“Let’s leave the crevice and search for a place to rest.” Caroline loot at the carnage around us.

“Should we bury them?” Tilly leaned on her spear.

“It will take hours to do that properly. Probably the whole day. We may cover them with stones though there are plenty.” I looked at Milly.

“Let’s get ready to move first, in case we have to leave quickly. What about the injured?” She tilted her head and looked at me.

“Getting ready to leave is the first we do. Regarding the injured, they chose to attack us and are at least loyal to the people who caused all the mess. They may be doing this for a living, but if you choose to earn your money killing others you’ve to accept the risk being killed. I won’t kill any of them, but I won’t help them beyond bandaging them either. We can’t take them with us and we shouldn’t stay here longer than necessary four our own sake. Remember they could have simply left us alone in the first place.” I picked up my axe.

“It makes sense. We don’t even know if anyone survived anyway. The ones here in the crevice are all dead. Let’s get out of here.” Milly cleaned the blade of her sword.

After We fetched our backpacks we checked the bodies. The mails they wore were too large and heavy for us to wear. I pondered taking the long sword, but it had all that Order of the Dragonbane symbols engraved. We agreed destroying the blade and the armor as well by throwing it into a crevasse.

We took the dead body with us out of the crevice and buried them in the scree ramp, which wasn’t that difficult.

Then we collected all arrows we could find. Loraline had shot plenty of arrows, so we collected all arrows we could find to refioll herr quivers. We also collected the arrowheads of the broken arrows, so she could make new ones later. They had few supplies for their number, but for us it was enough to fill our backpacks again. We decided to recover the climbing spikes as well.

All men we found were dead. We covered their bodies with loose rocks in the vicinity. The ones on the large boulder were buried together at the base of the boulder.

The suns were up in the sky as we left the site of carnage. We didn’t talk much this morning. We’d have to talk sooner or later. A lot. Loraline was visibly shaken.

Then We followed the creek originating from the glacier for about an hour until we found a decent place to rest. We got some sleep as well.

We made camp on a hillock beside the creek. The water was freezing cold, as expected.

It was after noon as we continued our way down the valley.

After dinner, the suns were already behind the mountains, we sat together in silence.

“This was the first time I ... killed ... someone.” Loraline started to weep.

“We might have simply run instead of fighting.” Milly looked at me curiously.

“We would have had only a few hours of head start, while the terrain is quite open in the valley ahead, save from the volcanic area. While I would like to have a look, it would be dangerous to cross the area in a hurry without knowing what to expect. They were quite rested and we were not. Since they’re able able to find us by magic, a fight with them would be barely avoidable in the end. We had decent advantages from the terrain and they way they set up camp. They had split themselves up to trap us, but with probably half of them stuck on the mountain this was a chance of getting rid of the rest. All these people dying weights down on me as well. I try to avoid killing people. They attacked first and came for us a long way. I don’t think they will simply give up after a while.” I sighed while I propped my elbows on my knees.

“Rationally I am on your side. It just feels wrong.” Loraline gulped and looked at me with teary eyes.

“Killing someone else is always wrong. I believe in my right to defend myself though. And I not obliged to wait for the first blow to hit.” I rubbed my chin looking at the creek flowing by.

“Lilly could have died yesterday. And the knight was very open about killing us all. Well, some of his men died at that point.” Tilly looked at Loraline.

“This will bothering us all quite a while. At least we have chance now to get them off our tail for a few days.” Milly skidded next to Loraline and laid an arm around her shoulder.

“The shot first.” Caroline pressed her lips together.

“When the others have the same amount of supplies as these people they have to go back down again to buy something or are dependent on hunting and gathering which will slow them down considerably. I think we have some time until we see the rest of them. The magician wasn’t part of the people ambushing us. In the end they were nothing more than bandits, only they were employed by the empire.” I looked at Loraline.

“Bandits are usually hunted and executed, that’s right. It’s not something I would have dreamed of doing myself.” Loraline bit her lower lips staring into space.

