"If I ever see that little man again, I'll kill him," Suze promised.

"Yeah, he's not on my list of favourite people." I said in agreement.

We both stepped away from the edge of the cliff. I turned to check on Geraldine and caught her locking her door with her key and then she looted the keychain. She bent down and looted the "Welcome to my nest" mat that had been in front of her door.

"You're getting the hang of that." I said with admiration.

"I don't want any of those little devils to get their hands on my things." She came up to me and then reached behind to coo at her cats. "Well dears, we're going on an adventure." The way she said it gave the hint that she was pretending to be excited. She removed the cat backpack from her own back and gave it to Suze.

I could hear the trepidation in her words. I felt that deep in my bones. I mustered up a bit of pep inside and said as cheerfully as I could, "It's going to be a big adventure." I spread my arms out wide and showed off the vista ahead of us.

Straight ahead was a mixture of foothills and flatlands that made me think of prairie. Far off in the distance was a glimmer of a large watermass. Maybe that was the Loch Mol that the Hangman had mentioned.

The wildlife that I could see were some swallows that darted along the ravine, heading toward the thick woods along Titania's path. They chirped and called out as if beckoning us. Swooping down from somewhere up in the sky a bird of prey dove at the swallows so they scattered.

Suze had already started climbing down the path. It went down a cut in the ravine and was a small, winding track that wove back and forth. I'd been hiking before and tried to do the Grouse Grind, but this was primitive in comparison of that.

I let Geraldine go in front of me to set the pace. She took small and secure steps as if she was used to this kind of thing. In the end she was better at it than I was. I had to take several sitting breaks to deal with the waves of vertigo while Geraldine happily talked about her hiking club back home.

A few times I skidded, almost sliding down into her. I roughed up my hands on the rocks bad enough that they bled. So I healed myself. No improvements popped up.

It took longer than I expected to get us down to the river below. Then we followed a rocky path along its edge all the way to the beaver dam. It took over an hour and I felt hot and sweaty by the time we got there. The river poured out here from spots in the dam, but it wasn't so loud that we were unable to talk.

I was thirsty. Really so thirsty. I hadn't had anything to drink since we left Geraldine's apartment and I'm one of those people who drink a full litre bottle of water in a raid session. I belonged to our HydroHomies group in the guild.

When I bent down to get water from the river, Suze grabbed me to haul me back up.

"We don't know if it's poison."

"I'm thirsty." I said and tried hard not to make it sound like I was whining. But I was hot and sweaty and the cats at my back moved around so it felt unbalanced when walking on slightly slimy river rocks. Overall it had been a horrible hike and I felt like I couldn't complain because Geraldine was taking it so well and seemed perfectly fine.

I'm an indoor only kind of person. I did my running the way that humanity had improved it -- on a treadmill.

It was hot. The rising sun was beginning to get warm and I was already hot from the exertion. I needed water.

"I'm thirsty." I said again. This time, I said it with finality. Like I made my decision to drink the river water.

Suze smirked. "You could always drink the toilet water. We know that's okay to drink."

I gagged. "No."

"The bowl is clean." She even dropped the toilet right there in front of us. Geraldine lifted the seat and made a cooing sound like she was impressed about it.

"I'm thirsty, but not that thirsty."

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"Beggars can't be choosers!" Geraldine dipped a hand into the toilet water and then tentatively sniffed. "Well, bottoms up!"

I turned away. I couldn't look.

"There's a line. I draw it at toilet water. I'll try the river." I bent down and put my hands in the water. It felt coldish, but not overly chilled. No pop-ups happened or warnings or any screens. That had to be a good sign.

"Beaver fever," Geraldine said ominously.

"What?"

"Beaver fever. From the beaver poop. There is a dam."

I looked at the massive dam just a little ways away, then back at the water. "No. It can't be that bad. Can it?"

"Those that walk in the rain, get wet." Suze said.

"Well yeah. But this is water. We're going to need to drink and I will not drink out of a toilet."

"Tasted fine to me." Geraldine said.

I paused for a moment and looked between the toilet and then the river. Then back again. Could I really drink from a toilet bowl? No. No. I could not. "River it is." I bent toward it and cupped my hands.

Suze and Geraldine laughed and then something bonked me on the head. A bottle of water careened off and splashed into the river. I grabbed it before it could float away.

