Nineteenth Entry

The vastness of the mine stretched endlessly before us—an expanse of shadow and stone, echoing with the hum of distant creatures and the ever-present crash of waves. We had only traversed a fraction of it and already it felt like we had wandered for half a day.

We clung to the left wall as we pressed forward, winding our way into a new cavern, wide and dim and shrouded in stale air. Ragar wordlessly volunteered herself into the open like it would cost her nothing.

The others muttered whispers from the back of the group, revealing their divided opinions over her intentions. Was she leading for first pickings on another treasure? To atone for the hurt she had caused us? Just tired of walking in formation with people who barely looked at her?

Whatever the reason, no one’s opinion would sway them from their own. Jack still held on to his fervent disdain for her like an unsheathed blade. Raph’æl would still invoke Pass Without A Trace—extending its sanctuary to all of us, even her. And Super would keep his personal thoughts private while making his idiosyncrasies everyone’s business.

Further down the passage, I found a closed door. Curious, I pressed an eye to the keyhole. Darkness. And something else. Something too close. It felt… wet. Breathing.

I turned away from it slowly. “Ragar. Please lock this.”

She didn’t argue. She just did it.

As I stepped back, I thought I heard Jack whisper, “How can you even see through that flat mask?”

Raph’æl hushed him. “Focus.”

If only he knew… that I often wondered the same thing.

Fate. Destiny.

No. Shut up.

Keep moving. No assumptions.

We came to an intersection, then turned south. Another intersection. Each turn more uncertain than the last. Too many dragging minutes, thick with indecision. Another booming sound tremor. Another dead end. It began to feel like we were crawling through the veins of something ancient and indifferent. And it would never let us out.

But as we turned to retrace our steps, Sildar’s footfalls slammed down in a sudden panic. I spun around and saw him held rigid by an oozing, amorphous thing— bile yellow and nearly rivaling Jack in height. No one moved. Everyone seemed to have frozen in either awe or horror. Even I was motionless for a breath too long.

But then I heard it.

That voice of molten gold that always seemed to reveal itself in the moments I needed the most, just barely audible in the cavity behind my ribs. It began to whisper an arcane blueprint. A malleable key to the door between realms. Quick, concise, natural. No components, just intent.

I had no reason to distrust it.

I strode quickly towards Sildar as I pulled and wove this “key” into existence with an unnatural ease. As if it was a spell I’ve cast a hundred times before..

“Don’t fight it,” I told him as I tightened the arcane threads between us.

He gave me the smallest nod.

The words formed in my mouth like a reflex, spilling out in my mother tongue of Undercommon.

“Vortex Warp.”

In an instant, he vanished from sight. His energy lurched through the weave like a breath through a lung. I felt him land safely in the place I’d designated safe—right next to Jack—as if I had cradled him and set him down with arcane hands.

He was safe.

The ooze wasn’t.

Super descended upon the grotesque thing like a thunderclap. Blow after blow, fast as raindrops. He found its center, if such a thing could be said to exist. It dissolved into a slick mess, steaming and dead.

No one asked what I had just done.

No one looked at me any differently.

They just urged us forward to escape from whatever else could possibly drip down in front of us. As we moved away, I clasped my hands together to stop them from trembling.

I could hardly believe it. Vortex Warp.

I shifted space itself. I was going as far as toying with the pockets in between planes… and no one acted any different around me.

So… this should be standard magic… right?

My thoughts wandered toward what might come next. Could I perform this upon myself?

For you, the key is different, the voice of magic whispered inside me. But you are capable. Capable of more than you’re ready to understand.

I didn’t like what that implied.

Not one bit.

I wasn’t paying attention.

The auditory tremors jolted me back to reality. The roar swallowed everything else, including the cries of my companions. By the time the sound ebbed, the others were already in motion, blades drawn, spells flying. Two ghouls, lunging out of the dark. It had caught us flat-footed again.

You can’t afford to be this careless, I scolded myself, springing to heal an equally rattled Sildar. A shallow victory followed. We dispatched the undead quickly—too quickly for the kind of panic it stirred in my chest.

We couldn’t keep letting the cave decide when we were ready.

When the air calmed, Ragar was already off investigating the room like nothing had happened. A pair of polished brass braziers caught her eye and she immediately pocketed them.

Rogue doing rogue things.

I turned to the dead—dwarven corpses, long decayed. Every corpse throughout the cave seemed to have perished around the same time. Like a massacre had swept through in a single breath.

The bodies led toward another mound—larger, an unsightly barricade of limbs and armor that obscured our view further down. I could have approached and used my darkvision to see what lay beyond, but… my sight wasn’t the only one that mattered anymore.