“We need to do something about these slave marks. Life would would be much easier without them.” I got to my feet. I had to go relieve myself soon.

“Targeting the magician would slow them down, but is no solution.” Milly got up as well.

“We’ll be back in a moment.” we went behind a larger boulders near the creek.

The water was still freaking cold, but at least we had enough to wash properly.

“Let get ready for the night. We will need two days at the moment to reach the sole of the valley ahead. I take the first watch as usual.” I sat down on a larger boulder next to the camp.

Slowly the stars came out again.

Two days later at noon we finally exited the narrow valley leading down from the glacier. The creek vanished somewhere in the volcanic region ahead.

Our wounds healed up this morning. I was the last one starting to recover my mana. Caroline had some bruises left, but nothing serious. Loraline wasn’t hurt, at least not physically.

“We should head further south since the bloodhounds will retreat north for supplies.” I looked at a geyser erupting in the valley ahead.

“Sound good.” Milly laid an arm around my waist.

“Let’s skirt the volcanic area to the south side of the valley and leave southeast.” Tilly sat down on a rock nearby.

“There is not much to forage in this valley. It’s mostly barren.” Loraline was asserting the terrain ahead.

“We have enough supplies to go for more than a week. We will pass the City of Soltan, right? We may replenish our supplies there.” Caroline started to rummage in her backpack.

“Maybe. It too far ahead to plan though.” I looked at the small white clouds slowly drifting to the east.

“An apple anyone?” Tilly produced five apples from her Bag of Holding

Soon we all munched an apple for a while. Then we had some lunch.

After lunch we started to head west to skirt the volcanic region to the south. We kept as close as we could to the volcanic area to cut the distance we had to walk as short as we could. After a few hours we started to turn south again

The suns had already vanished behind the mountains to the west as we crossed a small creek that came from the surrounding mountains and vanished into a crevice a few meters toward the volcanic area. A smaller geyser had erupted a few times as we approached. It was about fifteen meters away from the crack.

“This creek is odd.” I stopped after stepping over it, looking at the crack where it vanished.

“Why is it odd? It’s just a creek coming down the mountain and vanishing into a crevice. That’s perfectly normal.” Milly stopped beside me pointing at the creek.

“Does that mean that normal is even?” Tilly smirked at Milly.

“You’re silly.” Milly glared at Tilly.

“No, I’m Tilly.” she stuck out her tongue at her.

Loraline and Caroline had stopped at the other side of the creek. The looked at each other rolling their eyes.

“Whatever. What about the creek, Lilly?” Milly furrowed her brows and glared at me.

“It’s violating the laws.” I crossed my arms below my chest.

“There are no laws here. We’re in the wilderness!” Caroline shook her head.

“Come to the point!” Milly gave me an angry glare.

“What law does it violate?” Tilly tilted her head, looking at me.

I went to the crack where the creek vanished into the ground and pointed downwards.

“It seems to be at odd with the second law of thermodynamics.” I knelt down beside the crack.

The water of the creek was icy as well as the air in the crevice.

Loraline and Caroline looked at each other shaking their heads.

“What does that mean?” Milly propped her hands on her hips.

“It means the creek is offending the laws of physics.” Tilly looked at the creek, puzzled.

“Its flowing in the right direction.” Milly frowned at me.

“Well. You mean downhill, but that’s not the point.” I grinned.

“Please enlighten me.” Milly rolled her eyes.

“You’re missing the full picture. Let’s ignore our suspect for now. This whole area is volcanic in nature and there a plenty of geysers spewing hot water in the air and covering the valley in mist.” I pointed at the valley.

Milly looked at the geyser erupting behind me.

As the wet ground around it was a few meters away I decided to ignore it for now.

“The creek is vanishing through a crack into a probably scorching hot ground. The ground below us should be at least really warm at some point.” I patted the ground.

