No! Delara rushed after in a dead sprint, hacking through any zombie that dared to bar her path. She reached the edge and peered down into blackness, jagged rocks bordered with spiderwebs and a lot of strange, hardy vegetation—strange black-bark trees and vines that grew out of the rocky side of the chasm, shattered or torn by the giant golem’s passage.

     Delara didn’t know how deep the drop was, but it clearly went further than her darkvision. She pulled out an alchemical torch from her belt, popped off the cap, struck the wick against the cap’s sandpaper surface, and tossed the blazing white light into the abyss. It travelled much further down than Delara would’ve hoped for, but it did hit bottom eventually. Delara saw the light winking below, and could just barely see the glint of brass from the dead golem, but it was too far to make out what had happened to Mina. She called out Mina’s name, heard the echo of her voice as it bounced its way down the stony sides of the chasm, but no reply came back.

     Delara looked down at the broken rocks on the chasm walls. To someone born and raised climbing the volcanic mountains of Amazonia, it might as well be a staircase. Immediately she began her descent. There was no time to call for help. Every Amazon soldier had been issued a minor healing potion for this mission, to be used for emergencies only. It wasn’t strong, but it had the power to turn a mortal wound into a treatable one, so long as it was administered in time. Mina had one, too, but if she was unconscious or too injured to take it, she could die before a healer got to her. Delara was not going to let that happen.

     She hopped down from rock ledge to rock ledge, going as fast as she dared without rushing. That was the hardest part, as images of Mina bleeding out flashed through her head, but she forced herself to take her time and test each hand and foothold before putting her weight on it. If Delara screwed up and fell, Mina would definitely be done for. 

     The wait was excruciating, but, foot by foot, the torch she’d dropped grew larger and brighter in her vision. The empty frame of the shadow golem became clearer as well, lying in a pile of broken tree branches and shredded giant cobwebs. But she didn’t see Mina.

Delara fought down a wave of panic at the sight. Right now, it could mean anything, and it was way better than seeing her lying there with her skull split open. That’s what Delara told herself, but she felt her sense of urgency increase, and her final jump to the bottom was perhaps a bit higher than it should’ve been. 

     Delara rolled to absorb the impact and sprang back to her feet, scanning the area for threats, and finding none. At least, not in the zone of light and color created by her alchemical torch. Just beyond the edge of its radiance, a forest of red eyes gazed back at her. 

     Spiders—dozens of them. They weren’t coming any closer, though. Warded off by the light, probably. So Delara ignored them for now, carefully searching the impact site for any signs of what happened. She found Mina’s dented and discarded helmet, with a sizable bloodstain on its inside rim. The stony ground was covered by a layer of rock dust, but it was a bit too sparse to clearly make out footprints. Delara did find a blood trail, starting by the helmet. Mina didn’t appear to be bleeding profusely, which was good news, but the trail went right into the mass of spiders. 

     Delara felt a surge of panic, an image of Mina cocooned in silk and dragged off into some spider’s lair, but then she remembered that they were afraid of the light, and she’d thrown the torch down just a few seconds after Mina and the golem’s descent. 

Delara lit a second torch, deciding to leave the first one where it was, as a marker for anyone who might come looking for them, and strode off, following the blood trail. She brandished the torch in her left hand, while gripping her battle-axe in her right, prepared to deal with anything not deterred by the light. 

     The spiders parted before her, scuttling back into their hidey-holes in the face of the harsh alchemical radiance. Delara kept her eyes peeled for the telltale red spots as she jogged down Mina’s trail, her torch throwing sharp-edged black shadows all across the jagged rock walls surrounding her. 

     And then she stumbled across something unexpected—right in the middle of one of the rough rock faces was a wall of smooth stone, and in that wall was an arched doorway, into which the blood trail led. 

     A ruin, down here? Perhaps from before the Shattering, when so much of the old worlds had been flipped upside down and turned inside-out. Delara had read about such things in stories, but seeing one in real life was wild. In the stories, these types of ruins either contained some powerful magical artifact from the Pre-Shattering golden age of Zemyah, or some ancient evil—a monstrous Reaver God or one of their demonic minions—that had been sealed away in the cataclysm, to be awakened by foolish mortals poking their nose where it didn’t belong. 

