What was that?

Yvain poked her head out of the barren tent. Sound carried far in the Evardark, and the echo she caught bouncing out of one of the nearby tunnels was as fain as it was unmistakable. The chaotic clangs of blade on blade combat. Between who was the question. She darted forward, scooping her torch out of the spent campfire and sprinted down the tunnel towards the source.

Who? Who? She had to keep herself from calling out. The fact that both were humanoid narrowed down the list of who it could be, but those possibilities were still enough to scare her into silence. It could be a survivor from her unit, of course, but it could also be one of the adventurers. One that was still hanging around, or had gotten lost, or had just had so much fun then were still looking for a challenge. The image of the giant, musclebound beast of a half-orc that had brought the pommel of his great sword down directly on her helmet and [i]ruined it[/i] came to mind. 

Finding one of the full orc mercenaries the dungeons boss had hired on might be even worse. At least she could be sure that the the adventurers probably wouldn't eat her after she was done. It could be a mad skeleton who was off its magic chain and angry at the living. It could be a animated armor stuck in battle mode. It could be two goblin fighting over a patch of mushroom. The number of thing it could be besides a survivor was astoundingly large and almost everything else would probably want her dead.

It turned out to be more other dark elves. The sounds of battle stopped as she approached, replaced with voices. She slowed down, creeping forward so as not to let them know she was approaching. They were speaking her language but she didn't recognize either of the voices. There was a heart shaking sound of cutting, followed by [i]something[/i] splattering to the floor. The winner had the voice and the laugh of a madman, enough so to freeze Yvain in place. She drew her sword, slowly, quietly, waiting for the sound of his footsteps to come her way. Instead they pattered away in the opposite direction, down one of the many tunnels, and Yvain let out the breath she had been holding in.

The cavern she stepped into was illuminated only by the light of a single lantern, but even still she could make out a form slumped against the far wall. He was breathing raggedly, using his final breaths to speak kindly to weapon discarded on the floor. Breathing. Breathing! Still alive!

She rushed across the room, kneeling next to the fallen man. She felt something soaking into her knees. A [i]lot[/i] of something. Enough something to know that first aide wasn't an option for anything short of magic, and unfortunately enough their resident Cleric had been the first one to go when the adventurers swept through. She didn't panic. Death by other Dark Elf was unfortunately a common occurrence where she was from. "I'm sorry." She whispered. "Yvain, Cry Wolves. You guys were probably here because of me. What happened?"

[@Dark Light]