Valeria sucked down as much air as she could, her body feeling weak and drained of magic power. She hadn’t managed to recover her magical reserves from the ice wraith attack, and the fight with the golems had just wiped out what little she’d managed to build back up, and that deficiency left her nearly breathless.

But her body being devoid of magic power was hardly her biggest concern; she bled from a dozen different wounds, her glaive was bent and broken, and her armor had been damaged to the point of uselessness.

Still, she was alive, Naiad was alive beside her, and the golems that had attacked them were shattered at their feet. It had been hard fighting—fighting which Valeria was somewhat ashamed and embarrassed to admit had been mostly handled by her river nymph companion—but they’d won, though Naiad herself had also been quite heavily wounded.

Naiad was covered in her own blood, her wounds severe but already clotted. Like Valeria, she was breathing hard as her eyes frantically searched the absolutely ruined and partially flooded guest room for any more enemies, but it seemed that the obliterated golems at their feet in the ankle-deep water was the extent of the forces that had been sent against them.

At least, for now.

“Fuck…” Valeria exclaimed as she fell to her knees and used what little magic power her body was generating to retrieve a few healing potions from her soul realm. The potions weren’t as powerful or immediately effective as Leon’s healing spells, but they required no magic power from her end to work.

She downed the first healing potion like it was water and she was dying of dehydration. As the red blood-like liquid hit her stomach, she felt the warm power within it already beginning its work.

Then, she held out a second potion for Naiad. The river nymph’s clothes were in tatters, making it clear enough even without all the blood for Valeria to see just how bad off Naiad was.

However, Naiad just glared down at the potion and refrained from taking it.

“It’s not poison,” Valeria said, her tone exasperated yet too exhausted to be insistent.

Naiad didn’t respond and instead just summoned a small orb of water to begin washing the blood off her body. Valeria couldn’t help but raise an eyebrow at this—she could sense that Naiad’s aura, while completely opaque to her, was still shaky and weak, or at least not strong enough to justify such a use of magic power.

But Valeria just shrugged and turned her attention back to the room as she downed the healing potion herself. She knew that Naiad was going to use her power as she saw fit, no matter how much Valeria might protest or argue that they needed to work together. She wished that Naiad would be a little more cooperative since they were in the same situation, but she doubted anything she’d say would get through to the river nymph given the looks she’d gotten from Naiad over the past few days.

Deciding to just focus on the problem at hand, Valeria asked, “Can you tell what’s going on with Leon?”

Naiad had told her that she could sense Leon was in danger, so she was hoping the river nymph had a little more information she might be able to share.

[I cannot,] Naiad responded, though her tone sounded like she was doing so reluctantly.

“But you know that he’s been indisposed?” she pressed, glaring at the river nymph.

[Yes,] Naiad responded, clearly not willing to give any further information given how she returned Valeria’s glare.

Valeria took a deep breath to steady herself. Naiad clearly didn’t like her, to say the last, but given the nature of the relationship they both had with Leon, Valeria couldn’t blame her too much. She decided to focus on the situation in front of them rather than start a fight that she couldn’t hope to win.

Turning to face the door, she said, “I’m going to try and get this door open. We can go from there.”

Naiad barely acknowledged her statement, but positioned herself to cover Valeria if any threat within the guest room were to present itself while she was working.

Valeria, meanwhile, hobbled over to the door, her injuries painful but slowly healing. She took a long, hard look at the door, seeing no visible signs of how it could be opened. There was neither handle, hinge, nor seam, and no visible runic circle to control it with.

“This might take a moment,” she said to Naiad as she called upon all of her enchanting knowledge. She was still quite amateur in the art, but she enjoyed studying it and had some skill in the art—enough, she hoped, to at least get the door open.

She ran her hands over the door, searching for any hints of magic that she might be able to manipulate. Finding nothing, she moved on to the frame. There, she found a little more success, as her fingers brushed against a nearly invisible panel set into the frame about half the size of her hand. She grinned and conjured a small knife from her soul realm and set to work prying the panel open. It took a little bit of effort, enough that she thought it might’ve been more time-efficient to have Naiad use her water magic, but Valeria got the panel open to reveal the door’s emergency controls.

The enchantment placed upon the door was quite simple, for which she was grateful. All it took were a few motes of magic power from her to get the door to slide back open.

“And that’s that,” she quietly said. Turning back to Naiad, she said, “Door’s open. I don’t suppose you have any idea where to go from here?”

Naiad turned and Valeria saw a brief flicker of surprise pass over her bronze face. She almost thought she was mistaken until Naiad gave her a brief nod of acknowledgment in opening the door.

[Down,] Naiad responded, her tone a little more neutral than it was only a few moments ago. [Last time I sensed Leon, he was below us. Far below us.]

“I suppose that’s a start,” Valeria said as she edged out into the long entrance hall with Naiad right behind her, both ladies on the lookout for any additional golems or other obstacles in their way.

Fortunately, everything seemed peaceful; nothing jumped out at them, and no magical weapons targeted them once they left the guest room.

“I guess… we ought to start picking rooms…?” Valeria said, unsure as she was of where to go now.

Naiad nodded, and the two started walking down the still-beautiful hall, neither one letting down their guard. When they came to the first intersection, they had the choice of checking either the right or left doors. With nothing else to go on, Valeria randomly decided to go with the left, and Naiad had no reason not to follow.

This door had no visible way to access it, so Valeria began searching for a control plate. As she did, she said to Naiad, “You doing okay? Not to be condescending or anything, but your wounds don’t seem to be healing all that quickly…”

It was true, even though Valeria was weaker, with the healing potion in her system, her wounds were actually healing up faster than Naiads. Valeria figured that this was just a sign that Naiad was running dangerously low on magic power, but she didn’t want to come right out and say it.

