I agree with Cumulus. It seems to me as likely as not that the winds bring in clean, spring rains to reinvigorate our lands. A sign of the growth that is to come. Some lesser nations may be lost, but it is my opinion that when the winds left and the storm has passed we will find ourselves in a green land of opportunity. We should be as prepared for that eventuality as we are for one of chaos and strife. – Letter from the Voice Stratocumulus

Over the following weeks, Asher experienced something she had only barely touched on during her time in The Blighted Basin. Wonder. When it wasn’t trying to kill her, the volcanic death pit could be absolutely beautiful.

Her first awe inspiring experience with the dungeon occurred barely a day after they had defeated the Certilia Matriarch and headed out onto the lake. At the time, Asher had been sweaty, tired, and overall exhausted. The pure heat in the dungeon had easily increased another ten or even fifteen degrees as they had headed out onto the lake, putting the temperature easily into dangerous heights. Sahar had been militant in her instructions for the team to avoid heat stroke, dehydration, or other exposure dangers.

Then they had come across something absolutely incredible. Something unlike anything in her old life.

A massive flow of lava falling down a semi-circular cliff like a burning waterfall. Even more impressive were a number of giant black and brown fish that were climbing the waterfall. The coloration made them hard to spot until they took a massive great leap upward, erupting from the molten rock in a display that left their scales glistening and reflecting the orange glow. Each fish had four massive, wing-like fins along the sides of their long, thin bodies, causing them to almost look like they flew through the air after their jump. The leap would culminate with a splash far smaller than Asher would have expected and the fish gripping onto the rock with a massive sucker around their mouth, similar to a pleco.

Far below, a large number of the strange fish could be seen surfacing in a large basin. Large, hermit crab like creatures covered the rock where the lava did not flow, carefully using their pincers to take nibbles from the plants that grew horizontally out of the cliff face. The plants almost looked like aloe vera if not for the giant pink and white flowers reminiscent of bleeding hearts that sat at the very tip of each leaf.

Like some kind of fountain, spouts of lava shot out of the surface of the pool at the base of the falls curtesy of a number of eel like creatures that also called the area home. Each was easily thirty feet long, only seeming so small from their vantage at the top of the falls, and seemed incredibly playful. They would take turns chasing and blasting each other with sprays of lava, before quickly fleeing when their “prey” chose to turn the tables. Their actions almost reminded Asher of otters back home and she couldn’t help but smile.

Unfortunately, the team had been unable to find a safe route to descend down into the pit in the lava lake, and had eventually been forced to move on. Their departure had been far more joyful than their arrival however. It had also, thankfully, not been the last of the wonders the dungeon had in store for them.

Later they had discovered a section of the dungeon with massive growths of basalt columns. Each hexagonal pillar was in close contact with its neighbors, similar to the Giant’s Causeway back home, and Xavier had fallen in absolute love with the area. He had claimed it was an inspiration and he could not wait to build something similar into one of his house designs.

They had ended up spending almost an entire day exploring the maybe half mile long stretch of gently rising and falling stone staircases while Xavier worked on recreating the natural formation process with his magic. Asher had asked why he didn’t simply make each column individually to have the man tell her it just didn’t feel right and he wanted the final result to be like it had occurred naturally. She hadn’t really understood, but had eventually simply chalked it up to his artistic aesthetic. In the end he had discovered that by carefully managing a rapid cooling process of molten rock, he could achieve the results he wanted. He had then used the process to create a number of statues similar to one of those old pin art toys from Asher’s childhood, if far more detailed.

Andre had loved a small section of almost jungle like plant growth that had grown thick and happy using the large amount of volcanic soil deposited in the area. While everyone else complained about the semi-carnivorous plant life that filled the undergrowth like living bear traps, he had been climbing through the branches and excitedly taking samples of the wood. Apparently, the man’s magic allowed him to easily grow trees from small cuttings and keep the cuttings viable far longer than normal. He was planning to add some of these to his small tree garden back home, and was excited to use several of the species in his wood working.

Asher had already caught him whittling a number of incredibly detailed figures from the material in the days since. A Certilia rearing up to his and claw with its front pair of legs. One of the fish from the lava falls in mid-flight. A Blazehorn Deer lowering its head in preparation to charge. He had even given her one, a tiny figurine of Sahar as she charged forward to use her final spell during their fight with the matriarch.