“There’s no steam.” Loraline nodded at me.

“Perhaps it isn’t hot enough.” Milly objected.

“The water should humidify the warm air supposed to be below and the water will condense meeting the cold mountain air outside.” I sat down and reclined backward on my arms.

The stone below my hands was cold.

“Okay. Why should we bother tough?” Milly shook her head.

“It’s odd and thus interesting!” Tilly squatted down beside me.

“I want to confirm something else. Keep an eye on the geyser.” I got up into squat and put down my backpack.

Then started to check the stone below with my hands while slowly approaching the geyser. I was about six meters away from the geyser and the stone was still as cold as it would be without any volcanic activity in the direct vicinity.

“Careful Lilly.” Milly stepped next to Tilly.

The next time I touched the ground my hand simply went into the rock! I lost my balance and fell forward.

As my head went right through the stone there was a green surface below me. I curled myself in a ball, pulled in my arms in and managed to to get my feet below me. I felt a slight pain in my left ankle as my left foot had landed on a small moss covered rock I hadn’t noticed.

“Aahhh shit!” I spat and let myself fall down on my butt.

I was sitting in a small crevice, about two meters wide. A small creek was flowing by at the other side, flanked by grass and a few bushes. The crevice continued towards the volcanic area, but continued only a few meters in the other direction. The creek came out of a small crack at the side of the crevice. I could hear birds and there were insects crawling about on the ground. Looking up I could see the sky. There was a blur that dimmed the light a bit and there was magic at work at the top of the crevice. The top of the crevice was about three meters above me.

A few moments later I could see Milly’s approaching the rim of the crevice.

“Milly!” I cried, but she didn’t react.

She prodded with her hands, coming down a bit. Then her head came down. Her head became clearer as soon as she put her head in the actual crevice.

“Liilllyyy!” she shouted.

“I’m here, and mostly unharmed.” I waved up to her.

“Wow. I’m glad you didn’t break your neck! She’s down here!” Milly looked down with a smile.

“If you didn’t hear me before, they probably won’t hear a thing.” I smiled back.

“Oh.” She got up again.

I scrambled over to the creek and started to remove my left boot.

Then a rope came down the crevice and soon everyone was down in the crevice as well. Loraline helped me with the boot.

“Ahhhhhhhh!” I put my foot in the cold water of the stream for a moment.

“Are you able to walk?” Milly sat down beside me.

“I’m not sure, but it wasn’t that bad. Let’s stop for the night here. Tomorrow all will be fine for sure.” I laid an arm around her shoulder.

“We would have made camp in an hour anyway.” Milly laid her head on my shoulder.

“I’ll fetch our gear take down the rope, we can easily climb out of here without.” Caroline jumped up, clung to the rock above and pulled herself up and out of the crevice without an effort.

A few moments later our backpacks were down in the crevice as well.

“Let’s check briefly what’s down the crevice.” Caroline climbed down again after she threw the rope down into the crevice.

“Be careful, and don’t take too long. ” I nodded at Caroline.

We waited an hour.

“We should check for Caroline.” Milly looked down the crevice.

“Yeah. An hour is too long.” Tilly got to her feet.

“Are you able to walk again, Lilly?” Caroline looked at me with concern.

“I keep an eye on our stuff.” I made myself comfortable on the moss.

“Come back if you don’t find her quickly.” I waved as they left to search for Caroline.

A few minutes later I heard something from above. I looked up as a magical net came down on me. A man was standing above me, leaning over the crevice.

I jumped to my feet, but the net started to twist and stretch. I stepped on the net while trying to get up, my leg slipping through a mesh. I fell down on my butt again. Every attempt to struggle entangled me more. I activated my claws to cut at the net, but after a few moments my arms were twisted in a way I couldn’t cut the net anymore.

I looked up and saw the man above me sitting on the rim of the crevice. Strands of magic connected him with the net.

“Milly! Tilly! Run!” I cried at the top of my lungs.