I didn’t sleep well that night. My mind had been racing, and it was colder than usual. Perhaps that coldness I felt was less the drop in temperature and more the loss of warmth in my soul.

Eventually, I did fall asleep, and despite my mental and physical discomfort, I woke up ready to take on the day. After confronting Val, I had made a decision. Sure, I had already decided to become a Player and fight back against the Triarchy, but I had never truly understood or accepted what I’d have to do to succeed. I was doing this so that one day, I could beat these alien bastards at their own game. Occasionally, I would be forced to set aside my morality to accomplish my goals. It was a cost I was now willing to pay.

Tara woke up with bloodshot eyes. Despite her complicated feelings about her uncle, he was still family, and losing a family member was always hard. Hopefully, she slept better than me.

I grabbed the wolf pelt off a tree limb I had hung it over and disappeared the thing into my inventory. I’m pretty sure Tara was watching me as I did it, but she didn’t seem to notice anything strange had happened. I had to admit, the quantum inventory was damn useful. Not for the first time, I wondered how the system reconciled the anomalous disappearance of an object in the mind of an NPC.

Tara and I packed up again and began our final journey to Lucard Pass. Val said it was only six miles away. If we kept a steady pace, we could be there before noon.

I had never been through one of the ancient passes before. I’d heard stories about them of course, and I couldn’t wait to see it for myself. The passages built by the ancients (who never existed) typically followed the valleys between the rises, but some sections were carved directly through the mountain. I’d heard that the longest tunnel ran for twenty miles, and the only light that ever touched those stone walls came from whatever source a traveler brought with them. That tunnel was supposedly far to the north among the daunting peaks of the Bygone Mountains. Luckily, the section we would pass through wasn’t nearly as vast and formidable.

After an hour of silence, I decided it was time to strike up a conversation and see if I truly had broken through the walls Tara had built.

“Hey, Tara,” I said. “You told me I’d be taking you to your family in Danver. I’ve always assumed you meant your parents. Is that the case?”

At my mention of her parents, Tara froze—just for a whisp of a time, but I saw it, nonetheless. I wondered where her thoughts went during that millisecond.

“You’ll be taking me to my father. Strangely, you remind me of him.”

“Oh really, how so?”

She smiled. “He’s stubborn and overly confident but also kind when he needs to be.”

“Overly confident? I just killed a wolf! I think that justifies my bravado.”

“That wolf practically killed itself. You only won because you tricked it.”

I spread out my arms. “Can’t you just give me a little credit? It was a clever trick.”

She glanced at me and smirked. “Fine.”

“Fine?”

“Fine,” she restated.

I shrugged. “I’ll take it.”

Ahead, through a small gap through the trees, I saw a patch of flat, brown earth. It was the road.

We’d made finally made it. If all went well from here on out, we’d reach Danver well before Tara’s deadline, and I’d be cashing in a ton of experience. I wondered if I’d get some sort of reward in addition to the gold she had promised me.

I alerted Tara, and we picked up our pace until we cleared the forest and planted our feet on the hard-packed dirt road.

Val pointed me in the right direction, and we found the entrance to the pass after another mile.

The sun was still high in the sky, and if we hurried, there was a good chance we could make it through before nightfall.

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“We’re here,” I said and clapped my hands. “But I’m sure you never had any doubts.”

“I won’t have any doubts when I’m home.”

“Let’s get going then.”

The mountains rose from the earth ahead of us. Their peaks were well below the tree line but still impressive. The Master Control had an artist's touch when it came to landscapes.

The road through the pass had a steady incline. Further up the rise, the road curved, blocking any further view. Along the path, parts of the mountain walls were sheared off to make room for the road.

The journey started fine, but a sense of discomfort grew within me as the hours passed. Unlike the forest we had left, there was very little life here other than the occasional crow screeching from the rocks above.

Tara had reverted back to her introverted self, and any questions I asked her were met with terse responses. I could tell something was bothering her, but I figured she was still just processing the loss of her uncle, so I gave her space.

Val tried to chat me up a few times, but I was as short with her as Tara was with me. I was still angry with Val for lying, even though I felt like I understood her a little better now. Her ambivalence towards humans was demoralizing, but her heartless logic made sense. I knew I needed to become more like her, but I hoped that in the process, she would also become a little more like me.

