Pale and Kayla ran for several minutes, eventually reaching the end of the stone pathway. Up ahead, Pale saw red light spilling in from the next room, and double-timed it over to the opening along with Kayla.

The two of them came bursting out of the cave, only to freeze at what they saw.

"Wow…" Kayla muttered. "What is this place…?"

Pale didn't have an answer for her. From what she could see, they were still very much underground, though cave they'd just emerged in was absolutely enormous. By her estimate, the ceiling was several hundred feet above them; a thin crack ran along it, letting in a small trickle of sunlight from outside. It was impossible to see through the crack in the ceiling, so Pale still couldn't tell exactly where they were, and she could also see that it was far too small for her to fit a pod through, meaning she wouldn't be able to resupply at all. But that wasn't what really got her attention.

No, what had her frozen was the seemingly endless expanse of glowing blood-red trees laid out beneath them, which appeared to stretch out in almost all directions for what had to be miles. The trees radiated light from every leaf, illuminating the underground enough that it more than made up for the minuscule amounts of sunlight coming in from overhead.

Kayla took a tentative step forwards, swallowing nervously as she did so. "Well… I guess we're deeper underground than we thought."

Pale opened her mouth to respond, only to wince as a wave of pain lanced through her head. She doubled over, bringing a hand up to rub at the gash Valerie had given her earlier, wincing as she did so. Kayla was at her side in an instant, but Pale was quick to gently push her away.

"Not now," Pale grunted. "I'll fill you in once we've found a safe place to rest up."

Kayla nodded. "Okay. Lead the way."

Pale looked around for a way forwards, her gaze landing on a set of stone stairs that descended into the sea of blood-red trees. She motioned for Kayla to follow after her, then hefted her assault rifle and began to move once more.

XXX

A few minutes later, and Pale let out a grunt as she set her pack down on the ground and sidled up to a nearby tree. She reached for her IFAK once again, pulling out a second syringe and staring at it. After a moment to weigh her options, she shrugged and stuck it into her arm, then depressed the plunger.

"What is that?" Kayla asked, eyeing the needle in her hand.

"Medicine," Pale answered as she pulled the syringe out of her arm and stowed it back in her IFAK. "Very potent medicine, at that. It accelerates the body's natural healing factor by a ridiculous amount."

"Sounds useful."

"It is, but I don't have much of it on me, and using too many is very bad for you." Pale pressed her back up against the trunk of the tree and slid down to the base of it, looking up at the ceiling as a sigh escaped her. Already, she could feel the medicine working to heal the gash in her head; within a few minutes, she'd be all set.

It was lucky that Valerie hadn't given her a concussion, or something worse; her and Kayla were already behind schedule, and the last thing they needed was a debilitating injury holding them back.

"So," Kayla said, interrupting her thoughts. Pale turned to her and found Kayla staring at her with a hand on her hip. "What happened back there?"

Pale shrugged. "We fought. I won. Simple as that."

"No, it isn't. I thought you weren't going to kill anyone."

"I won't kill anyone who doesn't try to kill us first."

"And did Valerie try to kill you?"

"Depends on whether you think massive head trauma is just her way of making friends or not."

"Pale."

Pale let out a sigh, running a hand through her snow-white hair. It was still sticky and clumped together with wet blood, but hopefully she could find a river or something to soak it in. "...You know, back where I'm from, we consider trying to brain someone with a giant chunk of rock to be lethal force. I take it that's not par for the course here?"

"I don't know what that means."

"Old expression from my creators; I'll rephrase… I take it that things are different here?"

"In a manner of speaking," Kayla answered. "Magic is obviously very dangerous, but generally, trained mages will hold themselves back from drawing blood if it's just a standard duel. You remember how they started that fight by firing an arrow at us? They could have easily gotten one of us in the leg with that, or worse. I think they were just trying to intimidate us into giving up."

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"Someone should have told that to Valerie, because she's the one who pushed the issue."

"Which of you drew first blood?"

"I did," Pale answered. "Why does that matter?"

"It matters in a duel," Kayla replied. "Like I said, we generally try not to draw blood, or anything equally as bad. That's reserved for people who are actually trying to kill us."

"Then how did you manage to take down your opponent, if not by hurting her?"

"I managed to box her in with my flames, then convinced her to surrender when I started to push them towards her, just enough for the heat to make her uncomfortable and show that she had no chance of winning."

Pale's eyes narrowed. "A little warning about the etiquette behind magic duels would have been nice, you know. I'm used to fighting to the death on this planet."

"In my defense, I didn't know they were going to have us fighting each other like this," Kayla replied. "And I had precious little time to fill you in before they sent you down here by yourself."

Pale waved her off. "It doesn't matter, I suppose; I know now, at any rate, and I won't be making the same mistake again any time soon."

Kayla crossed her arms. "Sorry, but that's not good enough. What did you do to her?"

Pale glared at her. "Since when did you get so assertive?"

