Authors note:

part 1 got several ninja edits after I posted it. These are as follows:

1. John's starting skill is 4, not 6
2. Becca threatened to horsewhip Paul herself. She didn't mention her father.
3. When Paul tried to grab the broom, it zapped him not John.

And now part 2

Jane sat with her head resting on the bar top. It was an impressive piece of timber, half a foot thick and two feet and change across, dividing the room in two. On one side Grom the dwraven barkeep nursed his kegs of mead and ale, and on the other Jane sat, on a stool beside a pewter flagon of Moon Mead.

Jane rubbed her eyes with her palms. The skin was sticky with dried tears. It itched, no matter how much she rubbed. Having no hankey she snorted to clear her nose and let her head fall, head-butting the bar top. She'd cried more in the last hour than John had in years. Other than that time he had hit his thumb with a hammer when his dad had put him straight back to work the day after Harvest festival. That had been a bad day but since then there wasn't a single bout of crying that he could remember.

She looked up at Grom, but saw no solutions in his youthful face. He was pretty handsome for a dwarf, his brick red hair and beard divided into thin neat braids which cascaded down his chest and over his shoulders. The mass of hair made him look larger than he really was but failed to make him at all imposing. Somehow he still looked like the kind of person one could spill their deepest fears too.

"I am so doomed," Jane said, punctuating each word by bouncing her head off the bar top again.

"Come now lass, it can't be that bad?" Grom said, giving her a broad smile. "Now drink that right up. It will put the bounce back in your step."

She sipped the Moon Mead. It had a curious taste, much smoother than the mead that Mr Brewster made back in Lambford. Him and that no good rotten son of his that she wasn't going to think about. "So why do you call this Moon Mead?"

"Highland black bees, they're nocturnal and feed on evening primrose, moonflower and night phlox," Grom said.

She waited, expecting to him to crack up in laughter at any moment but the Dwarf remained straight faced. She held a drop of Mead on her tongue, rolling it about to capture all the subtle herbal flavours. "There's Caraway in this isn't there? I've never had Mead with Caraway before."

"I'll admit that much Lass, but ask me no more." Grom smiled and patted the keg behind him with one hand. "'tis an old recipe from the foothills of the Rimwolds. I learned from an Alin master brewer many years ago,"

She took another sip of Mead. It was the most invigorating thing she had ever drunk. Far from making her senses fuzzy, like beer was want to do, it heightened them until everything in the bar room seemed to to glow. When she's staggered into Grom's bar room her stamina had been hovering at one point, she'd even gotten an achievement notification from it. Mostly Dead was not something to brag about. Now her stamina was halfway full again at six points.

Finding a tavern in the middle of a dungeon was surreal, now that she thought about it. The whole place must have been flooded until recently but here it was. Sure the walls were the same dressed stone as the rest of the place, but how did Grom get all this stuff down here so fast. There were a half dozen kegs, each larger than the dwarf. Heck, the bar top alone had to weigh a ton. More to the point why? Why would anyone open a Tavern in the middle of a dungeon under an old well?

"Grom, I was wondering. Why did you pick such an out of the way place to open a tavern?" she said looking at the empty room over one more time.

"Oh, it does alright, you'd be surprised, the place can get so frantic I near loose me head. It can. Now, what's got you so down lass?"

She looked up at him, fighting back tears, she took a sip of the Moon Mead, and swallowed. It had a curious taste. "I've forgotten everything, when my father finds out his going to kill me."

"Come now, a pretty girl like you, must have her old man wrapped about her little finger."

"That's just it, I'm not a girl, at least I wasn't till I came down here. My old man is expecting his son to show up and help in the wood shop. Old Reems has himself a new bride, coming up from Campton Flats and wants the whole place done up real smart." she said between mouthfuls of Mead then thumped the end of the broom against the floor. "I had to go adventuring and find a god damn magic broom. Why couldn't it have been a sword? I can't even remember which end of a plane to hold."

Grom took her now empty flagon and refilled it from the keg behind him. "Sounds like you've had an eventful day, could do with another round I'd say."

Jane patted at her rope belt where her coin pouch wasn't. "I, don't have any coin at the moment. Not since that no good. I can trade you some mudcups."

He slid the flagon across the bar anyway and shrug his shoulders, "Eh, have another on me. So its boy trouble is it? Thought it might be."

"Yes, well I wasn't fool enough to go adventuring all on my own. You got to have someone to watch your back. I had Paul, or thought I did until that Ogre showed up."

