“Get in the bag,” she hissed. Stifling a groan, she pushed herself to her feet. As soon as Nips was inside the messenger bag, she slung it over her shoulder and snatched up the flashlight. With her right hand, she grabbed a jagged rock about the size of a softball. Her shoulder ached. The wound there reopened, and a trickle of blood ran down her back. She clenched her jaw and ignored it as she trained the beam of light toward the source of the sound.
The light reflected back from half a dozen sets of glowing green orbs. Six dog-sized Attercops paused in their scuttling approach and stared at them, venom dripping from gleaming fangs.
Lanie turned and ran.
The beam of light bounced crazily as she moved, creating shadows that grew and shrank and seemed to dance around the cave. Her Shadow Sight let her see monochrome shapes, even when the light was pointing elsewhere. Her speed was more than she expected, and in her mad dash, she nearly outran what her mind could process. Faster than thought, she was dodging boulders, ducking overhangs, and putting as much distance between herself and that torturous venom as she could.
She had no idea if she was heading out or deeper into the cave system. She just knew she couldn’t survive another round of that pain. Her panic was so great that she didn’t notice that the cave wasn’t as dark as it had been. It didn’t register until she rounded a corner and burst out into bright sunlight and deep snow. She slid to a breathless stop and looked out over the edge of a sheer cliff, her heart beating hard in her chest.
The run left her gasping, the sheer drop before her nearly stopped her heart, but it was the vista that took her breath away. Far below her were the tops of tall evergreens. The forest stretched away down a slope towards a valley and a gleaming river partially obscured by patches of mist. All around the valley, massive mountain peaks reached for the sky, sharp as knives and snow-covered. The view was incredible.
Nips popped his head up from the bag, his eyes wide in terror, “Are we alive? Oh. Oh, wow.”
Lanie glanced back over her shoulder. The cave mouth was a jagged crack in the mountainside. There was no sign of the spiders. She shivered as a gust of frigid wind cut through her thin summer clothes, chilling her to the bone. The terror-fueled burst of energy that had propelled her from the cave leeched away, leaving her legs feeling like overcooked noodles. She backed away from the edge of the cliff and found a boulder to lean against.
She stared out at the vista as she tried to catch her breath. Nips ducked into the bag and came back out, tugging Lanie’s sweater behind him.
“Here, put this on. You’re shivering.”
Lanie wasn’t sure whether the shivers were from the cold, the fear, or the exhaustion, but she nodded to Nips in thanks. Realizing she was still holding the useless rock she’d picked up, she dropped it, turned off the flashlight, and accepted the sweater. The sweater had been repaired. She couldn’t even tell where the rips had been. She tugged it on over her blouse, glad for the extra layer of warmth. The snow was already seeping into her shoes, and the wind cut like a blade, even with the layers. Tired as she was, Lanie pushed away from the boulder and took a look around.
They were on a long ledge that sloped away to the left of the cave mouth. Lanie headed down the slope and found that the ledge narrowed to what seemed to be a trail. A tall cairn of stacked stones marked the head of the trail. Looking down the trail, she could see another cairn marker where the trail made a sharp turn. “Looks like someone visits this place enough to mark the path. I wonder why?”
“Probably because of the Way. That passage I opened. It’s a thin spot where it’s easy to cross from one realm to another. They pop up in odd places, but some folks have a knack for finding them. The ones that stick around usually get marked in one way or another. I doubt this one gets used very often, hard as it is to get to, and with the spiders, and all.” Nips pulled himself up using the bag’s strap to get a better look and added, “That path looks dangerous. Are you up for it?”
“Going to have to be. If we stay here, our options are either death by hypothermia or death by spider.” She let out a long breath and shrugged. “If I slip on the trail and fall off the mountain, at least I’ll get to see what flying feels like before the end.”
Nips shuddered. “Well… that’s one way to look at it, I suppose.”
“Nips?”
“Yeah?”
“Thanks for saving us from those men. But, I gotta say…”
“Yeah?”
“Your shortcuts kinda suck.”
“Oh, ha, ha. And, you’re welcome.” Nips lowered himself back into the messenger bag.
Lanie started down the trail. The path switched back and forth, but despite its frequent turns as it snaked down the mountainside, it was still very steep. She was careful to stay as close to the side of the mountain as she could, and away from the drop-off. Her legs were wobbly, and her feet were starting to go numb from the cold. The trail was partially snow-covered and partially icy, windswept stone. She shuffled her feet as she went, feeling for solid ground under the snow. Her newly boosted Dexterity showed its use when she hit a patch of ice and slid down the trail for several feet, but managed to keep her feet under her.
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She wanted to stop. Her body cried out for a chance to rest, but she knew better. Even a city girl like her knew that hypothermia could creep up fast, and it was deadly. Despite the pain and weariness, she kept on putting one foot in front of another.
Nips helped her to keep going by telling her about the places he’d been. He described London and Paris, and told her about the Colosseum in Rome and the Acropolis in Greece. He told her about watching the sun rise over Stonehenge and about nearly being run over by a bus in Barcelona. He kept her laughing and kept her mind off the pain and cold.