Balam, the near silent member of Green Dawn, had been less enthused by the jungle. Apparently, he had had quite enough of dealing with dangerous forests filled with things that wanted to eat him growing up. Even if his magic was well suited for such a terrain, he was quite happy to leave the area behind. His favorite spot had, instead, been a massive underground complex they had been forced to descend into during their third week.

The cave system, which was located below the lava lake as far as Xavier had been able to tell, was filled with volcanic glass in various hews of green and blue. Most of it was near translucent and easily created something like an invisible maze of pillars and boulders. The formations were beautiful and almost looked carved rather than naturally occurring. If you could really count anything in a dungeon as naturally occurring, which seemed debatable.

Balam had enjoyed the massive number of hidden pathways and ledges scattered throughout the area, providing plenty of locations for him to skulk about in and scout the surroundings. He had also found the strange interweaving paths of light and shadow, produced courtesy of a number of special crystals that helped focus and guide the light from outside the cave and various “windows” out into the lava, incredibly effective for practicing his stealth abilities. The small rainbows of ever-shifting illumination were the second most mesmerizing part of the caverns.

By far and away, the most mesmerizing had been the Cinderglow Anisodrach. The creatures were massive, more akin to earth’s ancient dragon flies with wings (which they had four paired sets of) maybe sixteen inches long. Faced head on, the wings made an “X” shape, and seemed to replace their legs. Additionally, the mesmerizing insectoids glowed like living sparks. It wasn’t just their orange and red coloration either, small flames danced up and down their bodies and rolled across their wings like waves.

They seemed to sleep like bats, using a small earwig like pincer to latch themselves to stalactites and letting the flames covering them die down to mere sparks. Each day at dawn and dusk however, they would drop down into the air and ignite in a riot of color. While most were the more standard colors of flame, some burned green, blue, or violet and their glow would be picked up and scattered by the surrounding volcanic glass into every color of the rainbow.

It was almost like a massive, living disco flame that would fly through the cave system looking for small creatures to hunt. And every time it happened Asher couldn’t help but gasp in wonder at something she never could have imagined in her old life. The rest of Green Dawn had been almost enraptured as her, claiming that this was a true dungeon wonder. In the end, Andre and Xavier had worked together to create small talismans from chunks of the volcanic glass and handed them out to the rest of the party as a remembrance of their three days spent navigating the cave system.

Asher’s absolute favorite, though, had to be the geysers.

To any other party it would have been a deadly, if beautiful, trap. A mass of hyper heated, pressurized steam that could erupt at any moment to deliver deadly scalds to any uncovered part of the body. The water would then be suspended in the air as mist that, while not fatal, could easily inflict first or second degree burns before eventually descending into crystal clear puddles. Puddles that remained near perfectly transparent because they were too hot for most things to survive in. Most teams, however, didn’t have Veronika.

Veronika was an Ice Mage who had long ago learned magic specifically meant to stabilize the temperature in her surroundings. Usually that meant heating up the ice and snow around her to just under freezing temperature to turn an otherwise biting winter day into merely cold. Here, it meant freezing enough of the suspended water to make the temperature easily survivable and reduce the pressure in nearby geysers.

This created a wonderland of suspended rainbows, mist, and beautiful ponds filled with growths of bismuth. A place that only Green Dawn could truly appreciate the wonder of. Except for Sahar. She had hated how frizzy the heat and humidity made her hair. She let the rest of them have their fun though, refusing to ruin their experience due to her own gripes.

#

Despite all the beauty, there were plenty of struggles for the party as well. Deadly traps that could have melted the flesh from their bones. Monster made of living lava with small stone cores that had to have their mana exhausted or small, stone cores destroyed before they finally dissipated. Sections where the path was broken into small sections you had to leap between, all while some were solid and others were only a thin crust over the lava below. It was another one of these lethal obstacles that finally brought them to a stop almost five weeks later.

The path ahead was a stone bridge that rose almost forty feet above the surface of the lava. The sides were steep drops that lacked any kind of railing or other barrier, and the path itself was only ten feet across. Small boulders, maybe three feet tall at the most, protruded from the ground at various intervals. In any kind of normal situation, it would have been easy to avoid falling. Here, though, there was a trick that could easily lead to an unsuspecting adventurer plummeting to their doom.

The boulders were lava rock, filled with small holes like some kind of hive or sponge, and many, but not all, of them could spew a toxic cloud of burning ash. The cloud would cause each breathe to wrack the unfortunate victims with vicious pain while the heat quickly resulted in painful burns across any exposed surface. It would burn the oxygen out of their lungs and leave them gasping for air, block their vision, and leave the choking, agonized adventurer desperately flailing their way out of the cloud.

