They stepped through the tree and into a meadow bathed with the light of the setting sun. “Go by tree, huh?” said Alice.

“That’s what I said!” Isa grinned. “It’s pretty handy. Can you like copy that into your book?”

“Of course not. Totally different kind of magic. At least, it was in 3rd edition.” Alice paused. “Fuck, I am going to drive myself crazy overthinking this. I don’t know, OK? I don’t know.”

“Babe,” Isa held up her hands, “it’s alright, really. I was just…. Well, I meant it, but it was kind of a joke, too.” She took Alice’s hand. “We’ll figure it out together.” She took a deep breath. “Look at this place. This is Varana. Isn’t it amazing?”

Alice squeezed Isa’s hand. “Yes, it is. I’m glad I’m here. With you, helping. Both worlds are worth saving.”

“Explain how you know all this again. Ysel talked to you when? How?”

“She is a goddess. I woke up - only not really - and I was standing on a cliff looking down. Ha, I knew it wasn’t real because I wasn’t scared. And I turned and Ysel was standing beside me, and she pointed into the distance. I followed her finger and saw this…. Shimmer, I guess. This huge, vast, massive…. Wall. It billowed like a curtain, shimmery and nacreous. It was--”

“Nacreous?” Isa blurted out the strange word. “Like diseased?”

Alice sighed. “Like mother of pearl. Like a soap bubble, swirling, shimmery rainbows? Like a huge soap bubble but a wall.”

“You coulda just said that,” Isa muttered.

Alice put a hand on Isa’s cheek. “You need to do more crosswords.”

“Don’t think that’s a thing here.” Isa looked around. “There’s the river,” she pointed to the right. “We can follow it until we come to a path. Why did Ysel put us all the way out here?” She stepped back and turned around, marking the spot in her mind.

Alice picked up a fallen branch and jammed it in the ground by the tree. “There,” she said, “we’ll be able to find the right tree.”

“Huh. Good idea.”

“You know what else is a good idea? Putting up your hood.” Alice motioned at Isa’s cloak. “I would rather that we didn’t have a fight yet. I need to study up on my spells. Take blindness, for instance. Not something Della ever uses, I don’t think.”

“You can blind people? For how long? Remind me not to make you mad.”

“That is the least of my powers.” Alice grinned and linked her arm with Isa’s.

They started toward the river in the growing dusk, but they hadn’t gotten far when Isa heard a high yip-yip noise. “Ah shit,” she said softly. “We’re by the river. Of course.”

“Of course what?” said Alice.

Isa took her arm. “Gnolls. We’re just gonna….” But just then a scream ripped through air. They both ducked. “What,” said Alice, “was that?”

“I don’t know. And I don’t want to know.” Isa scanned the horizon. “We’ll just--”

Her words were cut off as a wolf-like creature tumbled into view. It rolled twice, groaned, and lay still. From 10 feet away Isa could see great claw marks across its body.

Alice began to fiddle with her belt. Isa grabbed her hand and stepped back two paces. “What are you doing? Let’s get out of here.”

Alice held up a scrap of leather. “Mage armor,” she said.

“Can you cast it and run?” Isa said as another scream blasted out.

“No!”

“That’s too bad.” Isa pulled on Alice’s arm and began to run toward the tree line, retracing their steps.

Once they were at the edge of the trees Alice took out her spellbook and traced a finger down the page. She held the leather scrap to her arm and muttered some words, moving her finger along as she read aloud.

A moment later, Alice snapped the book shut and shoved it in her bag. “That’s better. Mage armor.” She straightened her cloak. “Now, how do we get out of here?”

“I dunno. That was a gnoll. Most of a gnoll. They must be fighting something really gnarly. We just need to get past them without getting involved.”

“Yeah, I guess we don’t need to look for trouble,” said Alice. “Not from something that would slash a creature in half.”

They began to move parallel to the river, moving slowly and fairly silently. Isa glanced down at her cloak. In the treeline, in the dusk, even she had trouble telling where the cloak stopped and the ground began.

A noise to their right put Isa on high alert. Alice squeezed her hand to indicate that she’d heard the noise, too. Isa took a gentle step toward the noise, then a second one. Suddenly she saw a gnoll about 15 feet in front of her. The expression on his dog-like face told Isa that he was just as startled as she was.

