Later that evening, Faye realised that reaching her mountaintop goal would be a lot harder than she’d first imagined. The sun set a lot sooner when there was this much rock surrounding her and just as many gullies to step into; though the sky was still bright with evening light, none of it reached her. She kept moving anyway.

There was no way she’d be stopping, even in the relative closeness of the gullies. There had been the occasional sound far in the distance that her imagination told her were the howls of wolves, and her common sense told her was something worse.

Plus, the chill was pervading in the shadows of the rocks. She knew that she had to keep moving toward that mountain. It would be one of the only ways to see where she was.

She’d been worried that there would be fewer bushes and plants here to graze from, and in a way she’d been right to assume that, but there were also smaller animals that flitted from crevice to crevice, rock face to rock face. They were small rodent-like creatures. At first, she ignored their comings and goings. But soon, she realised that they were carrying things to and fro in their small paws.

Exhaustingly, the squirrels, as Faye thought of them, were too quick for her to catch. Their little nests were high up on the rock faces, and in the haunting twilight of the gullies, she didn’t want to risk climbing up.

Ignoring them as much as she could, she looked instead for where they were coming from. It didn’t take too long to realise that they were mostly entering the gullies from above, outlined in light from overhead. The few that were at ground level with Faye were simply scampering across to another rock face, before disappearing into the crevices the rocks here provided. The shadows made these particularly hard to see.

Every time she followed one up with her eyes, she’d have to adjust to the relative brightness above and then looking back at her feet would result in night blindness. She cursed each time, but she couldn’t bring herself to ignore the wildlife.

Everything else had tried to attack her. She wouldn’t put it past these little buggers to do the same.

As she carried on through the gully, the cool and deepening darkness between the rocks took on a damp quality that made her think of caves she’d visited with school years ago. Growing out of the walls of the rocks, with no indication of how they did so, were mushrooms and plants.

Some of them were gently glowing.

Glowing mushrooms. In a strange place. With creatures that were trying to attack her at almost every opportunity. They definitely weren’t like in the school trips.

“Have I fallen in with Alice?” she muttered. “I bloody hope not. Never liked the idea of a giant caterpillar talking to me.”

Curious, she used the tip of her blade to lever some of the mushrooms off the rock face, but strangely they didn’t seem to be emerging from a hole or gap in the rock. Shrugging, Faye left them behind.

There was no way she was tempting fate with strange mushrooms. Odd berries were dangerous enough without adding the often toxic or mind-altering fungi to the mixture.

She hadn’t gone more than three steps when she heard a chattering sound. One of the squirrels had appeared near the mushroom and was gnashing its teeth at Faye. She almost laughed at the maniacal world-domineering look the squirrel took on with the underglow from the mushroom.

“There you go, buddy, a fresh glowing probably-poisonous mushroom just for you.”

Speaking to animals was much better than to herself, she reasoned, but it was still a little odd.

Then again, what isn’t odd in this place? she couldn’t help but think.

Before she could leave the squirrel to its meal, it ran towards her. She’d let her guard down around the small creatures, as none had made a single aggressive move toward her since she’d entered the gullies.

Scrambling backwards, she didn’t get her sword into place in time before the squirrel bounced away and scrambled up the rock face to her left. It angrily squeaked at her. It had frozen and was just sitting in place. Staring at her. Beady eyes unblinking.

Unsure what it was doing, but happy that it wasn’t moving, Faye brought her sword down in a quick cut.

The squirrel dropped to the floor, and her blade swung right through where it had been sitting… on top of a small patch of glowing mushrooms. The heads were easily removed from the rock and they tumbled to the ground.

Into the waiting paws of the squirrel.

It dashed away; its mouth full of glowing fungi meat.

“Did that squirrel just use me to farm glowing mushrooms?” she asked the universe.

No response.

“Why couldn’t it pull the mushroom out itself?”

Silence, except for the quiet chattering of squirrels.

“Maybe the universe doesn’t have answers for me. I’d ask God, but honestly, I’m not sure he has jurisdiction here.”

With even the small number of mushrooms she’d removed, the shadowy darkness of the gully was turning towards true darkness now. Looking heavenward, the light blue of the sky was quickly turning indigo, dotted with smatterings of the brightest stars.

With no idea what she was going to do when the light completely left her, Faye picked up the pace as much as possible. She let her left-hand trace gently across the rocks as she held her sword on her right shoulder.

Barely minutes later, it was getting dark enough that Faye had to slow to almost a crawl. The sounds of the squirrels were rising all around her. The sky above was almost entirely midnight blue, and other than the starlight there was no more twilight to see by.

As she turned a corner in the winding gully, Faye was astonished to come face to face with a veritable wall of light. Mushrooms the size of her head emerged from the ground and ran up the walls of the rock faces on either side of the widening gully. It was like a waterfall of colourful mushrooms; these were all gently glowing pale blue.

Most astonishing, when her eyes adjusted, were the crouched forms of the squirrels, clinging to the rock face, peeking from above, or crouched protectively over mushrooms.

“I don’t want your mushrooms, squirrels. Just let me keep going.”

She inched her foot forward.

The squirrels began hissing. The chorus making the hairs on her neck raise violently.

“God damn it,” she spat through gritted teeth. Taking a firm stance, Faye took up her sword. She was glad the gully was wider here. She might be able to actually cut properly.

