"How exactly is this perfect?"

List shot Arden a glare, which was no easy feat, given that they'd all been bound to poles by the wrists and ankles, and List in particular had been left dangling over what looked suspiciously like a fire pit.

"After scrapping with their hero in what they must have taken as a fight to the death, chances of peaceful interactions with these creatures were rather low," Arden said. "I doubt we could have convinced Sheila or any of her followers to let us follow them back to this place. Surrendering to them got us here without us having to kill any of them."

"You're right," List said. "This is a great way to observe them deciding whether or not to eat us."

"To be fair," Valerie said, "I think most of them are against that."

The sewer junction they'd been taken to was home to a village of kobolds. Communal bedding and food storage were plainly visible, as was a space reserved for even smaller juvenile kobolds to play, a circle of improvised chairs and stools for gatherings, and what could only be described as a hoard of stolen trinkets and knick knacks from the town above. And absolutely everywhere, there were kobolds.

They came in every color—reds, yellows, greens, and blues. Some wore clothes. Some were nude. They talked in garbled, growling voices with each other, heartily chomped up food and food-adjacent items, and occasionally broke into wrestling matches over trinkets stolen from up above. None of them were nearly so well outfitted as Sheila.

She stood at the center of everything, along with a small circle of other kobolds engaged in conversation in their own language. None of the outsiders understood it, but it wasn't all that hard to follow, given how animated they were.

One of the kobolds—wearing a very dirty chef's apron made for someone a lot taller—did keep eyeing them and saying something to the group, but then the others would shake their head. Actually, the more Apron brought up his point, the more annoyed the opposition got, until eventually Sheila slapped him across the back of his head, and he shut up.

There were a lot of gestures pointing up and down. A lot of nervous murmurs and head shakes. A bit of bluster from some of the other armed kobolds, who stamped at the ground with their weapons and gave angry snarls. They also indicated the captive tall ones a lot, and there was less dissent when they did.

"How much of this are we supposed to put up with?" List asked.

"Where do you suppose she got her armor?" Arden wondered aloud, either not hearing List, or ignoring her. "The sword is obviously Old World, and shield and armor have to have magic to them to have resisted List's attacks, but I've never heard anything about Old World kobold knights."

"Maybe it's custom made?" Valerie asked.

"I suppose it's a possibility. But that would mean Xykesh has found the secret of spellforging."

"If one of you don't answer me in the next ten seconds, I'm breaking out of these ropes and murdering my way out of here," List said.

"Don't be so dramatic," Arden said. "The only thing in actual danger here is your ego."

"Dramatic is my only setting. And my ego is not what's currently dangling over a barbecue pit."

List had more to say, but she was cut off by Sheila leading a procession of kobolds over to them.

"Kobolds reach decision about what to do with tall ones," Sheila said. "Kobolds no kill tall ones, or other tall ones be angry. But tall ones see kobold nest, and might tell other tall ones. Therefore, tall ones are kobolds' prisoners until kobolds are ready to leave."

"Fuck tha—" List started.

"List," Arden cautioned, and Valerie felt a momentary spark of pride in her friend's self control when she actually listened.

"Are you serious?" List hissed. "You just want to let them—ugh!"

"Couldn't we just promise not to tell anyone where to find you? And then you could let us go?" Valerie asked.

Sheila shook her head. "How kobolds know tall ones not lie?"

"We'd be giving you our word," Arden said.

Again, Sheila shook her head. "Words cheap. Sheila trust actions, and tall ones actions never good for kobolds. Sheila protect kobolds from tall ones' actions."

List shifted her glare from Arden to Sheila. "Can you at least get me down from this, since you're not actually going to eat me?"

The kobold in the apron grumbled at that. For her part, Sheila looked nearly ready to agree, when a shrill cry echoed through the junction. All heads spun as a frightened kobold covered in filth came sprinting into the junction, shrieking something in its native language.

