They continued to explore. The caverns were well cavernous.  

“We should head back and check to see if the storm broke,” Voekeer said.  

“I’ll do it,” Anna replied, and an eye shot off at high speed, blurring through the tunnels. It reached the entrance in seconds.  

Anna shook her head. “Woooh, not going to look through it while it’s doing that again,” she thought, feeling dizzy.  

The eye slipped through the narrow passage and up out of the snow. The entire entrance was buried beneath snow. It looked like more than ten feet had fallen in the hours they had been in the cave, and the snow was still falling.  

“The entrance is buried, and it’s still snowing,” Anna said.  

“What are we going to do? All of our food is in the packs,” Elaine asked.  

“Lass, there is plenty of food down here. We may be down here for weeks,” Thokri said.  

“We need to setup a camp then. Anna, where was the kobolds lair? We may need to stay there,” Voekeer asked.  

“Uh, you don’t want to go there. It’s kind of a mess,” Anna replied.  

“Right,” he said. “Well, Thokri, what do you suggest? I’ve never spent much time underground, so I’m at a loss here,” Voekeer said.  

“Well, lad, let’s find the biggest pool of water we can find. No washing in it. Water down here doesn’t flow often, so we will just use it to drink and cook with,” Thokri began.  

“Will it need to be purified?” Barika asked.  

“It’s clean from filtering through the stone. Dwarves drink it. You might need to boil it for other folks though,” Thokri said. Barika nodded.  

“What about food?” Elaine asked, sounding curious instead of worried.  

“Mushrooms mostly, but bugs and spiders if we can find them,” Thokri replied. Elaine looked disgusted at the mention of bugs and spiders, but she didn’t say anything.  

Anna looked at the others. They were starting to shiver again, except for Thokri. She was beginning to think he may be immune to the cold. They didn’t have any fuel for a fire, and Thorki had said it was dangerous to build them deep in a cave anyway. Something about running out of air.  

“What can I do to help?” she thought, thinking back on the past few months. She went over everything that could help. “That’s it. The dreamer,” she said excitedly.  

“What about it, lass?” Thokri asked.  

“Not the dreamer itself. The core. It gets hot,” Anna replied.  

“What does that have to do with anything?” Lyreen asked. “Hold on. I’ll show you,” Anna replied.  

She focused on pulling every drop of mana from her channels, an easy task after all her practice, then slowly, she filled them all with the power from the dreamer’s core. Soon her dress started to steam. The others looked on with understanding dawning on their faces. Her dress was dry in no time, and she stripped it off.  

“Give me your clothes. I’ll put them on and dry them,” she said.  

One by one they stripped, and she dried the clothing while wearing it. The adventurers wear relatively loose-fitting clothing, so she could fit all of it. She just held the undergarments to her chest, not wanting to put them on.  

With dry clothes on, everyone was warm again and set about to collect food.  

Thokri had found some hollow mushrooms that could be used to store water and even began to carve a large pot out of a soft stone with a set of tools he had in his pouch.  

“How does he fit all of that in that?” Anna thought.  

They couldn’t set up a camp per say. All of their equipment was in their packs and buried under feet of snow at the moment, but they did find a nice flat spot near enough to a supply of water. It was surrounded by a great deal of the glowing mushrooms, so they decided to use it as base camp.  

They split into three groups to gather supplies based on their ability to see in the dark. The humans, having almost no night vision, stayed at the relatively bright base camp. The elves, needing little light, were sent to gather mushrooms of all variety to eat and craft into tools.  

Lastly was Anna and Thokri, who can see in complete darkness. They went to hunt the denizens of the caverns. Those that would flee when any light shone upon them.  

“Forward, twenty feet, two spiders,” Thokri signed. He had taught her dwarf sign. They used it while hunting underground. Most things down here could hear far better than they could see, so even a whisper would be heard. She had learned enough in a few hours to be fluent in its use.  

“Those are the biggest fucking spiders I have ever seen,” Anna thought.  

Said spiders were the size of cattle. Thokri had told her to crush the spot between their eyes. That was the fastest. This was the first time they had been this close, stalking the beasts for several hours before attempting the kill.  

Thokri lifted his spear, aiming at the aforementioned spot. He would throw first. She would hit the second with a rock at the same moment the spear struck. He reared back and threw the spear with all his might. Anna tossed the rock just before the spear struck. They hit at the same time.  

