Lady Undine Lightborne III stared in a state of both shock and horror as the large kobold statue that she had idly touched, came to life before her very eyes.

A magical trap set by kobolds?

Undine couldn't believe it. The things were hardly the most intelligent species in the world, and even their 'magicians' were little more than hedge witches with no real skill. An enchantment of this caliber should be impossible for those carrion eaters. She stumbled backwards over a small bump in the stone and landed firmly on her rear.

Her life flashed before her eyes as the golem raised its incredibly heavy weapon and stepped towards her to smash her like an insect. Her brain wouldn't let her move and she could do little more than stare helplessly as she attempted to scramble backwards. Just as the large war hammer was only a foot from smashing her into paste, she was dragged backwards by a strong hand.

Hideki had somehow closed the distance from across the cavern in the short seconds that had passed and he had saved her from certain doom. Undine felt her cheeks grow red at the thought of being saved by the dimwitted swordsman.

"Head back to the spot we came here through. I'll buy you two some time and follow."

Undine stared blankly for a moment.

"Go!"

She jumped at the harshness in his voice and backed towards the darkness as he dashed off towards the threat without a second thought. Undine couldn't help but admire his stupid bravery, if only just a little. Behind her she saw Megumi's staff illuminating the darkness near their exit point; the green eerie light signaled to her that the necromancer was about ready to do something stupid, like fire off one of her explosive attacks underground. She had to stop her before things went south. 

Hideki had to be out of his mind trying to fight that thing with a sword. Undine had admired his bravery, but he really was an idiot for trying to slash the leg of the giant golem. A loud clang sounded through the darkness as steel met stone. The golem took no damage whatsoever and countered the swordsman's attack with speed she wouldn't have thought possible for something so large. The heavy stone war hammer slammed into Hideki's chest and he went flying off further into the darkness of the expansive cavern. 

"No!" Megumi yelled as she stepped forward, with her staff glowing an even brighter green. 

"Wait! You'll bring the whole place down on us."

"He's going to die if I don't blast that thing apart!"

"He wanted us to get away."

"I will not leave Poro-tan, I can save him."

Undine could see the determination in the girl's eyes. She would bring the place down in order to get him out. It looked like she would have to step up and take care of matters once more, just as she had against the insect monsters at the beach. "You can't, but I can. You'd better be grateful for this, girl."

"Just shut up already and do something."

Undine gritted her teeth and then concentrated. Many at the academy she had attended dismissed water magic as nearly useless, and those who didn't seemed to spend their time on creating aqua prisons and the like, rather than working on the most fundamental and powerful aspect of water magic; phase shifting. 

She had never been a genius when it came to magic, she had to work hard at it, but by focusing on the fundamentals she was able to surpass her peers and show people that water magic, while not as flashy as fire magic, was not something to dismiss. She popped open the cork on the large container of water that she had been forced to cart around like some kind of pack mule, and willed the water to flow out and gather in front of her.

Megumi had stopped her casting and the only light in the cavern was coming from Hideki's sword. She could see him slumped against a stalagmite and could hear the heavy footfalls in the darkness of the cavern echoing around her. This had to work, it just had to. 

"I'll back you up if things go south," Megumi reassured her as Undine dashed off towards the fallen swordsman.

Undine didn't bother responding, as if things got that bad, then she would die either way. She had no doubt in her mind that she was the expendable one in the party, and if Megumi wanted to force her to be a decoy while she and Hideki got away, that there was nothing she could do about it. 

That damned girl had better be grateful for this!

Hideki was stirring just as she got there. Only a short time had passed since this had all began, but there were four of the golems converging on his position. Just as a hammer was about to smash down onto her undead companion's head, he rolled away and scrambled back onto his feet. 

"What are you doing?! I told you to go. You two could have gotten away." He ran around drawing the attention of the enemy combatants. It was clear that he was in no shape to fight, and she was sure that any normal person would have never gotten up from the blow he had received. At least the girl's magic had made them durable.

"She won't go. Keep them distracted."

A grunt was the only reply she received, but he did his job. None of the golems were coming after her, and she concentrated on her work. The water that floated in front of her stretched out like a serpent and wound its way towards the nearest golem that was chasing Hideki. The water worked its way around the left knee joint of the enemy and into the tiny cracks that existed there. 

Precious seconds ticked away while she made sure that the water was doing its job, and then when she was satisfied, she shifted the liquid to its solid form. The water expanded as it froze and pushed the tiny cracks apart until the joint broke and the golem lurched forward, crashing hard onto the stone floor of the cavern.

The noise had caught the attention of one of the other golems, and it must have decided that she was an actual threat after what had happened to the other one as it broke away from the ones chasing Hideki and came barreling straight for her. What was worse, was that the one she had downed, was still not out of the fight. 

It was crawling towards her determined to rip her apart. She had to work quickly. Undine did her best to not panic and quickly shifted the ice back to water and in the span of moments, dismembered the golem that had been crawling her way. Her problems were just starting, however, as the other one had now reached her and its weapon was already mid-air heading towards her. 

