Dear Risa,

  The plumbing works! We have a bathroom!

  This is far more exciting to me than it ever will be to you, so I’ll shut up about it now.

  Iiiinstead, I’ll tell you about our new mission! That’s right, Luke was Summoned by Goddess Bonnie to learn of a New Quest she has for us.

  In like two months. But still.

  Basically, there’s a huge underground cave system that the earthquakes opened up, and goblins live there! She wants us to go say hi to them all.

  Cali isn't sure how the liondrakes will handle being underground for a couple weeks. Other than that, we’re absolutely ready to head over and see things no neko has ever seen before.

  After we’ve seen Echo, of course. Bonnie specifically mentioned that we had to go say hi to her first. Granted, I’m going to be saying a lot more than just “hi”, but something like that will be the beginning of my tirade.

  Maki still misses her. I still miss her. She was fun to be around. Her personality really added something to the group. Why did she have to go and be a dumb princess or whatever?

  Anyhow. So yeah. We’re on our way to talk to Echo, and then we’ll be on our way to talk to a bunch of goblins.

  If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  Oh yeah! We left Riverriverriverriver yesterday, and are now on our way to the city of Fancy, which I hope lives up to its name. If it is not fancy, I will file an official complaint with the mayor. Or whoever’s in charge.

  I’m sure it will be at least slightly fancy, though. You can't just name a city that without making it live up to its name. That’d be like naming a city Riverriverriverriver and there only being three rivers…

  The terrain here is a tiny bit more green than what we passed through before. There’s more bushes and an occasional tree.

  The bushes smell nice. Which is an odd thing to say, but it’s true. Whenever the wind blows, there’s this smell of fresh herbs in it. It feels like a dry aromatherapy room or something.

  Cali ground some leaves up on the chicken pasta we had for lunch, and it was pretty delicious. She got a bunch and is going to take them to her mom as a present. Hopefully they last ok. And if we happen to eat them all before getting home, well, no one will have to know.

  Unless you go to Fish and tell her mom after reading this.

  Which would be a really weird thing to do.

  Oh, I have finally given in and now join everyone on the hourly run-around-the-wagon-for-exercise thing. It still looks silly, but I can't really use that as an excuse when we’re only passing like three other people a day.

  Maki has taken it as some kind of personal success. He and Cali have wrist and ankle weights to run around with, but Luke doesn't find those necessary, so I also don't think I need them.

  Besides, they clash with all my clothes. You know that’s the most important thing.

  Signing off,

  Maeve Zee