When the blaze came into view I threw myself down on my stomach and started using my arms like paddles to slide along the floor. It was painful and I couldn’t keep the disgusting black liquid out of my mouth, but this was far faster than walking and with each stroke I picked up speed. Still I couldn’t out pace the fire and had to frantically flail just to keep ahead of it.

The winding tunnel split several times, but every path was covered in oil. Soon, I reached a large open space that seemed relatively free of the black oil. There were some puddles, but they seemed to be draining. With the cave floor largely dry, I scrambled to my feet and raced away from the flaming tunnel.

Whatever god had been looking out for me, had abandoned me now. Even as I ran away from the burning tunnel, the fire chased after me, igniting the oil left behind by each of my footsteps. My only saving grace was that the further I got from the opening, the slower the flames traveled.

In the center of the room was a large dirt mound. It looked likely to be a nest of some sort. I climbed up the side of the nest and hoisted myself over the top.

I rolled down into a deep hollow pit that I was sure I’d need magic to climb back out of. The pit looked like it was recently dug. I still wasn’t sure what sort of creature was living in these tunnels, but I was beginning to worry that it might be suffering from some form of psychosis.

My curiosity about the beast, whose nest I was in, continued to grow. More urgently though, I was trying to think of a way to get the oil out of my clothes.

Drying them with fire wouldn’t work, and I didn’t know of any non elemental spells for drying clothes. Thinking out loud I said, “if only there was a way to separate the oil from the clothes…wait, maybe if I...”

‘It’s a good thing I’m alone or this would be pretty embarrassing.’

I stripped naked and laid everything before me. I had about a fifty-fifty shot of this spell working. If it didn’t then I might end up with a pile of loose threads, but it was better than not doing anything at all. “Disintegrate.”

Normally “disintegrate” would break an object down into its base components, but I was trying to use it to separate the oil from my clothes. After a few seconds, streams of oil ran from clothes, deeper into the pit. The spell worked.

When the oil stopped flowing from my clothes, I got dressed again. With a wave of my hand, earthen steps formed in the dirt. I began walking up them but froze when I heard strange noises in the chamber.

Rapid thudding echoed off the walls. The whining of a young beast jolted me. ‘Are the mother and child returning home? What sort of beasts are they? Maybe it’s just the baby?” Questions swirled in my mind as I crept to the top of the stairs. I poked my head above the edge of the nest just enough to see out.

This chamber served as a connecting hub for quite a few tunnels, several of which were on fire. It looked like the fire was coming from within the tunnels so I guessed that they must’ve been connected to the tunnel I came in through.

Piles of old bones and other piles of newly dead beasts sat, neatly organized around the room. The corpses were too badly burnt and mangled for me to determine their species, but I guessed they were some kind of monkey.

The fire I’d brought into the room hadn’t gone near any of the piles, so I guessed that whatever lived in these tunnels burned its food before eating.

Maybe a dragon? But this didn’t seem like the type of place where a dragon might live.

Then I noticed a man, wearing an odd mask, running through the chamber. It wasn’t the exact same, but something about the mask reminded me of the broken rabbit mask at Sky Haven. His black cloak covered his body entirely from head to toe. He was sprinting without regard for the flames or pools of oil.

He seemed to be cradling something in his arms, something alive. It wiggled and squirmed as if trying to break free, but the man's hold didn’t break. He left the chamber without ever looking in my direction so I didn’t think he’d noticed me, something I was quite grateful for, because if he was in fact a spirit reaper then I’d be dead if he had.

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‘God didn’t forget me after all.’

A few moments later several large black claws burst up from the floor. The stone gave way, breaking into large boulders and flying around the room. The human sized claws flexed and another set of boulders went flying, then the rest of the creature burst through the floor. I took roughly a minute for the beast to fully emerge.

Each moment was mortifying as I watched what looked like a massive pin cushion crawl out of the ground. Needle-like spines covered every inch of the creature’s back and a long spiny tail leaked black fluid. I never saw its face in all the dust as it came up from the floor.

