It was a little clusterfucky sneaking back into the cavern with a larger group and using the compass spell a couple of times to narrow down the place where our friends were being kept imprisoned. The building was guarded – there were just two guards though, and that seemed simple enough to deal with. Still, we paused for too long to brainstorm the rescue. Raella and Zolambi wanted to exercise an abundance of caution, which seemed to annoy Lyre, who wanted to immediately save Cassandra. But Raella made several points – if Peyton and Cassandra were fine and could use magic, why hadn’t they escaped? We weren’t close to the city, but being within the same dimly lit cavern, if we all lit up with magic the display would garner immediate attention. If we did end up using magic, we had to figure out a quick escape route. The discussion reminded me so much of attempting to make a plan with my friends in D&D that I was on the verge of manically laughing in panic because the stakes were very real and we were wasting too much time. “There’s more approaching,” one of the dwarven soldiers said, and we became very quiet, making sure we were out of sight as we apprehensively watched.

There were several Underlings approaching, but I couldn’t get an exact count. They approached the two guards at the door, and after a brief conference with each other, they opened the door. I watched the stone smoothly slide out and to the side, impressed by the motion of it and wondering what their technology was like. The first few soldiers stepped down into the entrance. I couldn’t see what was happening clearly – the one in the doorway dropped to his knees, and the Underling behind him lifted one clawed hand and suddenly there was screaming coming from inside the building. I tensed at the sound, wondering if we should rush down to help. I saw Lyre start to stand out of the corner of my eye, and watched Zolambi grip his shoulder tight, pushing him back into a crouch. “Wait,” he said softly.

Lyre grimaced, but didn’t move.

When the screaming died down, Peyton stepped out first. Thanks to the compass spell regaining its depth, I had known that she was alive, but I breathed an inward sigh of relief anyway seeing that she appeared unharmed. Cassandra stepped out next, looking paler than normal and trembling so hard it was visible from where we were. Lyre groaned softly, but from what I could tell, she looked unharmed as well – just scared shitless. I realized after a moment that there was some sort of dark spot in the middle of their foreheads and wondered what had been done to them.

A few moments later, Asterollan and Captain Kaphryn also emerged. I heard the bookish Jon Umberling sigh in relief. A strange weight lifted off my shoulders as I glanced over at Lexie, remembering what Asterollan had promised… if it came down to it. There was some brief discussion amongst the grouping, after which Kaphryn stepped back into the building and the door closed, hiding her from sight. Then the other three began to walk, loosely surrounded by the Underlings, heading directly toward the city. I could hear Raella cursing lightly under her breath and raised an eyebrow at her language.

“We’re never going to be able to save them once they’re in the city,” she finally said. “We need to hurry.”

One of the dwarven soldiers nodded, but said, “A few of us are going to get our Captain. If she’s alive, we can’t leave her behind.”

Raella nodded. “I’ll go with you,” Jon Umberling said. He flushed, and added, “I’m sure I could figure out how to operate the door faster.”

“Fine, but catch up to us quickly,” Raella said. A pair of the dwarven soldiers left, taking a roundabout way to approach the building and the lone guard unseen. Jon Umberling trailed behind them. The rest of us went the opposite direction, looping out of sight and then hurrying to catch up to the Underlings that were marching our friends away. I felt my heart racing, wondering how we were going to handle the situation, if we would be able to catch up in time to help free them, especially if we couldn’t use magic.

I realized that we were quickly catching up now, because the group had paused for some reason. A fight had broken out. I could hear Asterollan shouting in pain, and saw Cassandra attempting to desperately flail at the Underlings that had grabbed her. Peyton seemed to be standing her ground, for now… but she was outnumbered, and they were moving in close around her. I could hear the clicking, screeching noises they made even from this distance.

Lyre broke out into a run immediately upon seeing Cassandra in danger. I could see him reaching for his magic, heedless of Raella’s hissed warnings. Shrugging, I ran after him – if our cover was already going to be blown, it was better to act fast and hit them hard. I heard Peter chitter excitedly behind me. Even before I rounded the last stalagmite, I heard Peyton give a triumphant shout as I came within range of her mind reading ability, and as I slid into view I summoned as many vines as I could to grow out of the ground and strike at the Underlings surrounding her, eviscerating as many of them as possible. Peter trilled happily and launched himself at the head of one of the Underlings, biting and tearing its ear off. “The entire city is going to see!” Raella said as she caught up. “We need an escape route!”

