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The portal from Level 2 was almost anticlimactically easy to traverse; for all intents and purposes, it opened a simple door between the metal arch in the demon village and the entrance at the base of the stairs to Level 6. The passage was silent and completely without flashy effects, unlike the Descent itself. Their destination slowed the students down somewhat as they had to again navigate the invisible maze, but their trip this time was a much faster one. Fross had evidently memorized the route, and helpfully marked it for them by blocking the wrong paths with ankle-high walls of ice.

They straggled to a stop at the base of the stairs on the level below, warily craning their necks to peer at the inert chess pieces.

“Yeah, I can see them now,” said Toby, pointing. “Bands up near the top, see?”

Though both sets appeared to be made of plain granite, the pieces on one side had accents of hammered copper, those on the other bedecked with cast iron. That wasn’t the end of their coloration, however; as Toby indicated, every piece had a colored ring near the top of its body, just below the symbolic “heads” that identified each piece’s role.

“Conveniently color-coded,” Teal mused. “Blue, green, gold and red, just like dragons. I feel a little dense for not spotting that before.”

“I’m certain we would have figured it out if we’d stopped and tried to,” Trissiny said firmly. “It really was a convenient place to call a halt. All right, then… Gabriel, you ready?”

“And waiting!” he said, producing one of the glyphed sheets of parchment from the folder he carried and holding it out.

“Good,” Trissiny said, nodding. “Fross? You’re up.”

“On it!” the pixie chirped, swooping down and grabbing the sheet from his hand. She fluttered out into Level 7 proper; her classmates stilled momentarily in apprehension, but the chess pieces did not react.

“Mm, looks like they respond to feet on the floor,” Ruda mused. “Might be a way we can use that.”

“We have a plan,” said Trissiny. “It’s something to keep in mind in case it doesn’t work, though.”

They tensed again as Fross fluttered carefully to the ground near the front row of the “white” pieces and released the glyphed paper onto the square of one of the pawns. It drifted slightly in the draft of her tiny wings, but settled to the floor, brushing almost against the base of the chess piece.

Again, they did not react. Fross shot back toward the rest of the group a lot faster than she’d gone out, however.

“Okay,” Trissiny said grimly. “Here we go.”

Very carefully, she stepped down and planted one boot on the floor.

Immediately, the pieces swiveled to face her, just as they had done the day before. In the next second they were bouncing forward, the crashing of their hops echoing deafeningly in the enclosed chamber.

All, that is, except the one whose square was marked by Gabriel’s charm. It stood there, evidently inert. The pieces behind it navigated around, careful not to knock into it, which slowed down their approach.

Trissiny lifted her foot, hopping back up onto the steps, and the pieces immediately stopped. With another loud grinding noise of their stone bases against the stone floor, they swiveled about and proceeded to hop back to their starting positions. There was a brief traffic jam among the white team as a bishop found its path home blocked by pawns, but after some loud confusion they straightened themselves out, eventually bouncing back into the proper configuration half a minute after the black team had settled in.

“Whew,” said Gabriel, grinning. “I was half afraid that wouldn’t work!”

The others turned in unison to stare at him silently.

His grin faltered. “Well… It should have worked. I was reasonably sure. That’s a simple stillness charm, it’s known to be effective against basically any kind of creature or effect that isn’t specifically set up to counter it. But, y’know, it’s the Crawl. Not everything goes how it should.”

Trissiny snorted softly. “If you’re uncertain about your role in a plan, Gabriel, it’s better if we know before we have to test it in action. Just for future reference.”

“Whatever you say, General,” he snipped back.

“Just give her the glyphs,” she said, exasperated. “Fross, looks like this is all on you.”

“Leave it to me!” the pixie crowed, swooping over to collect the stack of paper charms Gabriel held up to her. She fluttered out into the chamber, the papers hovering beneath her, and began carefully laying them down in front of each chess piece.

“I wonder how groups without an enchanter solve this,” Teal murmured as Fross worked.

“Well…it’s clearly a combat puzzle,” Toby said slowly. “Did you see how they’re careful not to bash into each other? And that’s a scary sight when they’re all coming at you, but really they weren’t moving any faster than an average person walks. Clearly it’s a test of coordination and maneuverability. You have to stay mobile, lead them along into the right formations so that your various magic users can hit their corresponding colors.”

“Do we just have to hit the right piece with the right kind of magic?” Teal asked. “Or does it need to be actually on the colored band?”

“Shamlin didn’t specify, but I assume you have to strike the band,” said Trissiny, frowning as she watched Fross systematically disable the pieces. “Otherwise this would be preposterously easy.”

“Yeah,” Ruda grunted. “And with those bands well above head height…it’s pretty much preposterously fuckin’ difficult.”

“It occurs to me that we don’t actually have an offensive arcane magic user,” Trissiny remarked. “Fross is a mage, yes, but most of her tricks are just that. I’ve only ever seen her use fae magic in combat.”

“The classic Arcane Bolt is a very simple spell,” said Gabriel, his attention focused on the diagram he was carefully inking on a clipboard. “It’s also a pretty weak one, especially compared to her ice magic. There’s been no reason for her to use it so far, but I’ll be amazed if she doesn’t know it. You know how she likes to study.”

“If it’s so weak, will it work?” Ruda asked.

“We’ll test,” said Trissiny. “But if we were told correctly, you only need to hit the band with the right kind of magic to disable the piece.”

“Also, there’s the wand I just got on Level 6,” Gabriel continued. “Shoots actual arcane blasts, not simple lighting like a cheaper wand. That should qualify, too.”

“Speaking of groups not having enchanters,” Ruda went on, “I can’t help noticing that we’re once again not doing the challenge the way it’s supposed to be done. I’ve gotta wonder what delightful surprise the Crawl will have for us afterward.”

“Only one way to find out,” Trissiny murmured. “Gabe, don’t you need to attune that thing to the individual glyphs?”

“Nah,” he said, still inking. “This is set up to be keyed to their positions on the chessboard. Long as I ink in each sigil correctly—which I am, don’t worry—it’ll work.”

Fross finally came fluttering back to them, carrying several extra glyphed papers. While she had set out with an orderly stack, these were blowing about underneath her in a small cloud and had frost accumulating on their edges. “All done! Gabe, here, take these.”

He set aside his clipboard, grumbling, and began gathering up the fallen pages as Fross released them with an audible chime of relief. Apparently keeping them aloft individually was a significant test of her coordination.

“All right,” said Trissiny. “Moment of truth.”

Once again, she carefully stepped down onto the chessboard floor.

Nothing happened.

There were several grins and swiftly released breaths from the others; Ruda let out a whoop. Trissiny herself had to smile. “Excellent work, you two!”

“Happy to be of service,” Gabe said, tucking away his last page with a flourish.

“Likewise!”

She led the way toward the middle of the chamber, the others peering around uncertainly at the chess pieces as they followed. They grew more confident with each step, however, once satisfied that the monoliths were going to remain inert. The glyphed pages lying at the foot of each glowed a very faint blue that was barely distinguishable in the sourceless, omnipresent light.

“The sign for Level 8 hasn’t lit up,” Ruda commented, pointing at the opposite door.

“Well, we haven’t beaten the challenge,” Trissiny said reasonably. “Gabe, may I have that, please?”

“Now hang on,” Ruda protested as he handed over the clipboard to her. “How come you get to be in charge?”

Trissiny raised her eyebrows, then held the clipboard out to her. “You want to do this?”

“Aw, c’mon, Boots, you know me,” she replied, grinning. “I just want to bitch and complain while you do the heavy lifting. Lemme have my fun.”

Trissiny stared at her for a long moment before a smile broke through her reserve. Shaking her head, she turned back to Gabriel. “Okay, how’s this work?”

“Hold it by the board as much as you can,” he said. “The ink shouldn’t smudge, but you don’t want to accidentally trigger one, I’m assuming. All right, I’m sure I don’t have to explain the chessboard diagram to you. This side is the white team, this side is the black team, each is marked with a sigil like one of the stillness charms. Touch it with a fingertip to deactivate it, and…boom.”

“Boom,” she repeated, nodding. “All right, everybody…line up, please.”

They did so, somewhat unevenly, Ruda dramatically rolling her eyes in the process. Trissiny paced down the row once, frowning thoughtfully at them, before taking a position at the end closest to the exit. “Teal.”

“Yes?”

“I’m operating on the assumption that you don’t want or need to learn combat formations. Can we talk to Vadrieny, please?”

“Righto,” the bard said with a rueful grin, which immediately became rather menacing as it shifted into a double row of glossy fangs. Vadrieny rolled her neck from side to side, flexing her wings straight outward behind her.

“Very good,” Trissiny said, nodding. “All right, I want you to be our first individual test.”

“I’m honored,” the archdemon said dryly.

“You are suitable,” Trissiny said. “You’re in no physical danger from these things, you have the advantage of flight which will enable you to reach the glyph, and you’re strong enough to throw the thing back even if you miss. Your capabilities aren’t being evaluated, we’ve all seen them. This is a test to make sure this system is going to work the way we planned.”

“Right,” Vadrieny said, nodding.

Trissiny pointed to one of the white pawns marked near its crown with a blue band. “I’m going to release that one. Show us how it’s done.”

Without further warning, the paladin pressed her gloved thumb onto the corresponding glyph on her chart.

Instantly, with a sharp pop, the charm lying in front of the blue-marked pawn went up like a blue firecracker. In the next second, the pawn charged forward at them.

Vadrieny was on it with a single pump of her wings. She landed right on the statue’s front, digging her talons into its stone surface and clutching its head with one hand. The pawn stopped, apparently confused, and began twisting back and forth, trying to throw her off. Grinning, Vadrieny drew back her free hand and drove her claws forward directly at the blue band.

The instant they touched it, the entire thing exploded in a spray of gravel, dropping her unceremoniously to the floor. She beat her wings once more, landing gracefully amid the ruins, then turned to the others, and bowed.

Ruda cheered again; Toby and Gabriel both applauded.

“Good work,” Trissiny said in a satisfied tone. “All right, people, we have our practice session lined up. Vadrieny, back in formation, please.”

