?elare grips a notch in the wall with such intensity that his knuckles whiten. He reaches his other arm up, and it is grabbed. After he is hoisted up onto the ledge above, he promptly stumbles and collapses forward, panting heavily. A hand is placed on his back, and he hears Hunter’s voice.

  “Good job. That wasn't easy, but you conquered the challenge.”

  Vis peers over the edge and shouts, “Astraea, get up here!” Down below, she begins climbing far faster than ?elare. After fifteen minutes, she arrives at the top, Vis helping her up. She dusts herself off and regards everyone before looking toward the mountain.

  “I appreciate the assistance. It is good that none of us fell, as such an injury would have been devastating and consequently exhausting to heal.”

  The ground is almost level beneath their feet, and a small forest begins fifty metres from them, blocking any view of the next region. They press onward, entering the trees as the sky darkens.

  “I think we may want to stop here and set up camp for the night. Do you agree?” Hunter asks after half an hour of navigating the thick trees. The whole group nods, so he continues, “?elare, if you could distribute our supplies.”

  The blond removes a transparent marble from his pouch and smashes it against a nearby tree root, causing four bedrolls and a sack to spontaneously appear on the ground. Vis opens the sack and grunts, causing Astraea to look as well.

  “He gave us… jerky. A fortune must've been spent on that orb thing, and he gave us jerky. Jerky!” Vis shouts, throwing his hands in the air. Astraea glares at him and puts her finger to her mouth, then gestures to ?elare, who appears to be meditating.

  “Sorry, sorry,” he whispers. After a minute of silence, ?elare announces, “I can't hear any other creature for us to worry about. We should be safe to sleep here.”

  Hunter shakes his head.

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  “We need to keep watch so that nothing catches us off guard. It’s never worth the risk,” he states. Addressing everyone else, he continues, “What order should we do this in?”

  They have a brief discussion, deciding that Astraea will take the first half of the night, Hunter will take the third quarter and Vis the remainder. Hunter causes cuboidal stones to form on the ground to create a fire pit while Vis takes an axe from his bracers’ storage and cuts up firewood from surrounding trees. ?elare places the material in the ring of stones and conjures a miniature, concentrated beam of light.

  A fire erupts at the point of contact, and each person, excluding Astraea, lays out their bedroll around it. She sits against a tree relatively close to the camp and spends the next hours carefully observing her surroundings, occasionally adding more fuel to the campfire.

  Hunter sits up. Standing over him, and shaking him awake, is Astraea. He nods to her, and she walks to her makeshift bed, barely making any sound as she rests. Hunter takes the bow and quiver he placed next to him as he slept, then assumes a position around the fire that best allows him to see, in the dim moonlight, the forest beyond their camp. The trees are not dense enough to obscure the entirety of his vision.

  Two hours pass without event until Hunter notices something on the bough of a tree. Barely visible in the darkness is the figure of some sort of beast, its orange eyes reflecting just enough light to give away its position.

  The creature seems to notice the attention being placed on it, and it promptly scurries away into the forest. Hunter holds his bow with an arrow ready for the rest of his watch, but nothing comes of it. He does not mention it to Vis whom he awakens, and he returns to sleep.

  Dawn arrives with no further incident.

  “Time to get up! Let's get moving,” Vis shouts, causing everyone else to be startled awake. Hunter and Astraea immediately are cognisant, but ?elare takes a minute to properly regain his bearings. Once everyone is ready to move, Hunter looks at their camp, then at Vis.

  “I don't suppose Novus gave you anything to deal with the stuff after we use it?”

  The tall man lets out a pondering hum.

  “No. He gave us a couple more of those orbs, but nothing to clean up with.”

  Hunter sighs and shakes his head, and ?elare speaks up.

  “If we leave it here, can't we make use of it on the way back down? Assuming it doesn't get taken or anything, I will most likely be able to locate it.”

  Hunter raises his eyebrows and responds after a moment.

  “That could work. Let me secure everything at least slightly to account for any wind.”

  He kneels down to the items from the spatial orb, forming boulders from the ground which he places one of on each bedroll. He stands back up and speaks once more. “Let's keep going now.”