Zoe dumped the contents of her leather pouch out onto the grassy forest floor. Dull clangs rang out as metal bars rattled against one another, held together by flimsy fabrics and enchanted ropes.

  "What's this?" Tom asked. He had taken long enough to get past his hysteria that they didn't have any time to get things done before the sun began to set. Or at least, before the sun passed the magical point right around noon that its light managed to reach down into the deep chasms.

  "A tent," Zoe shoved some of the spikes over towards Tom. "You ever set one up? You can help out."

  Tom shrugged and got to work ramming spikes into the ground, pulling the flexible metal pipes together through various hoops on the fabric to prop up the tent's form. The tent's size was hardly noteworthy, though it was a little on the larger size of normal. Enough to fit three people with relative comfort even without the enchantments helping it out.

  "I thought we would've just slept in a sinkhole," Jeff suggested. He'd seemed to accept Zoe's reveal much easier, though she wasn't sure how much of that was just him handling a crisis better. Maybe he would need time alone to process things. Zoe made a note to give the two men a day or two on their own after they'd gotten used to the valleys.

  "Well, most nights we probably will." Zoe nodded as she rammed another spike through the cold icy ground with ease. "Does your sinkhole magic make things that aren't... inverse sinkholes? Could you make a square room beneath the ground?"

  Jeff nodded. "Sinkholes are quite versatile. Of course I could."

  "Great, we'll have you do that most nights then. But the nights here can be long, you two know that right?" Zoe looked up to the two men.

  They nodded.

  "So, there's a bit of a balancing act to make. On the one hand, you want those long nights to be comfortable. Thus, a nice tent to spend the night in. This one's a bit special, you'll see. But on the other hand, setting the tent up during the day costs precious minutes of light that could have been used for productivity."

  Zoe paused for a moment to let them process what she was saying. She doubted either of these two planned to come to the valleys without understanding the dangers they posed, but she also wasn't going to write off that they got here much faster than they had meant to. Maybe they had some books they planned to read on the journey over here, maybe they'd planned to stop at a nearby city to get advice.

  "Up above, the ten or so minutes that it takes to set up a tent is hardly worth mentioning. Do you two need to sleep anymore?" Zoe shoved the last spike into the ground, propping up the last corner of the tent and letting it show its final rotund form.

  "We can go about a week without sleep but we try to sleep every few days, usually." Tom eyed the remaining parts left in front of the tent with curiosity.

  "Right," Zoe grabbed one of the pieces leftover — a pencil thin length of black stone as long as her index finger and slotted it in to a pouch on the front of the tent. The enchantments connected, coursing mana through the external most layer of fabric on the tent to reinforce it from stray impacts.

  "So if you sleep every two days for eight hours then that's forty hours of activity, and 8 hours of downtime. If you take ten minutes to set up this tent? No big deal. That's like less than one percent of your active time spent setting up the tent. But!" Zoe held up a finger as she reached down to grab another of the leftover pieces.

  This time, she grabbed a zipper pull and shoved it onto the slider attached to the entrance of the tent. The enchantments connected again, surging mana through the interior layer of the tent. The space inside twisted, growing multiple times larger as she shoved the rest of the pieces inside the tent and stepped inside. One of the pieces she flashed some mana through, causing it to glow as it rolled into the middle of the tent casting a warm glow on the barren interior.

  "Down here in the valleys, we get much less active time every day. Now we could move during the night, if we wanted to. With me, we probably will. But if I leave you two alone I would strongly advise against it. It depends on where in the valleys you are, but you can expect anywhere from about three to five hours of sunlight every day. Ten minutes? That suddenly becomes a solid three percent of your active time. Plus another three percent to take it down in the morning." Zoe gestured for the two to step inside after her, zipping up the entrance as they came in and smirking at the looks of wonder of their faces.

  "Now, you also need to eat. And if you're going to be cooking, then you have to do that during the day too. Otherwise the light of the fire will attract the dark beasts. So with two of you, you could have one on cooking duty and one on setting up camp duty. This used to be a big part of why people down here travelled in groups of at least three to four." Zoe explained.

  "Do they not anymore?" Jeff tapped on one of the walls of the tent.

  "They do." Zoe nodded. "It's just less necessary now that storage items are more common down here. You can stock up on some food in town and build up your camp when night falls, then eat in the dark. But having companions makes it more fun, and more safe if something does go wrong. Same reason people travel in groups up above."

  "Anyway, all of this is to say that every night you're going to have to ask yourself if those precious minutes it will take to set up and take down the tent are going to be impactful. Will having the comfortable tent make more of a difference than having an extra twenty odd minutes? Will those minutes let you get to the next town a day earlier, will they get you out of danger sooner?" Zoe picked up another of the components, a simple round ball of the black stone and pushed mana into it.

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  The ball expanded into a solid rectangular bed, and she tossed an enchanted piece of fabric over top of it, hooking some loops in the fabric onto small hooks that formed on the corners of the bed. She pushed mana into the enchantment, and the fabric puffed up to form a comfortable, albeit somewhat firm mattress thanks to a combination of several creation skills along with her Sewing and Knitting skills. She kicked another couple of the balls over towards Tom and Jeff, along with the other two matching pieces of fabric.

  "It sounds like we'll mostly want to use a makeshift shelter if we're travelling, but set up the tent if we're going to be settling down in a place for a while. If we find a dungeon or something of the like." Tom said, pushing mana into the ball of stone. He squinted at the stone for a moment, before he pushed even more into it and stepped back while it expanded into a bed of his own.

  "Since we'll be able to use the tent multiple times but only have to set it up once." Tom added.

