Uden walked across the field next to the waterfall. It was an amazing day! The sun was shining, a fall breeze rustling the dried leaves in the treetops. Birds were singing and the smell of damp leaves and soil filled the air. But the best thing about this day was there was no one standing over her with a stick, waiting for her to make a mistake.

She had eaten that morning, it wasn't much but she didn't feel hungry, it could have something to do with her pledging her life to a dungeon. Should that bother her? It seemed like a better option than being chained to a work wheel in some grain mill somewhere, but it was too early to really tell.

Then there was Gina, that was a mystery. The dungeons she had been in were well structured death machines, hinting at some sentience behind the design, but never had they been approached by the dungeon itself. The thing that worried her the most was that this was all some magic trap to enslave her, but if there was someone who had the power to do that, she wouldn't have had a choice anyway.

The warm air and sunshine seeped in deep, chasing out all the gloom flooding her thoughts. If this was a trap or illusion it didn't matter, right now she was feeling better than ever. Uden reached down and pulled out an herb leaf and started sucking on it, the fresh flavors filling her mouth. If this was her future it was worth taking a risk.

She pulled out her axe and started clearing a trail. She had decided that clearing brush was her job, then she would do it with a purpose. The cave came out of the mountain facing southeast, the range continued along to the east and west, pushing out and retreating along the way. The river flowed away from the cave towards the southeast, before making a wide curve to the west then made a large loop back to the east before eventually wandering south. A road followed along the foothills directly east, coming down from a dwarven stronghold farther down the mountain range, before turning to follow the river down to the lake town in the south. There was a larger town two days south where the river got deep enough to allow boat travel, it was a connection point where goods from the mountains and lumber from the forests out west could be loaded onto river barges that would make their way down to the lake town and further to the ocean. Where the three roads met there was a small outpost and trading hub, but it was little more than a camping spot among the fields that nestled among the forests along mountains.

Her plan was to make a trail that went along the river and cross it just before it started it's turn, meeting the eastern road. This would be the most direct route to the caravan camping outpost where the three roads met and avoided the toll bridge that cashed in on the lumber trade. She estimated that it would be less than an hour walk to the outpost once the trail was done. She could go west, around the bend in the river, but then she would come out into farmlands. She didn't want to have to deal with farmers and land rights, specifically farmers that accused her of stealing from them before running her out of the hay shed that she slept in as part of her pay.

The farmer seemed really surprised when he saw her in the same spot she had slept in all summer, he dumped out everything she had before beating her with a staff. She could still see his face, red with rage as he yelled every racist insult he knew, she had time to gather her things and calmly leave before he was done. He probably would have killed her right there, or at least tried to, but after he had beaten her for a while, she put her hand on her axe and he switched to non-physical abuse. She didn't know what set him off, but experience told her that it never mattered, all that mattered was never looking back.

She worked tirelessly throught the day, used to hard labor. Every so often she would turn and look behind her towards the waterfall to make sure the path was straight, years of pulling plows had given her pretty good intuition and she didn't need to correct much if any. She was getting close to the spot where the river bent towards the west, she curved the path to make the river crossing. She decided to start clearing brush before she moved on, then realized what a chore that would be.

The piles of brush and small trees had accumulated along the trail, making it a challenge to walk back along it. The accumulation of twigs, branches and trees would only get worse if it was dealt with now. She needed a wheelbarrow.

Uden retrieved a simple wagon from the cavern, Gina was helpful enough to summon one up. It was little more than wide boards balanced on a single axel with solid wooden wheels on either side. Two poles stretched out of the front to pull it with. The weight was offset towards the front, a board dropped down from the front so the cart could rest on it without the handles hitting the ground.

As she looked back towards the debris filled trail another idea popped into her mind, she turned back and drafted shale into the project. Uden started hauling loads of brush, small trees and old logs into the cave, while Shale started forming a stone trail just wide enough for a cart. On the first trip back, she had to stop the ambitious little artisans and correct their work. The small path they had started was perfectly smooth, looking like stone flowed out of the cavern, she had them add lines and texture to make it look like river stones fitted with motar.