She paced up and down the row once more, studying them and ignoring the faces Ruda made, pausing when she came back to the other end. “Tobe, come here, please?”

He glanced at the others, then stepped over to her.

“Can I see that staff?” she asked, holding out her free hand.

“Sure,” he said, offering it over. Trissiny took the weapon, twirled it once, thumped its end upon the floor, peered critically at the grain of the wood and handed it back. She carefully set the clipboard on the ground to one side, then drew her sword.

“All right, I’m going to assume the monks of Omnu didn’t teach you this trick, but it’s fairly simple.” She held up the scarred old blade; as they all watched, it came slowly alight, golden radiance illuminating it from within and seeming to pool in its nicks and dents like water. Gabriel, who was already a good handful of yards away from them, edged backward further. “It’s very much like healing—you simply let the power of your god flow through you, into the weapon instead of a patient, and hold it there.”

Toby tilted his head to one side, frowning thoughtfully at her, then transferred his stare to his staff. After a moment, his frown intensified. Only a few seconds later did the staff begin to glow faintly.

“This is harder than using it on a person,” he muttered, now almost scowling at his staff.

“Wood’s not very conductive, magically speaking,” said Gabriel.

Juniper cleared her throat. “Actually…”

“Okay, I stand corrected,” he said, grinning at her. “Wood conducts fae magic very well, but not the other branches. That’s why it’s used in wands: slows down the current, gives you more control.”

“Control comes with practice,” said Trissiny. She rapped Toby’s staff sharply with the flat of her sword; he nearly lost his grip, having to scramble to keep hold of it and letting the light wink out

“Hey!” he protested.

“The really hard part is keeping the flow of power into it steady while you’re swinging it around and hitting things,” she said with a smile. “As I said, practice will help. Also, we should look into getting you a staff with some metal accents. Gabe’s right, that’ll help it hold magic. But since Omnu doesn’t grant any offensive use of his power, this is the only way you’re going to pass this trial.”

“I’m not clear on why exactly I need to pass this trial,” he said, frowning. “I’m a healer, Triss.”

“You are a martial artist,” she replied. “Your cult developed a martial art to the high standards it did for the specific purpose of being able to counter and deflect force without inflicting harm. Well, imbuing your attacks with holy power is the next step in that. The energy you use will mitigate and even counter any damage you do with that weapon against average mortals.”

“Unless they’re half-demons,” he said quietly.

“Yes,” she agreed, nodding. “Yes, Toby, if it were a perfect world, you would never be placed in a situation where you might accidentally hurt someone with the best of intentions. You want to gamble on that?” She held his eyes in silence for a moment until he shifted his gaze aside, sighing. “Remember what Professor Ezzaniel said that first day,” she went on more gently. “For there to be peace, the people who love peace have to be better at war than those who love violence.”

“Actually, I think you put it better than he did!” Fross said.

“All right, I take your point,” said Toby, lifting his head and regarding her with new determination. “I’m up next, then?”

“If you please, yes.” Trissiny picked up the clipboard again and stepped to the side, pointing at a pawn with a green band. “There’s your target. Let’s see what you’ve got.”

She released the pawn in question and he raised his staff.

Toby actually made nearly as quick work of his opponent as Vadrieny had. All it took was a swift upward jab with his faintly glowing weapon and the thing dissolved into gravel.

“Good!” Trissiny said firmly. “Very good. Your fine control is excellent. All right, Juniper! The red one there. You ready?”

Juniper took a little longer with hers, and actually forced the other students to break formation and scatter as the bouncing monolith pushed her back into their line. She pushed right back, however, growling and swinging her fists, each blow inflicting cracks and dents, and finally tipped it over by slamming her shoulder into it. From there, she simply climbed on top of the twitching pawn and drove her fist into the red band, causing it to burst underneath her.

“Brutal,” said Trissiny, “but effective. Juniper, I’ve noticed this just about every time I see you fight something: you’re all brute force and no technique.”

“So?” the dryad said somewhat petulantly, brushing gravel and dust off herself. “It works for me.”

“Thus far it has,” Trissiny agreed. “But the fact that you are so powerful may be holding you back. No matter who or what you are, no matter how strong, there is someone stronger out there, and the nature of the Circle means that there are many things considerably weaker than you which are still a threat to you. I know Professor Ezzaniel has been working with you about agility and precision.”

Juniper grimaced. “I don’t get the best marks in his class.”

“Well…keep in mind that he does things for a good reason. I’ll be glad to help you work on it, too.”

“I don’t need—”

“Let me rephrase that,” Trissiny said sharply. “While you’re part of this group, all of our safety depends on the competence of everyone else. You have a weakness in your abilities; refusing to correct it puts us all at risk. Do I need to assume that’s your intention, or will you let me help you?”

Juniper huffed and folded her arms sullenly. “I guess,” she muttered.

Trissiny sighed. “All right. Gabriel! The gold one, right there.”

Gabe, too, swiftly took his target down using only his wand—the new one he’d been awarded from the maze level. It took him more than one shot, but all three of his hit the pawn in the right general area on its head, the third causing it to collapse. He grinned at the applause of the others, bowing.

Shaeine dispatched her foe by stalling its forward bouncing with a shield of silver light, then raised a second one horizontally above her and slammed its razor-thin edge into the green band surmounting the pawn. The whole time, she kept her expression serene and her hands folded in the wide sleeves of her robe.

Trissiny had a bit more trouble with hers, due to the shorter reach of her weapons. Both the white pawns marked with fae green had already been taken down, so she selected one of the black ones to target. In the end, she brought it down by jumping at and kicking off one of the inert pawns, landing a perfect strike on the green band of her foe to destroy it.

“Damn, but that was excessively flashy,” Ruda said with a huge grin as soon as the cheering died down.

“Not something I’d do in most situations,” Trissiny agreed, smiling. “These things really are extraordinarily simple, though. They don’t actually attack in any meaningful way. All right, Ruda! Fross!”

“What?” the pixie asked, swooping overhead in confusion. “Both of us?”

“I’ve been giving this some thought,” said Trissiny, sheathing her blade. “I want you two to start operating as a unit when we’re in hostile situations.”

“Think I need my hand held?” Ruda asked with sudden, deadly calm.

“Don’t do that,” Trissiny shot back. “You know very well I respect your capabilities; we all do. We’ve seen you fight, and most of this group owes their lives to your ingenuity.”

“There was also that time she stabbed Gabriel,” Juniper said helpfully.

“Fucking,” said Gabe, holding up one finger. “She fucking stabbed me. Let’s be precise about this.”

Trissiny cleared her throat loudly. “Anyway. Ruda, you are devastating in hand-to-hand combat and improving all the time. That sword of yours is useful to counter magic. However, the fact is that you’re the only member of this group without some kind of magical defense; you’ll be the most prone to injury.”

“Fuck that,” Ruda snorted. “I get hurt less than Gabe. And yes, Gabriel, I know what you’re about to say. Even disregarding that one time it was me doing it, how often have you gotten injured?”

“The fact that you don’t get hurt much is another reason nobody doubts your fighting skill,” Trissiny said firmly. “The truth is still what it is, however. There is absolutely no shame in not being the strongest. You saw the difficulty I had taking down my pawn just now? That doesn’t mean I’m any less skilled, it means I was facing a specific situation in which my skill set left me with a handicap. I have to be frank, Ruda, any of us could kill you in a fight if we had to. Except probably Toby.”

“Hey!” he protested.

“She’s about as good as you are in combat and that sword would pierce your shields,” Trissiny said to him. “Which, again, doesn’t reflect poorly on you. It’s just that—”

“All right, all right!” Ruda exclaimed. “Point made, you can quit fuckin’ harping on it already!”

Trissiny nodded to her, then turned to the pixie. “And Fross… You are an extremely effective combatant on your own. However, our purpose here is in learning to fight as a group, and in that area, you cause some problems.”

“I do?” Fross asked in a small voice. “…sorry.”

“This isn’t recrimination,” Trissiny said kindly. “Not of anyone; we’re finding areas where we need to improve and addressing them. In your case, the issue is that people fighting as a unit need to know one another’s positions, capabilities and tendencies very well in order to rely on them without having to think or question. That is the essence of fighting together. Your very mobility undercuts that, Fross. On the boar level, the ice you laid down to trip them was as much of a hazard to us as to the enemy. We never knew where it would appear or where to safely step; having to watch our feet that carefully while fighting was a serious handicap. Anchoring you to Ruda will help the group to anticipate where you are and what you’ll be doing.”

“It will also help an enemy to predict those same variables,” Shaeine said quietly.

“That’s true,” Trissiny agreed, nodding. “In my opinion, for the purpose of this discussion, the advantages outnumber the drawbacks. If anyone disagrees, though, I’m quite open to discussion.”

“Um,” said Fross, “before we get to any discussion, can you just tell us what you had in mind?”

“Of course. If you stay near Ruda and make it your priority to assist her, you both gain several advantages. Ruda is an excellent tactician; if you get in the habit of following her directives, you’ll be a lot more effective in general against an enemy, even aside from being a more reliable member of the group. Working together, you two gain the ability to fight both in close quarters and at long range, which is something none of the rest of us alone can match. Shaeine’s shields have a limited offensive role and Gabriel just isn’t very good at hand-to-hand. And, of course, you have magical defenses that can help keep her safe when we face things that don’t have the courtesy to attack using mundane methods. Is that clear to everyone?”

“For the record,” said Gabriel, “I’m getting better at fighting.”

“Yes, you are,” Trissiny agreed with a smile and a nod, “but you’re still the least effective fighter in the group without your wands. Gabe, don’t pout. Remember what I said? No one is throwing stones, here. We can all stand to learn.”

“Yeah?” Ruda folded her arms. “And what is it you’re gonna learn, since we’re all on allegedly equal footing here?”

“Nothing I’m likely to be able to pick up down here,” Trissiny replied, frowning, “though I have been giving that serious thought. For one thing… I think Toby and I both need to work on our abilities with divine shields. If three of us could do what Shaeine does, the group’s options increase greatly. Even assuming we won’t get as good at it as she is, which I think is a safe assumption. Shaeine has clearly put a great deal of work and practice into her shielding skills.”

