“And what did we get from that spell?”

  “I know what happened to this tower’s [Dungeon Core],” Merijest said. Then she frowned and added, “But more importantly, I know why we can’t find IsterNgiv.”

  Thesa’s face brightened. Could they finally return to her home town? To see the rubble would ruin her, but the opportunity to uncover her past was close and she needed to seize it.

  “Yes,” Merijest said. “A single, generous spirit among dozens offered the insight without prompting. IsterNgiv was a town in the Candix Republic, what is now Candix & Rosell Territories.”

  Thesa nodded. More questions emerged and returned. How had she and her mother made it all the way to ItherBeau? And how come nobody told her? Why was this a secret?

  She shuddered, recalling what Merijest had said about the Otomoid… What if her home was crawling with those fleshy things?

  “How old were you when you reached the Convent?” Witmie asked, joining the discussion and pulling Thesa's attention back to the present.

  “I was about 10. I’ll be 27 later this year.”

  “17 years…” Durn said. “So that was around 4709 z.e.? Wasn’t that near the end of that big famine in Candix? Something went wrong with a crop, right?”

  “That part gets overemphasized,” Witmie explained. “It started with an infection in the starchroot crops, but ItherBeau used its hold on trade routes to deny the region aid for years. But it makes sense. I guess I never stopped to think, but as a fellow half-elf it would make sense if you have family from there.”

  “It would?” Thesa asked.

  “A lot of Half-Elfs come from there because of the Elven Invasion hundreds of years ago,” Witmie nodded. “My family left early. I was sort of a sickly kid, so as soon as the famine started they did everything they could to get us out.” Witmie’s expression darkened for just a moment.

  Thesa’s head was spinning even more. Should she have known about that? More politics that she either never learned or didn’t remember. She turned back to her demoness and asked, “Did you learn anything else about it?”

  Merijest shook her head, no.

  “What about the [Dungeon Core]?” Durn asked.

  Merijest sighed and then explained, “apparently she realized how much time she’d wasted trying to perfect her doors without adding anything else. She gave up as a [Dungeon Core] and joined the Knights. Her name was Vlurlaw. Does that mean anything to you, Thesa?”

  Thesa stared dumbfounded. She didn’t even know someone could back out of being a [Dungeon Core]. “Vlurlaw is second-in-command only to [Archknight Superior],” she answered. “Although she’s more likely to go out into the field.”

  “Didn’t the [Bard] Knight mention that name?” Witmie asked, finally paying attention to the conversation.

  “Yeah, maybe they knew it was Vlurlaw’s former [Dungeon],” Thesa shrugged.

  “By the way, did you know them well,” Durn asked. “That Frinx person, I mean.”

  “Not well,” Thesa said. “They were always trying to get me to go to lunch and explain stuff about the Knights.”

  “And?”

  “I tried to get out of it a lot.”

  “But didn’t you used to like talking about the Knights?”

  “I guess I was worried something would go wrong. What if it was just a pretense to make fun of me or something or if other people saw me talking about stuff and thought I was being weird,” Thesa said.

  Merijest put a hand on Thesa’s shoulder.

  “We’ll need to get moving soon,” Witmie said.

  “But where do we go now?” Thesa asked.

  “We can still aim for IsterNgiv in the long term, but we’ll just have to turn our attention to getting past the border of ItherBeau,” Merijest said.

  “Gai did say we might have better luck aiming for the coast,” Witmie replied. “They probably have more resources dedicated to the land borders considering just how much coast they would have to cover.”

  “The ocean would also make it easier to contact Lelly and the Twin Stars,” Merijest added.

  “Is there any reason we wouldn’t want to leave the region by sea altogether?” Thesa asked.

  “Although the Twin Stars have significant power over the ocean, they are not the only water [Deities],” Merijest replied.

  Thesa nodded as she recalled that Beautuk’s own mother, Owtem, had a significant connection with the tides.

  “Plus, we’ll need a boat,” Durn pointed out.

  “Maybe the [Core] of that [Dungeon] with the shipwreck exterior could help us,” Witmie said, referring to her map.

  “In that case,” Merijest said, “Let’s head to the shipwreck [Dungeon]. Even if we don’t end up escaping by sea, that way will take us north and we can use the shortcut between those castles.”

  Witmie looked at the map and nodded.

  ***

  Sparse forest speckled the first of the two hexes between the tower and the castle. The sky was almost clear, but the fading light of day began to reveal the swirling pinks, blues, and purples of the night sky. A light speckling of stars and the swift movement of mysterious creatures in the ether of space above were barely visible.

  You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

  “I wish there was more brush. I feel exposed,” Durn observed. The gold- and silver-barked trees provided only minimal cover.

  The non-sapient [Familiars] seemed equally on-edge. The Foxtapus’s tails were low to the ground as it moved in short spurts before glancing around fearfully and Yabba refused to get down from Thesa’s shoulders. The Bronze Motif seemed extra jingly as well, although that might have owed to Frostbite, who was chasing the poor creature in circles around the party.

  “Hey, stop that,” Thesa said in a whisper-call.

  “Do Peppermint Wyrms eat Bronze Motifs or something?” Witmie asked.

  “Now that you mention it, they do sound like they’re full of treasure and even a little dragon probably wants a hoard…” Durn observed.

  “Frostbite, no eating your friends!” Thesa yowled in an unconvincing whisper.

  “Let’s keep our pace up,” Merijest replied.

  ***

  The forest in the next [Hex] became more dense and the party made camp. It was either very late or very early, depending on perspective.