"Since we fought an elder vampire and a hoard of undead a few months ago. Somehow, compared to that, standing up for myself doesn't seem quite so difficult anymore. Stop trying to dodge the question, it won't work."

"Fine, fine…" Pale sighed and ran a hand through her hair again. "…At first, I just tried to get her to surrender by holding a knife to her throat. It worked on Nasir earlier, so I figured it'd work again, but it didn't this time; she ended up pushing the issue, we fought, and I gave her a shallow cut on her arm."

"You cut her?" Kayla asked.

Pale nodded. "Yeah. Don't tell me – she interpreted that as deadly force, and chose to respond in kind, because she suddenly thought I was actually trying to kill her?" Kayla nodded, and Pale let out a heavy sigh. "Yeah, that figures…"

"What happened then?"

"Exactly what you think happened – she started fighting for her life, not that I knew it at the time, and very nearly brained me with a heavy chunk of rock. I figured I needed to end the fight immediately at that point, so…"

Pale trailed off. Kayla crossed her arms again. "So you shot her."

"Of course I shot her," Pale muttered. "She was trying to kill me."

"Because she thought you were trying to kill her." Kayla let out a heavy exhale. "...Well, this is a mess."

"I noticed," Pale said dryly. "At the very least, I had some medicine I could give her. Her legs will be healed up soon, to the point where she won't even notice the injuries save for the scar tissue. Granted, that doesn't make up for blowing her knees apart in the first place, but still. Hopefully, that'll make it clear that I don't intend to kill her."

"An apology would make it even more clear."

Pale whipped around to face her. "You can't be serious."

"I am," Kayla replied. "At the very least, you should offer her one. She doesn't have to accept it, but you probably should offer it to her, just to make it clear that this was all a huge misunderstanding on your part."

"On my part?" Pale echoed. "Did you miss the part where she tried to kill me, too?"

"The way I see it, you both could keep dwelling on that, or you could work to move past it. I don't know about you, but I'd rather focus the energy spent remembering that on something else instead."

Pale let out a small huff. "...I'll think about it," she offered. "Anyway, how'd your fight with the archer go? I take it you won?"

Kayla motioned to the pack she'd given Pale earlier. "See for yourself."

Pale blinked, then turned her attention to the pack. She opened it and began to search through it, pausing when she saw two tomes inside, one white and one red. Slowly, she turned back to Kayla and gave her a nod.

"Well done."

Kayla perked up at that, a small blush crossing her face. "...Thanks," she replied softly. "Anyway, I figure that one could be yours and the other could be mine."

"Perhaps it'd be best to wait before dividing them up," Pale offered. "It's possible the next person we find has another red or another white. Not that it matters that much, but still."

"Sure."

With that established, Pale turned her attention back to the pack and began to search through it again. "How many rations do you have in here? You haven't been snacking on them again, have you?"

Kayla gave her an indignant look, but shook her head. "It's not my fault the chocolate bars in them taste so good… but no; I remember the first time you caught me doing that quite vividly, and that was enough for me to hold myself back whenever I felt the urge."

"Good. Because I don't know about you, but I don't think it's a good idea to try and hunt for food right now, not when we still don't know the basic layout of the land, what threats there are around here, or where the other initiates are lurking."

"What are you trying to say?"

Pale's only response was to hold up one of the ration packages so Kayla could see it.

"Menu number six, chicken-and-rice tortilla bowl," she said. "Nice."

XXX

A short while later, and the two of them were seated around a small fire, the ration having been divided in half between the two of them. They ate in silence, Pale taking care to keep her eyes on the forest around them, scanning for any threats. Up above, the sunlight trickling through the crack in the ceiling had begun to wane, indicating that it was getting close to nightfall.

Pale wasn't sure exactly what to expect down here, but experience had told her that nothing good lurked in the darkness on Sjel. And to that end, she'd opted to keep her rifle within arm's reach, and her pistol on her hip, even as she ate.

After a few minutes of eating, they were both finished. Pale collected their trash and buried it, then took the sleeping roll out of her pack and laid it out on the ground.

"I'll take the first watch," she offered. "We'll trade places on the sleeping roll, since we only have the one now."

"Make sense," Kayla agreed with a nod. "Okay, let's-"

A far-off scream of agony interrupted her. Both women tensed, Pale's grip tightening around her weapon while sparks flickered in Kayla's hands. After a moment, the scream abruptly stopped, leaving the forest in silence once more. Slowly, Pale turned towards Kayla.

"It's your call," she offered. "Do we check it out?"

Kayla bit the inside of her cheek. "...I say so," she replied. "If someone needs our help-"

Pale did her best not to roll her eyes. Kayla was still as altruistic as ever, it seemed. Still, she had been the one to offer the choice to her, so it wasn't entirely a surprise, she supposed.

"Okay," she told her. "Let's move. I'll take point."

Kayla nodded, and after taking a brief moment to stow the bedroll, they both set off.

Pale wasn't sure what they'd find out there, but something told her that those hidden dangers she'd been wary of had finally made themselves known to them.