So, here the story gets a little more substance. Again, thank you for the reviews, and please keep posting what you think of what I write.

Chapter III. Most tragic 6th level

They went down, always further down into the labyrinth, and to their surprise, the appearance of the next level was different than the others; here the floor and walls were not paved with blue-grey slate, but were of barren earth, with only a few pillars to support the structure.

"The smell of death surrounds us," Shurvi remarked.

"These must be the catacombs. The cathedral used to be a Monastery."

Shurvi nodded, and they started forward, in their natural battle order. Liria renewed her mana shield, and began walking a little off to his side, ready to strike with her arrows and spells without risk of hurting him in the process.

Shurvi walked carefully forward, his shield held up and ready, his sword risen, ready to strike. Liria followed, a little to the side, an arrow notched on her bow. They soon met a group of toad demons, which Shurvi lured behind a corner as was their usual tactics, and Liria started to fire arrows at blinding speed as they came forward, Shurvi just in front of her and a little to the side, ready to pounce down upon the first demon that came within range.

The first toad demon of a dozen came close. Shurvi fully stepped in front of Liria and started hacking at the beast, while the archer was retreating behind and to the side, and made a firewall against the wall in the trail they were all walking. Then she resumed firing arrows with deadly aim.

The battle was soon over. The day of battle was going well; they were advancing at a steady pace, not taking too much hits, and both gaining experience in the way of fighting. Then they reached a large open area, and both stopped, seeing it was completely empty of demons.

"Something is amiss," Liria stated.

"Well, let's find it!", Shurvi exclaimed bravely, although he held his shield and sword ready in a tight grip as he walked forward.

She followed just behind, careful and attentive, and suddenly they were leapt at by all sides, in close range. They were immediately separated as a swarm of hidden monsters suddenly appeared in their sight, hitting at them with razor claws. It was the first time they met the hidden beasts, and they were caught totally off-guard.

Shurvi discovered with a little relief that the beasts were not so hardy, falling easily enough to his sword, although he could not dodge all their hits, surrounded as he was. He heard Liria's arrows flying and her grunts of pain behind him, but could not turn to make out her situation.

She was firing arrows, when suddenly she realized that Charged bolts would deal a lot of damage in a compact fray like that. She raised her hands and cast the Charged bolts in a frenetic spray all around her, and saw with horror bolts colliding with others, still hidden monsters. Her mana was going down rapidly, and her mastery over her spells was weakening, the problem being worse because of the Mana shield. But she slew a good dozen of the hidden before she ran out of mana, and she resumed firing arrows, the fray much less crowded than before.

Shurvi was quickly overcoming his lasts opponents, then he turned to assist Liria, rushing for all he could through the remaining demons to reach her and offer cover in close range. She was raining a series of arrows with deadly speed and aim at her surrounding enemies, not wasting an arrow on a fallen enemy, knowing before the arrow hit if it would be sufficient to kill or not. Her impressive display of skill was a sight to behold. Then he saw, because of his martial training, a hit that she was not predicting.

"To your left!", he screamed, breaking into a run, bashing aside the last hidden he was fighting.

She reacted quickly, so very quickly, turning her head to see what was going on, her bow already shifting its aim, but it was too late. One of the hidden took its claws from the run-up they had, and crashed with all its might against her left arm, the one holding the bow.

Shurvi saw it all as he ran. He saw her face contort with pain, her broken arm letting her bow fall on the floor, the spill of blood from the bone breaking through the skin, and her staggering step backwards, into the arms of five other waiting hidden monsters. Then she appeared to regain control of herself and drank a mana potion.

She cast a single lightning before he came within range of the demons and started to swing his sword through the mass of the demons. After her only spell, he heard nothing else but grunts of pain from the place where she had collapsed, kicked over by hidden in their frenetic attempts to battle him and to kill her at the same time.

He was done felling them all in less than a minute. Then, he threw brutally the corpses of the demons away from her, as she was half buried under them. She was gritting her teeth and holding her arm, putting good pressure on the well of blood, her fingers between the shards of broken bone. Shurvi quickly assessed her state.

