Frit reached up, grasped Katie’s hand, and began leading her past the oily pool.

“Why did you scream?” he asked her.

“What?” she said casually, anxiously looking back over her shoulder at the hole in the ceiling of the subterranean cavern.

“You screamed. We must have sent you a sum-tent, what, six times now?”

“Seven,” she said looking at her diminutive guide for the first time as they approached the edge of the darkness leading deeper in the Earth. The bioluminescent bobber rising out of the top of his skull was becoming much more noticible now. Soon it would be their only source of light.

“So why did you scream?”

“I was having a nightmare. It startled me.”

Frit started huffing in what passed for a laugh among his kind.

“The great and powerful Katie! Having a huff nightmare! How precious.”

She gave him a smoldering glare that was wasted in the near complete darkness.

“How did they find me this time?” she asked.

He rattled his fingers indicating ignorance.

“They don’t tell me. Ask the chief.”