"It lets you see things, like people–even if they are far away. There's a limit naturally, but with practice you can sense people in the next few rooms over if you were inside a house. Unfortunately it also gives me a splitting headache whenever it's crowded or when I use it for too long. It doesn't actually hurt me, it's just unpleasant." Shiloh watched as Synthesis used a sphere of flame to sear the roof of the cave. A clever tactic, definitely something to remember when exploring underground. It still held a possibility of risk should there be any ignitable vapors, but she hadn't smelled any since their walk so they would be fine. The humidity also would prevent the entire area from becoming bursting into flame even if there were any flammable gases. "I should be fine now. If I use it in short bursts I can offset the strain it puts on my nerves. It'll allow me to utilize it more efficiently."

She then closed her eyes and activated it again, breathing in slowly as the information began to come in. After a few seconds, she blocked it off, and had received a lower count of life signatures in the immediate area. "Looks like a great deal of those presences were slimes. There's a third less already. I have my own canteen if I need it, you should save your own water for later. I'd doubt the water here would be clean or safe to use."  When Synthesis was ready to move on, she would keep moving forward, with one hand keeping the cloth of her shirt over her mouth and nose. Once they reached the top of the slope, the path flattened. Another choice was before them, this time three potential passageways instead of two. Large stalagmites protruded from the ground where water dripped down from the ceiling, and a soft glow emanated from luminescent moss growing in patches on the walls. The air was starting to feel cold, in contrast to the tepid temperature of the lower passages. Still, there was no sign of the movement of air currents to give Shiloh any easy way to tell which lead them closer to the outside. 

Sythesis nodded and walked on, filled with suspicious apprehension.When the tunnel flatterned out, she halted beside Shiloh. Two of the passages sloped downwads while the other remained level. She peered into each one one at a time, extending her light as far as she could down each tunnel. Using magic to light the way like this was beginning to take its toll. She pulled it closer to her person again and dimmed it until it only just allowed them to see.
"I'll keep the light on a little longer," she said, "You should take a break from using your aura sense in the meantime and then we can take turns guiding the way. If we're gonna be down here a while, we should cooperate to conserve our energy."

"…Alright." Looking at each of the passages, she couldn't tell which one would truly lead them upward. Pulling her canteen out she swallowed a mouthful of water and capped it. It would be much easier if they could use a portable light source that didn't require magic, preferably one that they could throw ahead to see how the choices would pan out. That thought gave her an idea. "Hey, there's a lot of rocks around here…" Picking up a few good-sized pebbles, she stood before one of the passages and threw one in a rolling pitch. She listened to how the stone rolled, and how fast it moved. If it was slow, it could mean the path was uneven and sloping uphill. If it accelerated quickly, then it was moving downhill. If it was neither, it likely hit an obstacle or the area was flat. She tried this for each tunnel a few times with varying pitches to get a better idea on what each one led to. She was tempted to use aura sight again, but held to Synthesis' advice. With the tuning fork technique she had used earlier, she was left with two possible options.

"These passages are getting tricky. One of the tunnels that slopes downward comes up again after a certain distance, and the path sloping upward dips down later. It would be much easier to narrow down the choices with a bit more information." she grumbled, putting her weapons away. She wondered how long they both had been down here now. Would the paths with more plant life indicate greater proximity to the surface? Or would the areas containing more creatures tell where risk-takers often went in and out of?  