She squeaked and narrowly moved back just as the weapon smashed into the ground in front of her, sending rock shards flinging towards her. The sharp pieces of stone stung as they hit her and one cut her face. Her beautiful, noble face! The water she had been using was now at her disposal again and she brought it up in front of her in the shape of a wall and froze it just as the enemy's weapon was coming down towards her again.

The ice cracked under the pressure of the blow, but it held. She took the precious couple seconds she had gained while the monstrosity tried to yank its weapon free of the ice, and she backed up several paces before focusing once more on the task at hand. Sweat trickled down her face, and she couldn't believe how often she was being placed in harms way since becoming this woman's.... servant, but she shook that thought off and focused on melting a portion of the water that held the axe.

The liquid flowed up the mostly in-tact wall of ice and up the handle of the weapon. She could just barely make out what she was doing, but it would be enough. She wrapped the water around the arm of the golem and just as before, froze it, breaking the arm off at the elbow.

She had to hold back a little cheer of victory as the golem tumbled backwards and crashed to the ground. I'm not done yet! Focus, you can do this. You're the best aquamancer on the continent!

Undine dismantled the enemy just as quickly and effectively as she had the last, and then turned her attention back to Hideki. He was running around yelling, and occasionally sending out shockwaves of energy from his sword at the giant kobold golems, which had just as much effect as swinging his blade at them. 

His stamina was impressive, she had to admit that she didn't think she could have kept up running around as long as he had, and without tripping over one of the little pieces of stone sticking up here and there out of the floor as well. He was running in her direction now that he had seen she was successful in taking down half of the enemies. 

The remaining kobold golems looked just as the last two with the exceptions being their weapons. One held an enormous two handed mace with wicked spikes protruding from it that was smashing through stalagmites here and there as it swung desperately for its prey, and the other had a long sword and shield.

The bigger threat appeared to be the one with the mace, so she concentrated on that as Hideki turned sharply, darting away from her again. His luck had run out, however as the two enemies had him heading right for the wall of the cavern. She needed to work faster! Her mind was feeling fatigue already from all the work she had been doing, and her mana reserves were not looking so great either. 

She would need some time to recover after she took down the one with the mace. She took a deep breath and the water shot towards the enemies across the cavern like a spear. The liquid slammed into the back of the mace-wielding golem and she had it envelop the thing's upper body around the shoulder joints and froze it just as it was readying a powerful overhead attack. 

Both arms snaped off while the construct was in mid-swing and smashed to the ground behind it.  Hideki couldn't do much, and he was close to being trapped as the other golem closed in, but he got in close and kicked the golem hard. It teetered and then crashed backwards onto its broken arms. Not wasting any time, he dashed off again towards her; narrowly avoiding being horizontally bisected by the huge long sword.

"I can't get that last one, I need a moment!"

She was beginning to feel dizzy and sat down hard as she felt herself starting to fall. She reached into her bag and pulled out one of their few remaining mana potions and popped the cork out between her teeth. She downed the nasty concoction and squeezed her eyes shut. The sound of stone grinding against stone echoed through the cavern and her heart was pounding so hard in her chest that she couldn't hardly believe it hadn't bounded out of her chest.

Precious moments passed by and she heard a grunt and then a smash. She forced her eyes open and saw Hideki once again on the ground. These things were simply the worst possible opponent for someone of his skill set. She gritted her teeth and forced herself back up onto wobbly legs. 

She wasn't going to make it. This had just taken too much out of her, and the golem was going in for the kill. Hideki had gotten a shield out at some point and was holding it weakly out in front of himself. He was a goner, but she had to try. The water across the room was too far away, but she had just a little left in a container on her belt. It would have to be enough to help him get away, wouldn't it?

Before she could even get the cap off, a concentrated bolt of green eldritch energy flew right in front of her and smashed into the golem's side with a deafening boom. The cavern shook and stalactites  crashed to the ground around her. It felt as though the place was gonna cave in on them, but luckily it didn't. 

Undine held her breath as the world shook around her and the construct blasted apart over Hideki. Chips of stone flew everywhere, and what was remaining of the final golem crashed to the ground as though in a heap of rubble. 

Her head was still spinning and she still couldn't believe her luck that the whole place hadn't crashed down on them. Megumi rushed right past her and over to Hideki, who was doing his best to get back up onto his feet. The girl crouched down in front of him and whispered something that Undine couldn't make out and shoved a potion bottle into his mouth.

"I'm fine as well. Thanks." Undine said as she brushed dust off of herself and made her way to the others.

"Thanks for saving him, Undine. I knew I made the right choice in picking you for being my new toy."

It infuriated Undine to no end that she was treated this way, but at least she had received some praise for her hard work this day. "What do we do next? I have the absolute worst mana headache after all of that."

"Go ahead and rest for a little bit, but we're going to keep going. We need to get the hell out of this hole already."

"Okay." Undine didn't have the energy to argue about continuing, and she didn't even disagree. Spending any more time down here than necessary was absolutely not something she wanted to do. It still bothered her immensely that the kobolds had been able to set such a trap.