The dwarfs eyebrows rose until they disappeared under his braids. "There's an Oger down here? Where did I put that battleaxe?"

She shrugged and picked up the flagon draining a quarter of the liquid in one gulp. "I best start at the beginning. See we'd been in our first fight, and I fireballed two goblin thugs. They wanted to eat us if you can believe it."

* * *

Jane pulled back the bolt and opened the next door. The room on the other side was circular and far taller and deeper than the passageway. There was no sign of a floor nor a ceiling, just stone walls disappearing into shadow. "We're going to need a new torch."

"I'll get one." Paul replied, leaving at a jog.

Well, that was strange, what had gotten into Paul all of a sudden? At some point a bridge had spanned the space connecting their door to another one on the far side. Now most of the bridge was gone, leaving only a narrow ledge on either side, with a sizable gap in between.

Jane stood out on the ledge, measuring the gap. It didn't look jumpable to her. Stranger still, the walls where glowing. Or no not quite glowing but highlighted as if some kind of energy covered them, flickering along the seams in the stone work.

"I can jump that." Paul said, holding a new torch in one hand and one of the goblin short swords in the other.

"It's the landing that has me worried." she pointed at the further ledge, "That ledge is only a foot wide. I think I can get us across. Give me a moment."

She rifled though the new knowledge in her brain, consciously ignoring the herbalism to focus on sorcery. She knew a floating spell, but it required a jewelled medallion, which would cost more than her father earned in a year.

The broom vibrated in her hand, and her thoughts circled back to the floatation spell. She looked at the shaft. over the dark brown of the old wood, lines of green force seemed to flow and shift, highlighting the grain."You are not a medallion, and there are certainly no jewels about you."

She looked from the broom to Paul, "I'm talking to a stick, can this get any more ridiculous."

He shrugged, and raise the torch higher, trying to chase away the shadows above their heads. It didn't help. The light ended about two feet above the door and would go no higher, no matter how much he waved the torch.

Jane turned, ready to double back and try another door, but the broom refused to move no matter how much she tugged. "I'm stuck."

"So leave the broom and let's go." Paul said.

She tried to release the broom but her fingers wouldn't uncurl from the wood. She tugged at it several times. The broom remained fixed in place, even though it was in mid air, and her hand remained stuck to the shaft. Jane glared at the broom and mentally reviewed the spell. "You want me to waste my stamina? Fine, lets waste some stamina."

This time when she moved her hand the broom followed as if it where a perfectly ordinary cleaning implement. She held it like a cock horse with the bristles pointed back and the shaft almost level with the ground. She Ignored Paul's chortle, instead she focused on her life force and intoned the word of power. "ZEN."

The drain on her stamina was nowhere near as bad as the fireball had been. Still it left her breathing as hard as running up Lambs hill. Her feet left the ground. She was floating balanced on the broom and bobbing up and down.

She lent forward, and the broom moved into the circular room until they were clear of the ledge. A few moments of experimentation and she had the gist. Even the slightest shift in her weight made the stick move in whatever direction she was leaning. Careful not to let her feet touch the ground she floated back until she was beside Paul. "Pass the torch, I want to check something out."

Torch in hand, Jane floated out and up. Girl and broom rose, rotating slowly to scan the entire room. The walls continued unbroken on all sides, then just as the bridge disappeared into shadow below her, another bridge emerged from the shadows above.

It was the same bridge and there was Paul, leaning against the doorframe. He was staring up into the shadows. "John, Hello, where did you go? Come on This isn't funny."

Jane floated her broom higher, skirting the wall until she was behind her friend. "Boo!"

He jumped, releasing a high-pitched yelp, and fell backwards into the passageway, ending up sitting on the floor. "What the hell? How did you sneak back down?"

She gave Paul a wide grin as she manoeuvred back towards the door, her feet almost, but not quite, touching the platform. Something told here that touching the ground with her feet would end the spell. "Sorry couldn't resist. The room's magic it wraps around. Now take this back and Jump on behind me."

Paul slipped the short sword into a loop in his belt and then took the torch and got onto the broom, grabbing Jane for balance.

He was being strangely cooperative, and uncomfortably close now that she thought about it. "If you don't move your hands lower, I'm going to break your fingers, then I'll drop you." she hissed between clenched teeth.

Jane willed the broom forwards, crossing the shaft. The broom wobbled under the extra weight and moved a little slower but they made it across.

"John, Can I ask you a question?" Paul said as he slipped off again. "When you said the stick turned you into a girl, did you mean all the way?"

