To say they walked stealthily deeper into the caverns would be a lie. The Knight clanged along with all the stealth of a rattling cart and, while the Paladin’s armor was of a finer build and lighter alloy, it was no less noisy. They would not have the advantage of surprise here.

“What about you, Kreet. Have you been continuing your studies?” Karl asked as they tried to ignore the clamor of the other two men.

“Not really,” she admitted. “Not like you it mean, anyway.”

“I imagine you’ve learned quite a bit as a tavern wench, at least about nature and biology,” Karl said with a halfhearted smile as he continued to look around warily.

Kreet looked down at herself and realized she was still wearing her tavern outfit. Suddenly she wished she had brought other clothes with her.

They soon came to a breakaway path to the right and downwards. Kreet pulled out the map.

“Dead end,” she said, pointing at it.

“We go straight into the depths,” Karl replied with conviction. “My boy has been with them for nearly a full day now. I won’t rest until I’ve got him back.”

“Then onward we go,” Kreet agreed, folding up the map and putting it away.

Every once in a while they would stop and to listen for any signs of life. They’d done this twice before they came to the next major path leading away, again to their right.

“Kreet, are you okay? You look tense,” the Paladin said behind his helm.

“We’re close to where my family lived. That’s all. I don’t hear or sense anything.”

“Another dead end?” Karl asked, gesturing towards the side passage.

“Not really. I don’t need the map for this area. I didn’t think I would remember it, but now that I’m here… the smell of the place… seeing it with my darkvision again… I remember these walls. No, that path circles away but rejoins the main path just before it splits off into two maybe a mile ahead. There’s some side caves down there though. We lived in one for a while.”

Again they resumed their march down the main passage. It remained quite wide and tall, with other paths branching off randomly. It was at one of these that Kreet stopped suddenly, and the others all stopped too.

“Something’s wrong,” she said quietly. “This doesn’t look right. Those boulders weren’t up there before…”

Suddenly something crashed and the boulders she was pointing at fell from their perch on a ledge above them. The four scrambled to get out of the way, Mekelson taking a pretty significant hit as one crashed against him, but his armor deflected most of the impact.

“Mekelson, you alright?” Quint called.

“Bruised leg, but I’m okay.”

“Kreet? Karl?”

“Fine here,” Karl said from the other side of the rock fall.

“Me too,” Kreet said beside him.

Karl and Kreet climbed over the rocks to rejoin the armored pair.

“A trap,” Kreet declared as she looked at where the rocks had fallen from.

“Did we trip it somehow?” Karl asked, holding his glowing mace closer.

“Not this one,” Mekelson said with conviction. “This was activated by somebody. See that piece of wood? Got a rope tied to it. And the rope leads back to that little path. Someone was watching us and pulled it.”

“Doesn’t sound like the sort of thing a demon would do. They wouldn’t waste their time,” Quint said.

“No, it doesn’t. This looks like the work of something else,” Mekelson said, removing his helm and looking straight at Kreet.

“This looks like the work of kobolds to me.”

Kreet returned Mekelson’s stare. “Couldn’t be. Ka'Plo said ours was the last clan in here, and he would surely know!”

“It’s been a long time, Kreet,” Karl pointed out. “A new clan could well have moved in by now.”

“Well, it’s a sure bet they know we’re here. Do we try and find them, or go on?” Mekelson asked, standing up and testing his bruised leg.

“Kreet,” Karl said, “I know you’d like to find them, but…”

Kreet shook her head, “Later. They’re not our concern. Let’s get Paulie back as soon as possible.”

Karl nodded, relieved not to have to argue with his friend.

They continued on, now wary for traps. They did see another similar one further on, but they stayed clear of it and it wasn’t triggered.

“No kobold in sight though,” Karl pointed out.

“We can be pretty stealthy when we want to,” Kreet replied sarcastically. “When we’re not following a bunch of iron suits that is…”

Finally they came to a place where the main passage branched off, one heading slightly upward, the other slanting down.

“Down we go,” Kreet said after they’d stopped again.

“We didn’t bring any supplies for this,” Mekelson complained. “Getting pretty thirsty over here. How about you, Quint?”

Kreet frowned at the men. “You should have said so earlier! We must have passed three streams at least, and all the water is good. The last one wasn’t too far back. Wait here, I’ll be back in just a minute.”

She padded back into the darkness behind them and soon found the little trickle of water off the main path just a few feet in a side passage.

“Who?” a voice said as she filled the water skin she had in her pack. It was spoken in Kobold.

“Kreet,” she replied, taking care not to look around. The voice sounded like it came from overhead.

“You go with Big People?”

“I do. We leave Kobolds alone.”

“You go to Fire People? You are Fire People?”

“No. We go to fight Fire People.”

“Oh. That is good. You leave Kobolds alone?”

“We won’t bother Kobolds.”

“That is good. You will kill Fire People?”

“We will try. Fire people have a young one of ours.”

“You will not. Big Fire Person will kill you all. But you leave Kobolds alone, we leave you alone.”

Kreet had to admit the likelihood of that outcome. But at least there was one less faction in the caves that would try to kill them. Probably.

The voice spoke again, growing fainter.

“You stupid Kobold Kreet. Stupid, stupid Kobold. Kreet the dead kobold is stupid…”

She heard another voice join in to the singsong improvised melody as the unseen watchers left.

“Kreet the dead Kobold, stupid stupid Kobold… it sang as it faded. It bothered her most that the tune was rather jolly.