Quite possibly over the edge.

Green Dawn could have passed this obstacle in maybe half an hour. All of Asher’s companions had a way through this trap, and they could have easily continued on their way. Asher, however, did not. The journey had been beautiful, and it had been dangerous. This, though, was on a different scale. And Green Dawn had decided it was the perfect test to see what Asher had learned over her last month of being a real adventurer.

They had given her five days to pass the trap on her own. Without any of their help or any items from the shop. There was no penalty for failure. They would still continue on, though they might set up a similar test in the future. Despite that, Asher knew that she couldn’t allow herself to stumble here. This was a chance to prove that they hadn’t made a mistake in bringing her along, and she was not going to allow that opportunity to pass her by.

Before she had begun her attempts, Sahar, Veronika, and (to a lesser extent) Andre had worked together to ensure her safety. Sahar had an ability called Adaptive Barrier that allowed her to create a more adaptive defensive spell. It worked by being fed mana of other types that Sahar wanted to incorporate into the defense.

With the addition of Veronika’s temperature stabilization spell, the barrier had adapted to be particularly effective at protecting against heat. With one of Sahar’s purification spells, it would slowly purge poison from Asher’s body. Lastly, with one of Andre’s more obscure spells, the barrier would provide fresh oxygen to keep her from choking on the bitter ashes.

None were one hundred percent effective, and setting off the trap would be a far from pleasant experience. The defensive spell and the ever-watchful eyes of Sahar and Veronika, however, meant she wasn’t in any mortal peril when she attempted the challenge. Which was a good thing, considering how often she failed.

Her first plan had been to scout out the locations of the various traps. Balam had been trying to teach her how to tell what was actually a natural forming crack and what was a dangerous trap off and on over the last week or so and Asher had believed herself to be decent at it. Decent, however, had not turned out to be good enough. She could routinely spot the third, maybe even fourth, trap, before finally succumbing to the bridge’s dangers.

Balam had an ability that vastly improved his sense of smell, helping him to easily determine what might have been tampered with. It even, apparently, would let him scent out the presence of concentrated magic. He claimed it smelled similar to licorice and cinnamon, but set your nose itching like pepper. Asher didn’t have anything similar, which meant she had to go for a more manual approach. A manual, time consuming approach that seemed to stretch on for-ev-er.

Of her many strengths, nobody could reasonably point to patience as a virtue of note. If it didn’t keep her mind or body engaged, which slowly spreading and sweeping various powders over the tenth suspicious crack tended to fail to do, she would quickly lose interest. Soon she would be thinking more about what was for lunch or some new way to use her spell and miss the telltale shifts from a calm blue goal to a deeper purple working its way toward the angry red of a full alert. By the time she noticed the change, she’d need to fling herself away before the powder set off a magical trigger.

You’d think the pain of traps backfiring would be enough to hold her attention, but you could only stay strung up for so long. Getting past four traps might not sound like a lot, especially on a bridge that had dozens if not a couple hundred, but Asher would need to test at least five or six cracks, indents, or other suspicious landmarks between each actual trigger. Add to that that each test would take three or four minutes, and that meant she would spend a good hour to hour and half working her way ten percent or so of the way onto the bridge before actually being forced to retreat.

When the slow, methodical approach failed her, she had decided to attempt to simply memorize the traps. She threw clouds of the trap detection dust ahead of her, only keeping an eye out for the bright, angry red of the fully activated crushed crystals. Then she would quickly speed up her mind with Overcharge to determine both the trigger and the release point of the trap before quickly Thunderstepping backward.

The unfortunate thing about Thunderstep was that it would inevitably set off every trap in her surrounding. Given that, even after a month of practice with professional help, her maximum range with the spell was maybe thirty-five feet if she was willing to exhaust herself entirely, that was a loosing proposition for crossing the two-hundred-foot bridge. It was, however, enough to get her twice as far onto the bridge as she had made it with the more professional approach.

The bigger problem was that she couldn’t seem to keep track of which hole would spew toxic clouds of burning agony when she set off any given trigger. She had never been bad at pattern games growing up, but they hadn’t been her forte. She wasn’t able to accurately keep a clear picture in her mind. Even if she would swear the vaguely mushroom shaped section of stone set off the third rock on its left the previous attempt.

#

Far below, Balam had returned from one of his scouting trips. He was still in his jaguar form, though smaller than normal. Only as tall as Veronika’s knee.

