Lucinda’s senses gradually returned to normalcy, though her newly clear vision and unimpeded hearing offered little in the way of clues as to what had just transpired. The tower was gone, that much was certain; instead, she found herself completely surrounded by a thick, smokey fog. There was nothing in the way of objects, structures, or even distant landmarks to see; only the fog and nothing more.

“Nooooooo! No, no, no, no, noooo!”

The sudden outburst drew Lucinda’s attention in a hurry. Whirling in place she found the turquoise-robed Wizard standing barely a metre away from her. A powerful swell of worry and fear beset her as she considered what role the young woman might have played in the sudden change in setting.

“What did you do?” Lucinda asked angrily. “Where are we?”

Her voice sounded strangely quiet to her own ears, though still more than loud enough to be heard by the person it was directed at. Or would have been had Angrad not been absorbed in a very intense staring session with their featureless surroundings.

“Angrad!? Answer me!”

A sigh escaped Lucinda’s lips as it became clear that her efforts were still in vain. Taking stock of her situation without the help of the person that had caused it seemed somewhat pointless, but there didn’t appear to be much else for her to do.

There was no sign of Bryn, Marrow, her conjured bear, or anything else from the tower. Worse still, the bond she shared with the large bird of prey felt strangely different. She had a feeling what it might mean even before she put it to the test.

“Marrow? Marrow, can you hear me?”

Lucinda sighed again as her suspicion proved undoubtedly true.

At least I can feel she’s okay… I hope she can too.

“This is the Plane of Shadow,” Angrad announced; her voice sounding deeply troubled.

“Umm, that’s actually a real place?” Lucinda asked. A bemused look from the young Wizard fell upon her, causing a fresh surge of anger from Lucinda in turn. “I thought it was just a story… Like kids being told they’d get sucked into the Plane of Fire if they stuck their hand in a burning fire?”

Silence, and a continuation of the bemused stare, was all that awaited Lucinda’s question. She found her cheeks rapidly heating as embarrassment struck her. More anger, swiftly followed.

“Will you explain what’s going on, now?” she asked tersely. “Was… that you? Bringing us here?”

Angrad’s expression turned pained in an instant as she winced heavily. “…It was me.”

Lucinda’s hand gripped her staff tightly while thoughts of how best to defend herself raced through her head.

Brown bear? Spider? Maybe straight to dragonling breath?

Angrad moved suddenly, sending Lucinda’s pulse racing – but only for a brief moment.

“It’s all my fault again…” the young Wizard sobbed; her head falling into her hands, her shoulders slumping. “I can’t do… anything right…. Always screwing up…. I’m useless!”

Lucinda’s jaw didn’t quite fall open at the sudden change. She did, however, find herself relaxing from her battle-ready state.

“Umm…” Lucinda stammered. “I’m sure that’s not… entirely true?”

The sobbing Wizard offered no semblance of a reply. Several seconds of awkward mostly-silence passed before Lucinda felt compelled to try another method of comforting the unhappy girl. She was far from having fully forgiven her, but refusing to help the only person with some clue as to what was going on seemed like a particularly terrible idea.

Shapeshift: Dog!

Angrad revealed no hint of surprise as Lucinda’s furry snout poked into her midsection, or much of anything else either. A few more pokes, a quick rub of her head, and a quiet whine – all seemingly natural actions even in her rarely used dog form – eventually made it through to her, prompting a kneeling hug to join the ongoing bout of sobbing.

Time passed slowly as Lucinda did her best to comfort the unhappy robe wearer. Her own troubled feelings brought on by the recent separation and the bizarre relocation to the strange place she found herself in, steadily gave way to a determination to return back to the tower as quickly as possible.

Are there more of those things here? …First shadow men, now the Plane of Shadow – this is probably bad.

By Lucinda’s best estimate, several minutes had passed by the time Angrad’s sobbing finally ceased. A slight shifting of the Wizard’s body brought Lucinda’s head up to a sight that temporarily eased her many worries: another even more bemused expression from the robe-wearing young woman.

After releasing a short, barking laugh, Lucinda retreated to shift back into human form.

“Oh…” Angrad breathed; her head nodding slowly up and down. “You must… like dogs a lot?”

“I like most animals,” Lucinda replied with an amused smile on her lips. Her smile promptly froze as realisation reached her.

Crap! How many forms have I shown her? …Just dog and bear? Right??

“But yes, I do love dogs!” she added hurriedly. “Umm, maybe we should talk about our situation here? Can we get back? Are we in danger? …Things like that.”

Angrad turned to look out into the surrounding fog. “I don’t think we are in any immediate danger. Most likely it will take some time for them to notice our presence.”

“Them being more shadow men?”

Angrad’s eyes locked onto Lucinda’s. Her expression was not an encouraging one.

