<div class="spoiler_container"><div class="spoiler_header" onclick="hideSecond (this);" role="button">Purchases</div><div class="spoiler_body">The crafters have lists of items, so feel free to flip through your books without feeling like you're cheating!  ;D<br/></div></div><br/><br/>"Go ahead and take Dixon. Don't worry, we'll hold down the fort while you're gone. Telethrax's lost the home field advantage, and if he dares to show his face again, we'll turn it into a pincushion and send him packing with his tail between his legs," Zombs reassured Rayne.<br/><br/>"You take care," Starstrike added with a hug. "We'll help the others level up in the meantime. With any luck, you'll come back to a city full of double-digit level players!"<br/><br/>"Rayne! Wait!" A pair of last-minute well-wishers - Charlatania and XxxHawtAzn69xxX, whom she had rescued from the bazaar what seemed so long ago - rushed up. "Glad we made it before you left... um... we made something for you, just a small token of gratitude." They presented Rayne with a small cape, dyed twilight blue. "We wove this out of hair shed from Dixon's mane, and hope you'll find it useful."<br/><br/><div class="spoiler_container"><div class="spoiler_header" onclick="hideSecond (this);" role="button">Griffon mane cape</div><div class="spoiler_body">This cape of griffon mane functions as a <em>cloak of resistance +1</em> and also provides a +2 competence bonus to Fly checks.<br/></div></div><br/><br/><hr/><br/>Dixon was eager to spread his wings once more, making short work of the miles between Port Lannis and Stag's End. The road northwest wound through (low-level) farmland that gave way to (mid-level) woods as it got further and further away from the city, and made for an easy landmark for Rayne to follow from the air. In the sky, Rayne was undisturbed by the beasts wandering the earth below - well, there was one time when she passed by a giant eagle, but she was so far out of its league it wasn't even aggressive towards her.<br/><br/>Even travelling as the crow flies, the trip was expected to take a day and night. Not that there was actually twenty-four hours' worth of distance to traverse, but out in the wilderness, the day-night cycle was accelerated, taking only a few hours to switch. Before the Change, it was meant to let players experience both daytime and nighttime encounters. Now, it served to hide the scaled-down physical size of the virtual world. With only the sun to mark the time, it was hard to tell that the day had been accelerated as the sun dipped low on the horizon, especially when her stomach growled as though it was the end of a long day.<br/><br/>Not only were the heavens above darkening, but the earth below was changing by the mile. Green woods gave way to a grey wasteland, as lifeless as the barren husks of trees dotting grass-less, ashy soil. A fog rolled over the land, obscuring shadowy shapes that moved beneath leafless branches. This was no doubt the Blighted Woods she had been warned about. Rayne had a choice to make - to press on through this zone through the swiftly coming night, or to make camp for the night outside the zone proper and wait to cross the area the next day.