Synthesis was further impressed by Shiloh's ingenuity but remained silent as she tried to think of a way of gathering more information about their routes. Nothing came to her. She sighed.
"So, we should take the one that ultimately goes up, right?" She phrased it as a question despite it really being a prompt to get them moving again. There was no way for them to be sure of their choices now so, in her mind, it was best if they kept moving. The more ground they covered, the more likely they were to come across something one of them recognised or even the exit itself.
So she ploughed on, not bothering to check if Shiloh was following. If she had a better idea of which way to go, the other woman would have said. Sure enough, the passage she took did begin to go up after only several meters of sloping down.
"You know," She called backwards down the tunnel, "Someone, a professional, should really…"
She never got to finish her sentence. She was too distracted by the fact that she couldn't see the walls any more. So despite her fatigue, she commanded her light to blaze brighter and rise higher. Her lips parted into a silent O as she became aware that she had just entered an enormous cavern with a sizeable black drop in the centre that they probably didn't want to fall down. A small trickle of water dribbled down the wall and disappeared down it. It was probably once a mighty waterfall or something.
She certainly didn't remember this. She wondered whether they should turn around and try again. She turned to see if Shiloh was seeing this too.
"Do you… c - can you… What is this!?" She stammered.

Following behind, Shiloh took note of how the passage looked to remember the way they came should they need to backtrack. She had kept quiet, letting Synthesis take the lead until she saw the light from her fire orb become brighter all of the sudden. When the girl began to stammer after a prolonged silence, she came to look. Her legs instinctively froze to keep herself from moving any further when she saw what seemed like an infinite blackness stretching before them, and a toss of a pebble failed to produce a sound. Before the gaping abyss, Shiloh spoke using a quieter tone of voice as to keep the caster calm. "…Oh. This is…definitely not the right way. Let's turn around, and back away slowly." She then retreated to give Synthesis more space, ready to pull her back should the girl slip or something come after her. Looked like her aura sight was still one of the better options when it came to mapping out the tunnels.

"That leaves us with two other tunnels then. Unless there was another passage we didn't find, one of the two should be the way you came in." At this point she was just talking to keep Synthesis' mind off of panicking. Panicking was bad, especially in potentially life-threatening situations. To her finding things like this was fairly commonplace, but this very well might be the caster's first time seeing a bottomless pit in person. Thousands of possibilities about the chasm filled her mind, some of them worse than others. Right now she needed to focus on the positive, because thinking how all of this could go so very wrong was becoming automatic.

Synthesis nodded. She was almost too afraid to move. She had nearly walked right off the edge in her complacency. She didn't plan to make that mistake again. If it was her turn to lead the way, she was going to do so with her light as full power, regardless of the drain on her energy. Better tired than dead, after all.
"Okay," she breathed, "Okay, okay, okay…" She chanted quietly as she eased herself backwards.
Once a good few meters away from the edge she turned and offered a weak smile. She didn't trust herself to speak, lest she should actually cry. What a child she was! Perhaps it was best that Shiloh lead the way for a bit while Synthesis recovered herself. She took a deep breath before muttering as much. It wouldn't be for long. She'd earn her keep eventually. She vowed it to herself.

Seeing Synthesis was now out of the danger zone, Shiloh took a seat by the walls of the tunnel. "Let's take a break for a bit. You've been using that spell continually since we met, so now's a good time to save your energy. I've got a torch and a tinderbox so we can use that for now." Setting her knapsack down she retrieved the items and lit the torch, trying a couple times before the flames ignited. Shiloh then held out the torch towards the caster, her expression suggesting she take it. In case they were in a pinch, she needed Synthesis to have enough energy to cast spells, or alternatively–flee. Stowing the tinderbox back and slinging the knapsack over her shoulder, she conjured bread and cheese for herself. Best to recover their stamina when they could, than force themselves to press forward and burn themselves out. 

"We'll need to be careful. Can't afford to burn ourselves out before any creatures even get to us." She advised between bites. "This is a cave system, which means prey is hard to come by here for predators. Chances are most of the creatures here are opportunistic, either waiting for their food to fall into their mouths or taking on ones which are in a weakened state. We can't let them take advantage of us just because we're unfamiliar with the area." The odd way she phrased it sounded as if she were referring to bandits or scavengers rather than beasts. 

