To say they walked stealthily deeper into the caverns would be a lie. The Knight clanged along with all the stealth of a rattling cart and, while the Paladin’s armor was of a finer build and lighter alloy, it was no less noisy. They would not have the advantage of surprise here.

“What about you, Kreet. Have you been continuing your studies?” Karl asked as they tried to ignore the clamor of the other two men.

“Not really,” she admitted. “Not like you mean anyway.”

“I imagine you’ve learned quite a bit as a tavern wench, at least about nature and biology,” Karl said with a halfhearted smile as he continued to look around warily.

Kreet looked down at herself and realized she was still wearing her tavern outfit. Suddenly she wished she had brought other clothes with her.

They soon came to a breakaway path to the right and downwards. Kreet pulled out the map.

“Dead end,” she said, pointing at it.

“We go straight into the depths,” Karl replied with conviction. “My boy has been with them for nearly a full day now. I won’t rest until I’ve got him back.”

“Then onward we go,” Kreet agreed, folding up the map and putting it away.

Every once in a while they would stop and to listen for any signs of life. They’d done this twice before they came to the next major path leading away, again to their right.

“Kreet, are you okay? You look tense,” the Paladin said behind his helm.

“We’re close to where my family lived. That’s all. I don’t hear or sense anything.”

“Another dead end?” Karl asked, gesturing towards the side passage.

“Not really. I don’t need the map for this area. I didn’t think I would remember it, but now that I’m here… the smell of the place… seeing it with my darkvision again… I remember these walls. No, that path circles away but rejoins the main path just before it splits off into two maybe a mile ahead. There’s some side caves down there though. We lived in one for a while.”

Again they resumed their march down the main passage. It remained quite wide and tall, with other paths branching off randomly. It was at one of these that Kreet stopped suddenly, and the others all stopped too.

“Something’s wrong,” she said quietly. “This doesn’t look right. Those boulders weren’t up there before…”

Suddenly something crashed and the boulders she was pointing at fell from their perch on a ledge above them. The four scrambled to get out of the way, Mekelson taking a pretty significant hit as one crashed against him, but his armor deflected most of the impact.

“Mekelson, you alright?” Quint called.

“Bruised leg, but I’m okay.”

“Kreet? Karl?”

“Fine here,” Karl said from the other side of the rock fall.

“Me too,” Kreet said beside him.

Karl and Kreet climbed over the rocks to rejoin the armored pair.

“A trap,” Kreet declared as she looked at where the rocks had fallen from.

“Did we trip it somehow?” Karl asked, holding his glowing mace closer.

“Not this one,” Mekelson said with conviction. “This was activated by somebody. See that piece of wood? Got a rope tied to it. And the rope leads back to that little path. Someone was watching us and pulled it.”

“Doesn’t sound like the sort of thing a demon would do. They wouldn’t waste their time,” Quint said.

“No, it doesn’t. This looks like the work of something else,” Mekelson said, removing his helm and looking straight at Kreet.

“This looks like the work of kobolds to me.”

---

Kreet returned Mekelson’s stare. “Couldn’t be. Ka’Plo said ours was the last clan in here, and he would surely know!”

“It’s been a long time, Kreet,” Karl pointed out. “A new clan could well have moved in by now.”

“Well, it’s a sure bet they know we’re here. Do we try and find them, or go on?” Mekelson asked, standing up and testing his bruised leg.

“Kreet,” Karl said, “I know you’d like to find them, but…”

Kreet shook her head, “Later. They’re not our concern. Let’s get Paulie back as soon as possible.”

Karl nodded, relieved not to have to argue with his friend.

They continued on, now wary for traps. They did see another similar one further on, but they stayed clear of it and it wasn’t triggered.

“No kobold in sight though,” Karl pointed out.

“We can be pretty stealthy when we want to,” Kreet replied sarcastically. “When we’re not following a bunch of iron suits that is…”

Finally they came to a place where the main passage branched off, one heading slightly upward, the other slanting down.

“Down we go,” Kreet said after they’d stopped again.

“We didn’t bring any supplies for this,” Mekelson complained. “Getting pretty thirsty over here. How about you, Quint?”

