Ellie suspects Ruby is not precisely unbiased.

She's only a little biased. Promise.

She'll allow it.

Oh, good. Wouldn't do to be overwhelmingly biased.

She has another class to go to eventually. One she care about marginally more than English.

Ruby, alas, isn't in that one.

Still, they can arrange to see each other again really easily.

Ellie would like that.

Being friends with Ruby is rather like being friends with a somewhat murderous limpet, really.

Or possibly a cat. One very aware whenever you are doing tasks that aren't 'pet the cat.'

And, in due time, Friday morning - and Ruby's planned scavenger hunt - rolls around.

Ellie can provide pets. When she doesn't need both hands to do magic.

She's been looking forward to the scavenger hunt.

There's a folded piece of paper on the floor, probably slid under her dorm room door, when she wakes.

What's it say?

The outside is labeled simply

A clue! Bzzzz

On the inside, handwritten, in neat, flowing script, with bees and clover flowers sketched rather nicely in the margin:

It's all I have to bring today—
This, and my heart beside—
This, and my heart, and all the fields—
And all the meadows wide—
Be sure you count—should I forget
Some one the sum could tell—
This, and my heart, and all the Bees
Which in the Clover dwell.

Hmm, a field?

Point her to the field with the bees.

Her compass is pretty sure there's a lot of bees in a field at the edge of campus. Sunny, by some trees, in fact full of clover and little buzzing friends.

One of the trees at the field's edge seems to be made of two other trees growing together, and appears to contain a hive, as well as a lot of nooks in its roots.

That looks promising.

Bees, just know that if you sting her, she will sting back.

The bees seem mostly content to ignore the lightning cat.

There's a small jewelry box in one of the nooks formed by the tree roots - not particularly hidden beyond its location. It's black with yellow lacquer lightning bolts and a storm cloud clasp.

Shiny. And probably also what she's looking for. What's inside?

A bee pendent, a dried four leaf clover fixed between two pieces of glass, and more poetry! This page has a very nice sketched rendition of a stack of boulders on a mountain top.

In lands I never saw — they say
Immortal Alps look down —
Whose Bonnets touch the firmament —
Whose Sandals touch the town —

Meek at whose everlasting feet
A Myriad Daisy play —
Which, Sir, are you and which am I
Upon an August day?

Ruby is good at drawings. And it looks like the poems are going to be a thing. She shifts human long enough to tuck the shiny things into a pocket, then goes back to get the compass going. A cairn on a hill, looks like.

Probably not all the way to the Alps. Though with Ruby, one cannot quite be sure.

Seems to be...

A relatively nearby mountain, in fact topped with boulders. The view is rather nice from up here, the valley falling away into a broad river.

She flies up to the top and starts inspecting the boulders.

Wrapped in a bit of cling wrap -

A rare book she'd mentioned wanting to read, with a bookmark with a mountain charm and another folded up piece of paper inside the cover.

That's so sweet.

Next clue?

My River runs to thee—
Blue Sea! Wilt welcome me?
My River wait reply—
Oh Sea—look graciously—
I’ll fetch thee Brooks
From spotted nooks—
Say—Sea—Take Me!

And a drawing of a river bank.

Compass to river?