“That and the many other far worse things that live here…”

Great… Ahh, I wish Marrow was here. And Bryn! Maybe even Etmer…

With a sigh that was both weary and fearful, Lucinda tried asking the most important question once again, “Is there a way back?”

“There… might be.” Angrad winced again.

“Mmm, that’s not exactly the answer I was hoping for.”

“Sorry…. This is all my fault, I know. …Master was right all along. I…”

“It’s okay,” Lucinda interrupted quickly; placing a hand upon the other woman’s shoulder. “We need to focus on getting out of here. You said there’s a chance – we have to try!”

Angrad remained silent for a few moments, then met Lucinda’s eyes and nodded. “We need to hurry.”

“That’s more like it.” Lucinda smiled encouragingly. “We may be young and inexperienced, but we can’t give up!” Another nod followed on from Lucinda’s words, but little else. “…What do we need to do?” Lucinda finally prompted.

“Oh, sorry… I was thinking. Uh, it’s, well…”

“Not much point in hurrying without a plan.”

“I have one… It just involves more thinking.”

“Ah, right…”

Angrad quickly revealed that she had every intention of resuming her thinking in silence, leaving Lucinda with little to do but glance around at their foggy surroundings. There was still nothing else to see other than a floating, smokey haze starting barely a few metres from where she stood.

Maybe this is why Waflaw dislikes Wizards so much… She’s not making this easy.

“…Is there any way I can help?” Lucinda eventually asked.

“Probably not.”

Ugh… All my adventures better not turn out like this!

“…Are you sure? I know I’m no Wizard, but…”

“The device we went through,” Angrad interrupted. There was an obvious hint of annoyance in her voice. “It was anchored here.”

Lucinda had another glance around their surroundings. “I don’t see anything… Oh, or was it magical? Umm, shadowy?”

“If it was still here we would both be able to see it. Something… went wrong.”

“Okay…”

“There are others here. The problem is how to find one. I don’t know a spell for it, which means I need to create one from what I can recall of the books I’ve read on the Plane of Shadow, and my Master’s research.”

“I see…”

Should have just stayed quiet…

With a quiet sigh, Lucinda chose to sit down. The slight change in perspective produced no further insight into the bizarre realm they occupied, though it did improve her mood somewhat; even with the equally hazy ground being strangely soft and spongy.

I wonder if there are any animals here?

Lucinda’s mouth opened to question her more knowledgeable companion, but quickly closed again as she saw the deep look of concentration on Angrad’s face.

Ahh, can I really not help? I’ve got so many forms already…

With nothing else to occupy her, a swift conclusion to at least look through her status soon reached her. A single pass-through, examining each form and each respective ability, didn’t take her long, but also didn’t reveal anything of interest – at least, not right away.

“Are they magical?” she asked out loud.

A very lengthy pause followed on from her question, until finally a response arrived. “Yes.”

Huh, could it be that easy? …I guess there’s only one way to find out. Shapeshift: Deer!

Given the situation she was in, revealing yet another form to the young Wizard with her felt like an unfortunate necessity. Keeping her class decidedly secret was, after all, pointless if she ended up dying as a result.

The shifting process completed in the usual few seconds, leaving Lucinda standing on all fours for the second time since arriving in the Plane of Shadow. Like with her dog form, her heightened senses revealed nothing more about her surroundings. There still did not appear to be anything to hear or smell other than herself and Angrad. But that suddenly changed just a few seconds later.

It works! I can sense… Oh, that’s just Angrad.

An annoyed bleat left Lucinda’s deer lips before she could think better of it.

“…What are you doing?” Angrad asked as the noise brought her previously closed eyes, open and upon Lucinda.

Of course she’s carrying magical items…

Lucinda stuck her tongue out at the young Wizard, then shook her head and turned about. Not being able to see the source of her sudden frustration did appear to help matters, even despite still being trapped within the deeply troubling location. With her own efforts having amounted to nothing, and still no sign of any progress from Angrad, Lucinda opted to settle down on the ground as she waited. She had barely gotten comfortable when a sound from nearby reached her ears.

“Gkkkkk.”

Appearing to be the source of the unusual noise, a slight turn of Lucinda’s head was all it took to bring the young Wizard back into her large field of view; yet, other than the turquoise-robed woman being partially obscured by the same all-pervading fog, nothing seemed out of the ordinary given where they were.

She still hasn’t come up with anything? …And what’s with holding her neck thing? Wizard’s are weird… Wait… Shit!

In a flash, Lucinda was on her four feet and charging across the gap between her and her Angrad. Fearing she might already be too late, she didn’t even slow down to check her heading, or ponder any other strategy; instead, she simply barrelled straight into the slightly denser patch of fog that was just barely visible beside the young Wizard woman.

