"Face it, we are lost." Erica spoke in a matter-as-fact tone.

"No we're not." Zilian replied exasperatedly.

"If we are not, how come we are not there yet?"

“Perhaps it is because we haven't made it yet. Maybe that's the why?"

"Really?" She drawled mockingly, "How bout that trail way back? You should have gone right, into the gorge. That is what Fale said, remember?"

Memories flooded from earlier today, Zilian mentioned to Fale that they had to meet up with Farame over at Greyus. Fortunately for them, Fale knew that city very well and informed that it was a Conditioned City just four to five days away. On top of that and much to Zilian’s surprise, the owner of that Motel happened to be family of Kayla, which she wrote down a special letter guaranteeing he would have a room saved just for themselves. What was really generously helpful was the horse Fale gave, they tried to decline such a fine beast but he argued saying that could always get another and saw that they needed it more then he did.

What started this reminiscence was from what Erica said, about the instructions Fale left them, "You will want to go in to the gorge, the gorge leads into a cave that cuts right through the Mountain. That will shorten your trip off by a day or two."

He repeated the directions to Erica, "I remember; The second gorge, not the first. The first leads to an inevitable dead end and make your journey longer."

She contended, "That was the second, the first was on the outskirt of the forest, remember?"

"That sure didn't look like one to me, maybe a crevice. I can’t even see how a man could fit in it, much less a horse."

"It does not matter what it looks like, it is what it was. Here, give me the map." She snatched the map out of his pack. He did not fight back and conceded into letting her taking it, anything for some peace and quiet, he thought.

"Aha!" She shoved the map smack in front in his face, it showed the small crevice in the side of the two mountains and an inscription over it - Hollows Gorge.

"Now can we turn back and get into that cave before we waste anymore time?"

He sighed in defeat, "Alright, guess it is it after all." Zilian pulled on the reins of the horse, turning the horse back around.

The journey up the mountain took almost half the day, and it would be harder riding down then the climb up. When they finally reached down into the entrance of Hollows Gorge, there was not much daylight left. He knew they would have to camp for the night and leave first thing in the morning, he was tired and he could see from the wry look on Erica’s face that she was too.

"Since we don't have much time left now, we'll camp here for the night and leave first thing when the sun comes up."

"If you would have listened to me in the first place, we would not have wasted that time and been halfway through that cave by now." Every word came out as if it were acid, it burned him from her tone and choice of words.

He combed his fingers through his hair back in frustration, Erica had been like this ever since their departure from Kartick. She grew more impatient every passing hour, losing her temper easily resulting in snappy retorts. He figured she was just worried about Farame, even more so then he himself. They were expecting Farame to be there in about a week. Even though it had only been two days since they left Kartick, it felt like they had been waiting an aching eternity.

If she was not mad before, she definitely would be one traversing through the mountain. The mountain was not a single landmass, rather there were two that met up from the countless years of land shifts. Greyus happened to be the main supply of food resource of the Volcanic Empire, resulting into the Volcanic Empire having a strong and large army stationed in various forts near the city.

Fale had been very descriptive to Zilian about how the city’s defense worked, even mentioning that it was almost effective as Kartick’s. Zilian hoped Farame would make it back safely, he went through a lot of trouble to get this far when they originally planned going with Mauris.

He needed to change the topic, both to encourage for Erica and to get his mind off of Farame. He was sure the old man would be just fine, or at least he hoped so. "Ahem," He cleared his throat, "So Erica, where is this Kenplar estate?"

"Kenplar estate is just over a week south of Greyus, inside the territory of the Council of Freedom. I think I have heard he is one of the major contributors to the Council. He was once offered a seat in their parliament from the Council, in the House of Commons. He rejected the offer, but still accepted the position as ambassador."

"Why?" He raised a brow. He knew to say no to such a position is not something to be taken lightly in these parts.

She smiled, "He wanted to be with his family, and being ambassador also permitted him to travel into all sorts of lands. Wherever he went, he brought his family with him. They saw the world and ventured in it."

"How do you know this?"

"One time, when they got lost, me and Ferry found them in our grounds. They seemed to have wandered in circles for a couple of days and were hungry. Originally, they were only gonna stay for the night, but in the end they were there for two weeks." She scratched her brow, attempting to recall the time.

"What did they do in those two weeks?"

She smiled as she remembered her time together with them, he could hear in her voice she enjoyed this reminisce, "Work around the farm. Mr. Kenplar enjoyed doing different things, he even considered working in our farm as one of his grandest adventures." Erica laughed, "funny really, I would never have thought like that. Anyway, we got to know them and they got to know us. They always had an open invitation for us to them at their house anytime, so Ferry took me there twice. Those three times, being with them were the best times of my life." Erica saddened.

