Despite her best efforts, Chess fell into a fitful sleep, only to be shaken awake what felt only moments later with a hand covering her mouth. Chess frantically sucked air in through her nose and tried to sit up, her panic surging. No! she thought still half caught in a dream and flooded with the notion that their escape was a fantasy and that Graventy still held her. Her frantic eye’s found Lynn kneeling beside her and she slumped in relief.

  Lynn's widened eyes alternated between Chess and the opening overhead, indicating she should be quiet. It took Chess a few more heart-thundering moments before she got the picture and sighed through her nose before fixing her gaze on the worried Sister's eyes.

  Chess nodded her understanding and brushed Lynn’s hand away so she could sit up. It was very faint but when Chess had calmed her breathing and thundering heart, she could hear muffled voices from above.

  “Ashley?” Chess mouthed at Lynn, who indicated where Ash still slept. Chess rolled to her feet and crept over to her daughter, the scuff of her boots on the ground ratcheting up her heart rate again. Ashley looked so peaceful and Chess felt a pang of guilt about the need to wake her. She hesitated while Lynn packed the few belongings they had left out and folded the lion furs. Without much prompting Chess moved to return the pelts to her inventory happy for the excuse to leave Ashley alone as long as possible.

  Chess pulled out a few of the empty boxes that were in her inventory, using her wood shaping to cut blocks from her project branch to fill the small containers and returned them to the vault. She piled the remaining scraps from her branch on top of the furs before shoving the rest, along with the bark, into the sides. When the inventory closed for the last time, half of the length of bark she’d added last fell to the floor cut smoothly along its length. Hmm, I’ll have to remember it does that, it might come in handy. She made a mental note.

  Chess put her new bowie into the waistband of her pants and the folding knife in her pocket, before quietly scattering some of the bone shards over where they’d lain the furs to disguise the camp and returning to Ashley with a frown.

  Lynn walked over to where Chess stood at Ashley’s side but hesitated before whispering into Chess's ear.

  “We have to go deeper,” Lynn said with a slump.

  Chess gave her a quizzical look and mouthed, “Deeper?” and shook her head turning to whisper in Lynn’s ear. “It’s a dead-end, I checked both paths,” she said while dreading Lynn’s response.

  Lynn shook her head emphatically before whispering in Chess’ ear again. “I looked, it’s a drop-in. Do you not know what this place is?”

  Chess shook her head again.

  “Come,” was all the teen said with sudden confidence, indicating she should bring Ashley. The voices above were growing closer but Chess still couldn’t make out what they were saying. It wasn’t much longer before she heard the thunk of a blade striking wood and the scrape of branches being pulled loose.

  Chess gently shook her daughter while putting a hand over her mouth to keep her quiet. Ashley’s eyes shot wide with panic and she struggled for a moment before realizing that it was Chess who had woken her up. Chess let out a relieved sigh at managing to keep things quiet, as she got back to her feet. The lack of movement from Ashley drew her attention to the girl's faraway look. Shit her awakening! She won’t be able to get rid of those windows until she chooses.

  Chess turned to Lynn and whispered. “Get the cradle, Ashley is awakening. She will be useless until she’s done.”

  Lynn gave Ashley a concerned look before doing as asked. Chess bent and gathered Ashley into her arms and grunted at the flare of fiery pain that lanced up her arm and neck. Chess gave the room a quick once over to make sure they’d not left anything before following Lynn into the dark tunnel.

  Lynn dumped the cradle at the edge of the dark pit in the ground and Chess moved to lay Ashley into it before getting back to her feet and frowning into the blackness below.

  “How do you want to do this?” Chess asked in a breathless whisper, unease building in her belly. The darkness of the hole was absolute and her improved vision was doing nothing to penetrate its mysteries.

  “I’ll go first, you lower her to me in a few minutes. You won't be able to hear me once I'm past the portal,” Lynn explained.

  “Portal?” Chess questioned the girl, a look of confusion plastered on her face.

  Lynn just smiled at her and turned to lower herself over the edge. She hung from the lip for a moment before giving a single small kick-off from the wall so that she fell more or less in the center of the supposed portal. Chess watched her form disappear incredulously; her gaze was lost in the blackness for a long moment after the skunkkin had vanished. The only sound was a small plunk, like a stone hitting the water a couple of seconds after the girl had let go. Fucking crazy. She just jumped without even testing how deep it was, Chess thought.

  After ensuring Ashley was secure in the basket, Chess waited, listening to the crunch of breaking branches echo through the tunnel behind her. It wasn’t long before the sound cut off and the voices drew closer.

  Chess sucked on a tooth, anxious at how close their pursuers had gotten, and braced herself to lower Ashley over the side. The voices behind her continued to pick up in volume, gradually getting closer. It hasn’t been a few minutes yet, but Lynn will have to deal. Maybe they won't hear us over their voices. Chess thought while gritting her teeth through the burning pain from her injury.

  “This is a waste of time, the plants above are older growth.” A woman’s voice drifted in from the main cavern.

  “That doesn’t explain the thorns,” A man reasoned, Chess thought it sounded like Raff and cursed herself for placing the spikes.

  “Still a waste of time. If they decided to enter, they’re dead,” the woman said.

  “It’s most likely a diversion. If that accursed elf knows about this place she could want us to enter and have to complete it before we can pursue them. We’ll leave a token guard here and sell the location to the Delver's Guild with a reward for any evidence that they were here. We win either way. If they did indeed enter, then they are dead and we have no witnesses to deal with. If not, then we can still try to pick up the trail and catch them.” The undisguised venom in Graventy’s voice carried over the others.

  “There’s no way they can survive in there. The little girl is mortally wounded and the skunk is collared. And if that damn elf is over level five, I'll eat my boots,” he added. Freya’s holy tits, this guy really likes to hear himself speak.

  “We still haven’t found the axe boy, he could be with them,” Raff reasoned.

  Chess quickened the pace, lowering Ashley as fast as she dared. Eventually, the vines slackened and pulled to the far side of the pit. Chess took a steadying breath before she dropped the remaining vines over the edge.

  “Won’t make a difference. Gwen, choose half a dozen men to stay here with you. The rest of you, let's catch us some mice,” Graventy commanded.

  Freya, save me from fools and foolish choices, Chess thought while stealing her nerves for what was coming next. She got down on her hands and knees before carefully lowering herself over the edge until she hung from her fingertips.

  Chess didn’t hear what the bandits said next because with a slow, deep inhale, she held her breath, and pushed off.

  ***

  Ashley woke in a blind panic, moving to shake off whoever was touching her. Someone was holding her mouth and her right leg burned and ached with a deep, throbbing, pain. The hand stifled her whimpers and she barely managed to hold herself back from biting it before she saw that it was Chess who was standing over her.

  Once her heart settled a little, the world erupted with the blue windows that she had waited her whole life to see.

  Ashley’s mouth opened in shock, her face mimicking a gasping fish, at all her choices. She reread the prompts over and over while Chess and Lynn carried her across the cave and into a tunnel.

  Her heart started hammering in her chest when they lowered her over a pitch-dark edge, where she hung suspended in the cradle that they had made for her. It was everything she could do not to start reading the choices aloud to the others in her excitement despite the dire circumstances that they found themselves in.

  Despite all of this, Ashley still couldn’t suppress a gasp when another astonishing prompt interrupted her perusal. A cold wash of fear quickly replaced her surprise as the realization sunk in.

  “Don’t worry, most people don’t have the best of class choices and work on getting a good subclass instead,” Lynn said, clearly misinterpreting Ashley's face.