“That is true,” the drow said. “And I would be glad to teach you what I know. To the best of my knowledge, the different sources of our power should not make a great difference; the type of energy is the same, and my techniques ought to work for you. It does take a considerable investment of effort, however. I would not expect either of you to master remote shielding during this exercise.”

Trissiny nodded to her. “In addition, I’m realizing that my training hasn’t made the best use of my own capabilities. I was always trained as a human, but the truth is, I’m half elf. I have more innate agility than strength, and I’m using a combat style which has opposite priorities. That’s a weakness. I also don’t make very effective use of my magic; elves can channel more energy safely, which is a potential asset I’ve left almost completely undeveloped. I think if you’ll all consider these questions, each of you will find something you could be doing to make yourselves more effective in a fight—even if you don’t care to do actual fighting. Having dedicated healers and defenders is a great asset to the group.”

She let the silence hang for a long moment, watching their expressions; though Fross was of course unreadable, they all appeared to be considering her words.

“There’s another thing,” Trissiny went on more quietly. “All of us who use magic of any kind need to learn the Circle of Interaction techniques that enable us to draw power from whichever school is vulnerable to our own. We have fairies, demons, light-wielders and a mage. Many of us are relatively untrained, magically speaking, but most happen to have considerable reservoirs of pure energy. Being able to donate it, so to speak, to another member of the group at need is simply a more effective use of our resources. Don’t you agree?”

At that, everyone but Shaeine frowned, glancing uncertainly around at each other, but no one offered any objection.

“Anyway,” Trissiny went on more briskly. “Fross, Ruda, you’re up. White pawn, red band, there on the end.”

She had been somewhat nervous about this prospect, and had considered whispering a warning which Shaeine would certainly have been able to hear. In the end, though, Trissiny followed her instinct, which told her that the best thing she could do was have faith in her classmates. Besides, if Ruda and Fross got in a really desperate situation, Shaeine or Toby would probably intercede unprompted.

They took the longest to bring down their target, and forced the others to move out of the way several times, but after several false starts Ruda and Fross clicked together. The pixie arrested the pawn’s advance with a waist-high ice block, peppering it with little bursts of sleet to keep it focused on her, while Ruda positioned herself behind it. A quick burst of levitation from the mage brought her up high enough to stab its vulnerable band. Though the rapier wasn’t aligned with any particular school of magic, its energy-blocking qualities appeared to do the trick; one good thrust and the pawn collapsed in a wash of gravel and dust.

“And there we are,” Trissiny said approvingly when the approbations had died down. “Everybody knows how to handle themselves. Now for the hard part.”

Gabriel groaned. “I hate the hard part.”

“Gabe, do you even know what the hard part is?”

“I don’t need to know! It’s the hard part! That’s always the worst part!”

Trissiny rolled her eyes. “Juniper, Vadrieny, come stand by me, please.”

They did so, and she turned to face the others. “All right. With time and exposure, we will work up various formations, strategies and tactics for a variety of situations. For now, though, we don’t really have the time, nor can we spare the energy, so I’m going to lay out a basic formation for us. To begin with, this is our front line. Paladin, dryad, archdemon. We’re relatively hard hitters, but more to the point, all three of us are resilient. Toby, Shaeine, behind us, please.”

She waited till they were in position before continuing. “You two are support. Shields and healing. Toby, you’re going to be a little under-utilized for the time being, as your healing would actually be harmful to a lot of the group.”

“All the more reason for me to work on those shields,” he said with a grin.

“Just so,” she agreed, nodding approvingly. “Ruda and Fross, left flank. Gabriel, right. You guys are our long-ranged attackers, with the added factor that Ruda is also extremely effective at short range. I don’t want you to get too married to the idea of being on the left or right; until Gabe’s melee skills are significantly improved, he needs to focus exclusively on shooting, while Ruda and Fross stay mobile and head in where they can do damage up close. Fross, that goes double for you; your ice abilities are excellent crowd control. You two are our battlefield superiority. Your job is to keep the enemy where we need them, and take them down.”

“Fuck yes,” Ruda said, grinning.

“That means this isn’t going to be a tight formation,” Trissiny continued, turning and stepping back out of the designated front line to keep everyone in her field of view. “Shaeine and Toby need to be able to see what’s going on; Ruda and Gabe need space to move so they can reposition themselves as needed. The three of us in front need to be able to rotate; the person taking point will depend on what we’re facing. This is going to be every bit as steep a learning curve for me as the rest of you, guys; an adventuring party’s tactics are nothing like a Legion phalanx. So we’re going to start slow, start careful, and learn as we go. The perfect place to begin is here, with these chessmen. These guys are practice. All right, form up, facing the white ranks! I’m going to activate the remaining pawns.”

“All of them?” Juniper demanded, wide-eyed.

“We can do this,” Trissiny said, pouring conviction into her voice. “We have the capability; we only have to get a handle on it. I believe in every one of you, and the potential of what we can be together. Now form up and get ready.”

At that moment, there came a sharp musical jangle and flash of light from across the room. The sign indicating the path to Level 8 lit up, and a treasure chest popped into being below it.

“Well,” said Gabe after the group had stared wordlessly at this for a couple of seconds, “I guess someone approves of your coaching, Triss.”

“Ignore that,” Trissiny said grimly. “Eyes on the enemy, people.”

She gave them a moment to get positioned and focused.

“Now!”

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“Oh, what the fuck now,” Ruda grumbled as they clustered onto the only piece of land on Level 4 that could support them.

A few feet beyond the uneven peninsula of stone protruding from the base of the stairs, the floor disappeared. There was no more level ground until the distantly visible patch of land in front of the opposite stairs down to Level 5; right in front of them, everything dropped away into fathomless darkness.

“So…” Gabriel said slowly. “Could we…jump down somehow and skip the level?” Very carefully, he craned his neck forward to peer as far below as he could without getting within a few feet of the edge.

“Subjective physics!” Fross exclaimed, flittering about their feet for once to study the edges of the outcropping. “Only the stairs will lead to Level 5. This here is probably bottomless. Careful not to fall off.”

“Y’don’t fucking say,” Ruda muttered.

“I think I see what they want us to do,” Toby said slowly, “and for the record I’m against it.”

Though there was no floor, the ceiling was in the usual place, and from it hung stalactites of various sizes—rather thickly, in fact, to the point that most of the far walls were not visible. The only wide open space was straight down the center of the chamber, giving them a clear view of the door opposite. Some of the stalactites were merely tapering columns of rock, but the majority had outgrowths at some point along their lengths, creating various small platforms sticking to their sides.

“It’s a jumping puzzle!” Fross said excitedly. “You have to be nimble and find a route across!”

“Absolutely fucking not,” Ruda said.

“Seems kind of dangerous,” Gabriel noted, still peering into the bottomlessness of the chamber.

“I’m very sure that was the point,” said Juniper, then added under her breath, “Dryads are not made for jumping.”

“What’re those?” Teal asked, pointing. The group turned to follow her hand, fixing their attention on a small swarm of specks buzzing around a pillar in the near distance.

“There are more over there,” Gabe said, pointing in the opposite direction. “And there… Actually there are several groups. They kinda look like birds from here.”

“Oh!” Fross bounced up and down in excitement. “Oh, I know what those are! They’re written about in all the books! Gosh, this is really nifty, you never see these on the surface anymore, they’re basically endemic to dungeons, though the Imperial Zoological Garden in Tiraas used to have a swarm. Those are micro-hivemind chiropterids!”

“Which means…what?” Gabriel asked.

“They’re carnivorous, but not big enough to bring down prey on their own, especially considering they go for larger animals. They swarm around a small area just like clouds of gnats,” Fross continued, buzzing furiously around herself as if to demonstrate, “usually near ledges, and when a prey animal comes too close they all attack! They’re not strong enough to kill most things, but they distract them and knock them off and then eat the remains! The Heroes’ Guild and the Bardic College had another name for them, actually…”

“Goddamn bats,” said Teal, grimacing.

“Fuck those and fuck this,” Ruda said, sitting down and folding her arms. “I don’t do heights. Or fucking bats.”

“Goddamn bats,” Fross corrected.

“Want to quit?” Trissiny asked.

Everyone fell silent, turning to look at her. She had stood apart, arms crossed over her breastplate, studying the room while the others talked. Now she turned to stare challengingly at them. “Really, I’m asking. We don’t strictly have to get the swords for Tellwyrn. Apparently there’s lots of loot in various parts of the Crawl and we’re graded on overall performance. Running away from the first major challenge we face is probably not going to help with that, but the option is there. Lots of options are there. We could spend the whole three weeks sitting in the Grim Visage eating mushroom stew if we want. Personally, I’m not much concerned with grades, so…if you all want to take one look at the first truly dangerous thing we meet on our first day and turn tail, we can put it to a vote.”

“Fuck,” Ruda snarled, dragging a bottle out of her coat and clawing at the stopper. “Fuck, fuck fuckfuckfuck.”

“Anyone?” Trissiny prompted. The others exchanged a round of glances, but nobody took her up on the offer. She nodded, turning back to face out at the bottomless chamber. “All right. I see two platforms close enough to jump to from here: there, and there. Odds are one leads to nothing but dead ends. I suggest using our fliers to scout ahead and find a workable route for us. Two main paths, so Vadrieny and Fross can split up from here. And we need a plan to address those…bats. Shaeine, can you contain a swarm within a shield?”

“I have never used one in that manner,” the drow said slowly, “but I see no reason it would not work. Attempting that maneuver while negotiating the jumps will be tricky for several reasons. In the first place, I will have to get close enough to obtain a clear view without provoking them to attack…”

“Excuse me,” said Fross, “I know you’re good with tactics, Trissiny, but I think I have a better idea?”

“By all means,” Trissiny said, nodding to her.

“Okay, well first of all…be right back.”

She darted off into open space heading directly for the nearest swarm of bats. They diverted course at her approach, heading right for the oncoming pixie.

