As it walked, the pony again drifted slowly toward the high grass at the right edge of the packed dirt trail. Jaw clenched tight, Reeve looked away, staring off across the plain to their left for a count of ten paces, repeating “I choose my own attitude” rapidly in time to every second step. She looked back. The pony was starting to enter the grass, and Reeve couldn’t help but choose an attitude.

“Aaahhhggg! Dad! You’ve got to pull left.”

“I am, Honey.”

“No, you’re not! Pull left!”

“Evie, I’m pulling left.”

The pony was now a half-foot off the trail, its legs rustling the tall blades with each step.

“You’re off the trail! Pull left!”

The pony suddenly took a hard turn and a second later was crossing the trail immediately in front of Reeve, nearly perpendicular to their direction of travel.

“Right! Right!”

“You just said—“

“Pull to the right! You’re—“

“I am pulling—“

“No you’re not, you need to pull—“

“Hellooooo, tree.”

The pony came to a stop of its own volition, muzzle just short of the trunk of a lone birch standing a couple of yards off the trail.

“Give me that!” Reeve grabbed the reins from her father and lifted them over the pony’s head, then led the mount onto the trail. “It’s like watching you play a cart racing game,” Reeve said.

“I remember those. Phew. They were hard.”

“You couldn’t stop drifting.”

“Who knew ponies’ had drift too, huh?” Walter chuckled.

“They don’t! Ponies don’t drift!”

“We haven’t played those games in a while.”

“That’s not a coincidence,” Reeve said under her breath, having walked far enough ahead of the pony that Walter did not hear.

“Decisions must be made, Daughter of Wurmslayer,” Leaf said as Reeve drew within two strides of the fallen elf’s position at the head of their procession.

“What?” Through her frustration, Reeve registered her tone. She exhaled. “Could you repeat that?” She said more softly.

“The ford lies o’er that high ridge.” A slight extension of the fallen elf’s cloaked elbow sent Reeve’s gaze out to the right, where an imposing bare-faced ridge rose beyond a dense forest that paralleled the trail. “There is a gap ahead.”

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

“‘Kay.”

“The gap creates a vulnerable position for any who hazard it, as it is narrow and surrounded by higher ground that can conceal dangers, of nature or otherwise.”

“Pinch point. High ground. Kill zone. Understood.”

Leaf glanced at her from within her hood, eyes assessing Reeve. “If we stay this trail, we will ourselves eventually come to higher ground, which we can use to cross the ridgetop, first through dense forest and then across a barren that would take us back down into forest on the other side and on to the ford.”

Reeve walked on, waiting.

Leaf gestured again to the gap, ”Three days,” then looked ahead, “ten.”

“We’ll take the gap,” Reeve said immediately.

Leaf looked back over her shoulder. “What says Wurmslayer?”

Reeve frowned, her thick brow wrinkling. “He doesn’t have an opinion.”

“Or, he has an opinion you have no wish to hear?”

“We’re doing the gap.”

Leaf slowed so that Reeve came alongside her. “I will guide you either way, but I am less certain I can shepherd safe passage through the gap.”

“We’ll manage.”

“You seem quite confident.”

“Why shouldn’t I?”

Leaf walked alongside Reeve without speaking, their strides falling in and out of sync in a slow cycle. “The immortality of youth is fleeting,” Leaf said finally, “and Wurmslayer’s uncommonly venerable wisdom might safeguard you from the limited perspective of your years.”

Reeve snorted. “Fine.” She turned to look at her father, a halfling, tied to a pony, one hand resting on the hilt of a dagger they’d finally had the good sense to stow in a sheath tied to, rather than tucked inside, his suspenders, his other hand holding a bee smoker that was leaving a Morse code of smokey puffs floating above the path they’d trod, a bee veil upon his head. “Dad. Gap,” Reeve pointed, “or flatter path ahead then up and over the end of the ridge? The gap’s more dangerous but takes only a few days, the flatter path takes a week longer.”

Walter looked toward the ridge and then ahead into the distance. “I wouldn’t want anyone to get hurt.”

“We’ll just respawn. It’s no big deal.”

“What about them?” Walter waved the bee smoker over his shoulder in the direction of the twins, who were walking some way behind the pony, heads inclined toward each other, words indecipherable but tone one of siblings squabbling. The honey badger and Nyx ambled behind the pair, providing a rear guard.

Reeve returned her gaze to the path ahead and walked silently. She hadn’t given much thought to the twin’s mortality, partly because they seemed capable of taking care of themselves. Considering the apparent arc the story mode was following, they might also have some decent plot armor. But NPCs didn’t respawn, a game mechanic coded into the societal understanding of the NPCs but often of little concern to players. So, if either twin died, that was it.

“We’ll take the long way. Just…fantastic.”

Leaf nodded.

They walked in silence along the packed dirt path through miles of rolling grassland, only an occasional tree near the trail interrupting the symmetry of the view.

A thought eventually emerged from Reeve’s ruminations, and she slowed slightly and let Leaf walk ahead. Reeve’s father came alongside a few minutes later.

“Let’s try something, Dad.” Reeve pulled a fistful of stream stones from her Inventory and picked through them until she had four small, flat stones. She swung the rest back into her hammerspace. She slid one under the front of the saddle, above the saddle blanket, and another under the rear. Then she worked one under the left side, then the right, below her father’s thighs.

“Trying to answer the age-old question about the halfling and the pea?” Walter said with a hammy smile that made Reeve want to pull the rim of his bee veil down over his face.

“Say ‘resurrection stones.’”

“Again?”

“Yes, again.”

“Now?”

Reeve stared at her father, who had to angle his gaze up at her from under the brim of the bee veil even when perched on the pony.

“OK, just checking. Sometimes you tell us to do something in a game, and then we do it, but it’s too soon. So, I just wanted to make s—“

“Now!”

“River stones.”

“Resurrection stones!”

“Resurrection stones.”

Reeve checked the Party Log. “Good. They work in that configuration. Now, what I need you to do is say ‘resurrection stones’ whenever you get on the pony, whenever you’re about to get off the pony, and whenever you think about rain.”

“Why rain?”

“Because you worry about rain all the time, so I know you’ll say it a lot.”