Gi studied Poe's broken leg while trying to ignore the cries of the Drop Drake children, the Spiked Eagles hunting above, and Poe's own whimpers. The way sound reverberated in the trench didn't help.

He wouldn't consider himself a doctor by any means, but he figured it would need to be straightened out and then splinted. The question he had was did insects work the same way as otters? And there was no one around to answer.

Either way, he couldn't just leave it.

"Poe," Gi said as pulled the dagger out of his belt and tossed the naked knife into his [Expanded Pocket]. "What do you like about that book you're always reading anyways?"

Frankly, Gi didn't really care. Anything titled, "The Fattest Unicorn", had already lost him, but the goal was to distract Poe from his soon to be painful actions.

"Oh!" Poe said, stopping his whimpering. "I've never told you about it!!! Trixie, that's the Fattest Unicorn, lives with a bunch of other unicorns. Except they're all colorful and she's fat and grey so they allllll make fun of her. It's so mean!"

Gi pulled a bandage out of his [Expanded Pocket] and set it in the hand on his bad arm. His grip was weak, but a weak grip with D Strength would be enough to roll a bandage. He looked at his hand and then at Poe's leg. Damn, he wished he had more hands... or even that Prehensile Tail.

"So Trixie decides to leave, you know? Like why stay with a bunch of meanies but then she goes on all these fantastical adventures. Sounds good right?"

"Uh huh," Gi replied. He dropped the bandage into his lap and nestled close to Poe so he could get his weak hand onto his injured leg. He'd have to do this fast.

"Except even with her adventures, she found that she was-" Gi straightened Poe's leg with an audible crack and the little Dragonfly let out a little scream. Gi looked up, but none of the Spiked Eagles looked over.

A breathless Poe continued.

"She was lonely. She wanted to meet other unicorns like her but she couldn't find them. But she had met a lot of friends along the way so she eventually realized they they were her family! Really cool, right??"

Gi had placed the bandage in his hand and used his other to hold the dagger's sheath in place as he wrapped up his little friend. As he struggled to tie a knot with a single hand, he responded. "Yeah, I guess belonging is pretty good."

"It is!! She's just like me! I was all alone and then you found me and now we've got Uncle Jalx and mean Auntie Elizabeth and big sis Tiria! We're not all unicorns, but we're still a family."

Gi paused in his efforts. Poe's words finally hitting home. He saw all of them as a family. Even Jalx who had more morals than sense and Elizabeth who had more sense than morals. Poe just wanted somewhere to belong.

Frankly, it broke his heart because other than Tiria, they weren't a family. Jalx and Elizabeth definitely didn't want to be part of his clan. Jalx was trying to restore his and Elizabeth was pure mercenary.

"Once we pass the Dungeon, we'll have a big family for you, I promise."

Poe nodded sleepily. The adrenaline had to be wearing off for him and despite the pain, he was falling asleep. Gi didn't want to disturb him so he gave one last glance at the ruined clan of Drop Drakes and winked off [Concealing Light].

A few hours later, Poe awoke with a groan. Night had fallen and even though Gi himself was growing tired, he wanted to get out of the Spiked Eagle's territory while they had a chance. Picking up Poe tentatively, he placed him on his shoulder and peeked his head out of the crevice.

No eagles that he could see, but then again, it was dark.

With the coast seemingly clear, Gi yanked himself up and started walking cautiously. His Aether was churning anxiously, but he didn't cast anything. Instead, he just kept moving prepared to drop [Bishop] or a [Divine Bolt] at a moment's notice.

The tension in his spine slowly relaxed as one minute turned to two and then to five. After an hour, he'd made a good distance away from the volcano that seemed to house the Spiked Eagles.

"That was a fucking jobbie," Gi said. Maybe taking down Yom and Slice Slice had made him think he was better than he was. Though maybe he'd do better in a stand up fight also. It was hard to tell.

He shook his head. No use speculating. He'd just have to be cautious. He wouldn't have Elizabeth or Jalx here to bail him out. After a couple more hours, Gi found another crevice that was thankfully empty and he went to sleep.

When he awoke, the sunbeams from the sky-ocean had brightened considerably and the heat had already started to grow unbearable. Already awake, Poe seemed in a much better mood despite his broken leg.

"No monsters have come near us, Boss!"

His impromptu watch hadn't helped a ton since Poe'd been asleep most of the night, but it was better than nothing. "You think you can still fly?"

Poe looked a little concerned, but he fluttered off Gi's shoulder effortlessly. He didn't need the leg to fly, but he had the same fear as Gi. What else was up there?

Poe landed back on his shoulder for now and the two started hiking again to get further away from the Spiked Eagles territory.

Other than that first day, they settled into a routine. During the day, they'd walk across the Barrens each footstep dustier than the last. Occasionally some monster would try to attack them, but no others at the level of the Spiked Eagles came. It had gotten him enough Soul Orbs for another stat point.

