It took them six hours of pushing through isolated rooms of flayed horrors and twisted teratomas before they found another rest stop. Hours of bloody work, hacking apart the twisted flesh of depths-born, getting coated in more gore as they progressively grew more and more exhausted. When they finally stumbled into the room of bunks Kaius slumped as he sheathed his sword.

    With leaden arms, he and Porkchop pushed one of the bunks against the door, before making enough space to set up their new dimensional tent. Kaius looked away as he activated the mechanism, seeing no reason to ever tempt fate by staring into an abyss that stared back.

    They crawled to the end of the room, finding a nook with a grated drain. This was no hot rain room like they had had in the dwarven manors. Instead a simple enchanted water source was set into the wall, attached to a spigot that released a steady stream of freezing water. Decidedly uncomfortable, but it was pure, clean, and a decent enough way to wash. Unfortunately, it took him the better part of an hour to work out all the little scraps of flesh and gristle that had gotten worked into the scales of his armour.

    By that time Porkchop had already dozed off on one of the bunks, waiting for his fur to dry before they retreated to their tent. Feeling hungry, Kaius decided against doing the same. Instead he investigated the galley kitchen with its enchanted cupboards, and its simple stovetop. Despite the sheer luxury and expense of having a bloody stasis enchantment for food preservation, the Depths seemed oddly fond of them.

    Much like the last bunk room they had found in this biome, the food was an austere affair. Mostly non-perishable rations. Grains, breads and the like, though there were a few preserves as well. Not quite food worth ransacking, but it served well to stretch the quality stock they had looted from the dwarven estates before they had left the city.

    He decided on a simple dish of pickled vegetables, salted meats, and a large helping of rice that he had found in a bin under the bench.

    Porkchop woke up towards the end of his cooking, ambling over when he served him a portion. They ate in silence, far too exhausted to make casual conversation. As soon as they were done they retreated to their new tent.

    Kaius collapsed onto the large mattress that took up a good quarter of the room of their new abode, groaning as the feather soft bedding cradled him. He was out like a light in seconds.

    Waking the next day feeling well rested and refreshed, Kaius looked around only to find that he was alone in the tent. Porkchop had already left. Rubbing at his bleary eyes, he pulled himself to his feet and pushed his way past the flap of heavy canvas that acted as the tent''s entrance.

    Porkchop lounged on one of the bunks nearby, craning his head to look at him.

    "Morning." He said.

    "Morning," Kaius replied. "I''ll make us some breakfast before we suit up and leave?" He asked, tilting his head towards the kitchen.

    "Please." Porkchop responded, clearly still tired as he slumped back down to doze on the bunk. Kaius grinned. His friend was many things, but an ardent enjoyer of mornings he was not.

    He walked over to pull open the cupboards in the kitchen, quickly finding a dozen eggs and some cheese that he had spotted the night before. After a few minutes of prep, he had a full dozen egg omelette sizzling in a frying pan on the stove.

    He got dressed as he waited, though he only put on his travelling clothes and his sword. The armour could wait until they left. It wasn''t exactly the most comfortable attire, even if it was well fitted. By the time he was done, so was the omelette. Slicing it in half and sliding it onto two plates, Kaius left one on a table for himself and walked the other over to Porkchop, setting it down next to his face on the mattress.

    The smell got his friend moving, though he didn''t even bother to sit up before he craned his neck and started gnawing on the eggs and cheese.

    Smiling at Porkchops antics, Kaius returned to his own breakfast and attacked it with gusto. After they finished, he picked through the cupboards one final time. Deciding to take some cheese and fresh bread with them, he wrapped the food in some cloth and stowed it safely in his pack. Thankfully its water repellent enchantments were effective against bloodshed, otherwise most of their stocks would have long since been ruined.

    He suited up, buckling on his scalemail and vambraces, and then they left. Returning to the grinding drudgery of pushing through alchemical workshops and putting down shifting abominations of flesh. As nice as it had been to get clean, it took all of one encounter with a pack of twisted teratomas for them to be inundated in gore once more, souring the mood.

    Yet despite their recent expedition from the bunk room, it only took them a handful of hours to encounter something new. Something different.

    "Except when it doesn''t" He thought, gnawing on his cheek.

    Though, now that the shock of seeing a Guardian had passed, he could see that there were entrances to each of the enclosures. Double sets of thick steel doors linked by a short hallway, providing an entrance or an exit without compromising the security of the room. An airlock system, smart. He''d bet a gold coin that whoever had runed up the glass had also made it impossible to open both doors at the same time.

    "Well it''s certainly something." He turned back to murmur to Porkchop.

    "Let me look then!" Porkchop replied.

    Kaius stepped to the side, watching with amusement as his friend stood rooted to the spot. Much like he had been, Porkchop was immediately captivated by the sight of the bone tree Guardian at the far off end of the hall.

    "Fancy a tangle with that over the ogre?" He asked. Mostly in jest, the thing looked monstrous. If it was anything like everything else they had seen in the biome, he wanted absolutely no part in it. Who knows if they would even be able to do enough damage to outstrip its Health regeneration?

    "Yeah, no thanks." Porkchop replied quickly.

    "Thought so," Kaius snorted. "We should probably move on then. Don''t want to tempt fate."

    He started to turn to head back the way they came, they had plenty of other routes to pick without crossing to the other door on the opposite side of the hall.

    "Wait a moment," Porkchop said, catching him with a paw. "What about the other enclosures?"

    Kaius followed his friend''s eyes to where some sort of variant of a flayed horror prowled back and forth behind the glass, completely unaware of them watching it. It was pretty big, a good stride or two taller than the normal ones, and it did have a second set of arms bursting out of its ribs.

    He roamed over the other sealed bays, seeing two more had living specimens. One, some kind of cat thing with tendrils sprouting from its back, the other some kind of bear covered in bone plates that wept pus. Unlikely.

    "Doubt it. Three champions and a Guardian in a single room? We''d have to be luckier than sin." Kaius replied, looking at the contained specimens with scepticism.

    "Just identify one then you idiot." Porkchop jeered, though Kaius could tell he was just teasing.

    "Fine." He said with a roll of his eyes. It would be a waste of time, but a small one.

    He focused on the cousin to the flayed horrors.

    Subject #38949 ''Lover Boy''- Level 26:

    Champion, Depths-born, Abomination (Flesh)

    "Well, fuck."