Juniper woke up to find Faro sitting on his foldable chair, closely inspecting the lily.
He’d been already asleep when Juniper had returned to camp the previous night, so she hadn’t gotten the chance to tell him about her discovery.
Juniper’s shuffling must have caught his attention, because his eyes turned to her, his lips curling into the beginning of a smirk. “Couldn’t find a pot for it?”
Juniper exhaled, looking away in embarrassment. “I didn’t come here loaded for gardening.” She raised an eyebrow, trying to deflect. “I don’t suppose you did, either?”
Faro snorted. “Unfortunately not. But really, you couldn’t find anything better than my pan to put the flower in?”
“If I had, I would have,” Juniper said, shrugging. The pan was too wide and not deep enough to house a plant, but she had nothing else more suitable. As it was, it probably wouldn’t die until she could transplant it into something better. Maybe a cup.
A bag of holding would have been convenient, but like most things Juniper would have liked, they were prohibitively expensive.
“How are you even going to carry it, by the handle?” Faro rolled his eyes, then went to rummage through his backpack. He took out a small leather bag, dumped its contents back into the backpack–toiletries, mostly–then placed the lily inside, filling the rest with dirt while the flower and leaves remained outside. “I’ll want the bag back.”
Juniper blinked. “Of course,” she said. “Thank you.”
“No problem,” Faro said. “So, how’d you end up finding it?” Juniper gave him the abridged version. When she reached the end of it, Faro’s eyebrows shot up and he reached out with a finger, touching the lily’s pistil. Half of his finger disappeared before their eyes. “That’s potent,” he said appreciatively.
“Right? No wonder Zaldia wants it.”
“Are you going to hand it over?” Faro asked.
Juniper shrugged. “Well, I don’t really have much use for a flower that makes you invisible. I’m sure the professor will make it worth it.”
“Most likely,” Faro agreed. “Then you want to search for the other items?”
Juniper hesitated. “I guess…” The confluence was truly a great place to refine essence right now. Juniper was half of a mind to stay here for the rest of the trip, and she was pretty sure Faro would too. From his point of view, he wasn’t ever going to return to this place once he left. “I understand if you want to stay here, though.”
“I actually don’t. I reached my Soul’s limit last night.”
“Really? Congratulations,” Juniper said with a smile.
The Soul could only take so much essence for each stage. Before advancing to Path Inscription, Juniper had been at her cap for several weeks already. Faro had fallen somewhat behind–the academy was generous with resources for the top-performing students, but not so much for those lower on the class totem pole.
“Thanks.” He smiled bitterly. “Though, I wish I’d waited with that masked ash snake egg. Basically wasted it.”
“You couldn’t have known you’d find a confluence,” Juniper said. “And you could still make use of it. You could push through to Path Inscription.”
Faro shook his head. “I’m not going to jump ahead and risk Inscribing an unsuitable Path just because you say the world is going to end.”
“You don’t believe me?” Juniper asked. It hurt, slightly, but she didn’t really blame him either. She wasn’t sure she believed herself on half the days.
“I believe that you believe it,” Faro said, his words measured. “And I believe that something has happened to you. Maybe it’s time travel, maybe not. But I’m not willing to stake my future on it.”
An awkward silence lingered for a few moments before Juniper shrugged. “Then… you’re alright to continue with Zaldia’s quest?” If Faro didn’t want to stick around, that made the decision to leave the confluence for another loop much easier. Her eyes widened a bit–in fact, she could bring Skystrall’s book with her next time, and remain here until the end of the loop. Kill two birds with one stone, as it were.
“Might as well,” Faro nodded. “What were the other items? A pearl, and…?”
“A tear-shaped crystal. This one’s the farthest away,” Juniper said. “I think we should leave that one for last.”
“Alright. We should stop by the main camp to resupply, though. I’m almost out of rations.”
“So much for cooking in the wilderness, eh?” Juniper said as they began to break camp, giving him a wry smile.
Faro raised an eyebrow. “We haven’t run into anything worth cooking. If you want to try some bat or panther meat on the way out, be my guest. But I’ll pass.”
“Panther doesn’t sound that bad,” Juniper mused. “I’ve never eaten anything exotic like that.”
“Well, there’s a reason we don’t have panther farms.”
“Because they’d eat the farmers?”
