Hours later and we had carved through countless goblins, until we finally came to a staircase that led to the third level down. It had been intense, bloody and infinitely satisfying to destroy those things. Even more so after we’d found them roasting a person over a fire. Yup, apparently they ate humans, or at least the more intelligent ones did.

Their race was strange, with a more feral version like the ones we’d first encountered, and a second type that was all into that caveman lifestyle. Clubs, thrown rocks and… yeah, cooking people apparently. Didn’t look like the people were dead before they were impaled on a spike either, which was particularly horrifying.

“Okay, yeah,” I said, holding back bile. “I can see what you mean. These things definitely need to die.”

“This group looks to have done a recent raid up into the slums of the city,” Bassi murmured, kneeling down to inspect the discarded belongings of the goblins’ last meal. “Clothing still looks mostly fresh. They’re using cages too. They didn’t used to use cages…” she gave the rough wooden cages a contemplative look. “They’re getting smarter. Their bigger cousins, the gurg, are getting smarter too.”

“Any idea why?” I asked, trying not to look at the morbid chaos that was strewn across the floor.

She hummed a negative. “Not a clue. You have me asking these questions now.”

“What, me?” I blinked turning to look at her despite the grisy objects of her interest. “How?”

“Your talk of these ruins making no sense,” she said with a gesture, from the large empty chamber we were in to the spiral staircase leading down. “It has me asking the why of a great many other things too.”

“Yo,” I told her, taking a few steps to be next to her, my hand going to her shoulder and squeezing. “Think about that kind of thing later, you hear? Not in danger town down here. Plus, you gotta follow the procedure!”

She blinked, straightening and turning to properly face me. She glanced down at my hand for a moment, that I’d kept there as she turned. “What procedure is that?”

“The one where you stay up late in bed for hours and worry about it,” I explained with a grin, pulling my hand back to tap my temple for emphasis. “Either that, or when you’re in the shower.”

“When it’s raining?” she asked with a frown.

“Nah… I mean… nevermind,” I said, realising that explaining the concept of a shower would be a pain in the ass. Guess they didn’t do showers around here. “Point is, you do it when you’re trying to get to sleep in bed and your thoughts are getting all in the way of that. It’s the perfect time for worrying about things you can’t control.”

Bassi rolled her eyes at me, then gave a laugh. “My word, you are an odd one Mist,” she turned and headed for the stairs, indicating with a nod that I should follow her. “Oh and for the record, there are way more interesting things to do in a bed than ruminating over problems like this.”

“There are?” I asked, my mind still stuck in black humour depressomode and not computing the very obvious wiggling eyebrows.

That got more rolling eyes and a snort of genuine amusement from her. “You are definitely something…” she murmured with resigned amusement, turning to the stairs and shaking her head.

Then it clicked, and I almost tripped on the first step, my cheeks heating rapidly and my self confidence evaporating into embarrassment. “Oh! Oh! Right. Uh… yeah. I get what you were… um, saying. Now, I mean. Not just then. I uh… sorry, I just don’t have all that much… well. I think you probably know like, infinitely more about that than I do. Because like, dividing by zero. Wait, I don’t think that’s infinity is it? It ends up being just… nevermind. I don’t know. I… am going to shut up now.”

The damned woman chuckled to herself the whole way down the stairs.

The third floor was all caves, but with a ton of glowing shit in it. Like it was a fairy cave or some shit. Or it was on that planet from Avatar, the blue people one, not the children fighting the establishment one.

Plants and even whole trees covered everything, with moss all across the floor. Nothing was green though, instead coloured in fluorescent blues, reds and purples. It was breathtakingly beautiful, in a way that had me stopping to gawk in wonder at it all. How had we gone from that hellhole upstairs directly into a fae wonderland. Guess it was a no brainer why I felt at home here.

Still… there was something in me that urged caution. Maybe it was my gamer instincts, but this place had ‘poison buffet’ written all over it. With a sidelong glance at Bassi, who was watching me with a smirk, I asked, “I’m going to take an absolutely wild guess and say this place is real fuckin’ dangerous.”

“You would be absolutely correct,” she laughed, reaching out absently to touch my hand. I don’t think she realised she did it, but I sure as hell did. Goodness, I didn’t know what to do with all the warm tingles that she elicited within me. That, and the fact that my body displayed arousal in a whole host of new and confusing ways.

“Alright, what do I look out for?” I asked, finding it hard to look away from her. I might be fae by blood, but with this environment and lighting? She was radiant, beautiful, sexy and mysterious in so many different ways. Alluring, I think was the word.

