“We found Dave a hundred meters from the exit, and unfortunately, he's dead. The weaver's spike had wounded him, passing between the armor plates. Dave apparently tried to pull out the thorn and damaged the abdominal artery.”

  “Get the rest of the ammunition from Dave. My helmet can't be fixed, so I'll take his helmet.” Said Cap, throwing away his helmet.

 The detachment made its way through thickets of small trees, the roots of which braided the ancient road connecting the grottoes. It took them an hour to reach the next huge grotto, the walls of which were decorated with massive sculptures supporting the vaults of the grotto.

  “Fragments of civilization! What was there?”

  “Hard to say. Part of the grotto collapsed. Below, everything was overgrown with bushes. What do you think, Cap?”

  “Apparently there was a square with a wide staircase to the surface. You can see the wreckage down there.”

  “Yes, we can't get to the surface here.” Gak looked at the wide tunnel in the ceiling, where the remains of a stone staircase leading to the surface were visible, and many weavers' ribbons.

 The grotto had good acoustics. The sounds of wild animals echoed over the stone vaults. After passing the grotto with sculptures, they got into the next grotto, the ceiling was lower there with a wide tunnel through which you could see the sky. The road along which they walked gradually descended into a low-growing underground forest and hid underwater. The shallow depth hid the entanglement of the roots, which made the path difficult.

  “According to the map, we are on the road leading to the obelisk. It remains to pass through two grottoes, then descend to the obelisk.”

  “Our scanners are clean. This can't be happening, because I can see movement in the bushes.”  remarked Bolt.

 Suddenly, the bottom stirred, the water boiled, something huge knocked everyone off their feet. This creature looked like a snake, but all covered with flat shells. Where it should have had a head, there were three broad carapaces and many black, developing hissing cords behind which a long, narrow, toothy mouth was hidden. She instantly grabbed one of the fighters.

  “Shoot! “

  “Vile creature!”

 Everyone opened fire, trying to get out of the water. Moving away from the stinging shots, the creature sharply curled into a ball and quickly turned around, scattering the soldiers across the bushes. Suddenly, a giant lizard jumped out of the bushes and grabbed the monster's head with a crunch. A fight broke out between the monsters.

   “While they're busy with each other, we need to get out of here. Has anyone seen Gak?”

  “He died. The thing with the tentacles chewed through his armor like a nut. I barely managed to escape.”

  “This is bad!”  Said Cap. “We can't go the straight road! Let's take a shortcut along the crevice. Judging by the map, it will be even closer here, prepare the ropes, we will descend.”

 Looking back at the fighting monsters, the fighters began to quickly descend the in crevice. Sam was the last to descend, in the fog that hid the bottom of the crevice, he noticed some movement.

  “I have a bad feeling about this.”

  “How interesting! I'll listen to you when we get down.” Cap snapped.

  “Crystals should have value, I'll take a little.” Bolt said.

The detachment descended to the bottom of the cleft overgrown with crystals. At the bottom, everything turned out to be wider and more spacious. Reaching the opposite wall, Cap consulted a map and led the squad further along the bottom of the crevice. They entered the cave and, having walked half a kilometer in the dark, found themselves in a grotto from floor to ceiling overgrown with crystals. In the fog one could see many passages, from somewhere above through the fog light was breaking through. The soldiers walked in silence, bypassing large crystals, looking at their feet and jumping over deep cracks between the stones.

 Sam stopped. His shoulder-mounted automatic guns swung their barrels up. Phil's weapon similarly reversed direction.

  “Sam, what's there?” Cap asked.

  “The scanner shows movement at the top.”

A second later they saw falling, black shapeless lumps. In the next instant, the clots turned around, and the fighters saw how some creatures with membranes between the thorns and with a tail at the end of which was a double sting dived quickly at them. The grotto was filled with the noise of gunfire and the vile screech of flying creatures.

  “They are flying from all sides!”

  “There are too many of them!”

  “Let's get out of here!”  Shouted Cap.

  “Get this thing off me!”  Yelled Bolt

Having killed at least a hundred flying creatures, the squad reached the next cave. They ran through it quickly, but no one followed them. Being pretty exhausted, they decided to make a halt. The soldiers slept, for about two hours alternately replacing each other. No one disturbed their sleep, and occasionally large centipedes running between the crystals paid no attention to them.

  “It's time to move on.” Cap commanded. “Bolt, come on. Bolt, stop sleeping! Bolt?”

 But Bolt did not react in any way. He sat leaning against the crystal. Cap, went up to Bolt and tried to wake him up, but saw only an extinguished life sensor. Cap also noticed a torn piece of armor fabric between the helmet and the neck armor plate, just in the place where the black flying creature gripped.

“It seems the birds were poisonous.” Phil concluded.

Bolt was dead. He was left in the same position as he had fallen into a death sleep.