Just how old were these enchantments? Had someone helped them? If so, then what was the purpose and what were these things guarding? Undine spent the next several minutes wrestling with these questions and when her headache finally subsided, she spent a moment to collect the water that had been spent during the battle.

With her heavy water container full once more, and Hideki back on his feet, they were ready to go.

"Any suggestions for how we should proceed?" Megumi asked.

"I think we should circle around the room and look for passages. Other than that, there really isn't anything we can do," Hideki replied.

"Lead on, servant," Undine said.

"You know, you're just as much a servant as I am," he retorted.

"She's even more of a servant, Poro-tan." Megumi grinned.

"B-But he's low-born! How can you place him above me?! Didn't I just show you my worth again?"

"Don't worry, she's just messing with you. Probably."

Hideki held up his glowing sword again and the three of them marched towards the nearest wall and made their way around the room. Undine stayed in the rear the entire time. I'm not pouting! I just don't want to be close to the awful light!

She knew she was lying to herself, but sometimes the truth was just too hard to admit. She was literally the lowest person on the hierarchy here. Her. The high lady of Rivean who was supposed to have been the future queen of Castellum such a short time ago. She had made such a blunder of things by not investigating the girl sooner. It had cost her more than her life, it had cost her title and her eternity.

Undine felt herself falling deeper into her depression step by step as they made their way around. Once all was said and done, they had found two ways out of the cavern. One was a larger passageway that seemed to angle downward slightly, and the other was a tight looking crevice that lead upward. 

Despite the strong desire to avoid more tight spaces, she definitely wanted to go up, rather than down at this point. "We should take the narrow passageway," she suggested to the others.

"It is likely to lead to a dead end, I vote for the bigger one," Hideki said.

"Are you nuts?! It leads down! That's the opposite way we want to go."

"Things might not always be like they seem. It might go down, and then back up. What do you think Megumi?"

The girl looked thoughtfully towards the narrow passageway that they now stood by before answering. "I think he's right. It's really narrow, the larger passage is more likely to lead us somewhere."

"You can't be serious!? If it leads us anywhere it will lead us straight to their lair or town or whatever it is kobolds consider a society. A small passage is likely to lead us out!"

"Let's just check it out. We can always come back here if we need to back track." 

Undine bit her tongue. They were seriously going to get her killed. Again. She sniffed and followed along as they all went to the large passageway. The path was smooth and seemed too good to be true as they traveled along.  Hideki stayed out front and kept an eye out for traps, and eerily enough they didn't find anything of the sort that were typically associated with kobolds.

After several minutes of winding downward, they came to what looked like a dead end, only there was something odd to be seen. The trio got closer and Undine nearly wet herself when she realized what it was. With a quick motion, she grabbed Megumi's wrist and yanked her backwards. 

"Get away from it you fools!"

Hideki didn't waste any time arguing and backed away from the wall. Before them stood a large runic circle. The runes were ancient and appeared to bleed from the stone. The dark lettering was a stark contrast to the white marble that made up the wall around it. Intricate geometric patterns spun out in a circle and in the center was the ancient rune that she only recognized from a text book in her ancient history class.

"I... didn't think they were real."

"What is it?"

"Didn't you get a formal education?"

"No. My family was murdered in the middle of the night before I had the privilege of going to an academy for magic. Just tell us what it is already."

"That's one of the four eternal prisons. They hold the old gods of destruction at bay. They are spread out across the world and have been lost to humanity for eons. There are some ancient diagrams in old texts that show them. They are never to be touched, or tampered with or the ones held within can be released into our world again. I thought it was superstitious nonsense."

"So this is what the golems were supposed to guard I guess," Hideki took another step back.

"Well... I see no reason for us to mess with this, then. Let's go back."

The runes on the diagram appeared to pulse slightly and Undine could have sworn that they were bleeding even more than before. "Let's get away from it right now."

Her companions didn't need to be told twice and they quickly made their way back to the smaller crevice in no time at all. Undine was happy that they hadn't touched the thing, it was said that many of the new gods had died sealing away the ancient ones, and anything like that was something she wanted no part of. 

The three of them squeezed their way through the other passage in silence. What they had just seen had apparently rocked them all to the core. Who would have thought that something like that would be hidden below ground in a kobold lair of all places? She just couldn't wrap her mind around it.

After about an hour of squeezing their way ever upward, they were rewarded with the sweet smell of fresh sea air. They had found their way out and when they finally crawled out of their little hole in the ground, an even better sight awaited them; Seahaven lit up the darkness not far from where they emerged. Waves crashed against the shore nearby and they each let out a whoop of joy as they headed down towards the town. 

Undine would be more than happy to forget what she saw, and she could hardly wait to get a hotel room and sleep in a real bed for the first time in what felt like forever. She took a deep breath and smiled as she looked up at the starry night sky. Maybe things wouldn't be so bad for a while, she was a servant, but at least she was servant to a princess. She could live with that she supposed.