Crouching low, Emily moved quickly and quietly along the walls of the hallway, csping the ends of her manacles in her hands to prevent them from banging into things.

  The pce she now found herself was an odd mixture of a built up structure and a natural cave. Straight, uniform walls built of stone bricks met natural cave walls, and the area was dimly lit by sparsely pced mps on the walls. After a few turns, she came out into a much rger cavern. Feeling exposed, she quickly hid behind a rge rock formation, peeking around it carefully to see the y of the nd.

  What appeared to be an entire goblin town stretched before her. The cavern was vast, with many yers and levels of goblin buildings all around it, light shining from their windows. A bewildering array of walkways, and staircases stretched across the town in all directions, fully using the three dimensional space. It was confusing to look at, and reminded Emily strongly of an MC Escher painting. Squat green goblins scurried this way and that along the walkways.

  Dorian had said that the goblin who'd taken possession of the Stoneshell was on the other side of town, somewhere with thick nightmoss. From what Emily could see, the town extended to every side of the massive cavern, with some structures even built into its walls. That meant she would need to go through the town to get to Victus and the Stoneshell.

  But how exactly was she, a naked human woman, trailing manacles from her arms, supposed to move through a goblin town unnoticed? In her huddled position behind the rocks, Emily brought her knees into her chest and cursed Dorian. Apart from the massive relief of not having to listen to Era's taunts, she was hardly better off now than she had been before.

  After allowing herself a few minutes of moping, Emily decided she would tackle one problem at a time. Starting with the manacles. Taking a deep breath, she focused on a pair of slightly sharp rocks.

  Over the next hour, Emily channeled the Bronzeband's magic to reshape the rocks and smash them with increasing force against the csps of the manacles. Eventually, the left gave way, followed by the right. Emily rubbed her sore wrists with relief, and allowed herself some much needed rest, sprawled against the rocks. She was finally beginning to feel a degree of comfort and competence with the Bronzeband.

  Emily could now turn her mind to the next problem—getting across the goblin town without attracting too much attention. At the very least, she was going to need some clothes. A knot formed in her stomach as she contempted how difficult this recurring and seemingly simple problem had been to solve in the past.

  Something rustled on the other side of the rocks. Adrenaline spiked in Emily's veins, and every muscle in her body tensed. With an outstretched hand, she commanded a small stone to levitate in front of her, ready to meet her assaint.

  A green face framed with dark hair poked around the rocks, smiling wide. It wasn't a goblin.

  "Emily!" cried Talyndra. "I've found you at st!"

  The floating stone fell to the ground, and Talyndra darted forward to embrace Emily. She was dressed in a rge brown cloak that seemed to swallow up her tiny form. "I've been hiding here, pretending to be a goblin. As long as I don't let anyone look at my face too long, it works," she said. "When Aria stopped moving, I knew you were in trouble. Then I heard a rumor about a pair of captured human magic users. But by the time I reached the dungeon, only Era was there. Good to see her all strung up like she deserves, mind."

  "She told me that her fairies were coming to free her," said Emily. "I don't think we've seen the st of her, sadly—that dungeon is not very well guarded."

  Talyndra smirked. "Goblins are zy like that. Impossible to get them to watch or guard anything for long. They put their trust in craftsmanship—too much, by the looks of it." She gestured at the pair of destroyed manacles in the corner. "How'd you do that?"

  Emily smiled and pointed downwards, indicating the Bronzeband on her ankle.

  "Thank you, Captain Richard," Talyndra snarked. "But where is the Stoneshell?"

  "It was taken by a goblin named Victus," Emily said darkly. "He's on the other side of town, in a pce where nightmoss grows."

  "Is that a bck moss that grows on cavern walls?" Talyndra asked. "I know where that is. But... how do you know he's there?"

  "I had help," Emily replied. "It's... complicated."

  Talyndra nodded curtly. "Tell me the whole thing ter. Right now, the Stoneshell must be returned to its rightful owner."

  "Could you use your magic again, like you did on the ship?"

  Talyndra shook her head. "This town is too rge and complicated for that. We'll have to face this Victus head on. That'll be more fun, anyway."

  Emily gave her a distressed look.

