Stuck as a Dungeon Mob

In the elven underground, at least a good half hour of searching had passed. The undead proved to be better hiders than the elves initially expected. But that didn't mean they would never be found.

"Over here!" An elven warrior shouted noticing an oddity behind one of their stone crates.

"Did you find-!?" Another nearby elven warrior was about to ask loudly before noticing the nature of their operation. They had to be stealthy about this! The undead creatures shouldn't figure out they had been found.

Otherwise, the winged one just might fly out of the hole it dug itself into with the other in tow. The current number of elves in the surroundings meant that that winged undead could injure or kill some of them rather and make off with ease.

Actually, even without attacking escaping wouldn't be too large a problem in the case they were overestimating the undead's skills.

Knowing this, elves very quickly started to gather around the stone crate. In no time at all they numbered ten and the number kept on rising. That meant some other warrior groups already joined the elven woman Riniya's undead hunt.

By the time there were 20 stave-wielding elven warriors they felt more or less prepared to perform an all out attack. The only problem was that thinking about it clearly…

There was no way to deal any substantial damage to the undead if they were deep in the hole. The space would be too narrow for staves! Not just that but they would only be able to face the undead one by one as well.

"Riniya! I brought Riniya!" One of the first elves to gather said as they ran over with the elven mage. She looked aloof but simultaneously condescending. The undead creature was dumb enough to hide in the dirt? She would crush them!

"Step aside!" She commanded before moving the earth to toss away the crate blocking the hole where W surely lay.

A dark hole revealed itself just as expect. She then immediately readied herself to cast spells or manipulate the earth as she peered into the dark hole. To her surprise however, the hole was empty!

"No way…" Was it possible that the undead created many fake holes and they had been gathering around one for nothing? If that was really the case then…!

"Quickly! Run off and spread out! They might take the chance to run-" Riniya said flustered before pausing abruptly. That was because she suddenly noticed another possibility.

The hole was empty but it definitely looked as if it had been recently dug. That made sense, it hadn't even been very long since they started their search but nevertheless, it was suspicious. How long could it have taken to make this hole?

The suspicious point was that Riniya felt if they made multiple holes they would have definitely been caught by now. There were so many warriors patrolling after all.

She put her earthen mana to good use and scanned the area of the hole. Her eyes shone before suddenly swinging down her magic staff. The hole's wall crumbled and revealed a much longer tunnel.

But that wasn't all that it revealed, if one squinted their eye, they could see the white bones of the trespassing undead.

"Hmph!" Riniya didn't hesitate. She stretched out her staff and a few seconds later, the area surrounding the undead collapsed. The collapsed dirt seemed to gravitate towards the undead with the intention of crushing them.

'Arrrgh!' W screamed, dirt entered his hollow skull and threatened to leave him in the ground as nothing more than a fossil. The sudden immobility caused by the earth constricting and crushing his body had him panicked.

Noticing the extreme pressure, being left as a fossil would be a good result. By the nature of W's current body he'd be alive as a fossil, but Riniya was crushing his bones! His consciousness would start to slowly dissipate if he allowed that to happen.

'Stop it! What's wrong with you!?!' W screamed out as a last ditch effort. He could feel that Ed was close, he just needed to stall!

'Why are you so unruly?' W said with a hint of vexation.

The problem with this stalling plan was that W didn't have much hope when it came to appealing to the elves' more humane side. The elven mage Riniya already seemed so sadistic!

As W's toughened bones began to crack, he attempted to activate his skills to no avail. His charge only briefly rocked the earth due to the lack of momentum. 

With the failure of charge, the flap skill was hopeless.  W's wings were already twisted and frozen in place. Not even the elven sap could help with this problem, in fact one could only hope that if he happened to survived they wouldn't be preserved in such a state.

Just as W was starting to feel that death would soon meet him, there were exclamations of surprise from among the elves. These exclamations were of course inaudible to him but the crushing pressure had oddly enough lessened.

'Something's up' He thought as he prayed silently for Ed to hurry over. By which he meant actually transmitting his prayers to Ed who were it not for the seriousness of the situation might have rolled his eyes at his other third's exaggerated pleas.

For Ed, it was a race against time. As long as he was close enough to suck back the consciousnesses of both W and Idrisi it was a win for him.

W also knew this so he paid close attention to the spiritual mark on Ed. This meant he was completely disregarding what was going on outside his reach.

'My master may not be coming soon but do know you'll be in trouble if you kill me!' W transmitted. Insulting them might not work very well but there was a chance this would scare them right?

As for why he didn't reveal that Ed WAS coming… well, that'd be unwise. It would ruin the element of surprise and might also cause the elves to migrate away hurriedly if they truly believed him to be powerful enough.

It was then that the pressure on W suddenly lessened. Furthermore, it took no time for W to feel free and for all dirt on his body to move away until he was left impeccably clean. W was surprised, did his method work?

"An undead that can talk, how mystical" An elegant androgynous voice said. The language was unknown but W knew the speaker was undoubtedly an elf.

"Come on out friend, there's been a misunderstanding" The voice continued to say with their alluring gentle tone.

W could sense no hostility but he still exited the hole cautiously. As he came closer to the small tunnel's exit, he noticed that there were lots of elven figures centered around an elf draped with clean robes.

W was in disbelief as he exited and finally took a good look at the figure. They were an elf! That was right, they were a non-arid elf!

Their skin was unblemished to the point that W was having a hard time believing the figure was not a ghost. How could such perfect skin exist in a place where only sand and sun existed?

Seeing how smooth their skin was, one could already make guesses about their appearance. Needless to say, the figure was an unparalleled beauty. The problem was that W couldn't really tell if this elf was a man or a woman and it frankly put him on edge.

'Ahem, there's nothing wrong with an honest compliment from a man to another man either anyway… haha…' W thought nervously. If that wasn't a good enough defense, he technically didn't have anything in his current body anyway so-

"Hello?" The non-arid elf questioned noticing W's absentmindedness. W snapped out of his stupor after hearing the questioning tone and his mind raced to come up with a reasonable response.

The problem was as always the unfamiliarity of the language.

'I need to tell Ed to level up his language skill...' They could make language books for themselves while in the correct body.

'That wasn't a pleasant welcome' W said not knowing how to react to the sudden switch in attitude. He was honestly at a loss, why did this elf let him free?

Nobody told W that was what happened but scanning the surroundings made it quite clear that was the case. The arid elves still held hostile expressions while others showed a bit of shame.

W didn't blame them for their hostility considering his current form but he still felt a bit irritated. Maybe that was why his earlier answer held an obvious tinge of sarcasm.

"Ha-" Before the androgynous elf could let out a laugh in response to W's satire, the ground began to shake. It rumbled fiercely, almost as if angered and within seconds some elves were brought to their feet.

"What's going on!?!" "An earth shake?!" The natural disaster of earthquakes did happen in the dungeon, the strength was just a bit too unwarranted.

A part of the storage floor suddenly collapsed clouding the entire area in sand and debris.