  Zoe nodded. "Yup. Honestly we could just ignore the travel time completely with me here, but that gets boring. There's lots to discover here and I'd like to take the time to explore, maybe discover some new dungeons or vegetables."

  "Where are we, anyway?" Jeff asked.

  "Mmm, I don't really know to be honest." Zoe said. "But Foizo is roughly," She pointed towards the ground. "That direction?"

  "Wait," Tom shot up on the bed. "We're on the other side of Abyllan?"

  "More or less. Maybe it's a little bit more that way?" Zoe lifted her finger to a bit more northern feeling direction. It wasn't quite exactly opposite of Foizo, after all.

  Tom scoffed. "Of course."

  "Oh, we can go wherever you two want by the way. If you had specific plans, we can go do that. I figured we'd explore a bunch of the different values and I thought this would be a fun way to start since I don't know the area." Zoe said.

  Jeff shrugged. "Only plan was to go in the valleys. Doesn't really matter to me which valley we go in. You?" He looked to Tom.

  Tom shrugged. "It's going to take a few days to get used to you."

  Zoe laughed. "It'll take longer than that, I think."

  She spent the next few minutes in a comfortable silence, setting up the rest of the room. They'd move in the morning so it did feel like a bit of a waste. But it would be a comfortable place for them to spend their first night, and Zoe had gifts to give out after all. It just wouldn't do to give out gifts without the proper environment.

  A plain wooden table and a trio of chairs formed in seconds with her Wood skill — some things were just simpler to make by hand. Or by thought, rather, than with enchantments.

  Several more finger length sticks of black stone slotted in to various pockets throughout the interior fabric, creating the illusion of windows. From the outside, nothing changed but from the inside a complicated enchantment of Light, Stealth and Painting let them see through the tent to what was outside.

  And the final piece to the puzzle were several small black stones she pulsed mana through and tossed around the perimeter of the tent. They served to cast a shadow over the tent so even if some amount of light did leak out it still wouldn't be visible except for a very small area around the tent and as an alarm in the event that something did pass over them.

  "Right!" Zoe sat down at one of the simple wooden chairs, gesturing for Tom and Jeff to take their own seats. Neither of them did, choosing instead to pace through the tent staring out the windows or inspecting the incredible array of enchantments that made up the tent. She continued, anyway. "So. I have gifts."

  Both of them turned and looked at her as she mentioned gifts.

  "A gift from the verdant watcher? Don't mind if I do." Tom took his seat, oozing with excitement. Jeff followed not long after, watching Zoe with anticipation.

  Zoe summoned the six rings of light she'd made and handed three to both of them. "These are your single greatest defense against the dark beasts and the wanderers down here. Keep one equipped on you at all times. They take more mana than you probably have so if you have to use one, just swap it out until you have some time to recharge it."

  Tom and Jeff both took one of the rings and put them on. Jeff in particular looked somewhat shocked as he felt the mana coursing through the tiny enchantment.

  "There's actually two enchantments on them, but only one of them is all that noteworthy. The inner layer is one you'll want to have running all the time. It's a simple enchantment powered by ambient mana that just provides you with resistance to Light." Zoe explained.

  "We both already have Light resistance, by the way." Jeff said. "Got it from a dungeon a couple years back that we ran a few times."

  "What level?" Zoe asked.

  "Sixty eight," Tom answered.

  "Sixty six." Jeff answered.

  "You'll probably want to keep the inner layer on at all times. Try to feel for the enchantment now. Be very careful to only flash mana through the innermost layer of the ring." Zoe explained.

  Tom and Jeff both took some time to inspect the enchantments as Zoe felt their mana probe around the ring. Jeff was the first to activate the inner layer, and Zoe repressed a chuckle as he noticed the change. Tom followed a minute later.

  "Both of you got it then?" Zoe asked. When both of them nodded, she continued. "Alright, well the outer layer will be quicker to show than to explain so Jeff go ahead and activate it now."

  Jeff nodded, and after a brief moment of probing the ring he flashed mana through the outer layer. In an instant, the warm glow in the tent was replaced with an intense, pure white light that poured out from his ring. Colour stripped away as the powerful light bounced around and overwhelmed the various colourful objects trying to absorb the different wavelengths. Even the black stone that otherwise seemed like a void in the middle of the warm dimly lit tent before looked almost mirror-like under the powerful light enchantment.

  "Holy shit," Tom's jaw dropped. His finger moved to the ring on his hand to pull it off, but Zoe reached out and stopped him.

  "Don't take it off. The only reason your eyes aren't bleeding right now is because you have that ring on." Zoe said. "This only lasts about four minutes. So use that time to get to safety as best you can. And do not use it if anybody else you care about is nearby without one of those rings on, and activated. Just let it bleed out the rest of its mana, Jeff."

  Jeff nodded, the two men staring at the scene around them in awe for a few minutes before the enchantment wore off.

  "Try and fill the ring." Zoe said.

  Jeff pushed mana into the ring, grimacing as he felt the incredible amount the tiny ring could hold. "This would take at least six or seven hours to fill."

  "And that's why you have six of them." Zoe reached out and touched his ring, flooding it with mana for a few seconds to fill it back up. "So, let's get some sleep tonight and then tomorrow we will tear down all this work we did and have some good ol' fashioned fun!'"

  *Ding* You have received a message from Joe.

  not create a solution and instead wait until they have some kind of eureka moment. Sometimes I'll even just leave the door unlocked cause somebody else already solved the puzzle, and they'll fixate on the puzzle for a while before just trying to open the door finally lol.

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