The land Cassima reappeared in was dreary and overcast. A thick purplish mist blotted out the sun, and the rocky surrounding land was dark violet and magenta in color. She was standing in the middle of a fragmented circle of dilapidated buildings. Some of the buildings had been boarded up, some were beginning to collapse, and some seemed as if they had been only partially completed for decades. High jagged peaks surrounded the buildings, and there was no visible way out of the place except for a path that led west.

If this was Etheria, it was nothing like the Etheria Cassima had imagined. However, Edgar mentioned that this particular region of it was called Dark Etheria, so perhaps the lighter regions were a bit less depressing. She seemed to be in the seedy side of the kingdom, where the lower classes congregated and festered while the rest of the land prospered. Cassima couldn't help but remember the small, shabby house in Serenia where the little girl Ashni lived. What a sad existence people like her had to endure, living in such poverty.

The only building that didn't seem closed down or in a state of disrepair was a small tavern with a sign that read "Eurus' Den" over the door. The sound of several men who had had one too many pints of ale emanated from within, and Cassima decided to give that establishment a wide berth.

She decided to see where the westward path led, and she began walking in that direction. She hadn't covered more than a few yards when something in the road ahead made her halt suddenly. The path was bordered by enormous, rocky hills on both sides, both the same purple as the rest of the land of Dark Etheria, and Cassima had seen something duck behind a boulder at the base of one of the hills. She squinted at the boulder, and presently whatever was hiding behind it slowly stepped out into the open.

It was a man…but it wasn't Edgar. Cassima had never seen this man before, but she quickly decided that she didn't want to see him again. He was dark skinned, the color of old leather. He was also incredibly thin and wiry, yet there was an air of incredible strength about him. He wore a long hooded cloak and dark clothes, and he was staring at Cassima out of the darkest eyes she had ever seen.

Cassima took a few faltering steps backward, then turned and casually walked back to the circle of shacks, hoping to avoid confronting the man. As she was nearing the shacks, she looked over her shoulder and her heart raced. The man was following her. She could only think of one reason why such an unsavory person should be tailing her, and it didn't help calm her nerves one bit:

It was another of Shadrack's agents. Shadrack must have gotten wind of her meddling in the other agents' affairs, and sent this one to put an end to her interference. It was the perfect place – there were no witnesses, and this place was incredibly remote. If only Edgar would show up. Perhaps he could help Cassima…but what if Cassima had wound up in a time different than the one he had contacted her from?

She had no time to see whether this was true or not. Cassima had reached the end of the path and the agent was rapidly approaching her. She glanced around desperately, then darted into the only refuge in sight, Eurus' Den, which was hardly an ideal place to hide, but she could only hope that the agent wouldn't follow her.

The inside of the Den was stuffy and dark and quite sparsely furnished. There was a single bar near the rear of the building, upon which several bottles were placed. A painting of a seductively posed siren with flaming red hair graced the wall behind the bar, and to the right of the painting was a single door. A burly man with pale blue skin and a purplish scar on his left cheek who looked either drunk or asleep leaned against the wall next to the door. There were several people standing in various locations around the tavern, most of them clutching mugs of ale, all of them men, but not all of them human. She could see only one or two men that were possibly human, but the rest all appeared to be fairies – one man had a slim build and pointed ears, one had almost feathery long hair, and another had pale green skin. Two of the men were wearing long white robes that seemed oddly out of place in such a seedy locale, but perhaps it was merely a local style of dress.

One of the potential humans was a large, broad-shouldered man conversing with a shorter bald man with maroon skin. He turned to face Cassima with a stony glare as she shut the door behind her, but his features softened when he realized she was a woman. His eyes were an attractive shade of brown, but that was the extent of his good looks. He had a greasy face and equally greasy matted black hair, looking about as coarse as a hog's bristles. He had a disgusting leer on his face, and his grin showed several ugly yellow stubs of teeth as he looked at Cassima.

"Well, what have we here?" he said in a low, gravelly voice that practically oozed masculinity. "A lost pixie?"

He extended a meaty arm and attempted to embrace Cassima. She ducked and leapt out of his way like a gazelle.

"Who be you, precious?" the man crooned.

Cassima wrinkled her nose at the scent of his breath and his unwashed body.

