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Mel unloaded the food into her kettle, building up the fire as the sun slipped below the horizon. "You like mushrooms?"
"Sure. Beats starving."
"Is centipede meat any good?"
"Sure. Sort of like crab if you've ever had it…of course I've only had giant crab here in the Spellwild so maybe it only tastes like giant crab?" Babs shrugged. "Toss it in, it's not bad. Eggs are nasty, but they're better for mana anyway."
Mel added a slab of Centipede meat with a grimace. "There's not a lot of great tasting potions are there?"
Babs laughed. "You're usually too busy trying not to die to care, but yeah, they're all nasty, especially lycanthropy ones."
Vegetables, mushrooms, herbs and meat seared and hissed at the bottom of the pot as Mel stirred them around with a carved branch, a delightful melody of aroma wafting up and out. An actual meal was something she hadn't had for a long time, even before exile she had survived on stale bread and the occasional bruised fruit for ages.
"Alright, stop drooling into the pot and come take a look at this." Babs waved her over.
"This is a map of the area. You'll note these mountains all around the area, they're mean and high, really high. I tried to cut across once and got about half way before I started getting woozy, the air gets really thin, Bruno had to drag me back, I had gotten delirious. I might be able to do it now, but I was a lot less experienced then, and still more than you now."
"Could someone make a tunnel with magic?"
Babs shook her head. "Whole mountain range is bewitched somehow, tunnels collapse and fill back in as quick as you make them. You might be able to go through one way if you were quick about it, but you'd need strong magic to stand a chance, and probably a lot of it."
She tapped the western border of the map. "There's a construction right here, some kind of fortress, giant iron walls, built right into the mountain. There's a gate, you have to enchant it with a level three surge of mana to get it to open, or have something with that level of power to offer it. It's some kind of toll payment I think. Once you're inside you'll be able to travel through the structure to other parts of the Spellwild."
"A fortress? Is it abandoned?" Mel strayed away from the map to the cookpot. Babs followed her, producing a pair of simple clay bowls.
"I've got to get you a little more civilized. You've been eating off a stick haven't you?"
"All I have." Mel grinned and speared a bit of meat on a sharpened stick.
Babs sighed. "Well, it's not exactly a fortress, more of a prison. There are cells and vaults all through it, all of them trapped and crawling with nasty things. I wouldn't open them if I were you. Just stay on the main walkways and pass through."
"Ok, I need a level 3 object, or hit level three myself. Then I go through…but that just gets me to other parts of the Spellwild right? How does any of this get us out of here?"