Kreet frowned at the men. “You should have said so earlier! We must have passed three streams at least, and all the water is good. The last one wasn’t too far back. Wait here, I’ll be back in just a minute.”

She padded back into the darkness behind them and soon found the little trickle of water off the main path just a few feet in a side passage.

“Who?” a voice said as she filled the water skin she had in her pack. It was spoken in Kobold.

“Kreet,” she replied, taking care not to look around. The voice sounded like it came from overhead.

“You go with Big People?”

“I do. We leave Kobolds alone.”

“You go to Fire People? You are Fire People?”

“No. We go to fight Fire People.”

“Oh. That is good. You leave Kobolds alone?”

“We won’t bother Kobolds.”

“That is good. You will kill Fire People?”

“We will try. Fire people have a young one of ours.”

“You will not. Big Fire Person will kill you all. But you leave Kobolds alone, we leave you alone.”

Kreet had to admit the likelihood of that outcome. But at least there was one less faction in the caves that would try to kill them. Probably.

The voice spoke again, growing fainter.

“You stupid Kobold Kreet. Stupid, stupid Kobold. Kreet the dead kobold is stupid…”

She heard another voice join in to the singsong improvised melody as the unseen watchers left.

“Kreet the dead Kobold, stupid stupid Kobold… it sang as it faded. It bothered her most that the tune was rather jolly.

The morning sun hadn’t yet risen when they stopped.

“This way,” Mekelson guided them.

“You’ve been here before?” Kreet asked as she hopped down, slapping Kevin’s hand away again absentmindedly.

“I have,” Mekelson admitted. “But don’t you remember? You used to live here.”

“Not outside. The only time I’ve ever been here, I was in a covered cage.”

“Well, before we go on, let’s take a look at that map,” Mekelson suggested.

“Do you think we may have gotten here before them?” Karl asked, worried but thinking clearly.

“Not likely. We lost time at Ka’Plo’s shack.”

They looked at the map and Kreet showed them the landmarks she recognized.

“What about this area. A lot down there,” Karl pointed out.

“I don’t know that area. We never went there,” Kreet said.

“Why not?” Cleric Quint asked, donning his helm.

Kreet shrugged. “I don’t know. We just stayed away from there. We mostly stayed in these upper areas.”

“You can bet we’ll need to go all the way down,” Mekelson said, putting on his own helm. “That’s where the big beasties always lurk.”

“Mekelson,” Kreet said as they approached the mouth of the cavern, “Be honest with me. Did you ever kill a kobold here?”

He looked back at her through his visor. “Probably,” he said.

“Well, I hate you. I just want you to know that,” she said, not sure if she was serious herself.

The sound of his laughter within his helm was strange. “Oh hell, I know that already! You’re not going to stab me in the back though, are you?”

Karl answered for her, “Mekelson, she’s a Cleric of Pelor. She’s not going to do any backstabbing.”

“Hmph,” he grunted. “She was a Cleric of Pelor. Who knows what she is now?”

Kreet knocked on his armor and he turned to look down at her. “I am still a Cleric of Pelor, and don’t you forget it… Tank.”

The big man nodded while Kevin looked around the mouth of the cave.

“A lot of footsteps here. Different types, but there’s something big with them. Yup, they came this way, and recently.”

“I don’t hear anything,” Quint said.

“Let me go in first,” Kreet suggested. “No light, no sounds. Just to make sure the entrance is clear. I’ll be right back.”

They all agreed with that plan and Kreet the Kobold entered the caverns that had once been her home stealthily and alone.

———————————

She soon returned to the group.

“No one around nearby anyway,” she declared. “Kevin, how many do you think there were?”

“Hard to say. 10 maybe? No more than 20. Plus that something very big.”

“The demon,” Karl said, though they all knew that.

“Look, guys… I do appreciate you bringing me along,” Kevin said, looking nervous. “Really I do. But demons… And these caves, the floors are stone. I can’t track anything over stone.”

The Paladin Quint put his hand on the young man’s shoulder. “Wait for us at the wagon, Kevin. Kreet, how extensive are these caverns?”

“Big, Master,” she replied. “The scale on the map is in miles. It will probably take most of the day to reach the depths, and that assumes we go straight there.”

