. Brigitte was on her feet, in a deep crouch, her tail back and stiff, her ears laid back flat. She had the fingers of her left hand spread and slightly curled to make the best use of her claw-like fingernails. Her right hand was clutching my dagger. And the mysterious intruder she was facing looked like nothing I had …

. I thought about how our location looked to mortal eyes. There would be nothing visible to Brigitte except what the [Fireball] and the [Fairy Light] lit. The space beyond, both above us and down the two corridors, receded into pitch black in her vision. Brigitte had asked a valid question, but I pointed at the ‘outrider’. “Diur gave us …

. After a moment to steel myself, I fortified my body, nose-dived and dropped my wings. It would probably have been better if I’d had more than the smattering of experience in Grandmother’s pond. Especially since, at that time, I had been still an absolute beginner at [Naiad’s Breath] (the name my grandmother gave to the skill of underwater breathing.) …

. Once we set down on the ‘island’ — or rather, one of the strips of land against the cavern wall that Diurhimath was calling an ‘island’– I delivered Brigitte back to the ground. “I’m getting really sick of getting carried this way,” she groused.  We were standing on a hummock rising behind the grasses and rushes along the shore. …

. Brigitte and I both immediately bristled at Diurhimath’s sudden declaration. The last thing either one of us wanted to do after working so hard to get here was to turn around and leave. I was trying to come up with a reasoned response, so Brigitte retorted first. “We aren’t leaving until when we’ve got what we came for!” He …

. I had to stabilize my sense after the depressing discovery of the mud-choked passage shook my control, but before I could look for the next entrance, I noticed something approaching me. Extending the vampire sense into the distance requires concentration, but while it’s active, I see the close range area surrounding me constantly. Close in, my fairy sense is …

. I used the same gentle, mostly muscle-power flight I used before. Whether an archfiend was coming or not, I believed it would be best to keep my Wind mana signature as low as I could. The boost to my wing lift from mana is almost invisible to fairy sight, because I’m merely transferring air pressure from the top surface …

. Jurmat looked at Brigitte, then me, then calmly sheathed his sword and held his empty hands out. Then he dematerialized his wings and turned 360, which I suppose was intended to show he wasn’t hiding anything. For this encounter, he had dressed in fairly typical adventurer’s gear, jack and leather kilt, with heavy socks similar to what I had …

. The abrupt motions of the demons must have set off the alraune’s defensive instincts. She let out a cry somewhat like a woman’s scream, but with the overtones of a big cat’s snarl as she reared back with her arms spread, hands curling into claws. Her tendrils sprang up from the ground in a warding posture. While the wraiths …

. It was a patrol of wraiths and hags on foot. That was fortunate in one way; we had time to react. But it was unfortunate in another; they would be inspecting the ground as they walked it. They were coming long enough after we put out the fire that I didn’t think they had spotted the smoke, but if …