“What is she doing?” Gabriel breathed. “She’s bite-sized, even to them!”

However, as the bats descended on her, Fross emitted a tiny sparkle and a puff of mist, and the entire swarm suddenly went still and plummeted from the air, vanishing into the depths below.

“…huh,” Teal mused.

They watched while Fross zipped back and forth across the chamber, flying right up to each swarm of bats and wiping them out with tiny bursts of what seemed to be fog. At one point she vanished for a few moments, apparently dealing with a swarm hidden from them behind the stalactite forest. After only a couple of minutes, she came fluttering back to the group, chiming smugly.

“Okay, how did you do that?” Ruda demanded.

“Well, goddamn bats are strictly aerodynamic, y’know? I mean, some things fly using magic, like me and Vadrieny for example. But they just use physics, wings and air currents.”

“So?” the pirate prompted.

Fross whirled around her head once. “So, it’s pretty much impossible for fliers to fly with their wings iced over! We might not wanna waste any time, though. We don’t know what kind of respawning protocol the Descent has. It’d be awkward if another swarm popped up on us while we’re crossing. Now then! Hang on, I’m gonna try something else.”

So saying, she darted off again, heading straight for the nearest pillar. The pixie whirled around it once, coating it in a layer of frost, then headed back toward them more slowly, laying down more ice as she went. While the others watched, fascinated, she added more and more, gradually creating a horizontal protrusion which lengthened outward until it touched the platform on which they stood. Fross made passes back and forth, adding more ice with each one until it formed a frighteningly narrow but serviceable footbridge.

“I did not know you could do that,” Teal said in awe.

“I can’t!” Fross replied cheerfully. “Well, I mean, not laying down that quantity of ice. That’d be crazy, it’s a lot of mass. But Professor Yornhaldt was kind enough to open an elemental gate for me to conjure a quantity of pure water, which I’ve stored away in my aura for situations like this!”

“Is all our pork and other supplies sloshing around in that?” Gabriel asked suspiciously.

“Don’t be absurd, Gabe. Aura-tuned pocket dimensions don’t work like that; it’s not a static charm on a bag of holding. Every item is suspended separately and completely preserved in time!”

“How much carrying capacity do you have?” Toby asked, fascinated.

“I think… All of it? I mean, it’s limited only by my access to magical power. I’m a pixie; there’s only so much I can pull through at once, but in theory I should never run out.”

“Okay, I like the basics of this idea,” said Trissiny, “but I can see two problems with it. One, that is already starting to melt, and two, ice is heavy. If you put down enough to build bridges all the way across this chamber, it’s likely to pull down the pillars supporting them, and part of the ceiling as well.”

“Hmm,” Fross mused, drifting aimlessly in thought. “There are arcane charms that can compensate for both of those, but… It’s gonna be rather difficult applying those while using elemental magic. In a possibly explodey kind of way. Arcane and fae magic don’t mix.”

“You’re made of fae magic and do arcane magic,” Juniper pointed out.

“Yes, but, um… I’m not sure how. Professor Tellwyrn and Professor Yornhaldt aren’t sure how, either. Apparently I’m an…anomaly? But yeah, using both kinds of spells at once is asking for a bad reaction.”

“Now, hang on,” said Gabriel. “Fross, I know you use elemental magic to make the ice, but once made, is it magical? Or is it just ice?”

“The magic’s pretty much over with once I’ve applied the cold,” she said. “After that, it’s just—oh, shoot.”

The bridge had been steaming and dripping heavily in the warm air, and finally collapsed, chunks of ice plummeting down into the darkness.

“All right, then!” Grinning, he pulled a small book with an unmarked dark blue cover from within his coat, followed by a pen and bottle of ink, and finally a sheaf of yellowish papers bound in twine. “Luckily, you’re not the only arcanist here. This calls for a little basic enchanting work! I can inscribe featherweight charms and cold-preserving charms; if we put them in the ice as you’re laying it down, that oughtta preserve the bridges as you make them.”

“Hey, you’re right! That’s a great idea!” Fross buzzed around him in delighted circles while he sat down, laying out his scribing tools and flipping through the book for the right diagrams.

“Sounds like a workable plan, then,” Trissiny said slowly. “With all respect to you both, I’ll want to see this tested before we trust our weight to it.”

“Of course,” Gabe said distractedly, holding charm book open and beginning to ink out a glyph on a sheet of paper. His ink was purple and faintly evanescent when Fross’s light passed over it. “The only thing is, this is gonna make the bridges really cold. Like, colder than ice normally is. It won’t be a comfortable trip; we probably won’t want to dawdle.”

“Great,” Ruda said sourly.

“Rusty chain mail shirt,” Teal reported, “rusty dagger, handful of copper pennies, and…buttons?” She stood, dusting off her hands and stepping back from the chest. “You know, I almost think we’re better off leaving this stuff in the box. It’s nothing but a waste of carrying capacity.”

“You don’t think that’ll insult the Crawl?” Juniper asked uncertainly.

“I am pretty sure the Crawl just insulted us,” Ruda snorted. She was pressed against the wall just under the glowing sign identifying the route down to Level 5, and still had her hands tucked into the sleeves of her coat for warmth. All of them were shivering, in fact, except Juniper. Behind them, the ice bridges hung over the abyss, not even beginning to melt in the warm air, but surrounded by a fog of condensation. Gabriel’s inscribed charms had done their work well.

“Take the pennies, at least,” said Trissiny. “Money is money, and we will need to re-supply at the vendors in either the Visage or Level 2. Preferably without going into debt with Ruda.”

“Hah!” The pirate grinned at her. “Might wanna rethink your financial strategy. The First Bank of Ruda accepts interest payments in booze and sexual favors! Can’t beat that.”

“Come on, guys,” Toby urged, gently shooing them toward the stairwell. “Let’s get away from all this cold and risk of falling.”

It was a short trip down the stairs, and a slightly damp one, with several of them brushing condensed frost off their clothes as it turned to moisture. At least the warm air quickly stopped their shivering once they left the magical ice behind them. The group straggled to a stop at the bottom of the stairwell, this time not stepping out into Level 5, but clustering on the lowest steps and uncertainly studying their next challenge.

The level was a large and completely empty room. This was the first time they’d had a completely unobstructed view of any of the Descent’s levels; it looked about the same size as the others, making it a little more than half again the size of the University’s dining hall. Big enough to host a variety of challenges, in other words, but not oppressively huge.

What Level 5 did have was a sprawling and rather beautiful mosaic pattern inscribed on its floor. Set down in black, gold and red against white tile, it consisted of lines of five bars which unspooled this way and that like casually thrown lengths of ribbon, marked with a variety of familiar sigils.

“This isn’t my area of expertise,” Trissiny said. “Teal, isn’t that musical notation?”

“It is,” Teal replied with barely-repressed excitement in her voice. “Or at least, it would be if the lines were all straight. It’s a little hard to make out what the melody is on some of those bends…”

“You can read that?” Gabe asked incredulously.

“Well, I am a bard! Kinda wish I’d brought an instrument… But it’s a pleasing little tune.” She began to hum. It was a soft, wistful melody.

“Pretty,” Fross whispered. Toby nodded, smiling; around them, the others began to physically relax, several developing rather spacey grins. With the exception of Juniper, who frowned, staring at her classmates in puzzlement.

“Teal,” Shaeine said quietly, “Vadrieny’s voice is coming through.”

Teal instantly stopped humming, looking stricken. The others straightened immediately, Ruda shaking her head momentarily as if to throw off a trance.

“Oh, gods, I’m sorry,” Teal said. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to do that… It just happens sometimes. Are you all okay?”

“That…actually was rather refreshing,” Trissiny admitted. “Kindly be careful, though.”

“Right. Yes. Again, sorry. Vadrieny has some voice magic; when she’s fully out, she’s fully in control, but there’s sometimes a little leakage when I sing… That’s why I prefer instruments.”

“It’s okay,” Toby said, reaching out to squeeze her upper arm. “Things happen, no harm was done. With regard to the present… What do you think is the significance of the patterns on the floor?”

“It’s pretty obviously a puzzle of some kind,” said Gabriel. “I think we better let Teal lead the way on this one. Unless anyone else can read music?”

“I can,” said Ruda. She frowned at the incredulous stares of the others. “Oh, fuck you guys, some of us had an education before coming here. Don’t look at me like that. I’m not any kind of musician, though. I agree: this is Teal’s department.”

“Well…I think it’s fairly simple,” said Teal, stepping gingerly down onto the floor. Right at the base of the stairwell was a swirling knot of lines, from which rippling streamers of notation spread out in several directions. “You have to find and follow the melody. It’s not the same tune on each set of lines, see? Now, that one is obviously a trap.” She pointed at the lines aiming most directly for the opposite door. “The harmonies are in a completely different key; it’d be a jangled mess if you played it.”

“I think I get it,” said Gabe, craning his neck around Ruda to watch. “At each nexus, you have to follow the same song that brought you to that one, right?”

“That’s what I’m thinking,” the bard said, nodding. “Which means… This requires a little forethought. All the songs aren’t going to be equally valid… I suspect there’s only one safe path across.”

“Be careful,” Shaeine urged.

Teal gave her a smile. “Don’t worry, I will be. All right, I’m going to follow this one—it’s the song I was humming, and I think I can see the continuation of it spooling out from the next nexus. Hard to get a good view from over here. Stand by.”

She set off along one wavering thread of musical notation, carefully placing her feet only on the marked lines, and came to a stop at the next point where multiple lines intersected in a big swirling knot, ahead and somewhat to their right.

“Should we follow?” Trissiny asked.

“Hang on, it’s better if I figure out the path first,” said Teal. “This is going to require careful stepping anyway; the less backtracking we have to do, the better. All right, let’s see…”

She stepped out along another thread of music, her classmates watching in tense silence. This path led her back to the left, coming to a knot just ahead of them.

“Um…are you sure?” Gabe called out. “That’s right along the path you said was a bad song.”

“It would be a bad song if I followed that path,” Teal replied, keeping her eyes where she placed her bare feet. “But the song I was following continues from here… There, see? Perfectly fine.”

