Andrea's warm and fuzzy thoughts were gone. She was miffed at Cascade. Very. Miffed. Cascade had almost let her die. If Cascade had waited one more second Andrea would be dead. Andrea didn't want Cascade to do it again and was showing her this in a most obnoxious way.

Cascade gave a sigh. "We need to find out where the base is."

"Are you sure about that? Because the last time you came up with a plan I almost died," Andrea snapped.

"We need to do this. Just work with me for a moment here, Andrea."

"You didn't work with me when we were in that fight before."

"Andrea, it was the only way that we could win-"

"Oh, so winning one little fight is more important than my life?"

"Andrea, you know that's not what I mea-"

Andrea jumped up and leapt out of the cave that was embedded in the side of the mountain, where they had chosen to move to. It was too dangerous to continue living inside the training area, which was easily accessible by others, like Sephtis and his cronies.

Andrea grabbed a vine that was dangling from an overhanging tree and scrambled up it, moving higher and higher up the mountain, clinging to it over the sickeningly high drop.

As the wind blustered up the mountain, Andrea continued to ascend. Cascade peeked outside of the cave. She was worried for Andrea. If Andrea slipped, then she would be in trouble. Cascade wasn't sure if she could climb up after Andrea. She looked down at the drop and she felt like her head was spinning and she was falling forever into the drop. She hurriedly pulled back from the edge and took a few deep breaths. She couldn't do it. "Can either of you get Andrea back down? Even if I could, then she probably wouldn't talk to me."

"I'm blind, I can't. I can't even see the vine. I wouldn't be able to grab it," Omar said.

Cascade shrugged. It made sense. "What about you, Concord?"

But Concord was gone.

"Concord?"

Concord shot upwards on an earth slab after Andrea, who was sitting on the top of the mountain, her feet dangling over the drop.

As the slab came up below the top of the mountain, Concord sat down next to Andrea. "You did well in that fight earlier."

Andrea continued to stare in silence at the sunset above the mountains, which seemed to stretch on forever. The only sound was the whistling of the wind as it blew over the tops of the mountains in the chill evening.

"Without you, Sephtis and his helpers certainly would have defeated us." Concord smiled warmly at Andrea.

Now Andrea looked up. "You really think so?" Her cheeks were stained with tears.

"I really think so. I also think I've never seen anybody commit such a brave act as you did. I don't know anybody else with the guts to advance like that, in the midst of a crowd that seems unstoppable."

A weak smile spread across Andrea's face. But then she turned away again.

"I know you're strong. You're strong for yourself and for others. But I also need you to be strong for Cascade. She needs you. Cascade knows what you did to contribute. She's just very subtle. But she recognizes what you did. You need to accept what she did to help as well. She would never abandon you. None of us would."

"She w-wouldn't? You w-wouldn't?" Andrea wiped a tear from her cheek.

"No. We wouldn't. We're different from all the other people that you've met, whomever they might be. We want you around, Andrea. You add a special light to the group." He chuckled. "Both emotionally and literally."

Andrea managed a small laugh at that. It was a weak laugh, but a laugh nonetheless. "All right."

"I'm glad." Concord smiled at Andrea, and she smiled back.

"Would you mind if we just... sat here for a few more minutes?" Andrea's warm cinnamon colored eyes stared into Concord's peaceful green ones.

"No, I wouldn't mind that. In fact, I think I'd rather enjoy it." Concord took Andrea's hand in his.

So they sat, looking out at the sunset, together.

Emanai ran as fast as she could through the base. She had a small pack slung over her shoulder and was wearing black, the only color of clothing that Sephtis provided.

She hopped out of a window and rolled down the hill the base was built upon. Emanai coughed as dirt flew in her face when she rolled. But she needed to get away. She needed to escape.

She continued to run. There was a river in front of her with a bridge. There were two people standing guard there. They were her partners, who had arranged to be on guard the night they escaped.

As Emanai crossed the bridge, the guards propped up their heavy armour on wooden poles to make it look as if they were still there. Then they all ran full tilt for the forest, their only burdens their brown, leather knee-high boots and the small packs slung over their backs. They reached the forest line but kept running.

Emanai looked quickly over her shoulder and saw Sephtis close behind them. She quickened her pace. "Sep'tis is comin'!!"

A look of dread passed over Emanai's partners, and they accelerated as well.

They could see a few trees collapsing under the pressure that Sephtis created.

