The dryad barkeep prepared a pie for Caen. He produced a round, fleshy fruit of some kind and gradually transformed it right before Caen's eyes. The dryad's soul structure revealed that this was a working of Flora magic, which intrigued Caen to no end.

  “What spell and modifier combinations did you use to achieve this?”

  “Once you complete your climb, you'll have all the answers to that,” the dryad said simply. “But only once you complete your climb.”

  Caen held back the stream of questions that threatened to tumble out of him. Mafrolem had hinted at the fact that the Flora practicians of Parthra used a different spell system than the Saffronan kind, but he'd refused to answer whether or not his fragment was controlled by that very system.

  Some people here in the grotto tossed useful information at Caen. They told him where to find food. The answer was anywhere. Some bulbous dark-colored rinds he'd seen hanging from walls were apparently fruits of all kinds, and could be digested by pretty much anyone. There were edible leaves and vines. Parthra provided a vast array of nutrients. When he inquired about poisonous fruits and shrubs, they'd explained that there were none, because Parthra would do no harm.

  There were also pools of water from which he could drink… or bathe in. They'd all insisted that all water in Parthra was purified through and through. Thankfully, there were also spigots in some walls that he could drink from. Caen fully intended to use those spigots. No drinking from pools.

  According to them, sleeping was a matter of finding a location that appealed to him. All of Parthra was available for use. The bark of the floors was comfortable to sleep on, and there were beds of different plantlike varieties. Some of moss, some of strange Planar flowers—Caen had not come across any of these so far. Theft and harm could not happen in Parthra. Everywhere and everyone was safe. Caen struggled to believe most of what he heard.

  And apparently, two of the people here were climbers, while the others were simply denizens of Parthra. One of the climbers had been here for an entire month, and she hadn't the slightest clue how to impress Parthra. The other was a middle-aged man who had been trying at the climb on and off for almost six years now.

  They gave him some lore and tips for climbing to higher layers that seemed rather… suspicious, considering how they hadn't ever made it past this layer themselves. Caen said nothing on the matter and politely received their advice.

  “I actually heard tell of a Flora mage who completed the climb in mere days,” someone said from their table.

  “Days? Sheh!” the barkeep said. “Try an afternoon. I know of a dryad who did it so quickly the Parthran elderate offered her a position among their ranks.”

  “You and your stories!” someone accused the barkeep.

  “Dryads participate in the climb as well?” Caen asked.

  “Of course they do! We don't just naturally get Parthra's favor because we look like this. Though, of course, we do start with advantages that no one else has.” He touched his hair, which was the deep black of Parthra.

  Caen realized now that it hadn’t merely been aesthetic. “You earned your fragment,” Caen said, watching the black roots of the dryad's hair. They were smooth, like Mafrolem's had been, and moved even now, as though of their own accord.

  “That I did. I've lived here all my life. Took me a year to complete the climb.”

  “Even with your advantages?” Caen asked carefully. Mafrolem had completed the climb in a little over four months.

  “What is one year to a dryad? It was hardly a sacrifice. And Parthra still found me worthy in the end.”

  At some point, the other people here in the grotto with them had returned to their meals and conversations. Caen had finished his pie. It was delicious and very filling, and he'd made sure to communicate that to the barkeep. He'd been thinking about something, though.

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  “Why don't climbers come together and form teams to figure out how best to earn Parthra's favor?”

  The barkeep’s expression grew stern. “Many have tried to do that and failed. Parthra is not a game for children to piece apart with trickery. Anyone who tells you otherwise is a troublemaker and deceiver. While it is a mystery to earn Parthra's favor, there are certainly things you can do to earn its disregard.”

  “Things like what?”

  “There's a troublesome fellow who's been haunting these halls for months now. He would go down to the first layer and try bribing fresh climbers into assisting him on his climb. He has clearly lost Parthra's favor and intends to pass that disregard on to others.”

  “What exactly did this person… do wrong?” Caen asked.

  “He reached the third layer. And rather than take the time to focus on pushing through, he came back down to the second layer to look for easy assistance. Now Parthra has denied him further ascent.”

  Caen's brow creased in thought. “When we come down to lower floors, we can't just return to the floor we came from?” He'd done that just a few hours ago when trying to determine if he was trapped.

  “Ha,” the dryad barked. “Unless you complete the climb, that will not be possible, my climber friend. You will have to earn Parthra's favor all over again. This only applies from the third layer onwards, though. While you're here, you can go to the first layer all you want.”

  Caen felt a little alarmed that no one had mentioned this to him. He would definitely have made that kind of mistake.

  “Unless you intend to halt your attempt at climbing. It is advisable to persist on the layer you are on. I was stuck on the fifth layer for months.”

  * * *

  After he'd chatted with the dryad some more, Caen thanked him and the others in the grotto and retreated to get some sleep. He was feeling very heavy and tired. Keeping his eyes open was growing increasingly difficult.

  Despite how much time had passed, it was still bright outside. An encyclopedia he'd read years back described Parthra as having day and night cycles that were ‘complex and hard to determine,’ but it was usually daytime in Parthra. It was probably nighttime in Saffron right now.

  [Gwen? Zeris?] Caen didn't entirely expect the telepathic link to work, but it was worth a try.

  [Hey!] Guinevere sent back. [You good?]

  [I'm great. Just wanted to know the time.]

  [Nearly midnight.] Zeris sent. [What happened to your timepiece?]

  [I'm in the Parthran Plane.]

  [Uh, I'm not sure if that's supposed to be possible,] Gwen said. [We'd both need to be close to the Aperture, like well-under-a-mile close. Maybe Parthra is different. Anyway, Goodluck! I'm having dinner with my parents right now.]

  [Thanks,] Caen sent. [Why are you having dinner with your family so late?]

  [My parents just returned from their trip and were so excited to see me. Their idea of a fun dinner is making all their cooking ingredients from scratch. We dried herbs for hours.]

  [Your family sounds weirder and weirder, the more I know about them,] Zeris sent.

  [You haven't seen anything yet,] Guinevere laughed.

  [We still on for tomorrow?] Zeris asked.

  [You bet.]

  [Well, goodnight to both of you,] Caen sent, yawning. [Have fun with your outing tomorrow. I'm going to pay off my sleep abeyance debt.]

  [Oof.]

  [Yeah, I don't envy you there.]

  Caen found a nice cozy chamber with the ceiling fifty or so feet high. It was almost cylindrical. A small window-like opening in the wall brought in soft sunlight.

  Caen set his bag down on the moss-covered floor and took out his scripting equipment. He couldn't make any indents in the bark, below the cover of moss, but he could pour tyyr ink on the floor, and that was enough. It was a lot harder to make a perfect circle this way. Once he was done with the alarm ward, he lay inside it. The moss somehow felt softer now that he was lying on it.

  He'd been told Parthra was safe, but that was no reason not to take precautions. Paying off a sleep abeyance debt was something of a delicate process.

  Caen had read of instances where people died from thirst and hunger while paying it off. A person could be so exhausted while paying off their debt that they'd be unable to even move and get the necessary sustenance they needed. Though that was, of course, a terribly extreme situation. Caen was nowhere near that tired, and he didn't ever intend to get there.

  Sleep found him quickly.