Tara left us in the breeze, but what a breeze it was. I exited my tent to find a glorious sunrise, delighted with the morning chill and the dew of many colors. Sun-kissed, I stared up at huge clouds speeding overhead and promising rain, and rexed. For the moment I watched the leaves on the trees glitter back to front, back to front again. Fshing intermittently in the cool wind. The air smelled fresh, clear, with a hint of sweetness. I drank it in. The game store, the hospital where my mother sat, my untidy house and Sarah’s pce couldn’t compare to this. Nothing could compare to this.

  I would address the Isabelle in the room today, discover just where the hell we were and how far we would need to travel to get back to Glumpdumpkin, how long that would take, and whether Tara would even be able to find us on her return.

  We broke camp and traveled in the direction Regina had scouted and discussed with Tara. It wasn’t an easy climb, and more than once I had to stop and massage the pain out of my legs, but the forest opened out into a broad grassy slope that gave way to sheer cliffs.

  I caught Isabelle’s eye, but she couldn’t maintain eye contact, and quickly looked away. Cinzy’s behavior was rgely unchanged, however: she approached after we’d struck camp and gotten everything tied back onto Muppin or on our backs, made small talk, and kept touching me. It wasn’t long before Fairy Poppins appeared to py chaperone, sitting on her shoulder nearest me and reminding Cinzy of what she was doing again and again.

  Isabelle and Ivy remained close throughout the morning, up until it became clear that we weren’t going to be heading to Glumpdumpkin after all.

  When we crested the ridge and it leveled out, a huge vista appeared before us. The world was mostly green, but not the vast majority. Trees apparently decided what color they wanted to be, and then just were that. The grasses, too, slowly rippled out with different colors as the wind swept over them. And, not far off, sat a clump of buildings on stilts above a river delta. Copses of trees gave way to scattered singur trees, then to pin old grassnds, then a marsh, which stretched on for ages. This is where the buildings stood, on a series of rge ptforms connected by those V-shaped rope bridges I’d seen at outdoor obstacle courses, or sturdier rope and log bridges. The central buildings connected to outer buildings by the thickest and nicest types of bridge yet.

  As for the buildings, they were rgely wood and bamboo-like constructions, with walls that could fold upward into overhanging roofs, or be folded aside like accordions.

  “Would you look at that,” Cinzy breathed.

  “It’s gorgeous,” Trent said. Ivy and Isabelle both nodded, and even Drat was there with an awed look. For once, I noted a creature like a centipede and a weasel wrapped over his whole body, from hip to shoulder. It was furry, a good four feet long, and gripped onto Drat by over a dozen cwed little legs.

  Regina expined. “I found it before breakfast. I haven’t been down there, but I’ll go on ahead and scout below—”

  “That’s not necessary,” I said. I’d noticed Larelle, Ivy and Isabelle listening with deepening looks of dismay. They didn’t want Regina so far away, where they couldn’t get to her to protect her if need be. “We have our first destination. We’ll meet the natives, give Cinzy a chance to earn her way here, take a break for a couple of days, and if we can get the location and distance to Glumpdumpkin…” I stopped as Cinzy and several others all snickered. “…we’ll consider waiting for Tara to rejoin us, or leave word for her and press on.”

  Everyone, predictably, turned to Trent.

  “No,” I said. “Nope. We are not repeatedly exhausting our Sorcerer again just because we don’t want to go the long way.”

  “B-but… that’s his job,” Cinzy compined.

  “Are you, Cinzia the Bard, compining that someone’s not doing what he was brought on board to do?” Ivy asked, heavy on the sarcasm.

  “Well, I, I haven’t,” she spluttered. “I simply haven’t been given the chance to shine in my designated role!”

  Ivy rolled her eyes.

  “It’s not as though we’ve been under constant attack and—” The words died in Cinzy’s throat at the fierce look on Ivy’s face. The realization must have struck that Ivy had helped out a goodly amount. “Fair enough. You’ve worked hard with many camp duties.”

  “That’s correct,” Ivy said imperiously. “Now hang onto your lute. We’ll figure out the best way down the cliffs and to that vilge. We’ll let you know if it involves any singing.”

