"I'm going to have to leave now," Eli told the party. "Do you want to stay here, or should I take you back to Infinite Innovation Solutions? Or I could dump you outside the dungeon?"

They looked at each other nervously before Agnes spoke. "I think it's better if you take us to the entrance. Perhaps that way we can either go back inside or walk back to the office building."

"Works for me," Leonardo said.

"Me too," Trent agreed.

Widelene nodded, and the other two didn’t speak up to disagree.

Eli marked the spot where he was standing, overriding the one on the floor above, then brought everyone back to the entrance where he had marked the spot earlier in the day. The sun was still up, but it was clear that the day was coming to a close, with the sky turning orange from the sun beginning to set.

"Goodbye," Eli said, leaving the party. He then walked back down to fetch Cruella, who added him back to the Ravenous Barbarians.

Eli: Sasha isn’t in the party anymore.

Amy: She disappeared. Are you in the forest?

Eli: Outside the dungeon. Where do we go?

Amy gave them some directions that weren’t exactly easy to follow, but they set off deeper into the forest. As Eli and Cruella were leaving the clearing outside the entrance, Samantha and Simon came through the underbrush, both looking tired and flustered.

"You staying or coming?" Cruella asked.

"I guess we’re coming," Samantha sighed, obviously not looking forward to continuing her trek.

Simon was panting hard. "Did you know plate armor is heavy?" he asked, downing a bottle of water. "Because it is."

"Why don’t you take it off while you run?" Eli asked.

Simon’s face turned blank as he looked down at himself, then at Samantha. "Why didn’t you tell me?"

"Tell you what?" she replied, sounding a bit annoyed. "That you didn’t have to wear the stupid armor all this way? I thought maybe you were a never-nude or something. I don’t know what you have under there."

"A what?" Simon asked, confused.

Eli put up a hand to stop their bickering. "We don’t have time for this. Let’s go. I think we’re going this way."

The forest was rather untouched, making it difficult to navigate. There were no paths made by humans, only faint trails where animals liked to run. This forced them to go single file, and it didn’t take them long to get hopelessly lost.

Eli looked left, then right, scratching his head as his heart pounded, both from the exertion and the stress of knowing one of their new friends was missing.

Eli: Amy. Where do we go?

Amy: Hold on, I’m sending some help. Just continue deeper into the forest, and my friend Charlie will find you.

"Who the hell is Charlie?" Cruella asked.

No one knew, so they kept moving forward as Amy instructed. Soon, the sound of an animal reached them—a low, growling bark from their left made Eli stop and turn. His eyes widened when he saw a massive wolf standing between two fir trees, calmly regarding them.

Eli: That's Charlie?

Amy: Follow him.

The wolf, Charlie, trotted away, and the group followed, trying, and spectacularly failing, to keep up. Charlie had to stop several times to wait for them, but he kept his calm expression, almost as if he found it amusing to have humans following him.

"I get the sense that Charlie’s enjoying this," Simon muttered, still panting hard despite having removed his plate armor and unequipped his shield and weapon.

"Stupid wolf," Cruella muttered irritably, even though she was moving through the forest with far more speed and grace than the others. She navigated the underbrush effortlessly, not stumbling or getting caught on jagged branches or thorny bushes. Her increased attributes and new classes must've been altering her agility.

Even with the wolf guiding them, it took Eli and the rest of the Ravenous Barbarians over half an hour to reach their destination: a small hut built from wood, obscured by branches and leaves. Even the entrance was hard to see, but the huge moose standing next to it, casually nibbling on a tree branch, was impossible to miss.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

They all stopped short, barely daring to breathe. Eli had never seen a moose in real life before and had never appreciated just how enormous they were. This one was much bigger than a horse, with antlers stretching up into the trees—huge and sturdy-looking. Getting rammed by that thing would put you in the ground permanently.

Charlie the wolf ran up to Amy, who was standing near the hut, barely able to contain her worry. An owl casually rested on her left shoulder. She shifted from foot to foot, bending her knees and peering into the woods, searching for Charlie as the group arrived. When she caught sight of them, she waved a hand.

"That’s just Bill. Don’t mind him," she said, nodding to the moose, visibly distraught.

"Is that the mount you were trying to tame earlier?" Eli asked.

"It was, but that’s not important now." Amy said.

Cruella looked Amy up and down. "What the hell are you wearing?"

Amy wore leather armor and a crown of what looked like twigs, with leaves caught in her hair. Her clothes were dyed dark green and brown, blending seamlessly into the forest. 'Druid' was the word that came to mind. She looked like some druid out of a fantasy game, like she was one with the forest.

"Come on, quick," she said. "We have to find Sasha."

Eli nodded sharply. "Show us."

They set off into the forest again once Amy had put both Charlie and Bill into her internal stables. The owl on her shoulder stayed put, even as she walked, and if Eli wasn't mistaken, he thought he heard the squeaking of rats scurrying around in the surrounding underbrush.