"Um, Y - yeah." Synthesis murmured, "Sounds good to me."
She moved to take the torch from Shiloh, extinguishing her own light as she did so. She hadn't realised just how much of a drain it had been. As soon as it was gone, she signed in relief and backed up until she collided with the opposite wall, sliding down it. She watched in satisfaction as Shiloh finally conjured and ate some food. It had bugged Synthesis that the other woman had produced food for the druid and taken none for herself. It was also nice to know that her companion had limitations such as hunger too. It made her feel a whole lot less inferior.
It look quite some time for Synthesis to relax. Shiloh's talk of opportunistic scavangers like they were intellegent and malicious beings was not comforting, however, her calm demeanor and steady voice was. The girl nodded along with the woman's words and the adrenaline slowly drained from her veins, leaving her pleasantly soothed. She even allowed her eyes to flick closed for a moment before she stired herself. She didn't know how long they were going to stay there. Long enough for her to grab another nap? Just enough for Shiloh's sandwitch? The human certainly had expressed her desire to get out as soon as possible. She decided she would simply follow Shiloh's lead and in the meantime she began to rummage in her bag. She pulled out her canteen and took a sip.
"So, what do you do for a living?" She asked idly. Conversation usually took her mind of nasty matters; such as the possibility of seeming lazy to her new friend, or dying in a dark cave without ever seeing the light of day again.

"What do I do for a living? Mostly odd jobs, here and there. Sometimes it's deliveries, other times I take requests people post up in the taverns. Usually it's something simple like delivering a package or acting as an armed escort. Occasionally, it's a creature with a bounty on its head that's been causing people trouble or other losses. I once helped a man reclaim his stolen goods from some thieves in a reverse theft. Not exactly the type of high-stakes work I'd like to experience again." Finishing her food, she washed it down with more water and wiped her mouth on her sleeves. Reading the caster's face she added, "By the way, I don't do assassinations. Too many risks and too much of a hassle. In short, it leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Besides, taking other kinds of jobs is so much easier."

Maybe it was how she carried herself, or how she acted. When she started looking for work after leaving Vilpamolan, some people had mistaken her for a blade for hire. They looked so surprised when she flat out refused, as if they thought it was a practical joke. With her skills and expertise, becoming a hired executioner would be easy; but that wasn't what she wanted in life. She didn't care if those missions paid her weight in gold–she wasn't going to do it. There were hundreds of people out there, struggling to live. Why make the situation even worse? Enriching herself at the cost of others' lives? Not in a million years would she even dare to entertain the thought. The entire idea of it was enough to make every strand of hair on her head stand on end, figuratively speaking. She hated it.

She waited for a while, letting Synthesis rest. She wasn't much of a caster herself, but she could understand that the action of using magic was exhausting to the user. Looking around at the walls casually, she told her: "Whenever you're ready, we'll continue checking the other two passages. We should rest while we can." Time was precious here, and missing an important opportunity would not be advisable. There would be no way to undo their choices and actions, so they should take it one step at a time. It was easy for her mind to race ahead and forget the present, as Synthesis might have done when they discovered the chasm. That neuroticism of was a bad habit of hers, and it was hard to break. There was a fine line between being careful and paranoid, one that was often crisscrossed more than it should. No use wearing herself out with all this stress, Shiloh told herself.

Synthesis relaxed as Shiloh made no move to get up, resting her head against the wall behind her and breathing deeply. She could feel the after effects her recent expirence fading away. She was no longer tense or highly strung. She was content and sinking back into a blissful state of denial.
"I'm similar to you," Synthesis replied, "I do whatever to get by, even though I'm not as skilled as you and I generally work for myself. I keep moving and meeting people and help whenever I can. It's a pleasant life really, when I'm not in a foolish situation such as this one. I should have learnt by now that my ideas aren't always the best."
Above her, Synthesis became aware of another patch of damp slithering slyly across the stone roof. She held up her torch and watched it sizzle with satisfaction. Maybe she was becoming braver, though. Previously such a think would have made her panic. Even the gaping abyss a few meters away seemed innocuous now. She picked up a stone and tossed it in that direction, listening as it clacked against the sides of the seemingly endless ravine as it went down. She never heard it hit a bottom. How curious.