By the time they got to the tree line, she could no longer feel her feet, and her fingers were numb. Her ears and nose had gone past burning and into feeling like dead lumps. She was trying hard not to think about what that likely meant. Her health had dropped to less than a tenth of her total. She was in bad shape, and she knew it. The trees blocked the wind, and the needles and soil made for better footing, but they weren’t out of danger yet. She had to keep going. They had to get further down the mountain before she could stop.
Nips was worried. He hadn’t said anything, but she could hear it in his voice, though he tried to keep both his tone and subject light. About half an hour after they entered the trees, he stopped her. “Lanie, look to your left. Do you see those yellow berries?”
She nodded, too tired to speak.
“Bring me closer to them. If they are what I think, then they may help.”
She shuffled closer to the berry bush. It was a low bush with long, thin leaves and sparse clumps of yellow berries. The berries looked like they would be delicious, which she realized was an odd thought to have because she’d never seen yellow berries before. The closer she got to the bush, the more she wanted to eat them.
“Oh, praise Brigga, they are. Those are Sunspark berries. They should warm you,” Nips said. Lanie was already reaching for them. She tried not to notice how dark her fingertips were.
She realized that she could feel warm eddies around the bush. The wind that made it through the trees was still ice cold, but the air around the bush was warm. There was more to it, though. It wasn’t just a physical sensation. It seeped into her and soothed her tired body. The warmth was moving, but not with the wind. It moved in a distinct pattern. As she picked a handful of the berries, she realized that each berry carried its own pocket of warmth with it. It felt like sunshine on her skin. Just touching the berries made her numb fingers prickle with returning feeling.
They tasted like sunshine, too. They were sweet and warm and seemed to melt on her tongue. Each one sent a little shock of warmth through her. When she’d almost finished the first handful, she got a message from her interface:
You have absorbed a Natural Treasure: Sunspark Berries.
You gain +1 Vitality. You gain 1 sakti.
There were enough berries on the bush to give her a total of +3 Vitality and 3 sakti. By the time she’d eaten them all, her fingers, toes, ears, and nose felt thawed out, and her health had risen to 73/310. She gave the last three berries to Nips, who took them gratefully. He hadn’t complained, but the cold had gotten to him as well.
“Do all the foods in Fairy give stats?” she asked.
“No. Not by a long shot. But there are some, like these, that are especially magical. That drop of Nectar I gave you was from one such. But keep in mind, you have to be careful about what you eat here. Not all of it is beneficial,” Nips said. “There are rules, too. What you gather for yourself is fine, but don’t take any food offered to you unless you pay for it or have been formally offered hospitality. If you are offered hospitality, you must eat, or you’ll insult your host. It can get a bit complicated, but it all goes back to the balance I was telling you about earlier.”
“And I’m not going to pine away for Fairy fruit for the rest of my days like the girls from that Goblin Market poem, right?” Lanie raised an eyebrow at Nips and suppressed a shudder at the thought.
Nips laughed. “No. No worries on that front. I’ll warn you before you eat anything like that, but as long as you keep that mental trick I taught you to recognize glamours in mind, you’ll be fine. And Goblins are more likely to try to stab you with a pointy stick so they can take your stuff than sell you fruit.”
“OK. So, now that we’ve escaped, how do we get back to my world?”
Nips looked away. He pulled off his hat and scratched the back of his head. “Um… I’m not really sure,” he said, in a very small voice.
“You’re not sure?”
“Well, not specifically. We just need to find another Way, like the one we came through. It’s just… I’m not familiar with this part of Fairy, so I don’t know where the Ways are.” He turned his hat in his hands. “We should probably try to find a local. We can ask for directions.”
“Yeah. Let’s just hit up the next convenience store for a local map. Or maybe we can ask one of the many passersby,” Lanie said, waving her arm at the empty forest around them. Then she sighed, realizing how harsh she sounded. “Sorry. I don’t mean to snap. It’s been a long day.” She rubbed her face, pulling back her temper and trying to think. “I know less about Fairy than you. Any idea where we should start?”
Nips’ brow furrowed in thought. “All I really know about this area is a story I read, local folklore from Turkey. Supposedly, a long time ago, a defeated army was fleeing from a foe and found themselves here in Ergenekon Valley. They were trapped for four hundred years and couldn’t find a way out. Eventually, a blacksmith was able to create a passage by melting a mountain. There was also something about a wolf leading them out. Supposedly, this whole region is a maze of mountains and valleys. I didn’t really research it because I didn’t expect to cross over while I was here. Bit of an oversight on my part.”
Lanie nodded, “OK… well, if a whole army can get out, then so can we. It shouldn’t be too hard to spot a melted mountain.”
Lanie started walking again. She was still tired and injured, but after the berries, she was doing much better. She could feel her feet again. Despite the burning pins-and-needles, she was glad to feel them again. For a while, she’d been afraid she would lose them to frostbite, and had tried very, very, hard not to think about that.
They made better time through the pines. The trail had vanished, lost under layers of pine needles, and there were no more cairns to guide them. They had no specific destination in mind, so Lanie figured downhill was good enough for now. Eventually, they would come to the river she’d seen from the ledge. From there, they could start looking for people and a way back to the real world.
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