Caitlyn and Firgristle were keeping watch on the wall, when tiny white motes of light winked into view from the north.

“Wait!” the syiajryn shouted, recognizing the moonlight.  Then she was over the wall, running to meet the dark-skinned elves, and lead them through the safe paths.

Having heard the shout, Nepta climbed up on the wall beside Firgristle, and spotted the leather guards on the forearms wrapped around Shahrv’j’s shoulders, asking with concern, “Is she hurt?!”

“No,” Shahrv’j answered tetchily.  “Just as the strong of arm are oft tasked with protecting the weak, so was this warrior charged with giving your friend a ‘horsey ride’, lest she be left behind, as the swift-shadows enchantment carried us speedily to your side.”

Honee disembarked, standing a foot off the ground.  “Jocoo.”

“I don’t see what you’re upset about,” she casually remarked, as the soles of her boots plopped to the soil.  “The magic made me weightless.  I’m the one who had to run over so many miles of treetops to reach you in the first place.”

“And if it had faltered, you would have been left on the trail!”

 

Fawnlum looked up, as Nepta led the uzruul up to the roaring fire, at the camp set up in front of the shroom.

“Well met,” Fawnlum greeted them.

Bik’nar nodded.  “One of yours was taken.”

“Yes.  We tracked them to this shroom.  I want your help to open the doorway, and go with me to get her back.”

“So you’re determined to invade, no matter what’s on the other side, eh?”

Fawnlum responded simply, “Yes.  And thank you for coming.”

Bik’nar lightly shook her head at her.  “No thanks necessary, human.  This darkness has more effect than you can imagine.”

She rested her hand on the hilt of her sword, staring at the all-important shroom.

“It pulls at our hearts – – we who escaped from it once before.  It seeks to make us more vengeful, more feral.  To make us slaves of malice and follow the ways of the deepway – – depraved and evil, forsaking every trace of light and goodness.

“Having known the ways of darkness, I can tell you, their committing this act demonstrates their weakness.”

She looked back up at her, smiling in not a nice way.

“You know not what it means to us, to stab at the heart of this darkness, and those who brought it.”

“Now, then.”  She touched the giant fungus with her palm.  “Cracking the magic on this door is no easy task.”

“We received a scryed message from another wizard – ,” Lucas began.

“Yes.  A zone of influence, as Honee told us.  But this is still very complex.”  She patted the shroom’s surface again.  “If we had powerful enough clerical magic, we could enforce such a blessing.  But this, its very existence is a curse.  As foul as rot, and solid as stone, to even move against it would invite it to retaliate against us.”

Honee quickly spoke up.  “We already have protection!  We have these.”  She shed her quiver, undid her vest, exposed her upper back.  “We’ve been named as Friends of Wintermore!

“An honored presence has been placed in each Mark,” she went on, as her tattoo stood out in the firelight.  “And we already know Wintermore interacts with the moon.  The moonlight we summon is Selnr’i’s domain, yes?”  She looked at Nepta.  “Can it not help the Marks guard us from harm?”

Nepta blinked.  Then she looked from Honee, to Fawnlum, to Bik’nar.  “Yes.”

“In theory,” she added, tapping a fingernail against her enchanted belt.  “It would be a good strategy, but I have a lack of experience in clerical spells.”

Iljareve, from where she was getting a closer look at Honee’s Mark, spoke up.  “We don’t.”

Bik’nar stood next to her, and also examined the scout.  She slowly slid her finger over the blue-tinted designs.

“Feel the pulse of energy,” she said quietly to Iljareve.

“It’s different,” her cleric replied.  “But there’s definitely something here.”

Bik’nar turned to Fawnlum.  “Are you willing to go forward with that theory?”

“Yes.”

“We’ve never encountered Wintermore before,” Iljareve said to her, betraying a hint of enthusiasm.  “Let us see what it can do.”

Without beating around the bush, the uzruul quickly talked amongst themselves, and formulated a plan.

Bik’nar sat Fawnlum, Nepta and Honee down, with their exposed backs turned toward the shroom.

An uzruul stood beside each human woman.

Fawnlum drew IceFire, and laid it across her lap, then set her disc on top.

“Each of you will sing this song,” Bik’nar told them.  “You’ve already heard it once before.  I hope you were paying attention.  We’ll be right beside you.  Mimic our words as closely as you can.”

Fawnlum had never called out to any entity other than Diergon in her life.  She quickly and pragmatically concluded she was not being unfaithful, by calling on this uzruul goddess for help in magical matters.

“You don’t want a magical song coming out of Fawnlum’s mouth,” Honee suddenly warned.  “We might all blow up.”

“Honee,” Fawnlum grumbled.

Bik’nar turned to Iljareve.  “You stay with Fawnlum.”

Iljareve traded places with Ariea, who stood next to Honee.  Dilerr’n took her place beside Nepta.  The uzruul all had their discs tied to their chests, and grasped with their fingers.  They spoke the command.  Fawnlum did likewise, and the whole area was aglow with silver light.

The elves started with a slow, cadenced note, varying in pitch, but calm and uniform.

They let their bodies sway, keeping their feet planted firmly in place, and keeping one hand on their human.

Accustomed to the songs of Diergon and the Coast, Fawnlum listened for words and syllables.

This type of singing, however, she did not know.  There were no words, just changes of timbre of the uzruuls’ voices.  If this was what they were singing the night she gave them the discs, she heard no similarity.  She stayed quiet, as she did not know what else to do.  Her wish to hear what she was familiar with, almost led to frustration.

Iljareve gripped her shoulder more tightly.

Slow, wishful minutes passed.

Then among the slow pitch, Fawnlum heard a change.  It was a measured shift of the expressions, into a word.  She could not understand it – – but the mood behind it spoke volumes.