"Yes, all the way, my character sheet says my name is Jane now."

"Are you sure? you don't need to check?"

"No I don't need to check." she snapped, "I'm all girl, now open the damn door so I can land."

The far side of the door revealed yet another stone passage, except this one curved to the right as they ventured onwards. Paul, who was in the lead at the moment, stopped "Hay, how come we didn't get any experience?"

"I sort of did." Jane said.

"What! No fair you got a class, and experience and here I am being the torchbearer."

Jane shrugged. "It could be because I killed the goblins, and you didn't even wound them."

her shoulders sagged, "Oh god, I killed goblins. I mean sure I know they were trying to kill us but, they're like intelligent and stuff and I killed them."

* * *

Jane shivered at the memory and pushed the half empty flagon of Moon Mead away from her. "You know, adventuring isn't what I expected, Its trudging through corridors, opening doors and killing things. I was expecting something more heroic."

Grom made a clicking sound with his tongue. He slid the Mead back over to her. "Vile creatures goblins, you did good dispatching those vermin. You said something about an Oger?"

Jan drained her second flagon, and thumped it on the bar, "I'm getting there," she said. "Anyway there we were me and that worthless torchbearer, when we came to, you guessed it another door."

* * *

It was another door, the wood dark with age. signing for Paul to stay quiet she got down on her knees and pressed her ear to the crack beneath it.

She could hear the thud of her own heart, the crackle of Paul's torch, the shuffle of Paul's shoes on the stone and the long sigh he made as he waited. "Well I don't hear anything other than you fidgeting."

Paul stood, motionless, save for his buffed out cheeks as he made a show of holding his breath.

With a deep breath of her own, Jane turned the door handle and pushed.

The room on the other side was lit by a single candle. It stood on a table along the far wall, along with a gold chalice and a leather-bound book. The book lay open, about half way through. It almost looked like someone had been there a moment ago.

They watched the tabula, for several breaths. "Paul, look at the candle."

"It's lit, so what?"

Jane stepped into the room, tapping the floor with the end of her broom. "It is, and it isn't. Sure there's a flame, but the wax isn't melting. Its magic, the chalice and the book too I'd wager."

"Still, smells like wax." Paul said, joining her in the centre of the room. "Finally some loot. I call dibs on the chalice."

She moved over to the table, glancing at the book. It drew her like a lantern drew in a moth. There was power here. the book buzzed with it. She placed her finger on the first line and whispered the first word. Jane read, whispering the words under hear breath as her finger moved along the line of ornate letters. It reminded her of the fireball spell, only bigger. Much, much bigger.

"Hay there's wine in the chalice." Paul said. "If it's magic it'll still be good right?"

Jane ignored him, as her lips kept moving, now forming the words halfway down the page. With a force of will she snapped her eyes shut. The compulsion to keep reading flared though her mind. She fought it down, running her finger across the page instead. The book resisted being closed, the cover almost shivering between her fingers. "Gods, it almost got me."

The cover of the book was a pale, almost pink leather, with a pattern inked into it in shades of blue black and green. It looked like a trident spearing a serpent. No not a serpent, an eel.

"What?" Paul said through a mouthful of wine.

Jane grabbed for the Chalice even though it was obviously too late. The idiot was drinking magic wine without any clue what it might do. "Where you always this stupid."

Paul lifted the chalice higher with a grin on his face.

Jane jumped after it, her fingers just brushing Pauls wrist. "Damn it, your taller than me."

"So?"

Heat rose to her cheeks and her vision blurred. She gave up jumping and stormed away from Paul. She scanned the rest of the room. There were two more exits. One door was to their left, the other next to the table. "Gods, I can't believe I'm shorter than you now."

"Calm down," Paul said, " it's no big deal. We'll sell the chalice and split it fifty fifty."

"No big deal?" She said, her voice getting louder with every word. "I've got boobs and I'm short and I'm going to have to squat to pee. I don't know how to be a girl!"

She was crying now, hot tears streaming down her face, arms held against her sides. Her hands curled into fists so tight that the nails bit into her palms.

Paul put the chalice down with a thump, the wine sloshed about it almost spilling. He pulled Jane towards him. "I'm sorry Jo, Jane, I'll help you get through this. I mean we've been mates forever haven't we?"

