I think I like autumn here better, but that doesn’t come as a

  surprise. The brisk wind, the brilliant leaves, the odd scent that

  comes with it; it’s all perfect. Watching the world prepare itself

  for winter, preparing for inevitable rebirth and change in a way

  countless poems try to capture... it captivates me.

  Distracting, too. I push myself off the ground, dusting myself off

  and making sure I don’t pick up any splinters from our latest kill.

  “Do these count as kills, do you think, or underbrush clearing?”

  I say aloud, wincing the moment it leaves my mouth. Gods, that was

  terrible.

  “Um, what?” Helena replies, turning to look at me. She’s

  reaching up at a crystal dangling from a branch, and unfortunately

  she’s too short to manage. It’s kind of adorable. “Sorry, I’m

  a little distracted with this...”

  “And you switched back to exploring pretty quickly,” I nod,

  crossing my arms. My tail slaps the ground behind me, kicking up a

  puff of leaves. “You’re getting used to this. Good.”

  I stride on over, boots crunching through the ever-growing layer of

  falling leaves. It’s so satisfying, and I can’t help but kick my

  feet a bit to send puffs of leaves up into the air.

  “Stand still for a second, will you?” Placing a hand on her

  shoulder, I push up onto the tips of my toes, reaching up to the

  crystalline leaf and hooking two fingers around the stem. A little

  twist and pull is all it takes to take it down, and I present it to

  Helena. “Here.”

  She looks at it, lip caught between her teeth. Her expression clears,

  and she takes the crystal out of my hand. “Ah. Thank you!”

  “You’re welcome,” I shrug, taking my hand off her shoulder and

  stepping away. “Let’s get a move on, then?”

  “O-of course! But, what did you mean about underbrush clearing?

  Does that make the monsters a form of scrub tree?”

  Oh, Gods, she remembers. Of course she did. Fighting the heat in my

  cheeks, I look firmly away and start walking. “It was a stray

  thought. Don’t worry about it.”

  Helena giggles. “Ah, okay then.”

  There’s a comfortable quiet that follows, giving me time to

  recover... and to hear a strange snuffling sound, coming from the

  woods. That’s not how the wolf monsters have sounded; this sound is

  heavier, deeper. Something bigger.

  “We need to move, Helena,” I say, voice clear and crisp. I glance

  around the clearing, taking note of where the sound seems to be

  coming from, and pick out a cluster of trees with high branches.

  “Hope you’re ready to climb. If not, you’ll need to get on my

  back.”

  Helena’s expression sharpens, and she tilts her head. A moment

  later, realization dawns, and her eyes widen. She nods curtly, her

  hands glow green, and we hurry out of the clearing.

  And not a moment too soon, it seems. I’ve barely finished helping

  Helena hoist herself up onto a higher branch when enters

  the clearing: a shivering mass of thorny briars, wrapped tight around

  the shape of a massive wooden bear. Its eyes gleam orange, and a

  black tar oozes out from between splintery, wicked-looking teeth.

  Each step is a that shakes the ground, enough for my

  sharpened senses to feel even up here. Its snuffling sounds more like

  the wheezing of wind through branches, now that I can hear it more

  clearly. The monster strides across the clearing, head on a swivel,

  but its path leads it directly to the corpse of the wooden wolf

  monster.

  Looks like we have a food chain in here, huh? I wonder what the

  wolves eat.

  The branch creaks, and all good humor escapes me in a heartbeat. Its

  head snaps up to us, eyes no doubt straining against the impossible

  shadows of this forest. I can see Helena’s chest still as she

  presses herself further into the tree. Her expression is more curious

  than scared, though; it’s a good attitude to have. Nerves are

  important, but keeping calm in a Delve is even more critical.

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  The bear sniffs the air. Once, twice, three times.

  It turns away, and sinks its teeth into the wooden corpse. The sound

  of squealing, crunching wood fills the clearing.

  Helena exhales slowly, her breath rasping against my ears, and I do

  the same— though I flood my breath with Wind. I take that movement

  and amplify it, swirling it into a sphere that should seal off our

  scent and sound from the world. It’s a bit taxing, and I can feel

  the drain on my already dwindling reserves, but it’s worth it.

  Then, I let out a normal sigh, and let myself move to the second step

  of appraising this new threat. It’s bigger, it’s tougher, and

  it’s got a glint of magic in its eyes.

  The movement of its joints looks more natural, less like a monstrous

  wooden toy and more like a seamless living being. I'd need to break

  its joints, which I can certainly do, but without my knife, I'll need

  to rely on Wind magic.

