"I don't care what you smell," Safiya says angrily. "I won't let you have her."

"What do you care, Thayan? I know your kind - you love yourselves above all else."

"You don't know me, animal. But I know you. I know that your present form, for all its... color... is only a shadow of your true self. And I've shaped and bound far greater things than you."

"And I smell a wild storm in you, Thayan. Does your friend know the secrets you hide? Grief and confusion beyond measure... and something more..."

He shakes his head roughly. "Enough words! By the oath I swore, neither of you will leave my den!"

"Who do you work for who asked that oath of you?"

In lieu of answering this question, he charges!

Safiya leaps out of the way and fires a Disintegrate at him. He shakes it off with a snarl.

How does he feel about stormbolts?

Those seem to hurt significantly more! Still, he roars and stands on his back legs to maul Safiya -

- but with a snarl of her own, she fires another thin green ray directly into his underbelly.

This one, he doesn't shrug off. His form wavers, then dissipates.

"Oh, Disintegrate, my truest friend," Safiya says happily. "I don't think we managed to kill the bear god for good, but he'll be re-forming for a while yet. Let's get out of this place and see the sunlight again."

"Sunlight's overrated," Niss mutters, but she casts a Penumbra and steps out.

"I'm sorry, that was insensitive of me," Safiya says with some amusement. They step outside, and Safiya casts Greater Teleport, and they're standing about half a mile from the gates of a modest city - not Waterdeep-sized, but hardly a village either.

"Just ahead of us stand the gates of Mulsantir. You've been eviscerated, assaulted by spirits, and insulted by a very large bear... how are you feeling?"

"Hungry."

Safiya winces. "I'm sorry. Would you like me to summon an elemental and see if it helps?"

"The wolf only helped for like a second, so I don't know if it's worth the bother unless you've heard elementals are very filling."

"Not in particular." She sighs. "Hopefully it - well. I'll bring you before Lienna and see what she has to say."

She takes a skullcap and hooded robe out of her bag and shrugs out of her current robe to change into them. "I'm going to need to disguise myself in Mulsantir - they're none too fond of the Red Wizards of Thay. As far as I can tell, they have no particular opinion of drow, though."

"Why don't they like Red Wizards?"

"Thay, our home country, has historically been... rather aggressively expansionist. Not the best neighbors. My particular academy doesn't hold with that, but the Rashemi don't discriminate in their loathing."

She takes out a small compact and smears some concealer on her face (especially her forehead tattoo), blends it indifferently, and puts on the skullcap, which shimmers and puts an illusion over her. Nothing too dramatic, mostly putting a bit more weight on her bones and giving her a curtain of straight black hair. "The idea here is that if anyone sees through the illusion, they'll believe it to be feminine vanity covering for my baldness and apparent cosmetic incompetence. But hopefully we won't attract the attention of anyone with that kind of discernment in the first place."

"Seems reasonable."

"I don't enjoy hiding who I am... but needs must. I wish Ipsit and Sefi had returned from scouting, I worry they may have gotten lost."

"Party members?"

"Of a sort. They're homunculi."

     "Sort of like me," says the voice from inside her robe (which apparently made the transition). "Only not as smart. Or good-looking!"

"Much like Kaji, yes, but these were more primitive creations. It wouldn't surprise me at all if they got lost on the way. I sent them to find Lienna and let her know I was on my way, you see, but sometimes it seems like they can hardly navigate the halls of the Academy where they've spent their whole lives."

"Troubling. I haven't delved into homunculi myself."