Quink stepped down quietly onto the cavern floor. The darkness was thick like tar, her hand, outstretched before her, was only visible when she brought it up close to her face. Here, there were no more rooms of carved stone, bright flickering torches in sconces that reflected a warming light down long, meandering corridors. Here it was tight, cramped tunnels and vast, echoey caverns, filled with stalagmites and stalactites, like the crooked teeth of some all-devouring monstrosity.

Here, she was alone.

***

It hadn’t taken them long to wind their way down the tunnel, once they had cleared the remains of the bookcase that had been hiding it. The stench of the goblin nest got stronger with every step. The smell of sweat and mould, when you breathed in deep it made you feel unclean, decay and rot, unseen but felt with every breath. When they reached the end, they found themselves stepping out into the waste pit of a rather large community of the green skinned monsters. It had taken every mental exercise she knew not to throw up there and then. Utig carried her across the pool of mud, muck and remains. Setting her down behind a crude wooden shack, little more than rough cut timbers propped against the cavern wall. That was when the goblins attacked, that was when she had got lost.

A swarm of goblins, their red eyes gleaming in the dim light of Havia’s torch, had dropped from a ledge above the pit. They must have seen them wading through the nausea inducing collection of refuse, biding their time until the party were distanced far enough apart from each other. With Havia and Antios nearing the middle of the pit and Utig putting Quink down on the opposite edge, the party had to defend on two or three sides as more goblins swarmed to the sounds of battle.

Utig swung his axe, cleaving the first goblin nearly in two, its cohorts already climbing over its bisected remains to try and pierce the furious barbarian with their crude spears. Within seconds, five goblins became fifteen, Antios and Havia were back-to-back, the fighter swinging his sword over the bodies of two fallen goblins. Havia, short sword in hand, was protecting Antios’s back and calling out locations where the goblins were about to pounce. All the while dealing vicious cuts to any enemy that tried to get too close.

That was when Quink had decided to creep round into the shack, find solid ground so she could concentrate and cast a spell.

She rushed across the bone littered ground, her boots kicking up muck and dust as she kicked aside the desiccated remains of animals and, well, possibly humans. She turned to cast, one hand resting on the cover of the rotten timbers that made up the shacks wall, a glass bauble in her other hand, one of her focuses. The incantation for daylight on her lips, her fingers moved, her mind orientating her energies, letting them flow through her and down into her hand, the focus began to glow, she felt the familiar rush of using magic, a sensation that penetrated every fibre of her being. Sex was good, but magic, oh, magic was so much more.

She took a half step backwards, aiming the energies above the mass of green skins converging on her friends. The spell left her lips, followed by a scream, and darkness.

***

“What’s the matter girly, got no coin?” Averug, the butcher of Eliksborough. His voice sent shivers up and down her spine, his beady eyes were sunken and red rimmed, his skin mottled and scarred, his face seemed too small for his head, his head was too small for his huge, hulking, body. He placed the freshly cooked sausage on the counter, sliding it forward with a sneer.

“You get this now, and later, I get a favour. Sound good to you?” He smiled, but it did little to put her at ease. She’d not eaten for a couple of days, the last morsel was some bread the baker had dropped, he had still charged her the last copper piece she owned.

“This town is wall to wall scum.” Her mother had proclaimed, just before leaving her father, it’s one of the few memories she had of her.

“Quintaksha, be strong. I can’t take you on the road with me, but I will come back for you, I promise.” After all these years Quink couldn’t remember what her mother sounded like, but that promise was etched into her soul.

Her father, a glass blower by trade, had lost his job in Flindoria, where she had been born, so they had used their savings and bought passage to Eliksborough, where her father had been promised work with the alchemist’s guild. It wasn’t long after his wife had left that Quintaksha’s father lost his job again. Apparently, he wasn’t very good at blowing glass when drinking cheap wine for breakfast. Three months later he was dead, and she was on the street.

The young girl reached for the sausage, Averug’s bloated paw whipped out, fast as an adder, grabbing her by the wrist. He’d let her keep the sausage and fed her every day after that for a year.

Not long after her seventh birthday she killed him in his sleep, slitting his throat with one of his favourite knives. Sometimes she still saw his face, tongue hanging out like one of his sausages, empty eyes, and fetid skin. He deserved his end, she had kept his shop open for a week after that, even had compliments on the new pies.

The glassblower’s hall at the alchemist’s academy, burned to the ground that year. And in Huir, where the great academics gathered, a young thief, new to the path, tried her hand at magic.

***

Quink took a deep breath, calming herself, the darkness was nothing to be afraid of, she had been in worse situations. Her head ached, she’d lost her focus, the glass bauble she used to channel certain spells. She had others, but that one was, special.

