Now What?

Of the six who remained in the cave (excluding the corpse of Belboz), only Fred had escaped totally unscathed by recent events, though Exotica had only lost her improvised clothing. Sigin had fared worst, having the mind and body of a domestic cat. Astra had lost her arms and her clothes. Matthias was mute. Adele slumbered on the floor, unaware of her good fortune that first Matthias and then Exotica had distracted Elaine from whatever plan she had had for her.

"Elaine's going to get herself killed," Exotica remarked. "Even Belboz didn't dare oppose Minestus."

"I'm inclined to say 'good riddance'," Astra said. "But I'm wondering if what Belboz told us was altogether true. He may have co-operated with Minestus out of self-interest rather than fear, as he claimed. So maybe she can defeat him. Anyway, what are we going to do now?"

"We had better wait for Adele to come round," Fred said. "She might be able to undo at least some of the magic that Belboz and Elaine have done. Though whether she'd be willing to help us, even though we are now enemies of her own enemy Elaine, must be very doubtful after recent events."

"Or we could leave the caves at once, while Minestus is hopefully too tied up with dealing with Elaine for him to follow us," Exotica said. "Maybe we can find a mage or sorceress somewhere with enough power to undo what's been done to Astra, Matthias and Sigin. Matthias may want to remain here with Adele, though, even if the rest of us go."

"Or we could try to follow Elaine and wrestle the ring from her before she meets Minestus," Astra said. "I know I said 'good riddance' just now, but there must be a good chance that without the ring's influence she'd return to normal."

"That's true," Fred said. "I only handled it for a few seconds, but even then I could feel it trying to influence me to evil. But even if we had any way of knowing where Elaine is now, trying to get the ring off her seems likely at best to make things worse for us in the short term, if hopefully better in the long term. At worst, she might well kill one or more of us."

"Another option could be to ally ourselves with Minestus against Elaine," Exotica said. "He might be willing to undo what Belboz and Elaine have done as payment for our aid. He surely has enough power."

"How do we find Minestus?" Astra said. "Besides, does he need our help? What help are we capable of giving him, anyway? We aren't magic users. Then there's the point that, but for Fred, Elaine would still be in stasis in a jewel, which may not exactly endear us to him. Last but not least, could we trust him to keep his end of any bargain?"

1. Their discussion has given Adele time to regain consciousness.
2. Matthias makes a contribution, by drawing with his finger on a dusty part of the cave floor.
3. Of their four options, none of them very attractive, they choose to...
4. They don't need to find Minestus, as he finds them.

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