Disclaimer: I don't own Bravely Second, all rights to the owners.
The hallways on the second level are similar to the first, but noticeably more decayed. Many of the floors have been broken into rocks or have been ground into pebbles, revealing sand below despite the fact that they're in a mountainside, and the walls and ceiling are all scraped and scratched with some portions of the wall pillars also being missing.
"We need to be especially careful in this layer." Edea warns. "I remember there being a lot of sandworms in this level. They can tunnel right up from below you, so be on guard."
Yew already knew that. He was going to give that warning, until he remembered that he wasn't useful.
"I wonder if the sandworms are why this level is so much more destroyed than the one above." Tiz muses. There's an awkward pause, as if he expects someone to respond, and when no one does he coughs and looks away.
Thanks to the ground being mostly destroyed there are remarkably few traps that the group are even capable of activating. The pressure plates have long since been crushed, and any golems or mummies have either moved out or been killed by sandworms.
There are also broken walls leading to new paths that aren't mentioned at all on Yew's map, leading to several wrong turns and sandworm fights until Yew figures out what happened.
And then, the worst happens. Edea steps through the sand, feeling something hard beneath the surface, and suddenly a giant form, a sandworm, bursts out of the ground, taking Edea with it in its mouth as it does, because the hard thing Edea stepped on was a tooth.
It's only a quick frost spell from Tiz that prevents Edea from becoming sandworm food. The spell hits the side of the monster, knocking it backwards and giving Edea a precious moment to leap out of the thing's mouth and drop onto the floor on the other side of the sandworm.
However, in the process of casting the spell, Tiz took a few steps to the side so as to not hit Magnolia and Yew, and in doing so he came very close to the wall… and a second later, triggered by the vibrations of the first sandworm, a second one comes blasting out of the wall. It smashes into Tiz with the force of a charging bull and sends him flying.
That's not the end of it though. Yew and Magnolia each turn towards a different sandworm, Yew to Edea's and Magnolia to Tiz's, only for a third to come screaming out of the hole in the wall the second one created. Both Magnolia and Yew manage to jump out of the way, but the sandworm is now interposed between them.
Each member of their group is separated by a sandworm. Such a thing can only end poorly.
Yew is unfortunate that the third sandworm has decided he is much more interesting than Magnolia. It twists towards him, grinding it's massive body against the wall as it turns around in the cramped space. It has enough weight to push down the wall simply by trying to turn, and does so, sending up a spray of dust and causing Yew to choke on the stale air from centuries past that comes rushing out of the newly unblocked passageway.
He can barely get his arm up in front of his face when the monster tightens its mouth and then expels a wave of sand in his direction. Yew squeezes his eyes shut and tries not to breathe in as the sand stings his flesh and blasts his clothes. When the attack is over he's not blind from sand, but he does have a giant worm about to swallow him up.
Still light-headed from crypt air, Yew opts to stumble out of the monster's way, but he's slow. The worm's teeth miss him, but its big head still bashes Yew to the ground.
Yew has to frantically roll out of the way as Edea's worm lashes it's tail and nearly whips him in the head. He brings up his rapier and attempts an attack on his own worm, managing to slip his thin blade through the worm's tough flesh, but the creature is fat and cares little for a single tiny stab wound. In reaction to the pain of the attack, however, it swings its massive head like a club, and there's absolutely no way Yew can dodge it in such a small space. It smashes into his chest, knocking him down the newly revealed hallway where he lands hard on his back. Pain spikes through his back from the impact of landing, and he can hear several things crunch and shatter in his backpack.
All his potions, antidotes, and eye drops. All his preparations down the drain in one hit.
The sandworm follows Yew down the tunnel, ignoring the woman burying her glaive repeatedly in its back. It takes up the entire hallway, and Yew can't help but feel his rapier is woefully insufficient for this situation.
He's useless. Completely, utterly useless. If he were Tiz, he could use frost. If he were Edea, he could fight brute force with brute force. If he were Magnolia, he'd have a nice long glaive to impale the worm with. He's not any of them though. He's just a boy with a rapier. A small, useless weapon for someone who should have realized he was only part of the group so he could carry the tent.
So Yew does the only thing he can in this situation. He turns and runs in the other direction.
Yew runs down the surprisingly-intact stone hallway, paying no heed to the clicks of pressure plates and the sound of sand being shot out statues as he keeps his head down and sprints. He's only vaguely aware that the architecture around him has changed to something a bit more ornate, and that he can actually see despite no torch being present because of glowing orbs inlaid into the walls. He's mostly aware that he can still hear the worm behind him, and that this hallway has no branching paths and that he's about to turn a corner and he prays to any crystal that can hear him that it won't be a dead end.