  “Anyway,” I said, forestalling the spat before it could turn into anything worse. Was Ivy being salty because she was upset with her girlfriend? Did she know about us? I decided probably not. Ivy was the type of person who would address the problem head on, and challenge me to a fight, before cutting my manhood off when she inevitably won.

  On the other hand, I was the leader of this expedition, charged by our employers, and she knew that kind of conduct would get her fired faster than you could say Saxwhacket. So the possibility of Isabelle confessing her indiscretion was still theoretically on the table. Ugh.

  “If only Tara hadn’t been forced to head back to the castle to report and resupply,” Isabelle said. She, like most of the others, didn’t know about the medicine getting crushed by Trent’s little lunch levitation stunt.

  “And we’ll definitely end up needing Trent to do his job again,” I said, trying my best to kill the brewing fight and the vague possibility that Ivy was going to snap me like a twig. “At which point he will. But I doubt we’d make it down more than twenty or thirty feet at a time in between waiting for him to get his mana back.”

  “Actually,” Trent said. “I think there’s a tunnel system below us.”

  Trent knew this, of course, because he had himself a tunneling Nakamamon who traveled through dirt and sand as easily as we walked on nd, and who traveled through rock like we could swim. Garnet was only a sentient reddish crystal the size of a volleyball or so, but he was somehow quite useful. I squashed my pang of jealousy and nodded to him.

  “Are we close? Can you get us in easily enough?”

  He grinned and radiated power for a moment, before slowly sliding down into the ground. He disappeared from view in a matter of seconds, leaving behind the rich scent of minerals and wet earth.

  Everyone looked to me. It was still very odd, having people listen to me and look to me to make the decisions. I wasn’t going to get used to it quickly, but I guess my job as peacemaker between my parents and my sister had paid off. I had the patience, the observational skills, and the will to stop the bullshit before it got out of hand.

  The others went to peer into the hole Trent had just created. I followed suit, and saw Trent waving at us from down below, smiling. Then a series of handholds like a climbing wall pushed out of the circur shaft he had just created. Quite girthy, that shaft.

  I gnced to Isabelle, but she was studiously not looking at me.

  “I guess we follow him?” I said.

  “What do we do about Muppin?” Trent asked, climbing back up. “There’s no way he’ll be able to fit down here.”

  “I’ll take him,” Regina said. “Tweedle Dee doesn’t like being underground either. It’s bad for his flowers.”

  I went to ask if she was sure, but she assured me yes, there was no problem for her to get down the mountain. She could do it much, much faster than anyone else (save Tara), and she could guide the big rock beast down with her. They would meet us there.

  This wasn’t ideal. I wanted to keep my sexy Ranger close at hand, but I realized I was thinking like a needy little pansy. She had repeatedly proven that she would come back to me, and she was a capable Ranger who had two different Nakamamon by her side, so nothing bad was going to happen to her.

  “I shall accompany them,” Chrysta said, and floated after Regina, who had already taken off to the right and down the slope.

  “Perfect,” I said.

  ***

  Luckily for everyone except Larelle, the tunnels down here didn’t squeeze down to force us to crawl on our bellies. Anywhere the ceiling dipped too low, Trent would smooth it out with a bit of concentration and the wave of his hand. Larelle didn’t appear to be safe from this kindness, and I figured she had to bend low the whole time.

  Not so. Larelle simply shrank down by a good foot, until she was slightly shorter than Drat and I. All of us stopped and stared at her in the dim light, but she acted as though nothing was weird or different. She generally enjoyed just being 8 feet tall, I guess.

  The tunnels weren’t absolutely, hauntingly dark either. Many of the the walls were littered with glowing slime molds, and some of that glow glinted off veins of crystals. Soon though, An had us covered with a spell that created light at the end of his staff.

  I was getting used to feeling Trent expend mana out into the air, where it would attach itself to the stone and alter its shape. It was much like the alterations that were slowly happening to all of us, except Larelle and Chrysta since they were natives. When Trent did it, it was done with intent. The mana helped convince the stone to be a different shape, essentially. Just as my mana helped convince the herbs and pnts and oils to become a vehicle for healing.

