The first day’s hike had gone better than I expected. While I didn’t need the stamina boost that Kasidy gave, but it helped her. Kasidy also seemed to have a faster gait than I did. So while she needed to take breaks while walking, I needed to almost jog to keep up. Which was kind of funny since I was the one with the magical map.

The biggest problem was there was no peace on the hike. She couldn’t or wouldn’t shut up to hike. She just needed to fill the silence of the hike with her voice. She was either talking to me about her life or singing. Now her signing was magical, not like birds and mice making her a dress magical, but it lightened our steps.

She was making herself useful, just not in ways that mattered much to me. The bonuses she gave, I guessed, were good but didn’t much matter to me. I already had more stamina than I could use, and my pack helped with my load. The tune she played to ease durability loss would also have been nice. But since my gear didn’t lose durability, it didn’t matter to me.

The days were a bit shorter than when I started my trip downriver, but we made up for it with the speed that a thicket could go up. It went from me actively trying to build a room to just deploying a magical item. Which I didn’t give much thought to until I saw Kasidy.

I had just set the thicket when I turned to see Kasidy slack-jawed. I got it. The thing was cool, but she was living in a world of magic, so I didn’t get why this impressed her. But she just stood there, not talking for a full hour. Which was a nice change to the number of words she used.

As the ticket finished the steps, I said, “Okay let’s head in. It will finish building everything and we can get dinner going.”

As I was about halfway up, the trapdoor opened before me. I laughed, knowing that it was Blink going in first. Kasidy stayed below for a while as the outer edge of the thicket started to fill in. It wasn’t until the darkness of the thicket being fully closed off fell that Kasidy moved. I watched with amusement as she bolted up the stairs.

I pulled out my frying pan. “So Kasidy I know you said before you couldn’t cook much was that you didn’t have anything to cook or you lack much skill?”

Kasidy just slowly turned around the room taking in that it matched completely with the first tree house. Then she walked over to where the dungeon would have had a walkway and touched the window. She slowly nodded and then looked at me with a bit of fear.

Kasidy curtsied to me. “My lord please forgive me for the way I treated you when first we met. I was scared and didn’t know how great you were.”

I shook my head. “No need to apologize you were scared it was a reasonable reaction. Now about cooking?”

She looked down and slowly raised her chin. “I do know a few meals but most of what I learned was how to cook meat. I can cook if the meat is already broken down but I don’t know many other things. My father ate mostly meat or in the taverns he worked in.”

I sighed. “Okay I got dinner then. Did your songs help you out today?”

“Yes, my boots should last about two weeks at this rate.”

“Is that how your city clothes made it all the way out here?”

She nodded and then sat down in a chair. “I didn’t have that song very high when I left town but I knew that I needed it. So I started after the second day. Most of the damage was the first day.”

I nodded as I cut up some of the dried meat. “Blink see if you can find any thing fresh around.”

Kasidy startled. “Do you mean me? Blink’s not here she never caught up.”

I laughed as Blink appeared in her lizard form near the window. “There she is. She has been shadowing us all day. Might be why we moved so fast.”

Blink went out the window and down the side of the ticket. I smiled at Kasidy as she looked confused for a few moments. Then she just sat, and for the first time today, I think she thought about what she was going to say. The problem was I couldn’t tell if whatever she thought about was going to come out of her mouth.

A few moments later, Blink came back in with a rabbit in her mouth. “Thanks, girl! I’ll get this cooked right up. Do you want the entrails?”

I saw the Blink give me a big lizard smile with a nod. Then I took the time to finish cutting out all of the good meat and threw everything else over on the floor. Blink snapped it all up. As she did, Kasidy squealed.

I smirked a bit. “What’s wrong Kasidy?”

She stared at Blink. “I wasn’t expecting that….”

“Well she is a ropola it’s kind of what they do.”

“But she’s a little lizard girl. She eats cooked food.”

