12

Having no guide, Salem, Gildyr and Kalidandra searched their own way down to the Cave of the Sigil. The druid shuffled forms like a deck of cards, being sometimes a great bear for tracking and battle, sometimes a wolf or an earth-elemental for pushing new paths through the stone.

That constantly moving tunnel system made it very hard to directly follow Valerian's track, but the elf-lord and Pretty One seemed to be headed westward and down; aimed at the root of the mountains. For the rest, Find Person and True Path kept them from getting very much lost.

The real trouble started as Gildyr shifted forms yet again. He'd been a giant, grizzled bear standing up on his hind legs to snuff at the rock; six-inch claws scraping stone, grunting and blinking like a half-blind old man. Then, with a thought, he converted himself to animate rubble.

As a bear, he could speak to the elf and Tabaxi. His senses of hearing and smell were especially keen, his eyesight quite poor… but Val and Pretty had certainly passed this way, disappearing abruptly at some kind of long-vanished intersection.

Anyone else might have been stymied, but not a powerful druid. Gildyr shifted first back to elf, then pushed his spirit into a pile of nearby mine-tailings. Rose up with a clatter and rumble of stone, causing his senses to alter still further.

Now, light didn't matter at all, as the part of his mind that usually "saw" converted to mapping out echoes. He began producing a series of booms, chirps and clicks, listening all over his massive stone body for their bounce and return.

Passage walls were broad and roughly curved, with sandy and rocky stuff hard-packed, down below. The Tabaxi and Ranger were soggy mush-bags with bits of metal attached that rang like bells when his noises struck and reflected.

He did not speak well, in this form. Not to meat-sacks, at least… but could tap out: 'Scouting next space', before melding himself with the tunnel wall like he'd never existed.

Salem knew a few basic words of the Karandun tap-code, but Sandy was fluent. (As insults could fly through linked jewelry that way, during long, boring ceremonies. She'd stopped doing it, though, when the last thing that Valerian said to her thus was: 'You're funny. I like you.')

She watched now as the massive, person-shaped rock pile pushed itself at the wall and then clattered back into rubble. Would presumably animate gravel and stone over there, in the next open space.

Sandy reflexively summoned a fey spirit in the form of a sleek, vicious mountain cat, setting it to guard as she waited. While she could meld with stone, too… at a pinch… the effect didn't last long. She found it uncomfortable. Missed breathing and seeing too much.

The Tabaxi slipped into shadow, going off to do rogue things. A relief, that. In general, not-Kalisandra liked animals. She could hardly be a ranger, otherwise. But the person-form cat-thing felt wrong to her, somehow. Almost as bad as a gnoll. Neither elven, human nor good, clean beast, the Tabaxi raised Sandy's hackles. That golden monkey, on the other hand, was perfectly welcome to sit on her knee and cage treats.

She'd fed Cap'n raisins and cheese… and maybe more ale than was strictly advisable… when her patrolling fey-spirit shrieked like a panther, then vanished away. Sandy vaulted back onto her feet, leaving the food, drink and monkey suspended by magic. Barely in time, as a swarm of fiery, mad-eyed, fanged heads swept around a bend in the corridor. Ifrits, at least ten of them.

The ranger called up a wind wall, trapping half of those cackling, flying heads on its other side. Left her facing five of the monsters. They darted and swooped like wyverns, jetting short bursts of flame and then pouncing to bite. The temperature rose like a brick-kiln; melting sand, cracking stone.

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Sandy's shield and her ward-spells blocked most of their strikes and the worst of that roasting heat. Some got through, though. Enough to cause Cap'n to pop away like a shadow-flit. Meanwhile, five snapping, giggling, flame-heads swooped all around her, keeping the ranger circling.

Sandy's bow was useless here, but More-than-She-Seems was suddenly back in her hand. Not as an arrow, this time, but a stout club. Wielding the thing like a bat, seeing past rocketing lights and shifting long shadows, Sandy batted two of the ifrits into the cave-wall, crushing them.

Stamped out: 'Under attack' with one booted foot as she did so. Then one of the monsters looped around from behind, using all of its magic at once to crash past her shield. Popped like a bubble, but not before sinking its long, jagged teeth deeply into her right shoulder; melting chain-mail, burning leather and wool, roasting flesh to the bone.

