By late afternoon the rain had stopped, but grey clouds still loomed above and the forest canopy held water that still dripped down like a light, inconsistent drizzle. As they traveled, the trees grew smaller and denser, and the segmented layers of the canopy began to merge into one thick layer of smaller branches. Soon, rather than running along and blipping between large outstretched branches high above the forest floor, Iris found herself navigating a dense bramble-like canopy of tangled branches and twigs only fifty feet above the ground. After tripping on an expected branch and tumbling through the branches with a string of vulgarities, Iris appeared out of a blip just above the ground, landing hard on her back with a grunt. After that, Iris gave up and traveled on the ground with the rest of the party.

In the early evening, Victoria spoke up, "activity ahead, lots of auras."

"That would be base camp," Eli said, "take us towards it."

Victoria led the party in the direction of camp, while Eli repeated a lecture he'd already given.

"Everyone needs to be on their best behavior," he said, "this isn't like the city, it's a serious operation and the people we interact with at camp will be the same people fighting by our side against the Matriarch. Make friends if you can, and keep to yourself if you can't."

Autumn exchanged a look with Iris, as if to say they both knew that wouldn't happen.

It wasn't long before they came upon the edges of base camp. Some tents were scattered around, but adventurers mostly took shelter under suspended tarps or in hollow crevices of tree trunks. A few groups had sawed branches to construct makeshift lean-to shelters with whatever cloth, hide or leathers they had to spare.

They received a mixed reaction as they walked through the camp. A party of humans gave them skeptical up-and-down looks as they passed, while a pair of orcs clad in heavy armor eyed Titus's shining armor, nodding respectfully when he met eyes with them. A group of halflings looked at Autumn and whispered amongst themselves, to which Autumn responded with a crinkled sneer and questioning gesture.

Glimmer caught the most attention, causing a few heads to turn and a few people to hurry out of the party's way, though she was far from the only beast present. Iris saw a frog the size of a wheelbarrow sitting around a fire like a member of the team, a red-haired hog with metal armor digging around in the mud with its snout, and snake that stretched out lazily across a party's campsite with a noticeable bulge the size of a rabbit about halfway down its length. Some of the animals responded restlessly as Glimmer passed by, but their tamers were nearby and quickly calmed or distracted them.

The numbers of tents grew as they went deeper into camp, as did the quality of gear worn by the adventurers. Iris couldn't be certain, but she guessed the average level of the adventurers went up as well. They stopped at a small canvas awning where a man at a small wooden table took down their names and informed them of tomorrow morning's mission briefing, the rules of basecamp set by the Dreamweaver, and that the watch schedule was currently covered, but they could still be called upon for supplemental watch duty if necessary.

They moved on in search of a place to make camp. Victoria pointed out that the northeastern edge of base camp, the side which was deepest into the dense forest and closest to the Matriarch's web, consisted exclusively of Champions. Meanwhile, the opposite edge of camp, where they had first entered, was where most of the Hero rank adventurers camped. After Eli observed that it was probably due to the heightened risk of attack or danger on the northwestern edge, the party quickly agreed to camp with the Heroes.

Though many parties made up the base camp, the huge forest provided more than enough space to accommodate them, and the nature of the tall, bulging redwood roots created natural crevices and alcoves which provided a measure of privacy for the campers. They selected one such spot between two redwood roots reaching out in a V-shape from a trunk. From most points in the space they could only see the flickering glows of other camps on the dark canopy overhead, though they could hear the activity and conversation of other adventurers from most directions around them.

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Before they began unpacking camp, Autumn backtracked to a boulder she had picked out while they were searching for a spot. It stuck out nearly three feet above the ground and was about the length of autumn's arm span at its widest. She had chosen this one both for its size and because it had less moss growing on it than most others she had considered.

Autumn squatted, wrapped her arms around the boulder, and used her mold matter ability to carve deep, comfortable and perfectly spaced handholds into the rock. With a grunt, she lifted the boulder out of the ground, dripping clumps of muddy forest litter into the small crater left behind. With her arms stretched wide around the boulder, she carried it awkwardly with a wide, stomping gait, her feet sinking deep into the mud with each step.

