With nothing left to do I retrieved my daggers I had thrown at the dogs and the things I had dropped before I had approached the men and continued my journey.

For the rest of the day I saw no more signs of anyone. By the time night fell I was feeling exhausted, mostly because of all the new things I had picked up.

That night my dreams were nowhere near as bad as they had been. I saw the lives of the three men, no dogs thankfully, and saw that they were boring compared to the memories the night before. This was probably the first time I had been glad to find something boring.

I saw that the two men that had been accompanying the lord had been in his family's service their whole lives, and while they had done plenty of things I would rather not have know about, none of it involved murder and rape.

The Lord's memories were even more boring. All I saw of him was sword and magic training through his childhood, his conditioning as the heir of the family, and his "activities" with the female servants. His poor wife was neglected in the meantime.

I awoke the next morning relieved. Not only had the dreams been better they had also been faster, less vivid, and more detached. I didn't know if this was because my mind was getting better at handling whatever I had taken from the men or what but I hoped that it would indeed be getting better and eventually go away altogether.

Even better would be just not killing anyone at all and not having to worry about it. While I had done plenty of "killing" on Korron I knew that they would just come back the same as always moments later. These people were never coming back, at least not in these bodies. If I hadn't known that they would be reborn I didn't want to know how well I would handle this situation. Knowing what happened after death certainly did take away from the seriousness of death.

I was feeling much better physically today. To my surprise, my wounds were almost completely healed, and they didn't hurt much anymore. I guess the speedy healing was almost worth the mental suffering the dreams had given me. Almost.

My strength had also returned so I decided to only toss a few of my daggers and arrows away to lighten the load. As I threw them away, I wondered how I had carried so much for so long. Even with my greater Terran strength I still had the body of a small girl. Had I been gaining strength along with greater healing? Another mystery that would have to wait.

I began my journey through the canyon again. As I went through the day I began to notice the high canyon walls begin to slowly become more and more shallow and farther apart as I moved along. I hoped it wouldn't take too much longer to get out.

By the end of the day I could still not see the end of the canyon. To top it off I had seen two more groups of men. The first group was a ragtag bunch that I heard coming from pretty far away and was easily able to avoid. The second group I saw was more cautious but was too spread out to effectively cover the widening canyon and they missed me too.

As I went farther on I saw that the amount of cover was getting more sparse. There were no more large boulders and only large bushes and trees for me to use. As these were thicker around the river I found myself too near for comfort and decided to try my luck with the canyon wall. There were more hiding places here but any smart person would realize this and be sure to keep an eye out in the area.

Despite the fading light, I decided that I would climb out of the canyon. I had never climbed a rock wall before, but the cliff above me was jagged and looked to have plenty of handholds. My only concern was what I would do with my many belongings. I decided to not worry about it and began making my way up. Kitten looked at me and left, heading the way we had been going.

As expected, my weight began to take a toll on me. My arms began to tire, and I knew that I probably would not have the strength to make it all the way up. As the day had finally become twilight, I also knew that it was probably too dangerous to continue much longer, especially considering I had only made it one-third of the way up in about an hour.

I looked at the cliff wall around me, looking for a ledge big enough to hold me and my possessions. I found one about thirty meters to my left and ten meters up. I knew I wouldn't make it before nightfall so I hoped that my luck, night vision, and the light of the two moons would help.

About half an hour later I had made it. I had slipped a couple of times but had recovered each time. It had not been as dark as I had feared and the light from Nirca had been enough, the other having not yet risen.

Since there was no reason for me to stay awake, I positioned myself as best as I could on the small rock shelf and hoped that I did not move too much in my sleep. For once my small size was helping.

When I awoke the next morning I found myself well rested. I had had no dreams involving men I had killed either so it had been a good night.

Because of this, I guessed that I would only have those dreams if I killed someone before going to sleep. I hoped I would not be making a habit of killing people and that I would not have to worry about it ever again.

Thankfully I, and all of my belongings were still safely on the rock ledge. I also noticed that my arm, shoulder, and leg were pretty much healed.

As I ate my morning meal I surveyed the area around me. I had woken up before dawn and it was still dark but it was the perfect opportunity to spot any campfires. I saw none and figured that if there had been any they had probably gone out by now.