  Throughout the next couple of hours, Isabelle remained pstered to Ivy’s side. It was clear to me she was either regretting her decision st night, and was probably afraid I would out her. Little did she know I was way more about group cohesion than that, and had zero inclination to ruin what she had going on with Ivy.

  Now that I was paying attention (and didn’t have to duck out of the way of stactites) I noted Ivy and Isabelle periodically holding hands. It was never for long, usually just a hand squeeze. Ivy, though, was much more touchy feely. The tattooed girl with the brush cut always seemed to be touching Isabelle: brushing her shoulder, grabbing her elbow, and several times that I saw, punching her butt.

  ***

  The cavern was too much for us to handle in one quick push. Trent repeatedly tried to find a quick way out closer to the surface of the marsh, but wasn’t having any luck. Eventually we stopped for lunch, and I enacted my pn.

  I first took Cinzy aside, and reiterated that we would be working closely in whatever vilge to figure everything out. She nodded along, confused but cheerful. Fairy Poppins eventually zipped out of Cinzy’s bag and started buzzing around between us.

  “That’s weird, right?” I asked.

  “So weird,” she said. “I’m going to have to try and talk with her.”

  Afterwards, I had a brief and slightly off-putting conversation with Larelle about her role as Guard leader. She assured me that all was well. She enjoyed the work, and although she was slightly uncomfortable giving humans orders, she was getting used to it. After all, we seemed more like Nakamamon every day. In appearance at least. We were still very different culturally. I thanked her and sent her back to the lunch spot.

  Next, I had a quick chat with Trent about the awesome job he was doing, and how I was gd he took the job of Sorcerer seriously. He was relieved to have started gaining back the trust of the others, though Ivy was still on his ass all the time for hurting Isabelle. I told him I’d take it easy on the work I asked him to do.

  “Those two are definitely a couple,” he said in a conspiratorial tone.

  “Those two might have enhanced hearing abilities,” I reminded him, and he bnched.

  Afterwards, it was time to get the final portion of my pn underway. I returned to the main area where everyone was rexing, eating, and chatting, and called Isabelle over. She looked mortified for a second, before schooling her expression and following me to the secluded cavern room I’d selected.

  “I’m really sorry!” she blurted.

  “Why? I had a great time, and I thought you did too. But I have a raft of questions to get through, and not a lot of time.”

  Several moments of mystified staring commenced, during which I totally undermined her expectations. Her eyes flicked back and forth at different possibilities that hadn’t happened, questions she was preparing to answer, and questions she had for me she might or might not be able to ask.

  “I’m guessing you thought I wouldn’t know it was you,” I said.

  She pursed her lips pensively and nodded, still not looking at me.

  “And you didn’t know that I have sex powers.”

  She gave a rueful ugh, a single bark: Ha! “Definitely not.”

  “So as soon as you got my Herb Lore power, you knew that something was up. You probably figured that I also got something out of the exchange of bodily fluids. You were right. The UI told me it was you.”

  She nodded absently, studying the floor.

  “I’m not going to betray your secret,” I said.

  But the silence wasn’t done being incredibly awkward. Isabelle finally looked up, after a good few moments. “But?” she asked.

  “But what?”

  “This is the part where you bckmail me, right?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “You say ‘I’m not going to betray your secret, but I want something in return’ and I gasp…” Here she gasped, eyes wide. “…and I ask you what you want, and you say ‘You know what I want’ and take my hand, and put it on your, your thing.”

  I squinted at her in confusion. “I’m… not going to do that.” It seemed, from her weird fantasy, that she maybe wanted to be bckmailed? That was pretty odd. “We don’t have to call it a thing, either. It’s… actually let’s not talk about my penis at all.”

  She ughed, more comfortably this time. This was a good sign and I was pleased at the softening up. She’d started off so tense.

  “I just need to know what happened st night… more the why than the what. I was there for the what.”

  “It was some pretty intense what,” she said, rolling her eyes.