“Two reasons,” Faro amended. “But yeah, predator meat isn’t very good.”
“I’ll take your word for it,” Juniper said. “Alright, then. Main camp, then we go find us a pearl.”
***
With the lily bag safely attached to her backpack, Juniper and Faro followed the map all the way out of the underground lair. With the maze solved and mostly cleared out, it took them only an hour to follow the correct path back.
By the time they reached the main camp, it was already well into the afternoon. A supply tent had been set up near the center, so the two had gone, refilled their packs and were about to set out once again when a familiar voice drew Juniper’s attention.
“Ho, strangers!” Evie called out, grinning as she waved at the two as she leisurely walked up to them. “You’ve been gone for so long and didn’t even think to say hi? I’m hurt.”
Faro puffed out a laugh. “What can I say? Adventure awaits.”
“Not that there’s much adventuring to be done,” Evie said, crossing her arms dejectedly. “Aside from some common monsters, I haven’t found a thing the entire time. I guess luck just isn’t on my side.”
Juniper felt a small pang of guilt. She’d gotten to the snake nest a whole day in advance, so Evie wouldn’t even have found the snake’s trail this time around.
“I’m sure you’ll find something,” Evie said diplomatically. “There’s still, what, a week left? Plenty of time.”
Evie suddenly looked up, a puzzled look on her face. “A week? What do you mean?”
“It’s Saturday, isn’t it?” Faro asked. “So that’s another week left in the trip.”
Juniper felt a trickle of suspicion. The confluence had obviously distorted the space inside the cavern, which meant–
“Saturday?” Evie frowned. “It’s Thursday. Did you lose track of time or something?”
Juniper closed her eyes and groaned, smacking her face. If the confluence had distorted space, why not distorted time as well? She took out her pocket watch, confirming what she already suspected–despite the fact that the sun was still in the sky, her watch insisted it was actually late at night.
“That’s kind of unlucky,” Evie said after listening to Juniper and Faro explain the events of the last two days, “but finding a confluence at all is pretty lucky, not to mention the flower, so it evens out.”
Juniper opened her mouth to protest, then closed it right back. Indeed, it was still a net benefit–it just threw a wrench in her plans.
“Do we continue with the quest?” Faro asked once Evie had left to prepare her last excursion.
Juniper bit her lip, expression thoughtful. With a little over three days left, and the last two spots so far apart, it was unlikely they’d be able to hit both of them–especially if they turned out to have distorted time as well, which now seemed like a legitimate possibility.
At the same time, even if they didn’t finish, she’d still have another treasure to trade, as well as the advantage of knowing what to expect the next time around. After all, she knew what to say to get Zaldia to offer the quest now, didn’t she?
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“Let’s get the pearl,” Juniper finally said. “Worst case scenario, we still cross another item off the list.”
“Unless it’s another time distortion and we get left behind because we missed the assembly.”
“They wouldn’t do that, would they?” Juniper asked with a frown. “Never mind that, though. You have a watch, right?” Faro nodded. “Then we can check for a distortion.”
***
Juniper had thought finding the second cave would be much easier–after all, a forest could only have so many rivers, and waterfalls weren’t that common of an occurrence. In her mind, all she needed was to find the first river and follow it to the cave.
Juniper had been wrong.
There was, indeed, a single river, but as it descended from a cliff, it split into dozens of concurrent streams. There were platforms and outcroppings forming many levels, and checking each for caves turned out to be a time consuming business as Juniper and Faro wasted another day.
The essence wafting from the entrance made it doubly clear they’d found the right place. They were standing on a rocky ledge to the side of the waterfall. There was just enough space that Juniper could go in without getting wet.
“Alright,” Juniper said, taking out her pocket watch. It was still out of sync with the actual time, having guessed at the time instead of asking someone back at the camp, but at least the hour was probably right. “Can you set yours so it’s the same as mine?”
Faro obliged, and soon the two watches were showing the same wrong time. “I stay here and you go in?”
Juniper nodded. “I’ll stay for five minutes by my reckoning. Unless something attacks me, I guess.” She absentmindedly reached into her pocket for the two rocks she’d turned into weapons. Juniper waited for another half minute, for the seconds to reset, then stepped into the gloomy cave beyond the waterfall.