  "No dirt-eating neckce-stealing snivelling worm of a goblin will get the better of us!" Talyndra decred, making fists with both hands. Then she paused to take a long, sympathetic look at Emily. "You need some clothes. I had a feeling you might, so I came prepared."

  Talyndra shrugged off the rge cloak she was wearing, revealing another slightly smaller cloak of the same kind underneath. "It was really hot under all that!" she said, handing the rger cloak to Emily.

  "Good thinking." Emily pulled the cloak around her body and did up the row of wooden fasteners at the front.

  "These too," Talyndra continued, defting the front of her cloak as she pulled out a pair of brown boots. "You're tall and not green, so you'll need to hunch down and avoid showing any skin. Stay close to me and we should be fine."

  Stepping into her newest pair of brown boots, Emily felt that she would like nothing better than to avoid showing any skin. If she could just do that for the rest of her time in Thesson, that would be fine by her. She flipped the hood of the cloak up over her head and knelt forward in her best imitation of a frail, hunched old woman.

  Talyndra surveyed the disguise and then nodded slowly. "Let's go. Keep quiet and follow me."

  The streets of the goblin town were not overly crowded, but once Talyndra and Emily left the shelter of the rock formation, they were seldom alone. Goblins of all ages and professions roamed the multilevel streets, and Talyndra and Emily did their best to avoid eye contact with the squat denizens. For her part, Talyndra passed for a tall goblin, and Emily, as long as she kept her hunch, for a very tall goblin. Standing at her full height of five foot four, Emily would have towered over the entire popution of town, a fact which made her feel very conspicuous.

  "I saw the bck moss past the wall closest to the market district," Talyndra said, pulling Emily's arm behind her.

  Emily cringed as they entered the town's market district, a buzzing hive of stands and crowds. Merchants boast of the quality of their goods and the lowness of their prices, and customers loudly haggled with them. Emily held Talyndra's hand tightly as they weaved through the throng, studiously ignoring the array of of foodstuffs, clothing, bnkets, potions, incense, jewelry, weapons and other assorted goods offered to them by eager goblin merchants.

  There was a sudden pull on the back of Emily's cloak and she stopped dead. Ahead of her, Talyndra's feet scrambled for purchase, and she almost lost her footing. Regaining her bance, Talyndra crouched down and shot a worried look back at Emily. Both of them turned to the source of the pull.

  A fat goblin merchant with a fake smile and a hungry look in his eyes stood just behind Emily, his foot pnted on the hem of her cloak. "Ladies, dies, how are you enjoying the market this fine day? Please forgive me for the interruption, but I would never forgive myself if I did not take the opportunity to share with you some rare and exotic items that have recently come into my possession."

  "Thank you, but we don't have time for—" Talyndra began, speaking in a deeper than usual voice.

  "Oh but you must give me chance!" the merchant continued. "It is not every market day that I have the pleasure of encountering such elegant, willowy beauties, and I can see from the state of your cloaks that you are not well served by my colleagues. Ladies with your statures must struggle mightily to find well-fitted, fttering outfits—I know the pain well, for my wife is about your height."

  The merchant gestured grandly at a pair of dresses hanging behind his stand. "These beautiful pieces are specially imported all the way from the surface, every stitch lovingly sewn by human tailors!"

  "Thank you, but we have enough—"

  The merchant rolled back his head with hearty, performative ughter. "Oh, a dy can never have enough outfits! But we can come back to that, perhaps you will only be convinced when I show you the jewelry that goes with the outfit. Madame, let me give you these earrings to try on, I am sure you will love them!"

  It was already too te when Emily registered the presence of the merchant's hand on her hood. With a flourish, he pulled the hood back and held a pair of earrings up to the pale white skin of Emily's cheek.

  For a moment, the world froze. Emily looked into the merchant's beady bck eyes, silently pleading with him. But it was no use. There was a lull in the usual noise and bustle of the market as every eye turned to Emily.

  "Human!" shouted the merchant. "Escaped human mage!"

  The crowd surged around Emily and Talyndra, and all was thrown into chaos. Hands grabbed at Emily's cloak from every angle, and all around goblins cried, "Human! Escaped prisoner! Magic user! She'll curse you!"

  "Run!" screamed Talyndra, who was already punching any goblin reckless enough to step to close to her fists.

