As we crossed into the foyer on our way out, the scent of some kind of freshly prepared beef caught our attention. It seemed that the Devil King still had scheduled meals, probably the residue of a magical spell. Sally and I were famished, having spent more than a day without eating because of the travel, so we decided to follow the scent to wherever it led.

The castle, despite its size, had a pretty simple layout. It didn’t take long before we found an expansive dining hall with several long tables. Each table featured a cuisine of unique origin, though I wasn’t familiar with all the regions they were from. It was an obvious trap, of course, and a normal person would have had good reason for skepticism, but we enjoyed our meal without fear.

I felt fine afterwards, and with our needs met, we departed from the Devil King’s castle.

Sally pointed to the craggy peaks around us and spoke softly. “So, where is it that we’re trying to go? It’d be hard to get very far with these mountains in the way,” he averted his gaze, ”I wasn’t close enough to hear the interrogation, so you’ll have to fill me in on the details.”

“Oh, well according to the Devil King, we have to go somewhere called the ‘Marude Volcano.’”

“And you just believed him?”

“I mean, even if he was lying, I’m sure we’ll bump into someone that’ll help us on the way. It would be really unlucky to go on a pointless goose chase like that.”

“Whatever you say, I guess. Judging by the stars here, it’s pretty safe to assume that we’re in the Driscal Mountain Range… the Marude Volcano should be about 200 miles southwest of here. With this terrain, though, we won’t make it very far on foot so we’ll need to find horses.”

At the bottom of the valley was a river leading south. Because of the drought, the water was shallower than it should’ve been and probably would've completely dried up within the week, but it seemed unlikely that any settlements along the river would have already abandoned the place.

We followed downstream as best as we could, though we had to make the occasional detour because of the cliffs. Eventually, we spotted a shoddily-constructed dam from our vantage point, and hurried down in hopes of locating a village.

As soon as we arrived, it became abundantly clear that the people who lived here were struggling. Though the water was clean, the houses were rudimentary shacks of twigs and mud. A weathered sign marking a “Local Healer” pointed toward the center of town - it was suspicious, but we decided that it was worthwhile to check if they had some kind of elixir of rejuvenation or at least somewhere to rest. I was feeling queasy, probably from eating too much.

We entered the healer’s shop. It was a single room, barren except for a bed along the back wall. The only other person there was a young woman, maybe a few years older than me. She didn’t say anything until Sally broke the silence.

“...Hello? I hope we aren’t intruding on anything. Um, do you carry potions?” Sally paused. “And do you know a place where we could stay the night?”

“We don’t have any potions. There’s an inn on the other side of town if you want to stay.”

I passed out before I had a chance to complain. Luckily, I was standing over the bed, so I landed unharmed.

When I came to, I noticed the sun shining through the doorway, so it seemed like I had been out for several hours at this point. Was the food at the Devil King’s castle really a trap? Why had we fallen for only this one in specific? Did Sally black out too?

I looked around the room, and realized that I was alone. Wondering where Sally had gone, I tried to get up. Though still a bit off-kilter, I was strong enough to stand.

“Hey, Emma!” Sally bursted into the building. “Glad to see you’re up. You’d been asleep for 4 days, so I was getting worried. While you were out, these 2 horses that had apparently run away from the village 10 years ago returned. We would’ve missed the chance if we had left when we had planned to, so I guess this was kind of a blessing in disguise.”

“Sweet. Are we just free to take them? And why didn’t you get sick?”

“What? Why would they just give us horses for free? I worked out a deal to borrow them for a week since we were apparently the 1,000th group of weary travellers to show up here. And I was fine because goblins are built to eat raw, sometimes rancid food. A weak poison like that isn’t enough to cause more than drowsiness.”

“Makes sense,” I said. “Alrighty then, I guess we should get moving.”