The spear pierced the thin carapace. The spider fell to the ground twitching. The rock punched a fist sized hole in its spider, causing the beast to slide back a few feet before coming to a rest. It was just dead, not twitching at all.  

“We are going to go on a professional hunt after this contract, just the two of us,” Thokri said. He had made some rope from fibrous fungus and was making a harness to drag the spider carcasses back.  

“Sounds fun. Any reason why?” Anna asked.  

“Lass, you could just chuck rocks at the game. We wouldn’t need to bring spears or bows. Make a fortune selling the hides that didn’t have holes in them,” Thokri said while they headed back to the campsite.  

“Makes sense. You’d have to skin them once for me to watch,” she replied.  

“Aye,” he replied.  

They broke the spiders down in a smaller cavern near the camp, not wanting to risk contaminating the water supply.  

Once they finished, they brought the useful parts back to the camp where Lyreen had started to boil a large amount of water in the pot Thokri had crafted. The others had already sorted and laid out the mushrooms and other fungus for Thokri to inspect.  

Anna started to toss spider legs in the pot. They needed to cook all the meat before it spoiled. The pot sat on several large stones with a hand full of rough shaped crystals. They were putting out a large amount of heat. Anna could see sparkles all around them.  

“Fire stones,” Lyreen said.  

“Why didn’t they just use those to keep warm,” Anna thought.  

“They use a large amount of mana, and they are either on or off. So, boil a giant pot of water or stone cold,” Lyreen said.  

“At least I didn’t ask,” Anna thought.  

The pot simmered away. Lyreen had removed some of the fire stones to slow the boil. They added some of the mushrooms as well to make a kind of spider stew. Voekeer had fashioned some of the hallow mushrooms into bowls.  

“I thought you didn’t like wood carving?” Elaine asked.  

“It’s not that I don’t like it. I just didn’t want to do it for a living,” he answered.  

“This is amazing,” Elaine said while eating her third bowl of stew.  

“Try some of this, lass,” Thokri said, handing her a pouch. It contained a fine powder.  

“Salt?” she said.  

“Aye,” he replied.  

“I thought all the salt was in the packs?” Elaine asked.  

“Aye, but where do you think salt comes from?” he asked.  

“The sea,” she replied.  

“Aye, it does, but it can be found in the ground as well,” Thokri said.  

“How does it get underground?” Anna asked.  

“No idea. Same way as metals I guess,” Thokri said.  

Anna was eating one of the legs. “It’s like some cross between chicken and fish, sort of bland on its own,” Anna thought, eating a large hunk. “Butter would be nice,” she said.  

“That would be good,” Barika said.  

They had more than enough food and fresh water. The cave was on the cool side of comfortable, but the others had warm clothes, so they just needed to wait out the storm.  

They salted most of the spider meat, only cooking the legs that day. They kept the pot simmering, adding fresh water and ingredients to start a sort of forever stew, although this one wouldn’t be on for more than a week or two.  

Thokri and Anna continued to explore the caves. They were more extensive than they had first thought.  

“We’re getting deeper,” Thokri said, looking at the walls of the passage. “Things get more aggressive the deeper you go,” he continued.  

Anna nodded. “Thokri, can you read and write?” Anna asked. She had been thinking about the dwarven sign language and figured that he should know how to read as well.  

“Aye, lass, in dwarven and a few human tongues as well,” he replied.  

“Could you teach me dwarven?” Anna asked.  

He walked over and hugged her, lifting her off the ground. “I’d thought you’d never ask,” he said grinning from ear to ear.  

Deeper and deeper they went. There were less and less of the glowing mushrooms. There were more fungi and mushrooms of different types however, and much more wildlife.  

“It doesn’t have eyes,” she thought, inspecting a small rodent that was attempting to hide under a large mushroom. She was tempted to use the eye on it, but things could see heat down here, and she didn’t want to draw any more attention than she had too.  

She began to walk out of the current cavern when she caught a faint, yet familiar, scent. “Blood,” she signed to Thokri. He nodded, and she pointed in its direction.  

It was close. She sniffed the air again. It was stronger here. She began to hear raspy breathing. She found the creature.  

It looked as if it had attempted to hide under some of the mushrooms but passed out from blood loss before it could finish. It was roughly human shaped but had the features of a bat, including wings in place of arms, clawed feet, and huge ears. She used the eye to check the extent of its injuries. Barika had given her a rough idea of anatomy, so she knew what to look for.  