The other kobolds in the junction stiffened, and eyes widened in obvious terror. All except Sheila, who's reptilian jaw set in determination. She drew her sword, barked out several commands to the kobolds, and began sprinting down the tunnel the frightened kobold had first come down.

"Sheila deal with tall one when Sheila returns!" the kobold called over her shoulder.

"That's concerning," Valerie said.

"That's annoying," List corrected. She glared at the closest kobold, and demanded to be let down. That got her a confused look and garbled noises in response, and the hellborn groaned. "How long do you think Sheila's going to be?"

In answer, a warbling roar echoed through the sewer tunnels, followed by Sheila's own shrill battle cry. Every kobold in the junction recoiled at the sounds, huddling closer together. The more experienced monster hunters in the group of tall ones immediately turned their heads in the direction Sheila had run off in.

"That sounds big," Valerie said.

"That sounds like another opportunity," Arden said. "We're changing plans again, ladies. I believe the hero of all kobolds could use our help."

"You're joking," List said, deadpan. When Arden met her with his usual perfectly placid look, she sighed. "At least we're getting out of here."

List's tattoos glowed bright red as chaotic energy coursed along her body, focusing at her wrists and ankles. In another second, the flimsy ropes binding her frayed and snapped, dropping her unceremoniously onto her tail and eliciting a grunt from the hellborn.

Valerie sawed through her own bindings with the edge of a crossbolt, and Arden snapped his after a quick prayer for strength.

The gathered kobolds gasped as they all broke free, several scrambling away to find weapons. Arden spoke another prayer, and a whirlwind of divine energy broke the tips off of every makeshift spear caught in it. The disarmed kobolds trembled, but most of them admirably stood their ground.

"We mean you no harm," Arden said, "as I'm sure you'll soon understand. But we really must be going now. Valerie, List, get you things."

"For the record," List said to the kobolds, "we could have done that at any time."

In a particularly full four-way junction of the sewers, Sheila the Hero fought with everything she had, which was quite a lot for a kobold. The monster encountered was massive, easily several tall ones in length and thick enough around to swallow one whole. It resembled a pale, fleshy centipede with bulbous black eyes and a mouth with two sets of stubby mandibles. Thick, ropey tendrils flailed around its head, each one capped in a wicked barb.

With dozens of tiny legs, its scintillating body scurried along the walls and ceilings of the sewer tunnels, constantly repositioning to find new angles of attack. It had come at Sheila three times, and was six tendrils down for its efforts, but the creature was persistent.

Sheila leapt up and kicked off a wall to avoid the creature's maw as it dove for her, but was batted out of the air by a tendril before she could counter attack. She crashed against the wall, leaving a crack in one of the bricks, and splashed into the sewage, actually going under before managing to roll back to her feet.

The monster lunged again, and this time Sheila had to brace behind her shield as it rammed her further back. With all the strength she could summon into her body, she kept her footing as she was pushed through the sludge, leaving troughs behind in the muck. She swung with her sword, lopping off one of the monster's mandibles and forcing it to retreat.

"Run!" Sheila barked in her native tongue to the two surviving pups from the group this monster had attacked.

She needed them to get clear, so she could maneuver the fight without having to worry about keeping the monster away from them, but the poor things were paralyzed with fright. They'd seen their friends eaten by this monster, and were now watching it bat around the hero they'd thought invincible like she was nothing more than a tin mug.

If this monster was not dealt with, there was no doubt in Sheila's mind that it would kill every kobold in the sewers. It had to die, and she would have to slay it. She was the only one who could.

Even if she wasn't sure how yet.

Holding her sword at the ready, Sheila prayed to Razlan for strength, for will, and if possible, for a miracle.

The answer to her prayer came in the form of a crackling red whip opening a massive gash in the monster's face, a lance of divine light scoring a long burn across its flesh, and a crossbolt popping one of its eyes like a water balloon.

Sheila almost didn't believe her eyes, despite her quite excellent vision for a kobold. The tall ones were here. And they were helping. Or they had extremely terrible aim.