I turned to glance around. The Underlings that had captured Cassandra had been knocked back somehow, and were currently being mercilessly burnt to a crisp. Lyre was helping Cassandra up from the ground as he continued to focus his magic on them. The dwarven soldiers had engaged some of the remaining Underlings. I watched Chase and Zolambi help Asterollan to his feet as Lexie stood back, bouncing on her heels nervously. “The platform!” Peyton said as she approached Raella and me. She turned to point down closer to the city. “It’ll take us to Shadawn!”

“It’ll take us closer to the city,” Raella grumped. We could hear the screeches of Underlings from below, who had seen the displays of magic. We wouldn’t have a lot of time before we were overwhelmed. Glancing back, I could see that Jon Umberling, Captain Kaphryn, and the pair of soldiers that had gone to rescue their Captain approached at a quick jog. Jon was red with exertion, his eyes flashing with worry as he heard the screams of the Underlings from the city.

“We’ll get on the platform first and then collapse the tunnel behind us,” Peyton said.

“We need to hurry then,” Raella said with a sigh. She began to shout, urging the others into a run, directing them toward where the line of light that showed the path of the platform was. Peyton paused to poke around the corpses of the Underlings, picking up a few items that were too small for me to see. “What was that?” I asked.

“Worry about it later. We need to run,” she said, patting me on the back. I frowned, staring in worry at the strange mark on her face, but there was no time to think about anything. I ran, calling for Peter to follow.

I could hear Jon Umberling’s labored breathing, and felt a stitch of pain in my side, my own lungs aching as we ran at a breakneck pace down to the other end of the cavern. There was movement all around. I could hear the screams of the Underlings approaching. I gasped as one dropped down in front of me from above, but Peter trilled and tackled it bodily, sending it sprawling. I called for the spider again as I kept running.

Looking ahead, I could see that Lexie and a few of the dwarves had taken the lead, running fast. And emerging from the city were many Underlings, moving to block our path. I felt a momentary despair staring at them as they approached, but then Lexie lit up like a fiery beacon and a massive wall of flame engulfed them. The light was so bright that I had to raise a hand to shield my eyes, and I could feel the heat of the flames even from behind her. I heard some of the dwarven soldiers hoot in exultation as we continued to run.

We reached the platform, launching ourselves up onto it. I paused to help boost the dwarven soldiers and Jon Umberling as Lexie danced nervously from foot to foot above us, shouting, “Hurry, hurry hurry!”

“Someone figure out how to move this thing!” I shouted. Raella was already quickly fumbling with a panel that looked like controls of some sort, and as soon as I boosted him up, Jon Umberling rushed over to help her. The platform began to move, slowly at first. Realizing I was the only idiot left standing on the ground, I gripped the edge and pulled myself up, and could feel Peyton and Asterollan steady me, pulling me over the side.

I looked back at the mass of shrieking figures moving towards us. Lexie stood at the end of the platform and released another massive blast, a moving wall of fire that caused the entire tunnel to rumble alarmingly, and I focused on summoning something thick and tangled to block the tunnel – I had expected more vines, but was almost shocked to see the thick trunks and branches of trees blast through, thoroughly blocking the tunnel. But as the platform picked up speed, all of it – the blockade, the eerie screeching shrieks and screams of the Underlings – fell behind, out of sight, out of hearing.

I stared back into the tunnel, breathing heavily. Then with a sigh, I flopped on my back and closed my eyes. “Holy shit,” I said.

---

It felt like we were on the platform for a couple of hours, zooming along at a speed that was hard to determine in the dark. It moved smoothly, and there were hardly any distinguishing features for us to tell how quickly we were moving past things. Despite it being an open design, the movement of the passing air wasn’t strong enough to pull us off. Maybe it only felt fast because it was the fastest thing I’d been on since arriving in this world. Regardless, the breeze felt nice after all the running.