"Let's get you to Pepin," he said.

She answered nothing, her breathing coming in low rasps, controlling the pain. He stood, and opened a portal. He hated magic scrolls, and he was always happy when Liria was dealing with them, but right now he did not give it an ounce of thought. The portal opened. Shurvi knelt besides Liria, still lying on the ground on her back, and gathered her in his arms.

She found the force then to laugh. "So this is why you called me "fair lady" at first, so you could carry me around in your arms like my knight in shining armour?", she asked, pain not leaving her eyes for a second.

Shurvi smiled down at her, standing up with amazing ease despite the considerable weight of her and her gear in his arms, and said: "I might like that."

Then he crossed the portal, and she forgot what he had said, as the pain seared in her arm from the magical transport. He started to walk as quickly and as gently as possible towards Pepin's house. The whole village got pretty agitated as he crossed the central square, carrying one of the two Heroes of Tristram to be healed. Pepin gasped as he saw the fountain of blood dripping between her fingers to the ground, and the shattering of the bone. He silently gestured Shurvi to carry her in, and to lay her down upon a high table obviously designed to treat the injured, in the middle of what seemed to be the healer's kitchen.

The warrior let down Liria gently, then was shoved away rudely enough by Pepin as he claimed he needed space to work. Shurvi looked at Liria's face, and since she did not seem to notice if he was there or not, lost in the pain and loss of blood, he got out, and let Pepin heal her.

He went to sit with Farnham, and shared a drink with the man. He listened in silence to the slur babbling of the poor man, victim to his fears and traumas, not able to face life after he had faced demons within the labyrinth. He had been too weak to affront it, and he fled through drinking. Shurvi knew he was not that kind of man to turn away from his fears. He stood up to them, looked them in the eye and killed them. But he felt sympathy for Farnham nevertheless, because he had been struck with fear when he had seen the Butcher and his chamber of torture, yet he had a lot more experience of fighting behind him than did this simple townsmen when he had followed Lazarus into the labyrinth.

Shurvi was taken out of his reverie rather abruptly as Pepin's door opened again. He shot to his feet quicker than he cared to admit, and sighed a deep, so very deep sigh of relief when he saw Liria walk out of Pepin's home. She seemed shaky and pale, leaning on the healer as he helped her to walk, but she was up on her feet and in one piece. More or less. Her arm was bandaged, splintered and held to her chest with a cloth that went around her neck.

"Glad to you see alright," Shurvi said as he walked to her.

"Thanks to you," she said.

"You could say that," Shurvi admitted with a sly smile. "Although, thanks to Pepin too."

She smiled, and he literally took her arm from Pepin's grip as he started to help her to walk to the inn. She would surely need to rest now. Pepin tried to walk around them to instruct them to rest for a prescribed number of days, to come on a number of occasions to check on how the bones were coming together, and to change her bandage. Shurvi just told he would do this, and that, and yes, of course, no problem, until he crossed the door of the inn and Pepin was left behind.

"It was a hidden that hit me?", she asked then.

"Yes," he answered, resisting an urge to stop, knowing she had to made an effort to walk, and not wanting to make it any more difficult. "You don't remember?"

"Well… yes, I do. But it is a little fuzzy, and very confused. I remember dropping my bow, thinking the only chance I had now was spells, and fumbling for a potion… beyond that, trying endless times to cast a spell, but I'm not sure if I managed one. After, I feel too weak and too in pain to remember."

"You did, Red head. You cast a chain lightning before they pulled you down."

She nodded. Then she did not remembered teasing him. And not his answer. He helped her to walk to her room, and he thought maybe it was better that she did not remember. They would go on fighting together, and everything would be as it was.

He helped her to her bed. There she just lay on her back, in her leather armour dirtied with demon blood and gore, and closed her eyes.

"I am so tired. I'll change and wash tomorrow." She pulled her injured arm up on her chest, and thanked him for helping her to her room.

He went out wordlessly, closing gently the door on the sight of his already sleeping friend.