image [https://i.imgur.com/kISlPtl.jpg]

We’d had enough for the night. After fist-bumping one another, we climbed into the Dark Room and fell to sleep.

Fabulosa and I looted the dead kobolds on the third morning of our trek. We amassed their crude weapons and 286 copper coins. We counted 60 corpses, as much as we expected, so the kobolds hadn’t bothered to carry away their fallen.

I checked out the corpse of the shaman I zapped with Shocking Reach. It had 30 copper and a charm necklace of +2 Willpower, which Charitybelle took. He also carried a totem that gave its possessor +10 influence. As far as we knew, influence didn’t affect other players. The only application seemed to be negotiations with NPCs over prices—something we wouldn’t need in the wilderness.

As Fabulosa and I picked through the residue, Charitybelle became our eye in the sky. She stretched across the ground and closed her eyes to avoid dizziness. “This is so cool, you guys. I see the lake and a clearing on the northwest shore. There are slate-blue rocks on the edge of the lake. It’s like a cliff overhanging the water.”

I studied my girlfriend’s expression, but she seemed relaxed enough with her eyes closed. “How high is the cliff?”

“Not very—only a few stories at most. One side of the cliff dips closer to the water, and there’s a river on the far side of the blue rocks. There’s plenty of water access if anyone wants to clean up.”

I grunted at the hint. “Uh-huh. What else?”

“The river goes north between two mountain ranges.” A while later, she grimaced in fear. “Oh, dear. Chloe went after a mouse, but it got away. I hate to say I’m glad she didn’t get it. It was so cute.”

Charitybelle and her bird struck me as a funny symbiosis. The idea of talking to animals reminded me of my dog, Calico. When I moved in with my aunt, she refused to take my pet, so I had to give her up. It was already a terrible time in my life, and losing Calico made it twice as bad. If I won this contest, I resolved to get an apartment that allowed dogs.

Thoughts about winning the battle royale reminded me to check the interface. The contest interface showed 50 players still in the game. Nothing had changed since we knocked out Tardee.

We waited for a few minutes before prodding Charitybelle for an update.

“Chloe went high again, and now she’s perched onto something, either a branch or rock. She’s looking around. It’s a shame she’s not in communication range. It looks like she’s hunting.”

After a few minutes longer, Charitybelle opened her eyes and blinked. “I don’t know what she’s doing. But I got a good look at the region, at least.”

Water access appealed to me. “Did you see any good places to settle by water?”

Charitybelle nodded, grinning. “There’re loads of water access but no trees along the lake. Aside from a rocky strip along the water, the north shore has rolling meadows.”

“That sounds nice.” Fabulosa looked at me for confirmation.

I grinned and nodded. Seeing Fabulosa asserting herself and returning to conversations brightened our mood.

Charitybelle pointed. “It’s due east. As far as I can tell, we’re still close to the Highwall foothills.”

We packed our things and departed for what we hoped would be our last day of travel. Chloe left telepathic range, so I scouted ahead as before. The terrain leveled, so we made good time. Traveling got even easier when I entered a vast forest of pine trees.

The acoustics beneath the pines unsettled us. Dead brown pine needles carpeted the ground, making for slippery footing, but our tired soles welcomed the softness. Evergreen branches absorbed the usual windy clatter of branches and rustling leaves. Bird calls infrequently broke the stillness and didn’t carry far. Shadowy conditions had withered the underbrush, including the lowest tree limbs, ironically increasing ground-level visibility. The pungency of sap and dead pine needles permeated the spooky atmosphere. The conditions tempted me to turn on Presence, but advertising ourselves in this gloom wasn’t wise.

Miros grew gigantic trees, but their height didn’t impress us until we climbed above the tree line. They reached 30 or 40 stories, at least as tall as the hotels in Atlantic City. Hiking beneath the canopy conveyed none of this, aside from occasionally passing a trunk as thick as a garage.

A clump of sticky gray stuff clinging to a pine cone caught my attention. It looked and felt like steel wool. I waited for my friends to catch up.

I cast Mineral Communion and relaxed my mind to invite the spongy material to give me its history. It didn’t produce clear images like rocks or stones. A cluttered sequence of vignettes appeared in my mind’s eye. They blurred into one another, preventing me from making sense of anything more than glimpses of trees. Whatever interfered with my spell, the material proved impossible to read.

Watching the visions gave me a poor sense of my surroundings. I made a mental note to avoid using Mineral Communion in dangerous situations.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

I told Charitybelle and Fabulosa what I’d seen.

Fabulosa examined the metallic wool. “There’s bark and dirt in this stuff. It looks like cobwebs.”

Charitybelle pouted. “Oh, what rotten luck! Why does it have to be spiders? Why not something like metal-weaving silkworms or steel sheep?”

Fabulosa snorted in amusement. “At least we’re getting close to the lake.” She raised her eyebrows, making her statement more of a question.

I searched the distance for the clearing that Charitybelle had described. I couldn’t see it. Dark forests stretched as far as I could see. “If we settle nearby, we should make sure spiders aren’t a threat.”

“That’s your job. Boyfriends are in charge of killing spiders.”

Fabulosa grunted in agreement as if Charitybelle had quoted some universal law.

After hiking a dozen miles and four hours, we took a break, ate a light snack of archaeodon leftovers, and drank water. We lost altitude over the day’s haul.

Charitybelle stretched. “Given this pace, we’ll clear 30 miles today. We should be on the shore of the lake Chloe spotted in a few hours.”

I hung my head. Thirty miles in a day felt like too much, but I voiced no protest.