I laughed as I tossed the rabbit bits onto my skillet. “No she is a ropola that sometimes looks like a lizard girl. Don’t forget what she is.”

Kasidy looked over at me with a confused looked at then back at Blink. Blink licked her chomps and then turned back to the window and went out. As she passed through the window, she did her vanishing act.

I pulled a few of the root veggies that I had brought with me and started to dice them and toss them into the skillet. “So we are going to have a quick stew. I think your pack should have a bowl and spoon in there.”

Kasidy dug through and found the bowl and then pulled out her spoon. “It’s metal! How rich are you?”

I raised an eyebrow. “It’s just a spoon.”

“But its metal and you gave it away. It’s shinny and hard too so it’s not pewter. This is worth a lot.”

“Just a spoon.”

Kasidy hummed a bit as I got her food. Then we settled in to eat. It wasn’t much, but the warmth was nice after the brisk outside. As we were finishing up dinner, Blink came back in. Her belly was noticeably larger.

Blink gave a happy hiss as she settled in near the fire. Then she sent me images of her getting a geson all to herself. Which seemed to give her problems climbing back up since her belly was rubbing on the tree the whole way up.

I smiled and then looked around the room. “Okay well. When I designed this place I wasn’t thinking about more than one person so there’s only the one hammock. I think it’s yours as I have my sleeping fur.”

Kasidy nodded. “Thank you. I had gotten used to sleeping in the other one.”

“I thought that might be the case. Even though we aren’t as protected in this thicket as the other we should be fine for the night. The first few hours the thicket creates a strong fear ward that should keep everything away. Then after wards it starts in on other protections.”

“So we don’t need a guard?”

“No I think we should be fine up here. The stairs can pull in and the trap door locks. The only things we need to worry about would be something coming through the windows. I don’t think there is much of an issue there with the fear.”

Kasidy smiled and pulled out her panpipes. Then she started to play for a while. The sun was setting, and the tunes she played seemed to be telling stories. I couldn’t put words to the songs, but they each brought up some emotion. Almost like some epic story was being told. When she finished, it was dark outside.

I clapped a bit and asked. “Was that all one song?”

She shook her head. “No it’s a frame work of a set of songs. I was given it when I completed the quest of arriving at your tree house. Now I am learning it. Once I play it enough times I will be able to build each one out.”

“I thought that quests weren’t common.”

“They aren’t which is what makes this even more strange. This is a quest chain. One quest into the next. I don’t know how many quests there are but right now it seems there are at least 14. The first one is to finish the first song. I just don’t have enough to do so yet.”

“Why do you say 14?”

“The frame work has 14 parts to build out from. So I am guessing that each one will get it’s own quest.”

I nodded. “So what is your quest?”

She smiled. “I can’t tell you the details. I can tell you that I have one but the actual specifics are more restrictive.”

I sighed. “Got it. Well I am going to bed now.”

I unrolled my sleeping fur onto the floor next to Blink. I would have gotten closer to the fire, but she had laid herself out in a crescent going right around the magical fire. Right when I thought I was drifting off to sleep, Kasidy started to talk to me.

Kasidy asked. “Arn you still awake?”

I sighed and rolled to my back. “Yes Kasidy what is it?”

“Any idea why Bartholomew wants me to help you?”

“No idea.”

“Oh okay.”

She got quiet for a few more moments and asked. “I know it was him to sent the light for me to follow but why a light?”

I pondered for a moment. “Why do the gods do anything they do?”

I had hoped that she would let me go to sleep. Only to wake me up with her calling my name again.

Kasidy asked. “Did you fall asleep?”

I thought about not answering but did. “Yes. I did.”

“Oh sorry. I just wanted to know if it was you snoring or something outside.”

I took a few moments to listen to see if I could hear anything loud. All I heard was the normal forest, bugs, and the close by river. I faded to sleep after that. I knew she was asking me something else, but at that point, my body was already asleep.

* * *