The hole was small and narrow, which gave it little space for wiggle room. It was likely this that sparked Nike to determine that Timaeus was the best choice as the one to shift closer to the enemy and discover what was going on beyond the walls of stone. In this, Vangelis did not argue.

Whilst he might have assigned the task to Nike, leaving those of noble blood standing free of the rubble and in a less dangerous position, he did not refute her choice. She was his Commander and he trusted her to make her choices based on logic and never fear. And he wasn't able to volunteer himself regardless. His shoulders wouldn't fit through the gap.

As Timaeus agreed to the plan without argument, Vangelis offered a hand to take his larger and more awkward items - like sword and bow - and stepped back so that Timaeus could reach the hole once more. As he settled into the gap, head and arms first, shifting on his belly, Vangelis moved out of the way of booted feet that were forced to kick to shimmy himself along. He glanced at Nike, but his expression was hardly readable. Instead, he offered only a darting glance towards the cave's open mouth. There was no need for anyone to physically stand guard, but the entryway would need to be watched.

For his own part, Vangelis leant one of his shoulders against the rock through which Timaeus crawled and tilted his neck so that his head to rest against the brick. He closed his eyes, his ear pressed to the stone in order to listen to the progress the young nobleman made. If there was a stop or a shift - perhaps a scuffle of difficulty or a change in the booming voices beyond, he would reach into the hole for Timaeus' feet and yank.

Until then, however, he had but the one choice: to wait.

Even though the group had been aware that this mining town was home to a rather sizable operation, Timaeus was a bit shocked to say that least at just how large it was. As his eyes slowly grew accustomed to the low level of light, the sixteen-year-old boy could see for the first time how expansive this storage space was. Timaeus had expected maybe to see a few pickaxes, maybe a few boxes of candles, or something of that nature, but this space really seemed to be the base of all their supplies based on a couple of things. First and foremost, the sheer number of tools made it seem that this was the main locale. Even though Timaeus had not spent nearly as much time in the town as his companions had, he had still seen enough to know that the town just wasn’t big enough to justify having another bigger storeroom elsewhere. He was also rather shocked by how expansive the space was. Even in this dim lighting, it just seemed to go on and on. Maybe the sheer size of the place was an optical illusion brought on by the varying ceiling and floor heights mixed with the stalagmites and stalactites everywhere making this storeroom have the same feel as the same cavern that he had just been in.

Needless to say, Timaeus had not been expecting to come across this goldmine of supplies. He wasn’t going to complain though as this was the sort of thing that he was sure that the others had wanted when they approved sending Tim down that tunnel. Quickly getting over the shock of the sheer size of it all, the boy set to work counting as much as he could. Along one wall, he could roughly count about fifty pickaxes resting along the grooves in the wall. Timaeus could see that these tools were rather precariously balanced as some of them were alright lying against the floor, seemingly knocked over by their sheer weight. Keeping this in mind, he was careful not to touch any of them, giving himself a decent berth as he tallied up what he could see. The last thing he wanted, of course, was to alert some of the miners that there was an interloper in their storeroom. If he did happen to knock it down, maybe Timaeus would get lucky and it would be blamed some improperly balanced tool, but that just wasn’t a chance that Timaeus was going to take.

Moving forward, the boy moved to the other wall that had shovels balanced against it. The number of these tools was considerably less than the pickaxes. That was easy to see at first glance, Tim could already tell that there was barely ten lined up against the wall. If that wasn’t confusing enough there was a pile of half a dozen shovelheads with their levers in splinters. These were haphazardly thrown and lacked all the careful organization that the rest of the space, making it clear that in their broken state they were utterly useless. From what Tim could see as he was too cautious to touch anything that there were also no pickaxes in the pile. With all this mind, Tim could easily guess that whatever these men were doing in the tunnels, shovels were the tools of the day rather than the pickaxes. Could the men be expanding their illegal mine?