The creature was close to human except for a few things. Its bones were much lighter, its lungs were larger, and its guts were just different. She wasn’t sure why.  

“He’s got a bunch of broken bones, and that gash on its side. I think he’s bleeding inside as well. We need to get him to Barika,” Anna said.  

“He?” Thokri asked.  

“Yeah, he’s swinging,” Anna replied.  

Thokri nodded and began to bandage the man. They collected some stiff mushroom stalks to make a makeshift litter. Slinging him over her shoulder seemed like a terrible idea with his internal injuries.  

The trip back was slow going. The man was light, but it was unwieldy carrying him through the tight passages. It took hours. They began running as soon as the path was clear.  

“He won’t make it much longer. He’s bleeding inside,” Anna said as they set the litter down in camp.  

Barika rushed over and began to examine the man. “Anna, do you have any star flower? We need black bark as well,” Barika asked.  

“A hand full of each. The flowers are dried,” Anna replied as she pulled them from one of her pouches. They had been in her pack during the siege, so they survived the fireball that had consumed her old belt and pouches.  

“Tea or poultice?” Anna asked.  

“Tea. The goddess’s grace will take care of the wounds. A tea will take care of any infection. I don’t have the strength to do both,” Barika replied.  

Anna began to make the tea. She placed portions of each of the herbs into thin cloth pouches and filled a small stone bowl with water. She heated the water with her hand, using a small amount of the dreamer’s power.  

Barika had finished healing the man. He was half awake, looking around. Barika held him up and gave him the tea. He drank slowly. Once finished, he began to squeak and chirp, looking at each of them.  

“I don’t understand,” Anna replied. He looked at her for a moment, and then passed out.  

“Never seen his kind before,” Thokri said, looking at the man closely. The others hadn’t either.  

“He was grazed with a spear or something like it,” Barika said. She was exhausted from healing the man and was currently nibbling at a bowl of stew. “Clean cut. Beasts tear flesh,” she said.  

“I’m a damned fool,” Thorki swore.  

“What?” Voekeer asked.  

“We left a trail a blind human could follow back there. If the lad is being hunted, I led them right to us,” Thokri replied.  

Hours passed, and the man remained unconscious. The party remained vigilant, but no threats materialized. The creature woke up and began squeaking and chirping.  

“I still don’t understand you,” Anna replied.  

“Lass, can you hear him?” Thokri asked.  

“Yes. He’s speaking, but I’ve never heard anything like it,” she replied.  

“Lass, I can’t hear a thing. Looks like the humans can’t either. What about you, elves?” Thokri asked.  

Voekeer shook his head no.  

“I can hear some soft chirps, but that’s it,” Lyreen said.  

Barika offered him some food. He couldn’t grab the spoon, so she fed him. He ate greedily.  

“Lad’s hungry,” Thorki said.  

“He lost a lot of blood. It will take time for him to recover,” Barika said.  

He finished several bowls and then went back to sleep. The party went back to doing random camp chores. Thokri began to teach Anna dwarvish. A day went by with no visitors. The party relaxed. The bat man seemed to be taking it all in stride, eating a huge amount of food. They had plenty, so they didn’t mind.  

Thokri knew how fast Anna could memorize things and taught her at an incredible rate. She could speak a few dwarven phrases and was beginning to learn the written language.  

“And it hung below his knee,” she said aloud, reading what he had written. He had a mushroom stock that left a smudgy mark when rubbed on stone and was using it to write.  

“What in the world are you teaching her?” Elaine asked shocked.  

“She’s learn’n dwarven, lass. Just a bit of poetry for her,” Thokri replied grinning.  

“Dwarven poetry,” Elaine replied with a shudder.  

“Aye, lass. Just a bit of learn’n,” Anna said.  

Lyreen looked at Elaine. “We’ve lost her. She’s gone full dwarf on us,” Lyreen said.  

“I fear so,” Elaine replied.  

“Na, no hair on her ass. Can’t be a dwarf,” Thokri said.  

“But she is a woman,” Lyreen said.  

“Aye,” Thokri said.  

“Wait. You mean dwarven women have hair there as well?” Elaine asked.  

“Aye,” Thokri said with a smile.  

“OH GODS! WHY DID I ASK?” Elaine said with a sob.  

Thokri and Anna chuckled, and Anna went back to reading, this time out loud.