"A dire maggot. It's been ages since I've seen one," Arden said in obvious delight. "They naturally grow in the corpses of titans, but they can also be found underground here on Asher. It's actually been theorized—"

"Oh my gods, just skip to the part about how to kill it," List said.

"It has a largely decentralized nervous system and several redundancies in its internal organs," Arden began. "However—"

"Cut deep all along the back," Valerie translated the incoming lesson before Arden could even start.

"Thank you," List said. She drew a knife in the hand that wasn't holding a whip as chaos magic surged across her and her tattoos glowed bright.

"Tall ones help pups!" Sheila shouted, pointing to the even more terrified young kobolds. "Sheila distract monster!"

List ignored her, and charged with a wicked smile on her face.

"I have them," Arden assured Valerie, already moving for the pups. "Support the others."

Valerie wasted no time, visualizing the region where the creature's nerves would be the densest and unloading her bolts there. The eyes would have been a preferable target, since at the right angle they provided a straight shot to the creature's nerve clusters,but she'd already missed her first attempt, and now that List and Sheila were both engaging the creature in melee, it was thrashing around too much for that kind of shot.

The creature actually managed to catch's List's whip in its mouth, but that didn't deter the hellborn, who ditched the weapon and drew her second dagger before rushing in even closer.

"Oh, are you hungry?" List asked as she sliced away the tendrils that came for her. "Then eat this!"

And then, with a small storm of chaos crackling along her blade, she drove her dagger straight into the dire maggot's face, just above its mouth. The monster jerked violently to the side, flinging List away. She landed in a low crouch, her arm bathed in the maggots orange blood up to her elbow.

Sheila darted past the dire maggot, her blade opening a wide gash in its flesh as she did and spilling more of its blood. Still, it refused to go down. If anything, its movements became more aggressive.

List took out its other eye, but was skewered through the shoulder by one of the tendrils and nearly dragged into the creature's gullet until she braced herself against its mouth with her legs and managed to cut herself free.

Sheila lopped off the back three feet of the maggot's tail with her blade, only to be slammed into a wall by the creature's considerable bulk.

A little assistance from Saint Hedwig, would have been nice, but Arden had gone, getting the pups clear of the fight. They were on their own.

"List, Sheila, get it to turn towards me. As straight on as you can!" she shouted.

"What happened to cut deep along the back?" List asked.

"Just do it!"

Any protest List might have had was drowned out by the dire maggot rearing up and then slamming its body back down, trying to crush her. The hellborn rolled out of the way, and through the splash of sewage that erupted from the creature's landing, she saw her opening.

She darted in, jabbing her dagger into the side of the creature's head and using it as leverage to swing up and onto its back. Immediately, she grabbed a flailing intendril in each hand, planted her feet as squarely as she could, and yanked for everything she was worth, trying to use the tendrils as reins.

Sheila scurried back, first getting out in front of the maggot, and then darting straight at Valerie. Between the two of them, they'd redirected the beast into coming straight at the monster huntress.

Again, Valerie visualized her target, a bundle of nerves deep into the creature's back, running most of the length of its body. From List's position atop the creature, Valerie's original advice would have been the best course of action to hit the vital area. But coming from straight on, the goal was more akin to shooting a bolt down a fleshy, wriggling length of pipe.

She prepped the wheellock igniter at the end of her wristbow, loaded a treated bolt, and loosed. Sparks flew from the weapon as the bolt was ignited, and the blazing projectile tore through the maggot's flesh. It went in just above where List had stabbed the creature in the face, right between the eyes, and it came out just above where Sheila had severed part of its tail.

The maggot's entire body tensed, and then went limp all at once, collapsing so heavily that List was flung from its back and into the sewage. By now, she, and in fact, all of them, were more or less covered head to toe in black-brown muck. But the dire maggot had stopped moving.

"Now do you believe we're not here to hurt you?" Valerie asked Sheila.

"Sheila is considering the possibility," the kobold admitted.