That seemed to be the most likely explanation, but that only caused a new layer of confusion to settle over the boy. He might have only seen a fraction of this cave system, but even he could tell that it already seemed to be an ideal sort of place to mine. Granted, Tim’s knowledge of this sort of thing was immensely limited as Eubocris was more well known for their quarries rather than their mines. However, even the dimmest of fools could see how easy it would be to take advantage of these interconnected tunnels and caverns that Timaeus had been crawling through. What was the point of expanding it if it was already an ideal spot made by Gaea?

Timaeus was fairly certain that the answer to this question would lay in what else was in this room as he had only explored a small section of it. However, it seemed that he wasn’t going to get much of a chance to search for it. Just as he was ready to move away from the wall of tools, the faint echo of voices began to fill the space. The words were nearly impossible to make out at first as the hanging rocks bounced the noises around the space, making them nearly unintelligible. Instinctively, Timaeus froze where he stood. He didn’t know if these voices were just merely passing by or if they were moving closer to him, but he was too nervous to move either way. Tim knew that he was prone to panicking and the last thing he needed was to prematurely alert these strangers to his presence if they were going to come nowhere him. His heart thudded away in his chest, nearly so loud that Timaeus was certain that the men could hear it, silently praying to whatever god was listening that these men were not heading his way.

There was no mistaking though that the miners were drawing closer to the boy that would have no good explanation for being down here. He could very clearly hear what they were saying now as the echoes were drowned out by the original source of the noise. Apparently, these men were bitching about some broken tools? Not that it really mattered to Timaeus as he knew that was his signal to get out of there as quickly as he could. Trying to move as quietly as he possibly could, Timaeus started to back up to the crack that he had slipped through to get into this space. As careful as he was being, there were so many loose pebbles on the ground that Timaeus was not successful in being completely noiseless and he could not escape the soft crunching that came with every step.

It seemed to be that the other men could not hear him though as his noises were lost in the din of their conversation, but Timaeus was cutting it awfully close. He could see the slight flicker of candlelight making things brighter behind him as he finally reached his escape route. Not wasting a moment, Tim dived right back in and squirreled out of sight. For a moment the Valaoritis lord thought that he might be out of danger, but the shuffling of feet from within the storeroom came to a heart-shattering stop.

“Hey! What was that?”

“What?”

“Over there! I saw something!”

Timaeus cringed at these words. For as careful as he had been, he had been noticed. Pressing himself tightly against the wall, the boy tried to move away from the crack and hopefully out of sight. He didn’t know how large these men were, but if they were nearly as large of Vangelis, it didn’t matter what they saw. They wouldn’t be able to follow them. However, if they were built like the gangly boy… Well, that would be a different story indeed.

The men continued their grumbling for a moment as the candlelight filtering into the cavern grew brighter, gleaming against a thousand little minerals embedded into the walls. Had Timaeus not been so terrified of being discovered, he might have been curious enough to try and figure out if this was what the men were after, but as it stood, the boy had to focus on saving his own hide right now. Even though the men were seemingly uncertain if they had seen anything at all, Timaeus knew that would change if he moved from his hiding space. The cavern was so bright now that he might be safe here in this blindspot that he had found, but if the men looked down the crack as Tim made a mad break for the tunnel, he would surely be spotted. The sensible thing to do would be to hunker down and wait for the men to convince themselves that they had only seen a rat, but the sheer bubble of panic rising up in him told him that he needed to make a break for it.

The urge to run was strong, but Timaeus was able to fight it off for the moment as Vangelis’s harsh comment about the boy being a liability rung in his ears. Tim had volunteered for this task for the purpose of proving himself. If he ran now when the danger of being caught was high, that would only prove the Prince right which was the last thing that the pridefully stubborn teen wanted to do. That alone was enough to have Timaeus push back against his gut instinct and stay still, waiting for the men to move along. It was only a matter of waiting them out, after all.

However, what Timaeus didn’t know was how Vangelis and Nike were up on the surface trying to decide if they should go after the boy. Being so far away from them, he was completely blind to the choice that was being presented to his two comrades above him. Naturally, if Tim knew that this was happening, he would will Nike to keep himself out of danger by staying out of the tunnels, but there was nothing that he could do. He couldn’t even give them a sign that he was alright as the two soldiers looked down into the once dark cavern, now suddenly bright with candlelight, but with Tim nowhere in sight. If Nike decided to come down there was nothing that the boy could do to stop him or warn the other man before they would come into view.

