To her panicking mind the fall felt like it took an eternity, but in reality it took less than ten seconds. It was during those ten seconds that several surprising things happened. First,she was engulfed in a soft blue light. Second, the light seemed to drastically slow her fall. Lastly, she was surprised to find out that there was an underground river in the deep hole, one that she had landed in. An underground river that was very, very fast flowing.

She fought the current, but was swept further and further away from the entrance. Quickly tiring out she was surprised one more time when a dimly glowing blue ring landed over her head and a feminine voice from nowhere and everywhere calmly said “Grab on, it is going to get really bumpy here shortly.” In the back of her mind she acknowledged how strange the appearance of the ring and voice were but grabbed on anyway because the majority of her brain was suddenly preoccupied with why the voice had said it was going to get bumpy. Swallowing hard she glumly noted that the river flowed into a large circular hole. She was going to go over a waterfall. “Today is not my day.” muttered Rosalyn as she clung desperately to the mysterious blue ring.

Normally Rosalyn was a very conscientious young lady, Mother Cham had not raised her to have a potty mouth after all, nevertheless she only had one thing to say as she approached the edge, “Fuuuuuuuuuu----!!!!!!” echoed across the deep hole as she flew off the top of a waterfall. About halfway to the ground, the soft blue glow enveloped her body once more protecting her from being dashed upon the ground below. She landed with a soft thunk in the middle of the gathered water.

A few minutes and a short swim later, Rosalyn was sitting on the shore of a small lagoon. She opened her satchel and emptied the contents to let them dry. Thankfully, most of what she carried were various useful tools for her everyday life, and the water would do them no lasting damage. Separating out the items that were ruined, she fished the small metal box out of her satchel and held it in both of her hands as she tried to reason out what it was. Squeezing the item in a death grip, she was honestly unsure on how she had managed to keep a hold of it in the chaos from her flight from the lich’s forces.

She set the box onto the cave floor for now, she would come back to it in a moment. stripping down to her small cloths, she wrung out the fabric of her dress to help it dry out. Rosalyn unhappily noted all of the holes in her favorite sun dress as she put it back on. She would have to darn the holes when she got a chance, she did keep a needle and thread in her satchel for just such a thing after all. Looking down at the former contents of her bag again, her gaze immediatly stopped on the mysterious box.

She eyed the box dubiously. Rosalyn couldn’t fathom why it was so damn important. It didn’t look like much to her and certainly didn’t look very valuable. Maybe it was made of some exotic materials? It seemed to be constructed of a dark looking metal with two curious white bands of some other metal crisscrossing its otherwise flawless black surface. The box was also surprisingly warm to the touch. Turning it over in her hands, Rosalyn noted that it wasn’t very big, and it didn’t seem to even weigh all that much. So what was so important about it?

Why had everyone died for it? Mother Cham… Hobert… all the other kids… they were all gone. She was alone again. Rosalyn felt the hot tears stream down her face as she desperately wished today had not happened. Her earlier despair at having to leave the orphanage seemed so small compared to what she was feeling now.

She would gladly leave the orphanage if it meant they would all come back to life. Finally free from the mad dash away from the ruins of her home and not in immediate danger Rosalyn couldn’t hold it in any more. She sobbed and cried as she closed her eyes and curled into a ball. Racking sobs tore through the quiet tunnels as a sad, lonely girl mourned her loss and fought at the guilt of survival as her entire world became seemingly infinite sadness and regret.

Serena watched the young woman curl into a fetal ball and start wailing in grief. She didn’t really know what was going on, but her heart instantly broke at the inconsolable sadness on display in front of her. Resolving to help this poor child, Serena decided that what she needed right then was information. Covering the girl in a blue barrier to prevent her from being accosted by wandering wildlife, she guided her awareness back to the entrance to see what was chasing her new guest.

When she got to the entrance she was disgusted to see that her pursuers were undead flesh constructs. There were two of the things in the entrance of the cave. One had the body of a horse with a man’s torso stitched onto the neck in some kind of perverse mockery of a centaur. He was carrying a large shield in one hand and his other seemed to have been replaced with a large axe head. His partner was a large cat with huge mangy hairless spots, a giant scorpion tail grafted onto its rear. However, the most disconcerting feature of this was the two human faces sewn onto either side of the large cat head.

Serena studied them for a few minutes to see if they were going to enter the cave, but smiled when she realised that they couldn’t get past her wards. Nodding to herself, she guided her awareness back to the Kobold warren. She judged that those two constructs wouldn’t be able to breach her wards, but she didn’t think they were alone. It takes a powerful necromancer to make such abominations after all, and she would be willing to bet another hundred years in her prison that he would be right behind his foul creations. Deciding that telling the Matriarch they were about to have company in the caves would be for the best as it would ensure that they would make good use of the time the wards will buy them. Serena let out a small chuckle. Watching the Kobolds deal with intruders was always a sight to behold.