Once fully out of the hole, it swiftly twisted to follow the man down a distant tunnel. The beast shrieked with a terrible, painful sadness. It never stopped or slowed down in its pursuit of the strange man. All I could see was its backside as it raced after him.

Finally everything clicked. The groves on the walls, the oil... it was the beast, and it must have been panicking because the man stole its baby. If I was right then these tunnels weren’t safe at all and I needed to warn the group. We needed to get out of the cave, and probably off of the mountain entirely, before we got caught up in something we weren’t equipped to handle.

I had to find another way back to where I slipped, but there was no way of knowing where any of the tunnels went. The path I had come down was still on fire, but most of the blaze had died down. Weighing the risk, I raced back the way I came.

The fire had burned away most of the black liquid, but I still couldn’t walk, let alone run, through the tunnel. Instead I made a stone boat and used magic to rapidly propel myself back to the group.

When I arrived, Byron had already created a stone path out of the valley.

The group had begun climbing the path when the zephyrs' shadow appeared over them. ‘Were they just going to leave me behind?’ I wondered, but my thoughts quickly shifted to helping them escape the zephyr before it crushed or ate them. “Plasma blast!”

A small orb of light shot forth from my hand and more than tripled in size every second; by the time it reached the zephyr’s underbelly the orb was the size of a massive boulder. The force was enough to slightly shift the zephyr’s position but I was certain my attack didn’t even tickle the beast.

Still it bought Fin and the others time to retreat back into the cave because the zephyr shifted its focus to me. The beast hounded me with continuous bursts of violent wind blades. The blades sliced through trees and rocks as if nature intended for wind to cut like steel. All I could do to defend myself was fire off several plasma blasts to try and disperse the ferocious winds.

The tactic worked at first, but after the third barrage the zephyr adjusted its power to account for my plasma blasts and I was nearly sliced in half when my spell failed to have any effect on the wind blades.

“Motte ku Cole.” Carletta desperately cried. I didn’t expect the spell to work because it usually only summoned objects, but I was pulled with incredible speed and force back into the depths of the cave.

When I came to a stop before her my stomach was in knots and my head pounded like I’d been struck with a hammer. As if that wasn’t bad enough, Carletta slapped me hard enough to make my face sting and my ears ring. “You were supposed to be back in ten minutes!” She yelled.

“Guys, Maybe this isn’t the best time for a lovers quarrel.” Byron shouted urgently as he ran between us.

Fin was right behind him and behind them, one of the zephyr’s gigantic talons scratched at the cave mouth. It managed to slip a single claw into the cave, forcing us to retreat deeper to escape being crushed or impaled.

After several repeated attempts at catching one or all of us this way, the zephyr bombarded the cave opening with a wind blast that ripped through the stone and caused an avalanche that forced us even further back into the cave’s winding tunnels.

When the dust settled Fin immediately began trying to dig his way back out. He frantically flung stone after stone out from the pile.

As the rocks shifted Fin didn’t stop digging and soon even more large rocks were falling into the tunnel from the collapsed entrance. It took all of us to pull him back and stop him from trying to dig out, but he kept fighting to get back to the pile of rocks.

Byron said, “I’ll open the way right now if you can tell me how you’ll deal with the zephyr once it’s open.”

With a huff he shook himself free of our grip and glared at me. “So, did you find another way out when you went off on your own earlier?” His eyes were wet with fear that he tried to hide behind his aggressive posture.

I’d known Fin almost my whole life and I’d never seen him this way. I didn’t think he was afraid of the Zephyr, though he should’ve been. Fin didn’t fear death, but it pained him to not have a solution… to not be in control. Even more so, I knew that he must be writhing inside with humiliation now that he was forced to ask me of all people for a way out.

I shook my head, “but I did find something we should avoid if possible.”

Carletta gave me a menacing look so before she could slap me again I added, “It’s not too dangerous, but some of these tunnels are slippery and covered in oil. It might be difficult to defend ourselves if we run into something.” I also raised my hands in defense. I hoped she bought my bluff but I remained vigilant in case she didn’t.

With a sigh Carletta turned to Fin. “He might not have found anything useful, but I did find a way out while looking for my unreliable partner.”

“Then lead on.” Fin grunted.