Stepping onto the knot ahead of them, she turned to give her classmates a grin.

Immediately, a huge pillar of stone slammed down from above. In the next instant, she was crushed beneath it, leaving them staring at the column.

“Teal!” Shaeine shrieked.

“Stop!” Trissiny barked, holding out her arms to keep the students back as several compulsively surged forward. “More will come down if we trip them! Ruda, find us another path!”

“To where?” the pirate exclaimed. “If we go after her, another’ll just…”

“I think that trap is tripped,” said Fross. “I’m gonna go and—oh.”

The column wobbled as she spoke, then again. Shaeine clutched Trissiny’s outstretched arm, watching with a stricken expression, as its gyrations grew more intense. Then, suddenly, a huge set of claws appeared at its base, an orange glow streaming out from them.

The pillar of stone groaned as it finally tipped over, the deafening crash of its fall echoing throughout the chamber. Vadrieny emerged from a deep, crumbling pit into which she’d been slammed by the impact, her fangs bared in displeasure. Behind her, in the wake of the crash, there came a sharp hiss and a gout of green mist spurted upward from the musical knot onto which the pillar had fallen. The archdemon glanced over at this, then turned, beating her wings furiously. In seconds, the gas had been blown in the opposite direction from the students and dissipated into the air.

“Are you all right?” Shaeine cried.

“I’m fine,” Vadrieny said reassuringly. “Everything’s fine.”

“I said to be careful!”

“Yes, you did,” the demon agreed, “and she was. Look how that worked out. Stay put, I’m going to try this my way.”

So saying, she turned and stalked off straight across the floor, the mosaic crunching beneath her as she deliberately dug her talons into the marble with each step.

The students watched, wincing and grimacing, as Vadrieny plowed into and through a dozen brutal traps. Pieces of the ceiling fell, gusts of gas and flames shot directly over her, blades were flung out from the walls. At one point a net dropped on her from above. She bore all this without complaint and without stopping, though several times she had to slow to dig herself out of rubble or waft her wings and make sure clouds of gas didn’t drift toward the others.

In less than two minutes, she had reached the opposite side of the chamber. Even from that distance, the students clearly saw the cascade of sparkles that lit up as the chest appeared and the glowing sign indicating the path to Level 6 ignited.

Vadrieny stopped, regarded this thoughtfully for a moment, then very deliberately drove her fist right into the sign. Lights sparked and chunks of stone fell from the resulting crater in the wall.

“Stay!” the demon shouted back at them as Trissiny carefully lowered one boot to the floor. “I don’t trust this place. In fact, all of you back up.”

So saying, she stepped off to the side and came back toward them through a fresh stretch of floor unmarred by her own passing, and into another round of traps.

Vadrieny wasn’t satisfied until she had made three full trips, clearing a wide highway between the two doors and suffering an unending torrent of fiendishly inventive abuse that would have slaughtered a small army. By the time she was through, the safe path looked very much like the aftermath of a war zone, littered with chunks of masonry, blades, various projectiles, slimy residues of acidic solutions, and even the relatively clear stretches of floor marred by deep rents where she had dug in her talons. She backtracked over this multiple times, making sure every trap in the cleared area was sprung.

“Okay,” Ruda said softly while the demon was making her third pass, “this is none of my business, but I gotta ask. What is it like being in a relationship with somebody who has that in her head?”

“That?” Shaeine said quietly, tearing her eyes from the spectacle of Vadrieny’s rampage and giving the pirate a very cool look.

“Well, I mean…look at her.”

“Indeed, it would be impossible to have any privacy, if Teal and I intended to keep her from our interactions.”

“Um…”

“I am a noblewoman, you know,” Shaeine said with a note of satisfaction, turning back to watch the demon work. “It is hardly beyond precedent for me to have multiple consorts. I am very fortunate that both of mine get along so splendidly and can always be found together. And I would be appreciative, Zaruda, if you would refrain from referring to my lover as that.”

“…duly noted,” said Ruda, looking flummoxed.

“There,” said Vadrieny with satisfaction, rejoining them. “Now it is safe.” She held out one hand; Shaeine placed her slender fingers amid the massive claws, smiling, and allowed the demon to help her down to the floor. The other students watched as they began crossing, Vadrieny keeping one burning wing arched protectively over the priestess.

“Welp,” said Gabriel, pushing past Ruda to follow. “I guess that’s one way to do it. C’mon, guys.”

In moments they were clustering around the opposite door. This time it was Ruda who opened the chest. For a few seconds, they all stood around, staring into it.

“Well,” Ruda said finally. “We just won ourselves a box of coal.”

“Is that really coal?” Gabe asked, craning his neck to peer forward.

Toby bent down to pick up a piece. “Sure looks like it.”

“I know the upper-level rewards are supposed to be kinda lame,” said Fross uncertainly, “but…they’re supposed to get better as we descend. Does it seem to anyone else like they’re getting worse?”

“Maybe we haven’t descended far enough?” Juniper suggested.

“There’s really only one way to find out,” said Trissiny, stepping forward into the stairwell. “Fross… I have a hunch. Could you gather up the coal, please? It might be significant later.”

“Sure thing!”

“Or it might just be the Crawl telling us to go screw ourselves,” Ruda remarked.

“Maybe.” Trissiny was already halfway down the stairs, forcing the others to follow in order to hear her. “But I suspect there’s a specific use for something that oddly specific later. And if not, we can sell it. It stands to reason that burnable fuel is quite valuable in the Crawl.”

Level 6 was somewhat familiar at first glance, in that it opened from the access stairs onto a platform that extended a short way into a floorless chamber. Unlike Level 4, however, this one was full of fire. Flames roared up from an unseen source below, licking at the base of the platform and filling the chamber with heat and orange light. They could see a matching platform directly across the way, with nothing between the two but a vast sea of fire.

“Seems like it should be hotter in here than it is,” Gabriel noted. He wiped sweat from his forehead with his sleeve as he said it, but indeed, it was merely uncomfortably warm, nothing like the temperature should have been in what appeared to be some kind of furnace.

“Well, what the fuck are we supposed to do with this?” Ruda demanded.

“Look!” said Fross. “I mean, look closely. See the pattern in the flames?”

“What pattern?”

“I see it,” said Trissiny, frowning. “It’s…angular. Wait, it’s not a pattern in the flames. It’s something that’s blocking them.”

“Yes!” The pixie buzzed around excitedly. “Look, it’s a path!”

“I see it, now,” said Toby, squinting as he studied the scene before them. “It’s hard to make out in spots, you can only see it where the fire is blocked by it. It’s like…glass?”

“Not glass,” said Trissiny. “That would shine. It’s just…invisible. An invisible path over the lake of fire.”

“Not a path,” said Juniper. “Lots of paths.”

“Oh my fucking fuck,” Ruda groaned. “It’s an invisible fucking maze. I fucking hate this place.”

Trissiny rubbed her chin thoughtfully. “Gabriel…would those cold charms of yours support an ice bridge over a lake of fire?”

“I really don’t think so. They’re actually designed to preserve food, not to compete with a heat source like that.”

“Wait, what about that?” Teal suggested, turning to point above them. Following her finger, they all craned their heads back, discovering that unlike previous levels, Level 6 had no ceiling. What it did have were decorative columns on either side of the door, stretching upward about twenty feet.

“What about it?” Ruda demanded.

“It doesn’t look like they’re set into the ground,” said Teal. “And they’re not connected to the wall… I think they’re just sitting there. The round surface isn’t ideal, but the way it’s carved, there should be some footing at least…”

“A bridge?” said Trissiny, smiling. “Excellent idea.”

“Neither of those is gonna get all the way across this,” Ruda said.

“But it’s a start,” Toby replied. “And I agree: it’s a good idea. Every bit of this we can skip is a good thing if you ask me. Vadrieny and Juniper should be strong enough to knock those over, right?”

“The tricky thing is leverage,” said Juniper, frowning at the columns. “They’re close to the wall, even if they’re not connected… No good place to stand and push.”

“Stop,” Gabriel said suddenly. “This is a trap.”

They all turned to look at him.

“What makes you say so?” Trissiny asked.

“I see a pattern here,” he said. “Guys…think back. Remember what the demons on Level 2 told us? The Crawl does not like people who cheat.”

“So?” Ruda snorted. “We’ve cheated practically every level and oh, holy shit, you’re right.”

He nodded. “Even discounting Level 2, we’ve been through four levels now and only actually did the challenge once. Juniper got us through the caplings, Fross and I managed to skip the obstacle course and Vadrieny brute-forced what was supposed to be a puzzle. And what about the chest rewards? The first one was sort of lame, the next one on a level we cheated on was even lamer, and then coal. I think the box of coal was a final warning.”

“Wait,” said Ruda, “what’d we get on the boar level?”

“We didn’t stop to open the chest,” said Toby. “We were following…um.” He trailed off, glancing over at Trissiny, who remained impassive.

“Oh! I did!” said Fross. “It was better than Level 1, we got some silver, a very nice silk robe with a low-caliber defensive enchantment and an Avenic-style short sword! I stashed them away to show you guys later. Nobody seemed to be in a talking mood.”

“Right,” said Gabe. “So, after all that, here we are being practically offered a way to cheat, in exactly the way we have been, using brute force to bypass what’s supposed to be an intellectual exercise. I don’t know what’ll happen if we tip those columns, but I’ve got a feeling it’ll be really ugly.”

“Rocks fall,” Juniper whispered, “everyone dies.”

“The reasoning seems rather…thin,” Trissiny said, frowning.

“Okay, well, just…humor me, all right?” Gabe said, glancing around nervously. “This isn’t even a hugely hard one, it’s just…scary. We can do a maze. We’ve got Fross to scout ahead, and we can take the time to place our feet carefully. I say we do this one the way it’s supposed to be done. All right?”

“I agree,” Toby said, nodding slowly. “Everyone we’ve met has said the Crawl is intelligent. Professor Ezzaniel implied it likes to test people.”

“When you put it that way,” Trissiny said somewhat grudgingly, “it makes good sense. Better safe than sorry.”

“Guys,” said Juniper, “look.”