Before long, the platform followed its lit track into another cavern, with only a few sparse buildings near the line. We tensed, wondering if we would find more Underlings here, but as it slid to a stop, we realized the entire place was eerily silent. “Hello?” Lexie called out curiously, but nothing answered. We stepped off the platform. The dwarven soldiers cautiously investigated the surrounding area before reporting back that it was safe.

Now that we didn’t have the wind whistling in our ears or any Underlings to worry about, Raella summoned her globes of light and we examined the marks on Asterollan, Peyton, and Cassandra’s foreheads. Peyton showed us the dark gemstones that were the keys, and explained that it was suppression, and they discussed how to free themselves from it. Attempts to destroy the stones didn’t result in much luck, and Asterollan kept insisting that he thought moving out of their range would break the connection. Peyton was reluctant to test the theory, so Asterollan offered to be the guinea pig. I handed the stone to Peter and instructed it to move to the far side of the cavern. When the spider was almost all the way across the large, echoey space, the mark on Asterollan’s head lifted and dissipated into the air. He immediately reached out for his magic, summoning his blazing sword of light, and flashed a cocky smile at Peyton.

“Don’t even say it. We didn’t know for sure it would be that simple,” she told him.

He shrugged and allowed his magic to drop, the sword disappearing. I called for Peter to come back. As we were waiting, Peyton also took the chance to pull Raella, Zolambi and Chase together. “I need to tell you all something important,” she said, almost hesitantly. “Greyjon is dead.” I could see Cassandra tense and stare at the ground nervously.

Raella looked startled for a moment, then she nodded. “I… I see,” she said, her voice quiet.

“How?” Chase asked, her tone anguished. Tears were starting to well up in her eyes.

I noticed Cassandra opening her mouth as though to speak, but Peyton cut her off to say, “It happened quickly, and there was nothing we could do.” I frowned at the vagueness of the statement, but Chase nodded in acceptance.

Zolambi sighed heavily, crossing his arms. “He was an excellent soldier, and will be missed. The city of Kimber has suffered a great loss for his death.” Then Zolambi glanced around at each of us. “But we understood the stakes when we were chosen. This was always a possibility.” Chase nodded, though she looked a bit uncertain that she had agreed to possibly dying.

We decided to rest for the evening, grieving and tired as we were.

We slept in the next day, not really in a hurry to get to the last leg of our journey. We knew we were close. All that was left was to face Shadawn and save the world. We fixed a gloomy breakfast and discussed our options. “You’ve been instrumental in getting us here,” Raella said to Captain Kaphyrn and her soldiers, “but the coming battle will rely heavily on magic. It will be safer for all of you to stay here… and prepare for us to return, so you can get us home.” I felt a bit cheered at her words, thinking about that – about returning to the surface, and building a new life. It felt like it was in reach.

Kaphryn nodded. “I won’t argue against that. We’ll scout a little and see if we can find an alternate path to the surface. Backtracking might be hard…”

“I assume I’m staying here as well?” Jon Umberling asked, a little nervously. Raella nodded, and the dwarven scholar exhaled in relief. “Of course! I couldn’t be any help in a battle.” He chuckled.

Raella paused for a moment, looking over at Chase. “I want you to stay here as well.”

Chase blinked several times in confused surprise. “What? I can’t… I’ve come this far, Raella!”

“I understand, and I don’t doubt your skill, but I will feel better if you are not risked. Besides, we have alternate means of completing the seal now, which we would have to use anyways now that Greyjon is… not here.” Raella frowned, pursing her lips. “Stay and help Captain Kaphryn and her people find us another way out to the surface. Certainly you can finagle a spell capable of helping in some way?”

Chase grimaced, but didn’t argue. I glanced at Lexie, wondering if I could convince her to similarly stay, when I noticed the strange frown on her face. She stared into the air, focusing hard on something. I remembered that she could see the strange balls that were watching us, and wondered what they were doing to catch her attention, when they suddenly appeared, clear and present and easy to see for everyone. Several of the dwarven soldiers shouted, startled, as their invisibility dropped.

“Greetings,” a voice boomed tinnily from the spheres.