  Emily pulled out of the hunch, drawing up to her full height so that she towered over the goblin throng. Forcing herself to calm down and focus on the ring of bronze around her ankle, she willed the cobblestones around her to spring up and knock the goblins off-bance. A few did as she commanded, including ones underneath her feet, causing her to stumble. But it was enough to clear a path, and she took off running.

  "Magic! Magic! Remove her magic!" the goblins shrieked, redoubling their efforts to catch her. She felt hands grab at her cloak and heard the sound of it tearing and ripping as she ran, the fasteners popping off the fabric and scattering before her. This, of course, did nothing to prevent her from using magic—the source of her power was hidden beneath the top of her left boot, a far more difficult target for grabbing goblin hands. But it did reveal her ankles, calves, and then most of her thighs as she ran.

  Ahead, she saw Talyndra, who held out a hand for her. She focused on running, and on disturbing the cobblestones behind her with the Bronzeband's magic. Goblins screamed and cursed, and more and more of her cloak was torn away from her body, until it was little more than a ragged cape, streaming behind her.

  "There's the town wall!" Talyndra shouted, pointing at a wall that they were fast approaching. She steered Emily towards the entrance, a rge archway over which a wrought iron gate was quickly descending. "They're closing us in! Hurry!"

  Emily shook off the st of her pursuers by making the cobblestones behind her rise up in wave, knocking them all off their feet and into each other. Talyndra was already through the gate, and there was just enough space for Emily to squeeze underneath it, if she dove.

  "There's the town wall!" Talyndra shouted, pointing at a wall that they were fast approaching. She steered Emily towards the entrance, a rge archway over which a wrought iron gate was quickly descending. "They're closing us in! Hurry!"

  Emily shook off the st of her pursuers by making the cobblestones behind her rise up in wave, knocking them all off their feet and into each other. Talyndra was already through the gate, and there was just enough space for Emily to squeeze underneath it, if she dove.

  She dove, clearing the entrance just as the gate smmed shut behind her, and rolling across the cave floor. There had been a brief tug at her neck, and she gnced back to see the st scraps of her cloak speared on the bottom of the gate. Once again, she was naked but for her boots.

  "The tunnels!" Talyndra commanded, grabbing hold of Emily's hand once more. "Up ahead, the tunnels are covered in nightmoss. We'll find this Victus guy there!"

  Talyndra and Emily sprinted for the entrance to the nearest tunnel, which was indeed fully suffused with nightmoss. The walls, ceiling and even floor were coated with a thick yer of it, muffling the sound of their footfalls.

  "There's a light up ahead," Talyndra said, pointing at a faint swirl of strange, colorful lights at the end of the tunnel. "That must be our guy." The nightmoss was growing ever thicker. In the areas were it was thickest, it seemed to lose its normal pntlike consistency and turn into a wet sludge, almost like tar.

  Had Emily and Talyndra not been running on adrenaline, they may have considered a more cautious approach. Or at least, Emily might have, especially considering her state of undress. As things were, they burst out of the tunnel at a sprinting pace and locked eyes with Victus.

  The goblin was standing in the middle of a circur chamber, surrounded on all sides by nightmoss so thick that it entirely obscured the stone behind it. He wore a clean white robe and stood before a stone altar. Three items were arranged in a line on the altar, inside a circle of salt. On the right, a silver dagger. On the left, a chainmail glove. And in the middle, a gray seashell neckce.

  Streams of multicolored light swirled above the altar, and Victus was making a series of complicated gestures with with hands. He froze as his eyes made contact with Talyndra and Emily.

  "Stop!" Victus shouted. "You'll ruin everything!"

  But Emily couldn't stop. She barrelled forward, running and then wading through the nightmoss, which tickled her ankles, and then her knees, and then her thighs. As she moved further, the feeling of the moss turned to a thick mud. She kept her eyes locked on the Stoneshell.

  Victus gasped as a crack appeared in the center of his stone altar. Emily saw the crack too, and realized that she had made it appear. Her bond with the Bronzeband was growing.

  "Please, stop at once!" pleaded Victus. "You have no idea what you're doing!"

  But it was too te. Emily stood on the other side of the altar, gring hatefully at him. Her right arm shot forward, and her hand closed around the Stoneshell.

  Immediately, the altar, Emily and Victus disappeared. There was a loud, wet plopping sound as they sunk beneath the nightmoss. Emily sucked in a breath just before the moss covered her head.