Bik’nar, with Leruna and Shahrv’j standing with her, slowly led the movement of their hands before them – – gestures made with meaning.

The emotions in their new cadence hit Fawnlum like a rock-hammer.  Such a strong sentiment was in the uzruuls’ song, with a stir of emotion she had not expected, a fervent pull seized at her heart to join in.

The feeling was there.  So was the futility.  Lost without words, she stopped trying to impotently mouth the sounds.  Then, her emotions were pulled more powerfully, as Iljareve gave one long, drawn-out consonant.  The meaning behind the expression touched her, and the rest of the word carried itself unbidden out of Fawnlum’s mouth.  Then she softly voiced the next word, in time with her elven cohort.

Selfishly, she let herself immerse in the feeling of the song.  Singing quietly, she let the new kinship guide her voice.

Without knowing how the emotion was bringing the song out of her thus, she just kept letting it do so, hearing the music of the other women coming from her own throat.

She noticed Icefire’s brighter glow, as the elves picked up the melody, and the humans stayed with them.  Bik’nar’s voice jumped an octave.

She felt a mysterious warmth on her upper back, right where her Mark was.

What did this mean?  Was it the touch of magic?  Was it normal?  She tried to block the distraction.

It was a fleeting attempt, as some alien desire was coming into her, somewhat similar to Icefire’s.

She felt an echo of emotion, as if touched by what someone else was feeling.  As she communed with a power beyond  her senses, the Presence within that power flowed as bowstring-thin rivers around her.

Not around her, she thought.  Through her.

Fawnlum did not know how she knew the Presence was female, just that it was, from the quality of the spirit flowing in the rivers.  And she was close.

An urge came to the mighty woman to embrace the essence, like a young girl wanting to hug a favorite aunt.

But the Presence was elusive.  She flowed past too quickly to be held.

With a moment of disappointment, she felt her rapport with the song slipping away.  With a warrior’s discipline, she abandoned her personal desires, and let the will of the song take her again.

The Presence came back to her, and now Fawnlum just left her to her own devices, letting her flow where she may.

She did not see Bik’nar and Iljareve lock eyes with each other, as they also became aware of the strange new Presence.

Iljareve joined Bik’nar in front of the shroom, and cast the spell as their ritual reached its peak.

The front of the shroom started to sink in, as if a concave space was collapsing on itself, but then bounced back.

Shahrv’j drew her weapon, and she and Iljareve quickly passed through the front surface of the shroom as if it was not even there.

Leruna waved, as Iljareve reappeared.  The torch-bearing Bluntwerk and Gritcomb entered the portal past the cleric.   Then Ariea patted Honee and Nepta, directing them to Bik’nar, and stepped quickly to Fawnlum.  Diamance glowed about Nepta’s middle, as did Booters from Honee’s legs, and Icefire in Fawnlum’s grip, as through the doorway they went.

Halrick and Lucas followed, and then Bik’nar went in last.

The light around the shroom faded.  But a portion of the glow stayed, as Dilerr’n sat before it, her disc exposed on her chest, and she kept singing, invoking the light and Selnr’i’s blessing.  Ariea sang beside her, while Leruna walked away a few yards, helping the remaining humans and dwarves stand guard.

 

Many miles away, and more than two miles below ground, Iljareve sat before another, smaller shroom, her disc-light upon her, quietly singing and keeping close the touch of her goddess, as human, dwarf and uzruul looked at the place they had stepped into.

The chamber could not have been more deserted.

Expansive, with a menagerie of carts, equipment and tools, everything lay dusty and cold to the touch.

“A mine,” Bluntwerk said, holding his torch high.  “Dwarven.”

“A good one,” Gritcomb added.

“Not so bright,” Shahrv’j whispered to Fawnlum.

“Kyjo!” Fawnlum quickly said, dispelling her disc.

All around were shrooms.  Although smaller than the ones on the surface, they pressed against the high ceiling.  Many had puddles of strange, green, glowing liquid beside them.  The sickly light eerily filled the chamber.

Fawnlum saw raised stone catwalks dividing the room.  On the ramparts, the paths of mine-carts went up, and disappeared into tunnel mouths higher up on the walls.  Shahrv’j climbed one section off to the side, investigating one tunnel after another.

“Oi,” Honee said to Fawnlum.  “Your Mark is still glowing a little.”

“So is yours,” Lucas said to the scout, as he eyed the back of her vest, and the light peeking out from the neckline.

Bluntwerk did not beat about the bush.  “Missy, what was that?”

He and Bik’nar both looked at Fawnlum, who looked at Nepta.

“It’s just as Honee told you,” Nepta explained.  “A noble presence is in these Marks.”

“How do you know that?” asked Fawnlum.

“I swore not to tell.”

“Don’t dismiss this,” Bik’nar said.   “It’s true, Selnr’i came.  But so did someone else.  Some other entity, and your Marks were her beacon.”

“Sorry,” Honee said, tight-lipped.

“Sorry, me foot, Missy,” Bluntwerk said.  “The shadadin’s right.  There was somethin’ with us.  We all felt it, even though we couldn’t see it!”

“It helped us, didn’t it?” Fawnlum said.  “The spirit in each Mark gets along well with Selnr’i and her moonlight.”

Bik’nar’s face scrunched at Fawnlum and her lackadaisical words.

“Ahem!” Halrick called, directing their attention back to the task at hand.

As the others looked at the other side tunnels, Bluntwerk walked over and joined Gritcomb, standing before some very large constructs, shrouded in the darkness against the far wall.

Shahrv’j was at one of the larger tunnel mouths farther away.  “I think we’re al-”

Before she could get the words out of her mouth, a dwarf’s anguished cry shattered the silence.