"Well, soon it will be four. In two more weeks, we'll have lots of fun." The last comment led him looking forward to meeting the man. He forced a smile to comfort her.

"Thank you." For once today she smiled, genuinely happy.

Suddenly the ground shook violently, Zilian and Erica were tossed off the horse as it reared up whining in fear. Large boulders and stones from the high wall against the mountain fell dangerously around them, then it stopped as quickly as it has started.

His legs felt wobbly as he got back up from the surprising quake. Gaining his bearings to see not much other than some big boulders, tree trunks and rocks tossed from the ledge above onto the road where they were at.

Coughing through the cloud of dust he called out, "Erica." He could hear her coughing close by.

"I'm here." Came a dry but reassuring response.

He saw her pulling herself out of a pile of dirt to his right. She knocked the grime off of her clearly disgusted being covered in muck. She staggered further down the road, but he had his attention on securing the horse before it could run off.

Only when he held the horse he grasped what happened, "Ahem," Zilian cleared his throat, "The road still fine?"

"You know Zilian, I am gonna kill you one of these days." She replied morbidly.

He laughed, "You're not serious, right?" He looked at her, she a scrunched look.

"Oh come on, you can’t serious... What's wrong? It's not like the road is blo..." He stopped midsentence, seeing that the road was indeed blocked. He was unable to see it before, but around the corner a large landslide made the road completely impassable.

He scratched the back of his head, "Let's look at the bright side, it could have been a whole lot worse. We could have been down there a minute sooner and directly under that landslide."

"Let's just go up to the next cave." She spoke in a eerily calm tone, causing shivers to run down his spine. He knew why she would be upset too, he had made a mistake and now they both are paying for it.

He sighed, acknowledging that all he had to do was listen to her before, "Yeah, ok." He said in a short sentence, not willing to get into another argument. Ever since he had been orphaned, he learned to truly appreciate survival which was why he was not irrationally upset now.

Zilian lurched himself back onto the horse and gave Erica a helping hand up as well. Resuming on their former route back up the mountain since their first stop was blocked off meant they would have to go through a short tunnel near the peak of the mountain.

Zilian stopped to lift his head attentively, their journey paused from a faint wail carried on the wind, "You hear that?" He thought it was just his imagination playing tricks on him. After all, he had just gone through a traumatic experience.

Erica barely heard as she had herself dug back into the map, "Yeah, sounds like..." her eyes widened, "help!"

The horse bolted towards the sound as Zilian kicked it forward. The cries sounded as if they were far off, but there was no sure way of telling because as it bounced between the two walls as an echo. Then Erica pointed to a flattened edge of the valley, he heard it too, the call from help came from behind a wall of brush and trees. He slowed the horse to a stride to not risk of toppling over any steep drops. Instead of a drop, they found a cave.

He gave a Erica a questioned look, and she replied with clear understanding. "No it's not on the map, but that's where the sound came from. There's fresh tracks on the ground."

He could barely see it, but there was just the slightest indication of tracks. He and Erica both hopped off to walk inside, Zilian leading the horse by its reins into the cave with them.

"Help!" A voice echoed from the cave.

"Hold on! We're coming!" Zilian did not know if the person heard him or not, but if they did at least now they knew someone heard.

Erica followed the sound as he tied the horse to a piece of fallen stone, then he followed the trail Erica went down until he came into a wide cave that separated into two directions.

Before he needed to call out for direction, Erica cried out in alarm. "Zilian! Over here and quickly!"

He went down in the left passage, and he saw her down in the knees peering over an edge that dropped steeply.

"Where is he?" He leaned over to see what is it she was looking at.

"He is a she," the voice boomed in the chamber, "and she is over here!"

He leaned further over the edge to see who it was, it is then he sees how grave the situation really is. A young woman stood on a ledge no wider then a finger width, she gripped tightly onto the wall against her back, she tangled her hands on short lengths of root that stuck out. However, under her was a fall into complete darkness. Zilian was not keen into finding out how deep it really was but he could hear a stream of moving water.

"How did you get there?" Zilian asked.

"I would love to tell you my life story on the edge of my death. Oh wait, no I don't! Get me up from here you foul smelling stupid mule!" Her voice was full of spite, he could not see her face but by her tone he could imagine her grimacing face.

Zilian grunted and crossed his arms. "Let’s just leave her."

"You can't be serious." He could see that he worried her, her eyes widened in shock.

"I have to agree with the brilliant little girl, clearly better then you." The woman remarked.

