“A battle mage,” the warrior groaned. “The gods help us. It will come back now, for sure.” He pointed toward the cliff wall a hundred meters away.

“Perfect,” Caveria said, still snarling. “I need something more to kill.” She set off towards the cliff wall. I hurried after her.

The clearing was quiet, otherwise. All the goblins seemed to be dead or had run away, and Tiriel had dropped out of a tree and was kneeling beside the children, singing and smiling. Serah was looking over the warriors, and did her normal, unsettling thing. I watched as a gash on Arndrir’s cheek just closed up.

“Stop.” Caveria held up her hand. “Get back. You can’t deal with this.”

“What?” I spluttered. “I can -” Something shot past us, and the blast of air knocked me off my feet. Caveria didn’t budge, but I saw her bare her teeth, and begin to glow.

It wasn’t just her hands and eyes, it was her whole body. I scrambled away as the invisible something blasted towards her. It ran into a wall of fire. I was too close - it singed my hair and I ran backwards.

Something thin and long shot straight up above Caveria, and seemed to hang in the air for an instant. Then it twisted, and a whole train of fireballs pounded down toward her. She screamed defiantly, and the fireballs bounced away from her.

I’d mentioned TNT, but as I watched those fireballs go straight through trees I thought I understood why they didn’t need it. Caveria launched a fire spear again, and the something shrieked and sped off to the right. It was very hard to see it, but Caveria seemed to track it easily.

She grinned and jumped, just before something blasted through the ground where she’d been standing, ripping a huge gash in the soil. She launched a lightning bolt after it. The ground exploded fifty meters from her, and I saw - something - shoot into the air.

It seemed to hover, and Caveria launched more lightning. It sent fireballs in response, and I sprinted back towards the edge of the clearing, where the others were now assembled and waving frantically at me. I dived in behind a tree and Serah held my head briefly, then nodded.

I turned to watch, with the others. Arndrir was frowning, Thord was impassive, and Tiriel was jumping up and down, cheering. Caveria was alone out there, with the invisible monster that was now streaking through the air above her in a circle, launching a constant stream of huge fireballs. In response, she sent lightning out in every direction. It was completely apocalyptic.

Caveria shone red like a small star, and lightning crackled in a half-dome around her. The flashes made it possible to see her attacker. It looked like an enormous giant oarfish - long, thin, silvery, and with a plume of bright white hair streaming after its head. It was looking down at her, and shooting fireballs from its mouth.

The fight continued, even faster. The lightning dome was almost solid, and the fish-like thing was like a ring of silvery light above her. The fireballs were continuous and the ground was beginning to glow red and melt around her.

“Can we... help her?” I asked.

“No,” Arndrir said. “Only another battle mage could help her now. But she doesn’t need help.”

“Are you sure?” I said. “It looks... tough.”

“Watch.”

It was just moments later, but it felt like much longer, when there was a sudden detonation in the center of the lightning dome, right where Caveria was. I cried out, but suddenly saw her in the air, above the fish monster. She was upside down, and as I watched she clapped her hands together and sent a beam of pure white light straight at the monster.

It shrieked briefly, and began to spin. It spun faster and faster, shining brightly white, brighter and brighter, until I had to look away.

Then the light disappeared. I blinked and looked back. The monster was gone, and Caveria was calmly sinking towards the ground.

Arndrir held up a hand while she walked in a circle out there, still glowing red all over. When she began walking towards us he lowered his hand.

“All clear.”

Serah jogged off towards Caveria, who was limping, I saw. The rest of us followed, while the children, their companion and their guards stayed.

“I was there when she killed Mordrozdha,” Arndrir said. “That was much worse. This was a mid-sized fight, for Caveria.”

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When we came up to her she was leaning her forehead against Serah’s palms with her eyes closed. There was a faint red gleam about her, but it was fading. She opened her eyes and smiled at us.

“Ugh,” she said. “I needed that. That was refreshing.” She grinned and stretched. “Too bad there was just one of them.”

Too bad?! She was really crazy. She had to have a death wish, I thought.

“Right,” she said. “Let’s seal up this opening. Who’s coming?”

“I am,” Thord said, echoed by Arndrir. Caveria looked at me.

“The monsters attacked the children in order to drag them into the cave," she said. "Children are much easier to corrupt magically than adults. There may be some poor kid in the cave now, but I don’t know if we can go after it. Maybe if we had one of those legendary heroes.” Sure, like Varagorn, I thought. Not like me. “We can block the cave mouth, though, and kill any guardians in the outer part. So that no more kids get dragged in there right now.”

