Nuala had looked up when Dawn came out of stealth and laid her burden down on the ground, and now she said quizzically. “What happened?”

“Well some spiderlings were moving around in the caves and one stumbled over me when I was on the way back. Stealth or no stealth, when a demon collides with seemingly empty air, it notices there’s someone there.” Dawn grimaced and brushed her hair out of her face with shaking hands.

“I’m lucky Ankou came to my aid. There were four of the spiderlings and I’m no trained fighter.”

She took a deep breath and braced herself.

“We need to get out of here. I would have liked to free more of the captives, but we can’t count on my luck holding up. If the demons catch me, you will have a difficult time finding your way out of here alone.”

Nuala gazed at her with shrewd eyes.

“You’re afraid.” She stated calmly.

“Of course I am. Contrary to appearances I’m not a moron. Anyone would be afraid, if confronted with hordes of these monsters.” Dawn replied somewhat heatedly.

“True. If you say we need to get out of here now, we will follow your lead in this. Of course I would like to get more captives out, who wouldn’t? But there is no good option here, just a choice of several bad ones.” Nuala stepped up to Dawn and sat down next to her, laying a calming hand on her arm.

“You got us all out from captivity and certain death. I’m grateful for that, and surely the others are too. I hope we will manage to get out of these caves alive, and if we do, that also will be thanks to you. We don’t know the way, we don’t have your stealth skill and without your healing, I doubt I would be able to move. So, if you say we have to go, we will go. Though I’d say we should get that last one here on his legs before we move.” She motioned to the webbed-in captive still lying on the ground.

Dawn nodded, relieved by Nuala’s calm acceptance. “You are right, of course. I should have healed him already. But I was pretty badly shaken just now.”

Collecting her strength, she stood up and started to peel the webbing away from the motionless figure on the ground. Another Kharlin emerged, with sand coloured fur and nicks in his ears. On closer inspection Dawn saw that he had a multitude of old scars beneath his fur. She cast Nurture on him, waited for a moment and repeated the spell once more. The Kharlin was clad in a kind of flexible leather armor with studded metal reinforcements. To her surprise he was still wearing his leather belt with two daggers and a short sword fastened to it.

The other male Kharlin was sitting in a corner of the cave in a miserable heap, obviously still feeling sick. His fur was burnt orange in colour with striped markings running down the back of his head. He was clad in leather trousers and vest with a gray-green shirt underneath and sturdy boots on his feet. He could have been a hunter, but if so, he had lost his weapons or the demons had taken them from him. Dawn cast Nurture on him again, a bit concerned he still felt sick after she had already healed him twice.

As she looked at the group, another thought made her curse. “Frozen hells. The remains of the spiderlings are still lying out there. I have to get them out of the way before another demon comes along.”

She activated Shadow Play and moved rapidly to the cave’s exit, straining her ears to listen for movement outside. She heard only the sounds of moving water. Slipping out into the open and approaching the remains of the small demons, she couldn’t suppress a shudder. No amount of exposure to these monsters would ever make her aversion to them go away.

Wrinkling her nose in disgust, she picked up the first spiderling and heaved it up. As she picked up the corpse, she didn’t pay enough attention and one spiky leg scored a deep cut on her palm. Hissing and cursing silently she shook her hand. Blood was flowing freely out of the laceration. Dawn tried to cast Nurture on herself, but the spell wouldn’t form. Apparently she needed another minute or two to regain her mana. Shaking her head she bent and dragged the corpse over to the side of the water and let it down carefully, making sure it sank into the icy depth without a splash. A sticky feeling on her palm made her look at it. Some of the spiderling’s nearly black blood had mingled with her own. As she stared at her palm, she felt a warm tingle running through her hand and spreading out over her whole body, sending a hot flush through her and making her sweat despite the cool temperature in the caves. The combined blood on her palm started to give off a subdued glow for a moment.

Suddenly she was bombarded with messages.

You have gained the skill Fire Resistance

You have leveled up Fire Resistance +1

You have leveled up Fire Resistance +1

You have gained the skill Stone Shaping

You have leveled up Stone Shaping +1

You have gained the skill Poison Resistance

You have leveled up Poison Resistance +1

You have leveled up Poison Resistance +1

Stunned, she stood and stared for a moment. “What on earth just happened?” she murmured. Her palm was looking perfectly normal now, apart from the still oozing cut on it. She cast Nurture and the injury closed, the deep cut healing perfectly and not even a scar remaining. Scrubbing her hand and rinsing the blood and dirt away in the icy waters, Dawn thought back on the first time she had cast Nurture. She had come a long way since then, in terms of her experience and the strength of her healing spell. But what exactly had that been just now? Dawn was all in favour of getting new skills, but gaining them without rhyme or reason made her deeply suspicious. More blood magic? But she hadn’t done anything.

