Iris grunted and heaved as she yanked and twisted the great sword. The balrog’s corpse was in an awkward heap, crunched up between roots with its knees shoved towards its chest and half submerged in thick, murky swamp water. Iris was still covered in mud from the afternoon spent training, and she paid no mind to the inevitable additions to the filth that came from wrestling her sword free of her felled foe.

Night had settled over the swamp, and it was alive with the infinite buzzing, chirping and croaking of the many nocturnal creatures that inhabited it. Large rays of purple and orange moonlight shined down through gaps in the trees on the ruins of the pyramid behind her, but precious little light reached her where she stood before the densely packed trunks that crowded the base of the pyramid. Instead, her work was lit only by the glow stones she wore on her body and a single lantern held by a tentacle extending up from the bag at her waist.

“Would you like help with that?” Ellie asked, hovering casually on a broom behind her.

“No!” Iris said with a grunt as she placed a foot on either of the balrog’s shoulders and heaved, “I can do it!”

Even with the added support of Abby’s tentacles, however, the sword only gave an inch or two at a time and frequently hung in place entirely. Once — when she angrily leveraged the sword to one side as she pulled — blood squirted from the wound and splattered across her robes and face, which she ignored. It was a long, arduous process that required shifting positions and angles various times until finally only the last several inches were still submerged in flesh, and a final pull ripped it free.

“Aha!” Iris shouted, turning to the witches and holding the sword high overhead.

A wild glow of triumph gleamed in her eyes as she smiled wide. She stood atop the balrog’s crumpled corpse and held the sword with a single grasp clenched around the tentacles that spewed from her palm and wrapped tightly around the hilt. Her once blue robes were thoroughly soaked through with dirty water and caked in mud which also marked her face and matted her hair. Fresh blood from the corpse painted over the mud on her face and half obscured the goggles she still wore.

“What?” Iris asked as she lowered the sword with dejection.

The witches were gathered around her, some floating on their brooms while others balanced precariously on an entangled mess of roots and crooked bricks where the swamp slowly lay siege to the structure. Their expressions ranged from critical and judgmental to bewildered and appalled.

“You look like a madwoman,” Grey said bluntly.

Iris caught her breath for a moment while she formulated a response, “I think I kind of am?”

“Never mind appearances,” Dala said from her broom, “are you injured?”

“No, but I feel like I should be asking you that,” Iris answered.

“It’s only a few broken bones,” the matron said dismissively.

Iris laughed, “and I’m the madwoman?”

“You’re a witch who thinks she’s a wizard but fights with a great sword,” Ellie observed, “and you have a tentacle monster inside your hand.”

Anna chimed in, “and you look like you crawled out of the depths of the swamp and murdered the first several creatures you saw.”

Iris shrugged as she sheathed the blood-slicked great sword into the small purple bag at her waist, careful to avoid cutting into the tentacle that still reached out of it to hold the lantern overhead, “this kind of stuff’s pretty normal to me.”

“It’s rather abnormal to us,” Dala said, “but it is not our place to judge. Come, we must return home before the worst creatures of the night emerge.”

A helpful tentacle offered Iris her walking stick, which she promptly mounted. She waited for the other witches to take flight and clear the way before blipping into the air beyond the branches overhead and easing mana into the stick to fly. She soon joined the loose formation of witches as they angled towards the sky and rose up from the swamp.

The cool night air was a refreshing embrace as she followed the witches across the night sky. Clouds meandered across the stars overhead casting shadows like islands in the sea of colorful moonlight that danced across the trees that raced by below. Iris found herself enamored by the scene and captivated by the moment, overwhelmed with the sensation that this was what adventuring was meant to be. Experiences like these were the ones she longed for and dreamed of for so much of her life, and for a precious moment all the troubles and worries she had collected along the way completely disappeared.

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The flight came to an end much sooner than she had hoped, and soon the witches were gathering in the matron’s hut. Ellie placed a cooking spit over the bowl of coals in the center of the room and hung a modest cooking pot from it while Dala lit the coals with a wave of her hand. Relena and Anna entered a moment later with handfuls of vegetables and herbs which they dumped into the pot.

“Grey,” Dala asked, “would you mind cleaning our guest?”

“Uh,” Iris darted her eyes between the witches in confusion. She had removed the bloody goggles, but was otherwise still disgusting.

After rolling her eyes and pushing off the wall she leaned against, Grey not-so-gently thumped Iris on the forehead with two extended fingers.

“Hey!” Iris shouted, and then paused as she felt a fuzzy tingling sensation spreading across her head and down her face. The sensation continued down past her neck and slowly washed over her body, eradicating the blood and filth on both her skin and robes as it traveled. She twisted her outstretched arms and watched with wonder as the cleanse moved down past her elbows, then wrists, and finally to her fingertips — even cleaning the gunk beneath her nails.