Kalisandra gasped aloud; raggedly sucking oven-hot air into frying lungs. Managed to take up the club with her other hand and scrape away the ifrit's papery husk. Crippled, blinded with pain, she staggered in circles, swinging her club through the air at four cackling, burning-hot fiends.

Then Gildyr came back through the wall in earth-elemental form, and the Tabaxi flowed out of Sandy's own lean, moving shadow. With one great, rocky hand, the transformed druid crushed an ifrit to drifting sparks. With the other, he grabbed Kalisandra, pulling her close to his wide rocky chest. The stones that he animated parted and clattered aside, making a space into which he thrust the terribly wounded she-elf.

Salem was a dreadful thief, but a fairly competent rogue. She wasn't much good against three darting ifrits, who were already singeing her fur, causing the Tabaxi's whiskers to blacken and curl. Needed another approach.

Some of Lord Orrin's trove was still in her goods-pocket. Small things, mostly, that she'd thought might be easily shifted and sold. Broken up for their gems and metal, if nothing else. As luck, or the ifrits' sudden bad fortune would have it, Salem's groping hand closed on a beautiful crown-game piece, lifted from Orrin's study. A great, curling wave carved of amethyst and topped with a rearing horse, the object was worthy of kings. Would have fetched her a fortune, if sold.

She hauled it forth, now, meaning only to decoy-animate the thing, but its magic was great and had other ideas. As Salem raised the carved game-piece and started her spell, it glowed, turning suddenly weightless. A wall of phantom sea-water formed in the corridor, dousing and sweeping up ifrits like burning dry leaves in a violent gale. All of the screeching, snapping monsters were sealed up in bubbles of fluid and blasted down-corridor, dead before they hit the far wall. Just like that, the board had been cleared; a just about game-ending move.

Silence fell, and the passage went all at once cold-dripping-dark. The game piece in Salem's clawed hand lost its magical animation, growing heavy again. Eyes very wide, Salem tucked it away, reaching up to pat Cap'n.

"It is well that you remained with the ranger. Better still, that you came back to find me," she said.

The golden monkey searched for comfort and bugs in her singed fur, too upset to respond. Behind them, the massive earth elemental opened back up again, releasing the wounded ranger. Salem pivoted to catch Kalisandra, easing her onto the ground. She was alive and conscious, still; breathing in bubbling gasps through clenched teeth.

Gildyr returned to his druid shape, leaving a pile of rubble half-blocking the passage. Salem set screamer-stones to warn of enemy approach, then fell to pacing and spitting as the wood-elf did what he could.

Invoking golden acorns, 'Cure Wounds' and bottled potions… heal moss, even… he worked hard over Sandy. Spoke to her gently all the while, but the ranger seemed not to hear. She'd pulled something out of a faerie pocket. Ornate betrothal-band, looked like. Started to tap on it with one badly-seared finger, though blood, leaking fluid and deadened nerves made hitting the target next to impossible.

"Tell him…" she managed to hiss. "Not… interested. Find… someone else."

Gildyr bit his lip, but nodded assent.

"Yes, Milady. Of course. Or, you can do it yourself, once you're better. Imagine all the things you can say to Valerian, in person. He won't show his face for a week, for the blushes."

She'd started to cry; a grunting, bloody and messy thing. Glowing, now, too… which was worse.

"Stupid northerner… stupid idiot…" gasped the ranger, before Gildyr placed a desperate life-suspense charm on her. The monkey leapt down from Salem's shoulder. Scurrying over, Cap'n reached into Kalisandra's belt pouch and yanked out all of the good-berries he could hold, stuffing them into her mouth.

"Peace, little friend," said the druid. "She is kept from death by my spell, but will require great healing, and soon. I'm going to shift back to bear-shape. Lady Salem, if you would, please get her onto my back and keep her from slipping. We must find help, quickly."

"Find Mrowr," said the Tabaxi, coming forward as Gildyr once more turned into a massive brown bear. "The mage-knight healed me of great pain and injury, once. He will surely be able to do so for She-who-is-bitter, as well."

The bear nodded, in its own fashion saying,

"Then let us make haste, for there isn't much time."