Along the grimy walls of the sewer were steel encased lights that hardly shined, some flickered as if they might extinguish at any second. They left the place in a squinting darkness, which Diana was glad she had Aiko to see through. Beside her, Jonah flashed around his light like a lighthouse. There was a putrid smell in the stale and warm air and that made Jonah gag and pinch his nose. The floors were covered in muck from where the Nymphs and fauna rose out of the channels. Diana had to watch where she stepped, slipping several times and nearly falling. The green water lanes were lined with white cattail reeds with blue tubes, they stood stiffly as the couple and the tiger passed them.

Diana kept one hand on the walls, recalling the maps as best she could. The tapping of her staff helped her to overlay the image onto her memory. However she was viewing it through echolocation, while still trapped within it. The squared off sewer lanes and tunnels all looked the same from within. The names on the mud covered plaques on the walls were the only differences.

“You have the pictures?” Diana asked, gripping onto the corner of a wall. There was a bridge along one lane and not the other. The steel grated arch was covered in moss and slime. Her boots were made for the forest, and the rocks of a mountain side, not this mud on slick stone or slimy steel.

Jonah brought up the maps on his projector screen, shining it on the wall. She reached out to the edges of the intersection, clearing the mud from the signs with a flick of her wrist, comparing the names. They had expected the Ash Makers to enter the sewer miles north of here. To think she had considered moving the pine cones around the park. Now because of the parading Grand elves, they were so far off course.

There was a sloshing of water and bending of the reeds. From the stagnant water came a half a dozen Nymphs of all shapes and sizes. Two were men, four women, all starkly naked with vibrant teal skin, glowing faintly and slick past their long pale eyelashes. Sticks and leaves grew out of their wet hair and fell out of their bodies as they solidified fully. All of the women approached Jonah, two rudely grabbing his arms, wrenching back his sleeves. Another pair held him by the ankles, raising his pant legs. He froze up, eyes wide at their solid colored gaze and naked bodies.

“Ah, half metal…” one said.

The two males, one thin and wiry, the other taller than Jonah, set their arms on Diana’s shoulders. They grinned at her, trying to block her view of Jonah. Before their fingers could grip, she pushed them off, warding them away with her staff. They laughed together with a deep sound.

“Why bring this creature here, Druid?” said the thin male.

“To free you of your prize,” Diana stated firmly. “Stop, I don’t desire you…” she added.

They all turned their heads in one accord to her. “Ahhh… the cursed ones are here for good,” the other male said, folding his muscled arms. “We’ll run them until they collapse and go cold. They’ll feed the swamps and the lovely beasts.”

“We enjoy those small ones,” said a female.

“Yes, you won’t take them,” said another.

A perturbed sound came out of Jonah as the two females holding his arms pressed themselves fully into his back. “Maybe we could trade,” one offered.

“Yes, half metal man for one of the cursed things,” said the other.

Diana pushed at the ones holding Jonah, but they were as strong as a bear. They usually left Druids alone at a “No,” but he had caught their attention, and that was an awful thing to have. Aiko roared violently at them, pawing at their legs. It made no difference, they had them caught. They didn’t flinch from even a bite.

From the intersection of water came a bubbling of the water. Rising up was a toad wider than Aiko was long, tail included. It sat atop a lily pad of the purest white which matched its skin, holding onto it with its gripping webbed feet. Blinking its eyes separately, it expanded its blue throat to a translucent balloon, causing ripples to spread through the green algae water.

All the Nymphs turned their head towards it and released Jonah. A flat expression on their beautiful faces, they stepped away from them both. Another croak came, Diana could feel the vibrations through her feet. She bowed her head to the spirit, feeling the pressure it exerted upon her. To her it felt like being in a heavy rain storm of force, eye to eye with such a wonder. The spirit shifted, inhaling deeply, its belly expanding across the intersection that it nearly filled. The Nymphs sunk back into the water without a word. Aiko bowed its head to a fellow piece of the sources. While the tiger was half Druid, half source, this beast was a being almost fully possessed of the sources of nature.

Make haste Druid, and remove accursed from this land, Diana felt the voice within her head.

“Yes, yes, I will, thank you,” she said, her voice shaking. It was large enough to consume the children, instead it was giving the Druid a choice. There was no denying this, it was fate for her to pursue, chance for her to succeed. She had never seen a spirit as the only Druid present. She wasn’t deserving of orders on her own, that was normally for Archdruids. Never had she felt more like a Druid, or more terrified of failure in her chosen magics.

One last blast of a croak sent the reeds bending back, the pouch of the spirit’s throat made the water quake. Diana could feel it in her teeth, gripping her staff in her panic. Jonah put his arms up in fear, steadying his stance. Finally the toad exhaled, sinking back into the water. The rising water hit her boots and Aiko’s paws as it rushed past the reeds.

“Map, please!” Diana barked, sweat slicking red curls to her face. She ran her fingers through it, trying in vain to contain them. Gods, she hadn't brought her tiara. Her mental magic was rubbish anyway. No, I need to think straight, she told herself, I have to do this.

Jonah complied, putting the map back on the wall.

