Kasidy had fallen into the river when the fight with the pigtaurs started. My dome knocked her off balance, and she fell into a rough area. The slope on my side of the river was steep and didn’t appear to give a good bank anywhere close by. The other side of the river seemed to have a more shallow slope.

The problem was that river was cold, and so she was going to be getting debuffs from it, perhaps even damage. The rock that she was holding on to was out in the river about ten feet. She had been washed downriver a good thirty feet before finding a place to stop.

I quickly scanned my side to make sure we had everything. I was likely going to try to pull her across to the other bank. But her bag was still on the ground, where she had dropped it before the fight started. Which at least meant that stuff didn’t need to be replaced.

I yelled. “Blink! We got to get her out and to the other bank. I am going to see if my dome will stop the water if not we are going to get wet.”

With that, I grabbed her bag and started downriver. A spot about thirty feet downstream from her was calmer and seemed to have a slight bank on my side. So I began to move down the embankment slipping and sliding as I went. The edge was a loose mixture of fist-sized rocks and dirt giving way under my weight.

When I got to the edge, I saw that Kasidy was still clinging to the rock but was looking weaker. I was sure that she was taking cold damage and wouldn’t last much longer. I activated my stone air dome and saw that the water had stopped moving into the area. However, the mana drain was higher than anything else. The constant pressure of water flowing downstream and piling up was going to quickly drain the mana.

I started to push my way toward Kasidy. The problem that I was going to have would be getting to her. As the dome wouldn’t let her through, I would just knock her off the rock. However, if I turned it off and back on, I would catch a wave of cold river water.

It took me a good two minutes pushing against the river before I got to her. Finally, when I edged up on her, I dropped the shield and stepped forward. A huge rush of water filled the empty area from all sides. The change in current ripped Kasidy off the rock, and her head hit a few rocks as she came tumbling at me.

I powered up the dome again and braced to catch her. The water threw her at me. I could tell that she was pretty beat up with how her body flopped around. When she hit me, I grabbed on and dug my back foot into the rocky riverbed. We slid back a few feet from the impact, but I held to her and the standard.

I smiled. “Gotcha!”

I planted the standard in the rocks and then used both hands to shift Kasidy’s limp body into a firefighter’s carry. Then I snagged up my standard and started to stagger to the other bank. If I was going to have to cross the river, I might as well do it here and then take care of her there.

As I was crossing the river, Blink sent to me. “Heres!”

I looked around and saw upstream about thirty feet; Blink was standing, swinging her tail back and forth. The place looked as good as any and was likely the best spot that I could reach.

I called out to her. “I see you!”

Then I started to push up the river. Walking in water was always a tricky thing. It was made even harder that the dome needed to push against a wide area. I shrunk it in as much as I could, but it was still more of a sail than much else. Without the standard, the speed of the river would have long since swept me away. Instead, I stumbled my way toward the shore, trying to speed up as I saw the mana counter on my standard falling fast.

I hollered. “Blink I need help! I’m not going to make it before the shield drops!”

Blink nodded and jumped into the water. She swam down and behind me like a gator. Right about the time, she turned to go upstream, my standard dropped, and I started to stagger back. Blink placed her snout on my back and started to push us forward. It was another couple of minutes of fighting the cold water before the three of us got out.

I had picked up a slowed debuff with light blue, which meant cold. Then I also picked up the debuff of shivering. I knew that I needed to heat up fast, and that meant that Kasidy, who was out cold, had to heat up even faster. So I fired off a heal minor wounds onto her and saw the small cut on her head close up.

I was having problems thinking as I dragged Kasidy up and away from the river. Blink had her shoulder in her mouth as she was helping me. As we got up into the tree line, I looked around a bit.

Blink sent to me a picture of the tree house. Which jarred me out of my not thinking. I dropped my pack and fished out one of my thicket stakes. Then I stumbled over to a large tree and slammed the stake in. I wasn’t thinking well, but I managed to get it to start. Then I went back to Kasidy and cast another minor heal. My weighted skirt wasn’t doing anything for me. I knew that it had fired off once in the fight, but I should have some minor healing.

I downed one of my health potions and saw nothing change on my debuffs or health. It was still slowly going down. As the thicket was growing, a slight wind picked up as well. Being in a mountain river in the fall wasn’t a good idea.

I went to grab Kasidy again and tripped. I started to push myself back up but then felt like it would be a good idea just to lay there. I needed to wait for the stairs to form, and I was tired. My eyes closed a little, and then I felt something hard hit my face.

Blink forced into my head a yell. “Wakes!”

I shook my head and got to my knees. She was correct; I needed to get up. I looked around and saw that the steps leading up to the tree house had formed. I struggled but got Kasidy back onto my shoulders. She was still breathing but was cold. She wasn’t shivering anymore, which wasn’t a good sign.

I hulled myself stumbling up to the tree house steps. Then I looked at the death stairs going up and around the central pillar. When I envisioned the stairs, I hadn’t given them a railing and now, looking at the spiral staircase, I couldn’t help but worry. As we started up, I was almost crawling to get up the stairs. I was weakened from the cold debuff, and my dexterity seemed to be suffering as well.

I kept slipping on the steps with a hand and slamming my face into the next step. By the time we got to the trap door, my nose was bleeding, and my left eye was swollen shut. Blink was down below, and I heard her fighting something, but I couldn’t see that far.

I dragged us over to the magical fire and rolled Kasidy off my back. She was cold and soaked but breathing if just. I shucked my pack and pulled off my sleeping fur. Because of the core in the pack, the fur was still dry, so I laid it down next to the fire. Then I pulled out my knife and carefully cut off all of Kasidy’s clothing. I yanked out a towel and dried her off the best I could. I was shaking and shivering but knew that she was far worse. Then I rolled her in the fur next to the fire.

I was worried that taking my armor off might break it all. My health was going lower because of the cold in me, and I couldn’t seem to heal it up. The problem was my base health was too low to deal with this. So if I took the armor off and it dropped my health too low, the armor would break, so I wouldn’t die.

I stripped off all my moccasins and sabatons. Then I pulled my grieves and vambraces off. I was shivering and felt like my head was just cold. I yanked my coif up and over my head, and the world got warmer. I was down to my clothing and gear that didn’t give me health, so I moved right next to the fire.

I started to doze off when a bloodied Blink came through the open trap door. She was limping hard but had in her mouth Kasidy’s pack. She dropped it and went back out. I tried to keep my eyes open but missed her coming back, only to wake up to her dropping the door closed.

I fell over and slept.

* * *