Lucinda experienced a moment of panic as she reached her target, suddenly considering whether she could actually physically stop a creature made of shadow in a place also comprised of much the same thing. It was with great relief that her worry proved to be false, when her shoulder collided mostly solidly with the partially visible shadow man.

“Huuuuuu,” Angrad wheezed as her near suffocation was interrupted. “Haa… Haa…”

As a deer, Lucinda’s field of view should have made losing an opponent she was facing a very difficult thing – her surroundings being what they were, it didn’t come as too much of a surprise when exactly that happened.

Deciding upon a defensive course of action in a split-second, Lucinda moved directly beside Angrad and immediately began a Wooden Flesh casting. At almost the same instant, a faint white glow appeared in the air before the Wizard’s hand as she too started casting. Both spells soon completed; Lucinda’s, augmenting her furry deer body with damage absorbing wood; Angrad’s projecting a small ball of white light outwards into their smokey surroundings.

How do we fight…?

Lucinda’s thought made it no further, for the simple spell from her Wizard ally, though far from blindingly bright, had revealed the truth of the situation they were in. Nearly a dozen shadow men were in the vicinity, each with the same red-eyes and sharp claws Lucinda was already too familiar with.

“The light should distract them here,” Angrad whispered; her voice shaky and ragged.

Then we run!

A fear that the Wizard might once again stand around thinking about things instead of doing something hit her hard in that moment. Trying her best to prevent such an outcome, Lucinda quickly nudged Angrad with her shoulder in a similar manner to how she had tackled the shadow man just before; albeit with a fair bit more care, as accidentally launching the young woman off into the fog was hardly an alternative she wanted to encounter.

With only a small amount of further hesitancy, Angrad climbed up on Lucinda’s back. A hasty glance at the shadow men revealed they were busy crowding around the dim ball of light, and with that confirmed, Lucinda turned tail and fled.

Fleeing from a mob of shadowy figures in a world clouded entirely by a smokey fog, was. without a doubt, Lucinda’s weirdest experience to date. With no way to tell the time, elapsed or otherwise; and no way to determine how far they had travelled either; it truly was a troubling situation. Lucinda couldn’t even be sure her efforts to separate them from their attackers had worked – every step forwards made no discernible difference to their surroundings.

What if we’re just running right towards more of them? Or maybe they are the fog!? Ahh, I hate this…

With no input from Angrad, who Lucinda dearly hoped was at least partway to devising a way out of the mess they were in, there did not appear to be anything to do other than proceed onwards.

“Wait,” the young Wizard called out suddenly; the interruption of the ever present silence being especially jarring. “That way leads deeper into the Plane. You see the fog? It’s thicker; denser.”

It took her a moment or two, but Lucinda did indeed spot a visible difference in the terrain ahead. The realisation was simultaneously welcome and unwelcome.

At least we’re actually moving… I guess deeper is even more dangerous though? I really don’t want to know what that could mean…

“We should get moving! Now!”

With her vastly superior field of view, Lucinda had already noticed the cause of Angrad’s sudden alarm. On both sides and behind, the lighter fog had suddenly begun retracting away from them, but in a single, converging direction. While not knowing exactly what it meant, the danger it hinted at was obvious enough even for someone without extensive Wizard training.

Lucinda set off in a direction that was both away from the strange swirling collection of fog behind them, and the deeper wall in front that remained unaffected by the unusual goings on. However, she made it only a single pair of steps before a new occurrence halted her.

I sense something…

“What are you doing?” Angrad asked loudly.

While wishing she had mentioned her deer form’s ability when she had the chance, Lucinda could only ignore the irate question as she turned in the direction of the new source of magic she could sense. She hesitated before starting off once again – the direction would take them right past the rapidly growing collection of fog. A fact that Angrad noticed right away.

“Not this way! Are you out of your mind!?”

Lucinda paid no heed to the accusation, choosing instead to focus on travelling as fast as she could manage with the extra burden she bore. That determination could not prevent her from noticing the changes happening all around them, for the fog swirling to a focal point was not only ominous, but had also caused some details of the surrounding area to become visible even in only the dim ambient light that pervaded the Plane of Shadow’s entirety.

All around her, Lucinda began to catch glimpses of flat stone-like surfaces, positioned and shaped much like walls, even while appearing to be largely transparent. It took her a few such viewings to determine they might even be buildings, and then a few more to conclude they were, thanks to a number of empty doors and windows scattered across them.

What is this place? Ahh, I can ask when we’re out of here. …If we make it.

With the swirling collection of fog, still swirling, and still growing, Lucinda chose to swerve around it as best she could whilst keeping her focus on the distant source of magic. Still staying within the space that the shifting fog had left seemed like a necessity given the distinct possibility that it was the cause of her suddenly successful magic detection.

