...Aetria awoke, and looked around. The cave was empty of illusions, or whatever way the Observer created those images, and it was naturally dark. The light from the entrance barely reached beyond the turn into the room. Spelling a hand flare, Aetria sat up, then stood, noting the chill across her back from lying on the cave’s floor. She must have been asleep for at least an hour to lose that much heat. With the cold came a stiffness that she worked loose by twisting her torso from side to side and flexing her arms up and down. The erratic shifting of the light across the rock’s surface distracted her, and she stopped working the stiffness out.

What has my escort been doing all this time? Aetria made a quick tour of the cave’s interior, looking for any sign of someone’s having been there. She found a patch of the ground near the back of the room strangely clean of gravel and dust.

“Someone has swept this area. Why?”

Her voice echoed slightly off the walls. Aetria moved carefully along the swept area and found another entrance to the room. She increased the flare and saw a dark passage leading deep into the mountain. The floor was swept as far back as she could see. She hesitated, wondering if she should proceed farther into the passage when she heard the clash of sword on sword behind her.

Trouble! Zo? She dispelled the flare and ran for the entrance. Emerging into the light, she forced herself to crouch for a moment to allow her eyes to adjust the brightness. Beyond the cave’s adit she could not see anything but the trees that guarded the path to the cave. The sound of a skirmish was funneled to her by the narrow entrance, and she could not tell whether the combatants were to the left or right. She knew she could not stand at the entrance for any length of time to try to figure out where to go, as she would be a perfect target.

Think right, go right, be right, she chanted in her mind and sprinted out of the cave, diving to that side as she exited. Two crossbow bolts shrieked past, bouncing off the rock walls and disappearing into the cave. She forward-rolled to her feet and spelled a fireball in the direction she thought the bolts must have been fired from. Diving to her left this time, anticipating the archers would track her along her original path, she jumped to her feet and saw one green-clad figure sprawled on the ground, clothes burning and setting fire to the grass where he lay. Another staggered backward, the feathers of an arrow protruding from her chest.