We were deep into the pass when Tara asked to take a break. I agreed right away. It wasn’t very hot today, but her hair was stuck to her face from sweat, and her cheeks were flushed. We walked a little further until we found a suitable place to rest.

I located a lumpy rock and took a seat. I drank deeply from my water pouch, which was beginning to run low. I kept my fingers crossed we’d pass a mountain stream soon so I could refill it.

Tara sat on the ground and seemed to be having difficulty catching her breath. I knew she would be annoyed if I tried to help, so I stayed quiet. She closed her eyes, laid back, and relaxed. A few minutes later, her breath steadied.

She glanced at me and gave her a half-hearted smirk.

I returned the smile, but it felt forced. “Better?”

“Yes, but I wouldn’t mind if we rested a bit longer, though. Is there any chance you could start a fire and cook some meat? I’m famished.”

I wasn’t hungry yet, but who was I to deny a young woman’s request for food? I had wolf meat to spare in my inventory, anyway.

I shrugged, indifferent. “Whatever you need. I’ll go get some wood.”

Finding dry wood was easy as nearly all the trees growing along the pass were long dead, their branches pale and brittle.

It didn’t take long to start the small fire, and for my efforts, I received one more point in FIRESTARTER. Only one more point to go…

I skewered a chunk of meat on a sharp branch and held it over the fire.

“I’m going to make some tea,” Tara said, producing her tin can and a small mesh pouch. “I drink it when I get tired, and it seems to help.”

I shrugged. I was never a fan of tea.

She rested the tin of water at the end of the fire. When it began to steam, she pulled it away and lowered a teabag into the cup to steep.

“I didn’t expect you to be the tea-party type of girl,” I said.

She crossed her arms. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I don’t mean anything by it. I just associate tea with rich, prissy girls.” I raised an eyebrow. “You may be rich , but you don’t seem very prissy to me.”

Her eyes sparkled. “Tea is for everyone. Even unsophisticated individuals such as yourself.”

“I’m not unsophisticated. I just don’t like tea,” I said.

“You’ll like my tea.”

When the meat was done, I let it cool for a minute before pulling off a steaming chunk of wolf and passing it to Tara.

“And my gift to you.” She handed me the cup of tea. “I don’t like to share, so consider this a token of my appreciation for bringing me this far. Please be sure to save some for me.”

I don’t know exactly why, but I bowed my head as I accepted the tea from her. It seemed an appropriate gesture. Dignified.

“Thanks. This better be good. I’d hate to have to lie and pretend I like it.”

She laughed. “You can be honest with me.”

I blew on it and took a sip. It was hot, floral, and sweet. I didn’t have much experience with tea, but this was far better than any tea I’d had before, even back in the real world.

I smiled. “I like it. I wonder how it pairs with wolf.” I took a bite of the meat. It was dark, gamey, and hard to chew, but it was protein, and that’s all that mattered. I choked most of it down and chased it with another drink of the tea.

It didn’t mix well with the wolf, but it did help wash the taste out of my mouth.

“Miss Honeytender,” I said. “I think you might be onto something here. Maybe you should get into the tea business.”

I took one more small drink. It seemed to taste better with every sip.

“Oh, I don’t know anything about running a business,” she said.

“I’ll be your business partner,” I said excitedly. “We’d be rich in no time!”

This was perhaps the most genius idea I had ever had in my entire life. Once people tasted it, this tea would fly off the shelves.

“I’ll do all the work,” I said. “You must tell me the recipe.”

Tara laughed. “It’s a secret family recipe. The key word being ‘secret’.”

Just like that, my hopes of becoming a powerful tea baron were dashed, and a sense of sadness washed over me.

I took another drink, emptying the cup.

Whoops. I was supposed to save some for Tara. Slowly, I looked up from the cup, ready to apologize. When I opened my mouth, no words came out. What was I going to tell her?

Tara looked at me and grinned. “That’s okay. I can make more.”

I smiled dumbly at her. My rock was suddenly very comfortable, and I felt the weight of multiple days of travel catch up to me. I closed my eyes and decided this was the perfect spot for a nap.