Sighing she turned around, made sure the path was still empty of life, and went to pick up the next spiderling. One by one, she let the demons’ remains slide into the water until the path next to the underground river was empty again, save for splotches of black blood. Dawn scraped together some sand and rubble and scattered it over the blood. Not perfect, but the best she could do for the moment.

She returned to the Kharlins to find both males on their feet. At least something was going right.

Nuala stood up when she entered. “Shall we go now?” she asked Dawn.

“Yes, that would be best.” Dawn answered. Turning to the two male Kharlins she asked. “What is your name?” The male with the sand coloured fur said: “My name is Niko. Thank you for getting me away from these monsters. To be caught by them was a nightmarish experience.”

“We are still far from safe. These caves are the demons’ haunt and they are roaming freely here. There are many of the grown demons here and I have seen a veritable flood of their spawnlings. Too many of them to fight, by all means. We’ll have to get out by stealth.” Dawn stated emphatically.

Niko’s ears quivered a bit. “I have experience as a warrior and have also been hunting a bit in the past, but stealth is not my strength. All Kharlins can move pretty silently, but more than that I cannot promise.”

The other male cleared his throat. “My name is Nestor. I’m a hunter for my tribe, so I have experience with hiding and I can move pretty silently too. Though usually I’m not the one who is hunted. That is a new and very unwelcome experience for me.”

Dawn nodded at them both. “Ankou and me will do our best to lead you out of here. But there are no guarantees. Ankou will be our scout. He is a master of stealth. I will guide you, we will have to move through several passages and cross several levels of the city.” She checked her inventory and handed her bow and quiver to Nestor. “I guess as a hunter you are more proficient with a bow than I am. All right then. Let’s move out.”

Ankou went first, then Dawn and Nuala with the male Kharlins taking up the rear. As she moved through the familiar pathways, for the first time Dawn had the feeling that her skills were working perfectly. Her perception in combination with her dark sight let her hear every movement around her and though the caves were shrouded in perpetual darkness, she could see her surroundings as if she were standing in the brightest sunlight. Her steps were sure on the rubble strewn pathways and her movements were completely silent. In fact, she had to slow herself down or she would have left the Kharlins behind. They had naturally good night vision and high agility as a race, but were at a disadvantage compared to Dawn nevertheless. For a short moment, in the middle of these demon infested caves and outnumbered heavily by her enemies, Dawn felt powerful and capable in her own right.

Despite all her former concerns, they made it safely through the passages and lower levels of the city. The first difficulty came as they needed to climb the rope to reach the stairway to the platform. The male Kharlins were easily able to climb up, but frail Nuala was not able to manage it. In the end, Niko carried her on his back and Dawn kept praying that her rope would hold up under the weight of them both, as he went up. But everything worked out and the whole group finally arrived in the grand entrance hall without the slightest difficulty. Oddly enough, the ease of their passage led to a nagging feeling of unease in Dawn’s mind. Surely it couldn’t be that easy to escape from the demons’ lair.

They crossed the vast hall, the Kharlins staring at the huge stone statues, the ornamented walls and the vaulted ceiling in awe. At last, they stood before the seamlessly closed doors of the great portal. How had the demons opened these doors? Dawn tried to open them, pushing for all she was worth, but they didn’t budge. She looked all over for an opening mechanism but couldn’t find anything.

The Kharlins tried their hand too, helping her push, but it was all to no avail. The doors didn’t budge.

The party retreated a bit farther into the room, away from the doors.

Dawn sighed, dispirited. “It seems we need to wait until one or more of the demons go in or out. I don’t know how they manage to open the doors, but I saw them do it before.”

Her Kharlin companions appeared a bit dubious and Niko said. “We don’t know how long we will have to wait before some demons will come. And even if they do, we are in danger if they come close.”

Before Dawn could say anything, she heard a low noise behind her. Hastily shushing her companions, she led them to the entrance of one of the side chambers and hissed. “Hide here.” She herself activated Shadow Play and snuck out into the entrance hall on silent feet, watching her surroundings carefully, searching for the source of the noise she had heard. When her gaze met the stone depictions of the gods, she beheld a huge dark hole in front of the figure in the middle. Slowly emerging from this aperture, was the black and red body of the demon queen.