The tunnel shivers and a human tooth falls into your coffee. You watch bitterly as the chunk of white bone bobs up and down in the black liquid, vaguely aware that somewhere high above you an artillery strike must be falling. Or perhaps something is walking across the blood soaked earth...something so large its shape is nothing but a hazy shadow in the smoke and mustard gas. You shiver involuntarily as the earth shakes again, more soil and hardened clots of blood showering down on your head from the ceiling above. The smell of iron and gunpowder becomes momentarily overwhelming

Augustus is looking at your ruined coffee, his wizened face compressed in a stare of intense consideration. After a long moment he snatches the tooth out of your coffee with his remaining hand and presses it into the soil of the tunnel wall. He closes his eyes and rapidly mumbles,

"Return to the earth, pay us no mind."

over and over again.

Alan chuckles to himself without looking up. He's crouched with his back to one of the tunnel walls, lantern at his feet, sorting through a stack of scavenged jewelry. He holds each piece up to the light one by one and examines them carefully, tossing most and pocketing a few.

"A rogue tooth is the least of our fucking worries, Augustus. Not unless its attached to another living fossil."

Augustus shoots him a withering glance.

"Don't call horrors down on us with your blasted arrogance."

Alan is about to argue back when Gideon lumbers back around the corner, hunching his massive shoulders to fit. He looks between Augustus and Alan, the pair silently ignoring each other, before grunting and jerking his head back the way he came. Augustus and Alan rise and follow him without a word. You swallow your fear and dump your coffee out onto the thirsty floor before trudging after them.