Tierra patted Weiss’s side as trees and forest debris swept by far faster than the woman herself could run. Weiss not an especially fast horse, and he didn’t like galloping, but he was much better at keeping the two of them in front of a charging, angry demon than Tierra was. Tierra briefly considered haling her steed as she heard trees fall and stone being pushed aside behind her, but decided that she didn’t want to risk losing control of her horse.

Tierra had been told that an old wizard who made his home in this forest had gotten himself sent to Hell about ten years back. She came out here thinking that she might find some gobbet of arcane knowledge that would help her in her quest. She did not, though, come out here thinking that a massive, furry brown serpent with a humanoid head would have come through the portal from the other side. Or that it would be very, very hungry. But it was here, it was hungry, and it was now chasing her through the forest. Every now and then, it would hiss something at her in the demonic tongue.

Weiss bounded over a fallen tree which was just moments later crushed and split into flinders by the serpent’s incredible weight. Tierra ducked under a low-hanging branch with practiced ease, pulled out a talisman from out of her leg pack, wrapped its chain around her hand, and held her hand by Weiss’s side. A pulse of crystal clarity filled the space around them; the sound of water dropping in a spring far in the distance rang in their ears as Tierra intoned the word, “Melia.” The spell took hold, freeing Weiss from whatever fatigue may have crept over them since they began running. Tierra sat up in her saddle and chanced a glance back at their pursuer, who was… still there.

The young adventurer looked forward again, and spied the entrance to a large cave. She wasn’t sure how far back it went, but as it drew nearer, she was sure it was at least far enough back to get them away from the serpent. She was fortunate, too. The cave’s mouth was large enough to admit her atop Weiss, but not so large that the serpent would have an easy time wriggling inside. She felt a hot breath on her back, and turned around to see the demon’s face, not five feet back from her and Weiss.

At one time, she wanted to know exactly what this thing looked like. Now, she was sorry she knew. It had a face like a man’s, but was covered in coarse brown fur with long, blond eyebrows. The demon had no nose to speak of, but two slits in its face, instead. Its mouth was stuck open in a feral leer, and its multihued eyes were wide with madness. Perhaps its worst trait is that it was faster than Weiss, and it was nearly ready to bite and bring down rider and mount. The jewel on Tierra’s neck pulsed and thrummed furiously with her impending doom.

Without hesitation, Tierra reached under the small, leather cape on her side and pulled out her pistol, pointing it at the monster. There was a sharp crack in the air, joined by the trilling sound of two screaming woman as an azure fire erupted from the weapon in Tierra’s hand. The demon halted suddenly as the iron-silver bullet impacted with its face, nearly dead center, throwing its head back from both pain and surprise. Tierra didn’t notice the beast slow down, however. She holstered her gun and took the rein again, steering Weiss straight into the cave.

Stalactites swept by her head, stalagmites rushed past Weiss’s hooves. Tierra tried to steer her mount, but found it fruitless as the horse’s senses and reflexes were far better than her own. She heard the sound of a thump far behind her as the demon tried to follow them and failed. Weiss knew what kind of danger they were in, and his resolve in bolting into the cave did not falter once. Within a minute, Weiss began to slow, and Tierra wondered just how deep in this cave they really were.

It was very dark, here. Tierra heard the sound of water splashing beneath Weiss’s hooves and her muscles tensed. The jewel on her neck stopped pulsing and she slowed Weiss to a halt until her eyes adjusted to the lighting. As soon as the panic of the chase had worn off her, Tierra flinched – this place smelled like an old chamber pot. She wrapped her bandanna around her mouth and nose and tied it off, trying to keep that wretched smell out. Quickly, her eyes adjusted to the light.

She was in a wide corridor with a high, arching ceiling. From wall to wall, the passage she was in was nearly one hundred feet across. Weiss was standing in the middle of the waterway; the grating she could make out through the murk beneath her told her that she was in a sewer. There were walkways on either side of the sewer channel, each about fifteen feet wide. She led Weiss up onto the one on her left and dismounted him, taking a look around. A series of flickering lanterns hung from the walls at fixed intervals, providing the light which filled the sewer.