I regretted not staying up longer the night before and watching for them then.

After a few hours passed and the sun began to light up the sky I readied my belongings and began looking for a route up the rest of the way to the top. I decided to take a more winding route up and picked out several other rock ledges like the one I was currently sitting on.

I knew I would get up faster if I went straight to the top but with all the weight I was carrying I did not want to risk getting myself overly tired. I knew I could have dropped the things I didn't need,, but I wanted as much money as I could later on. I also was in no hurry to get anywhere.

By the time I stopped on a ledge a little more than halfway up it had begun to get hot and I decided that I would rest a bit longer than I had been at the other ledges.

Now settled down I once again surveyed the valley below. As I was higher now than I had been that morning I had an even better view.

This time I did spot something. Below me, a bit downstream to the north I saw a group of men. There were at least eight men from what I could see, maybe more. Since they were spread out along the canyon I guessed that they still had not spotted me. I was still in bow range from the canyon floor and would be in trouble if I was spotted. On the other hand, I could now use my bow and shoot back.

By the time the men reached the area below me, it was well afternoon. All they had to do was not look up in my direction and I would be fine. If they looked up, I just hoped that they thought my whitish cotton clothes and bedding was an odd-colored rock.

One man of eleven I had now counted, shouted. When the others looked at him, he shouted again and pointed up at me. The rest of the men looked in my direction and then rushed towards the cliff side below me.

Instead of pulling out my bow I pushed myself onto the rock ledge as far as I could and then positioned my belongings along the edge in hopes that they would stop any arrow that got too close. When I had done this I did pull out my bow and readied it.

The men appeared to be not very used to firing at a target so high above them and their shots were too short. I had gravity on my side and made my first shot easily, sending the men looking for cover. This worked in my favor as well because the men couldn't easily protect themselves if they stayed directly under me.

It stayed like this for an hour. The arrows had stopped coming at me when the men realized they would only hit me if they got closer. When they had tried to get closer I had taken out another of the archers, sending them back into cover.

I had had more than enough rest and continued climbing. I knew that when I started climbing again, I could not keep them away with my arrow fire but if I could climb fast enough, I might be out of their arrow range. I also had a bunch of stuff on my back so if they managed to hit me I hoped it would be there and not my exposed arms or legs.

I began to climb. The men waited a few moments to come out, but they did and were soon shooting arrows at me.

The men stopped shooting. I had thought I was still in range of their bows but guessed I had overestimated it as none had come close to me. Despite this, I did not look down and kept climbing.

When I reached the next rock ledge an hour later, having skipped one, I finally looked down. I saw that at least half of the men had started climbing after me and only one was still on the canyon floor. The rest I could barely see in the distance, making their way out of the canyon, probably in hopes to catch me on top.

I didn't know how much longer the canyon went up north but at the speed I was going I would easily reach top in only another hour or two. I would then head off in a random direction for a few hours before heading west in hopes of finding the Non' river and some water.

The men that had chosen to climb were still far below me and looked to be making slow progress. I could sit here for hours and they would not catch up. I was not going to do that but in the meantime…

Salis was bored. Salis thought of a fun game. Salis named the game: "How close can you get the rock to the man without hitting him?"

Being on a rock cliff and all there were plenty of loose rocks. None of them in reach were big, but they didn't need to be.

I gathered a large pile of rocks and lay on my stomach. I grabbed a small rock first and dropped it at the easiest target. The rock bounced off the wall about ten meters above the man and went off in a direction away from him.

I grabbed another rock and tried again. This time I got the man's attention as the rock hit the wall and skittered down about three meters to his left. I grabbed a bigger rock and tried again.

Twenty minutes later I nodded happily to myself as I looked down at the men. All of them had stopped and were now hugging the wall as tightly as they could. None of them had fallen, but I thought one had wet his pants when a particularly large rock brushed just shy of him.

An hour or so later I pulled myself over the canyon wall and stood up, seeing Kitten already there. I looked from Kitten to the canyon I had been in for much too long and, after kicking some rocks and dirt over the edge I turned my back to it hoping to never see it again.