SpoilerI want to thank all of my patrons, including:KidoTreant BalewoodOrchamusElectric HeartAiden KingCrazySith87ShadowsmageSammaxAngeliightPreytorFenixPheonix14FndersAnd my 120 other patrons!

  Thank you guys; without your help I could never write as much as I do!

  [colpse]

  What was left of the road wasn’t all that great. I suspected that the road had once been pacted dirt with cobbles above it, but nature and time and a plete aintenance had takeoll. Noath was torn apart by yourees, roots, fallen branches and more bushes than you could shake a stick at.

  There had been a few homes close to the road and some paths leading off into the forest, but they were worn far worse than anything within Threewells and I didn’t think it was worth snooping around them.

  Navigating through the woods would have been, if not impossible, then at least very hard.

  So I cheated.

  “Hup!” I said as I spent a trickle of stamina and burst from one branch to another. I wasn’t using the branches he top, but ihe much thicker ones by the base of the trees. Fortunately, most of the trees along the road had grown horizontally to catch the sunlight p over the path instead of growing upwards and peting with the other trees. It made for much easier travelling.

  Plus, I got to feel like a ninja.

  My mood was riding pretty high. The air was fresh, the sun was shining, I got to bounce from tree to tree and I felt like I was making good time for someohat wasn’t too used to travelling through a forest.

  I paused on my leap and looked down. Something red had caught my eye off to the side of the road.

  There was a bush. Well, there were lots of bushes, but this one had big plump red berries growing out between its branches. Big berries that probably didn’t taste like honey.

  I let myself drop from the branch I was on and nded with a ch that didn’t carry over the birdsong and the rustle of wind across treetops. I hiked up my backpaake sure it was on snug and moved over to the bush. A few of the lower berries seemed to be missing, so something was eating them, and a few friendly bees were buzzing around.

  “Hello, mister Bee,” I told ohat buzzed closer to my face. “No worries, I won’t disturb your bee-sness.”

  I giggled as I used insight on a berry.

  A red berry.

  “Wow, thanks,” I said before I tried again with some mana.

  A red berry, on, fresh.

  “Wasted skill that one,” I muttered. I set down my backpack, then rooted around until I found the cloth-ed book. I hadn’t really read anything out of the herbology book yet, but this seemed like the time for it.

  I hopped up--because using my Jumping skill as much as I could was not only smart, it was fun--and found a spot to sit on a low hanging branch before crag open the book. The hand-drawn pictures weren’t coloured, but they were very pretty, and the notes o them hi what colours the flowers and berries and roots within were supposed to be.

  Flipping through the pages to find berry bushes took a few minutes, but the prize was worth it.

  Red ChokerberryThese berries, which grow on Red Chokerberry bushes, have a few iing qualities. Mashed and mixed with sugar it is a perfectly patable snad be used to feed pets and woodnd animals. Turned into a paste ao dry, the berries will darken and if ed affect the eater’s respiratory als. In low doses assist those with specific breathing problems while exacerbating others.

  I read the rest of the page, thehrough the warnings and preparations that could tur into a poison or a cure for some specific ailments. It was at oeresting and kind of scary. Still, the book said they were safe.

  Hopping down, I ambled over to the bush and plucked a couple of the juicier looking berries, then popped them into my mouth.

  They were bitter, but also tangy, like ripe es.

  And they weren’t honey!

  Ding! For doing a Special A in lih your Css, you have unlocked the skill: Gardening!

  “Whut?” I said, bits of red berry juicy spitting out of my mouth. I swallowed. “But all I did was eat berries!” I said. “Delicious, delicious berries.”

  I brought up the menu for my new skill while I ate more berries.

  GardeningRank F - 05%The ability to find, identify, and cultivate pntlife.

  It wasn’t Fireball ic Missile or anything that I really wanted, but it could e in handy. Especially if it meant more food!

  I packed the book away, but pced it he top of my backpack for easy access. Then I found a cloth and ed a few berries for ter. It was time to hit the road again.

  Time passed in a fortable haze. Other than the occasional jump that I almost missed, there wasn’t muake the trip exg. I kept jumping over the road, made sure to keep the distant mountain in sight, and generally fell into a sort of meditative pace where trees passed and time sank away.

  I saw chipmunks and squirrels and the occasional daring rabbit. There were big paw prints that probably beloo bears in the mud, and I heard a howl from afar once, but it didn’t worry me too much.

  The road curved as it climbed up a hill and I found myself without trees to jump from. I nded and stretched a little. My legs weren’t cramping, but they were a little stiff from the stant jumping.

  The sun was starting to set above, but it was still a few hours until sundown and I still had plenty of time to find a spot to camp.