  While camp was made and hexes cast, Thesa used her [Infravision] to watch a nearby creature. Hidden by brush and curled into a small burrow, a common Cottonscale slept.

  Thesa hadn’t seen one in a long time.

  Ever so slightly, its torso expanded and contracted with each breath. Thesa’s stomach growled with hunger and guilt.

  “What’s the matter?” Witmie asked. The rabbit-eared half-elf took a seat beside Thesa on the dirt. In her lap, she hugged her stuffed rabbit. “I’ve never seen someone look so sadly at a Cottonscale.”

  Of course, Witmie had the same half-elf eyesight as Thesa so she could see it as well.

  “Witmie, what made you and Durn want to follow Merijest?”

  “That’s a big question,” Witmie replied. “I guess I was tired of pointless [Dungeon] crawling. I wanted to be part of something bigger and when a tall, hot demon lady offers you the chance you gotta take it.”

  “What about Durn?”

  “I don’t know exactly,” Witmie replied. “I mean, where one of us goes the other follows, but I think we had some similar motivations. We could check with her. Why do you ask?”

  The Cottonscale shifted and bounded a leg against the air in its sleep.

  “Deflecting, I guess…” Thesa shrugged. “Do you feel like everything you knew got turned upside down?”

  “Hmm, maybe? I guess a lot of things I already suspected turned out to be true. But there were surprises. Do you feel like that?”

  “Maybe? It doesn’t feel like the right words exactly,” Thesa replied. “Sometimes I remember something and it seems worse to me now than I think it seemed when it happened. Or other things always seemed bad but [Archknight Superior] and the other Knights wanted me to think it wasn’t a big deal or to stop talking about it or something. I don’t know what I’m even saying.”

  Thesa grasped for better words. She wished there was something like the corporeal case that Merijest had shown her but for feelings instead of spell components. Or maybe the reverse of that. Some way to take the feelings and automatically attach the right word.

  “How about this,” Witmie said with a kind smile. “Start over and tell me what started this thought process to begin with.”

  Thesa nodded. “I’ve mentioned before my whole situation with the Convent. How my mother and I were running from something for a long time. I guess we ate Cottonscale in the forest. I don’t know why that matters. But I remember it.”

  “I know Cottonscale are pretty cute and most people don’t eat them in ItherBeau, but it's not uncommon in Candix and some other places,” Witmie said.

  “That doesn’t bother you as a…part rabbit yourself?”

  “I mean, it doesn’t sound appetizing to me these days,” Witmie shrugged. “I guess I think it's kind of weird but that shouldn’t dictate how you feel about it.”

  Thesa nodded. “It just feels weird to think about and seeing it makes it hard to think about anything else.”

  “Sometimes it’s good to lean into the weirdness. You can only run from it for so long.”

  “Maybe,” Thesa shrugged. Maybe she could ‘lean into the weirdness’ at some point but running from the Knights didn’t exactly put her in a good emotional place to do that.

  ***

  Under the dense tree cover, the party stopped to make sure they were still headed in the right direction.

  “I might as well try out that new spell,” Thesa said. “There’s no need for you to overdo it.”

  Merijest shrugged. She could easily have flown above the trees. Was Thesa still worried after the allergy situation? In the days since she’d recovered, Thesa had fallen unconscious or needed tending multiple times… Either way, it was a good chance for her [Witch] to practice something unfamiliar.

  The bodily shock of changing shape from a half-elf into a [Corvoid] form was comparable only to the shock Thesa had felt when she died the first time she met Merijest.

  From the outside it looked nearly instantaneous. But from Thesa’s perspective, her spirit was suspended above her body as it twisted and convulsed. Every follicle of hair on her body squeezed and stretched to become feathers. Her half-elf skin became the thin, feathered skin of a bird. Her clothes and armor fell into a pile beneath her new avian body. When the transformation was complete, Thesa returned to her body but it was alien to her now.

  For one thing, she was about half of her normal height. She flapped her wings awkwardly, rising a short distance from the ground. She was hoping it would feel a little more instinctive.

  Then Thesa noticed Merijest staring at her. The demoness’s ample plumage seemed to stand out more than usual. Thesa was suddenly overcome by animal instincts she couldn’t put into words. She found herself suddenly chirping out some sort of song before taking flight to a series of aerial spins and dives. Her movement was still awkward here and there, but she was already getting the hang of this.

  Merijest, for her part, blushed and only just caught herself from chirping back.

  After the display, during which Witmie and Durn looked on in deep confusion, Thesa remembered her mission and took to the sky.

  The path to the castle, she saw, slithered through the trees before squeezing between a pair of small settlements. In the northern settlement there stood a statue of Vrulch, an [Archknight Superior] from generations prior.

  When Thesa returned to the party, she stared at the pile of clothes and armor she’d left behind. “How do I get back into that as I change back?” she squawked.

  “It might take some practice,” Merijest said. The demoness was blushing. “Start by practicing with your undergarments so you don’t hurt yourself on the rigid armor.”

  Thesa hoped her [Corvoid] form couldn’t blush in turn. “But what if I position myself incorrectly and…tear the clothes…squawk,” She found herself making anxious bird noises. “I’ll just do it with the armor, too.”

  “No way,” Merijest said, standing tall. “Undergarments first and that’s an order.”

  Thesa cowered, again wondering if her blushing was obvious.

  Witmie and Durn looked away. They whispered and giggled to one another.

  Thanks for reading!

  Cover and Monster Art by

  Dungeon Maps by Ailish Maura using

  Region maps by Ailish Maura using IbisPaint and FireAlpaca

  Comments, Reviews, and Follows all go a long way to support my writing!

  Consider throwing me a tip on !