Reeftown, true to its name, was literally carved from a giant coral reef. The huge mass of coral thrust itself out of the water in a rainbow burst of growth along the coast to the city’s south side.

For all its natural beauty, the “buildings” left much to be desired. Some seemed to be carved straight into the coral with ramshackle doors and windows installed over holes cut into the coral, but just as many were nothing but open caves into which people occasionally entered or emerged. Many of the inhabitants were orcs, but scattered among them were races from the Isle of Monsters. Jazathya spotted several ogres, trolls, and minotaurs and even caught a glimpse of what she thought might have been a centaur.

The witch’s residence wasn’t far inside the district, and soon the gondola was being parked in front of an unassuming door in the coral. Jazathya alighted, while Kel stayed behind to give the gondolier a handful of coins.

“You’re actually paying him?” Jazathya asked. “He was with those Tide Masters who attacked us.”

“He couldn’t have said no to those thugs,” Kel countered. “You can’t seriously mean you’re okay with just forcing him to take us here for free?”

“He was working for the losing side,” Lazgurb interjected as though it were the most natural conclusion in the world. “Tough luck for him.”

Kel rolled her eyes and said something that could have been either a prayer or a curse under her breath as she fished two more times the fare’s cost from her pouch for the rower before stepping up onto the canal bank. The gondolier paddled away, taking his final passenger deeper into Reeftown as the orc waved goodbye.

“I can’t believe I’m doing this,” Kel grumbled.

“Sush,” Jazathya said. “We’re already here. We may as well go through with it.”

Kel kicked a stray pebble into the canal but offered no further complaint, and so Jazathya knocked on the door. No one answered. A few more minutes and a couple more knocks failed to elicit any response, and Jazathya decided to open the door herself.

There was no lock, and she slowly cracked the door open, calling out “Hello?” The light from outside illuminated more and more of the room as the door was pushed open, gradually revealing a bare corridor of corral until it reached the end of the hall. There was laying a large coiled eel with brilliant yellow skin.

As the light hit it, the creature raised its head, looking straight at Jazathya, who cautiously stepped in, Kel and Mipmip following right behind her. “Does this mean she’s not in?” Jazathya asked.

The eel opened its mouth a full two feet top to bottom, simultaneously distending its bottom jaw so that it stretched obscenely wide, being three or four times the width of the rest of its body. Coming from within its throat was a tentacle with a set of pharyngeal jaws. Bizarrely, the teeth for this second mouth looked perfectly human, a bizarre and unsettling juxtaposition with the rest of the thing’s body. “You are not welcome here, Keloran,” the eel said, speaking with the inner set of jaws.

“How do you know me?” Kel said with a voice full of befuddlement.

“You are owed no answers. The mistress has ordered that you be kept out. Go now.”

“You okay doing this on your own, Jazathya?” Kel asked, but before she could answer, the eel interrupted.

“Nor is your companion welcome,” it said. “You will not disturb the mistress, directly or by proxy. The one called Niva should have made this clear to you.”

“Niva?” Kel questioned. “How does the witch know her?”

“Do not play at ignorance,” the eel snarled. “Leave! At once!”

The two girls looked at each other. “Seems pretty suspicious to me,” Jazathya said.

“Jobad mentioned something about a cult, didn’t he?” Kel asked. “Sounds like as good an excuse as any to send this spirit back to the Depths and see what the witch is hiding.”

The eel immediately launched itself forward. Kel and Jazathya jumped aside in different directions, just barely staying outside the grasp of its jaws. The eel wasn’t so easily thwarted and slammed its head to the right faster than Jazathya could react. It smashed into her, and while it couldn’t get a bite in, it succeeded in knocking her from her feet.

As she looked up at the creature looming over her, she noticed that it was no longer touching the ground at all. Rather, it was swimming through the air just as a regular eel might through water. She launched a bolt of lightning at it from her prone position on the floor. It convulsed as the bolt connected, but was undeterred from wrapping its jaws around her and clamping down, pulling her up into the air.

Jazathya screamed in pain, while Kel, who had not only her sword and shield in hand but was clad in a suit of full silver armor that Jazathya had never seen before, brought her sword down on the back of its head, managing to cut a gash open, judging by the blue blood now coating the sword’s edge, but doing no more substantial damage. Jazathya tried a more desperate gambit, channeling lightning wildly from every part of her body. It hurt like hell, but the eel apparently had an even worse time of it, spitting her out to stop itself from receiving further shocks.

Jazathya scrambled to her feet, noticing that the eel had flown even higher, now brushing against the ceiling. Kel was trying to stab up into its guts, but wasn’t having any success. The eel suddenly slammed its entire body down, trapping Kel on the floor under its weight.

While Kel futility tried to push the eel off herself, Jazathya stood frozen, unsure of what to do. The eel whipped its head around, shooting the tentacle bearing its inner mouth towards her face. She quickly grabbed it with both her hands, keeping it just barely away from biting her. She channeled her lightning directly into it, sending jolts of lightning straight into the thing’s gullet.

It howled in pain and convulsed wildly through the air, allowing Kel to roll away and leap to her feet. While it continued to writhe randomly, Kel again brought her sword down on the back of its head. She swung again and again, the blade digging deeper each time until, with a final snapping sound, it severed something inside the eel’s body.

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The creature immediately went limp, floating directionlessly through the air for a few seconds before its entire body dissolved into bubbles of seafoam.

The two women leaned against the walls, trying to catch their breath.

“Think there will be any more of those?” Jazathya asked.

