Farn’s eyes widened, and he said “What?” in a somewhat strangled tone, but Gallo was too nervous to notice that Farn didn’t look surprised at the idea.

“Well, you see, we’re at a disadvantage, right? What with Aurelie being hurt. Plus, she needs treatment, treatment we can’t give her in here. She could die, Farn. Also, we don’t have enough food for an extended stay in the cave, and if we have to stay in the cave and hide from that monster, then we’re gonna be here for a while, and that’s not even taking into account the fact we could get lost. And I don’t think the beast will be able to follow us out of the cave, because light hurts his eyes.” Gallo said in a hurry. “And, speaking of light, we won’t have any light in a while.” He added, gesturing at the dying fire.

Farn stayed quiet.

“I was also thinking that when we got out, we could call Mrs. Dreslin. Then, we could give the Fruits to the Seven Heavens Academy. This helps us curry favor with the school. Plus, they have a policy about this sort of thing. Whenever someone either gives them Spirit Fruit or the exact location of a Spirit Fruit, they get a percentage of the Fruit obtained. The percentage changes depending on the rarity of the Fruit, the amount of the Fruit, and the relationship the individual has with the school, so I can’t tell you how much we’re gonna get, but we can get some.” Gallo tried again.

“No need to convince me. I was actually thinking the same thing as you. The reason I was so surprised was because you literally took the words out of my mouth.” Farn said with a grin. Gallo smiled back at him in relief.

“So now it’s just…” Gallo looked at Aurelie’s still form laying on the cold, stone floor.

Farn shrugged. “Aurelie’s smart, she’ll understand that what we’re doing is for the best. Besides, she’s out cold. She can’t exactly tell us whether or not she agrees with this plan.”

“Well, yeah, but…” Gallo trailed off. It wasn’t as though Farn had said anything wrong, but he wasn’t sure things would be as easy as Farn had made them out to be. But, regardless, they needed to move. He could feel a shiver tingling down his spine, the awareness that something was going to happen making goosebumps rise. “Let’s go.” He conceded.

Farn smirked and nodded, then knelt down next to Aurelie. Gallo helped Farn put Aurelie into the proper position for a piggyback ride, and Farn got up, carrying the unconscious girl on his back.

Gallo frowned. “There is one problem, though. Getting here took us a couple of hours. I mean, if we run, we could probably make it to the entrance in half an hour. But how are we going to escape the beast for that long?”

Farn frowned as well, considering. Then his eyes lit up. “That thing was weak to light, right?” He asked.

“Yeah, but it doused the torches easily enough, and there’s too little of that white powder Aurelie gave me to last us the entire way. We could try to throw it only when we think that thing’s around, but we can’t sense it, and it moves too fast for us to throw it after it strikes.”

“That’s not what I was thinking of. Remember that light thingie Aurelie had at the beginning of the cave? It’s light was brighter, and I don’t think that light can be put out as easily as the fire was.” Farn said.

Gallo nodded. “But… that box was in her storage ring…” He said nervously.

“... You went into her storage ring?” Farn asked, raising his eyebrow in incredulousness.

“...She needed bandages.” Gallo replied, watching the stone floor very closely. Farn thought back to the bandages Aurelie had wrapped around her middle, belatedly realizing that the cloth was the same as the cloth of the large night shirt she’d worn while her plan against Tanor and Planos played out.

“I see. Well then, you get it.” Farn said decisively.

“Huh? Why me?” Gallo asked indignantly.

“Well, you’ve already been through it, so you should do it.” Farn replied. Gallo grit his teeth, but the argument was logical. It was just one more thing to apologize for. Letting out a sigh, he reached for her ring again, pulling it off her finger and back onto his.

This time, he was well aware of what it was he wanted, so he just directly summoned it from her ring. The black box was sleek and cold to the touch. There was a weirdly shaped white blob on it, and Gallo had precisely zero idea as to how to make it work. So he passed it to Farn.

Farn looked at it too, for a moment, before remembering that Aurelie had pressed the white box on the small indent in the bottom of the box. He flipped the box around, finally seeing what he was looking for.

Gently, keeping in mind that Aurelie held this- what was the word?- phone in high regard, Farn gently depressed the little box, then nearly dropped the phone in shock as it lit up. Luckily, his reflexes kept the phone from hitting the ground and breaking.

Taking a deep breath, he looked at the box again. What was it that Aurelie had done next? Press on the button again, he was pretty sure. So he did that again. Suddenly, fourteen circles popped up on screen. There were strange symbols in ten of them (he hadn’t been taught numbers yet), though he recognized the alphabet, a few letters in a line beneath the symbol per circle.

He stared at the circles for a while, keeping his thumb where it was. But then the four small button at the top of the screen filled up white, then the entire screen shook and the phone vibrated, making Farn almost drop it again. The words ‘Try Again’ appeared at the top of the screen. Farn looked at it in confusion. ‘Try what again? I didn’t try anything to begin with!’

Without warning, Gallo grabbed his arm and tugged him into the passageway. The space they were now in was so narrow, Farn couldn’t breathe without his chest pressing against the rock, and he was fairly certain that Aurelie was squished. He snuck a glance at Gallo, clearly conveying his question of why exactly they were in the tiny passage right now. Gallo looked back at him.

“I had a bad feeling.” He explained. Farn nodded, understanding how these things were, and got as much into a battle ready stance as he could. In other words, he took out a staff, his preferred weapon, realized that he couldn’t wield it in the small space, put it back into his own storage ring, and pondered what else he could do. Nothing, really, he realized, other than brace himself. But tensing up would only squish Aurelie even more, and not really do any good, so he abandoned the idea. Instead, he focussed on the message on the phone. What did ‘Try Again’ mean? But he only had a moment to ponder this before the rock began to shake.

A massive claw covered in matted grey fur thrust up from the ground.