  I started hiking, the steep ine of the road harder on my legs than the stant jumping had been. I was going to have great calves by the time my adventure was over.

  Reag into one of the pockets on the side of my backpack, I pulled out the Cheshire Choker and fiddled with it as I walked.

  A ented Cheshire Cat’s Colr of Rare quality, new. Allows the user to summon a spirit cat once a day.

  I had mana to spare. I pushed some into the colr and... and nothing happened.

  Maybe I was supposed to wear it? I wasn’t the kind of girl that wore colrs though. I tried wearing it as a bracelet, but that didn’t work.

  “Stupid Cheshire Cat,” I grumbled as I undid the t the colr and pced it around my neck. It fit nid snug, with the smiling kitty mouth dangling over my sternum. I probably looked quite silly.

  A bit of focus and some spare mana pushed into the colr and I felt my reserves draining, more and more until they had dropped nearly seventy points in one go.

  I slowed down as a sparkly cloud formed before me at chest height. It twisted, spun, then was sucked in as if a bckhole had opened up in the world. I felt myself being pulled in, and the ring on my finger grew cold, but nothing ged in the world around me.

  A popping sounded out from the spot before me, like someone pulling a cork, and a cat appeared. No, not a cat. A kitten. It was a ball of semi-transparent fluff and ess that dangled in the air and looked around with the kind of ck of ihat was ong kitties.

  It took one look at me, then walked through the air in my dire.

  “I-Insight,” I said before reag for it.

  A spirit cat panion, bound to Broccoli Bunch.

  “Holy grano muffins, I have a kitty summon,” I squealed as I picked the kitty out of the air. It was soft, there a not. Like the ghosts I had touched but warm instead of cold. I spun around ohen saw the unamused look the kitty was giving me and hugged it close instead.

  This was the best day ever.

  “Oh, you’re a cute little thing aren’t you? Yes you are,” I told the kitty as I rubbed my nose against theirs. I bit of a peek us tail that earned me a very indignant look and I had solved one small mystery. “Do you have a name, miss kitty?”

  The kitty made a meowing motion, but no noise.

  I hummed as I started walking again. “You’re not very noisy, huh?” I asked it. “Okay, then I’ll give you a name! For free!”

  The kitty started at me, so I cradled it against my chest and started rubbing against her tummy.

  “How about... hrm, ’t go with the cssics here, they don’t have Saturday M cartoons. Uhey do. Ah, I know. I’ll call ye. Because it’s your colour and it’s a fruit while my name is a veggie and no one make mean rhymes with your name.”

  The newly dubbed e seemed pletely ambivalent to her name.

  I got to the top of the hill I was walking on and took in the sights before me. The road wasn’t taking a straight path towards the mountain but was veering off towards what I chose to call the West. Towards the sy areas. I wao take a straight path towards the city, but that would have meant trekking through untraced paths.

  The road might reect with a some point, which might mean people. No one spent as much time building a cobbled road as the one I was on only for it to lead nowhere.

  Still petting e, I tried to take in the whole world out ahead of me, but there wasn’t too much to see. Then I spotted smoke way off in the distao the West, way too far for me to reach it in a day, but still present. People!

  Or a random brush fire, but I was hoping for people.

  “e on, e!” I said as I tinued my trek.

  An hour or two ter the woods turned darker and darker and I was beginning to look for a pce to rest. Staying out in the open tion, but not one I was fond of. I soon found a small clearing with a stream running downhill through it. A stone bridge crossed the rocky rivulet, being in the same rough dition as the road running across it. The pce sounded he stant flowing murmur of water a sort of quiet lulby that made it seem nid peaceful. A good pce for a rest.

  I pced e on the ground and watched as she trampled around and s the grass and stuff around her. I could almost pretend she was a real cat until a bug spooked her and she floated a meter into the air and stayed there.

  Shaking my head, I let my new friend have her fun and explored a little while I collected branches and whipped at the grass o the road to make a detly sized clearing. Then I stacked the branches and found some rocks from the edge of the stream. It was like camping again, only without a tent and without parental supervision and with a much greater ce of running into zombie bears at night.

  Hopefully they were afraid of fire.

  The sun was setting for real as I sat down on my b o the fire and pulled my herbology book out and started reading through it while eating supper. Supper being more berries and some honey.

  e took a nap h a timeter or two over my chest curled up in a little ball. It felt as if I could unsummo will, but keeping her around didn’t seem to cost anything so I ehe pany without pint.

  I searched for flowers and pnts that the book said made food tea a leaves in the pages that had good didates. Then, while a small fire crackled merrily o me, I let the warmth of the fmes and the exhaustion of a long day overwhelm me at st.