     Delara would be happy to find neither of these things. She just wanted Mina. She stepped into the stone corridor, senses alert. The stories also said these ruins could be full of traps, so Delara kept carefully scanning her surroundings as she continued to follow the blood trail. She noted that there wasn’t much dust on the floor, which suggested this place wasn’t abandoned. All the more reason to stay wary, while moving as quickly as she dared. 

     She passed several arched doorways, some opened, some closed, some leading into simple rooms, some branching off into other corridors. She resisted the urge to poke her head in to see if it was clear. If it wasn’t, she might inadvertently spark a confrontation with whatever she found. She needed to focus on her rescue, and if someone tried to block her path out, she’d deal with it then. 

     Delara turned a corner and nearly ran into a small, big-eyed figure with huge, pointy ears. The goblin flinched at the light of her torch, yelled out something unintelligible, then turned and fled.

     “Wait,” said Delara, and gave chase. The goblin didn’t go far before zipping through a doorway, which slammed shut behind it. Delara stopped at the door, checking the blood trail as she did. She couldn’t tell if it went inside, but she didn’t see any other drops of blood further down the hallway. Delara thumped on the door with the butt of her axe.

     “Hey, open up,” she said. “I’m not here to hurt anyone. I just want to talk. Hello?”

     Delara put her ear to the door, and she heard a woman’s voice, mixed in with some goblin chatter. It sounded like Mina. Delara studied the door. It looked like a solid single plank of painted wood, probably treated with some process known to the ancients that stopped it from rotting. Maybe if she kicked it, it might destroy the latch mechanism. Otherwise, she might be able to tear a hole in it with her axe’s heavy back-spike—

But, before she could test either theory, the door cracked open, and Delara saw a wide goblin eye staring up at her. Immediately, she shoved the door open, ignoring the squawk of protest. She could apologize for being rude after she was sure Mina was safe.

     She strode into the room and about a dozen goblins yelped and shielded their eyes from the bright alchemical torchlight. Well, too bad. There wasn’t any way to dim the torch without extinguishing it, and Delara wasn’t doing that.

     “Delara! I’m here,” said Mina, who was propped up against some sacks in the corner and wrapped up in a ratty-looking blanket. “It’s okay, they’re friendly. They carried me here and started treating me before I woke up and took my potion. That was just a few minutes ago. You got here fast.”

     “Thanks, I was in a rush,” said Delara, holstering her battle-axe and kneeling down besides Mina. One side of her face was bruised and puffy, she had a dirty, bloody bandage wrapped around her head, and was shivering in the cold, though this room was a bit warmer than the hallway. Delara saw a strange-looking stove on one side of the room. A magical artifact? Since they weren’t all choking to death from smoke? Or was there a hidden chimney somewhere?

     Delara banished these speculations to check on Mina.

     “Are you okay?” she said, before correcting herself. “Actually, scratch that, I can see that you’re not. Hang on.”

Delara reached into her belt, pulled out her emergency healing potion, and handed it to Mina, who grabbed it and gulped it down, grimacing as she did.

     “Does it taste bad?” Delara asked. “That’s what I heard. I’ve never tried one. We always had a priestess on duty by our training grounds for injuries.”

     “It’s okay,” said Mina. “Though I guess I’m a bit used to the taste. I go through a lot of these things. But, hoo—boy! That hits the spot, actually. I feel great now.”

     Mina threw off her blanket, revealing a crude splint wrapped around her right shin, and stretched her arms, rather performitively, Delara thought.

     “Well, we better get going. Don’t want to be left behind, right?” she said. “Plus, I think we’re imposing on the kindness of our hosts. Better get out of their hair and head on back.”

     And with that, she took out her dagger and sliced off the wrappings around her head and around the splint, prompting an older, matronly goblin woman to come running, screeching and indignantly pointing at her wounds, which only looked slightly better, and the discarded treatment.