If that happened… well, the gods only knew how the three of them were gonna get out of this one.

Knowing that this was not the time to disobey Nike’s orders, Timaeus dived into the tunnel with a startled, strangled cry escaping his throat. He couldn’t see up to the top of the tunnel where Prince Vangelis was waiting for his comrades -- powerless to help them as he could never fit through the crawlspace that Nike and Tim had crawled through -- he could certainly hear the Kotas man above, shouting just as loudly as the men behind them. However, Timaeus couldn’t make out the words amid the pounding heartbeat in his ears as he scrambled forward. His gangly limbs clawed at the dusty walls of the crawlspace as he tried to pull himself forward far enough that Commander Nike could scurry in behind him. It wasn’t easy though. His earlier descent down into the cave had been easy. There had been no rush as he carefully maneuvered around larger, wedged stones that stood in his way. Plus he had been aided by gravity, gently pulling him down into the depths of this cavern.

Now both of these things were working against him.

His eyes stung from the cascades of dust falling on his face as he swept his hands forward, using them as a guide to where the obstacles were as he moved. The toll it took on his already exhausted body was immense as the slope of the tunnel was more akin to a slide than an escape route. He had to keep moving. Keep fighting against the slope that wanted to send him back down to the men below. The very same men that were now fighting Nike as the elder commander bought Timaeus time to reunite with Vangelis. That was really the only hope for them at this moment. Somehow Timaeus could scramble far enough up the tunnel that he could sound the alarm so they could either prepare for a fight or get the hell out of this town. But what would that mean for the commander stuck at the bottom of the tunnel? Timaeus already knew what the answer was going to be as he heard the sounds of a struggle somewhere beneath him, but it was a rough reality that he did not want to face as his feet kicked and his arms pulled, trying to give Nike enough room to escape behind him. That was the only reality that this boy with too much to prove and an inability to wrap his mind around the dangers of this quest could accept -- even as the writing was on the wall for the Commander fighting the two men deep within the tunnel.

Timaeus might not be keen to accept it, but there was little chance of Nike having an easy way out of this situation. Not when the odds were so heavily stacked against this group of bear hunters.

Or at least that seemed to be the case until the script was changed on them.

With Nike being a similar build to Timaeus and the men being as burly as the day was as long, the Commander couldn’t keep both miners away from the entrance of the tunnel. As he continued to fight with the nearest one to him, the other miner had stepped forward to the mouth of the tunnel and crawled in up to his waist, arm outstretched far enough to grab a hold of Tim’s dangling ankle. The boy cried out for help as he was yanked down and out of the caven. Tim tried to clutch onto just about anything that could keep him out of reach of this man, but it was utterly useless as he was brought back down to the ground with a hard thud that resounded through the confined space. His chances of escape were now gone, especially as the man decided that the best way to restrain the wild boy was to haul him to his feet and pin him to the nearest wall, throwing his body weight into keeping the little lord still.

“Got one!” The gruff voice rung out in Tim’s ears as he found that the miner was doing a rather effective job at making sure that the boy couldn’t move. He could barely even breathe with a rock wall digging into his chest and the man pressing into his back -- but that didn’t mean that he didn’t at least try to squirm against the two unmovable forces against him. Not that it was very effective when Timaeus couldn’t even turn his head long enough to see Nike use his throwing daggers to stab his attacker and scramble back into the tunnels to resume the task that Timaeus had failed in. He couldn’t see it for himself, but within the blink of an eye, he was gone, climbing back up to the relative safety of Prince Vangelis so that the two battle-seasoned soldiers could put their brains together and figure out what the could do to rescue Tim or at the very least somehow get the Prince down here so that the group might stand a fighting chance.

Though there might be no point to it when Timaeus was already a dead man walking. He was one boy trapped at the mercy of two men who were much stronger than him and knew that he had found out their secret. As soon as the cave grew quiet, Timaeus was certain that he was going to be killed -- there was no other way that this was going to end. Even though Timaeus would like to think that he was nothing sort of courageous in the most trying of circumstances, he still squeezed his eyes shut, afraid of what was going to come next. What were they going to do? Stab him? Crush his head against a rock? Being completely powerless to do anything, Timaeus could only pray that whatever method they chose, it would be a quick one.

