Falling!

Fred and Eritrea seemed to fall for a very long time. Had they landed on solid rock, the fall would surely have been fatal. Fortunately for them, they landed in an underground river. Equally luckily, no falling boulders hit them.

Fred managed with difficulty to struggle back up to the surface of the water, his heavy armour and pack weighing him down. It was pitch black, so all he could do was to swim and hope to come to the bank before his strength ran out. Reluctantly, he undid the strap on his pack and let it sink. With some of the male dragon's treasure still in it, it was just too heavy. There went his hope of being wealthy when he took refuge in Aqualaria.

Then he saw a light, and swam towards it. As he reached the bank and heaved himself out of the water with the last of his strength, he saw that the light had been produced by Eritrea. Being much the stronger, and with comparatively light armour, she had reached the bank much more quickly. Then she had managed to light a torch. She must have had the foresight to keep her tinderbox and a torch wrapped in some waterproof cloth within her pack, though Fred had not noticed this when he had searched her pack and found the dragon's egg. The only other explanation was that she had a magical torch.

Seeing him, Eritrea said: "So you survived too. We were lucky. At least we should be safe from the dragoness now, though we have plenty of other problems. The most immediate one is that, underneath our armour, our underthings are soaked. The spares in my pack are equally soaked, of course, and I see that you have lost your own pack. I think I'm going to take my chain mail off to give the undershift that I'm wearing a chance to dry. I suggest that you take your armour off too for the same reason."

1. They took off their armour.
2. But just then they saw the yellow eyes of some creature reflecting the light of their torch.

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