[Realm: Álfheimr]
[Location: Outskirts]
Gretchen let out a long, weary sigh as she sat perched on a smooth boulder just outside the outskirts of Rumpelstadt. The stone was still cool beneath her, grounding her thoughts as she stared out over the uneven dirt path. Her fingers anxiously rubbed at the fabric of her dress, her mind looping endlessly on the same worry.
("Those two really are monsters… causing all those tremors just by fighting?") The question pulsed through her skull.
She rubbed her temples. She had felt those tremors—felt the ground heave violently. The earth had quivered beneath her boots and she wondered—not for the first time—if life in the mines would have been safer after all.
Perhaps she should have stayed deep in the mines, breathing in dust and the scent of ore. Perhaps that life, harsh as it had been, would have been easier to stomach than whatever she had stepped into now.