She breathed in quietly, letting her hearing tell her what was nearby. Water, running slowly, intermittently, somewhere behind her. Probably overflow from the above waste pit. She hadn’t fallen far, but the tunnel was slick, and she had slid even further down, eventually stopping in the darkness she found herself in now. Disorientated and unsure how much time had passed. For a while the sounds of fighting could be heard bouncing from every direction, a cacophony of noise that ebbed and flowed like the sea. But as she wandered the darkness trying to find her way back, or at least a way upwards, the sounds had all but died down, until now all she could hear was the occasional drip of water, and the skittering of many legged things.

Her pack was back with the others, she had a small void bag, but it held mostly scrolls and food. As she tried to rummage through her things her head throbbed, a wave of dizziness assaulting her in the dark, accompanied by many white dots in her vision. She must have hit it on the way down, she had to find somewhere to sit, somewhere safe to assess what she had to hand, and what to do next.

A scurrying nearby shook her out of a daydream, her eyes had adjusted slightly to the darkness, luminous mushrooms, casting a dim white glow, brought contrast to the shadows, a depth that she could now distinguish. It had been quite a while since she charted up the tunnel, and this was her first contact.

From the sound of it the creature was not large, and not far away. A rustle of fur on the tunnel wall, four small feet, shuffling forward, a constant sniffing.

It stopped. Quink stopped.

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Holding her breathe, gauging where the creature waited.

There was a sharp intake of breath as whatever it was lunged, colliding with Quink as she tried to sidestep. She smelled damp fur, rotten meat, and sweat. Her breath was knocked out of her, Quink pulled a long, needle-like dagger from a sheath at her hip, listening as the creature bit on the thin air where she had just stood, and thrusted the blade behind her blindly.

An ear-piercing squeal filled the darkness as Quink was pulled down to the ground. The creature, the size of a large dog, rolled over her as she held steadfast to her dagger. It thrashed and spasmed as it died. Out of breath, bruised and exhausted, Quink stood up, dusting herself down before wiping her dagger on the creature’s fur as she tentatively touched it. At a guess she would say it was a giant rat, which didn’t bode well, those things were rarely alone. As an afterthought she used her dagger to cut off several clumps of fur. stuffing the rank smelling fibres into a small pouch at her belt before following the dull glow of the fungus on the walls, tracing the root the rat must have taken to find her.

Sure enough, another rat was not too far away, this time she didn’t hear it before the thing bit deep into her leg. In a panic she stabbed down into its body many times before the creature released its hold on her, laying still and lifeless before her as she spent precious energy casting a healing spell on herself. It wasn’t the first time she had had to heal herself, but it sure hurt like hell, and made concentrating on the spell harder.

***

O’mehong was a beautiful city, spires of glistening marble reaching up towards the heavens, onyx domed observatories with gnomish contraptions pointing in every direction, even the lower city, with its plain masoned buildings, had arcane lighting and aqueducts of fresh water to every neighbourhood. A true testament to the constant search for and use of knowledge. With so many academics lost in their research, it was the perfect place for a fledging thief.

Quink, thirteen years old, had no skill with locks, or sneaking, but she had a knack for magic. She’d discovered that in Huir, and now she was attuned enough to spot magic scrolls, hidden amongst the piles of parchment and velum heaped in the chambers of any academic naive enough to leave a door ajar or window open.

The problem wasn’t getting in or finding what to steal, it was knowing which academics were smart enough, or wealthy enough, to hire guards.

Quink spat a tooth on the ground, her tongue finding its way instinctively to the new hole. She couldn’t see out of her left eye; her back stung like murder and she was pretty sure a rib was broken as well. Yet, somehow, she managed to get to her feet and run away from the mansion. She had climbed in through a first-floor window, and was helping herself to a few select scrolls, easily worth enough to cover food for the month, when the guard walked quietly into the room. They hadn’t hesitated, a sword pommel to the face, a kick to the stomach, she was pretty sure she’d got a sword cut on her back as she jumped out the window, landing with a sickening crunch on the pavement below, gasping as her rib gave out. She was lucky she hadn’t broken her leg.

Half blind and panicked she’d found herself in a temple, some lesser god of balance or some shit, she didn’t care, temples were sacred, safe, she could stay a few hours then find help, a healer, damn it, this was going to cost her all her savings. Her last thought before passing out in the pews was that the incense in here was cloying, thick, nausea inducing.

She woke healed, mostly, with an old woman sitting next to her.

“So, you’re awake are ya honey?” the woman said, a wrinkled smile beneath piercing eyes that didn’t really set Quink at ease.

“Yeah, thanks, did you, did you heal me?” She asked, checking her surroundings. She was still in the temple, laid on a bench in a corner near a statue of some holy knight, a sun and moon crest painted gold and silver on his chest.

