“Most of the mine collapsed sometime in the past. Only parts of the first two floors can still be accessed.

  Maura pointed to a nearby passage off to the side. “There should be a cache of supplies down this passage. I don’t know what is in them, though.”

  Frostmane led the way down the passage, which only went a few feet before turning to the left. The rest of us followed, keeping close together. The narrow hallway made things difficult, however.

  Siora and Vestele’s screams caused me to whirl around. Behind them stood a large, snake-like being clad in black. A kukri was in his hand, still dripping blood from where he had slashed the twins. It was an ambush!

  Frostmane snarled, and pushed forward, slipping past the twins. With his head lowered, he crashed into the… wereserpent? Whatever it was, he pushed the snakeman back, around the corner. No doubt saving the twins’ lives as he did so.

  I followed in Frostmane’s footsteps, pressing up against the wall as I gathered power in my hands. Icy power blasted the snakeman in the face, staggering him! And then I could see the frost spreading slightly across his scales. “Quickly, take him down! Vestele, check for poison!”

  The snakeman hissed at me, but with Frostmane between me and him there wasn’t much he could do about it, or so I thought. The snakeman shimmered, like a heat haze, and disappeared from sight. The next thing I knew, he appeared out of nowhere, slashing at Siora again, his kukri skipping across the mithril in her breastplate.

  Vestele shrieked in surprise at the sudden appearance of the weresnake. Acting on instinct more than anything else, she cast a spell as defensively as she could, giving no openings to draw an attack, and thrust her hand forward, managing to catch the snakeman on the arm. It was barely a touch, but it was enough. The spell discharged, and the snakeman’s eyes went white as he slumped. By the time he hit the ground, he was already shifting back to his human form, dead.

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  I was distracted from the sudden onrush of information from another level as Siora groaned, leaning back against the wall. Holding her side where the weresnake had hit her, the Beguiler looked over at the charmed sorceress. “Was this one of the outsiders you mentioned?”

  Maura nodded. “Yes, I did not know they were that powerful, though! Or that they could turn into snakes. But they were very secretive about what they were doing.”

  Vestele crouched next to her sister. “Let me see the wound.” She spent a moment checking the wound, and nodded. “Yeah, it is definitely poisoned. I don’t have any spells for that, but I think I can help a bit.” With that said, she started performing some basic first aid, trying to draw out the poison, or something like that.

  Siora sighed, and said, “Thanks, sis. That poison was nasty. I think it was one of the ones that saps your vitality. It will probably be a couple days before I’m back to normal. As it is, I think we’re definitely going to need to rest a bit before we continue on.”

  As I identified the magic items that we took off the weresnake, I couldn’t help but wince at some of those descriptions. Clearing my throat, I said, “Unfortunately, it might be a bit longer before either of you are at full strength. This weapon is nasty enough, but he was wearing a ring that made all his melee attacks do that ‘vile’ damage your rapier does, Siora. Oh, and there’s some items here I can’t identify, since they aren’t strictly magical.”

  Siora muttered a curse. “Of course, it would be something like that. We’ll need some kind of sanctified or holy ground to heal that damage, then. And even then, we’ll need some magical healing to do it.”

  Maura frowned. “I’m sorry. We don’t have anything like that here.”

  Vestele sighed. “The graveyard in Moonwater would be consecrated, to keep any of the town’s dead from rising as the undead. It is out of our way, but once we clear out this mine, we could check in with the townsfolk, to see what they’ve found out, since you asked them to scry for us, Melinda. It would cost us a day and a half, maybe two days. If it is just a couple nicks, then we can ignore it until after we’re done, but if too much stacks up…”

  I nodded. “Sounds like a plan. You two go ahead and drink down those potions, since you got knocked around plenty. And Vestele, what was that spell you used on him at the end, there?”

  “Oh, that was a Slay Living spell. Unfortunately, I only had one of those prepared today. I’m afraid that I won’t be able to do that again until at least tomorrow. Ah, speaking of which,” she turned to her sister and touched her shoulder, “there!”

  Siora sighed happily as she accepted the healing spell from her sister, and then the twins downed their potions. Neither of them was looking entirely up to snuff, but they were, at least, no longer looking like they were on death’s door, which was a big bonus. The beguiler stretched, and said, “All right, I see three chests here. Might as well see what’s in them.”

  Siora went from chest to chest, checking them one by one. It was the smart play, since we’d already ran afoul of traps before even getting into this mine. And the way that the beguiler chuckled to herself as she slipped one of her tools into the gap between the middle chest and the wall told me that there had indeed been something unpleasant in store for someone who was looking in the chests without permission.

  Siora looked up when she was finished, and smiled. “The center chest was rigged with a tension wire. Open the lid, tension is released, starting the timer, and the walls in the hallway smash together, squishing anyone between them. It also has the benefit of trapping anyone still in this room, unless they can walk through walls.”

  Frostmane chuffed. “That is a clever trap. Not what I would expect from these Malarites. They seem to be more about the straightforward approach.”

  I chuckled as I scratched the wolf behind his ears. “That’s just what we’ve seen of them, and mostly their fodder to wear down enemies. These ones are more careful. I doubt this is the last trap we’ll face.” With a sigh, I said, “So, what is in the chests?”

  Most of the loot, aside from the healing wands, were useless to us. Siora switched one of her rings for the Ring of Protection +2, and Vestele put the gauntlets on, but the rest was not much use to us. I pocketed the partially used wand of cure light wounds, while Vestele took the fully charged wand. With a new source of healing available, I pulled out my old wand, and burned the last twelve charges off of it, healing us up as well as we could do at the moment.

  As the wand crumbled into ash, having given up the last of its power, I looked at the rest of the group. “All right, let’s move it. These guys won’t deal with themselves. And everyone keep an eye on the ceilings, since apparently these ‘Shadowfiends’ are tricky like that.”

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