"This is as far as I can go. I got some spells too, though! Let me look at them and see what I can figure out about what they do . . ."

There are eight of them, five simpler/smaller ones and three slightly larger and more complicated ones. The simpler ones look sturdy, almost springy, like she could push them out into the world and they'd take effect and then fold themselves back up again; the more complicated ones are also more fragile.

"I've got two that do extra senses, one that looks like it's for analyzing other magic, one that's for moving things without touching them, and a communication one, and it looks like I can use those as many times as I want, and then I've got some fragile ones that might be single use or need to recharge between uses or something. . . . One of the fragile ones is healing, I think! And then there's another extra sense and some kind of defensive spell I can cast on other people."

To sum up: being part dragon is awesome.

"Woah, you can just pick up sorcery? I think normally you have to be born with the knack for it, or at least do a lot of training to bring out buried talent. I guess it's not really all that more surprising than being able to turn into a dragon, since they're supposed to all be sorcerers, but still. Could I trouble you for some of the healing?"

"Technically the thing I'm doing is getting the abilities I would have if I had a dragon ancestor, except I don't know if humans being descended from dragons is a real thing that can happen or if my magic is making it up. I will definitely try the healing spell on you." She taps Anevia's hand and her leg gradually starts feeling better, though it doesn't get all the way to fixed.

"That's definitely a thing, plenty of sorcerers are descended from dragons. I think it might even be the most common kind of sorcerer, though I wouldn't swear to it and there are lots of kinds."

She does some careful stretches with her leg, wincing at a few points, but seems overall quite grateful.

"Thanks a ton, that's a lot less painful. I'll still have to be careful how much weight I put on it but I should be good to walk. I hope this crevasse opens up to the surface somewhere, or at least some larger cave; I'm not optimistic about how fast they'd be able to move enough rock for us to get out, not when they don't even know we're alive."

"I hope so, yeah. If you want to lean on me as we go you're welcome to." (Friends In Places is such a good set of powers; she'd've been far too awkward to offer, before.)

Anevia will gratefully accept this, and with her help manage to make pretty good time down the tunnel.

Her flashlight will illuminate a young woman with pointed ears and a rapier in fancy clothing and a ball of glowing light above her head; a bit down the way there's a corpse on the ground.

At some point she really needs to sit down and process all the death she's interacted with in the past hour; she's pretty sure she's only as chill as she currently is because of the "You can be upset but not traumatized" aspect of Iron Will and it's definitely upsetting.

"Hello. Are you alright?" She doesn't offer condolences for the dead person because he might have just been standing next to the woman when the chasm opened.

"I'm a little injured, but nothing impairing - I just decided it would be smarter to save my healing for if something else happened since I didn't have a lot prepared. I was fine before I fell, which probably helped; a cambion got in close and it hurt him pretty badly before he killed it."

"We're looking for a way back to the surface; want to come with us? Safety in numbers, after all."

"That seems quite sensible. Does anyone need me to cast light for them, or has your magical item been sufficient so far?"

"It has limited energy reserves and once it runs out I have no reliable way to replenish it; if your light is usable indefinitely I'd prefer to switch." Actually now that she says that it occurs to her that she might be able to use Dressing Room to acquire a headlamp, but she doesn't want to count on that without trying it. 

"Orisons don't have a use limit, though my lights only last ten minutes a cast so I'll need to refresh them with some frequency and they mostly only illuminate around you. Perhaps save yours for occasional navigation or close examination, and make use of this for the meantime?"

She can give each of them a little glowing sphere that situates itself above their head to avoid blinding them, and with multiple light sources the shadows are only moderately annoying.

"That's very handy, thanks!" She stows the flashlight. And now that she has a hand free and has confirmed that reusable spells are in fact reusable she's going to try out her new extra senses magic! 

"Oh, this is useful, I can see where there's magic now! And the other one looks for demons. Unfortunately I can't keep them both going at the same time; probably the demons one is more important." Which is too bad because magic is cool and there's any around to look at.

It requires some digging to get enough rocks out of the way that a human can fit through without crawling, but the crevasse does open up into a larger cave system! Their light and voices will attract the attention of some large and aggressive insects, but none of them are even as dangerous as the weakest of the demons she just fought.

Brenda has no problem with hauling rocks and killing any bugs that get past Seelah and keeping a magical eye out for demons, and in between she introduces everyone to the new person and finds out her name is Camellia. Not getting tired from physical exertion is surprisingly fun. If the larger cave system is branchy she suggests the "stick to the left wall" strategy.

The cave does branch, but sticking to the left hand wall doesn't seem to lead them down any dead ends. Before long, she'll be able to hear some conversation coming from up ahead!

Man, so many people fell down this hole that was made specifically to trap Brenda. She should have made different decisions. Maybe if she hadn't rejected the idea of trying to grab the scythe.

For now, though, the four of them can walk towards the conversation.

"It's not in the shrine, but I'm not seeing it anywhere else either. Do you think it was buried under the rocks?"

"I'm not sure. It's hard to imagine anyone else choosing to make coming here to grab it the priority, but I can't rule it out."

Oooh, what a cool pair of species! She should ask Camellia about hers as well. 

"Hello! What are you looking for?"

"We're looking for the angel's sword! It was here before the earthquake hit, but I can't seem to locate it."

"Oh, sure, blurt out why we're here to the first person you meet. I don't see how that could possibly go wrong."

"We're looking for a route to the surface. Is the sword likely to show up to magic detection, and would you like me to check?"

"I'm not sure if it will; I can't do that myself, and I don't know if anyone I know can. It doesn't come up much, what with how the only magic around here is usually what Dyra is doing. If it does work and saves us a lot of effort, I'm all for it. But if you're looking for a way up to the surface, you're in luck - the reason I'm looking for the sword is so I can rally the tribes to challenge the shield maze, which leads to the surface."