She grunted loudly as she tossed the boulder down in the middle of their soon-to-be campsite. Next, she found a few young trees that were only a few inches in diameter. She snapped them off at the base, then used a stone axe to chop off their branches. She held two trunks under each arm and carried them back to the campsite. She drove the trunks into the ground like posts, each one requiring a single motion to stick deep into the mud.

After a moment to stretch, she slapped both hands against the boulder and began to mold it. The boulder sliced several times horizontally, forming thick sheets of stone which Autumn then slid off the stack one-by-one in each direction, each one slapping into the mud with a splash. Once she was left with only the bottom sheet of stone, she stepped atop it, crouched down and touched two other sheets beside it. The stone melded together and smoothed flat like invisible hands molding clay. She repeated the process until the whole campsite was a flat, dry surface that raised roughly an inch above the muddy forest floor, with the wooden posts held firmly in place by the stone.

While Autumn constructed the campsite, Eli approached a few well equipped parties and offered to buy an extra canvas tarp off of them. It took a few tries, but he was eventually able to acquire one. When he returned to the campsite, he and Titus got to work draping and securing the tarp over the wooden posts.

A short while later, the party was seated around a campfire, over which was an elaborate. two-tiered iron cooking rack. Autumn seared a fat cross section of tentacle in a pan on the top rack, while chunks of rabbit boiled in a flame-licked pot on the bottom rack. She had put Iris in charge of chopping vegetables and herbs and dropping them into the pot, while Titus was on the edge of camp cleaning up after butchering the rabbit.

"You're actually going to eat that?" Victoria asked Autumn, giving the tentacle steak a dirty look.

"Not if it's disgusting," Autumn replied, quickly rocking the pan to flip the tentacle. It landed with a slap, then a sizzle.

Eli looked sick, and turned his head.

"How can you call yourselves adventurers if you don't try new things?" Autumn asked, "that's the opposite of adventuring. Right Iris?"

Iris nodded.

"See, Iris will try it," Autumn argued.

"Oh--" Iris said, "I didn't-- I mean I might."

Autumn's shoulders slumped as she looked at Iris with an expression of hurt and disappointment.

When the tentacle steak was done, Autumn slid it onto a wooden cutting board and sliced it into strips. Beneath the seasoned and seared surface of the steak was tender, fluffy white meat all the way through.

"Titus, c'mere!" she hollered.

Titus walked up, he still wore his boots and armor on his legs, but from the waist up he wore only a sweaty white tank top smeared in a few places with blood. Autumn poked a strip of tentacle steak on a skewer and held it up for Titus.

He took the meat off the skewer with a pinch, sniffed it, and frowned, "it actually looks really good," he said.

Autumn took a large bite from another strip, and immediately closed her eyes, rolled back her head and moaned. Titus raised his eyebrows at Autumn, then took a small bite. His eyes went wide, and he nodded in confirmation as he chewed.

"I'm not falling for that," Eli said flatly.

Titus and Autumn interrupted their exaggerated savoring to gave him offended looks.

"It's like the scorpion again, isn't it?" Victoria interrogated.

"That's absurd," Autumn said through another mouthful of tentacle steak, "I'd never do the same bit twice."

"Yes you would," Eli said incredulously, offended that she would even attempt a lie so brazen.

"I'm telling you," Titus said, speaking in a manner that sounded rehearsed after swallowing his first bite, "it's actually great."

Iris swapped between the two pairs of adventurers with an amused but skeptical expression. She hadn't heard the scorpion story, but she was starving, and the tentacle steak did smell pretty good. As the back and forth continued, Iris blipped a strip of meat from the cutting board into her hand. She sniffed it cautiously, smelling the intense aroma of seasonings Autumn had dressed it with, then shrugged and took a bite. To her partial surprise, it actually was delicious. It was juicy and impossibly tender with a sweet taste that paired phenomenally with Autumn's choice of seasonings. She quickly chewed the first bite and excitedly took another.

Victoria's eyes locked onto Iris from across the campfire. She leaned towards Eli and spoke in a grave, urgent voice, "she's in on it too."