The cave was dimly lit, the only light filtered through the turbulent waterfall. A magical light flickered into existence, brought forth by Juniper’s Will, and she began to walk deeper into the cave.
Distortions in time and space were rarely abrupt–if she were to wait the full five minutes at the entrance, then the watches might only show a time difference low enough to be a rounding error. If she wanted a conclusive result, she needed to go deeper into the cave.
The magic light bathed the cave in a soft cold glow. Stalactites and stalagmites on both sides cast eerie shadows, causing Juniper to jump more than once. They were the perfect place for a monster to hide.
Subconsciously, Juniper reinforced her mass-sense with her Will. It didn’t do much more than tell her whether there were things behind the stone pillars, be they rocks or bugs, but at least she’d be forewarned if something moved.
She felt something shuffling rapidly behind her at the same time as she heard the skittering, and her rocks instantly shot out of her pocket as she turned around to face the source of the noise.
She saw a giant crab, about a meter wide, approaching in a strange mad dash, running sideways as its pincers grabbed at the empty air.
One of the rocks impacted the crab’s carapace, with enough force that it was sent back half a meter but not enough to crack it. The other rock sailed harmlessly past the crab as it moved one of its eye out of the rock’s path.
The crab staggered for a moment, then shuffled forward undaunted, with nothing but a slight scuff mark to show for Juniper’s attack. She recalled the rocks, trying to set them on a trajectory that would wound the crab in one of its weaker spots.
Without even stopping, the crab caught one of the rocks in its pincer–Juniper heard a cracking sound, and she saw blue blood leaking from the pincer. The other rock once again missed as the crab retracted its eyes at the last moment. A moment later, it dropped the crushed rock, and renewed its mad charge.
She jumped out of the way at the last moment, the crab’s pincer slicing off a lock of Juniper’s hair. Almost on instinct, she abandoned the rocks, casting a spell on the crab directly. The crab shot up into the air, sailing past Juniper’s head and straight into a stalactite.
Juniper could see a web-like pattern of cracks spreading across its carapace, even though its armored back prevented it from being impaled. An idea sparked in Juniper’s mind.
She reversed the spell, sending the crab down, but slightly to the side–belly first into the sharpest stalagmite Juniper could see. The creature struggled for a few more seconds, its tenacity not yet letting it realize it was already dead, before finally giving its last breath.
Juniper let out a shaky breath, then scanned her surroundings once more. She hadn’t noticed the crab at first, having taken it for a rock. Her mass-sense was of no use in telling something alive apart from an inanimate object. She worried, for a few tense moments, that any of the rocks and boulders she was sensing might jump at her next.
When none did, and the tension went away, Juniper did a quick mental review of the fight. It had been short, but she’d found two jarring flaws that needed to be fixed.
The first was about control. The rock attack worked well for large, soft targets like the panther, but as a compact armored target with few weak points, the crab only needed minute movements to avoid her rocks altogether. She had no control over them once their trajectory was set, which made them easy to predict and dodge. A more complex trajectory was possible, if somewhat daunting to put in practice, but Juniper decided it was something she needed to sooner rather than later.
The second was about focus. Juniper’s concentration had been broken when she sent the crab into the ceiling–it had turned out for the best, and had given her the hint needed to end the fight quickly, but it also wasn’t what she was supposed to do–it was a response born of panic, and only showed that she’d barely scratched the surface when she’d trained with Faro.
Thinking of Faro reminded Juniper that she was on a schedule–she checked her pocket watch to find she had less than a minute left before she was supposed to leave the cave. She made her way back, Faro shooting her a relieved glance when she appeared.
“Six minutes and a half on my side, so the distortion isn’t too bad,” he said, looking at his watch.
Juniper shook her head. “I was in a fight, so I wasted some time,” she said, giving her pocket watch another glance. “Six and a half inside, as well.”
Faro nodded. “No distortion, then–that’s good. We might be able to get that pearl after all.” He paused for a second. “What did you fight?”
“Giant crab,” Juniper said, spreading her arms wide. “About this big.”
They entered the cave together, and Faro continued with the questions. “How’d you kill it? I didn’t think your rocks were a good match against a hard shell,” he said, and Juniper was slightly impressed he’d already thought about it.
“They’re not,” Juniper replied levelly, “but it turns out crabs are weak against impalement. Who’d have thought?”