"Of course I am not serious! We need rope of some sort." He retorted, if were to honestly answer he really would not know himself. But he is here now and she is danger, no need to over think it.

"I don't have rope, don't you?" Erica stated.

"No, do you have anything we could use?" He combed his sweaty hair back, clearly there is no good options.

"I have a spool of string and a ball of yarn." She finally declared

The woman snapped, "Oh sure! Knit me a scarf and pull me up with that! Guess there are two mules helping. Lovely, my life in the hands of a mule. Do mules have hands? No, there paws, or hooves, or both. Whatever, you two get the idea!"

As much as Zilian despised her attitude, he still looked around to see what he can use to pull her up. The hole was round that went straight up and then down to a stream at the bottom, he saw there are longer vines and roots growing out of the mouth of this hole.

"I know what to do." Zilian said.

The woman retorted out again in her annoyingly loud voice, "Then do it!"

"No one is asking for your opinion, you just hang on!" He was surprised to see Erica outburst like that, he reminded himself not to get on her bad side.

"Duh, that's all I can do at this point!" She quarreled.

"Now what's the plan." Erica gave him undivided attention, blotting out the rants of the endangered woman.

"Well," He demonstrated by pulling off a piece of vine from the wall, "we use the the vines to pull her up."

"That could work but she is at least fifty feet down, we need more than one piece [of that]."

"Yeah, we grab all of these vines and tie them together. That way it's longer." He waved his hands around the hole.

She grabbed a vine, visualizing the knots of one tied to another, "I see, let's get started." Erica pulled on a piece of vine and started tying them together.

He yanked down all the vines he could get his hands on, tying them all together forming one long rope. It would have felt like it was just a second to Zilian, but the constant ranting from the woman of how slow and incompetent they were just made it feel even longer.

When they finished and he was about to toss down the makeshift rope, Erica halted him in his tracks. "Wait." She ordered.

He complied and she grabbed an end of the line, then went to a stone pillar jutting from the ground. She tied the end to the pillar, yanking on the rope to assure it was tightened and gave a thumbs up.

"Now we do not have to worry about it slipping through our hands." She said.

He nodded to respond, unable to believe how badly that could have ended. Zilian tossed the rope over the edge but much to his disappointment, it only reached halfway. They were out of vine so there was no more rope, and he did not know how to help the woman. Erica stepped next to him, she saw the problem as well. She looked around the mouth, rubbing her hands against the walls looking for something.

He stated the obvious, "There's no more vines, I took them all."

Erica replied, "I am not looking for vines, I am pulling on roots."

Understanding dawned on him of what she is doing, the roots were not the best to use but they can work around with them to make the rope longer. So he went to the other side of the mouth to help tug on them, and together they managed to pile up enough to tie the roots together with the vine. The rope was at least twice as long as before, this time reaching way past the ledge the woman was on.

"Grab on!" Zilian called down.

"Yeah! No kidding!" Again with her sarcasm.

He felt a tug on the rope as she pulled herself up, walking up against the wall. However suddenly, the ground shook for a second time today. Unable to get a stable footing he fell back, Erica was tossed against the wall and held onto the ground tightly.

A sharp loud shattering crack rang behind him, he turned around to see what it was now. His blood went cold, the stone pillar holding on to the rope was crumbling away. If the woman still had not fallen from the quake then she would certainly drop as the rope failed. He did not think of what to do but except react on pure instinct, staggering to the falling pillar but not in time. The stone column finally gave away and with the ground still trembling, he grabbed the rope as it whipped past him, the sudden weight dragging him to the mouth of the hole. He kicked and flayed all around the ground to grasp on something and prevent their sudden demise, his feet lodged on the edge right when the trembling stopped.

Blood pulsed heavily through him, he could feel the throbs coursing into his head with hard pumps. Despite the sudden and extreme pressure, he gripped the rope tightly. The weight he held on to now was different, he was not being dragged by the weight instead held on to it stably. Erica recovered from her shock and sprung right next to Zilian, coming to his aid and pulling up the rope as well.

She was not strong enough to help, but he only needed to hold it long enough. "Check if she's coming up!" He muttered through his teeth.

She crawled over the edge to scout, "She fell further down, she's holding on the very end of the rope." She reported in aghast.

"Now get me up! Or give me up!" She exclaimed.

For her, I might just do the latter, he kept the comment himself, he was not ready for another argument. Yet.

"Erica," Zilian wiped a sweat that was rolling into his eye off on his shoulder, "pull her up with me, we gonna use what's left of the pillar to pulley her up."

"Got it." She nodded to confirm.