“How long do you think it will take her to realize the triggers activate a series of traps, changing based off of which has an adequate build up of pressurized ash?” The ferocious, if miniature, feline growled softly.

Sahar laughed at that, “Not long I would wager. And then she’ll probably attempt something foolish dear. Don’t worry, Veronika and I will keep her safe.”

Balam didn’t respond to that. He simply rubbed against the Prasinatus woman’s calf before disappearing back out onto the various paths that interconnected at this bridge. He’d scout out maybe a mile of the next one before turning back. He wouldn’t want to miss Asher doing something outrageous and incredible. Somehow, he couldn’t imagine it failing. Even if Sahar says it will be something dumb, is it really dumb if it works?

#

Despite what they may have told her, the pause in their advancement had not entirely been about Asher when Green Dawn decided to pause at the bridge. Other members of the party had been having increasing difficulty as the temperature and inhospitality steadily increased. Something Andre was reflecting upon as he attempted, and failed, to even get the nearby Blechnaceae to put down deeper roots.

It wasn’t that the fern wouldn’t grow for him, it couldn’t. There simply wasn’t enough room to become what he needed. Additionally, it was always harder to get naturally small species of plants to produce the kind of root structures Andre was used to using in combat unless there were a lot of them. Unfortunately for him, not only was the average plant size decreasing as they advanced, the sparsity of the plant growth was as well.

It seemed to reflect more natural volcanic environments as they went through the stages of growth following an eruption. Once the rock was broken down, it would become rich soil capable of supporting a large number of plants. He mentally corrected himself. Capable of supporting anything that can survive the heat and lack of rain in this dungeon, at least.

That had actually been spoiling him. Despite their appearance, Cacti tended to have large root systems. The tall ones also often had a rather thick tap root that was especially good for his magic. And thanks to their adaptations to making the most out of little rain, they did very well around the outside of the dungeon.

Further in though, the rocks wouldn’t be broken down yet. As such, shrubs, ferns, and mosses became more prevalent. The smaller, fast-growing plants would have their seeds blown in on the wind from incredibly distances before quickly growing a fairly tiny root system that took the preexisting paths in the lava stone. They would work to break down the rock over generations and turn it into the dirt that supported everything else.

Not that that helps me now…

Andre had started off as a general plant mage, but had eventually evolved it into the Phytomancer class. From there he had eventually gained an Enhanced Mind power called Root Warden that had mutated it into the Rizamancer class. The effect was a decrease in the strength of his magic when focusing on plants in general, but a powerful buff when specifically manipulating the roots.

Usually that trade off was a no brainer, but it was situations like this were the negatives came back to bite him. Even his Roots of The Ancient Redwood enhancement spell couldn’t reinforce a root structure infinitely however. And not nearly enough to overcome the inherent weakness of the nearby plant’s roots, given that the enhancement was multiplicative rather than additive.

At any other time, this would be where he used one of the hundreds of types of seeds he carried in his Bark Armor to grow the kind of plants best suited to his magic. There were two problems with that approach however. The first was that while he had hundreds of seeds, he had to use at least one seed for each spell. His more powerful ones especially could consume twenty or thirty seeds in a single cast.

That might be a couple hundred spells, but if he was here for two more months would that be enough? He had to ration his resources. Anything to lighten the load on his non-renewable resources would go a long way to increasing his staying power in the coming fights.

The second problem was that the pathways they were taking were becoming less and less capable of supporting the kinds of root systems he was used to working with without breaking. Andre and Xavier had discovered, much to their chagrin, that they were not actually on a solid isthmus of rock. Instead, it was more like an ice floe frozen over the top of the lake.

And that sheet of solid rock had been thinning as they got deeper into the dungeon.

Not enough to represent a danger to anyone walking over the top, but enough to easily limit Xavier or another Earth Mage’s options. Or someone like Andre who didn’t manipulate the ground, but would inherently affect large amounts of it. Shattering the ground beneath the party’s feet would become a real risk if either of the two started using their biggest spells.

An alternative approach was needed, which was what had brought him back to the ferns in the area. He had been hoping to take advantage of their natural inclination to grow in existing pathways in the stone to supply what he needed without risking damage to the surrounding footing. Unfortunately, that was beginning to feel like a dead end.

In frustration, he threw out his magical senses as far as they would go. Searching desperately for something, anything, he hadn’t noticed before. He felt the plant life growing throughout the rock. The moss deep towards the bottom of the path, subsisting off the heat and mana from the magma. The roots of the bare handful of cacti growing as deep as they could while trapped by the stone around them. The speckling of ferns and shrubbery that covered the surface and explored the complicated mazes in the rock beneath.