They all turned, following her gaze, to find that the flames had diminished. As they watched, the fire burned steadily lower, finally vanishing entirely. Below was another fathomless fall into dark nothingness.

“…message received,” said Teal.

“Great,” Ruda grumbled. “Now we can’t see the path at all.”

“Yes,” said Gabe with a grin, “but at least we can walk on it.”

“Oh!” Fross whizzed out over the empty space, emitting a puff of frigid mist. Frost settled over a hitherto invisible stretch of walkway, making it stand out from the darkness.

“Well, that’s something,” said Ruda. “You got any tricks that’ll show us where it is without making it too slippery to be safe?”

“Oh,” the pixie said, her glow dimming. “I didn’t think of that. Sorry.”

“Well,” said Teal with a smile, “how about throwing something onto it?”

“Like what?” Toby asked. “We don’t have all that much in the way of supplies…”

“We have coal,” said Shaeine.

Getting across took them easily over half an hour, though they weren’t timing it. It was exhaustingly nerve-wracking, even with Fross scattering coal to indicate what could safely be stepped on; none of them ever got used to the sight of their feet firmly planted on midair. Juniper in particular grew progressively more tense until she was actually whimpering, and had to be comforted by Gabriel for a few minutes before she could make herself continue. Teal shifted, letting her winged counterpart take over, and stayed right behind Shaeine the entire way, ready to grab the drow if she should slip.

Moving carefully, though, none of them fell. They had to backtrack multiple times, as even with the coal to put down on the path, it was still a maze, and a complex one. There were actually points where they could have gotten from one stretch of path to another by jumping, and thus bypass switchbacks and dead ends, but none of them managed to work up the nerve to try it.

Eventually, though, they found their way through, and landed safely on the platform by the stairs. Upon their arrival, the sign for Level 7 ignited and the chest appeared. Everyone ignored this; by unspoken consent, they all sat down on the blessedly solid stone, as far from the edges as they could get.

“I fucking hate heights,” Ruda mumbled.

“I never knew that,” Trissiny said with a smile. “You’ve always seemed fine with Clarke Tower.”

“Lemme rephrase that.” She pulled out a bottle of whiskey and took a swig. “I hate heights now. This place has persuaded me that heights fucking suck.”

Teal let out a relieved breath, climbing back to her feet. “All right! Well, we might as well see what we’ve won.” Turning, she knelt to open the chest.

There was only one thing within. Frowning, Teal pulled out a small rectangular box. “…huh.”

“Maybe you got some replacement shoes,” Ruda said, grinning.

“Well, we’ll find out if you open it,” Toby suggested.

Teal flicked the clasp open with her thumbs and lifted the lid. She stared at the box’s contents for a moment, then grinned. “Gabe, I think this is for you.”

He accepted the box from her, frowning quizzically and turning it so the open side faced him. Within it was a wand.

“Ooh,” said Juniper, craning her neck to peer at it.

“Is that…a good one?” Trissiny asked.

“Good?” Gently, he lifted the weapon out, setting the box aside. “Angled grip, alchemically hardened ebony shaft, double-sized crystal housing with extra glyphs for self-recharge… This, ladies and gentlemen, is a damn fine piece of firepower.”

“So,” Ruda said, scowling around the room, “looks like you made a friend. Wonder if I can get an upgrade by sucking up to the Crawl.”

“I think there is, indeed, a lesson here,” said Trissiny. “We may want to bypass some future levels if we can find a way to, but…let’s consider that a method of last resort.”

“You wanna just…knuckle under?” Ruda said disdainfully. “I do not like this fucking place telling me what to do.”

“It’s another variable, is all,” said Gabriel, still studying his new wand. “The Crawl is watching, and we have a general idea how it thinks, now. I’m not saying we shouldn’t do things our way, but… Its perspective is something we need to consider when making decisions.”

Ruda drew in a deep breath and blew it out in a huff, then climbed to her feet. “Duly fucking noted. All right…onward and downward, eh?”

At the base of the next set of stairs was a chessboard. The students gathered on the bottom step again, studying Level 7 carefully without stepping down onto its floor. It was vastly oversized, each of the squares big enough for them to lie down on without touching any of its neighbors, but it was unmistakably a chessboard, and not just because of its checkered pattern. Actual chess pieces were set up along the left and right walls, ready to begin a game. The pawns, the smallest ones, were twice Trissiny’s height and correspondingly thick.

“Think I know what kind of challenge this is,” Gabe said, grinning.

“What’s that pattern in the middle of the floor, there?” Juniper asked, pointing.

Fross buzzed out into the room to get a better look, then came back. “It’s the Circle of Interaction!”

“Huh,” Trissiny said, frowning. “I wonder what the significance of that is.” She stepped down onto the checkerboard.

Instantly, with a deep grinding noise that echoed horribly, every single chess piece pivoted to face her directly.

She froze. “Um…”

They charged.

The chess pieces moved in a series of hops, the crashing of their approach resonating deafeningly in the chamber. It was an ungainly pattern of movement, but given their size, they made terrifyingly good time, rushing straight at her like a herd of monolithic bison.

Trissiny let out a yelp and leaped backward onto the steps. The others, several with screams of their own, backpedaled frantically.

As soon as no one was touching the checkerboard floor, the chess pieces immediately stopped their approach, turning and bounding back into place. In moments they had rearranged themselves in their starting position.

“Okay,” Gabe said in a shaky voice, “I was wrong. I did not know what kind of challenge this is.”

Toby drew in a deep breath. “Does this seem like a good stopping point to anyone else?”

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“Ruda, incoming!”

“I see it!”

Ruda stood en garde while the boar charged her, whipping around it at the last possible second like a matador. She thrust her rapier into its side as she went, eliciting an agonized squeal. The pig staggered and lost its footing, down and thrashing all four hooves, but not dead. At least, not yet; its distraction gave her an opening for a more precise thrust, which took it straight through the heart.

Trissiny grunted as the other boar slammed into the golden corona surrounding her. The shield was holding, and likely would continue to do so. She felt no real strain from it; this was nothing like the wandfire she had taken in Sarasio. Her disadvantage was her height and her short sword. None of the cave boars stood taller than her waist, which meant that while she could stand around all day letting them bounce off her shield, fighting back meant kneeling or bending down—both positions that made it cripplingly awkward to fight.

Fortunately, she and her roommate proved a successful team, standing back-to-back. Trissiny’s shields (metal and magical) kept them protected, while Ruda’s agility, coupled with the long reach of her rapier and her shorter stature, made her an effective attacker.

If only the rest of the group were faring as well.

Level 3 had a smooth and obviously crafted stone floor, but it was littered with spires of volcanic rock, several of which steamed and emitted a sulfurous stench. Some stood alone, but quite a few were arranged conveniently to form barriers, making the chamber a kind of maze. There appeared, at least so far, to be nothing in it but igneous stone and cave boars, but even considering the relatively minor threat, the students had managed to rout themselves by the simple method of not having a strategy.

They had been charged immediately upon stepping foot into the level, and had now been broken up into smaller groups, each fending for themselves. Boars had come galloping in from around boulders and out of small canyons, rushing them from multiple directions and driving them apart. Now, though no one was yet down a crevice and isolated, several of them had gotten out of sight behind various outcroppings of rock.

Trissiny knew Gabriel’s position only because of the flashes of lightning that kept shooting out of it; he had climbed a steep slope and tucked himself into a corner from which he couldn’t be flanked, and was taking potshots at every boar that crossed his field of view. Not a brave tactic, but an effective one; more than half a dozen porcine corpses smoldered at the base of his hill. Toby stood nearby, probably the least effective of the group, protected behind a holy shield but his quarterstaff making no real impression on the four boars that circled, bashing their tusks against his barrier. She couldn’t see Fross at all, but streaks of ice lay all over the place, evidence of the pixie’s helpful efforts to deprive their foes of footing and in some cases freeze their hooves to the ground. This was causing more harm than good in the long run, though. Level 3 was too hot for the ice to hold them more than a few seconds, and the slippery patches were a hazard to the students as much as the cave boars, even as they melted. Vadrieny was out of her field of view, but the demon’s screeches were nearly constant and having their usual effect on the animals. Unfortunately, boars that ran away from her inevitably ended up running toward one of the others, and it seemed they forgot to be frightened as soon as they set their eyes upon a new target.

Ruda sidestepped around her, stabbing the boar that had bashed Trissiny’s shield while it was dazed. For a brief moment, they were not under immediate attack, and took the opportunity to size up the situation.

“What a glorious cock-up this is,” Ruda said flatly. Trissiny nodded agreement.

She half-turned to bring the rest of her classmates into her field of view. Shaeine was doing only slightly better than Toby; though she was unarmed, her skill with magical shields considerably exceeded his or Trissiny’s, and she was using them not only to protect herself but offensively, swatting boars aside and, when she could maneuver them into position, slamming them against the walls with crushing force. She had the leeway to do this because Vadrieny was hovering protectively about her, unleashing that hellish scream on any boar that looked in danger of slipping past her defenses.

Juniper was the only one of them currently on the offensive. None of the animals were attacking her; she was chasing after them. The spectacle was amusing and horrifying by turns; anyone chasing after a pig over rocks and patches of ice was fodder for pratfalls, but when she caught one, her methods were swift and brutal. She was splattered with blood and actually wielding a very fresh haunch of boar as a weapon. Trissiny thought that rather gratuitous, considering the dryad’s strength.

“We gotta get these boneheads into some kind of formation,” Ruda continued. “First one to slip and fall is gonna get gored to fucking shreds.”

Trissiny looked this way and that, thinking rapidly, then dropped to one knee as she was charged. The boar slammed head-on into her glowing shield and staggered to the side, stunned; she slapped it to the ground with her physical shield and stabbed it through the heart.

“I’ve got a plan,” she said, standing. “If I buy you time to get to Vadrieny and Shaeine, think you can persuade her to stop that screaming and actually use those claws? It’s nice that she respects Teal’s pacifism and all, but these are animals. It’s not like we can negotiate them.”