"Tell us what happened," he said as they half-walked, half-ran.

"Well," Amy began, talking hurriedly. "We've only been out here for a short while, but I have some experience with woodcraft from when I was a kid. I haven't been out much lately for obvious reasons, but I still remember, so I know my way around the forest, you know? Sasha is a city kid, so she hasn’t been out much in nature at all, but she still wanted to go scouting. Even after I told her how dangerous it would be if she encountered Solomon, or one of his allies, or even one of his traps, she still wanted to go."

"I understand," Eli said. He was about to tell her to calm down after that onslaught of words, but thought better of it. Doing so would likely have the opposite effect at this point, he figured. "What happened then?"

Amy sighed. "Well, she snuck out when I took a nap. I got a sort of alarm, you could say, from one of my pets. I figured, what's the harm? She's not stupid, so she knows to be careful. I thought it would be enough if I just had Lovely follow her around to make sure she was all right. I wasn't spying, you know, just making sure nothing happened to her."

"I understand," Eli replied, keeping his voice neutral.

"Well, it wasn’t all right. It wasn’t all right at all, actually." Amy’s voice shook. "Lovely—she's a wren — followed her, and that stupid, hard-headed woman went past where we’d agreed was the outer limit of where we could safely go. I think she wanted to prove her usefulness," Amy said, shaking her head as they jumped over a fallen log and went down a short slope. She glanced back to make sure everyone was keeping up. "She made it to the area where my birds have been disappearing, even high up in the sky, and then," she stopped talking for a moment to let out a long, defeated breath, "she stepped on a trap."

Eli winced. "The same kind that you got stuck in?"

Amy shook her head. "No, this was worse." Her voice trembled as she drew in a shuddering breath. "A gas came out of the trap, and Sasha breathed it in, I think. She fell down and didn’t move. She wasn’t moving at all. Eli, she wasn't moving!"

"Then what happened?"

"I don’t know," Amy said, her voice tight. "Lovely went dark."

"Went dark?" Simon asked, pushing a branch out of his face.

"It’s like what happened to the other birds. I don’t know what happens to them. They just go dark and disappear from my pet slots. I assume it means they’re dead."

"If it were me, I would have been out there immediately. Why did you wait for us?" Cruella asked, her voice sharp.

"Cruella," Eli warned.

Amy glared back. "I was out there! I only came back so you could find me! When I tame a bird, their natural instincts are dampened somewhat, which means their sense of location isn’t as strong. But I still knew the general area where they went, so I rode out there really quickly. Sasha was gone. I found the trap, but she wasn’t there anymore. I think Solomon took her. I don’t think she’s dead because there was no blood—there was no blood there. You see? So I think she’s still alive. But Solomon has her. That has to be it. I don’t know who else could have done this. I searched the area with almost all my pets, but there was nothing. Just empty forest. I don’t get it." Her voice broke. "And now Sasha isn’t in the party anymore. She went dark."

"I noticed," Eli said. "Do you know why?"

"She was booted the second she stepped on the trap," Amy replied, frustration in her voice. "I have no idea how this works. Why would a trap throw her out of the party? It makes no sense."

"What about messages?" Samantha asked.

"No messages. I can send them to her, but I’m not getting any replies. There are more traps in the area, too. You have to be really careful where you step. Some are old, but some are new, and I don’t know what they do." Amy looked down, clenching her fists. "I even considered stepping on one myself to see if I would fall unconscious, too, and then maybe Solomon would take me, and I could rescue Sasha. But what if it’s a different kind of trap? What if I get stuck and can’t move? You’d never find me out here." She took a deep breath. "I mean, I guess I could destroy it or drink a potion if it does something, like, burn my face off like yours did, but... I don’t know."

"It’s going to be fine, Amy," Eli said firmly. "We’re going to get Sasha back."

He quickly sent a message to Zach.

Eli: Are you in the forest nearby?

Zach’s response came after a moment.

Zach: No.

Eli: We’re having a bit of an emergency here. Where have you gone off to?

There was another long pause, and then Zach replied.

Zach: I’m sorry, but I can’t stay with all those people. It’s too much. I tried. Look, I really did try. But I can’t do it. When it was my job, that was fine—I could put on a mask. But I can’t do that here. I have to be myself, and I can’t be myself with all those people. I’m sorry, Eli, but we’re leaving. We’ll meet again sometime later, right?

Eli didn’t know what to say. He had wanted to ask Zach if rogues learned any trap-detection skills that could help, but there was no point if Zach couldn’t come to help, anyway.

"Damn it," he muttered.

"What?" Amy asked, worry thick in her voice.

"Nothing," Eli said. "Don’t worry." He looked ahead. "Are we getting close?"

She nodded, glancing forward. "Yeah, it’s just up ahead."