Shale seemed relieved that they had some creative leeway, the few dozen centimeters of flat pathway had taken way to long, also a completely smooth and level path leading to a bar built into a cave filled with magic would scare customers off or attract people that customers should be scared of. The more appealing the appearance, the less people will pry into the the parts of the business that didn't quite make sense. The same rules applied for beings too, Uden pondered, it was one reason she trusted Gina, a person would have to be crazy to accept an insecure magical dungeon at face value, meaning she probably wasn't hiding anything.

The pathway Shale was crafting was nearly halfway to the river by the time Uden managed to clear the brush, saplings and stumps from the trail, they were very efficient with fusing the soil into stones. There were three trees that needed to be chopped down still, those could be dropped and used to build the base of the bridge. Before that could happen, they would have to drop supports into the riverbed.

The river was a little wider here than at the falls, it was lazy enough, but the current was still too strong to be able to drop any supports deep enough into the bed to support anything. She had shale take a break from roads to form 4 pillars, each 2.5 meters long (8 feet). While she had shale working on the stones next to the river, she started felling the first marked tree that was closest to the river. She also sent shale to the cave, to see if Gina had any way to redirect the water flow long enough to sink the anchors.

She chopped at the base of the tree, alternating the angle of her axe to chip out the largest chunks possible. The axe was not the sharpest, she had taken good care of it ever since she was given it to protect her master in the dungeons, but the metal was cheap. The other issue with the axe, was it was made for battle and not for trees, so it took far more strength to get the momentum going with the small amount of leverage she got from the short handle.

She stopped chopping for a moment, a crossbow bolt speeding past her head to imbed itself into the center of the cut on the tree. She spun around, looking for her assailant, ducking low to give a smaller target. She hadn't even had time to accept that there was an attack, it was purely reactionary. Either it was a very good shot, a very poor shot or a shot gone wild. Her heart dropped when two men and a woman stepped out of the woods between her and the river, all three were Langdens.

They wore armor with steel plates buckled to darkened leather so the plates could be easily replaced when damaged or removed for travel. The metal was covered in what looked to be soot to hide the glare, in between the plates were strips of earth tone fabrics to help blend into the forest. The fact they had put the plates on made her nervous, they were here for battle. The fabrics made it obvious they were bandits. The quality of the armor made it clear they were good at their shady profession.

"Let’s move" the leader said in a gruff voice, holding a blunderbuss and hanging from his back was a long spear with a mean looking spike hooking out of the back of the spearhead. His face was covered by a light metal helmet that came just below his chin; darkened glass ovals set into it hid his eyes while giving him a wide view. Most of his armor was on his right side, including a metal plate to protect his neck from that side. He was obviously an ambush spearman, focused on strength and slyness to take out the enemy powerhouse before his team attacked.

She had no choice and laid down her axe and put her hands up, walking down the path towards the river as the leader motioned with his gun. She was finally glad for all those hours her old master had her drilling on combat types to prepare her for dungeon diving. He didn't do the teaching himself but had paid the local military a large sum for the right to chain her in their training yard for a month. He had left her with a barrel of water, 30 hard rations and a blanket.

The other two backed up to allow the Uden to pass between them and approach the river. The women was a dexterity defender, on each arm she wore round shields that could barely hide her if she crouched and held one above the other. following the curve of the shield were spikes that would spring out if she squeezed the handle. The spikes looked pitted and corroded, probably a poison user. The armor she wore had plates on the outside of the arms to deflect blows, and down the front to deflect arrows. Her helmet was all leather with a metal faceplate cut with a series of vertical slats to give the wearer a barely obstructed view as long as they kept moving.

The final fighter was sword user, a large blade was still in the sheath on the hip, although the hilt looked a little unusual. He had a bunch of throwing daggers sheathed around his body. He wore very light leathers with thin metal plates everywhere, heavier plates only covering his vitals, his helmet very similar to the leader. He looked like an endurance fighter, made to fight for long periods of time without slowing, usually they held a shield, but maybe he fought in tandem with the dex defender.

As she approached the river, she saw shale tied to a tree in two bundles, wrapped up in rope. It was then she noticed shiny fresh scratches on the metal guards on the leader's armor. When they got close to the river a dark figure tumbled out of a tree in front of them, it was not a graceful landing.