Emanai leapt over a trunk, made a right turn, and grabbed a vine. She nimbly swung across the river, then scrambled up a rock ledge and jumped off it onto another vine. She tiredly pulled herself up onto a tree branch and walked along it, careful not to lose her balance and fall, as that would have quite a nasty result from that height.

Emanai looked around for the guards, but they were nowhere in sight. Then she heard the sound of swords sliding out of their scabbards and two agonized shouts coming from her left following it.

"Oh no...," Emanai shuddered. She scrambled along the branch. Then she heard a snap from behind her.

Emanai swung around and nearly lost her balance on the branch. She stumbled as she saw Sephtis standing on the ground near her. He was looking around, trying to find her.

As Emanai stumbled, a small sound came from the branch. Sephtis shouldn't have heard it, but he did, as a result of his connection to Vespara. The goddess had large pointed ears which had, literally, grown on him.

Sephtis looked straight at Emanai.

Emanai shuddered in anticipation of what was going to happen. She looked around desperately to see if there was any escape. She gave a sigh of exasperation. The branch ended only a few feet away. She looked at the ground. Can I make the jump? She shook her head. I definitely wouldn't make it without dyin' or seriously injuring meself. 'An even if I did make it, how would I get away from Sep'tis?

Then Emanai spotted water. A lake, it seemed, just a little bit in front of where the branch ended. 'Ow did I not notice that before?

Emanai was wondering how deep it was when she realized that the branch she was standing on would easily crack under Sephtis' pressure. She didn't have time to think. She ran as fast as she could and leapt off the branch.

For a moment Emanai thought that she hadn't jumped hard enough. She thought she was going to hit the bank. But she didn't.

A Emanai hit the water, she cringed at the impact and the cold. She swum upwards as fast as she could. When she surfaced, she saw the branch she had been standing upon crumble and fall to the ground. She saw Sephtis' gaze drift through the air towards where she was. She gasped as he turned towards her.

Emanai took a deep breath and dove into the icy water. Once she was about two meters down, she started to move forward, not caring where she was going, knowing that she just needed to get away. Then Emanai spotted a strange hole in the floor of the lake. It looked like there were frogs coming from it.

T'at means there might be air over there. Of course, she couldn't be sure. But she didn't have many other options, and was running out of breath.

Emanai swam desperately towards the hole, hoping that it might lead to a cave of some sort. As she went into the hole, she saw a short tunnel and then a wall. Her lungs were straining. She swam towards the wall and looked up. There were waves!

Emanai surfaced and took a deep breath in. But she had no time to lose. Sephtis would probably follow her into the lake and deduce that she went into the tunnel.

So Emanai ran through the tunnel, following it wherever it turned by tracing her hand on the cold, clammy walls. It was pitch black in the tunnel. Emanai followed it wherever it went. If there was a fork, she chose a random path. She didn't care where she was going. She just wanted to get away, and hopefully out at some point. But for now the only thing on her mind was to run.

She didn't think about how cold she was or how tired she was. She didn't think about the darkness of the tunnel or when she would get out. Her only thought was to put one foot in front of the other and to not slam into the walls.

Emanai continued to run until she could run no more. She collapsed on the ground, too tired to continue, and fell fast asleep. She could only hope that Sephtis would not take the same path as she had. That she was too unimportant to follow. She could only hope that he would not find her.

Omar dropped in through the thatch roof of the underground hideout and crumpled onto the floor as he landed. "I'm sooo exhausted." We're never going to find that base, are we? Omar sighed. No. Be optimistic. "But I know we can find it. It'll just take a little longer, that's all." Omar forced a tired grin.

Cascade simply continued chewing on her pencil, which was her third pencil that day, since she had chewed through the other two already. She was staring at a map in front of her, which had lines, circles, crosses, arrows, and symbols drawn all over it.

Andrea fell through the roof and thudded heavily on the floor. She was too exhausted to even gather up the energy to say "Ow".

"What if Sephtis' base doesn't exist? We're never going to find it." Andrea gave an exasperated sigh.

Cascade briefly took the pencil out of her mouth. "Always keep your mind open for the unexpected. You never know, something might just turn up." Then the pencil slid back between her teeth and her eyes went back to the map.

"How can you even keep staring at that map for so long? It's all garbled and confusing and it hurts my brain." Andrea groaned as she looked over at the map.

"Your brain has no pain receptors. It can't hurt." Cascade's gaze didn't shift from the map.

