Witmie and Durn made camp around Merijest and Thesa, who still needed some time before getting up.

  Zynchra occupied the non-sapient [Familiars]. None of them, it seemed, had been subjected to the Ground Sphinx's riddles.

  The Bronze Motif seemed particularly relieved to see Zynchra and was clinging to their left shoulder.

  When the tents were set, Merijest signaled to Witmie and Durn that they could turn in for the night. A few minutes after they had retired to their tent, Thesa began to unfold, although she seemed embarrassed.

  “Do you think you could build the fire, Thesa?” Merijest asked in a soothing voice. “It might give you something to do.”

  Thesa nodded and pulled herself into a sitting position. As she positioned some sticks and logs from her pack, Merijest shadowed her, staying right beside her [Witch] the whole time.

  “Did I already mess up part of the fire?” Thesa asked as she used her halberd to poke at the glowing strips of ashen wood.

  “You've done perfectly, kitten,” Merijest said, seeming only then to notice herself. She put a hand on Thesa's jaw and turned Thesa's head so they could look in one another's eyes. “You're doing splendidly, Thesa. I couldn't have asked for a more devoted [Witch].”

  Thesa felt a stirring in her chest at those words but she also felt a terrified reaction bubbling in her lungs.

  “You save me more often than I save you,” Thesa said. “When we first met you were so cold to me. What if the only reason you softened up to me over time is because you feel bad for me?”

  Merijest shook her head. “I didn't know what to make of you at first. I knew just as little about you as you did of me. But I saw what kind of person you were and since the moment you became my [Witch], I have never doubted your devotion, Thesa.”

  “But–” Thesa started.

  “But nothing, Thesa.” Merijest grew taller. “Do you think I'm so poor a judge of character? Do you think so little of the [Deity] you serve?”

  Thesa felt an unprecedented clarity arising in her. It was like she'd just breathed fresh air for the first time. Thesa did trust Merijest. She had no reason to doubt her.

  “If you're not ready to talk about it, I can wait. But if it might be relevant to our continued survival, I would be so grateful if you would indulge me,” Merijest said.

  Thesa nodded. It was impossibly difficult. She still wasn't sure where to start, but she would lay it all out and Merijest would help her sort everything.

  But before she could bring herself to speak, a pair of whispering voices echoed through the labyrinth from somewhere up ahead.

  “I can’t believe they put me in charge of babysitting.”

  “Hey, I don’t like this anymore than you, but the fact of the matter is that we both failed on our own. Let’s just do our best to finish this quickly.”

  Before Merijest even had a chance to [Message] the party, Ailgeth and Frinx charged around the corner with a half-dozen trainee archers in tow. In her rush of worry over Thesa, the demoness had yet to set up her protective hexes.

  “Knights!” Thesa shouted as she jumped up and raised her Halberd. She initiated her [Arrow Time] ability as Ailgeth’s arrow swooshed low beside her hips. Through blood-soaked vision, she realized the arrow wasn’t meant for her. She had wasted the ability prematurely.

  “Waltzing visions, let’s dance!” Frinx shouted as they took a deliberate step forward and began playing their hurdy-gurdy. A dozen yellow Fire Constructs materialized before Witmie and Durn could finish awkwardly scrambling out of their tent.

  Despite her best instincts, Thesa looked back at the party for a moment and saw an arrow lodged in Merijest’s thigh. The usually-dark feathers and skin on the demoness’s leg had turned the white-gray color of bone.

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  “It’s not a big deal,” Merijest lied. “Focus on them or we might all die,” she added truthfully.

  As Thesa turned back to the assailants, an arrow flew toward her neck only to be intercepted by Yabba’s bulky, wooden frame. The arrow was lodged deep in its side but whatever poison it was dipped in was pouring out of the wound and off of Yabba’s body like oil on water.

  Thesa ducked from additional volleys.

  “Frinx, did you forget what we talked about?” Ailgeth shouted.

  “Whoopsy, my bad!” Frinx replied in their sing-song way. “It’s time to d-d-d-d-d-d-dance!”

  Frinx’s Fire Constructs turned their collective attention on Yabba and the little Nest Walker creaked with a clarity of expression like never before. The weather vane on its head spun like a hurricane. It was afraid.

  Thesa tried to focus. The knights had clearly thought this attack through, although they had made a few suboptimal decisions. She needed to act fast.

