The competition begins

Reaching the now rather spacious hole we dived in without even a thought. 

Tumbling down the narrow hole I landed in a large yet rudimentary room that had been dug from the reddish mud.

My lungs desperately gobbled air as I quickly rolled out of the way lest I be crushed by the fat black rat which was following me down. 

Laying my body back onto the mud I focused on just breathing in and out. I felt my hairs which were sticking up straight slowly flattened back down. 

The maelstrom of thoughts hurdling around my head slowly calmed as I began to string together ideas. 

We had run all the way back to base without stopping for even a second. Although it didn't look like they were chasing, you can never be too sure. 

Just to worsen the matter we had to take several detours to both avoid trolls and throw any potential chasers off our scent. In the end, we ran for at least a few hours at almost full sprint.