Naiad audibly clicked her tongue, and said, [I’m doing… fine. I just want to find Leon.]

Valeria paused in her search. She was concerned that the door’s control plate was inside the room and thus inaccessible, but her concern at the moment for Naiad was greater. Without the river nymph’s power, she’d never manage to escape, let alone find Leon or her father.

“You say that, but it’s not helping you to heal any faster…”

Naiad glared at Valeria as if the latter had just implied she was weak, but her glare soon softened into cautious surprise as Valeria conjured a healing potion from her soul realm.

“This is the only one I have left. You should take this, it would be a waste to use all your power on healing yourself when we don’t know what’s ahead.”

Naiad’s lake-blue eyes flickered between Valeria’s utterly serious face and the small bottle of blood-red liquid. After what seemed to be enough thought to almost break Naiad’s mind and Valeria’s patience, Naiad reluctantly accepted the potion and drank it.

“That wasn’t so hard, was it?” Valeria asked as she watched Naiad’s healing visibly speed up.

[Don’t press your luck, human,] Naiad responded, her expression quickly returning to an angry glare.

“Given our luck so far, I don’t think it can be pressed any more than it already has been,” Valeria replied. “Look, Leon’s gone, we don’t know where he is. It’s just you and me right now, and neither of us are in good fighting condition. Even if we were, I, quite frankly, don’t think I’d be able to do much in a fight—these golems are beyond me. But I can do something about the enchantments in our way. If we’re going to find Leon and work our way through all of this, then we’re going to have to work together.”

Valeria spoke with complete earnestness, her conviction plain for Naiad to see. And for a moment, Naiad appeared to consider her words. But then that moment passed, and Naiad just looked meaningfully at the door behind Valeria, silently getting her demand across.

Valeria could only sigh and return to examining the door. Fortunately, there was another control panel on their side of the door—giving Valeria the impression that this wasn’t primarily a fortified stronghold, even if some of the place’s defenses were quite extraordinary. The room revealed when the door slid open, however, was completely empty. And it was a large room, but with nothing in it—bare sloped walls, no furniture, just shiny grey metal everywhere—it felt both stifling and cavernous at the same time.

“What a waste of time…” Valeria murmured in dejection.

Naiad, meanwhile, glared around at the room as if it were keeping a secret from her and she was hoping to intimidate it into revealing what it was hiding. Her efforts were in vain, however, for the room remained empty no matter how hard she stared.

The two took a reasonable amount of time to inspect the room—even if it was empty, it was still quite large and obviously built for something—but an empty room was an empty room and after several minutes they were heading back for the door.

Valeria reached the door first, just ahead of Naiad. In her disappointment and frustration, she’d let her guard down and she entered the doorway with little care. When her eyes turned up and saw the golem staring back at her, its bronze hand extending to do who knows what to her, she froze in surprise and panic.

And then she was violently grabbed by Naiad from behind and hurled back into the room like a ragdoll, with barely enough awareness to notice the water dragon that the river nymph summoned and slammed into the doorway.

It all happened in a moment of intense surprise and violence, and when Valeria hit the ground, it was over. She sprang back to her feet, what little magic power she’d managed to regenerate since the last fight circulating throughout her body, and ran forward to assist Naiad in any way she could.

But it didn’t seem like Naiad needed the help. Valeria couldn’t tell how many enemies they were facing, but the water dragon was quite easily keeping them from pushing through the door’s fatal funnel.

[Stay back!] Naiad commanded, causing Valeria to stop in place not too far away. [I’ll deal with this, you just stay alive!]

Valeria bitterly smiled, but she wasn’t going to argue with Naiad on this point.

It took only a few minutes, but the water dragon made short work of three golems that had appeared in the hallway, at least as far as Valeria could tell once she and Naiad edged out of the empty room—Naiad hadn’t left much behind, so it was a bit hard to tell.

“Where did they come from?” Valeria wondered aloud.

Naiad just pointed to the door on the other side of the hall, which was conspicuously still open. There were no other golems around, so Valeria quickly ran over to investigate, finding that the open door led to a magic lift.

“Found our way down,” she said to Naiad. “You up for any more violence if it’s needed?”

Naiad smiled and raised her hand, spinning a few drops of water around her fingers.

‘If she can waste power like that, it shouldn’t be an issue…’ Valeria thought as she impulsively ducked into the lift. She half-expected the door to slam shut behind her and was very happy when it didn’t. Naiad slipped in behind her not a second later and they both examined the small panel of runic circles next to the door.

“So… where do you think we should go?” Valeria asked.

[The last time I sensed Leon, he was far below us,] the river nymph responded.

“I don’t suppose you can get any more specific?”

Naiad shook her head in the negative.

Valeria shrugged. “Let’s start with the bottom, then, and work our way back up. Not like we can tell how far down any of these floors are…” She pressed one of her fingers to the bottom-most runic circle, and the door slid shut. A moment later, the lift began to plummet deeper into the facility.

---

Nestor, still wearing Leon’s body, scowled as one of the runes on the console he was sitting in front of began to blink. Activating it, he saw that Leon’s two women had entered the lift and were now descending.

“I see they’re going to be a bigger problem than I’d originally thought… I suppose I might have to start taking them more seriously before they do any more harm to this place…”

He considered his options. He had other, grander concerns regarding getting production at this lab restarted, and he didn’t want to waste time dealing with Leon’s companions, but if they were going to wreck his golems, he’d have to stop them sooner rather than later.

“… I suppose I can always use a few extra batteries. That new one isn’t going to last forever…” Nestor said with a dark look as he rose to his feet and sauntered over to the door. As much use as he could get out of them, he did not appreciate this kind of distraction.