"Unless someone has a really good objection I'mma stab them."

She does not have any really good objections.

"I hear if you make a halfassed attempt at regretting anything at all then Nirvana will take you," he tells the cultists, and then slits their throats.

"Carrying anything -"

"No."

She shivers and turns back to the tracks.

The ice melts. There's a stone staircase.

"Mahdi, can you put her in your purse or something -"

"Worried she'd run out of air."

"Then make a snorkeling tube or something."

"All right. Imrainai -"

"Present." She can... approach Mahdi?

"This is dangerous and everyone who I've heard talk about doing it lost someone to suffocation eventually but I think wandering into the Underdark as a civilian surpasses it for dangerousness. You're going to climb in here, hold a breathing tube, sit there. If a fight starts I'll try to shove your tube out of the way and close the purse so spells cast can't affect you. Hold still, try not to use too much air, you'll have a couple minutes of it and most fights with casters end fast. When it's over I'll open it again. Understood?"

- nod.

He hands her a little tube and unzips the purse in such a fashion that its radius expands.

Well.

She gets inside the purse and holds the tube out of the opening and hopes for the best.

And they descend the stairs.

Well.

She's in this bag. There's air, but there's no light, so she can't see anything. If she holds her finger right up to the tube she can make out the outline of her finger, barely. 

She doesn't dare sleep. She's sort of afraid the tube will slip and she won't notice and she'll suffocate. Too early for sleep anyway, really.

Occasionally there's sudden movements, muffled shouts. Mahdi closes the bag a few times. Never for more than a minute. Afterwards he opens it, looks in at her. Mahdi looks almost bored while he's fighting. He looks intensely bored every time he checks on her.

...well, this is miserable. Her misery isn't really one of the important considerations here, the important thing is getting Verita back, but she sure is miserable.

She stays up as long as she can, waiting for them to make camp. She's not sure whether they're planning to let her out to sleep, but she's still kind of terrified of suffocating.

It's so dark. She whispers stories to herself under her breath, sometimes, and then comes back to the breathing tube to gulp in more not-even-fresh underground air.

Eventually the bag opens. Mahdi reaches in to offer her a hand out.

They're in a stone cottage. It's ugly, but sturdily built; there are eight bunks, a table for eight, a desk. There's a magical light dangling from the ceiling.

She will maybe be breathing more deeply than normal for a while.

"What's this?"

"Conjured it," says Mahdi. "Didn't want to try the Rope Trick again after last time. Is hiding in there sustainable?"

"Think so. Didn't feel safe to sleep, but other than that."

"We can sleep here."