"Hey."

Freya started awake with a yelp.

Outside the cave, it was dawn. Her light had faded to a bare glow, and Phonian floated beside her, dead eyes staring aimlessly while the compound eyes she'd seen the night before peered out of its mouth.

Scrambling back, she held the faded light up between her and Phonian as if that would protect her. It did nothing but shine light into the ajar mouth of the berrykin skinsuit and remind Freya that what she was dealing with was incredibly dangerous.

Gathering her courage, she said, "Sorry..." Pressing the light closed, she cleared her throat. "What is it, Phonian?"

"The sun is out. You will get up now and start training."

Freya swallowed, nodded, then looked down at the scattered contents of the pack. The sword she'd been given lay beside her, there were items she understood the use of, but most she didn't remember. Instead of worrying about it, she crawled out of the sleeping bag and began rolling it into an inexpert wad. "Right..." she said in an uncertain voice. She wasn't going to get away from Phonian by being weak.

Once she had everything packed, she pulled the straps over her shoulders properly and picked up the sword. Now that it was light, she could see the pack was dark green and in good shape. It possibly hadn't been out in the weather for long, but, again, she was no judge for these kinds of things.

Phonian seemed pleased with her compliance... as much as a corpse could look pleased. It turned and started floating further into the cave.

Freya swallowed, her stomach feeling queasy from hunger and anxiety. She'd not seen anything that looked like food in the pack, though she suspected if anything had been, it would've been spoiled or eaten by bugs. She desperately wanted coffee and a breakfast burrito... but mostly she wanted to be home. She had spent a lot of time thinking while she couldn't sleep. She'd been hit by a truck, which either meant she was in some kind of coma dream or she was really in one of the Danger Around Mt. Pallin worlds. Neither answer seemed really logical. That kind of thing happened in stupid webnovel stories, not her life. She rubbed her face with her hands, pushed her long dark hair back behind her shoulders, and started walking.

The going quickly got tough as the light from the tunnel entrance faded. She had to pull the lamp out of her pack again, but it was only a faint glow now that barely illuminated the rocky cave floor and reflected off the frequent puddles.

Sounds echoed through the cavern, unidentifiable and eerie. She gripped the sword with one hand, light with the other, and hoped they didn't actually meet any monsters. Phonian didn't care how difficult the fight might be for her, after all.

As she recalled, though, in most Danger Around Mt. Pallin games, the first enemies were usually giant spiders or giant rats. This was not the environment for either of those monsters, though.

Coming around a bend in the tunnel, they started up an incline. Freya had to hook the lamp to a clip on the strap of her bag. Now with one hand free, she was able to climb the outcroppings and boulders more easily. Though "more easily" still involved a lot of slipping and sliding. Still, she couldn't recall what kind of monsters appeared in this sort of terrain.

Her first game, the sixth installment of the series and likely least popular, had giant lizards as the first enemies. It had started with Eloi and Cammie in their village on the slope of Mt. Pallin. A mining company had moved into the area and wanted the mithryl nearby, but mining was going to destroy their village. The mithryl was needed to support the queen's war against the beastkin to the east. Cammie and Eloi, unaware of the war, had gone to the capital to complain.

"Oh. Boo. Seems like I've scared off all the monsters in here," Phonian said, startling Freya from her thoughts. She looked around, finding that the lamp was doing less to illuminate than the sunlight outside was. They'd come out of the cavern at a higher elevation. "I've got an idea." Phonian turned to face her.

"I'll find a monster and herd it to you."

"What if it's too strong for me?" Freya asked, clicking the light closed. She didn't want to continue wasting it.

"Nonsense. Now. Just go stand outside, and I'll go find a monster for you."

Freya swallowed. Out of breath, sweaty, and thirsty, she waited a beat before trying to push herself that last bit out of the cavern to the sunlight.

The sky was clear. They'd come out above the treeline but only barely. A single pine clung to the rocky mountainside upslope. Freya looked down. Phonian had disappeared.

A plan started to form in her mind. Setting her pack down, she pulled out two healing potions. Given their shapes, she was going to assume they were medium ones. Expensive. It really sucked that the previous adventurer hadn't had the chance to use them before they died. She chugged one, instantly feeling better.

The second one, she held close as she started scurrying toward the cliff to look down over it.

Beyond was a drop of about a hundred feet onto a slope of loose gravel. She just... needed Phonian to think she was dead. Then it would leave her alone. She hoped anyway. It wanted her to train and become a hero, but she wasn't a fighter. She was nothing.

You're not nothing. You're a survivor, a small corner of her heart whispered.

Freya licked her dry lips and stared down at the drop. That was a long way to fall, and if she was wrong... If she landed wrong, if the gravel didn't break under her and carry her down... if it buried her instead...

But if she didn't try, she was certainly going to die. Phonian would kill her itself.

Before she could change her mind about faking her death, something roared from her left.

Turning to look, she saw a beefy white sasquatch-looking creature barreling toward her.

"Oh... no..." Freya knew that was a level ninety monster. She'd hated those things because they had an attack called Sins of the Mountain that had random weather effects.

The sasquteel spotted her. While it was scared of Phonian, it also wasn't above attacking anything it came across.

Heart pounding, Freya clutched the sword and her potion, ready to drop one and use the other. However, she needed to ensure the timing was right. If Phonian saw her jump on her own, it would never believe that she'd died.

The sasquteel roared, pounding toward her on all fours, spittle flying. Behind it, Freya spotted Phonian, floating at a casual pace. It had done its job. The monster had been herded toward Freya and was now out to kill her.

Fear froze her in place. In what felt like seconds, the sasquteef reached her. She couldn't move. Just like she could only stare as the truck barreled toward her. The sword was slapped from her hand with one mighty paw.

The next strike sent her flying over the cliff in an arc.