They proceeded through the serpentine tunnel, leaving behind a trail of skewered crabs over the course the next few hours. The cave winded and split, causing Juniper and Faro to backtrack a few times, though not nearly as much as in the man-made maze.
One turn brought them before a vast underground lake, Juniper almost accidentally stepping into the water. The lake stretched out farther than the light allowed her to see, except for one illuminated spot a hundred meters in the distance.
Faro’s light suddenly disappeared, as he whispered, “Cut your light! Now!”
Darkness engulfed them as Juniper’s light blinked out, and once her eyes adjusted, Juniper finally noticed what Faro had seen.
The source of the far away light was a fist-sized object that sat in the middle of a giant clam. Juniper’s breath caught as she realized that was likely the pearl she was looking for–and as she saw what creature was guarding it.
Juniper had previously referred to the crabs in this cave as giant crabs, but the one she saw shuffling about next to the clam put all of them to shame. The king crab was at least twice as wide as she was tall, with pincers that looked like they could cut her in half without much effort.
“Does Zaldia want us to actually die?” Juniper whispered furiously. The king crab was well beyond anything she could be expected to defeat. Her rocks would be nothing more but pebbles against its shell, and it had to weigh more than a ton. Maybe someone at the peak of Path Inscription could deal with it, and a First Gate practitioner almost certainly could, but that was a threat well beyond her current level.
“Do we have to fight it?” Faro asked. “Maybe we could distract it. Steal the pearl.”
“There’s a whole lake between us and the pearl. I don’t see how we can get there without attracting attention. Unless…” Juniper went silent for a few moments as she mulled over her options. She couldn’t do selective gravity on an object outside of her range, so grabbing the pearl from the safety of the tunnel was out. She tried putting all of her Will behind her mass-sense, but she could only get it to reach a little over two thirds of the way. If she could get closer… “Do you know if crabs can hear?”
“How should I know?” Faro whispered.
Juniper shrugged. “I was just hoping you would.” Juniper sighed. “Let’s test it out.”
“Are you insane? What if it finds us?”
“Then we run,” Juniper said. “The crab’s almost as big as the tunnel, it won’t have an easy time chasing us.”
“This is insane. You’re going to get us killed.” He paced around a bit, giving the king crab nervous glances. “Fine, do it. But I’m going to put some distance between us first.”
“Go ahead,” Juniper said. She had to admit, the idea was risky–but with the loop happening, she was in no real danger. Faro didn’t have the same assurance.
Once he was past the next bend, he gave Juniper a thumbs up. When the king crab was turned away, Juniper threw a rock in the water, about a third of the way between them, then held her breath.
The king crab showed no reaction.
She tried a few more times, some of the shots going even closer, but the king crab continued to pay them no mind.
Juniper got down into the lake, barely suppressing a yelp as the cold water seeped through her clothes. She maintained a slow pace as she swam, not wanting to disturb the water any more than necessary.
She put all but a sliver of her Will behind her mass-sense, and as soon as the pearl was in her range, she gave it a small tug. As the shadows cast by the pearl’s light began to move, she realized her mistake–the crab might not hear her, but it would certainly notice the moving light.
The pearl floated through the air at a languid pace–forcibly increasing her range meant she had to sacrifice the intensity of the force. Juniper began to swim back as soon as she realized her mistake, but she couldn’t swim any faster than the pearl was going or it would fall out of range.
The king crab continued to remain in place, its back to Juniper and the pearl. Was it blind, Juniper wondered? Or had it fallen asleep?
As soon as she was back on land, she waited for the pearl to reach her with an outstretched hand. A tense minute later, the pearl landed in her palm.
The king crab suddenly burst into motion, the skittering of its legs breaking the perfect silence inside the cave.
It spun, looking around the room, until its eyes locked with Juniper’s.
Juniper ran.
***
In the middle of the forest, two figures burst out through a moonlit waterfall, landing with a splash in the river below. One held a glowing orb in one hand, illuminating the night and casting long shadows upon the forest.
A monstrous figure appeared from behind the waterfall, the clacking of its pincers echoing through the night as the water pattered down on the king crab.
That was the end of the road for the king crab. It knew it would not be able to return to its lair if it followed the thieves. Its precious pearl was lost forever, and the king crab could do naught about it.
Well, at least until the clam made another one.
In the distance, the two thieves continued to run.