“Hurry!” Angrad cried out suddenly. “It’s almost here!”

It!? Ah crap…

As soon as she was past the focal point, Lucinda put all of the effort she could muster into putting as much distance between it and her as was possible. Even so she could not resist turning her head the small distance required to allow her a peek beyond her passenger, at semi-frequent intervals. It was only a few such glances later that she witnessed the culmination of what was happening nearby.

What is that!?

Lucinda’s spindly deer legs almost tumbled out of control as she watched a monstrosity of coalesced shadow appear in the spot the fog had been converging to. It was huge – there was no mistaking that. Just as the four massive claws it possessed were equally obvious. But that was all she managed to observe before the area void of fog suddenly returned to its previous state in the blink of an eye, completely obscuring the strange creature, and at the same time, making her lose track of the source of magic she had been following.

“Go! Go!” Angrad encouraged.

No choice!

Pushing herself as hard as she could, Lucinda charged forwards blindly through the returned fog. With the unknown creature somewhere behind them, and no certain idea of where their destination lay, she could only fervently hope they weren’t already doomed. It didn’t take long for that hope to falter, the ever present silence of the Plane of Shadow being interrupted by the first of what soon turned out to be many heavy foot falls, all rapidly approaching from where the large shadow creature had last been seen.

Lucinda kept running. There were only three things that could stop her: Finding what her deer ability had detected; reaching a state of complete exhaustion; or the trailing monstrosity physically stopping her. With each step she took, the latter two scenarios seemed ever more likely.

Now would be a great time for Angrad to do something… She was right; she has been almost useless! And it was her fault we ended up…

A sudden, inhuman roar silenced Lucinda’s accusing thoughts, and forced her running into overdrive. Nothing else mattered in that moment.

“There!” Angrad shouted. Lucinda kept on running. “Hey! Stop!!”

Two hands digging sharply into her flanks finally snapped Lucinda back to reality. She immediately sensed and saw the source of magic she had been seeking: a slightly warped and translucent version of what was otherwise a perfect duplicate of the device from back within the tower. Angrad was half way off of Lucinda’s back even before she could finish skidding to a complete stop, and kneeling at the device before Lucinda could start shifting back.

“How long?” Lucinda shouted as soon as her mouth had reformed. No response came to her. “How long!?” she demanded again.

“Busy!” Angrad shouted back at last.

Silently cursing to herself, Lucinda turned back in the direction they had come, already part way to assuming a more powerful form. She had little hope of it doing much of anything against the creature she had seen, but also no choice in the matter.

Ugh, I guess being a Cleric right now might be useful… Maybe?

The sounds of heavy footfalls were growing ever closer. Lucinda hastily summoned a magical duplicate of her dragonling form, in the hopes that her most powerful attack, fired off twice, might achieve something. The thought that Angrad would see her as such lingered within her mind for less than a fraction of second before she dismissed it.

“Almost there! …We’ll make it!”

Will we?? Ahh, I wish Marrow was…

A streak of darkness materialised suddenly from out of the surrounding fog. Before Lucinda could even react, her conjured dragonling ally was yanked off its feet and pulled out of sight. Barely a heartbeat passed before she felt the mental connection to it wink out of existence.

Planting her feet firmly, Lucinda took a deep breath and then unleashed her frosty breath attack in the direction her summon had been pulled. Doing so more to feel she was accomplishing anything, rather than due to any real hope of damaging her hidden foe, the resulting dispersal of fog her attack caused came as quite a surprise. It also served to give her a clear view of her stalking foe.

Ohhh… What is that!?

The body of the beast was a bloated sausage-shaped mass. At the rear of its prone body sat two long feet that reminded Lucinda of a rabbit’s hind legs, if considerably larger. At the front, past a long stretch of bloated body, sat four arms. As she had spotted earlier, each appeared sharp and deadly at the tip, though they were more like scythes than claws. Finally, there was the head, which Lucinda could only conclude was that of a gigantic snake, but with two red, glowing eyes on either side.

Her inspection took only a few horrifying seconds; that turned out to be all the time the creature itself needed to react to the sudden change in battlefield conditions. Its mouth opened and a long dark tongue shot outwards to where Lucinda stood on her short dragonling legs. She had no time to react as the attack that had instantly killed her conjured ally closed the distance between them at breakneck speed.

“Done!”

Lucinda’s body tensed as the tongue struck; yet, no impact came. Instead, the dark mass hovered barely a hand’s span from her snout. There was no mystery as to why: already the same unpleasant shifting and stretching of the world around her had begun as Angrad’s activation of the device took place. The sensations were just as unpleasant as the time before, made slightly less so by the fact that it had likely saved her life.

If this doesn't get us back, I’ll… bite her nose off!