Tierra heard a quiet scuttling sound in the distance, accompanied by a soft swishing. Without any warning that Tierra was aware of, Weiss broke into a gallop down the long sewer corridor, leaving her all alone in the dim waterway. Steeling herself, she walked forward a ways, eventually turning left around the nearest corner. Pausing, she noticed that the hard scuttling sound was getting louder, as was the swishing that went along with it. She waited a second or two. The sound grew, and quickly.

Panic gripped at the edges of her mind, but she pulled herself out of it. The scuttling sound now reverberated through the wide corridors of the rank sewers, filling Tierra's ears. She took a deep breath and cleared her mind, glancing down at the water pooling around her feet. Her heart beat furiously in her chest and sweat prickled her skin. 'If only it weren't water,' she thought to herself, 'who knows what foul things lurk down here.' Shaking, she jumped onto the relative dry of the sewer's sidewalk. The sound was getting louder. Curiously, she peered around the corridor of the passage...

Eighty feet down the passage, a monstrous thing approached. Its gray, armor-plated body was easily fifty feet wide and was rife with cracks filled with some alien, pulsing violet infection. The crustacean’s left eye hung limp on its head and a twisted piece of iron walkway jutted out from its back. Rapt with fear, Tierra stumbled forward into the channel before catching herself, but it was too late. With its good eye, the beast spotted her. The ticking sound of the monstrous crab's scuttling legs turned to thunder.

Tears in her eyes, Tierra spun on her feet and bolted around the corner she had come from. As the thunderous sound grew louder, she could hear a soft "csh-csh-csh" coming from behind her. The crab rounded the corner, shaking the foundation of the sewers around predator and prey.

As she ran down the corridor, Tierra spotted a drop ahead of her, in a massive round room with no discernable floor. One glance back and the sound of chitinous legs on stone told her that the crab was not giving up its dinner lightly, but she tried slowing herself to a halt, anyway. Her boots caught no purchase on the smooth sewer floor, and she skidded forward. She continued running and reached into her leg pack, fumbling for a tiny, hard block in one of its pockets. As the ledge drew nearer, she pulled the incense from her pack and clapped it to her chest. Silver light limned her hand, the scent of vanilla exploded into the air around her, and she felt her blood pulsing with perfection. The tempo of her footfalls multiplied, and she became unto a blur.

The crab was nearly upon her as she reached the drop-off. At its very edge, she leapt. She jumped not only far into the chasm, but high into the air – nearly twenty feet into the air. As she began to fall earthward again, the crab exploded from the corridor behind her. 'Here's hoping...' she thought to herself. Time seemed to slow down. A massive pincer snapped at the air near her head. Her foot landed on the crab's head; beast and woman were nearly halfway across the chasm, and she jumped again, hurtling herself toward another of the corridors that led into the reservoir.

Tierra landed within inches of the chasm ledge again. She began to tilt backward, losing her balance. Before she knew it, her hand was bringing her warhammer free of its harness. She swung it forward, its spike forward, and it bit into the ground, holding her in place. She sighed in relief, and chanced a look back toward the gulf. Far below, she could barely make out the image of the mighty sewer crab before it disappeared into the blackness.

Now safe from the crab, she leapt up onto the walkway of the sewer and began to explore the realm around her. Most of it was much the same and she more than once ran across a sewer rodent of unusual size, but it was par for the course in her career. After nearly an hour of searching, she spotted a familiar shape in the distance – Weiss.

When Tierra met up with him, Weiss was standing in front of a large brass hatch in the wall, nearly thirty feet across. He looked at her as though nothing were wrong, then at the hatch. Tierra shook her head at the horse, scolding him, “And you couldn’t wait for me? I see how it is.” Weiss nipped at her in reply, and pushed her toward the door. “Alright, alright. I’m opening it,” she said.

She set her hands on the lever that spanned the gate’s length, pushed it up until she heard the groan of its mechanism, and pulled it open. Sunlight flooded over both of them.

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Tierra Nena, Miss Kylie Wild