Without hesitation Isa whispered, “Wrath.” Her quarterstaff pulsed with light green light. She charged at the gnoll, but missed his head by an inch. “Damn it!” she said as she tried to pull back from the gnoll’s spear tip. She felt the edge of the metal graze her ear. A spot of white appeared on the gnoll’s chest, and Isa recognized the frostbite spell - it had been one of Joth’s standbys.

As she and the gnoll traded blocks, Isa noticed 2 more gnolls merge out of the shadowy trees. “Ally, we have company!”

“I see!” Alice said and cast magic missile at the gnoll in front of Isa.

“Magic,” muttered Isa. With her right hand she grasped Ysel’s medallion. The edge of it cut into Isa’s hand as she muttered the word, “Bane.” All 3 gnolls seemed to stagger for a moment. But then the one in front of Isa barked and jabbed his spear into Isa’s side. She felt the armor tear as the spear sliced through leather and skin. WIth a grunt Isa held tight to the medallion. It seemed right to keep holding it while she wished bad things to befall these 3.

Another gnoll charged at Alice and poked his spear at her shoulder. Alice cried out in pain.

“Alice!” Isa flicked the end of her staff at the one in front of her, just to keep him at bay while she stepped closer to her girlfriend. “Are you OK? Are you bleeding?”

Alice flung her finger at the gnoll by Isa. Frost bloomed on her chest again, and he visibly slowed. “Of course I’m bleeding! This gnoll just jabbed me!”

“Burn!” Isa said and pointed her staff at the gnoll she’d been fighting. The gnoll yipped in pain. “Freeze!” said Alice as she shot a frostbite spell at the same gnoll. It fell over dead.

“One down,” Isa muttered as she ran to the far gnoll and hit it twice, once with each end of the staff. Blood poured from the creature’s broken nose. Alice cheered and cast frostbite at it.

While she was cheering, however, the gnoll in front of her slammed his spear into her leg, trying to pin Alice in place. “Shield-shield-shield,” said Alice and waved her hands. The spear somehow skidded off Alice’s leg and went into the ground. Wordlessly the gnoll snatched it from the ground and shoved it at Alice’s face.

Isa traded blows with the third gnoll until she saw an opening and with a lightning-fast blow, she knocked him down and dead.

With a glance Isa saw that Alice was trying to open her spell component belt again. Alice rubbed her thumb and forefinger together and said, “You should run away.”

The gnoll’s ear went back and then it shoved its spear into Alice’s shoulder. Alice cried out, dropped whatever was in her hand and dropped to one knee.

“Love!” Isa lunged toward Alice and the remembered that she could heal. “Thrive! Thrive!” She flung out her left hand while her right hand stayed tight, clenching the medallion. “In the Lady’s name, thrive!”

Alice coughed and pushed herself upright. As she came up, she shot a frost at the gnoll, hitting it again. It staggered back from the attack, and Isa jumped between Alice and her attacker. “Not today,” she said and hit sideways at the gnoll’s head. The staff made a solid thwack, but as Isa brought the staff back to try for a second blow, she felt something tear in her shoulder, like she’d just sprained something.

The gnoll, for his part, could only shake his head, trying to recover from the head blow.

Isa tried to bring up her staff, but her left arm felt funny, so instead she said, “Burn.” A column of flame dropped on the gnoll like a 2x4, and he fell over dead.

“I think I’m going to throw up,” Alice bent at the waist and let her arms dangle. “Holy shit. We just had a fight. With gnolls.” She tried to straighten up and almost fell over.

Isa caught her. “We need to get out of here. Let me just grab any cash they had.”

Alice straightened up. “You are going to loot? At a time like this?”

“We have no money - well, I have a couple of pearls, but we need coin for everything. Trust me.” She bent and felt at the belt of the closest gnoll and then did the ame at the other two. She held up the three coin purses and a short sword. “We can sell this stuff.”

She stuffed the coin pouches into her bag and put the sword and scabbard through her belt. “Let’s get you to Lund’s You need a drink and a long rest.”

“Really? Do they even call it a ‘long rest’?”

“I don’t know.” Isa walked them quickly along the tree line, keeping an eye and ear for any indications of other creatures. “All I know is that if you fall asleep, it takes something big to wake you up before 8 hours has passed. You’ll love it.”

After 10 minutes they came to a small road. Isa turned right and hurried toward a glow in the distance. “Bywater’s not far. You can meet Lund, maybe Mery. We’ll eat, have a drink, maybe buy some--”

“If it’s buying you want to do, why wait?” Anne the merchant and her wheelbarrow stood on the path.