I looked at it. Pure, sparkling mountain water. Then I whirled on them, about to give them a tongue lashing only I ended up pointing the bottle of water toward a spot behind them.

"Giant beavers!"

Suze whirled around first and then Geraldine.

Standing on the dam were two giant beavers. I assumed they were giant -- not like I had ever seen a beaver in person before. They stood upright on their back paws. Both held spears in their front paws. One had a helmet on its head. The other wore a kind of leather jacket.

"This game really likes giant things." I said outloud without really thinking about it.

"Beaver dammit." Geraldine said and then she started laughing. Her laughter caught the attention of the beavers who both stood at alert and held their spears menacingly.

In response to their response, Suze pulled the cudgel up and looked about ready to pounce.

"Wait! Wait!" I yelled to stop her from jumping right in. "We might be able to talk to them. We don't always have to attack everything. They might have quests."

"Beavers having quests." From her tone, I could tell that Suze thought that was stupid.

"You never know. I'll go up and talk to them. Here, Geraldine." I removed the backpack from my back and put it down in front of her. "You stay here with the kitties and Suze if I give you the signal, you'll run and save me." I strode toward the beaver dam.

"What's the signal?" Suze also removed her kitty backpack as I passed her.

I turned about, still moving forward. As I walked backward, I said, "I'll do the Gangnam Style pony." I made the knuckle movements with my hands and wrists, but just small enough to keep it contained and the beavers wouldn't be able to see.

"You're so thirsty." Suze smirked at me.

"What are you talking about? -- You know what? I'll ask you to explain it later."

I turned about and walked toward the beavers with my hands raised, palms out. "Hi there! Hi! My name is Kaylee." I felt kinda stupid saying it, but I had to add, "We come in peace."

I had no idea if they could understand me or even if they spoke a language, but I assumed that if this was some kind of fairy land then it's possible that animals spoke. Like Narnia or -- my mind drew a blank thinking of any other fantasy fairy worlds.

As I approached, the name tags appeared above the two of them. Their name tags over their heads said Guiltless Giant Beaver and Dirty Giant Beaver. Neither of them had a symbol by their name so maybe that was a good sign. Since the mountain symbol folk were followers of Oberon, I assumed that Titania's followers would also have a symbol. They weren't named PCs like The Hangman and that could be also be a bad thing since maybe they were meant to just be random mobs. I hoped not.

"Back! Back!" Dirty Giant Beaver said and his masculine sounding voice had an accent that I couldn't quite place. I kept my distance anyway. With an adjective like 'dirty' in his name, I didn't want to get too close. He was the one with the leather jacket. "Funneler!" He spit which was kinda funny looking when he tried to get around those giant beaver teeth.

He then slapped his tail on the water with a deafening smack.

I took a breath and put on my best I'm on camera right now face and cheerfully said, "I promise we are just wanting to cross the dam to the other side and that's it."

Dirty Giant Beaver waved his spear and then spoke. "We're not letting any of you near the bridge. Not again. Your promises are dogshit." I placed his accent. It reminded me of K-pop bands speaking English. Like he was from South Korea. That seemed bizarrely on the nose with the Gangnam Style hand movements.

"Is there anything I can offer you?"

"Get bent, Funneler." Get Bent? Interesting choice of words for dismissal. He growled to the other one. "This is why the frogs were right to join Titania. You know. They said that she'd make us great again by protecting us from these Funnelers."

The other spoke then with a similar accent, but they sounded more feminine. "Timber. It's just a few Funnelers. What can they do to us?"

"What can they do to us? What can they do to us?" He said incredulously. "They killed Buzzsaw yesterday."

"But that was a pack of those feral ones. These ones seem nice." Guiltless Giant Beaver smiled at me toothily. "I'm Alice." The Guiltless Giant Beaver tag changed to say Alice - Tier 0 Giant Beaver.

"Alice in Wonderland!" I said outloud and slapped myself on the forehead gently. "Of course." Happy to remember another fantasy world where animals spoke.

The slap to my forehead cause massive concern in the other who no longer was called Dirty Giant Beaver, but was called Timber - Tier 0 Giant Beaver Elite 🌲. He had a strange wooden tree suddenly appended to his name and I had a foreboding feeling.

I frantically made the Gangnam Style pony knuckle movements behind my back. It was really more complicated than I thought it would be.

COMBAT INITIATED.