"You don't have to keep saying ominous things like that," said Neirenn. "If it's going to kill me, just say that." She'd been in life-and-death situations before. And really, it seemed like he was just trying to be deliberately spooky.

Of course, she did think of the other implications of that statement. The darkness will take you--like the spirits corrupt people who aren't strong to handle dark magic. Well, that isn't me. She stopped, watching it. It crept out of the gloom again, staring with bright yellow eyes that didn't blink.

It didn't look real. She really had a hard time imagine it ripping open somebody's chest. But there were more, now, crawling up over the edge of the platform. Uh-oh.

"So these things will attack, huh?" she said, conjuring a candle-sized flame over her hand that she could easily turn into a fireball. "Maybe that's what became of the mist."