The dark figure was dressed in a patchwork cloak, sewn from the same strips of materials the others wore. The outline was bulky at the shoulders and slim at the waist, a crossbow almost as wide as it was tall hanging from the back. The figure was a sniper class, unbalanced strength and focus to wield the largest weapons at the farthest range. The complete lack of dexterity made it clear that the fourth bandit would be worthless in a close battle or against large numbers where a high dex ranged fighter would excel.

They turned as Shale came running down the trail at top speed. Starting to yell while still a small distance away

"Help is, a comin, in the, river." Trying very hard to get the words out while bumping along. The sniper looked up in surprise and tried desperately to untangle from the crossbow strap, backing up to kneel on the riverbank.

Shale suddenly noticed the situation and ducked into the woods as the blunderbuss went off, the underbrush erupted in an explosion of leaves and flame right where Shale had dodged. The blunderbuss was obviously not loaded with ordinary shot.

"Form up! There may be more!" The leader shouted, dodging to the side of the trail, Gina took the opening made by the distraction to kick the still struggling sniper into the river, then turned to push a forward kick at the shield user. The shield user easily blocked the kick, but the heavy hoof threw her off balance. Uden went to grab the corner of the shield but stopped as the sharp blades flipped out, instead she threw herself sideways into the leader who was in the middle of switching from blunderbuss to spear.

The leader had just unlatched the spear strap from the clip on the front of the armor and was reaching around with a practiced motion to bring it forward, when he was knocked off balance and the spear pulled from his grip. A swift backwards kick that felt like a hammer sent him skidding in the dirt. As he tried to push himself up from the dirt he found his legs were caught at the ankles with stone shackles. The little gnomes had somehow cut the rope and pulled some primitive shackles out of nowhere. They also took no time to jump on his back, trying to find the joints in his leathers with their stone knives.

Uden spun around with the spear leveled at the shield user, the sword user had not been idle. standing side by side with the shield user and spinning around her as the shield blocked the Pangos’s clumsy spear thrust. The sword ripped around in a powerful side strike towards Uden’s unprotected side, she pulled the spear back to block the blow, as the sword hit the spear the back of the sword suddenly shot forward and dug into her side, she dropped to the ground in pain. Two gnomes flew past her having been thrown off their target and were intercepted with hard clangs by the dex defender’s shields.

The bandit leader roughly grabbed the intact horn on the pagnos holding her in place while ripping his spear out of her weakened grasp, the sword user hurrying to tie her up. Blood ran freely from the puncture wound on her side. The shield user was already tying up the stunned gnomes and reloading his blunderbuss.

This hunch better be right, someone in his woods creating a trail heading to the road had to be either crazy or was a merchant with a secret stash. Considering how long the magic summons were lasting it had to be someone with resources, crazy people didn't have resources. He turned to ask the sniper to scout ahead but didn't see him anywhere. He looked towards the river to see the multi toned cloak floating down the river then noticed a black object in on the bottom of the crystal-clear flow.

Sapana had swam down the river at Shales request, to see two more shales tied up at the meeting point. A large cloaked figure had fell at the edge of the water, then a large land person with mother’s touch on her had kicked the cloaked figure in. The cloaked figure panicked and tore off the heavy cloak, but it was already in Sapana's element. A gentle swirling vortex of water to confuse, and an illusion of the mud above and air below was all that it took. The dark lizard drowned itself.

The lizard with the almost Langden face (except for the reptilian skin, snake eyes, lack of hair, sharp pointed teeth and holes where the ears and nose should be) was clawing at the mud on the bottom of the river, trying to break through the bottom while sucking in water instead of air. Its struggles stopped as a man jumped in to pull it out. Sapana reached out with an illusion, but the man's willpower was too high for it to take hold. In a flash of silver, she darted back up the river to the cavern. She had to tell mother about the attack.

The bandit leader hauled the Shah out of the water, but it was too late. The Shah were desert nomads, loyal to a fault, but were known to be useless in water. It was a terrible loss, they would drink heavily in his honor later, no irony intended. He felt his anger rising as he threw the two confiscated flint knives into the water and jammed the bound gnomes into a sack. Roughly grabbing the ropes on the pagnos he kicker her forward.

"Let's go to your stash, your master will pay for the death of our friend ten times over" He winced as several small cuts grated against the joints of the leather. The cuts weren't deep, but it annoyed him that the gnomes hurt him at all.

The pagnos said nothing as they headed down the clear-cut trail.