Defensive Spray
Expel strong-smelling musk from the anal glands in order to disorient and deter predators.
The beast got a faceful of the pungent liquid. Its snout spasmed, the creature’s sensitive olfactory organs no doubt burning in agony as they attempted to process the foul fox musk it had just inhaled. It shook its head violently, snorting and huffing, and its claws slipped a little on the rock. But it still didn’t fall.
A stone smacked off the bear’s brow ridge. A second later, another stone clipped one of its incisors, chipping the tooth and making the bear roar even more furiously.
Sir Fura jumped up and down, then spun in a circle as he launched his third stone. This one smacked the bear straight in the middle of its nose. Its head jerked back, and one of its massive paws lost its grip on the ledge, but it still hung on with the other.
Inspired by her squirrel partner’s bravery, Ris’kin crawled closer to the edge. The bear roared in her face, saliva flying, eyes still squinted shut from the musk. She snarled right back at it, curled her fingers into a fist, and punched it square on the nose.
With one final roar, the bear fell, clawing deep gouges into the stone before its weight pulled it down. We leaned over to watch it fall—to make sure it wasn’t still somehow clinging underneath the ledge—and were satisfied to hear its roar as it hit the mountain far below and continued to roll down the sheer surface until it was out of sight. It would take several hours for it to climb back up here, assuming it was uninjured enough to do so, and we’d be long gone by then.
Ris’kin lay back to recover her strength, and for a few moments we stared up at the cobalt-blue sky, reveling in the sensation of having just punched a bear in the face. The air was colder up here, especially so on the shadowy side of the mountain; the sun was reaching its zenith, but had yet to crest the peaks and begin its crawl down the other side. My avatar’s breath steamed, as did her fur, her body rapidly cooling after the strenuous chase.
“Ow!”
She sat up abruptly, rubbing her leg. Beside Ris’kin, Sir Fura hopped from foot to foot, then raised his gray-furred arm to throw another stone at us.
“We’re getting up! We’re getting up.”
It couldn’t hear me, obviously, but it seemed satisfied, and tucked the stone into its stomach pouch instead. I frowned at it. How much could it fit in there anyway?
The squirrel bounded along the ledge in front of us. We appeared to have stumbled upon a trail of some sort, which was unexpected given that we were nearly at the mountain’s summit. I squinted up the path.
We’re almost at the top. May as well keep going. Perhaps from that new vantage we’d finally spy what we were looking for among the valley below.
I’d expected a peak. What we found was a caldera.
The shallow crater stretched out before us like the promised land. It was easily wide enough for the Grotto to fit inside it a hundred times over.
My gaze was immediately drawn to the area directly beneath us, where a lake of deep blue sparkled in the sunlight. Small ripples here and there confirmed the presence of fish, and its position at the very top of the mountain meant it was guaranteed to be freshwater.
And not a single bear in sight.
Fresh water, fish, a natural barrier against the outside world—just like the cave below, it had all the bare necessities for our survival.
No, I realized as my gaze traveled further. It’s much more than that.
Beyond the lake, what I’d initially dismissed as rock formations were in fact ruined buildings. Among the broken rocks were weathered bricks, dessicated wood foundations, even glints of glass and metal. Poking up here and there were walls that had remained intact, and even one or two entire buildings that had somehow survived whatever cataclysm had befallen this place.
It was tricky to determine scale from where we stood, but it was clear from the remaining doorways that these structures were once home to a civilization of folk who were much, much smaller in size than elves or humans.
What looked like catapults of some kind were spaced out all around the edges of the crater, and at the far side were unbuilt expanses of what I hoped was tillable earth. Beyond those were a range of raised mounds, as though a miniature mountain range had begun to push up through the ground. Even Ris’kin’s eyes could only pick out rock and rubble.
Part of me wanted to investigate more thoroughly. But the blinking timer in my vision reminded me there was no time to lose.
Time remaining for Exodus: 2 days, 7 hours, 32 minutes
When we’d looked up at the mountain from below, there was no indication that its summit contained such a treasure, no hint of this hidden valley from any angle. But there was no question that this was the place we’d been searching for.
We hadn’t been able to find the gnomes’ ancestral city because we’d been looking in the wrong place. It wasn’t a cave, or a tunnel system. It wasn’t hidden by a magic door or a rockslide. It wasn’t buried somewhere beneath our feet.
It was here.
Fifty
The Crossing
Corey
The riverbank buzzed with anticipation. As industrious as an ant colony, ninety-nine gnomes, eight badgers and one very special spider went about their business packing up the camp and preparing the wagons for the crossing.
We’d found what we came for. We’d located the gnomes’ ancestral home, and all that lay between it and us were the river and a few more hours of hiking.
Time remaining for Exodus: 1 day, 23 hours, 48 seconds
Though Bekkit and the humans had rejoiced at the news, Ket had seemed less excited than expected. She still carried an air