However, as the seconds ticked by and the killing blow did not come, a small hope began to grow inside Timaeus. The small flicker grew into a flame when the man holding him against the wall broke the silence after a long uneasy moment, “He told you to go find ‘Vangelis’ -- that be the prince?” Good gods, Timaeus could practically feel the gross spittle leaving the miner’s mouth as he hissed these words into the boy’s ear. Tim involuntarily shuddered at this as he tried to think of what he could say in response to such a direct question. The little lord knew that he was supposed to deny the fact that he was in the company of the Blood General. That way, Vangelis could escape without the entire kingdom of Colchis being sent into a crisis if he died. Though, that really wasn’t much of an option if these men were only intent on capturing the bigger fish in this sea of hunters descending on the province. If Timaeus wanted to live, he would have to sell out the Prince.

So, that’s what he did.

It went against everything that he had been taught, but the Baron’s son nodded quickly in response to the question while muttering, “Yes.” He wasn’t supposed to do this, but what else was he going to do if it was his own life on the line? As much as it killed the boy inside, the men seemed to be satisfied with his answer. So, much so that Timaeus could feel the pressure loosen on his back as the first man stepped away, allowing the boy to sag against the ground for a moment as heavy breaths racked his chest. It felt so good being able to breathe again -- Timaeus could feel the fog covering his thoughts, dulling them begin to clear. However, before they were even given the slightest chance to sharpen, allowing the boy a chance to think his way out of this tricky situation, a hard fist connected to his cheek. Then another and another.

Timaeus couldn’t even feel the pain of being punched three times. He merely crumpled to the ground, unconscious from the second blow -- causing his captors to grin at how pathetically easy it had been to extract that information out of him. Now it was just a matter of putting what they had learned and the captive that they gained to good use in order to lure out the prized Kotas cub from whatever hole he would certainly be hiding in once Nike caught up to him. That would be a bigger payday than anything they could bring out of this illegal mine.

--

Even though Timaeus had no way of knowing exactly how much time had passed since he had first been captured in the cave -- by the point he regained consciousness, he could tell that it had been at least a few hours. That was easy enough for him to tell as he felt the cool air sting sharply against his aching wounds -- signaling that even though he was in a place where time practically did not exist, it was nighttime. Though the boy could take an educated guess at this simple reality by how dark everything was. Timaeus could barely see anything in his dark cavern as the few stray rays of light flickering in came only from stray torches left elsewhere to guide the path of the miners chiseling away at the rock surrounding this offshoot of the mineshafts. Light was something that wasn’t going to be wasted on a boy that was going to be killed soon enough anyway.

Feeling a dull pain in his hands, Timaeus suddenly realize that he had been restrained during the brief time he had been unconscious. Glancing down, Timaeus could see that he had been restrained in a rather basic way. His hands were tied in front of him, resting on his lap with almost no slack present in the rope around his wrists that by this point had made his poor hands turn a bright rosy color. Not there was much that he could do about that anyway. At least not when they were also tethered to a deep stake in the earth nearby -- one that the exhausted boy couldn’t pull out in this position. That didn’t stop him from trying though as he pulled against the ropes, bringing them up to his mouth at one point to see if his teeth would have better luck at pulling the knot loose than his confined fingers had done. However, there was no use. His hands were not going to be freed on their own.

“Oh, come on,” He quietly hissed as he continued to tug at the bonds like some sort of mad animal, not caring much that he practically sounded like one as well as he tried to free himself to no avail. There was no point in trying to be quiet. Not when it seemed to be that there was no one else in the darkness with him.

But then there was a sound.

It came from somewhere nearby in the darkness. He wasn’t sure what it was. Could it have been a cough brought on by the coal dust in the air? A grunt of frustration? A sigh of defeat? There was no way for him to be able to tell what exactly it could have been with it happening so quickly, but the boy didn’t need to know such things. Not when he was more focused on the fact that whatever the sound was it came from a human. Timaeus wasn’t alone in the inky darkness. There was someone there with him.