“I’ll see to it she gets the idea,” Ruda replied, grinning. “I am nothing if not silver-tongued.”

“Good. I’m going to go join Gabe and Toby; bring them to us as soon as you can.”

“Right on.” Ruda darted away, and Trissiny set off on a parallel course, first making sure the pirate wasn’t charged by cave boars before she got close enough to Shaeine and Vadrieny to fall under their protection. Only then did she head off to Gabriel’s boulder.

“Toby!” she shouted over the noise of battle around them. He glanced her way, then was immediately thrown off-balance by a boar’s charge and then turned to fend it off with his staff. Trissiny darted past him and kicked the animal hard. It squealed furiously, rounding on her, but before it could attack Trissiny hurled herself forward, coming down to one knee and slamming her shield into its face. A follow-up stab with her sword put it down for good. She stood and turned to find Toby staring at her, wide-eyed.

“Stand there,” she ordered, pointing with her sword at a spot just to the left of the slope leading to Gabriel’s hiding place. “That is your ground. You will hold it!”

“Yes, ma’am!” he said with a grin, dashing over to position himself as ordered. She followed, placing herself to the right of the ascent. She had to step carefully to avoid the multiple dead boars with burn wounds lying about the area.

“What’s happening?” Gabriel called out from above.

“Stay there!” Trissiny shouted up at him. “Keep firing as you get targets!”

His reply came in the form of a lightning bolt that ripped past her, striking down a cave boar that wheeled in their direction with Juniper on its tail. The dryad, skidded, trying to stop, then skidded even harder as her feet came into contact with one of Fross’s ice trails. Trissiny beckoned her urgently over; she rolled back to her feet and limped to the paladin’s side.

“What are we doing?” she asked, then they both had to stop and deal with a pair of charging boars before Trissiny could answer.

As they finished that little problem, by way of Juniper picking one of the creatures up and bludgeoning the other with it, Vadrieny’s screaming stopped. The air was still filled with noise, from squeals, hoofbeats, various crashes and the crackling of Gabriel’s wand, but it still seemed, blessedly, almost silent in the wake of the demon’s vocal magic.

Trissiny immediately took advantage of the quiet. “FROSS! Get over here!”

Almost immediately, the pixie darted across her face to indicate her presence, then rose to hover above Trissiny where her glow didn’t block the paladin’s vision. “I’m here! What’s going on? Please tell me you have a plan, I have no idea what I’m doing!”

“Stop that icing for the moment and disappear these corpses! I need a clear field of battle!”

“Aye-aye, General!” Fross swooped down, rushing thither and yon; everywhere she passed, dead boars shrank down to nothing and floated upward to vanish into her silver aura.

“Can she do that with live ones?” Ruda asked, dashing up to them.

“Not safely!” the pixie shouted as she zipped past.

“Shaeine!” Trissiny called out as the last two members of the party rejoined them, the demon holding one fiery wing protectively over the drow. “Bubble us!”

Immediately a silver semi-sphere snapped into place around the whole group, its shape interrupted where it intersected with outgrowths of rock.

“Thank you,” Trissiny said more quietly. Boars were dashing around the perimeter of the shield, a few butting their heads against it. “How long can you keep this up?”

“Not terribly,” the priestess replied with an audible strain in her voice. “I am unaccustomed to shielding this proactively for such a duration.”

Trissiny glanced at Juniper, thinking back to the Circles of Interaction. “Do you know the magic to convert fae energy into divine to power your shields?”

“I do not.”

“Nor I,” she said regretfully. “I’ll be correcting that the first chance I get, considering we have two basically bottomless power sources in the group that three of us could be using.”

“I’m not sure I like the sound of that,” Juniper said.

“All right… Can you make two walls to funnel them toward us?”

“Toward us?” Gabriel protested shrilly.

“If they are not actively attacking said walls…yes, I believe so.”

“All right, here’s what we’re going to do,” Trissiny said decisively. “Shaeine will set up angled walls to give the boars a single approach directly at us. Fross, I want you to ice the ground within it to make it hard for them. That means slick floor but also big chunks of ice to break up their momentum; we don’t want them sliding at us too fast to handle.”

“Can do!”

“Gabriel, your job is to shoot them as they come. Ruda, Juniper, you’re on either side on the rocks right there—go on, get into position—and if any get close enough to start climbing the slope, you deal with them in close range. Gabe, that means if a boar gets into melee range, you stop firing. Don’t risk shooting your teammates.”

“Got it,” he said, sticking his head out to nod at her.

“Toby and I will be right in front of you two, blocking access to you—the shield within a shield, so they charge right into Gabe’s field of fire and not at our melee fighters. Toby, you’re on defensive; we don’t strike at the ones coming down the center, but do what you have to to fend off any who try to flank us. I think the rocks are too steep, but be prepared.”

“Understood.”

“Vadrieny, you’re in the field; drive them toward the entrance to the trap.” She glanced around, studying the boars through the silver translucence of the shield. They had stopped pouring out of side chambers, so this was hopefully the final number. She couldn’t get a solid count with the way they were milling around, but there were easily over a dozen. “That means no screaming, that just scatters them. Try to herd them with your claws. And for the gods’ sake, don’t be afraid to actually claw one!”

Vadrieny nodded at her, making no response to the implied rebuke.

“All right,” said Trissiny, glancing quickly over her classmates. Everyone had stepped into the appropriate position as she spoke, Shaeine clambering carefully up to sit just beside Gabriel’s nook, well away from where the action would be. “Fross, get started on that ice. Everyone ready? Good. Shaeine, as soon as you switch the shields, we’re in action.”

“Changing in three…two…one!”

The bubble vanished and two silver walls appeared directly before them, angling outward and forming a trapezoidal space with its narrower end pointing at the ascent to Gabriel’s perch, surrounding the patch of ground now covered with a sheen of frost and littered haphazardly with chunks of ice as much as shoulder-high on the boars. Immediately, several went straight for the group from the side, but Vadrieny landed right in front of them, raking the pack with one clawed hand and sending the animals flying, along with a spray of blood. Her claws were simply too huge to avoid doing some damage with them.

Once in a while, things really did come together.

Once in motion, the plan went off with almost eerie perfection. Vadrieny was bigger than the boars, but also faster and more agile, and after that first rush prevented them from flanking the group again. In fact, she didn’t have to go far to herd them into the trap; they seemed maddened and determined to attack, and so long as she warded them away from the sides of the students’ formation, they charged obligingly right into Fross’s obstacle course, where their slipping and stumbling made them easy fodder for Gabriel’s wand. Trissiny only had to employ her weapon once, when one boar bounded off the corpse of its most recently felled comrade to land halfway up the incline, right beside Ruda and inside the reach of her arm.

It was over in less than half a minute. The final boar made it as far as the base of the little hill before being blasted by lightning. A couple of the larger specimens had needed to be shot twice; Gabriel had all but filled the channel between them with lightning, but had not been overwhelmed. Everyone’s hair was standing up slightly by the time they were done, and the air was heavy with the reek of ozone and charred pork. Shaeine let the glowing walls flicker out of existence, slumping back against the rock with a deep sigh, and the two paladins allowed their own shields to wink out.

“Holy shit, we won!” Ruda crowed. Around her, the group finally let themselves relax, grinning at each other in the sudden silence.

The noise that answered her, echoing around the chamber from a point of their sight, might have been called a squeal if it were about half as powerful; as it was, it was at least half roar. It was immediately followed by the rapidly growing sound of hoofbeats. Much louder ones than any they had heard thus far.

“Yup. That’s my fault,” Ruda said with a sigh.

“Levels have bosses,” Fross said grimly. “Trissiny? What do we do?”

Before Trissiny could answer, it rounded the corner ahead and skidded to a halt, glaring at them.

Cave boars were essentially just pigs—big, aggressive pigs that tended toward pale pigmentation and had larger tusks than usual. This creature was the size of a bison, and the differences between it and its lesser brethren did not stop there. In addition to long, curving tusks bigger than a ram’s horns, it actually had horns, arching upward over its head. It had a mane of what were either very large bristles or rather diminutive spikes, which looked like the difference would be academic for anyone unfortunate enough to come into contact with them. Worse, the thing was armored, with segments of glossy chitin flanking its vulnerable sides.

“I’ve got this,” Juniper said, pushing past Trissiny and sliding down the slope.

“Wait,” Trissiny began, but got no further as the boss boar let out a bellow and charged her.

The dryad stomped forward, slipping once on Fross’s ice before catching her footing, and planted herself directly in the boar’s path. Head high, she held up a hand imperiously at the charging monstrosity.

“Stop right there!”

The boar rammed into her head-on.

The dryad was actually shifted backward by the impact, stumbling slightly before regaining her balance. The boar, not quite felled, nonetheless staggered, shaking its head and huffing in protest.

“It attacked me,” Juniper said, sounding utterly shocked.

“I can’t get a clear shot!” Gabriel said, scrambling out from his perch and leaning around Trissiny. “June, get out of the way!”

“Animals aren’t supposed to attack me!” Juniper exclaimed, offended. “I’m a dryad!”

The boar squeal-roared again, loud enough to make Shaeine wince and clap her hands over her ears. It backed away from Juniper, reddish eyes fixed on her, and pawed at the ground with its front legs.

“Oh, for the—Vadrieny!” Trissiny shouted. “Get her out of there!”

“I can’t touch her,” the archdemon protested.

“You can’t what?”

“BAD PIG!” Juniper roared, stomping forward and landing an open-handed slap against the side of the boar’s head. It was lifted right off its hooves and hurled to the side by the blow.

“…or, we could all wait up here while she deals with that,” Gabriel said in a smaller voice.

The dryad lunged furiously after the boar, grabbing it by its right tusk and left horn, and wrenched it sideways. The creature, squealing in protest, was lifted again and flipped onto its other side, where she leaned down, keeping up the pressure despite its desperate attempts to scrabble free. She didn’t have very good leverage from that position; this went on for a disturbing span of seconds, with the boar’s pained outcries growing steadily more frantic, until its neck finally broke with a sickeningly loud crunch. It kicked a few more times before falling still.