“Well, wait as long as you feel able, Kevin. If something comes out of here that’s not us, you’ve got the horses. If you’re not here when we get back… well, we’ve got our legs.”

“I’ll be here,” he said forlornly.

Kreet walked up to him and gave him a hug. “Kevin, it’s not for every man to be a hero. Some of us are born to be support. There’s no shame in that.”

Kevin knelt to bring him to her level. “Sorry Gator. I’d go with you if I thought I could. But caves… I can’t. I’m not good in dark places.”

Kreet took his hand and held it to her cheek. “I’ll owe you a table dance, you perv.”

“I’ll hold you to that!” he said, giving her hand a kiss and heading back towards the wagon.

“Just the four of us then,” Mekelson said.

“Come on, Victor,” the Paladin replied, using the Knight’s first name, “You surely didn’t think he would do us much good did you?”

“Never know what can swing the tide of battle. No help for it though. Let’s go.”

Karl retrieved a small mace from his pack and spoke an incantation at it. The weapon began to glow, though it gave off no heat.

“Ah! Nice magic young man!” the Knight said as they began to walk into the darkness.

“Continual Flame,” remarked the Paladin proudly. “I taught him that.”

It was well past midnight when they pulled up to the wood where the shack Kreet had grown up in stood. The path was overgrown, but Kreet had no problem working her way in with her night vision, while she had the others stay behind. She’d never believed in life-after-death unless animated corpses counted, but as the vine-covered remains of the shack came into view she felt the old monk’s presence anyway. The place even smelled familiar. She wondered what had ever happened to his cat.

The windows were just open holes now, the porch they had sat on years ago was crumbling, but a chair still sat there as if waiting for it’s owner to return.

“There are ghosts here,” Kreet said to herself. “But I brought them with me.”

Inside she had to step carefully as the floorboards had broken through in many places, but the fireplace was intact and the brick was still lodged in place. She slid it out carefully and reached far back. A spider or two may have been disturbed, but she smiled as she remembered their taste. It had been a long, long time since she’d eaten a spider. She felt the leather-bound map and drew it out, dusting it off. As she looked at it, more memories came back to her. She knew the lines of this map not as old charcoal scribbles but as a real place she had once lived in. She tucked the package under her arm and started to make her way back out.

Suddenly she stopped. There was a ghost standing in the corner, dressed in Ka’Plo’s robe. She knew it was a ghost because it was the one point of darkness her vision wouldn’t light. It did not move, but just watched her.

“Master?” she asked quietly.

“Kreet, my child,” it answered back as if from a long distance. “You’ve returned. How is your life? Did I do well by you?”

“I am fine, Master,” she said, glad she had tucked away the map. Tears would stain the old parchment. “You did well.”

The ghost didn’t move, but she heard it’s voice again. “Good. That is good. I know your family. They are proud of you, Kreet.”

It was too much. She collapsed on the rickety, dusty, leaf-strewn floor. “My family? You know my family?”

“Yes, Kreet,” the apparition said. “They have forgiven me. You are my redemption, Kreet.”

“Me? But I’m nothing. I’ve done nothing. I’m a worthless Tavern Wench who hasn’t done a thing with her life.”

“Oh! So that’s when you are. We don’t see you as you do, Kreet. We see all of you. We even see you here with us. You are much more than that, my child. Or you will be. Or you have been. It’s hard to explain.”

“Master, can you help me? There’s a demon… and…”

The ghost didn’t move, but it did reply, “We cannot help. We can only watch. But we’re proud of you, Kreet. You are our child.”

The voice had changed. She realized it was speaking in the Kobold tongue now.

“Mother!” she cried, finally recognizing the voice from so long ago she didn’t think she could recognize it.

“I am here, child. But this is not good for you. Go now. We will see you soon enough. Your Master is right. We are so very, very proud of you.”

“I miss you Mother. I miss you all so much.”

“I know child. We all know. We miss you too, in our way. But you are here with us too. You won’t live forever child. No one would want that. You’ll be with us again, and then we will celebrate. But you have your life to live first. Go and live it well, as we know you will. Don’t despair. Life is long and hard, child. You know that already. But it doesn’t last forever. And when it is over, we will all celebrate your return to us.”

She began to tremble. She didn’t know why. Someone else was coming, though the ghost didn’t move. She heard another voice, one she recognized too.