  "Emily!" screamed Talyndra. She stood at the edge of the chamber, the moss only coming up to her ankles.

  Below her, Emily was calm and warm. Moss tickled her ears, almost seeming to whisper to her.

  "Am I too te?" cried a voice behind Talyndra.

  Before Emily's eyes, the moss turned from bck to orange to purple, and made living patterns all around her. She thought she heard a strangled cry, but it seemed far away.

  Talyndra turned to the source of the voice. It was a human man with dark hair and piercing blue eyes. His teeth were gritted in a pained expression, and he was brandishing a rge sword.

  The moss loved Emily. The moss wanted to protect her.

  "Who're you?" asked Talyndra of the strange man behind her.

  The moss promised to clothe Emily, to shield her from the harsh gaze of the outside world.

  "A friend," said Dorian. "Where's Emily?"

  The moss promised to stay with her always.

  Talyndra gestured ahead of her, but nothing was visible in the deep concentration of pure bck nightmoss. The colored lights had disappeared, and now the only source of light in the chamber was an oil mp held in Dorian's left hand. "She... it... the moss ate her!"

  The moss made Emily feel warm, and safe, and happy.

  The whole cave began to shake and rumble. Then there was a loud belching sound, and a flood of light from the center.

  "Emily!" Talyndra shouted.

  Where the stone altar had been moments earlier, Emily now stood. The pool of bck mossy sludge came up to her thighs, and bits of it clung to her arms, hips, stomach and breasts, creating the impression of a very bold fashion choice. She stood completely still and stared at Talyndra and Dorian with a bnk expression. The Stoneshell hung around her neck, glowing faintly.

  "Emily!" Talyndra cried again, wading towards her friend. Emily wasn't moving, but when Talyndra reached her, she felt the reassuring feeling of a warm pulse and heard the sound of shallow breath.

  "Let me help," said Dorian, who had put away his sword and also waded into the moss.

  Holding each of her arms, Talyndra and Dorian pulled Emily out of the deepest part of the nightmoss, towards the edge of the chamber. As they moved, the moss covering her body fked off and fell, sparking with orange light as it was absorbed into the main body. Eventually, only a few spots of moss remained, clinging to the soles of Emily's boots.

  Lying on the floor at the mouth of the tunnel, where the moss was no deeper than a wn, Emily blinked a few times and appeared to return to her senses.

  "What happened?" Talyndra asked.

  "I'm... not quite sure," said Emily, rising to seated. She moved her head slowly, looking around her, and patted the moss around her. "But I think it's all okay now. I have the Stoneshell again and Victus is... gone."

  "Thank the gods!" excimed Dorian.

  Emily scowled. "And no thank you, Dorian. You got me into this mess!"

  "You what?" asked Talyndra, gring at Dorian. "Just say the word, Emily, and I will cast the nastiest wood elf magic I know on this rapscallion!"

  Dorian raised his hands in front of his face defensively. "And I have only started to atone! Please, let me expin..."

  Emily crossed her arms. "This better be..." The feeling of skin against skin derailed her thoughts. "Uh, maybe you can give me some privacy first."

  Dorian blushed deeply and smmed a hand in front of his eyes. "Of course! My sincerest apologies!"

  "I don't suppose you have another cloak to spare," Emily said to Talyndra.

  "You can have mine," said Dorian, shrugging his cloak off and then holding it out with one hand, his eyes still firmly shut. His blue shirt was worn and threadbare.

  Emily took the cloak and draped it over her front. It was warm, soft, and lined on the inside with dozens of little pockets.

  "I need to go back to the town to fetch Aria from the room we rented," said Talyndra. "I also bought a bunch of clothes from the market while I was undercover."

  "I'm gd I left the money with you," Emily replied. "But wait... won't that be dangerous? Actually, why aren't the townsfolk still coming after us?"

  "Goblins are deathly afraid of nightmoss, due to its magical properties," added Dorian. "They would never follow us in here."

  "I should be able to slip back in unnoticed," said Talyndra. "They were all paying a lot more attention to you. Emily, will you be okay if I leave you alone with this guy?"

  "Yes," Emily said. "Thank you, Talyndra. Dorian has some things to expin to me, anyway."