  That thing isn't from this layer at all, I realize. It's from much

  deeper— a few hundred marches deeper. Enough that it could be a

  decent threat to me without armor and a weapon.

  “That... looks like it’ll be hard to kill,” Helena whispers,

  echoing my own thoughts. “Thank you for the sound sphere, Ivy. I

  haven’t worked that one out.”

  I glance up at her and raise an eyebrow. I understand her eagerness,

  but it’s best to put a damper on it quickly. “I’ve had a lot of

  practice, and no, we’re fighting it. It's way tougher

  than anything else here, and it’d be easier to sneak past it than

  to kill it. If I had all my gear, it’d be easy, but I don’t.”

  To my surprise, Helena simply nods. “Oh, okay.”

  And that’s that.

  We do still have to sit in that tree for a while, though. The bear

  takes forever to finish eating that monster corpse, and spends time

  circling the clearing, probably trying to track our scent.

  Helena presses her hands against her back and stretches, groaning.

  “Oh, Gods. My back aches. Is there anything for that? A warming

  spell, maybe, or, um... ow.”

  “Sitting in a tree will do that to you. You get used to muscle

  soreness, eventually,” I lie, then think better of it. “Well,

  it’s more like you learn to put up with it, or it gets harder to

  get sore. Both, I guess.”

  “Jordan already bothers me about posture in chairs,” Helena

  mumbles. “Is there a bath at the Manor I could borrow? Something

  really hot? I’m going to need it.”

  “Right after I get my shot, unless you want to share it,” I roll

  my shoulders. My foot jams into a rock, and I grunt. “Mind the

  ground, I guess.”

  “At least we’re close. We are close, right? Um, we should have

  another hour or two, but...” She pauses. “That’s enough time to

  get back out too, right?”

  I run it over in my head. “With a Delve Heart, I can probably force

  our way out to the first layer once we’re about halfway back. My

  own stabilization of the portal stops me from doing the same to the

  first layer, but we can skip the whole thing by jumping down the

  cliff. I can carry you, if you’re worried about your Wind-cushion

  spell failing.”

  “Plenty of time, then?” Helena affirms, nodding along.

  “Plenty of time,” I agree. The trees are thinning out now, and

  there’s more leaves on the ground than ever. “We’ll want to try

  and get moving before winter hits, assuming this Delve doesn’t

  alternate between two seasons. And, hm. Trying to figure out how

  close we are.”

  I open my senses to the Delve, feeding a bit of magic into my mind to

  speed up the process. The slope of depth is increasing at a steady

  rate as we head towards ‘Delve down’, and I can just barely make

  out something thrumming beneath it.

  There it is. The rippling of a Delve Heart, like waves on the ocean.

  “There’s the Delve Heart, then. Not that it’s any surprise,

  there’s always one past the first layer. So, yes, we’re close.”

  Helena smiles. I match it, and do a little cheer inside my head. I

  have a dinner to get ready for, and as much as I’m dreading it, the

  bath I get beforehand will be amazing.

  “I’m ready to be done. Um, no offense. I’m loving Delving, but

  I definitely want that bath, too.”

  I grunt, nodding. “Don’t let it distract you. We’re not out of

  the woods yet.”

  I pause. Helena snorts, and I press my hands into my face to groan.

  And then we are out of the woods, barely two minutes later, looking

  at yet another copy of the chapel. More accurately, we’re right at

  the edge, and the trees are so sparse near the chapel that it’s

  more a plain than a woodland.

  Chapel is a strong word for it, too. It’s a ruin vaguely resembling

  a chapel, if it was picked up and then dropped from ten marches in

  the air. Sturdy construction, and the doors are still intact, but

  it’s more holes than walls.

  And from those holes, a faint golden light leaks out, a perfect match

  for the light of Delve magic.

  “There’s our Delve Heart,” I say, letting my shoulders sag with

  relief. “This is the halfway point, and we’re just retracing our

  steps from here. But that’s no excuse to let our guard down.”

  I hear the crunching of leaves, and I watch with complete and utter

  bafflement as Helena jogs out of the woods and towards the chapel.

  “Let’s get on with it, then!” She calls back over her shoulder,

  far too loud.

  Each crunch of her boots on the leaves makes me wince. She’s out in

  the open, far from every shadow, and

  “Helena!” I bark, my voice cracking. I take a step forward, then

  start jogging to catch up. She’s almost to the door now, and I’m

  suddenly reminded of how I was slammed through the doors of the real

  chapel only a few hours before.

  Then comes the familiar snuffling, and the of

  heavy paws.