Instead, I lifted fire from Jack’s torch with Control Flames, coaxing it past the corpses to light the space beyond. I was careful not to set the mound ablaze. I didn’t want to take any chances anymore. Just needed a beacon.

The wave came again. It was louder than before, enough to deafen my perception. But it did not stall Raph’æl’s elven ears.

“I heard something,” he muttered, raising his arm as if to deter us from further advance.

“Yah, we’ve been hearing something, every two minutes,” Ragar said, walking past him.

“No, I mean—”

“Fanesca, move your fire up there, will ya?” she interrupted, tossing a femur wrapped in tattered cloth into the air like it was nothing more than kindling.

Something about her tone made me listen. Despite our differences, despite everything… she hadn’t steered me wrong during a mission.

I ignited the morbid projectile midair, letting the fire blossom along its length. The flame sailed, casting flickering light across a towering structure that emerged from the dark: a massive blast furnace, half-built into the natural pillars of the cavern, as if grown from the stone itself. Dwarven craftsmanship, unmistakable in its angles and strength. It hadn’t burned in years. Rust clung to the bellows like moss, and a waterwheel sat still beside a long-dry canal.

And in the furthest corner of the forge…

A green flame floated silently in place—held aloft by nothing, its heart a skull grinning in the gloom.

My breath caught.

The moment the torch landed, the skull stirred.

Ragar and I darted back toward the others without a word.

She was the one to explain. Or try to.

“Okay, so, past the corpses there’s this big, like, chimney thing with machines and tools and—”

“A dwarven forge,” I offered softly.

“Right. And there’s a floating green fire-skull guy just kinda gliding around—”

“A flameskull?” Raph’æl paled. I watched his hand tighten around the sleeve of his robe. “They don’t stay dead. They regenerate—and if it saw us, it’s going to tell someone. Probably its creator. They’re guardians. Wizards make them to patrol near their valuables.”

I could have sworn that I saw a glimmer in Ragar’s eye at the mention of valuables.

It took effort not to sigh.

My voice was quieter than I intended when I offered a plan. “Jack and Sildar could stay behind the furnace—near the back, where it’s dark. The rest of us could try to sneak around. Maybe it’s guarding something important. The Rockseeker brothers, even.”

I didn’t mean to imply that Jack and Sildar were… burdens. But their armor, their gear—it didn’t exactly whisper.

I turned toward Raph’æl, already wincing inwardly, and asked, “Would you… please cast Pass Without a Trace again? I’m sorry to ask. I know your magic—”

He raised his hand before I could finish. I sighed as I welcomed the comfort of his holy magic’s canopy. I knew it was of his heart to aid us, but it still felt so wrong to request anything of him.

“I’m willing,” he gently insisted. “I’m just… personally not liberal with my magic usage. But you don’t need to apologize.”

“I-I just don’t want to assume—”

“You’re not assuming. I want to help.”

He acknowledged me. Smiled.

I wish he knew I smiled back.

We fell into formation. Ragar at the lead. Raph’æl beside Super, maintaining the veil of stealth like a protective net. I trailed behind them all. We hugged the cavern’s wall, past the forge, far behind the flameskull—its flickering gave turned away—to find a stone door. It was scorched and blackened in it’s center like it had staved away a fireball.

Ragar examined it. Unlocked.

She peered in.

And then bolted back.

“Bugbears.” The word burst from her lips, half-whispered, half-delighted. “About five, maybe six. Just sitting around in there.”

Wide-eyed, Raph’æl stepped forward. “Wait here. I’ll bring the others.”

As he disappeared into the dark, my thoughts spun.

“Bugbears,” I muttered to myself, confused. They weren’t part of the Spider Alliance’s implied agents. We’d only seen evidence of drow, humans, and… some otherworldly things. What if these bugbears weren’t hostile? What if they were just… surviving? Were they prisoners once? Or just clever opportunists? And if the scorch marks on the door were anything to go by, would they have been running from the flameskull?

Maybe they were squatters. Maybe refugees from the forge, trying to stay out of the enemy’s path. Maybe…

So many maybes.

When the rest of the party returned and was briefed, I turned to Ragar again.

“Ragar, I don’t want to assume anything but…Would you be willing to approach them?” I asked, tentative but sincere. “We can stay by the door and… make sure you’re okay. Support you from here.” I turned to the others. “Right, all?”

Jack rolled his eyes, but didn’t object. Everyone else nodded.

Ragar met my eyes, surprised. Thankful.

A ghost of a smile upon her face.

Then, as we hung back, she stepped forward and knocked on the door.