“Kreet,” it said. “Save me.”

Her eyes grew large and a blue glow began, though the voice was fading.

“I will,” she said, staring into the blackness as if to see who it was beyond.

The voice faded out and she realized she had been praying. The hole that she thought was a spirit was just an old robe, left behind, empty and forgotten. She walked over to it and took it down from it’s hook. It crumbled to dust and rags, but something fell from it and she picked it up. It sparkled in the moonlight from the broken roof, and even more when a tear hit it just right. It looked like a black jewel. “Death is not always evil,” she said to herself, even if she didn’t quite know why. She pocketed it and left the shack to it’s crumbling fate. She didn’t care about it anymore. She carried her spirits with her.

The others waited by the wagon.

“Did you find it?” Karl asked hopefully.

She nodded, but didn’t say anything as she hopped back into the back. Kevin took her hand. “Are you alright?” he said, actually not leering at her for a change. “You look as if you’ve seen a ghost.”

She looked at him. “I think I’m okay. I saw no one,” she said. “Only what I brought with me. But I found this.”

She pulled the shiny black jewel from her pack and showed it to Kevin.

“What?” he said, confused.

“This. I don’t know what it is,” she said, holding it up closer for him to see. Surely even in the starlight of the night he could see now.

“Kreet, there’s nothing in your hand,” the Cleric Quint said from her other side.

She looked at him curiously, then back to the jewel. They couldn’t see it? Odd.

“Sorry, bad joke I guess,” she said, but Quint noticed she put something back in her pack.

Kevin took her hand. She jumped a little at the heat and realized she was cold. “Kreet,” he said. “You’re freezing!”

“I… guess I am! Kevin, don’t read anything into this – really. But… can you hold me a little?”

“Sure Gator,” he said happily and did so.

“He might be a perv,” Kreet thought as she threatened to tail-slap his hand away from parts it had no right to stray to, “but he’s a perv for me. And he’s warm. He’ll do for now.”

The jostling of the wagon and the warmth lulled her to sleep for a few minutes as they approached the caverns she had grown up in. She didn’t dream.

“But, I thought he was at the Monastery! Or had started his Apostlate by now anyway,” Kreet said as they ran back through the path in the woods.

“He left the day after you, Kreet,” Karl said, hobbling as best he could along the rough path. “He thought you were going back to your old home.”

“Idiot,” Kreet muttered.

“He was. He was awfully pissed off, Kreet. Wouldn’t listen to reason. Cursed the Monastery, cursed Pelor. Kreet, he lost it after they kicked you out.”

Kreet’s mind raced faster than her feet. But still, joining a demonic league? Surely that wasn’t the Brand she knew.

“Still, Karl, a demon? Brand would never…”

Karl interrupted her as they came out and she saw the burning remnants of his house. “You didn’t see him Kreet. He really lost his shit.”

“And you’ve not heard from him since?”

“Not till today. Kreet, he’s not the same guy he used to be.”

“But why would he want your boy? Oh god, Karl! Where’s Vosa?” she said as they passed beyond the smoking ruin.

“She’s in the Sanctuary. Cleric Quint is looking after her. She was burnt pretty bad,” Mekelson explained.

“Kevin, are you still back there?” Kreet said, turning around. But the baker was right on their heels.

“Dammit Kevin you run faster than all of us. Why are you staying behind.”

The baker smiled. “View’s better!”

Kreet would have laughed if the circumstances were different. “Well don’t get any ideas. You stay here while we go into the Sanctuary, okay?”

“I’ll be waiting for you, Gator!” he said and planted himself at the door obediantly.

Karl looked at her. “Gator?”

She shrugged, “What can I say? He likes me!”

When they got to the Sanctuary, the man Kreet had known as her master looked old. His hair had gone white in the time since she’d last seen him and he rose from a bed as the three entered. The form under the sheet was barely recognizable, but she could see that Vosa was healing rapidly. Karl got to her first.

“Did you find her?” Vosa croaked and wheezed.

“She’s here, love,” Karl answered back, holding her hand.

“She can’t see,” the Cleric said. “But her eyesight will return. I can’t heal all of this, but she’ll recover.”

“Kreet, are you there?”

