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spire of rock, she added, "The first of many!"
Without warning, a bright ball of force rounded the sharp corner of the tunnel
ahead and hurtled toward her.
The battle had begun.
Training and instinct took over at once: Liriel snapped both hands up, wrists
crossed and palms out.
A field of resistance sprung up before her an instant before the
fireball would have struck. The girl squeezed her eyes shut and tossed
her head to one side as the brilliant light exploded into a sheet of magical
flame.
Liriel dropped flat and rolled aside, as she'd been taught to do in such
attacks. The magical shield could not withstand more than one or two impacts
of such power, and it was prudent to get out of the line of fire. To her
astonishment, the second blast came in low and hard-and directly toward her.
Liriel leapt to her feet and dived for the far side of the tunnel. She managed
to put the large stalagmite between herself and the coming blast.
The explosion rocked the tunnel and sent a shower of rock fragments cascading
down upon the young drow. She coughed and spat dust, but her fingers darted
undeterred through the gestures of a spell.
In response to her magic, the dust and the sulfurous smoke swirled to a
central spot of the tunnel and gathered into a large globe. Liriel pointed
grimly in the direction of the unseen wizard, and the floating globe
obediently rounded the corner toward its prey.
She waited, hardly daring to breathe, for the next attack to come. When it did
not, she began to creep slowly and cautiously around the bend. There was no
sound in the tunnel ahead, other than the distant drip of water. This was
promising: the globe of hot, smoky vapor had been enspelled to seek out and
surround its source of origin. If all had gone well, the human wizard would
have been smothered by the sulfurous by-products of his own fireball. Liriel
picked up her pace. If this were so, she would have a limited amount of time
to find and revive him.
The tunnel grew ever brighter as she made her way down its twisting length.
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Suddenly the path dipped dramatically, and Liriel saw laid out before her a
cavern that was stranger than any she had ever seen or imagined.
Luminous fungi covered much of the stone and filled the entire cave with a
faint, eerie blue glow.
Stalagmites and stalactites met in long, irregular pillars of stone, and large
crystals embedded in them tossed off glittering shards of light that stabbed
at her eyes like tiny daggers.
At once, a brilliant ball of light flashed into being in the center of the
cavern. Liriel reeled back, clutching at her blinded eyes. Her keen ears
caught the whine and hiss of an approaching missile, she dropped flat as yet
another fireball blazed toward her.
The fireball missed her, but barely. Heat assailed Liriel with searing pain as
it passed over her, and the smoke and stench of her own scorched hair
assaulted her like a blow to the gut. Coughing and
gagging, she rolled aside. She blinked rapidly as she went, trying to dispel
the lingering sparks and flashes that obscured her vision.
Think, think! she admonished herself. So far she had only reacted: along that
path lay certain defeat.
To give herself a bit of time, Liriel called upon her innate drow magic
and dropped a globe of darkness over the magic light ahead of her. That
leveled the field of battle, but it did not steal the human wizard's visual
advantages: there was still plenty of light in the cavern to allow him to see.
She had not yet seen him, however.
A suspicion that had taken root in Liriel's mind with the wizard's first
attack suddenly blossomed into certainty. He had anticipated her responses, he
seemed to know precisely how she would react. Perhaps he had been trained to
know. Setting her jaw in grim determination, Liriel set out to learn just how
well he'd been prepared.
Her hands flashed through the gestures of a spell that Gromph had taught her-a
rare and difficult spell that few drow knew of and fewer still could master.
It had taken her the better part of a day to learn it, and now the effort was
repaid in full.
Standing in the center of the cavern, ringed and partially shielded by a
circle of stone pillars, stood the human. A stunned expression crossed his
bearded face as he regarded his own outstretched hands.
The reason for this was all too apparent: a piwafwi, which should have granted
him magical invisibility, appeared suddenly on him and hung in glittering
folds over his red-robed shoulders. He had not only been prepared, but
equipped!
The human wizard recovered quickly from his surprise. He drew in a deep breath
and spat in Liriel's direction. A dark bolt shot from his mouth, and then
another. The drow's eyes widened as she beheld the two live vipers wriggling
toward her with preternatural speed.
Liriel pulled two small knives from her belt and flicked them toward the
nearest snake. Her blades tumbled end-over-end, crossing the viper's neck from
either side and neatly slicing the head from its body.
The beheaded length of snake writhed and looped for several moments, blocking
the second viper's path long enough for Liriel to get off a second volley.
This time she threw only one knife. The blade plunged into the viper's open
mouth and exploded out the back of its head with a bright burst of gore.
Liriel allowed herself a small, grim smile, and she resolved to properly thank
the mercenary who'd taught her to throw!
It was a moment's delay, but even that much was too long. Already the human
wizard's hands were moving through the gestures of a spell-a familiar spell.
Liriel tore a tiny dart from her weapons belt and spat upon it.
In response to her unspoken command, the other needed spell component-a
tiny vial of acid- rose from her open spell bag. She seized it and tossed both
items into the air. Her fingers flashed through the casting, and at once a
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luminous streak flew to answer the one flashing toward her. The acid bolts
collided midway between the combatants, sending a spray of deadly green
droplets sizzling off into the cavern.
The human flung out one hand. Magic darted from each of his fingertips,
spinning out into a giant web as it flew. The weird blue light of the cavern
glimmered along the strands and turned the sticky droplets that clung to
them into gemlike things that rivaled moonstones and pearls. Liriel marveled
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