     “No, it’s okay, see? Healing potion. Heal-ing po-tion,” said Mina, waving the empty emergency bottle in front of the goblin, who fumed and looked ready to smack her reckless patient. 

     “And I’m okay, see?”

     Mina took Delara’s hand and stood up, carefully. Delara felt her putting a great deal of weight on her arm as she did, and almost none on her injured leg. This wasn’t remotely convincing. 

     “Well, thank you, thank you all, for your help,” said Mina to the nervous, staring goblin crowd. “Especially you, Auntie. Mwah.”

     With that, Mina leaned down and kissed the matronly goblin’s forehead—an impressive feat with only one good leg—causing the recipient to squawk and cuff her on the uninjured side of her head, which Mina cheerfully ignored.

     “But now, I must take my leave and you can go back to—oh, what’s this?” Mina noted another female goblin, this one a bit younger than the first, tugging at her sleeve and offering up a wrapped parcel. 

     “Oh, no—that’s okay. I couldn’t possibly—“ Mina tried to say, but relented as the goblin began insistently hopping up and down and thrusting the parcel at her. “Uh, all right, all right. If you insist. Thank you. Thank you.”

     Mina nodded at the little goblin, who beamed up at her with a cracked-tooth smile. Mina turned and waved at the rest of the group, who stared back with a full range of expressions, ranging from friendliness to indifference to outright hostility. Then she turned to leave, taking a painful hopping shuffle-step, that forced Delara to intervene.

     “Hold this,” she said, as she handed her torch to Mina, before scooping her up and cradling her in her arms.

     “Oh!” said Mina staring up at her with wide eyes. “Oh, yes ma’am.”

     Delara ignored her, bowed to the assembled goblins, and shuffled them sideways through the door, which slammed shut behind them. Delara turned and began walking back to the entrance, Mina’s head resting on her shoulder. 

     Delara looked down and noted that Mina had managed to unwrap her parcel and was stuffing it in her face.

     “Some kind of meat pie,” said Mina. “Is’sa bit bland, but not bad. Here, try some.”

     “I don’t—“ Delara started to say, before the pie was squished through the gap in her cheek-guards, forcing her to bite into it in self-defense. It was hot and the meat was a bit stringy, kind of like crab. Actually, it was probably spider, wasn’t it? Delara forced herself to finish chewing and swallowing. If the goblins survived eating it, she probably would as well.

     Mina certainly wasn’t worried about the pie’s origin. She was absolutely wolfing it down, eating it faster than looked comfortable. The distance to the entrance wasn’t far, but she’d completely destroyed her gift by the time they’d got there.

     “Hungry?” said Delara, noting a fresh trickle of blood from Mina’s head wound.

     “Oh, starving,” said Mina. “But, um… listen. About those goblins back there—in fact, about this whole little ruins-entrance-thing—I think it’d be better if—“

     “Delara! Cat-Girl!” came a voice, and Delara looked over to see Cora running over, along with a stalker and an alchemist-medic. “There you are. Thank the goddess. What were you doing all the way out here? And in that—what is that? A building, down here? And—whoa!”

     Delara heard the sound of grinding stone behind her and turned to see a heavy slab door slide down in the archway she’d just left, sealing the ruins off. That was weird.

     “Ah, medic, please, I’m dying over here,” said Mina, and Delara let her down to be treated, which also reminded her of something.

     “Cora,” she said. “Where’s Rue? Is she—“

     “She’s recovering,” said Cora. “Medic said she’d probably be fine, eventually. And that she’s really fucking lucky she’s a dwarf, or else that spider poison would’ve killed her instantly.”

     “Oh, thank the Goddess,” said Delara, relief flooding through her, making her knees wobbly.

     “Yes, thank the Goddess,” Cora repeated. “Others weren’t so lucky, but, all in all, our casualties ended up being pretty light. That’s

what they’re telling us, anyway. Oh, once we’re back, Lance Commander wants to talk to you. This way.”