Iris approached the mouth of the cave with caution. It didn't connect to the footpath, but was more like an opening in the side of the cliff lightly obstructed by loose stones that had tumbled down from higher up the mountain. Last time she'd come to this cave she'd been assaulted by a small swarm of bats, so her walking stick was poised for a swing if needed. Of course, the bats had actually just flown past her harmlessly, but still, the memory was traumatizing and she wasn't taking any chances. She eased her way, step by step, into the cave. Immediately she realized -- despite her drive to be prepared -- that she had forgotten to bring a torch.
"Idiot," she murmured. Torches were essential adventurer gear, the shop even had a whole barrel of pre-made torches right by the door with a perpetual "3 for 2" special. They were absurdly priced, of course, but she should have at least thought about it before coming out here.
She gazed around the dark cave, searching for her prize in the dim light that filtered in from the outside. She glanced up at the ceiling to check for bats, but couldn't even make out the roof of the cave in the darkness. She sighed, and climbed over the rubble into the cave. Peering at the top of the cave once more, she still saw only darkness. She ventured a few steps further, waiting impatiently for her eyes to adjust as she tried to make out more detail. A faint echo of dripping water came from what sounded like a distant cavern, though she couldn't make out any openings or tunnels that might lead to it.
After a few more moments of standing awkwardly in the darkness, and a few more hesitant steps deeper into the cave, she saw what might be the opening to a tunnel that tugged on her memory. She couldn't be sure after so long, but she thought she might remember it being in that spot based on the angle from the cave opening. She reached to either side of herself with her walking stick, using the light from the cave opening to keep her bearings as best she could. She shuffled over until she felt the stick tap the wall of the cave, then took note of where she thought she saw the tunnel opening from where she stood. She followed the length of her walking stick until she could touch the wall of the cave with her hand.
As she reached the wall, something crunched under her foot. Crouching down, she inspected what she had stepped on, and groaned. Mushrooms, great. She picked up the mass of crushed mushrooms and turned herself towards the light, illuminating the bright rep cap with a swirling pattern of darker red streaks, positively identifying them as rosewart. She sighed, and searched around her feet for more. To her relief, she found two more intact mushrooms, one of them actually sprouting a second, smaller mushroom from its stem, branching off and forming its own small red cap. She stood and cradled the mushrooms in her hand as she made her way back out of the cave.
She had four mushrooms total, two of them crushed. Squinting from the outside light, she scanned the cave one more time, now able to make out some faint detail of its shape with her adjusted eyes. She couldn't see any more mushrooms around the base of the cave wall on any side, though she couldn't be sure they'd be visible in the dim light. She looked back at the mushrooms in her hand, already knowing that Mr. Quell would reject the crushed mushrooms and -- at best -- halve the reward. She thought for a moment, placed the mushrooms gently on the ground and pulled the quest slip out of her bag. It didn't say anything about the size of the rosewart, just three rosewart. Stuffing the slip of paper back into her bag, she looked down at the mushroom with two caps and gently plucked the small cap from the larger stem. She laid them all out and inspected them.
"Looks like three rosewart to me," she said, picking them up again and gently tumbling them into the opening of her bag.
She paused for a moment to consider if they'd be safe in there, but she was pretty certain at this point that space itself didn't exist within the bag and that it was pretty unlikely they would be crushed by anything in there. She looked back at the area where she thought she'd seen the opening to a tunnel, promising to herself that she'd come back and explore it one day. She had never been brave enough to go that deep, in this cave or any of the others that could be found on the mountainsides, but she was an adventurer now, and she intended to brave all her fears.
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After leaving the cave Iris continued along the trail. She soon came upon a fork in the path, with the right hand path leading further up the mountain, while the left hand path sloped down back towards the valley. She took the left path, and stopped teleporting. She had entered the area where the pocket watch had been lost, so she walked slowly and scanned the ground as she went. She periodically peeked into bushes and peered over the edge of the trail, sometimes teleporting atop a large rock to look over into the crevices behind it. The sun was still high in the sky and fully lighting the path, the few trees that grew this far up on the mountain were too sparse and thin to provide any semblance of a canopy. She hoped the watch she was searching for was polished enough to shine.
Iris continued on like this for a while, growing tired and annoyed at her agonizing pace. It was becoming harder and harder to resist the urge to teleport ahead, but she stubbornly held herself back, knowing she needed to be as thorough as possible if she wanted any chance at finding a pocket watch on a mountainside. Briefly she considered teleporting back the way she had come, then back again, just to get it out of her system. As she was pondering how ridiculous that would be, she noticed a glint in the branches of a tree. She brought her hand over her brow to shield from the sun and squinted at the tree.
"You're kidding," she said, making out the shape of a pocket watch dangling by its chain from a branch.
Angrily, she pulled the quest slip for the lost watch from her bag and read it over, "must have dropped it while I was walking" she read aloud, glancing back up at the tree, "right."
She stuffed the paper back into the bag and stood there staring at the tree, one arm outstretched balancing her walking stick on the ground, the other shielding her eyes from the sun. The tree grew from somewhere further down a steep slope just past the edge of the trail, growing tall and reaching at least fifteen feet over the ground she stood on, and the pocket watch was near the top.
"Alright," she sighed, knowing her only play. She held open her bag and dropped the walking stick into it, then stepped off the trail up to the edge of the slope. Pebbles and small stones kicked loose from her feet tumbled down the slope, and her eyes followed them as they bounced over rocks, between the trunks of trees and then over another ledge into the unknown -- likely dropping somewhere into the forest below. She looked back at the dangling watch. "Alright," she said one more time.
She appeared in the air beside the branch, her hand outstretched. Her fingers wrapped around the branch as tightly as they could but quickly slipped loose from her weight. She clutched her other hand around the chain of the watch, snatching it down as she fell past it. She looked down just in time to slam her face against another branch as smaller branches and twigs snapped all around her. The impact sent her rolling backwards in the air, turning horizontal until she faced the sky, unknowingly racing towards a thick branch below. She snapped her eyes to the side and caught the last possible glimpse of the trail before it left her view. Her back slammed into packed dirt and loose gravel of the trail just before her head met the same fate. She sucked in a harsh, painful gasp, clutching her chest with one hand and the pocket watch with the other.
After several minutes of ragged breathing and a pounding heart, she finally rose to a seated position. She inspected the pocket watch, it looked to be made of silver and was covered in scratches. The glass was cracked and the watch hands behind it were motionless. The sun was still high in the middle of the sky, while the watch showed a time either in the early morning or late evening. She lay back onto the dirt, glad she hadn't been the one to break it.
She winced as she straightened out, her shoulders screamed in pain and her neck felt stiff. She could feel the stinging cuts on her face and the warm swelling that was forming around her jaw. Her head rolled sideways to look back at the tree as she groaned her words, "fucking hell."