The intrepid trio followed the muddy path up the hillside. At last, the village of Mabongtot was in sight. Even with the upland breeze, the trek felt like a slog under the mid-afternoon sun. It didn't help that Anton would start absent-mindedly humming "Misty Mountains Cold" off-key every few hundred meters despite his friends' repeat warnings to stop.

"Guys, are you sure Big Red will be okay?" asked Xander.

Big Red was his family's Land Cruiser. They had parked it at a guesthouse in Lubuagan town, where they booked habal-habal – hired motorcycle taxis – to bring them up to the Turning Point. From there, they walked up the trail towards Mabongtot.

"Oh, for fuck's sake! This is Kalinga, not Detroit," said Gabo. "We've come all this way! Now will you please stop worrying about the damn car, so we can reach town before dusk."

It had taken all of Gabo's law student equivocating to convince Xander to join their road trip in the first place, let alone to bring his family's trusty off-roader. Anton draped his arm around his buddy's shoulder in sympathy.

"Duuuude... Chill," he said, "Everything's gonna be fine."

In truth, there could have been a freak landslide at that moment, and Anton would have still brushed it off like everything was copacetic. The vast majority of his mental space was occupied by thoughts of Gee (or was it "Chie"?), the mestiza who he met at that independent bookshop in Baguio the day before. She had been reading Huxley's The Doors of Perception when the group dropped by. For the first time in his 23 years, he finally understood that whole concept of "a book recommending a person". The memory of her face kept him trudging up the incline.

Once they got to the village, it was simple enough to figure out where they needed to go. All they had to do was ask the locals where the white guy lived. Sure enough, they pointed him to a sturdy-looking cottage at the edge of the barangay.

As they walked up the dirt lane to the main entrance, the door opened. Out stepped a paunchy man clad in a native G-string and nothing else. His elaborate tattoos looked faded on sunburned flesh. His gray-flecked beard had grown to majestic, wizardly lengths but there was no mistaking that bald head and those deep-set eyes. All that speculation, planning, and legwork had paid off. They had found reclusive comic book writer Gareth Morrow. Now he was pointing a loaded shotgun at them.

"Who the fook are ye an' how did ye get past me protective wards?"