  She pulled the Menthic Axe from her side and threw it at Ailgeth, who neatly sidestepped it and was keen enough to avoid its return flight to the [Witch]’s hand. Frostbite, still young, clung coldly to Thesa's back at the prospect of so many assailants.

  Thesa initiated her [Dive] ability and appeared behind Ailgeth’s troop of archers. She tasted metal as she activated [Strength of Winged Boar] and with a powerful sweep of her halberd, broke through the armor of several archers. Some merely hunched in pain. One fell over with a cleaved spine.

  Three of the still-living archers turned and drew short daggers. Together they kept Thesa busy, although from this side of the corridor she caught glimpses of her allies.

  Witmie and Durn cowered behind the Foxtapus’s psychic shield, having been caught off guard. Durn helped Witmie put on her gauntlets.

  Yabba was running and dodging lunge-after-lunge from Fire Constructs. It let out a creak of fear and pain as a spark landed on its roof. Even Frinx, caught up in their music, was tripped up by the noise. Their playing slowed and stumbled awkwardly as they looked up at the Nest Walker with a twinge of discomfort. But their contemplation was tripped up further by another sound.

  Rather than attacking, Merijest had tied a strip of leather circulation-tight around her leg. There was no better option to stop the poison right now and it was formulated to kill. She scarred herself just below the rib and with the pour of blood the color of the night-sky created a small, glowing blade. Then with little hesitation she wrenched the blade through her own leg. The snap and pop of her hollow bones caught everyone off-guard as night-sky blue blood began pouring from the remains of her leg.

  Thesa might have vomited if she weren’t in the rush of battle. Witmie retched at the back of the group.

  “Thesa, get out of the way,” Merijest [Messaged].

  With another use of her [Dive] ability, Thesa obliged.

  Then Merijest cast her leg, blighted and severed, on the ground. She cupped more of the blood from her wounded side and cast that atop the leg as she muttered.

  Owing to the series of distractions, Frinx had the wherewithal to stop playing their hurdy-gurdy and roll out of the way.

  Ailgeth, too, had been attentive, but her attempt to dodge was in vain. The spell had been cast for her specifically. The severed leg bubbled and sizzled like it was boiling but this quickly took a sharp turn as it became covered in frost and from the bleeding wound the tendons and blood vessels began to stretch agonizingly. Twitching and straining, but nonetheless swift as an insect, the outgrowths seized upon Ailgeth’s own leg. Where the extensions met the knight’s armor, the metal was cracked and twisted into shrapnel as Merijest’s former blood vessels became a part of Ailgeth’s own circulatory system. Foreign, demonic blood and the knight’s own weaponized toxins pumped through her body. In a panic she used a dagger to hack at the intrusive organism, but it was clear the nerves had also become a part of her nervous system and the blighting poison which she’d set upon Merijest swiftly turned the knight’s entire body the color of bone. Ailgeth fell over dead.

  The whole of combat had stopped. The remaining members of Ailgeth’s archers ran. Frinx stood shivering. They coughed, stifling vomit.

  Thesa found herself completely unconcerned with them, however. Merijest was lying on the ground in a pile of dark blood and feathers. And although she had just removed the bulk of the poison from her body, the scales and feathers about her knee were twinged with gray.

  “Quick, she needs healing,” Thesa [Messaged] to Durn. The signal was hazy which did not bode well for Merijest’s well-being.

  Durn nodded and began casting the only minor healing spell she knew as she approached the demoness.

  Thesa used [Dive] to appear behind Frinx and with a surprise shove stood over the newbie knight.

  “You need to leave before I do something I regret,” Thesa found herself saying. The anger and fear she felt was sickening.

  Frinx looked up terrified. They watched as an incongruous body emerged from the shadows, as if it were stitched together from two different people. The flesh horrors just kept coming. They looked up at Thesa and asked, “what the hell happened to you?” Then they picked themself up and ran after the already-long-gone archers.

  As Thesa turned back to Merijest. Durn was tying something over the demoness’s severed leg. “I don’t have the level of healing spells she needs.”

  “Return her to our chamber at once,” Zynchra said, choking out the words without time to think of more economical language. The [Message] channel was no longer active.

  The Foxtapus's eyes glowed as it lifted Merijest's body and started back the way they'd all came.

  Thesa's stomach dropped. Her vision fuzzed. The sensations reminded her of when she first died and her soul drifted from her body. This was less definitive, but she didn’t have to be a genius to know that Merijest was in real trouble if her hold on Thesa’s [Half-Life Revival] was beginning to totter.

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