She sighed, but it was a happy sigh as she turned those piercing eyes of hers on our surroundings. “You know, you can be a pain in the ass to teach in some ways, but in others… smooth as silk. Alright, see those purple mushrooms? Poisonous to the touch. So are those blue ones, and that weird mottled red moss. That bulb thing down the way will try and grab you, so we’ll have to either avoid or stab those when we get to them. Any water that doesn’t have glowing shit in it isn’t drinkable.”

“How about you just point things out as we go?” I asked with a rueful laugh. “Otherwise I think we’ll be here all day.”

“It’s actually almost night, according to my sunstone anyway,” she said, holding up a little yellow stone. It was only dimly glowing, barely more than a status LED on a motherboard.

“Just how many types of thingy-stones are there?” I asked motioning to the little enchanted stone in her hand.

“So many,” she chuckled, tucking the little rock back into a pouch. “People just grab any old pebble and shove magic into it. You got stones for light, stones for telling if it’s daylight, stones for telling if you’re pregnant… there’s a lot.”

My eyes rose at that last one. “So do you need a stone for pregnancy often?” I asked, surprising myself and causing my stomach to do anxious flips as I waited for the answer.

She laughed, her eyelids dipping for a moment as her gaze turned heated. “I think you know the answer to that.”

“Ah, right… yeah,” I laughed nervously, my eyes suddenly finding a lot of very interesting things to look at around us. Oh, my cheeks were definitely getting warm. Grasping for a change of subject, I asked, “Well, if it’s night, should we find a place to sleep?”

Her smile was amused and teasing as she nodded, “Yes. I know a place, follow me.”

She turned and began down a passage, and my eyes dipped low. Oh dear, were her hips swaying more than usual? No… I was probably just imagining things, my mind had taken a fast turn into the gutter with all her sexy talk.

We walked in silence for what felt like almost half an hour, me slightly behind her while she sauntered through the dangerous glowing caves like she owned them. She barely ever turned to check if I was even following her, simply trusting that I was, since I made no sound when I walked.

We passed through caves large and small, with seemingly natural pools and streams winding through it all. We didn’t see any monsters, but I heard them occasionally, haunting howls and once, the sound of steel on steel.

“Pathfinders, probably,” Bassi murmured, stopping to listen for a moment. “We’ll have to avoid them.”

That surprised me. “Why?”

“Some of us thieves have bounties out on our heads, and you can never tell if one of their number might be driven to try and claim some of that gold,” she murmured absently, her ear cocked gently.

“That’s kinda scary,” I frowned, suddenly worried for my new friend. I mean, if something happened to her… I’d find the bastard who did it and kill them slow. Sure, killing humans was bad, especially on this world where we were basically an endangered species… but I wasn’t so averse to it that I wouldn’t go hunting for revenge. I was no saint.

Bassi frowned, her eyes glancing to the side and her hand suddenly going to the handles of her weapons. “What is it?” I moved to ask, but she was fast, gentle fingers closing my jaw and holding it there as she listened. I watched her, she was close now, our bodies almost touching as she stood stock still and on high alert.

I found it impossible to pay attention to my surroundings though, her proximity sent heat flowing through my body, a storm of hot lightning. I watched as her mouth opened slightly, just enough for her tongue to slip out… and out… and out. Oh my goodness it was long, there was like… six inches of tongue past her lips, and I felt the insides of my thighs shudder with a strange pleasure-pain. Jesus, okay… guess I was into really long tongues now.

My arousal subsided slightly when I realised what she was doing. Tasting the air. It flickered in and out as though lapping at an invisible liquid. Wow, guess her snake features extended past her eyes and fangs. My gaze drifted across her face as I watched her, waiting to find out what was going on as anxiety began to replace the heat within my— Wait.

My eyes halted on something, specifically, Bassi’s ears and how they tapered, just slightly to a point. They were the movie lord of the rings elf style ears, as opposed to my legend of zelda style ears. Things started rotating in my mind, machinery finally turning and slotting into place.

She was fae too.

In my moment of realisation, she moved. Blisteringly fast, she flashed backwards, almost too fast for my eyes to track her. Her twin blades sang as she moved, shearing through the air even as it seemed to flow with her, powering her movements.

It was over in the blink of an eye, and something was dead on her blades. A chameleon looking thing impaled by both fangs. Slow once more, mysterious wind no longer flowing around us, she kicked the beast off her shortswords, a rusted blade falling from its hands.

“Hate these things,” she muttered, trying to flick blood off both her swords at once. Then her eyes went wide and she jerked her gaze up to meet mine, as though she’d only just remembered I was there, and that I’d never seen her move like that.

I swallowed hard, words leaving my throat, although I made great pains to keep them from being an accusation. “You’re fae too.”