have been underground for so long that they've lost their fur and their sight.)
William poked a relatively intact corpse with a twig. The Satyr's eyes were white and its ears were larger than in the illustrations. They had no fur; instead, they seemed to have thick leather.
"Crack"
There was a noise nearby, just around the corner. After walking a few metres, William saw the culprit, a satyr crouching over a corpse that looked like a soldier. The marks on the ground indicated that he had dragged it to the entrance of this tunnel.
"Crack" "Crack"
The crunching sound came from the soldier's ribs as they were broken one by one by the satyr in an attempt to reach the heart or some soft organ.
"Plattt"
William decapitated him with a single blow so accurate that it was a combination of Titan and William's great spear technique. William found it very strange that his family forced him to take private lessons with a spear technique master when he was only about 5 years old. From the beginning, they planned to give him his grandfather's spear.
(I can still feel the blows to my head from Master Pips' wooden spear every time I dropped mine on the ground).
(If I ever see that old man again, he'll pay).
William at that age was an adorable chubby-cheeked child, how dare he be so ruthless?
Great Hall in the United Kingdom
"Achuu"
"Perhaps a former student is praising my good education."
In a large hall, an elderly man with white hair and a moustache thought proudly before continuing with his cup of tea.
Mr Bell's team
(It seems I was right)
Mr Bell's theory that the Satyrs came from a different place was correct. The single path up to that point branched off into dozens of others, dug by the Satyrs, which were earth tunnels covered with roots.
"Which way do we go now, Mr Bell?" David asked, somewhat nervously. It wouldn't be funny to get lost down there with these creatures rolling around in the dark.
(The batteries should last a while longer before they need to be changed) (David)
"The next path on the right."
Ashley acted as if she knew the whole area; she had seen the place several times in her dreams and remembered what the right path to their destination looked like.
"And you, Bob, right? Go back, you're injured. Go to my father's side." (Ashley)
"We'll take a 10-minute break and then continue." (Ashley)
(So this is where they've ended up, with only one loss in the team) (William)
William, with his keen eyesight, watched the team resting a few metres away, lying in the darkness. It was easy to follow their trail, their scent, footprints, noise and, of course, corpses.
(That looks dangerous over there) (William)
A shadow approached the team, climbing up the roof. It looked like some kind of enormous insect, perhaps two metres long.
"Arggg"
It shot silk from its ant-like jaws, trapping an unsuspecting mercenary who was smoking, wrapping him in its silk and lifting him up to the ceiling.
The sudden scream caught everyone's attention. Ashley wasted no time, surrounding the giant insect with psychic force and tearing it from the ceiling, throwing it forcefully to the ground.
"Are you all right, Kevin?"
She hurried over to the mercenary on the floor. Apparently, she knew the names of all 15 team members. She stood in front of him, staring at the Insect.
"It's a White-faced Spider, famous for its hard shell."
As if to confirm Mr Bell's words, the spider got up from the ground and, after shaking off the dust, spread its eight legs. It was intact.
"They're afraid of fire, get out your incendiary grenades." Ashley tied her hair back in a ponytail, her white shirt already soaked with sweat and her skin glistening delicately.
"Nothing will happen to you with me here." (Ashley)
"Oooooohhhh"
The mercenaries shouted excitedly before surrounding the white-faced spider. As its name suggests, it had a human head instead of a spider's head, as pale as paper and with eight compound eyes looking in all directions.