  Talyndra smiled at Emily and cast a sidelong gnce at Dorian. "Try anything funny, and she'll burn your face off," she said. "I'll be right back."

  With that, Talyndra scampered down the tunnel towards the town, and Emily and Dorian were left alone.

  "Victus didn't seem to be afraid of the nightmoss," Emily said. "I wonder what he was doing that he needed the Stoneshell. And also why you helped him steal it."

  "Can I look yet?" Dorian asked.

  "Yes, you may." Emily pulled the cloak tighter around her body as Dorian removed his hand from his eyes. "Well?" she asked, holding his gaze.

  "It's, uh, kind of embarrassing, to be honest," Dorian said, rubbing the back of his neck with a hand. "One of the ingredients I need for my client at Paja Abbey is something called flitroot. It only grows in a much deeper, even less accessible part of the Deep Realm. A very dangerous pce for human beings, needless to say. Even goblins don't often go there."

  Dorian produced a small bag from a pouch on his belt, untied it, and showed Emily its contents—a small, dried pnt, with no distinguishing features. "Doesn't look like much, but it's a very useful potion ingredient. Anyway, I was buying some other supplies from Victus—he's a merchant—and we got onto the subject of potion ingredients. He told me that he had a small supply of flitroot, and I immediately jumped at the chance to spare myself the danger of gathering it from the source. But when I asked him for a price, he immediately changed the subject."

  Dorian sighed. "I pressed the issue, but he proved unwilling to quote a figure. Said he regretted we ever got onto the subject, and that he wasn't willing to part with the flitroot. I left the issue there, and continued with other business. But ter on in our conversation, I let it slip that I'm a spellbreaker. That changed his whole attitude, and he went back to his storeroom and fetched some flitroot for me."

  Dorian returned the flitroot bag to his pocket. "In exchange for the flitroot, he told me in hushed tones, I was to bring him a magical artifact of great power. Magical artifacts of any sort are quite difficult to come by in the Deep Realm, as the goblin authorities routinely destroy any they come across. So I thought he would be happy with even a trinket, and I offered him my locating ring. This wasn't good enough, so we went through everything else. But even my Eversharp Cymore wasn't good enough." Dorian gestured at the sword on his back.

  "In the end, I almost left empty-handed. But in the end, Victus offered me a deal. He would give me the flitroot in advance, in exchange for a quest—I was to locate a sufficiently powerful magical artifact, use my spellbreaker abilities to secure it, and bring it to him."

  "Is that why you offered to help me?" asked Emily, narrowing her eyes.

  "No," Dorian replied, the sad, regretful expression returning to his face. "I'd actually forgotten about the deal, to be honest with you. I've spent the st month in a different part of the Deep Realm, and only just come back this way. Please believe me when I say that stealing your Stoneshell was the st thing on my mind when I encountered you by that pool."

  "That's not how it felt when I was hanging by my ankle and you were scattering salt around me," Emily said.

  "I didn't expect Victus to be trailing me!" Dorian cried. "Believe me, he surprised me just as much as he did you, sneaking up just as I was about to cast that locating spell. He told me he'd been watching us. Once he made it clear that he wanted me to fulfil my side of the bargain with the Stoneshell, I had to think and act fast."

  "Don't remind me," Emily said.

  Dorian's expression clouded with frustration. "Under goblin dominion, the punishment for doing magic, or even holding magical artifacts is severe. Had I refused Victus's request, he would have set the authorities on both of us. Our artifacts and other belongings would have been confiscated, and we would both have been thrown in that dungeon, and then executed."

  "So you decided to save yourself," Emily retorted.

  "So that I could save both of us."

  Silence reigned in the nightmoss cavern as Emily and Dorian regarded each other. He was the most reckless and inconsiderate man she had ever met.

  Eventually, Emily said, "Just... let me in on the pn next time."

  Dorian quirked an eyebrow. "Next time?"

  "You're going to apologize to me by guiding me and my friends out of these horrible caves, and taking us to Paja Abbey. Then you're going to help me break the curse on Aria. After that, I will consider forgiving you."

  Dorian smiled. "It will be my honor."

  Emily held out a hand for Dorian to shake, and he took it, helping her up into a standing position, and then shaking it firmly. Emily brushed some moss from her butt before wrapping his cloak more firmly around her body.