I checked my map. Basilborough lay 80 miles away. My interface map revealed about 100 yards around our position—anything beyond that range showed no landmarks. The cartographic details felt claustrophobic when I zoomed out to see how much we hadn’t explored. Our trip revealed a thin strip of geographic features surrounded by gray fog-of-war. We could stumble into an orc village or dragon’s lair.

Fabulosa gestured forward. “We ought to get a move on.” I took the hint to take the lead position.

I braced myself for a fight since beasts often lived by the water. Serving as a scout increased my survival skill, making me feel less like a dopey Jersey kid out of his depths and more like someone comfortable in this wilderness. Spotting wildlife like rabbits or giant deer came easily. I stopped to see if Charitybelle wanted to recruit either for a Familiar, but with only one available pet slot, she preferred to wait for something that could fight. She also seemed content with her hawk.

In the late evening, I reached a clearing, a sea of grass stretching for miles. My map interface revealed a vast, open field three miles long and two miles wide. Trees framed the clearing’s north and west extents. A river bordered its east, emptying into a large lake to the south.

The brief respite from walking called attention to my wooden legs. I didn’t want to go further, so I waited for my companions to catch up. Our day’s progress impressed me even over level topography, but my legs had stiffened from fatigue and felt in no condition to fight should we stroll into a monster.

While waiting, I leaned against a tree, scanned the skies, and pondered the likelihood of rain. Spotting seagulls lifted my spirits. Their calls reminded me of home, and it occurred to me they ought to be signs of good fortune.

When Charitybelle and Fabulosa caught up, we discussed our options. After last night’s ambush, starting another campfire wasn’t high on anyone’s priorities.

Fabulosa removed some of her equipment. “I reckon we made a four-day journey in three. Let’s crash here.”

Charitybelle leaned against a tree and stretched her legs. “Let’s stay in the Dark Room in the forest for one more night. I’m sick of archaeodon jerky, but we shouldn’t start another fire until we know it’s safe.”

No one disagreed. We rested outside until sundown. After I tossed my magic rope in the air, we wearily climbed into our bunks.

Rain greeted us the following morning. Unsurprisingly, the drizzle began the moment we reached the forest’s edge. The downpour wasn’t strong enough to kill a fire, especially one started by magic. We cast Scorch on some firewood and cooked some owlbear. Its chicken flavor made for a welcome change from the stringy, gamey archaeodon.

Fabulosa stood, arms akimbo, in defiance of the downpour, scanning the sky for seagulls. “Do y’all want to continue east to the river or cut south to the lake?”

It stretched a couple of miles in either direction. The lakeshore bounded the south, but I couldn’t see anything besides the meadow’s tall grass.

Our eyes drifted to the falling rain. “East.” Charitybelle and I answered in unison, for walking beneath the treeline would keep us dry.

We trekked an hour to a bank overlooking a quarter-mile-wide river. After four days of hiking through claustrophobic forests, the open territory presented a pleasant change.

Occasional cave-ins disturbed the grass. Long sinkholes pockmarked the meadow’s surface, and none of us knew what to make of them. They ranged from 20 to 100 yards long and seemed to have happened many months ago. I suggested they could be landshark trails, but Fabulosa disagreed. She argued these looked too wide and straight. The trenches seemed natural, like miniature fault lines. Judging by the grass growing on them, some looked older than others.

We spotted no bones or carcasses around the trenches, so we continued east.

After reaching the river, we turned south along the riverbank for another half-hour. The lakefront grass gave way to a pale blue stone. The rock stretched across the shore—the size of an airport runway.

When the weather broke, we stopped and surveyed the surroundings.

Our interface map revealed the water stretched about thirty miles across. I could barely see the far shore on the horizon. Its placid surface looked normal by Earth standards, with no trails of water monsters coming ashore.

The lake’s vista impressed us as much as the blue rock overlooking it. Our stone promontory gave us views of three distant mountain ranges. The Bluepeaks lay directly north, the Doublespines across the river loomed in the northeast, and the Highwalls framed the southwest. Each would take at least a day’s journey.

One mountain, in particular, interested me. Shorter than its brethren and colored in a red tint, Iremont featured a plateau. It stood two dozen miles north of our position, overlooking a river. According to rumor, Sune Njal, the legendary trainer, retired there. Perhaps I might ascend an extensive set of stairs to become his student. Without stairs, climbing to the plateau would be no simple task, but at least the mountain’s base rested nearby.

Charitybelle followed my gaze. “Oh! It looks like you found something cool. Hey, Fab! Look at the short pink one with the flat top by the river.” She shaded her eyes with her hand as she peered north at Iremont.

Fabulosa followed her gaze. “Ah, yeah. I see it. Pink is my favorite color.”

I blanched and scanned the horizon. “Ugh, look at those over there. Those mountains across the river are the Doublespines. That’s where the orcs live. Does Chloe fly over them?”

The ladies turned eastward, across the river, to match my gaze. Less enthusiastically, Charitybelle shrugged at my question.

I pivoted to the south. “And that flat island in the lake. I wonder what’s on it.”

Again, they followed my direction, looking at a distant rock island miles offshore. Its pale blue rock looked like the same granite we stood upon.

After a moment of admiring the scenery, Charitybelle broke the silence. “What do you guys think—do you like this place?”

Fabulosa and I nodded.

“Good. Because there’s an idea that I want to run by you. Come on, let’s look for a dry place to sit.” Charitybelle gestured to a waist-high protrusion of stone.

We climbed on top of the formation and got comfortable. Asking us to sit suggested unusual formality, so we prepared ourselves for something special.