As she grabbed the rope in front of him, he set the pace. "OK, on my mark," taking a couple of deep breaths. "Now!"

Together, Erica and Zilian tugged on the rope, the rope inching up slowly and surely as they both paced their steps. He felt his body strained to the limit, every fiber of muscle burned in aching pain. Zilian grunted as he nearly tripped as he tugged, if he were to fail now he would definitely lose her.

Finally the shattered pillar stood on their side, "Erica! Wrap it halfway on that pillar, we'll pull her up the rest of the way!"

They dexterously wrapped it around the pillar, and they pulled on the rope with considerable ease.

His mind started going blank until Erica snapped him back into reality, "We got her up!" Erica shouted.

Just in time too. He admitted secretly.

Seeing the woman crawling over the edge safely and Erica giving her a hand up, he released the rope letting it snag between a couple of rocks then loosely falling into the pit. He slumped onto the cold, hard, stone ground. After two quakes and saving someone’s life, the hard ground was like a feathered pillow.

"You ok?" He wheezed in very rapid breaths, his clothes were soaked in his sweat.

"Ok you ask? What do you think? I nearly saw the gates of death twice in less then an hour. Not to mention I am here left to babysit a couple of children. You think I am ok?" She scolded.

"You know," he murmured with a cough, "if I weren't exhausted, I'd push you over myself." His patience was cut short now, after saving her life and she still was unappreciative.

"Yeah well, seems we all didn't get what we want. Name's Sarri, just for your information. Even your manners are lacking." She pouted as she pointedly twisted away from him.

Erica was the first to break the informality, "Nice to meet you Sarri. I am Erica and this is Zilian." Even though she was polite, her face grimaced. At least he was not the only one to dislike her.

Sarri coughed dryly and pulled out a canteen taking several large gulps, seeing her drink only reminded him of how desperately dehydrated he is now. He tried to stand up but winced in pain as his legs went limp, Erica quickly came to his side helping him sit properly.

"Best you rest for a bit, I'll get you some water." Erica ran back to where Zilian left the horse tied.

Zilian sat on the ground and rested his head against the wall, and stared across at Sarri. He judged Sarri to be clearly not someone from a city or village. She wore tough blue shorts with shoulder straps and a red-boxed undershirt, her ponytail hair drooping wetly across her back in a mess.

Zilian heaved, attempting to take slow down controlled breaths, only pausing when Erica came back with his canteen of water and the horse. “Thanks.” He said graciously.

"I have good news and bad news Zilian." Erica said.

He sighed. What more could happen in one day! "What's the bad news?" He figured just finish it off with something positive, at the very least.

"The cave entrance collapsed, so we can not go back out through there."

Zilian slumped his head back. "Great, what could the good news possibly be to make it close enough to be good enough to make it good?"

She smirked, "We're not dead yet."

"Ha ha, very funny." He chuckled at her humorous attempt to joke, not what he considered as a positive thought but it was a good try.

"The lass is right," Sarri spoke up, "we are still alive, ripe for adventure. I dare nature to give me its worse!" The ground shook again, but only for a few seconds.

Zilian said, "When that happens, wait till I am far away from you."

Sarri replied, "I wouldn't want me near me either, but here I am."

"Speaking of which, what are you doing here?" Erica asked.

"You can't tell?" Sarri asked. Apparently innocently. He really could not read her expression, it seemed she is sincere but it just comes out annoying. He thought it was just her nature. After all, she did drive both him and Erica irate.

Erica and Zilian exchanged glances. "No, not really." Erica answered.

"I am a spelunker. I heard about possible fine ore in these caverns, so I set out to look for them."

Zilian eyes grew heavy from drowsiness, today’s events took a toll on him, "I am willing to bet that it is late now, so we'll set camp here." He directed a hopeful question towards Sarri, "Do you know the way out of this cavern?"

"No way small fry. I fell from a higher point, this here is all new for me. I hope I find some fine ore in these parts of the tunnels!" Her eyes gleamed in excitement.

He moaned tiredly, life loved its surprises. There was only one option that he could consider at this point, and that was sleep. "Then we'll work out what to do tomorrow." Zilian lay his back down, settling down for the night. Erica pulled out a sheet from his sack to give it to him.

"No, give it to Sarri." He rejected it.

As Erica handed it to her, "So you do know some manners, there yet to be hope for. Maybe." It seemed Sarri was naturally mule headed, she had the tongue that bit like a Frost Lion.

Her response burned under his skin and he flipped his back towards her, no need to put up with her for the night. Eventually sleep got a hold of him and he slowly drifted off into a very much merited rest.