He turns the corner, only to discover it's not a corner at all but an odd crevice housing a peculiar black orb. Yew doesn't have any real time to process this as the orb flares with energy, and Yew's vision goes dark.
He barely stops himself from falling by reaching out and grabbing a wall for support. A blind spell, and just when all his eye drops are broken. He takes a deep breath and steadies himself, bringing his rapier up in what he thinks is the direction of the hallway.
Yew can't help but notice that he didn't hear himself breath in. He breathes out harshly, and can't hear that either.
He's blind and deaf. Wonderful. As if just being blind wasn't enough to kill him anyways.
Yew screws his eyes shut, waiting for death by sandworm. Will he be smashed against the wall, or will he feel teeth biting into his chest? Will he stay alive long enough to feel the digestive acid inside the monster's stomach, or will he be dead before it even starts feeding?
Yew waits, and waits, and waits. Shouldn't the sandworm have caught up by now? Can't it just be over with already? His heart already feels like it's pushing out of his chest. He's going to be physically sick in a moment. Surely the sandworm isn't toying with him, is it?
He waits, and waits, and waits some more. How much time has passed? Ten seconds? Two minutes? It shouldn't be taking this long, right?
Maybe, because he's not moving, it can't sense him anymore? Sandworms are primarily tremorsense hunters, they sense vibrations. Maybe if he just stays very, very still, he'll keep alive.
Except there's no way he can keep standing with how much his legs are shaking, so instead Yew slowly lowers himself to the floor, sets his rapier across his lap, and prays that his teammates will come and save him.
He waits a long time. Long enough that, when he starts counting seconds, he knows he's been waiting for multiple minutes. Is the fight really taking that long? Are the others badly injured? Maybe they got hit by the sandworm's sandstorms and can't see?
And he had all the eyedrops, which are all broken right now. He can feel liquid soaking his backpack and his back, but doesn't dare take off his pack and dump out the pocket of broken bottles. He might have a sandworm looming over him still.
"Will they even know where to find me?" Yew thinks with no small amount of horror. "There's a sandworm between me and them, and I can't hear them if they call out to me."
With that chilling thought, Yew tries to remember if sandworms can hear. From what he recalls they have tremorsense, extremely crude vision (they can see blotchy light and shadows, enough to tell if they're on the surface during the day or not but nothing else), and… he thinks they're deaf. He can't quite remember.
Either way, he's going to take the risk. He doesn't want to be left behind.
"Unless they intentionally left me behind." A traitorous part of his mind whispers. "You've been nothing but a hindrance the entire day. They can always survive without a fancy tent. You're a luxury, not a necessity."
Yew shudders and pushes that thought aside. Even if he is useless, which he has no doubt he is, the others are heroes. They won't leave him behind on principal if nothing else.
Tilting his head up so his voice carries as much as possible, Yew shouts "Hey! Guys!"
Or, at least, he tries to. As soon as he tries to make a sound, his throat clenches and he almost chokes on air. He tries again, and the same thing happens.
Blind, deaf, and silenced as well. The perfect trap to ruin a lost adventurer. Yew prays that his companions find him before the sandworm or some other creature.
Helpless. His companions would never be helpless. Edea, Tiz, and Magnolia would never have gotten into this situation. They would have stood against the sandworm and killed it rather than running away like a coward. They all have the right tools for the job. Strength, speed and reach, magic. He has a rapier and a vast spread of academic knowledge, and what use are either of those things in a real fight?
He waits, and waits, and waits. Is everyone else alright? What's taking them so long? Are they hurt? They might be hurt, dying inches away from him, and he wouldn't know. It's not like he could help even if they were. All his potions are broken, and he can't tell one asterisk from the other without being able to see their colours or the runes on their surface in order to find the bishop asterisk.
Five minutes have passed. Six. Seven. Eight. Nine. Ten minutes have passed. Yew is truly worried now. He's never seen a fight, bar the ba'al urchin, that's taken more than five minutes. Even the battle against Janne and Nikolai was a relatively quick, if brutal, affair.
He hopes part of the ceiling didn't collapse behind him and trap him inside this hallway. The others might never know, and he'd slowly starve to death in the hallway unless a sandworm comes by to finish him off first.
Tears prick the corner of Yew's eyes, and he lowers his head. Of course this was the result. It must be comeuppance for thinking he could stand equal with warriors of light.
Normally Yew wouldn't be this dramatic, of course. It's only because he's been worn down that he's thinking like he is.