"Since you will never see me again after this, I don't think I should bother telling you," she retorted.

"Yeh don't approve of me presence, my little mare's tail?" the man asked, slowly moving his other arm towards her, which she backed away from as if it were a venomous snake.

"Don't touch me!" she said firmly. "I'm already married."

The man looked stupefied for a moment, then his odious grin returned.

"Well, I don't see yer spouse fluttering around this neck of Etheria!" he chuckled. He tried unsuccessfully to embrace her again. This time Cassima pulled out her dagger and held it threateningly in front of her.

"Stay back!" she warned. "I don't know how to use this and you don't want me to find out how!"

This just made her admirer laugh even more.

"Well, well, well! A wild little fairy yeh be, eh? Well, I won't bother ye now, my cirrus puff. Just let me know if yeh wish to converse with me again."

He returned to his conversation with the bald headed man while Cassima stood burning with rage and indignation. This man was worse than Bluebeard. At least Bluebeard had attempted to act like a gentleman. This man didn't even try act decently towards her. It seemed there was something that attracted uncouth men with unpleasant motives to her like flies to honey. On the whole, though, Cassima decided that tangling with that man was better than tangling with the agent that had tried following her a few minutes prior. Fortunately, the stranger hadn't followed her into the tavern – perhaps he didn't want to risk attacking her where there were witnesses.

What was she going to do now, though? She couldn't stay in this tavern and risk getting fondled by another wolf. There had to be another way out. She cautiously eyed the back door with its somewhat comatose guard. Though the tavern was built right up against the base of the cliffs, perhaps there was a passage leading out through the rock. It was worth investigating. If only she could get past that guard, though…

Cassima made her way through the smelly groups of men as inconspicuously as she was able. As she was tiptoeing past the blue-complexioned guard, he suddenly grunted and barely opened one eye, then closed it again, much to Cassima's relief. At first she couldn't understand why she hadn't caught his eye the way she caught the eye of that ruffian when she first walked into Eurus' Den, but since Cassima was wearing men's clothes, had her hair drawn back, and the guard didn't appear to be completely alert, he had probably just mistaken her for another of the bar's male patrons. This outfit was proving to be more useful than Cassima had anticipated. She cautiously glanced over her shoulder to make sure no one was watching, then opened the back door and slipped through.

The room on the other side appeared to be carved out of the cliff side – either that or it had once been a natural cave that the tavern had been constructed in front of. In it were all that Cassima had expected to find in the storeroom of a tavern: kegs of ale, cases of mugs, racks of bottles and not much else. There wasn't even a door leading outside. Cassima wouldn't be able to slip out of here the way she had slipped out of the textile shop in the Llewdor Oasis.

As she turned to head back to the door leading into the tavern, she noticed a small keg sitting alone against the same wooden wall that the door was in. It was nowhere near the other kegs, or any of the other bar paraphernalia – it was just sitting by the tavern wall, completely isolated. This struck Cassima as odd. She walked up to it and tried opening it. Not only was she unable to do so, but the barrel seemed completely empty. Why was an empty barrel being kept here, in the storeroom?

Cassima then noticed something in the wall that the barrel was partially concealing. She moved the barrel aside to examine whatever it was. It turned out to be a small door, about two feet long on each side – just large enough for a woman like Cassima to fit through…but where did this door lead? Underground? Into the wall?

She carefully opened the door and peered through it. Inside there was nothing but blackness. The men's voices from the tavern seemed to be slightly louder than they were in the rest of the storeroom, however. She got down on all fours and crawled through it, hoping that it wouldn't lead her somewhere where there was no way out and no way to turn around.

The door led to a cramped, square tunnel lined with wooden panels that stretched straight ahead for several feet, then sharply turned to the left. The sounds of the tavern had become even louder now, and Cassima suddenly realized where she was – she was inside the tavern's bar. It was hollow, and that barrel in the storeroom had been concealing its back entrance. The panels she was seeing were actually doors as well.

But why was it hollow? Cassima could think of several possible reasons for this. Perhaps the door allowed people in the storeroom to easily move items to the inside of the bar without having to tote items through the back door and vice versa. Maybe fugitives could even hide in here. Whatever its purpose was, it was certainly an oddly constructed bar.