Then he felt something else. Just a flicker on the edge of his senses. He expanded his scope, no longer focusing purely on the isthmus Green Dawn had been traveling. Letting his senses skim over the surrounding lava, an area he had only occasionally scanned half heartedly and with little care. No plant should have been able to grow out there, but something was.

It felt strange. More mobile than any plant should be. It felt like watching a jellyfish. Languid and free, but without any base motor input to mobilize the limbs. His mind wandering to where else he had experienced such a sensation, the feeling clicked. It felt like duckweed or maybe vaguely like a water lily…

#

Xavier watched as Andre experimented with his “surprise”. He couldn’t tell what the other man was doing, but it was costing him a lot of mana. More than he was used to seeing the man expend so quickly. Generally, the horned giant’s spells were incredibly efficient.

Shaking his head, Xavier returned to his own work. The Plant Mage wasn’t likely to tell him anything if the mischievous grin when Xavier had last asked what had him so excited was anything to go by. Better to focus on his own work.

The new spell, which would hopefully become Xavier’s secret weapon in this dungeon, was simple in theory. One of the other members of Green Dawn could even be considered an expert on its application. It felt so strange to his senses though. After all it was rare that a stone mage had to practice freezing his element.

He concentrated and another portion of magma solidified across the surface of the magma. The solid stone was important for him. None of his spells were meant for controlling a liquid substance, which meant he both lacked established tactics for using it and it cost him substantially more mana to do anything with. For a moment, he thought he’d managed to get this one right, but it quickly began sinking under the surface and melting back down. Cursing, he tried again. Still not porous enough.

#

After Xavier had asked her about freezing spells, Veronika had been re-evaluating her own magic. As an Ice Mage, simple Novice Rank freeze spells were part of the base spell formation of almost every spell in her arsenal. That wasn’t to say they were all the same though, and it might be time for her to step outside her comfort zone. Broadly speaking, spells for freezing came in three categories.

The easiest, and most common, was simply ripping energy out of a material to rapidly cool it. The excess energy is quickly released into the surroundings and dispersed. The second, and the mainstay of Ice Mages, was heat transfer. Rather than simply dispersing the energy, you redirected it. Usually as a way to keep yourself warm while surrounded by ice that could cause frostbite with a touch. There was more than one high level mage who had awakened fire as their element though, and could use the spells to feed each other.

The third kind was trickier. It involved manipulating the pressure of the element. An approach that was incredibly mana intensive, but could add a lot of power to the resulting spell. It could also actually work out to be cheaper in extreme environments. Manipulating temperature had multiplicatively escalating costs the more you were trying to increase or decrease it. Pressure was much more linear, if with a vastly higher base cost.

It was nothing she had ever been able to claim any real skill with, but Veronika had several spells that gave her the option to manipulate the pressure her ice was under. This dungeon seemed like the perfect place to put it to use, if she could just get it working correctly. The amount of ice she formed could even theoretically be smaller, given that pressurization tended to increase the effect of offensive spells.

With that in mind, Veronika started applying herself to an application of her magic she had largely neglected for years. When Asher wasn’t actively attempting the trap field, she’d take a chance to practice a handful of spells. Make some minor adjustments, and test the effects. The growth was slow, but noticeable. More importantly, after only a day of directed practice things were beginning to feel more natural and she was already beginning to get a feel for just how much this training could do for her in the long run.

#

It was the morning of Asher’s third day attempting the bridge when something changed. She had just made her first attempt, which involved blasting large sections of the bridge in an attempt to pre-emptively set of the traps. Something which…worked but also left her filling the entirety of the bridge with poisonous ash. Initially she had hoped that when it cleared, the traps would still be inactive from her magic setting everything off. That had proven to be wishful thinking, so now she was attempting something a little different.

She was trying to clear a section of the bridge at a time. The ash from a single trap would clear much faster than ten going off at once. Unfortunately, she was either much more powerful than she expected or the traps were far more reactive than she had hoped. It was proving challenging to balance her spell with enough power to set off one trigger while keeping it weak enough that the lightning couldn’t spread to the surrounding triggers.

She had just been retreating from the latest giant cloud of death produced by her improper power regulation, when the entire thing seemed to split in two. From the other side of the cloud, three men and a woman looked across at her.

“Ho the bridgehead! My compatriots and I are the Twin Calderas Party! May we cross?” the man who called out was a middle-aged, dusky skinned man of average height, a full beard, and lacking a single hair above his eyebrows.