Jane let him hug her. She didn't know why but she did. His linen shirt felt rough under her cheek as she moved closer and rested her face against his shoulder. Somehow it made it easier to breathe. Paul was still her friend, and he had his hands on. Jane took two slow breaths, in and out and in and out again. She was not going to knee him in the balls, not if she stayed calm. "Paul?"

"Yea?"

"Get your hands off my butt."

They broke from the embrace. Jane retrieved her broom. She turned to the door on the left. If they kept following the left-hand path, they could explore this place in some kind of order "I can't believe it, I've been a girl for less than a glass, and you're already trying to feel me up!"

Paul picked up the chalice again. "you should try this, it's very refreshing."

"No, I don't want any wine. We are in the middle of a dungeon. This no time to get drunk."she said. "Where you always such a . . ."

He drained the chalice and packed it away in one of the sacks they'd brought to carry loot in. "What?"

Jane's mouth opened and closed, making her looks somewhat like a fish about to take the bait. She didn't know why she would even think it, and yet the thought was there and she had to let it out. "Such a boy!"

"I thought you where upset at being a girl, and here you are telling me how much better girls are. You and Becca will have to compare notes. Now lets go explore, this way." Paul said his smile growing wider and wider with every word. He passed the table, looking at the magic book. Jane thought he was going to take it, which would be stupid, but he left it there and reached for the right-hand door instead.

"I think we should go left."

Paul pulled his chosen door open and stepped through it into the next room "what's the difference. One door is as good as another."

This room was choked with webbing so dense that Jane could not see the walls as she followed him inside. A shiver ran down the back of her neck. She moved the broom into a fighting hold, noticing in passing that the bristles had disappeared again turning it into a quarterstaff. "I'm not liking this room Paul."

"Not much here, maybe there are more doors behind all these cobwebs."

Movement caught Jane's eye. Something large and dark was shifting along the ceiling, making the webs ripple as it moved over the stonework. She looked up to see a spider. Its body was at least two feet long and its legs, spread out even further, thick and hairy. It stopped, hanging directly over Paul's head.

She backed up towards the door they had entered through, "Um Paul, Spider!"

Then everything happened at once. Paul looked up and screamed like a girl. The spider dropped, hissing as it flipped through the air its fangs angling towards Pauls face. Jane lunged, hitting the spider mid fall and knocking it away from Paul.

Droplets of yellow venom sprayed across the room sizzling where they met the webbing. The spider emitted a plaintive shriek, curled up into a ball and went still. A symphony of similar shrieks answered from every corner of the room. One spider appeared out of nowhere and sunk its fangs into Paul's foot, making him scream again.

Jane moved a fraction too late, swinging her staff in a low arc, that dislodged it and sent it sprawling into the webbing. She grabbed Paul by his arm and dragged him towards the door, without turning her back on the room. "Don't drop the torch, we need it."

Paul fumbled with his torch, catching several strands of webbing with the head. The webbing caught and burned with a hot blue flame which spread from strand to strand.

They were at the door again. Jane shoved Paul away from her and took up a defensive stance. She could make out at least three more spiders edging towards her. They loomed large before the bright blue flames consuming the room. It made it easier to see the buggers. One darted forward, and she met it with a thrust of her staff, then reversed it to batt another that was coming in along the wall.

"Door Closing." Paul yelled.

She jumped back just before the door swung through the space she had occupied and slammed shut. Paul followed, jamming it closed with his shoulder and grunting with the pain.

Jane fell in beside him as the structure shook. acrid smoke drifted through the cracks around the door making them both cough. The pressure on the door eased long enough for the latch to catch, sealing the spiders with in.

Paul straightened and retrieved the torch form where he had dropped it, fortunately the flame hadn't spread down the handle this time, and the head was still burning. "OK, door on the left it is."

"Paul, it bit you," she said, looking at her friend with wide eyes. "How do you feel, the venom?"

the Leather on Paul's left shoe had two fang sized holes and yet he crossed the room with no sign of it causing him pain. "I'm fine, lets go."

She grabbed his empty hand and tugged him back away from the unexplored door."Please let me check your foot."

"And then what?" he said shaking her off, "We didn't bring bandages, or anything. hell we didn't bring water or food come to that. What good is looking going to do? I'm fine, lets go."

With that Paul opened the other door, more slowly this time, and waved his torch into the passageway beyond. "Let's go left, just like you said."

"Boys," she said under her breath making the word a curse. Not wanting to be left behind she followed her friend into the next part of the dungeon and whatever death awaited them. A moment later she ran back into the room and grabbed the magic candle holder off the table. "Paul, wait up."