Fortunately, the bar seemed virtually empty at the moment. There were no bottles or mugs that Cassima had to pick her way over. She turned the corner and continued crawling down the bar until she reached the end of it. She paused there, wondering what made her decide to do this in the first place.

As she was about to backtrack to the storeroom, a loud, brawny voice rose above all the other voices in the tavern. It seemed to be coming from ahead and to the right of where Cassima crouched, and she identified it immediately as that of the man who had attempted to embrace her when she first entered the Den.

"Have you boys seen me latest prize?"

"What?" responded another man's voice, coming from behind Cassima this time. "Don't tell me it's another stash of black ambrosia, Icarus."

"No," replied the first man, whom the other man had addressed as Icarus. "Actually, it be this!"

"What's that, Icki?" asked a third voice from the same location as the second, high pitched and insect-like.

"It's a potion that can draw the darkest secrets out of men and beasts," proclaimed Icarus. "One drink of this and all of their resistance is gone like Count Tsepish's head!"

"That's quite a claim, Icarus," said the second man, sounding mildly impressed. Cassima felt the same way. "Where did you steal this from?"

"Oh, some old sorcerer's place," Icarus grumbled. "I don't recall."

There was a sudden clunk directly above Cassima's head. Icarus must have set his prize – the truth potion – down on the bar.

"Well, congratulations, friend," the second man said. "Say, did you get a good look at that wench that sidled her way in? They don't make women like that on this side of the cloud!"

"I did indeed!" Icarus chortled. "I'll tell you about that conversation I just had with her…"

There was the sound of footsteps – most likely Icarus's – approaching the space where the second man's voice had come from, then there was nothing but the familiar murmur of many men talking at the same time.

Cassima eyed the spot on the underside of the bar where she had heard Icarus put his prize down. A truth potion. Alexander's adventuring philosophy of "pick up anything that isn't nailed down" began to clash strongly with her instincts for self-preservation. She had never owned a magical potion like that before, and she felt very strongly that such a thing would prove invaluable to her…if she could only get it safely.

It looked as if she wouldn't have enough time to do such a thing, though. Icarus wouldn't be describing his encounter with her to his companion for very long, and once he finished talking, he would take possession of the potion again, and Cassima didn't want to get within ten feet of that man again, even if it meant gaining such an enticing item. She had to act now, regardless of the consequences. She didn't know what she would do once she had the potion, but she knew that she would think of something…as long as she did so very, very quickly.

She examined the interior of the bar and found that one of the panels on her right was on hinges. Another door. If Cassima was right, it would open on the outer side of the bar, and the door out of Eurus' Den would be only a few strides beyond it.

Before she could change her mind, Cassima forced open the door out of the bar. Although she didn't notice it herself, the door banged into the backs of Icarus's legs, making him turn her way with a snarl. She hurriedly scurried out of the bar, whirled around and grabbed the truth potion – which was in a blue, tapered bottle with a crusty cork stoppering it. She sprang to her feet and ran towards the door as fast as she could, fairly barreling into it in her rush to get out of the tavern. Behind her, she heard Icarus bellowing:

"What the – that dame's stolen me stolen prize! Let me at her! Come on, men! She's not gonna get away with this!"

This was followed by the sound of a half dozen men breaking into a shambling, stumbling run and yelling furiously as they became caught up in Icarus's revenge-seeking euphoria. Cassima darted out of Eurus' Den, made a tight turn and began sprinting towards the path that led to the west. Looking back on the whole experience, Cassima found her appreciation for the gift that snake had given her in the oasis to be incalculable – she would never have been able to move as nimbly while wearing a dress.

Fortunately, the man who had caused her to seek refuge in Eurus' Den was no longer there. Perhaps he had moved elsewhere or the sound of the angry men had made him retreat. Hopefully he hadn't taken the same path that Cassima was currently on.

Cassima raced up the path, which began to slope upwards. The sounds of the men chasing after her were growing fainter, but she knew that she couldn't stay ahead of them for very long.

Up ahead, the path branched off into two separate roads, and a man was standing right in the middle of that intersection. However, it wasn't Shadrack's agent, and he didn't look like one of the seedy individuals that populated this island either – in fact, at this moment it was just the man that Cassima wanted to see.

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