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Then Amber interrupts me, as I'm about to ask her to do something. "The city is still under attack, if we don't save the Fountain of Waters, the spirit will be overtaken and all will be lost." Well, Amber doesn't often chime in too much, I think the age difference keeps her quieter than she would be with just Ariel, but that was a bit of news.  The city guard wasn't expecting us, but I knew that things were time sensitive on their end, they had too be. And we had just sent everyone every which way, it was just Wolfie, Amber, Ariel and Michael standing at the gate while Amber was easing out of being in contact with the city spirit. On the other hand, I wasn't about to just leave things here.  But darn, girl, I mean, I'd just found myself gambling on who to help when and how and about thrown all our lives away. Then she added one more comment, which made me go double darn.  "We have to go now, or it will be too late!  Now!" Got to keep that girl from linking up with strange spirits, that's for sure, but we all grabbed on to her hands and the gate threw us to where the city needed us. Though where that deep, dank cave was I hadn't the slightest idea.  Good thing Michael glows some times.  Hey, and KoreShira was in my hands.  I was complete, and the bull was at my back.  I suddenly felt ready for anything, and the witchlight sprang forth under us as the spirit of the bull surrounded us.  Then we were in it, and deep. While the assault on the city surface was underway, as above, so below, there was an assault on the heart of the city, the secret place where the city's spirit had lived before it was driven out. Being here it was obvious why the city was in a desert (I mean, besides the coastal desert, escarpment, etc. sort of thing). The heart of the city was empty. If we won, the City Spirit could return. But if we lost, well, I could feel the chaos that was coming. The Kttjjhi had raised up a spirit of their own, to make the city theirs. They were coming, and I could feel more with them. Amber looked grim, "They've let loose some of the shadow vampires sleeping here." Michael just smiled, and the glow about him suddenly got harder.  They had a surprise and so did we. I've never had to just stand and defend before.  I mean, completely stand and defend.  We had the fight at the docks at Ostend, but that was more an open engagement.  We could have been pushed back and then recovered. But this time we had to make sure that the city's heart core wasn't taken, which means we couldn't just let the ebb and flow of battle work itself out, we had to stand and hold. And we couldn't range out to meet them, catching them by surprise, not and risk that they might come around behind us.  It wasn't like guarding someone either, because the core wasn't about to move with us or go anywhere, and it couldn't really help, or so I thought. But it began to glow, just a little, and I realized it couldn't help much, but for now this was friendly ground for us, hostile ground for any who came after us. Not as good as a star shrine, but something. I knew a city heart ought not to be a star shrine, not unless everyone was bonded to it (as happens sometimes with the elven star), but it would have been good to have that help. Then they were on us. Ariel was a raging fire at my side, Wolfie my strong right arm, our familiars fully manifest and Ariel's snowgriffin in the fray as well.  Michael and Ariel stood behind us, in the heart, she throwing spears of ice, he spears of light, vampires, demons and kjjtthi being rended and broken, their assault disrupted. We weren't many, and we had a lot of ground to cover, but with those two at the center, the three of us could engage them as they came, counting on Michael's light to warn him if anything broke through or circled around. There was a lot of that, kept he and Ariel busy for the most part, just striking at the infiltrators. There were five of us, and about thirty of them, which I only knew after it was all over.  First we faced the fore runners, a nine -- six on the attack and three in reserve, which Wolfie and I took as they broke out of the passageway we knew was the most direct. He stunned them, I let loose the anathraxis net I had patterned with the blue lodge arts and we were on them, blades and chains reaving them.  The picture here is of my first three, two kjjtthi and one kjjtthi/shadow vampire, balked just a little by the light. But they knocked us back into the chamber and we had not recovered when the main body arrived, almost a double nine. Amber caught fire, after letting loose with a wave of flame, and then she hit the far left of their emerging formation, Wolfie taking the right and I began dancing with my chain in the center as the center paniced, not knowing if this was an ambush or a rearguard. Amber's familiar burned with the same fierceness as she burned, and Wolfie's fu dog, transformed and riven though it had been, joined in with him.  The power of the bull filled us, and then shards of ice were everywhere as Ariel's magic cut loose. She had been building something up since the first group, and it was a powerful spell, greatly improved upon by Michael's blinding light which passed over our backs and into the vampires. Michael covering Amber's side, Ariel Wolfie's, lest her cold quench Amber. Then they were engaged with five who had slipped through in enfilade, to strike. Michael's light felt them, and then he and Ariel and they were in a dance of magic and steel, while we fought on.  Luckily (luckily?), the main body was embroiled with us, and no more took the chance to infiltrate past, instead they sought to overwhelm us as we danced clear. About one in three was a kjjtthi merged with a vampire, you could tell because of the darker look, but in appearance they were pure. I had never realized that the pure kjjtthi were albinos, without color, guess that will go for extra credit if I make it back alive for the next semester.  No melds here with the standard forms, but a pure line seeking its own destiny. Who knows what they would have become if they had not failed here. Shalgathi based?  Shadow vampire infused?  But they died instead.  All of them. Then the light transformed. "Every enemy we killed, strengthened the city, and this more." The city spirit was with us, and the floor suddenly was covered with water, water flowing with deep spirits and power, as the City rejoined with its ancient roots and ancient allies, oh so long sleeping and away. Which would have made me happy, except for the creature that crawled out of the rocks. I could see the last bit of the kjjtthi shaman slough off of its surface, it was the spirit he had been carrying, and it had emerged through him when it was no longer something he could carry.  We had to stand here and take it or it would take us, the city's spirit and the heart, to who knows what evil. But it sure was ugly, festering and chaos filled, which was its strength and its undoing. Guess I'll write about that fight next. This is the spirit before it transformed, as it broke through and Ariel stopped its charge. She got one good shot at it with her bladed staff and then her gryphon struck it and knocked it back and we were all on it. It was the shapechange that almost did us in. Too disgusting to write about now, maybe later.

Os. Freezing, bloody, and dark, with spirits swarming, I'll write more when there is a dry spot with enough light.

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