"Just making conversation."

"No time for conversation. We need to find the base."

Andrea gave a deep sigh. "You need to take a break, Cascade. Get some sleep or something. You only turn snappy and weird and nerdy on me when you're tired."

"No time for a break." Cascade grabbed Andrea's arm and Andrea could see the dark circles under her eyes.

"Yes, time for a break." Andrea took the map and folded it up, then undid Cascade's hair from the position it was in. Cascade had kept it tied up uncomfortably so that it kept her awake. Now it fell down her shoulders.

Andrea led Cascade to a soft patch of leaves and sat her down there. She lit a small flame in her palm and then placed her warmed hands on Cascade's shoulders. Cascade groaned. "But... need to find base. Must... defeat evil. Cannot... fail. Duty to..." Her eyes closed and her head drooped. She was fast asleep.

"She needed it." Andrea smiled tiredly.

"She did." Omar nodded.

"I'VE FOUND IT!!!"

Cascade gasped and sat up. She looked around, but all she could see was a soft, grey layer of something in front of her face. She reached around to push it away from her face. Once Cascade had cleared her ivory white hair from her face, she took a vine that she had found the previous day and tied it up in a lopsided ponytail. Then she rubbed her bright blue eyes tiredly.

"I'VE REALLY FOUND IT!" Concord ran to Andrea and shook her vigorously.

"AAH!" Andrea exclaimed, shooting up from where she had been sleeping. Andrea was so disoriented from the sudden interruption that she stumbled and fell as she advanced across the room. "Urgh." Andrea groaned.

Cascade, who had now finally put together what was happening, crawled forward and helped Andrea up. Then she turned towards Concord. She wanted to berate him for shouting at them so abruptly, but she knew it wouldn't change the events that had occured. Plus, Concord seemed very excited about something. It must be an important discovery for him to call out so abruptly. "What have you found?"

"The secret base, of course!" Concord had a huge grin on his face.

Cascade snatched her map from where it was laying and spread it out on the floor, as she had done earlier. "Can you point it out on the map?"

Concord sat down on the floor next to her and leaned over the map, tracing with his finger their location and backtracking to where he had gone. "Right... there." Concord pointed to a place on the map to the northeast of their position.

"Across the Fureres river? How are we going to access it? How did you even find it?"

"There's a tunnel system. It eventually goes deep enough to go underneath the Fureres river. It emerges out the other side out of a clump of bushes inside the forest. Then the base is in a clearing. But that tunnel is a maze."

"Hmm."

"The only reason I could navigate it was because I could feel the way that the passageways wound through the ground. But even I can't sense the ground forever onward. There's a possibility we could get lost. But we have to use the tunnels. I can't make a tunnel long enough to get us across the Fureres river while still being confident the ceiling won't collapse on us under the weight of the water. I can't compete with nature's engineering."

"I understand. We'll take the tunnels. Risk or no risk. And I'd say that there's a pretty high chance we're going to find that base." Cascade was tracing what path they would take with her finger on the map over and over again.

"The hard part will be getting inside the base, which is what I assume we're doing?" Andrea put in.

"Yes. That's true. But we can worry about that when we get there. We might gain new information as we travel, and if I propose a plan to you now, then edit it later, you're going to explode at me."

Andrea nodded ruefully. She knew Cascade was right. She also knew that Cascade always had a plan. "How many plans do you have?"

"I have eight."

Andrea's eyebrows shot up at that. "Eight?" You have eight plans?"

"Yes." Cascade sighed. "A plan A, a plan B, a plan C, etc. I have a plan for if we get lost in the tunnel. I have a plan for if Sephtis attacks us along the way. I have a plan for if the forest is very dense. I have a plan for if the base is in a different place than we expect. I have a plan for how we're going to attempt to get there. And a few other plans."

"Wow." Was all Andrea had to say about that.

Cascade smiled faintly. She felt prepared for the coming events. But there was still something nagging at her mind. She sighed.

Andrea immediately looked worried. "Is there something wrong?"

"No. Well, maybe. Yes." Cascade sighed once more. "It's just that I can't help feeling there's something I'm forgetting. Something important, just outside of my grasp, teasing me for my forgetfulness."

"Oh, I'm sure you haven't forgotten anything. You're doing great."

"Thanks, Andrea." But Cascade knew that there was something. Even though she didn't know what it was, she knew that it would come back to haunt her at some point. And that was a moment that she did not look forward to in the least.