“You’re welcome,” Grey said as she took a seat on one of the cushions surrounding the cooking pot.

“Can I learn that?” Iris asked excitedly.

Grey scoffed, “if you have about seven years to spare, sure.”

Iris frowned in disappointment and joined the witches around the cooking pot. The only one not seated on a cushion was Relena, who knelt beside the cooking pot and twirled her hand over it in a slow, methodical motion.

“Girls,” the matron said, “tell me about this balrog and it’s arrival.”

“We had just come out of a passage,” Grey said, “the dungeon spat us out because we failed a puzzle and it closed the door behind us. When we stepped outside, it was waiting for us.”

“It looked like it had just stumbled out of the woods,” Anna said, “it was already injured pretty badly, and was sniffing around like it was looking for something.”

“Curious,” Dala absently tapped a finger on her knee as she spoke, “perhaps an outcast? Though I didn’t see a brand on its chest.”

“Do you think the balrogs are expanding territory again?” Relena asked with an air of concern in her voice.

“I certainly hope not,” Dala said grimly.

“Uh, actually,” Iris hesitantly raised a hand to interject, “I think it was looking for me.”

All eyes turned towards Iris as the matron inquired further, “why would a balrog be searching for you?”

“They attacked the sky ship I was aboard. That’s how I ended up lost in the swamp in the first place — I was wrestling with that one when it took flight, and the ship left us behind.”

“You were wrestling a balrog?” Anna asked, her mouth briefly hanging agape before she looked to her fellow witches, “who the hell is this girl?”

“Stop invoking hell, or—” the matron was cut short by an interruption from Anna.

“or hell might come knocking,” the young witch said while dramatically rolling her eyes.

Dala briefly looked like she might explode into anger, but then furrowed her brow and rubbed her temples. “You’re all grounded,” she eventually said flatly, “I’ll collect your brooms after dinner.”

“What?” Anna shouted.

“Good job, Anna,” Grey said.

“What did I even do?” Relena asked the matron with offense.

Dala maintained her demeanor long enough to make eye contact with and speak to Iris, “I’m sorry you have to witness this.” Her face then contorted in anger as she pointed at Anna, “you’ve lost your mind if you think I’m going to tolerate this kind of attitude,” her finger shifted to Grey, “you were supposed to help teach Iris how to fly, and instead you ran off and nearly got yourself and Relena killed,” finally she pointed at Relena, “and you—” the matron paused and lowered her finger, “you’re right, actually. You just did what I asked you to, you’re not grounded.”

Relena nodded with satisfaction, while Anna crossed her arms and harrumphed. Ellie’s expression didn’t change, as if she had been certain all along that “you’re all grounded” had never included her in the first place.

“As long as I’m being punished for ditching,” Grey said, “and not just because a balrog showed up — which was in no way my fault — then I’m not even arguing.”

“I feel bad,” Iris interjected, “I mean, I don’t want to be yelled at or anything, but just because I’m a guest doesn’t mean I didn’t anything wrong. I’m pretty sure the balrog showing up was my fault, which means I put all of you in danger, so I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry for that,” Grey said, to Iris’s surprise, “you survived fighting a balrog and then came back to finish it off. If anything you should be boasting.”

“Iris Orion, the Balrog Slayer,” Ellie said, panning her hands through the air as if the words hung on a banner before her, “I’d definitely start calling myself that, if I were you.”

Uncomfortable with the unexpected praise, Iris did her best to shift the topic of discussion away from herself by asking questions about the balrogs. Dinner finished cooking surprisingly quickly, which Iris guessed was thanks to some kind spell being cast by Relena, and then each served themselves portions in small wooden bowls as Ellie answered her questions.

According to her, balrogs lived in the dark depths of chasms spread throughout Evermore Swamp. She summarized legends that told of the chasms first opening many centuries ago, and the beasts spewing forth from the darkness like demon spawn. Dala, however, assured Iris that they were not in fact demons, and that demons were much more dreadful and dangerous foes.

“Last time we went to the city,” Ellie said between spoonfuls of soup, “I read part of a book that theorized the balrogs actually come from an underground jungle far beneath the swamp.”

“Really?” Iris’s eyes went wide with excitement, “that’s definitely going on the list!”

“What list?” Anna asked.

“T list of places I want to explore one day when I’m stronger. I mean, an underground jungle? I bet there’s all kinds of stuff down there.”

“Are the other places on this list also exceedingly deadly?” Dala asked with a raised brow.

Iris thought about it for a moment, then nodded, “yeah, mostly.”