A moment later, the first of the squirrels ran toward her. It was using the rock face as if it was a gentle incline. Stepping backward, to give herself a more direct angle, Faye readied a downward cut. As the squirrel jumped at her, its eyes glowing the same blue as the mushrooms she noticed, she brought her hands down in an overhead cut.

The squirrel bounced to the floor, its skull a little too flat.

Congratulations! You have slain a level 1 [Blue-Eyed Squirrel].

After that, there was no time to pay attention to the words in her mind’s eye… ear — she still couldn’t decide if she was hearing the words or seeing them. The blue-eyed squirrels were coming at her in waves. It seemed that although one had managed to use her to farm some mushrooms, on the whole they were rather dim-witted animals.

In the end, she was stomping on, slapping, and even in one case biting the blue-eyed squirrels as much as she was using her weapon. It had never been designed for use against tiny rodents, so it was somewhat easier with how many there were around her to just stomp down.

An indeterminate time later, the squirrels were gone. Either she’d finally taken out all of them in this part of the gully, or the rest had wisened up and decided not to come near the woman killing them.

To her surprise, there was a slightly more celebratory notification ding in her mind as she heard and saw more words appear.

Congratulations! You have levelled up! You are now level 2.

Faye waited for more.

After a minute, it was painfully obvious nothing else was going to happen.

“Oh, come on!” she muttered. “Was that it? Do I not get some skills or something?”

But despite the disappointment, she felt the grin on her face.

Uncertain whether it was just her imagination or not, Faye experimented a little after the message about levelling up. In games, whenever a character levelled up, they were stronger and faster. Tougher, more powerful in ways that she definitely was not.

But, running through the gully covered in squirrel gore, grinning like a mad woman, and moving through the night as if she had just woken from a perfect sleep, Faye wondered if something wonderful had happened.

When the gully became a little shallower, Faye managed to scramble out of the depression in the rock using the holes and uneven rock face. Standing on top of the rocks, it was much easier to see. The moonlight was able to provide some light here.

The mountains above her were much closer now. She hadn’t realised that she’d been getting so close without them dominating the skyline. But closer than the mountains were the foothills that would probably still classify as mountains in their own rights.

It hadn’t been obvious inside the gullies, but the maze-like warren of paths had been leading Faye almost at a 90-degree angle alongside the mountains, rather than toward them. If she used the tops of the rocks, she would be able to take a much shorter route.

There was no reason to be in the darkness of the gullies anymore.

“So long, squirrels. Thanks for the warm welcome, yeah?”

The night air was chilly and the lack of clouds made it somewhat easier to see but much colder. Looking around in a full circle, Faye nodded to herself and began a careful jogging trek across the tops of this rocky landscape.

Some of the gullies were much wider than others, those she avoided because she was under no illusions that she would easily jump those, but there were still enough gullies with smaller gaps that she felt no compunctions about jumping those. Every so often she would see the scurrying form of a blue-eyed squirrel, but she ignored them and they ignored her. Without mushrooms, it seemed that she wasn’t something of interest for the rodents.

The pockmarked and gully-filled landscape soon gave way to more ordinary rocky and grassy hills, which were harder to traverse quickly because they were more uneven. Slowing to a stop, Faye took the time to gather her breath. Breathing in deeply, she caught the scent of something pleasant on the air, floral and light.

Walking up the slight rise before her, Faye’s breath caught as she crested the top and saw that a hidden lake stretched out before her, rippling in the wind and catching the moonlight on small waves. It was a stunning sight to be presented with after the claustrophobic gullies.

What was even better was that around the outside of this lake were a series of flattened stones, arrayed like a pathway. It was the first thing Faye had seen since realising she wasn’t home anymore that made her think it was made, rather than accidental nature.

“This could definitely be a path.”

She followed it as far as she could in the moonlit darkness, which wasn’t far; it soon fell into the shadow of the sudden rise of a hill. But it appeared to skirt the edge of the lake, to her left. To the right, it disappeared equally as fast, but down a hill, almost in the direction she had originally come from.

Knowing that either way was as arbitrary as the next, she chose the left-hand path because it felt like moving forward rather than backward.

Looking at the moon, there were still a few hours until midnight. The lake was too open, the wind was able to whip across it and build up to a steady gust.

It was too cold to carry on tonight.

But looking back at the gullies, Faye scowled. There was no way she wanted to spend the night surrounded by those squirrels. They might decide to nibble on her.

Unlike the grasslands, there weren’t as many animals on the hills here. She expected even fewer if she did climb the mountain itself. Moving along the path-like stones, which if they were thicker than a few centimetres would weigh a literal ton she was sure, Faye decided to try and find shelter in the lee of the hill the path passed.

Not for the first time, Faye thought about the fact that she was both incredibly fortunate and unfortunate. Fortunate because she’d been holding her sword when she came here. Unfortunate that she’d only been wearing her work-out clothes. Without a coat, she’d gotten to the point that her whole arms were feeling numb. Her tee shirt barely had sleeves, it was easier to move her arms for swordplay, but offered no protection.

There was nothing for it but to forge ahead. Belatedly, she realised that coming up out of the gullies is what had made her realise she was cold. It was getting colder up here, with the wind chill. Down between the rocks, she was protected from the wind almost completely.

“Okay, Faye, less talk, more walk.”

Picking up the pace, she started running across the rocky path, eager to see where it would lead.