Well, another non-Wisdom stat point. Pushing to B required ten thousand Body Orbs. Assuming they couldn't be purchased, he had no idea how to even get those. Even if they somehow could use ones that weren't earned, one Body Orb was twenty silver. That would be two thousand gold for all of them.

B was a long way off.

As they walked each day, he thought about his clan and his new plans for helping Danna. Other than a brief attempt with Nori, he'd never tried to convert anyone before. How did you make someone worship a goddess they'd never heard of?

He'd need to do something big.

Between his musings on his future plans and the frequent attacks, a week passed in short order. Poe had helped them avoid any more intense fights and Gi's body had healed up well from the fall. From Elizabeth's instructions, he'd been expecting for Poe to call down any minute and eventually he did.

"Whooooa! Boss, Boss! There's like a big tree and like water and grass and stuff! It looks like it appeared out of thin air!"

Gi grinned. "That sounds like it. Guide us to it!"

Poe altered their course and they walked for another hour when Poe flew back down. "Uh, sorry, Boss. I got us off track somehow. It's this way!"

The two of them took a complete ninety degree turn and started walking that direction. Gi was a bit annoyed as he wondered how Poe could have gotten that far off, but they continued walking.

Another hour went by and Poe flew down again. "Ummm, I'm sorry, Boss. I messed up again. It's actually that way." He pointed to the right with one of his uninjured legs. First they'd passed it too far to the right and then too far to the left?

Gi peered off to the right. He Could just see the tip of the tree that Poe had mentioned over some crags that stood between them. The tip of the tree looked like a pine which seemed very strange for an oasis. Something was off here.

Since Gi could see it, he now started walking straight towards it. After another hour had gone by, he glanced down to make sure not to fall in a crevice. When he looked up, the tree now was on his left again!

"What the hell..." He thought he could see more of the tree now which meant they'd gotten closer, but how had it shifted away from him? Something was definitely off here. He sat down right onto the cracked ground. The heat from the ground would have been comfortable if it was in the Encampment. With the heat that wafted off the nearby volcanoes, it was not.

"Poe, where do you see the tree?" He pointed directly to where Gi saw the tree now. "So if it's an illusion at least it's consistent."

After a few more moments of considering their problem, he dropped a piece of monster jerky into his paw. He held it as far out as he could and then bit off enough so it was the same size as the tree that he could currently see.

"All right, let's try this again." He tossed the jerky back into his [Expanded Pocket] and then turned back towards the enormous pine tree in the distance. Another hour went by and Gi happened to glance away for a moment and suddenly the tree had skipped off to the right.

He pulled out the stub of jerky again and held it out at arm's length. The tree was just a little bit longer! They'd probably make it if they continued heading straight towards it, but it was taking way too long. He might not make it for a couple days at this rate.

What was the trick?

What did he know about this place? Elizabeth had said there was a lot of "light aspected Aether" which was the reason that he was coming to begin with. Of the Knot, he had his Quicksilver Body, the Divine Seed in his Soul, but only a regular Heart.

His mind drifted thinking about the qualities of light and his most obvious thought was when he'd fought the Dragon Pikes. The light bent in the water and made it difficult for him to tell where it actually was. Could it be something similar here? Was the light bending? Or was that simply an issue with the wild water aspected Aether causing issues?

"Poe, keep your eye on the tree, please."

"Roger roger, Boss!"

Fixing his feet straight ahead, Gi closed his eyes and started walking forwards. At first, Poe assured him that he was walking straight towards it. After about twenty minutes, Poe started yelling.

"Wait, wait! You're drifting off to the left."

"Just keep an eye on it." It was possible that Poe was correct, but he needed more information to make sure. He kept walking. Poe seemed to get more and more antsy as he assumed his boss was walking away from it.

"What the fluff..."

Gi laughed. "Is that supposed to be a curse?"

"It's what Trixie says."

"Does that mean it's still moving?"

Poe fluttered his wings. "It's actually much closer and right in front of us again!"

Gi peeked his eyes open and he could see it. The tall tree towered large in his vision and the green grasses that surrounded it were a bigger blotch on the horizon. It looked strange against the volcanic and desolate background, but that oddity just made him more interested.

What would a Unique Heart be like?

"Let's keep moving." He closed his eyes again and continued forward. It took three more attempts, but eventually the tree stopped moving and it continued to grow larger and larger in their vision. Strangely, it grew much larger than it should have at their pace.

Was this another trick?

The tree got larger and larger and as it did it started to stretch. Its very image was deformed like it was a drawing slapped across one of the hives in Igna. Just when it looked like the tree would tie a knot in its own trunk, Gi took one more step.

And a world of glass was revealed to him.