“I’m coming too,” I said, stung by the taunt. I was no hero. I’d said as much and she definitely know it. I hadn’t signed up for this. Impossible monsters and magical caves that kidnapped children... Her eyes gleamed, but with her normal, cold blue.

“Thank you,” was all she said, in a quiet voice.

The cave was just a normal cave. We stopped just outside and Caveria pointed inside.

“See the soft waving in there? Those are tentacles. The walls of the entire cave are lined with tentacles. They take whatever the monsters deliver and send it backwards, into the cave, where the magical core lives.”

“Is it alive?” I said.

“Yes. The cave is alive. All the monsters are in tune with it. Filthy stuff.” She looked revolted. “All right. What we do now is we destroy all the tentacles, at least twenty meters in. Cut them off at the base. Be careful, they are quick and strong, and if they catch you, they will transport you deeper into the cave. Work together. Thord and Peter. Arndrir, you’re with me.”

We drew swords and axe, and Caveria a curved knife I hadn’t seen before. Then we got to work, cutting one swaying tentacle off after another.

They were like giant slugs, sticky and rubbery. My sword cut through them easily, but the slime began to accumulate. After we’d gone about halfway

Caveria called a pause. She went to each of our weapons with her hands glowing red, and burned the slime away.

“That’s enough,” she said when we reached the first bend. “We don’t want to go out of sight from the mouth. Let’s go back. Keep watch so nothing comes lunging after us.”

Nothing did, and once outside we stood back while she did magical earthworks. She held up her glowing hands and huge boulders came crashing down from above, while the soil rippled and rose to cover them. Soon there was no trace of the cave, just a brown mound sloping up towards the cliff face.

“There,” Caveria said. “That will take them a while to open up.”

“Can’t they, uh, magic it away, like you did?” I asked her. I was almost afraid to talk to her, but I was also curious. And - alright, scared. I’d had quite enough of monsters for one day, thank you very much. For the whole week, to be honest.

“No,” she said, looking at me with her eyes gleaming again. “Their magic doesn’t work through the rocks and soil, and the enchantment I put on it. They’re locked, and since there’s no other opening right here, they can’t dig from outside. The cave will have to regrow the tentacles until it can direct monsters from inside. That should take months. This part of the valley is a little safer, for a while.”

“One more question, if that’s okay,” I said, feeling stupid. It wasn’t my fault there was no magic back in - my world. Reality. The waking world. Or just... my world. I pushed the thought away.

“Sure,” she said with a shrug.

“Why did you have to cut the tentacles? Why couldn’t you just burn them away, or blast them with lightning?”

“Because they are part of the cave. The whole cave is one magical being. It’s too strong even for me to take on alone. It’s also very stupid, which is what saves us, since it can’t use all that power at once. But it can direct it into its parts. It would exhaust me long before I’d made any impact.” She saw my next question, and answered it. “The silver eel was outside the cave and could only draw on its own power. And I was stronger than it.”

We were coming back to the clearing, where the children and the others waited. Caveria gave me a lopsided smile.

“I have a question for you, pupil. Tomorrow, at hero school. What would your zaijensss have done in this case?”

I looked away. I didn’t have a good answer. She laughed softly as she went to talk to Serah.

It was getting late, but we didn’t want to stay in the valley. After some discussion, we returned the way we’d come, escorting the children and their companion and guards to safety. They were a group of orphans on the way to a school in another city, traveling with six companions and two guards. They’d hired an escort team for the valley, but it hadn’t been enough. Only one of their guards and one of their escorts had survived.

When we reached the place where the escort teams had been waiting, they found that two more children had survived, along three companions. One child was dead, the one we’d seen, and one was missing, presumably dragged into the cave. The other companions had died trying to protect the children. The three who had survived had been forced to choose between going looking for the others among the horde of goblins, unarmed, or trying to save the two kids they knew were still alive. They’d chosen to live, and I couldn’t blame them.

We made camp with them, and with the remaining escort parties nearby. Nothing attacked us during the night, and to my surprise, the children settled down fairly easily and went to sleep. Tiriel helped a lot, playing with them, singing, and combing the girl’s hair.

Arndrir led me away for a practice and debriefing session before dinner. He had seen my response to the goblin, and was happy that his repetitive movement exercises were beginning to sink in. He had a whole lot of critique and advice, though.

When I returned from a last visit behind a tree, I saw Tiriel and Caveria lying beside each other on their bedrolls. I stopped and watched them. They looked peaceful enough now, asleep. Tiriel was smiling faintly, beautiful as always. Caveria was scowling even in her sleep. I shook my head. She scared me, unlike Tiriel. I’d seen Tiriel fight, though. She wasn’t just a playful, singing, delicate beauty. She was deadly and ruthless. But she wasn’t a walking, one-woman nuclear explosion.