She etched a copy with her finger, jotting down the street names as initials.

“Follow, carefully, I can’t help you,” she said, reconsidering her once great memory.

Sinking her hands into the wall, she ripped the map portion out of it. She held it like a painter’s pallet in her hand. In her other hand, every few steps, she slammed her staff, building a map in her head. There were too many things overlapping. Half were elven made artificial sewer lanes, half tunnels made to look like burrows. The children could be anywhere within them, tucked in some corner, hiding from the Nymphs.

“Hey! If you can hear me, come closer!” Jonah shouted suddenly, breaking her thoughts.

Diana turned to him.

He met her eyes with frustration. “What? Is that bad? I don’t know what the fuck is going on, I thought it couldn’t hurt,” he said. He had his light out and was shining it down the pathways around them.

They hadn't walked but a few hundred yards from where the toad spirit appeared. She was lost, she had never done this. Gods, why had she left her bloody home? She needed years more of training. One school mastered, how shameful. She thought she could take the place of an Archdruid. If she had the Cloud done, more than the basic shapes, then she could call out for them mentally. With the Spirits, she could conjure animals able to sniff them out. Using the Beast school, she could fly about as a bird and not slip on this bloody mud. There was so much that she could do in theory as Druid, but had never taken the time. She had rushed off like an arrogant fool. A grieving fool.

“I’m here, Diana, tell me what I can do,” Jonah begged.

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She looked at Aiko, who was sitting still, not even sharing its vision or hearing with her. The half that was her had closed off from the tiger. Her magic was knowledge, but also confidence. The latter was low right now. She was fighting to raise it back up. The tiger knew her self deprecation wasn’t helping.

“Call for them, head that way, I’ll head this way,” she said with a swallow of her dry throat. She gestured over each side of a moss laden bridge, north, south, and west.

Jonah nodded, calling out for the children from the south.

Aiko chuffed excitedly, bounding over the bridge. From the fearsome tiger’s mouth came a repeated “Hey! Come here!” She went down the lighter path, stuck with her human senses. Hands to her mouth, she called out a simple cry. A moment passed and her fear grew as she went farther and farther from the others. Their calls grew quiet to her.

Another chuff came from the tiger.

“Help…”

“Quiet, Jonah, please!” she hissed back, unable to see him. All she could hear was his pounding feet down the pathways.

There it came again, only the tiger was able to hear it fully.

“Help…”

Side by side, the tiger in front as there was no more space, Jonah and Diana raced towards the sound. During each step, Diana stomped into the ground, deforming the stone, keeping herself from falling. Jonah kept their map up, finding muddy reference points with the glow of the projection. They ducked through an ancient escape tunnel, a shortcut from the map. Old magical orbs lit the sides of it, braced with steel support beams. The gravel floor was loose, but at least it was dry. The cry for help got louder, but so did a slosh of water in Aiko’s hearing. The Nymphs had been drawn back, but that didn’t mean that all of the fauna had stopped. There wouldn’t be a reason for her and Jonah to hurry if the sources made it easy.

Through another tunnel and around a corner, the couple came to the lane where the Ash Makers had stopped. They were far more west than when they had passed the park’s pine cones. They were horribly close to the lake, and that held its own problems. Aiko caught the light of the outside coming longways into the sewers, a storm drain. As they approached, the kids were right in front of them, over a slimed bridge.

The couple stopped at the start of the bridge as the reeds rustled. A large subterranean serpent had made its nest in the reeds. The beast’s head was the size of one of the children. Aiko saw them clearly now battered and bruised, they were Chiru, Sue and Ed. Their lips were cracked and bloody, their cheeks gaunt, hands all cut up.

“Help,” Sue called, her voice hoarse.

Diana and Jonah moved slowly forward, for she feared it sliding out and constricting one of the children. They took the bridge one agonizing step at a time, avoiding the clatter of the metal. The snake, its diamond pattern skin white as bleached bone, flicked its tongue out rapidly, eyes clouded and blind. The lack of sight and its size must have made it older than Niae. The deep blue fork smacked against the reeds as it took in the scent of its next meal. Chiru stood bravely over them, holding her hand in front of her. She appeared worse than any of them, her pale skin green, eyes ringed darkly red. Her hand trembled with the last of her strength it seemed. All three of them were under a sewer light, and Sue’s face brightened when she saw them.

“They’re here! Ed, look, they're here!” she hissed loudly to the boy. Her arm was around his neck. His eyes were clearly bloodshot. He was the most cut up of them all, long scratches across his face, blood matting his hair.

“Quiet,” Diana urged them.

Raising his hand, a fierce determination in his eyes, Jonah pointed his gun at the beast. Diana brought him to her, her range wasn’t as far as his. Within less than a hundred feet, they were both effective.

The snake opened its maw, and from the top of its gummed mouth came hollow fangs. Each one of them were length of Aiko’s foreleg. Diana hadn't seen the top marking on its head, it wasn’t a constricting Night serpent, it was a viper. She conducted ice around where it left the water, restricting its movement. It protested against the sudden chill and she worked to freeze it further. Its attention was away from them at least.

