The next morning started as they always did for me. Getting up before Kasidy and working out. After that, I wandered over to the slope and looked down. I needed to figure out both how to go down and up this dumb thing.

Worse than the slope was what lay beyond. There was a plain that went on as far as I could see. Which meant that I wasn’t going to be in thickets for a while because they needed trees.

I sighed and headed in. The only option that I was seeing here was to go back to building the underground rooms as we moved. The problem was that the days kept getting shorter. It took about two hours to build a shelter, so my travel time was cut down even more.

It also meant that I needed to turn this thicket into a dungeon. I had taken all my construction gear back to the waterfall once I was done with the elevator. However, now I would be taking it with me. Which kind of adjusted the way we would travel.

When I returned to the tree house, I turned it into a dungeon. Then I traveled back to the waterfall to change out gear. I shook my head when I thought about the elevator that I had built. It was cool and all, but once again, I over-focused on what was there. I should have just built a ramp. The amount of time I spent on that dumb thing was just crazy.

I gathered my gear and went back to The Tail. I would need to get Kasidy awake and into the safe room for breakfast. Then I would buy lots of rope and build a ladder for the slope down. It would make it safer, maybe not much but some.

As soon as I was back, I went to the hammock. “Kasidy! Let’s grab some food and then get going. We have to move fast today.”

She groaned and tried to roll back over. So I snatched the blanket off. That didn’t even get the response I wanted, as she just curled herself into a small ball.

I sighed and shook her shoulder. “Kasidy! Move it!”

Kasidy sat up and looked at me with one eye open. “I’m up. You didn’t have to take my blanket.”

I laughed and went to get Blink up. Soon we were in the safe room getting breakfast and rope. I had us knot the rope every few feet, and I called it good. I didn’t want to make it too easy to get to the waterfall. After all, this was the “Path for the Faithful,” so they should work for it.

As I picked up the ropes, I said. “So once we are down, it looked like we are going to be on some plains. Which means we won’t have the thickets for a while. We will be getting up earlier as we will have to build our camps again. Blink, I’m not sure how you will do out there since it looks like everything is tall grass.”

Blink gave me a toothy grin and sent across the bond. “New hunts!”

I laughed and headed out. The rope wasn’t light; I was dealing with close to a hundred pounds for each of the two. So as soon as I had the trap door open, I just dropped them down the steps. No sense in trying my luck and falling.

Then we went to the edge and tied the ropes to the close by trees. Some day there would be a dungeon entrance at the bottom of this slope, but that wasn’t going to be anytime soon.

I smiled over at Kasidy. “Ready to go down this?”

Kasidy looked over the edge holding the rope. “No but I don’t have much of a choice.”

I laughed as Blink started down. She was able to lower her center of gravity enough that she just kind of zig-zagged down. She wasn’t going super fast, but she would beat us unless we tumbled.

I picked up the rope and turned around so that I could go down backward. “Well let’s go.”

The next ten minutes were hard. I wanted to go fast as the rocks slipped under my feet. Yet, I held myself back and slowly backed down. Kasidy fell a couple of times but was holding the rope, so she didn’t go all the way down. I slipped once while changing grips and went for a slide that was about ten feet.

Then we were down and at the edge of a large plain. I looked over at Kasidy as she was brushing off her dress. I tossed a minor heal on both of us to take care of the little scrapes.

I looked around a bit. “So… Kasidy. You have been on this side of The Tail. Any idea where we go from here to find the road?”

Kasidy nodded. “We follow the coast for a while and we should find the road there. I wasn’t in this part but if I remember right there should be a town just down the coast a bit.”

I nodded and started to walk toward the waist-high grass. “Anything in this place we should worry about?”

Kasidy was silent for just a moment before she answered. “Just the normal plains based monsters. Though we might get some of those forest wyverns for the next day but I doubt it.”

I thought that it was odd that the bard would say something so dismissive as we might get some wyverns for the next day, but I doubt it. Nope, I knew better and even hated when I thought something would be easy. I knew that you didn’t say that type of stuff, but she said it. Which I hope meant she had a reason.

I rolled my eyes. “Kasidy I thought that you weren’t supposed to say things like that. You know testing luck and everything?”

Kasidy laughed. It was strange because I had heard all sorts of laughs out of her before, but this was one of those musical laughs. The type that everyone likes to hear, even if you don’t know why they are laughing.

Then she said. “The songs say not to that’s true. However, they also say that the hero makes their own luck. So since you are the hero we don’t need to worry about that type of things.”

To this, I gave a short laugh. “If I am the hero, that idea might work for me, but how does it help you?”

She stopped walking for a few moments as I kept pushing through the waist-high grass. Unlike her, I fully expected to be attacked before we made it very far. It seemed unlikely to me that we would be able to find the road without something coming after us.

I couldn’t tell where Blink was moving. I knew she was out on my right, but I didn’t know how far away since I couldn’t see her. I also couldn’t see the grass parting around her. I knew that it had to be since it was for Kasidy and for me.

Just as I was trying to figure out how Blink was moving, Kasidy screamed. I looked over my shoulder and saw that she was missing. I spun around and ran toward where she was. As I got close, she was trying to stand back up, moaning.

She grimaced and said. “I found a hole. I think my leg is broken.”

I shook my head and cast the minor heal spell. I saw it wash over her a bit. My second cast dropped my mana to almost nothing. I had healed both of us too recently for this. Yet, it was that or a health potion, and I wasn’t going to use one of those yet.

I reached my hand out to help her up. “Come on let’s see if you can put weight on it.”

She reached up and took my hand and then slowly transferred weight. “I have a limp debuff for the next thirty minutes.”

I nodded. “Well lets be off and watch your step.”

We headed off again. This time I stayed closer to Kasidy. The standard would help heal her if she was close enough, which is why I was guessing the limp debuff was only 30 minutes.

I thought out to Blink. “Find anything yet?”

Blink sent back her view to me. Lots of little mammals running in and out of little holes. They looked to me to be about the size and shape of a groundhog. However, they suffered or had the same types of advances that much of the rest of the animal kingdom did. Some were armored, others had horns, and the one that Blink was killing shot lightning.

I laughed when I felt her get hit. She wasn’t angry at the little monster for fighting her, nope. She was mad at herself for sharing her vision with me. It was too much effort, and so she moved too slowly as she was going in for the kill. After that, she cut everything off, and I figured she would let me know how the hunt went.

About an hour later, we came across the road. We didn’t even see it coming. We were just walking through the plains, and then the grasses ended. As we stepped out of the grasses, we saw the road cutting through the plains. It was the same color as grass, a light dry brown.

I checked my interface. Lannah was northwest of where we were. Across the plains, I saw mountains. It was likely about another two days’ walk to reach them. The road, however, ran north by northeast and west.

I pointed northeast. “We are heading that way. I figure we have about another two hours before we need to set up camp.”

* * *