He was probably around where they were before Mr. Crocodile chased them. Staring hard to his left, he tried to remember what the hills looked like in the exact direction they headed before. Being off just a little bit could take them completely off course, away from Waif, and very, very close to having Mr. Crocodile’s group rip Silver away from them.

Once he decided, he veered sharply in the right direction, sending his character off at full speed. Who cared if his sudden swerving bothered the quest thieves?

Well, then again, Brindle could be inconvenienced, too. But she already showed she could keep up with him fine, and kind of knew where they were headed in the first place.

A few more usernames occasionally cropped up in the chat box as Brindle spoke with the thieves. How were they…? Oh. They must be using the chat’s voice to text feature, since they weren’t stopping to type. That wasn’t the sort of thing he bothered with, especially under circumstances like this.

Maybe later he would, though, if later he found himself constantly needing to communicate with Brindle even when he was busy commanding his character with his keyboard.

When they reached the top of one hill and stopped to let their characters’ stamina replenish, a bit of excitement flitted through him as he recognized the dip in the land surrounding the ravine.

‘Finally,’ he thought as he sent his character running down the hill and around the edge of the ravine. He slowed down in time to navigate the narrow trail leading down the side of the little cliff, and was soon walking through the dried up pond.

Brindle came up beside him, Silver at her heels. She wasn’t chatting with the others anymore.

Hopefully Waif was still here. Then again...Brindle did leave Greenie here. It was supposed to say something if Waif ran off, right? Except they didn’t exactly know if that was how the Watch and Report skill worked.

Brindle entered the thorn tangle first, and he blinked as he followed her and tried to get his eyes to adjust to the low lighting faster. They reached the spot they saw Waif at before, but, that creature’s shadowy form wasn’t in the place they left him.

|MrCr0cod1le| Get out of the way! The rest of us need to join the conversation, too.

There’s no more room. |SevenAteEight|

Well, he and Brindle could actually move a bit further, but it wouldn’t be enough to let all of the thieves in.

|MrCr0cod1le| Then get out of the way and let us talk to him by ourselves!

|Brindle_Fox244| Oooooor, you guys can just wait a few minutes and talk to him after we do.

Huh, so she could get irritated with these people.

He looked to the right, and saw a shimmer of bronze and green higher up in the dead, spiky vines near the ceiling. Greenie.

Near the ground, there was a small hole he didn’t notice before. His pulse spiked when he saw something small and dark shifting around within it.

Waif poked his head out of the briar framed hole, creepy grin and all.