“I did, looked like you had a bit of a run in, hey.” She glanced towards the alter in the centre of the temple. A plain marble dais, the symbols of the sun and moon carved in a simple fashion upon it. The temple had been arranged in a circular fashion around the dais, the pews arranged so everyone seated had a view of the centre. It was a high ceilinged, modestly adorned, a few paintings hung against the walls. A maiden helping a warrior to his feet, an old woman casting a net into a river, a mother and child watching the stars. Simple pieces, no ostentatious images of sacrifice and repentance that adorned some of the other temples. On the dais a few offerings of foodstuffs and copper coins could be seen. Quink’s first thought was how much coin might be there, but even she wouldn’t steal from a temple, the gods could be petty.

“You know you’re a shit thief, right?” The old lady said in a casual fashion, Quink turned to stare at her, shock on her face.

“Who said I was a thief?” She said defensively. “I got mugged by some drunkard is all.” the old lady nodded her head and laughed, it was a disturbingly youthful sound, warm and joyous in the very essence of itself. She carried on laughing for a while, chuckling as she stood and reached to the pew behind her. She grabbed a water skin and handed it to Quink.

“Quintaksha, daughter of Liatris Sinteriace, you cannot lie to me.” She focused a beady eye on the young thief, paralysing her with that gaze, anchoring her to the spot as if her very soul had been trapped and the old woman was examining every facet of its being. Quink was helpless against the old woman’s scrutiny, and shocked to the core at the mention of her real name, not to mention her mothers.

“You are not meant to be a thief, girl, admit it, and move on. You have a gift, but very little training, so much potential, but no direction. Carry on this way, without any training, any focus, and you will destroy yourself. And what a waste that would be.” She blinked, freeing Quink from the gaze, and smiled warmly again, like a grandmother who is done disciplining a toddler.

“Follow me, I can give you some training, well, guidance really, and I have friends who would willingly teach one as adept as yourself. In return, there will be chores that need doing.” Turning away the old lady scooped a handful of coins from off of the alter and proceeded out the door.

“Did, did you just steal from a temple?” Quink asked as she followed close behind. Not actually hearing the reply as the old lady made her way hastily through the crowded streets.

“It ain’t stealing if it’s been offered to you.”

***

In the darkness Quink cursed as she bought the stone down against her blade again, to no result. She rummaged along the cave wall for another, repeating the process several times, until, eventually, the fur ignited with a brief flare as the fresh sparks caught.

She’d made a small torch from a bone she had found on the floor, swallowing her revulsion as she wrapped some fabric from the lining of her robes around the end, using the fur as a tinder to give the denser fabric time to catch. Within a few heartbeats the oppressive darkness became a tunnel, four giant rats lay dead just at the edge of her light. She made quick work of making her way up, navigating her way by the slope of the ground. Eventually she could hear the fighting again, the swearing, the chaos that was the goblin camp. She emerged from the dark to see Utig, stood amidst a pile of green corpses, his face a twisted mask of pure rage. His axe dripped with remains, Antios and Havia were crouched on the opposite side of a boulder lined clearing. Antios clutched his arm to his chest, Havia supporting him. The clearing was possibly a ceremonial arena for the green skins or maybe a ritual site? Either way, it was now their grave.

Utig bellowed as a green figure darted from behind a boulder, lunging with a spear towards the barbarian. The crude stone tip bounced from the thick leathers of his chest piece. Utig releasing an inhuman laugh, bought his axe down to shatter the spear, the goblin tried to step back as soon as he had lunged forward with is off hand. Sadly, it wasn’t fast enough to avoid the iron grip of the berserker. Utig twisted his hand around its neck, viciously twisting his wrist to the side with a resounding crack. The goblin fell limp to the floor, but Utig didn’t stop there, stomping on the head of the dead creature. Releasing a rage fuelled bellow again.

“Where is she!’ He roared, “where have you taken my love?” Another shape snaked out of the boulders, this time trying to escape the barbarian’s wrath, heading away from the chamber. Utig reached down for the broken spear head, flipping it casually in his hand before sending it, head over splintered end, towards the fleeing goblin. The green skin slumped to the ground, the shattered stump of the spear sticking out of the back of its head.

“Utig, Utig you can stop. I’m here.” Quink called out as she rushed into the light flickering from several braziers around the stone circle.

Utig turned, his eyes, red and unfocused, towards her. For a moment he didn’t recognise her, raising his axe in the air and stepping forward as if to cleave her in two.

Then the haze cleared, his breath became laboured, tears streaming down his face as he dropped his axe behind him, grabbing her fiercely to his chest.

“I thought I’d lost you. I thought you were gone from me forever.” The giant of a man cried like a baby, deep wracking sobs escaping between each word. Quink struggled for breath before he eased his grip to look upon her face.

“It’s ok, I’m back now, you big idiot. Takes more than falling down a fucking hole to get rid of me.” She said, planting a kiss on him before smacking him upside the head.

“What took you so long anyway?”