  “Sorry,” I told her. “I thought you were someone else.”

  Her eyes widened. “You’ve been doing… one of the others? Is it Cinzy? Never mind, don’t tell me, I don’t want to know.”

  The smile came easier now. “Good. Because not only am I not going to tell you if I’ve been fooling around with anyone else, I’m also not going to tell you who it was or wasn’t. We’re focused on you. So, the why. Why’d you… st night?”

  “There’s a lot,” she said. “You don’t… Ivy and I, she keeps saying she’s not gay. She had a boyfriend, and she likes, um, penis.”

  “Okayyyyy,” I said, grinning.

  “And anyway, there’s… it drives me nuts that she keeps talking about it. I never had a guy. I mean I did and he was an absolute piece of… deep cleansing breath Isabelle. I swore off guys. Until st night.”

  I nodded, and gave her time to keep moving on. In the meantime I studied the cotton candy coloration of her skin: the soft powder blue with tiny swirling lines of silvery white next to patches of pink shot through with the same lines. She already looked a lot like a Nakamamon. She would be a fairy aspect. Her hair had gone hot pink as well in the st twenty-four hours.

  “So over the past, you know, month or two, we’ve been, uh… when we get intimate she’s been compining about, uh… penis.”

  I probably shouldn’t have chuckled, but couldn’t help myself. “All right.”

  “So I went to your tent because you’re… because there are only four guys and you seemed the best.”

  “I appreciate the ringing endorsement. I’m happy to be the least worst option.”

  She smiled an embarrassed smile and scratched the back of her neck sheepishly. “I guess, there’s… she and I have to do some talking.”

  “Let me guess: you like each other, but she keeps compining about what you don’t have. Anatomically speaking.”

  Another nod.

  “Well, I would offer myself up to py with in times when you two are feeling like you need a very realistic toy and scissoring just isn’t cutting it, but—”

  “Seriously?” she blurted, loudly.

  “Look,” I told her. “There are toys. You guys have used toys, right?”

  Her smile turned dark. “Vibes don’t work here.”

  “Oh right.” Magic killed electronics.

  “And I wasn’t thinking I was going to need a strap on when I got here,” she said. “I didn’t pack anything. Also pstic doesn’t survive well”

  “Ah.”

  She went bright red at the mention of the strap on, but plowed on. “You can’t just get sex toys in through the portal easily, Fletcher. And there is absolutely no way I’m going to go around asking people if they know where to get one, or approach someone to craft one. No way. I kept thinking we should ask Regina to get some when she goes through, but we never did, and then she joined your team, and…” She shrugged. No more Regina being guide, no more possibility of smuggling in whatever sex toys they wanted to use.

  “I really like her, and she really likes me,” Isabelle said. “She’s really romantic. She paints and draws and stuff. She painted me naked. Oh my God I shouldn’t have told you that. Why am I always doing that?”

  I chuckled. “A little oversharing is fine. I’ll keep your secret.”

  “But she, I think she needs something more in the bedroom, and I can’t give it to her. Meanwhile she’s been really good to me, she does this thing with her tongue… oh my God I have to stop talking.”

  Again the easy ughter came again. I wasn’t making fun of her and she knew that, thankfully. “Well, we can figure something out,” I said.

  Isabelle sat bolt upright and almost clocked head on the low cavern ceiling. “It’s not important. We have our jobs to do. I’m a Guard, you’re a Healer.”

  “Retionship health and mental health are absolutely important,” I said. “Maybe a little less important than bodily safety, but that’s neither here nor there. Either we figure out a crafting situation in town, or…” I trailed off, not sure if I wanted to offer up my services again. It wasn’t like I would just be used as a dildo by two girls. I’d be me, naked, in the room with one professed lesbian and her bisexual girlfriend. And while that was every man’s dream (one I’d amazingly lived out already) I didn’t know how Ivy would handle the situation.

  “Either we figure out a crafting situation,” she repeated, “or… what?”

  “Or, um, I can offer up my, um, services. If that’s something you two want.”

  She stared at me, and after a time a big smile spread across her face.

  This is Christopher possibly getting a two for one deal?