Before Asher had even noticed, Sahar had appeared beside her, “Ho Twin Calderas! Green Dawn bids you welcome and invites you to cross!”

The four approached and Asher couldn’t help but frown as she got a closer look at them. The four were exhausted looking on closer examination, large bags under their eyes and a certain shuffle to their walk that spoke of deep weariness. Their armors were scarred, burnt, and in general disrepair, speaking of hard-fought battles and a long time since their last equipment repair. One of the men was walking with an obvious limp, a large cast occasionally appearing between gaps in his leather-reinforced robe.

“Thank you for your consideration,” The first man continued after crossing the bridge. “I know this is one of the rougher challenges in the inner layer, especially for parties anticipating more direct challenges! My name is Azim and I am glad to make your acquaintance.”

Sahar smiled brightly at his introduction, “Not at all Azim, the honor is all mine. I am Sahar, and I welcome you to our camp. We have set up base here for a few days while our newest recruit gains some much needed experience.”

Looking around and noting Veronika focusing on Asher as she returned her focus to the bridge, Azim appeared to be re-evaluating the situation. He looked more closely at Sahar, paying special attention to the apparent lack of wear on her clothing. He seemed to notice the absence of any signs of worry or exhaustion on her face before broadening his focus. When he looked beyond them and saw Xavier and Andre practicing in the distance, he seemed to come to a decision.

“Your party seems quite capable Sahar. Is there any chance one of your members are a healer? Johan has been traveling on a cracked Tibia and we ran out of potions long ago.”

“Of course. I will see to your companion. It will take time to fully set however. I invite you to join us at our camp tonight. Perhaps you could provide guidance on the deeper sections of this dungeon in exchange for our aide.”

Sahar’s voice was decidedly different throughout the conversation, lacking at certain amount of the motherly care her teammates were more familiar with. Her interactions were far more business-like as she recognized that what they gained here could be the difference between life and death for her party later on. Where normally she would have offered her help freely and happily, here she forced herself to ensure that the team as a whole saw some benefit as well. It was a mindset unfortunately necessary this far into the dungeon and while interacting with unknown individuals.

As much for their sake as her own. Many parties were inherently suspicious of free help from strangers. Not that surprising in a place where providing aid to another might result in your own people lacking critical necessities later. Parties who made it this far in were far more mercenary than those that remained in the outer reaches as they felt the pressure of being pushed to their limit.

#

As Sahar guided the Twin Calderas Party down from the bridge and into their campsite, Balam emerged from hiding. Without Asher’s knowledge, he had been sneaking through the traps and across the bridge daily to scout the far side for Sahar. While exploring, he had found the other party headed their direction and had tailed them for long enough to know they were heading out of the dungeon. From there he had returned to give a report to Sahar so that she would not be surprised by their presence.

As he headed back toward the crossing, he decided to pause to watch Asher’s latest attempt. As she had every other time he had watched, she did fine for the first fifteen or twenty minutes. Eventually, though, she lost the delicate control she had and accidentally released a bit too much magic.

Honestly it was impressive she had made it that far. The traps would naturally attempt to cascade any amount of mana over the activation limit into their neighbors. To accomplish what she was attempting, she had to keep the power low enough that there wouldn’t be enough energy to reach the next activation point.

While it was certainly a noteworthy achievement, it was also massively overcomplicated. And expensive. Even if she ended up accomplishing this technique, it was a twenty-gold solution to a five-copper problem. A highly situational five copper problem. This approach only worked if she knew where the trap was located, and that was hardly a good trap.

He decided to give her a little bit of advice.

“You are looking at this wrong.”

Asher jumped at his remark, quickly spinning around to face him. “Oh, Balam! I, uh, didn’t see you there. What do you mean I am looking at this wrong?”

He blinked slowly. Large, vertically slitted eyes taking her in slowly. Then he gestured vaguely toward the field with his head.

“You are trying to solve it like a puzzle. It isn’t a puzzle. It is an obstacle course. Your job isn’t to clear the path. It is just to make it through.”

Suddenly embarrassed at how direct and…possibly insensitive… his response had been, he blushed lightly before turning around and continuing down the route from the bridge. He needed to clear his head. Go out and scout one of the paths leading to the bridge on this side.

Apparently excited about something, Asher called down from behind, “Thanks Balam! We should talk again, I was starting to think you didn’t like me much!”

Beginning to run, he quickly transformed into his leopard form and faded into the surroundings before his blush became obvious.