“We can only hope not,” Kel replied. “Come on, let’s find this witch before she has time to escape or summon something even worse.”

The hallway terminated with a second door, in front of which the eel had waited, and beyond it lay what looked to be the real receiving room. The walls were haphazardly packed with books, vials, and various unidentifiable specimens of strange sea life, which Jazathya took to be tools of the witch’s occult practices. The witch herself was standing by a door at the back of the room with her arms crossed in front of her chest, looking none too pleased.

She had shoulder length black hair with dyed bright red highlights, styled to cover her left eye. Her clothing consisted of a short black dress, cut scandalously low in front. She wore fishnet sleeves on her arms, disconnected from the dress itself, and lace stockings emboldened with a spiderweb pattern adorned her legs.

‘LILA?” Kel screamed as soon as she saw the witch from over Jazathya’s shoulder, instantly and more than a bit rudely pushing the other woman out of the way to rush into the room.

“It’s nice to see you again too, Kel,” the witch said, her voice positively dripping with sarcasm.

“Lilannette Gerda Mari Beriss!” Kel bellowed in a commanding tone. “What in the HELL do you think you are doing here?”

“What am I doing here?” Lilannette replied, raising her voice to match Kel’s. “This is my fucking house! What are YOU doing here? Don’t your holy vows include anything about breaking and entering?”

“Oh, do NOT start with me!” Kel said. “You’re a WITCH!”

Lilannette shrugged. “You ran off to become a knight. What’s the difference?”

“What’s the difference?” Kel said, now gesticulating wildly with every word, pointing an accusatory finger towards the other woman. “The gods love us! They love you, Lila! Devoting my life to their service is a noble and honorable goal. I didn’t sell my soul to…”

“I didn’t ‘sell my soul’ either,” Lilannette said, rolling her eyes. “The lords and ladies of the Depths are…”

“This isn’t a joke! It’s not dressing like a whore to embarrass us at family reunions or ditching temple to spend time with your stupid friends. This is completely beyond the pale! Do mother and father even know?”

“Yes, they think my faith is just a ‘phase.’ They didn’t want to tell you, because they knew you would go completely insane when you heard. They thought I should explain it to you in person and be ‘gentle’ about revealing it. But I didn’t want to deal with your bullshit, so I tracked down Niva and pawned off the job of greeting you and helping you get settled onto her instead.”

“Niva knew?” Kel said.

“Yes and she promised that she wouldn’t tell you I was here,” Lilannette said. Suddenly, an expression of confusion crossed her face. “Wait, if Niva didn’t tell you, how did you find me?”

“I had no idea you were here,” Kel said. “It’s a blessing from the gods that I happened to run into you, so I can set you straight and help you out of whatever stupid tantrum you’re throwing this time.”

“Then what did you come here for?” Lilannette asked, raising an eyebrow in curiosity.

“We’re on a job to recover stolen property and heard there was a freelance witch in Reeftown…”

“Oh, I see!” her sister screamed over her. “When I do it, it means I’ve sold my soul, but it’s perfectly fine for the wise and noble Kel to ask a witch for help when it’s convenient for you.”

“No, this is different,” Kel said, speaking much more quietly now and sheepishly looking at the floor. “I had no other choice.”

“Isn’t that always the way it is? I’m not allowed to do anything, but little miss perfect always has an excuse for why she can get away with breaking the rules.”

“There is no comparison between the two! I only wanted to ask for help, once, in an emergency. You had that damn spirit out there calling you ‘mistress!’”

“It’s soooooo horrible when I ask for one of the Lady’s servants to protect me,” her sister remarked sarcastically. “But if I were a priestess pulling one of the ‘angels’ out of the Depths, that would be just peachy.”

“Theurgic shamanism and witchcraft are completely different, and you know it!” Kel yelled back.

The shouting match between the sisters soon devolved into a theological debate, also conducted via shouting, on the finer points of acceptable spirit summoning rituals, the details of which Jazathya was completely unable to follow. Mipmip only added to the chaos, sitting up on his hind legs between the two and unleashing a stream of loud and frantic mips amid the argument. He turned from one woman to the other and back, waving his arms in what Jazathya took to be an offer to hug the feuding sisters.

For her part, Jazathya stood by the door and avoided making eye contact with anyone by examining the various curios on the closest table. She idly wondered if this was a divine punishment for having tried to benefit from witchcraft.

“GET THE FUCK OUT OF MY HOUSE, KELORAN!” Lilannette finally screamed, her normally pale face colored red with rage.

“You aren’t even going to help your own sister after I came all this way?”

“After you barged in here and banished my guardian spirit just to scream another lecture at me? Hell no I’m not! Ask your precious goddess for help!”

“FINE!” Kel said, spinning on her heel and heading for the door. “But don’t think this is over! As soon as I’m done with this damn job of Niva’s, I’m coming back here to fix this!”

Soon, they were all outside, Kel cradling Mipmip in her arms as he hugged her tightly, cooing softly and rubbing his head against her shoulder and neck. “I’m sorry you had to see that. I tried to be a good role model for her. I just don’t know where it all went wrong.”

“It’s no problem,” Jazathya said. “You just ruined the one opportunity for another lead that we had. That’s all.” Kel looked down at Mipmip dejectedly, not even bothering to defend herself. “But at least it’s not like it can get any worse from here.”

As they walked to the edge of the canal, the water churned to life as more than three dozen Divers in the green Tide Master armor emerged, hefting themselves onto land and surrounding the girls.

“Oh fuck me,” Jazathya grumbled.