What should she do? Three of the springs – youth, girl, and elf – seemed duplicative. Her new body was 18, female, and an elf, so would those springs do anything to her? If they did, was it a good thing? Sorhafe could imagine the danger of being aged down to a toddler or turned into a bimbo.
Then there was the spring of the elf. As a forest elf, Sorhafe was smart, athletic, and sexy, but she didn’t know what other kinds of elves existed in this game world. It was entirely possible that there were elvish races that were decidedly less pleasant to be stuck as.
Still, Sorhafe got the feeling that none of those springs would do anything bad to her – her main concern was the Spring of the Cow. The cavern was set up such that the entrance of it dead-ended into a small cliff. About 5 feet down was the Spring of the Cow, which had small ramps leading to both the entrance and the other springs. Sorhafe sized the spring up to see if she could jump it, but her ranger senses told her that the distance was too far.
That meant that the only way to get across the Spring of the Cow was to walk along a narrow stone pillar that seemed precariously perched between the entrance to the cavern and the area on the other side of the spring. The pillar itself was round and only a few inches in diameter, with an aged looking, rough surface made out of an indeterminable grey stone.
After looking the pillar over, Sorhafe closed her eyes and took in a deep breath. As an elvish ranger she had very high dexterity. Something inside of her told her that while the pillar would be difficult to cross, she would be able to manage it as long as she went slow and stayed focused.
Still, Sorhafe found herself wondering if it was worth it? Turning back towards the door, she immediately saw that the way back was blocked by a glowing purple pentagon on the ground. She could sense that the pentagon was some sort of magic trap, and when she reached out towards it images flashed into her mind of tentacles bursting out of the floor and having their way with her.
Just great, Sorhafe sighed to herself. She didn’t know whether it was her ranger skill or some sort of racial ability, but she somehow knew exactly what would happen to her if she tried to go backwards. That meant that the only way to go was over the stone pillar.
With no other choice, Sorhafe anchored her left foot to the ground, then carefully placed her right foot on the stone pillar. She wiggled it around a bit, finding that despite how narrow and round the pillar was, its rough surface caught well on the sole of her boot. Mindful to maintain her balance, she then lifted her left foot, swung it in front of her right foot and planted it on the pillar as well.
The pillar was narrow enough that she could only go forward on it by placing one foot in front of the other, but with her elvish grace Sorhafe slowly lifted her back foot up, swung it forward, then planted it in front of her other one. Step by step, Sorhafe advanced along the pillar without issue as her high dexterity ensured that she instinctively kept her balance, while the rough surface of the stone acted as an anchor for her feet.
Over the next several minutes, Sorhafe methodically stepped her way to the middle of the pillar, when she had another mental flash. Unlike the flash that happened with the pentagram, this one was a lot less specific. Instead, she just got a vague sense of imminent danger as images of a cow flashed into her mind. Was she being attacked? Was the pillar about the break?
Sorhafe’s eyes flew around the room. Nothing on the ceiling, nothing coming out of the springs, nothing behind her except for the tentacle trap in the doorway. Her instincts kept screaming danger as pictures of a sad, mooing cow flashed through her mind, but her eyes didn’t see anything that could pose a danger to her.
Honing her other senses, Sorhafe focused on her enhanced elven hearing, which was when she heard a slight groan from the pillar she was standing on. Was it about to collapse? There was nothing else, so it had to be! She needed to make it to the other side, and fast.
Lifting her right foot, she flung it forward as her eyes kept scanning the room around her, and it was at that moment that she realized that she had been looking everywhere except where the danger actually was.
Her right foot pressed down into the pillar, but instead of planting itself on rough stone, there was a crunching noise and her foot shot out to the side. Had she just looked down, Sorhafe would have seen the small spot of sand stuck to the pillar. Hell, it was so tiny that, had she just been a little bit luckier, she would have unintentionally avoided it. Unfortunately, Sorhafe wasn’t looking at the pillar, and she wasn’t lucky.
The sand crunched under her foot as though it was slick ice. She felt her leg fly off to the side as her entire body lurched to the right. Waiving her arms, Sorhafe made a desperate attempt to regain her balance that was ultimately in vain. Her body tilted more and more to the side until her other foot lost its place on the pillar and she began falling, face first, towards the Spring of the Cow.
As gravity pulled her body towards its unwilling destination, Sorhafe saw a strange black and white glow shine through the bubbling water as steam rose off it. The last thing she noticed before plunging into it was the sound of that steam boiling out of the spring, but instead of the hissing noise that she expected, she could swear that she heard a rumbling *mooo*.