EXTERIOR, PRESENT, AND TIME – Still basically the same, except they’re FINALLY approaching that darn cave.

  Now that they were closer, the boy could see the pale glowing mps pced upon the hardened mud beams that supported the cave as it went deeper underground. The cave resembled a mineshaft of some kind, although the boy couldn’t be sure whether or not it was of human make.

  “STOP!” The girl decred, though she was the one leading, just before they stepped inside. “I didn’t get to mention this earlier! SO! This cave’s got a thing! Bandits from the camp on the other side of this hill like to hang around in the first sections of this cave!”

  “why is that?” The boy did his characteristic head-tilt, which he hasn’t done since st episode.

  “No idea! Some dungeons are just like that. It’s kind of annoying, ‘cus a lot of adventurers avoid Bandits like some kinda pgue. And what’s up with that?! Fighting crap like that is supposed to be their job! That’s like a cat being grossed-out by mice!” Her brow furled, and she angrilly tapped her foot against the grass. “Lazy good for nothings!”

  “why do they do that? in regards to both their objective and their avoidance of bandits.” Always good to cover all the bases.

  “Iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit doesn’t matter. Anyways! Here’s what’s gonna-”

  She paused. She squinted. A mischievous grin emerged on her face.

  “Hehehe…”

  The boy wondered what she was ughing about. He also wondered if she actually ughed, or if he was just hearing things. It was rather quiet.

  ”ACTUALLY, RESUME WALKING!” The girl marched forth, with the boy in tow.

  The girl swiftly made it into the cave, with the boy trailing close behind.

  The head of the cave was reasonably well-lit, partly from the mid-day sun, and partly from the mps. Deeper within, though, the mps became duller and fewer in number, ‘till there was naught but darkness.

  The girl squinted into said darkness for a bit.

  “Sometimes there’s a giant spider or somethin’ there… Not this time, though. Cool.” She nodded.

  The pair stopped before they could get all too deep into the cavern. To their right sat a rickety wooden door, clinging as tightly as it could to its rusted metal hinges, which were not particurly passionate about sticking to the dirt they were situated in.

  Wordlessly, the girl reached both arms out and expelled both copious amounts of mud from her hands, and a yawn. From her mouth.

  “what does this serve?” The boy did another head tilt. Nice.

  “Blockin'.” She states.

  “why?”

  “’Cus.”

  “eborate.”

  “Not gonna.”

  “please.”

  She shook her head.

  The boy frowns.

  These interactions will be mildly more entertaining when the boy learns about ‘pretty please.’

  . . .

  “Ooookay! Turning around!” She turned and headed back to the mouth of the cave, now that the door had been fully blocked a copiou amount of earth.

  “wh-“

  “C’mon, Bug! Quickly now!”

  “ok-“

  The pair had made their way to the top of the hill. There was a brief scene where the girl used earth magic (as seen in the prologue) to dig a very deep hole in the ground, but the narrat- Who cares!? Next scene!

  The boy had been told to face the other way while the girl dug the hole. Fortunately, the boy was allowed to make an executive decision to face the side of the hill where the Bandit camp was. But only if he agreed not to move or make eye contact with any of them. Reasonable, he assumed.

  The camp consisted rgely of a reasonably tall cy walled outcropping, built against the base of the hill. Though the camp was small, it was full of cssic Bandit amenities: Racks for tanning hide, racks for hanging meat, a kiln, a firepit, a small forge, and all kinds of tents made out of pnts and animal hide. A lot of miscelneous sitting spaces, too.

  The camp was poputed by no more than a dozen stumbling humans. All of them wearing little more than messy animal hides, and all of them stained with blood and other fluids the boy hadn’t yet identified. They were all strikingly simir to the man in the cage from the restaurant.

  Despite their stumbling, the boy observed a definite purposefulness to their actions. A majority of them simply moved between sitting areas, occasionally sitting down and absent-mindedly eating pieces of food mysteriously produced from non-existent pockets.

  Others, though, a select few, had more complex patterns. Working the hides on the rack, admiring the meat, hitting metal in the forge and keeping the fire in the kiln and the campfire lit, everything was accounted for.

  Curiously, despite the fact the bandits were doing things, it wasn’t apparent that anything was actually happening. Throughout the boy’s entire observation, the state of the camp never changed. The stack of wood and dry pnts to fuel the fires never shrank, the shape of the metal on the forge never changed, and the hide on the racks remained exactly as it was. Even the food they were eating never got any smaller.

  This hurt the boy’s head. He knows that all information is supposed to be equally good, but this was... He wasn't fond of it. He SAW the food going into their mouths, getting chewed and slipping down their throats! So why didn’t it change? How many times can they eat that same piece of old bread?? And the kindling, how could they burn witho-

  “Aaaaaaannnnnnnnnnnn” the boy was thankful for a sudden distraction from the girl, he was on the verge of getting upset. “nnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn…”

  Her voice trailed off. A premature extend-and.

  . . .

  “nnnnNOW I’m done!” She did not stick the ‘and’ nding as she shot up to her feet. She sat down at some point amidst her magic-digging. “BUG! Come over here and look down my hole!”

  Neither of them thought there was anything strange about such phrasing. She had dug the hole, and thereby cimed ownership of the hole. They were not weird about it.

  “okay.” The boy stood up, and walked towards her h- the hole she had dug.

  “Don’t just look at the sides, look at the whole thing! Get closer, put your face in there!” She passionately shouted, hopefully making the narrato- STOP PUTTING ME IN THE SC-

  “okay.” The boy did as the girl had asked, and stepped up to the edge of the PIT, and leaned over. The pit appeared to connect to-

  The girl swiftly smmed her foot against the boy’s hindquarters, and he quickly stumbled forward, falling straight down.

  “ow.” The boy mused as the girl ughed uproariously above him.