“Hello? Who’s there?” Timaeus called out into the darkness, voice quaking with a slight sense of fear as he waited for a response. This two-day long journey into the heart of Lyncaea had shown him that dark caverns were something that were to be rightly feared. He had been taken hostage in one and ran into a nest of angry snakes in the other. So, it was a bit understandable why the teen was not eager to find out who was there in the cave with him -- however, he may have been surprised to learn that not only was he not alone, but there were others with him who were trapped in the same situation -- tied up and kept in place by a simple stake in the ground. Others that would be on his side if they could find a way out of wherever they were. However, that required the other group who was here in the darkness with him trusting this strange kid who they couldn’t even see halfway across the room -- let alone help as they tried to free themselves. This was a terrible situation for all of them to be in.

How on earth were they going to find their way out?

Valerius had been quiet since the miners had overwhelmed his little hunting group. He’d been quiet, though by no means complacent as he had struggled against the hold of the two men that had drug him to this room and bound his hands. The small force of men that had locked them all in this dank and dark cavern had long since left. Val had argued with the other three about how exactly they should get out of this predicament for a while, but none of the ideas really seemed like they would be successful. There were too many variables. Too many unknowns. One of their captors had come and spouted threats of bodily harm if the prisoners did not shut up. The hunting group had grown quiet then, stewing in the silent darkness.

Hours passed. Two, maybe three. Sitting on the cold floor of the cave, their hands bound before them, the thick ropes tied to rings in a stake that had been pounded into the ground, two prisoners to a stake. Of course, it was so dark in the room that it was hard to tell just by sight what they had been tied to and with whom – but the arguments of earlier had told the twenty-four-year-old captain that he was paired with Damocles and the women were to his left… out of reach. Val had already tried to undo the knot on his hands or the ring he was tied to, but the rope was so thick and course he couldn’t get a good grip on it with the limited movement his bindings allowed him.

’Hello? Who’s there?’

Val, who had been resting his head on his bound fists, looked up then, trying to peer through the darkness of the cavern. The voice, though male, sounded young. The darkness was so complete that None of them had known anyone else was in the makeshift cell with them. ”Could ask the same of you. Why have you been quiet until now?” No one had brought anymore prisoners in, in fact none of the miners had bothered to look in on them since the one had threatened them for daring to speak. But he wasn't about to give out the information of who they were to this other 'prisoner.' There was no telling who this guy was. Though there was a hope that this other man had been with the crown prince and knew of his fate.

Val shifted his weight and the short rope he was bound with pulled taught. He growled under his breath in frustration. It was bad enough Val and the other had been captured. But all signs of the Prince and those that had been with him had led Val’s group to this mining town. They’d been apprehended on sight, which led Valerius to wonder if the same fate had been laid upon Prince Vangelis and the rest of the hunting party. Was the crown prince hurt? Was he alive? Those fears were only amplified by the revelation that they were not alone in this prison cell, such as it was.

The captain had had enough. They’d waited here long enough. Deciding it was time one of them took the initiative, Val pushed himself to his feet and lifted his hands enough so that the rope was taught – which only left his hands at just below his waist as the rope was rather short. ”Brace yourself.” he said to the other man tied to the same stake. Val turned to the side, using the pull of the rope as his guide to the stake’s location in the dark. Two deep breaths, gathering up all the frustration and anger he was feeling about this whole situation, all the worry about the Prince’s well-being, into the forefront of his mind. And he kicked. He didn’t land a solid enough hit on the stake – he’d miss just the distance and the position - so he pulled his leg back and kicked out sideways at the offensive thing again, adjusting for his mistake. He heard a crack. He kicked again. And again, harder each time, as his confidence grew. Until he heard a significant splintering of wood. Val dived forward and grabbed at the top of the stake, pushing it over to finish the break.

If the stakes were broken, they would at least be able to move about, though their hands would still be tied to a piece of wood. But at least they would no longer be sitting ducks. They’d have a chance to fight back and escape, a chance to find the Prince.