Jonah fired a glancing shot across its body, melting through it with a long gash of sizzling muscle and hide. It continued to flail about wildly cracking the icy prison. It was trying to sink down, but was unable. Carefully, Diana moved the ice aside, giving it room to retreat. All of it was too late, for in its erratic movements, it dipped close to the children, towards the small boy and his sister.

Susan screamed, thrusting her hand out at the snake and splaying her fingers widely. A horrible crackling sound came through the air around the snake’s head. Along its protruding jaw to the tip of its snout grew bloody cracks, spurting dark red in the shadows of the sewer. A second later its entire head exploded like a rapidly blooming flower. The petals of its facial skin hung limp from its stump neck. The fleshy chunks of muscle and bone shot into the ceiling and the walls, painting the twins and Chiru in the resulting geyser of blood. Diana and Jonah turned their bodies away, not nearly as tired or as stunned as the Ash Makers.

Unafraid of blood or gore, Aiko ran forward, white fur painted red. Then when the headless length of the snake fell into the water, it was washed again by the algae green water. It roared at them, for Diana and it both knew what was going to happen.

Only half covered in blood and swamp water, Diana and Jonah called for the three of them.

“You have to run, hurry, hurry!” Diana called at them.

Jonah rushed to them, holding out his hands. She hadn't even told him yet, but he understood her panic alone. The twins held his hands weakly, staggering along. They had almost no fuel left in them. Their feet twisted with each step, trying desperately to move on so little strength and sleep.

“I can’t,” Susan mumbled.

“You must, you must!” Diana urged. She took hold of a nearly incoherent Chiru. The young woman was just about dead weight, her heavy coat adding to it. Hooking her arm over her crushing her hand in a grip. The pain made Chiru’s legs straighten and she started to walk with the Druid.

In Jonah’s eyes was a silent question.

In response, Diana pointed to the Nymphs rising once more from the waters. Many came from around the entrance of the lake, blocking out the light there. “Vengeance,” she whispered. They started to move once again, desperately looking for an exit. They were below the temple district, and if Diana’s memory of those maps were right, there were few of them.

An ancient serpent had been killed. Needlessly according to the sources, for it was only trying to escape. Worst of all it was an accursed soul that did it. All the might of the elven swamp was after them now. They ran as fast as they could, the five sets of feet pounding along. All the lanes looked the same. Aiko’s nose was filled with the stench of the swamp as the Nymphs splashed through the water, unable to smell for the outside air.

They hooked rights and lefts, the Nymphs and the snakes clogged the lanes, no longer blocking, but waiting. Eventually, they would be everywhere.

Chiru tripped the grip on her hand no longer enough to walk straight. The Druid rolled her ankle on the blasted slimy floor. The Wanshi fell and bloodied her face, a tired puff coming out of her. There was a murmur of surrender from her, but Diana wasn’t going to accept it. Jonah turned as Diana screamed, he tucked Susan against him as the sudden stop sent him skidding into the wall. He gave out a manly groan, catching himself before he slid any farther. He carefully moved towards her, keeping the twins against the wall.

The Nymphs laughed. Many pushed through the reeds, watching them with their solid eyes. They all stopped as a bass note sounded out, a ribbit of the spirit. It sounded so terribly close. Diana, Aiko, and Nymphs glanced around, searching for the beast. Was it here to correct this wrong? Was it truly wrong? Was nature's justice wrong on this day?

Jonah gestured to Diana hurriedly, pointing at Chiru, then the tiger. She was too confused and her ankle was in teeth clenching agony. “Tie her to Aiko, let’s go,” he whispered harshly.

“The spirit…” she breathed.

He raised his sleeve, and there was a speaker formed on it. “Hurry…” he hissed.

“Hey, a moth…” said Ed, his voice delirious, pointing at something.

There one was, a brilliant white hawk moth fluttering around them. Kalyah’s voice came from it, “Follow me, follow me!”

“Who mimicked the spirit’s voice?!” roared a Nymph.

From a pouch, Diana drew her length of thin hempen rope. Chiru was trying to rise on her own, her face a mix of blood and slime, most of the red liquid coming from out her mouth and a split lip. Mumbling to hold on, Diana secured the woman to the back of Aiko. Firmly tied to the back of the beast, she held onto its neck on instinct. They started off again, following the moth and its fluttering.

The Nymphs now were up on stone, furious and determined. One reached out for Ed, who was near the edge. Through the halls of the sewer came another cry, one that made Diana almost stop. She had to tell herself it wasn’t a hawk, but a falcon. The raptor, conjured out of a blazing golden glass swooped down, clawing at the grabbing Nymph’s face, marking their watery skin. Tumbling back, it brought other Nymphs down with it.

A Falcon of Psyin? Warren was here too? The small raptor kept close to them, cawing and clawing at any approaching Nymph. It even drew their water missiles, which they weren’t firing at the group. They wanted to get their hands on them, this was personal for them.

They sped along, Diana seeing spots, each step agony, still she came up beside Jonah, doing her best to ward off the Nymphs with the waving of her staff. They had to save these three. It wasn’t only Druid’s work, but that of a Hero.