“You don’t attack dryads,” Juniper said severely, standing up and dusting off her hands. Then she kicked it for good measure, flipping it back onto its other side.

“You tell ‘im, Juno!” Ruda called out.

“Or,” Toby said quietly, “we could not encourage that, maybe?”

“I’m sorry,” Trissiny said, turning to Vadrieny. “that was my fault; I wasn’t thinking clearly, apparently.”

“No harm done,” the archdemon replied with a faint smile.

“Wait, what are we talking about now?” Gabriel asked.

“Telling Vadrieny to move Juniper,” Toby explained. “Remember, when the centaurs cornered us in Horsebutt’s tomb? We went over this then; Vadrieny’s physical form is an infernal spell effect, which means touching Juniper would probably just snuff it out.”

“Probably,” Ruda grunted. “It occurs to me we’ve never actually gotten around to testing that.”

The flames dimmed and receded, followed by the claws, and then Teal was standing there, shaking her head. “Juniper’s the daughter of a goddess. However impressive Vadrieny is, I don’t think she ranks with a dryad. I mean…we could try that sometime, just to find out, but…”

“I don’t mind,” Juniper said, rejoining them. “Can we take a break first, though? That was kind of a bit…much.”

“I second that motion,” Gabriel said firmly. “And this might be kind of weird, but uh… Considering we didn’t get to finish our bacon earlier, and with the smell of all this…”

“Yup, that’s fuckin’ weird,” Ruda said, grinning.

“I don’t think it’s weird at all,” Juniper replied, tossing her head. “I’m not really hungry, but seriously—the rest of you haven’t eaten nearly enough today, and we just got a lot of concentrated exercise. There’s probably more up ahead. You should finish your meal.”

“If it’s not too much of an imposition, Fross,” said Toby, “could you please get rid of the rest of these corpses, first? Something about eating surrounded by the dead…”

“No imposition at all!” the pixie said brightly, already setting to work. She continued chattering as she swooped down on each felled boar, shrinking and storing them. “I dunno if there’s any actual treasure here, but considering the socioeconomic situation in the Crawl, a big ol’ pile of pork is a really good haul! Much better than the mushroom level. I mean, aside from the trading value of all this, we’ve basically got our food covered for the whole rest of the trip!”

“I think I’d be okay with that,” said Juniper, “but the rest of you really can’t live on just meat. You need a variety of nutrients from plants.”

“There aren’t any plants,” Gabriel pointed out. “I mean…except mushrooms.”

“Those are fungus, not plants,” the dryad said patiently. “And they’ll go part of the way, sure. Maybe we should check with the vendors back at the Grim Visage. They probably have nutritional supplements. They’re pretty much have to.”

Fross had finished clearing away the boars—even the big one—and now re-materialized their plates of pork chops and bacon from the makeshift inn on Level 2. Gabriel immediately seized a handful of meat, the others following suit more slowly.

“I’m okay with just trading the carcasses,” Ruda said firmly. “Otherwise, we’d have to do all the butchering ourselves, and…just, fuck that, is all. Do you guys remember the bison?” She grimaced. “I remember the bison. Fucking ew. Didn’t the demons up there make a standing offer for meat? It was the little guy with the wings, right?”

“We’ll clearly have to pass through Level 2 regularly, what with their portals and the waystone,” said Trissiny, after swallowing a bite of bacon. “I see no good reason to loiter there one second longer than absolutely necessary.”

“Oh, here we go again,” said Ruda, rolling her eyes.

Trissiny gave her a hard look. “What?”

“No offense, Triss,” Gabriel mumbled around a mouthful of pork, “but…aren’t you backsliding a little?”

She set down the bacon she was holding. “Excuse me?”

“Well, it’s just…” He paused to swallow. “I dunno, it seems like you’ve been opening up a bit as time goes by. Being a bit less hostile to…y’know, things outside the Imperial norm.”

“The Imperial norm,” she said, very evenly.

“Oh, I don’t think we need to make a big deal about it,” Toby said quickly.

“No, no. Please,” Trissiny said quietly. “What’s on your mind, Gabriel?”

“Hell, Boots, it’s not just him,” Ruda interjected. “First day we met you practically drew your sword on Shaeine just ‘cos she was a drow. And then there was that thing with you and Gabe, with all the clawing and stabbing. But you’ve been getting better! Or were, anyway. Then we meet the perfectly nice demons on Level 2, and it’s like you wanted to line ’em up and chop their heads off.”

“Perfectly. Nice. Demons.” Trissiny’s voice was icy.

“Yes,” Ruda said firmly. “They were perfectly nice.”

“They kind of were,” Juniper agreed. “They gave us food! Which you’re eating right now.”

“I don’t think it’s exactly fair to put Trissiny on the spot like this,” said Teal. “You can’t reasonably expect a paladin of Avei to be calm when surrounded by demons.”

“Can’t expect me to be calm,” Trissiny said softly. “How charitable.”

“Oh, come on, you know I didn’t mean it like that.”

“Well, whatever, the point is not to start an inquisition,” said Ruda, gesticulating with the half-eaten pork chop in her hand. “We’re just sayin’, Triss, if we meet any more demons, how about waiting to find out what their intentions are before going for your sword, yeah?”

Trissiny stared at her in silence for a moment, then looked around at the rest of the group. “Is this how you all feel?”

“Let me turn that question around on you,” Toby said quietly. “Why are you averse to learning someone’s motives before assuming they’re hostile?”

“The presumption of innocence is not always warranted,” Shaeine added, “but it is a cornerstone of diplomacy.”

Trissiny stood up slowly. “Do you know how many major invasions of the mortal plane there have been from Hell?”

“Oh, here we go,” Ruda groaned.

“Answer the question,” Trissiny snapped.

“Nine recorded,” Fross said. “We covered that in Professor Tellwyrn’s class!”

“Exactly,” said Trissiny. “Nine. In the span of eight thousand years, with the resources of an entire dimension to draw on, Elilial launched a large-scale armed assault exactly nine times. You don’t find that a little…underwhelming?”

“Uh…I guess?” Gabe said hesitantly. “Is this going somewhere?”

“The first two were by Elilial herself during the first millennium of her incarceration in Hell,” said Trissiny. “The rest mostly over the three thousand years following, at various times, with the aim of establishing various Black Wreath cells in different parts of the world. The most recent, coming thousands of years after those, was sixteen centuries ago, and that was started when the Sorcerer-King Atromax actually bored a massive gateway into Hell. And in none of these cases did Elilial send a large enough army to actually overwhelm the mortal world, but only to accomplish specific, smaller objectives.”

“Well, maybe she doesn’t have all that much manpower,” Ruda suggested.

“Or maybe,” Trissiny shot back, “that’s just not what they do. Will you all please think? One floor up from us is a succubus, who is near the top of the Descent because she’s apparently the second-least threatening thing it has to offer. And yet, we were just discussing the fact that finding an incubus or succubus on the loose is considered a major crisis by modern civilizations. You don’t find a little bit of a disconnect there?”

Gabriel frowned. “Well, now that you mention it…”

“It’s because succubi are not fighters,” Trissiny said. “In an enclosed space, against the eight of us? She’s little more than a pincushion waiting to happen. But up above, where she has freedom to maneuver, resources to access and people to manipulate? Frankly, I don’t think this group could take her on. Her kind have brought down entire kingdoms. Alone. They assuredly didn’t do it by force of arms.”

“Now, hold on,” said Toby.

“You do know what sshitherosz do, I hope?” she barreled on. “They find people in vulnerable positions, people who are outcast, or alone, or for whatever reason weak and needing some kind of support. They coax people into reaching for the power they offer, and lead them into becoming warlocks. That is where the majority of warlocks come from! People who are foolish and power-hungry enough to actually seek out infernal power are vanishingly rare. Those scrawny, ugly, disturbing-looking demons are masters of the art of getting on people’s good sides. You think they do it by brute force?”

She glowered at the group; they all stared back, mutely. Nobody was eating now.

“The demons don’t come for us with rampaging hordes and fire from the skies. They come with pretty faces and kind smiles, with nice words and very reasonable offers of trade. They find common ground, stay polite, act forgiving and fair-minded, and when you give them an inch, they start in with the hints about how unfair it is that they’re so ill-treated just for being what they are. One little step after another, until you’re riddled with cancer because you got suckered into channeling powers your body isn’t designed to contain, and you’ve opened all manner of portals for all their equally harmless friends to come through. All because you stopped to chat with a poor, mistreated, lonely figure who was nice you to, and fair, and reasonable. Does any of this sound extremely familiar to anyone?”

“None of us is going to—” Gabriel broke off as Trissiny carried right on, talking over him.

“Are any of you people actually arrogant enough to think that you’re the first individuals in eight thousand years to have the brilliant idea of trying diplomatic relations with demons? Seriously? It’s been tried. It’s been tried over and over and done to death, often quite literally, and it has always ended up the same. They wiggle in, the persuade, seduce, and corrupt, and when they’ve got enough power to do so, they destroy. That’s why every established nation, religion and organization of any kind immediately greets a demon with outright violence. That’s all you can do. The cults of Omnu, Izara, Themynra, and everyone else who abhors violence doesn’t raise so much as a peep of protest! But no, I guess you know better than the entire world.”

She bared her teeth at them, clenching her fists at her sides; they stared back in numb silence. “After all, it’s just Trissiny spouting off again. Who cares? Trissiny is a hothead, a racist, a stuck-up fanatic. Trissiny is needlessly hostile and always angry about nothing. Well, Trissiny will keep protecting you, no matter how much she might want to let you get tangled up with demons and learn the only way you apparently can.”

She snorted in pure, wordless disgust. “Come on, we’ve wasted enough time. There are ninety-seven more levels; I’m sure we can find something good and venomous for you guys to snuggle with. Juniper! Gabriel!”

“Yes?” he squeaked.

“Stay right behind me,” she ordered, turning on her heel in the direction of the stairs to Level 4. “Since none of you saps intend to preserve your own well-being, at least you two won’t die in one hit.”

Trissiny stalked off, leaving the group stunned behind her.

“I…I think she’s mad at us,” Fross whispered.

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