Kreet looked at the woman that she’d despised in her heart for so long. Now she could feel nothing but pity.

“I’m here Vosa.”

“Kreet, I’m sorry… for everything. Please understand, they made me.”

Kreet looked up at Karl, uncomprehending, but Vosa continued.

“They told me what to say. You and Brand… You’re a kobold! It… seemed like the right thing to do.”

“It’s okay, Vosa.”

“No it’s not!” Vosa said, trying to sit up. “Dammit, it’s not okay! It’s wrong. I knew you loved him, Kreet. I knew. It’s payback, Kreet. Brand… he’s paying me back for what I did to you. To both of you!”

Kreet patted her hand.

“I’m sorry Kreet. If I’d have been a stronger woman, I wouldn’t have let it go this far. But I wasn’t. I just wanted Karl and little Paulie. Kreet, please… help me!”

“I’ll do whatever I can, Vosa. We’ll get him back.”

“You didn’t see the demon. Oh forgive me, Paulie. It’s eyes were fire! Kreet, it has my BOY!”

Kreet’s eyes watered in sympathy.

“We’ll get him back, Vosa,” Karl assured his wife, but she had lapsed into incomprehension.

“IT HAS MY BOY!!!”

Karl looked at Kreet, his eyes anguished.

“We have to go, Karl,” Mekelson said to Quint and Karl. “The sooner the better.”

“I’ll go too,” Karl demanded.

“Karl, your leg…” the warrior started, but Karl protested.

“I can move as fast as she can!”

“And I,” Quint said.

“Three Clerics?” Mekelson sighed. “We need another Tank is what we need!”

“I’m a Tank,” Quint said, rising. “Karl, ease her suffering while I get my armor on. The healing will continue on it’s own but any relief is helpful.”

Karl closed his eyes took over as his Master left the room.

“A Tank?” Kreet said, looking at the steel-clad warrior.

Mekelson shrugged, “Damned if I know, but he’d better get back fast. They’ve been gone an hour at least, and they know where they’re going.”

A figure returned that Kreet barely recognized. The wings on it’s helm declared it’s nature though. A Paladin of Pelor stepped from myth into reality in front of her.  

“Great God!” Mekelson exclaimed.

The figure opened it’s helm. “Afraid not. It’s just me,” Quint said. His face looked out of place and old. But he moved as if he’d long worn the shining armor which put Mekelson’s steel to shame.

“You are a Paladin?”

“I have sworn off that label. I was a Paladin. Now I just teach Clerics.”

“Well if that demon is anything like what Vosa describes, we’ll need a Paladin,” Mekelson said, standing up. “It doesn’t sound like any lesser Demon to me.”

“I’ll do all I can.”

Karl stood and one of the Acolytes who had been standing by sat at his place and began to chant.

“What are we waiting for? Let’s go!”

The four left the Sanctuary and out to the courtyard where Kevin, a wagon and two horses were waiting.

“Sorry Kreet,” Quint said, sitting in the cart beside Kevin while Mekelson and Karl climbed up to take the reigns. “You’ll have to sit back here with us. You’d spook the horses. I know it’s not the charging steed you might have expected, but we’ll all move faster this way. Did you bring your sunglasses?”

Kreet patted her pack. “Never without em.”

“Good. Then we’re off.”

Kreet turned to where Karl sat as he began the wagon rolling. “Karl, do you know where Ka’Plo used to live?”

Karl shook his head, but Mekelson knew the way.

“Let’s go there first,” Kreet suggested. “He had a map of the caverns. My memory isn’t that good. We’ll need it.”

Mekelson nodded and they were off at speed.

“I thought he gave the Monastery all his books,” Karl said as they rode.

“Not the maps. He didn’t want anyone to use them. But I know where he hid them.”

“After all this time, what if they’re not there anymore?” Karl asked, alarmed.

Kreet shrugged, “Then we’ll have to rely on my memory anyway. And see just how good of a Tracker Kevin actually is!”

“Best there ever was,” Kevin said, thumping his chest.

The odd sight of a knight, a Paladin, a robed Cleric, a baker, and a little kobold Tavern Wench bouncing along the road greeted a very few people, but the little party didn’t slow for anything as they sped through the night.