Frantically Dawn backed away, looking for a way out. On her right side: a rock wall. On her left: A large rock and the water. Behind her on the path: Ankou and Kharma and in the distance another demon, approaching swiftly on long legs. Up and slightly in front: two massive spiders, that had almost reached the ground.

The first monster dropped to the ground in front of her and raised its forelegs aggressively. She hadn’t managed to gain enough distance from the demon, one leg touched her right arm and easily sliced it open. Shocked, Dawn stared as blood began pouring down her arm, the pain arriving a moment later. She cried out and gripped her injured arm reflexively.

Hurriedly backing up, she called out panic-stricken, “Into the water, hurry up. Maybe these things can’t swim.” She entered the water fast and threw herself in all the way after only two paces. It was icy cold and took her breath away for a moment, her limbs almost hurting from the frigid contact. Her soaked clothes weighed her down quite a bit. Paddling, trying to catch her breath, she started to swim, away from the path and the demons. Kharma and Ankou had followed her in, a bit slower. Ankou looked absolutely disgusted, ears pressed down closely onto his head, forelegs paddling hurriedly.

Swimming strongly despite her wounded arm, Dawn tried to gain some distance to the path and the approaching demons. For the moment at least the monsters hadn’t followed them into the water. She began to swim in the direction they had been walking before, when they had followed the path. The dark water surface extended for quite a distance in front of her. They could swim along for a while, but in the end they would have to leave the water again soon. Already the cold was sapping her energy and numbing her body. She couldn’t stay in for long. The demons began to pace alongside her on the path. They knew she would have to come out again.

Dawn tried to think. Finally she remembered her new spell. She faced the nearest demon squarely, legs treading water to stay on the surface and activated Call The Lightning for the first time. With a quiet hiss, a bolt of white lightning materialized and struck the demon. The massive body jerked for a moment, stiffening. A second later the demon shrieked, angrily rearing up an several of its hind legs. ‘Well, I certainly managed to enrage it,’ she thought despondently. She couldn’t really make out if the monster had been badly hurt or even at all. It seemed to be scuttling along just fine.

Frantically she searched her surroundings, looking for a ledge on the other side of the water, a passage in the wall, a tunnel leading out, any chance to get away and out of this situation. In the shadow of the wall on her left side, almost on the surface of the water she beheld a small gap above the water. Probably the wall had simply been hollowed out a bit and the gap would lead nowhere. Nevertheless, she approached the dark space and ducked underneath the rock face, half expecting to bounce away from the wall directly. Spluttering, she turned her head sideways in order to be able to breathe, the space overhead small enough that she couldn’t hold her head completely over water. She managed to swim for a moment or two and reached the end of the hollow. She began to move along the wall sluggishly, feeling for an opening. Here, a small fissure. She squeezed herself inside. It went down farther, she needed to dive. There was almost no space left for her to move. Squeezing herself forwards, lungs burning, she was almost ready to give up. She would die here, drown in the dark and icy water, she thought, feeling faint. At least she wouldn’t be food for the demons.

Suddenly, she popped out of an opening like a cork out of a bottle. Heaving and panting she tried to get enough air. She had a bit more space overhead and around her now and felt the water moving slowly, dragging her along with it. She bumped against rocks and scraped herself against the sides of the channel on her way.

She had left Ankou and Kharma behind, she realized guilt-stricken. Her only thought had been to get out, away from the monsters. Panic had driven everything else out of her head. Shivering she moved along in the water, her arm throbbing dully. She was carried past another opening in the wall beside her. More water was gushing out from there, flowing rapidly into the channel she was in. The pace of the flow accelerated, she bumped along over and between rocks hardly knowing where up and down was. Abruptly, the ground dropped away from her and she was washed over a ledge and down, landing on the water hard, her back striking painfully against some rocks. The water expanded out here and the flow slowed down, turning around a bend. The ceiling overhead heightened and she saw there was a small crescent-shaped shore on her right.

Feebly, she tried to steer herself in the direction of the shore, succeeding by the skin of her teeth before the water carried her too far along. Slowly, she pulled herself out of the water, inch by gruelling inch, feeling numb and faint, finally breaking down and just lying there, deathly exhausted, lost and alone in the dark.

She stayed there for a long minute, gasping, straining for breath. Suddenly with a loud splash, a dark shape was washed over the ledge behind her and she heard an indignant yelp. Another splash sounded. A feline form appeared on the shore beside her, clawing itself out of the water and, incredulous, she realized it was Ankou. The silver cat shook itself off energetically and looked at her. Weakly she crawled to him, hugged him desperately and started to sob loudly.

“I th-thought I had lost you. I am so so-sorry I left you there. I just panicked.” She croaked weakly, stammering a bit. The lynx held very still for a moment, then started to purr softly and scratchily. Dawn felt a hand on her back and lifted her head up from Ankou and turned to see a wet and bedraggled Kharma, patting her on the back awkwardly.

“Hard not to panic when fighting many demons,” the Kharlin said soothingly.

“I didn’t know what to do. I thought I could hurt that demon with my spell, but it didn’t really seem to do anything.”

“Hurting demons not easy,” Kharma agreed with a doleful look.

Dawn had started shivering again, the numbness lifting slowly. Her upper right arm was hurting dully. She looked at it and saw it was sliced open almost from shoulder to elbow, bleeding sluggishly.

She needed to do something against the bleeding, she thought slowly. Yes, she should cast Nurture. She noticed that she wasn’t thinking right, maybe caused by the blood-loss maybe by the cold. Painfully, she collected herself and cast Nurture on herself. The deep wound started to close up. She would have to recast it once more, as soon as she had the mana.

She draped herself against Ankou and rested for a moment, feeling deeply grateful for his company. Kharma pressed himself against them, he was shivering, too. Slowly, slowly, their bodies began to warm up a bit.

Dawn felt drowsy and exhausted, she almost fell asleep there on the spot. Catching herself she straightened and sat up. Once again she cast Nurture. She checked and the wound had stopped bleeding now. It wasn’t life-threatening anymore. Anything more would have to wait, she decided. Letting herself fall against Ankou once more, she slept.

When she woke up she was disoriented. Slowly digging herself out from a bundle of Ankou and Kharma she started to take stock of her situation. Not even remotely good. They were lost here in the underground waterways, maybe there was a way out further along and maybe there wasn’t. Going back to where they had come from was not an option. Even without the threat of the demons, they wouldn’t manage to push themselves back up over the ledge against the current of the water.

‘On the positive side, we managed to leave behind the demons - at least for now,’ she thought wryly. Feeling halfway alive again she noticed she was quite hungry. Ravenous in fact. Checking her storage ring, she found the only thing left that was edible without cooking was a jar of marmalade. It wasn’t exactly what she wanted. She would have almost sold her soul for a big bowl of her mother’s beef stew.

‘But beggars can’t be choosers, after all.’ she acknowledged. Taking out the marmalade, she opened the jar. She roused Kharma and held it out to him. “Breakfast is served,” she said.

He looked at the jar doubtfully and put his finger in tentatively. He licked it off delicately and brightened. “Sweet,” he said delightedly. They shared the jar, sitting on the ground together. Even Ankou deigned to lick up a part of the sweet jelly.

When they had emptied the jar, Dawn sat back with a sigh. “That was the last of the food,” she said. “Now let’s go and find a way out of here.”