Apparently blood spatter is similar enough to rain, dust, and sandstorms to have slid down the shell of the tiny hut without getting in there.

Tanya hasn't seen its rain-warding in action yet, so it's good to have confirmation. Her barrier certainly can't separate 'drops of rain coming in' from 'living creature coming in, dripping water as it goes'.

No other monsters encroach on her watch.

Then she hands over the situation to Belmarniss's watch. She can wake her if she needs any more wolves' heads blown off.

"Will do, thanks."

Tanya will go sleep in the convenient shield Tiny Hut, for as long as it lasts.

It lasts longer than Belmarniss's sleep cycle but not by all that much; when Tanya wakes up it's at least had some time to warm up in the sunshine, though, and it's not raining. Belmarniss is pacing around, looking at plants and squinting at clouds, not straying too far.

"Good morning. Uneventful watch?"

"I saw some critters but nothing that made it into the monster book or came close."

"I want to take a bath in a stream or lake on our way." She hasn't had a bath in weeks and it's annoying even if she's technically clean thanks to the marvels of Prestidigitation. "If there's a small enough pool I can heat it, but small pools usually aren't clean enough. Normally I'd just get out and warm myself to dry off quickly."

"...sure, suit yourself if we spot a good one."

Was that some kind of cultural misstep? Do Belmarniss's people not bathe at all and only use magic? She did imply bathing was for the poor... Well, Tanya thinks bathing is a civilizational virtue and will not be dissuaded from her plan.

Belmarniss doesn't make any sort of fuss about it. She did her spell prep already and they can pack up and be on their way.

The voyage of the flying hammock resumes! With an extra bath on the way, and a choice of several villages or towns to try to stay in or at least buy fresh bread if Belmarniss wants to.

BREAD

Breadwards then! (Hopefully they'll have chocolate and COFFEE in the big cities...)

How does this village or small town greet them?

This one wants Tanya to accompany her drow at all times and a guy in robes from the temple of Erastil emerges and lowkey stalks them before they get very far but they can buy bread! The local specialty has oats in it, yum.

Ugh. "Do you want to ask them to stay the night, considering?"

"It'd get us more travel time, if we don't need to stand watch all night, but if you'd still want to do that even in an inn no need to bother."

"I don't entirely trust them, given their attitude. And I'll need to space my flying more if we're moving fifteen hours a day instead of eight, so it's not quite double the range. I'd rather have more safety than save two or three days of travel. The bigger question is whether we'll be able to trust sleeping arrangements in Cassomir; there'll be more and more powerful people there to mount an attack, if you think it's at all likely you'll be attacked on account of being a drow."

"Well, I can't rule it out but I do go around looking like a wizard what with the constantly casting spells and I think that helps make it look like a bad idea. I'll suss it out when we get there and if I don't like it I can try to find an amenable boat."

This is such a depressingly low bar that Taldor might not clear. A young unattached woman, of prime age for relocating to a new country and already a valuable and productive mage, whose current ambition in life is to eat bread and visit a big library. All she's asking for is not to be murdered in the night on account of her race. Every country in the world should be competing for exactly this demographic! If Belmarniss can find somewhere better Tanya will consider moving there too. Who'd want to live somewhere that not only turns away valuable human resources but does it by socially-sanctioned lynching?

"Is there somewhere in particular you'd try? Andoran is right across the border, and the atlas said Absalom is a big city."

"Andoran might be worth a try but they hate slavery so much they wrap around to sometimes throwing adventuring parties who run around underground doing murders about it so I wouldn't get my hopes up that they think I'm their new best friend if I, like, suggest that I would rather my mom not die, or anything like that. Absalom is almost certainly suitable though."

'Murdering people empowers us and humans drow slavers are legitimate targets' is exactly the kind of dynamic Tanya was afraid of when she heard about this way of becoming tougher! It's a perverse incentive towards fighting and killing and risk-taking that can twist even the best impulses towards irrationality, such as being against slavery. (It's still presumably net better than practicing slavery yourself like Taldor.)

"Have you heard that Absalom is better than Taldor in this regard?"

"Absalom doesn't have any drow under it - it's on an artificial island. So they won't have anything personal going on, as a group. It's a known adventurer haven and they certainly throw people who go on slave-rescues more or less euphemistically but it'll also throw every other kind of adventurer, ones prepping for the Worldwound or doing merc work or raiding tombs or smuggling or dragonslaying or whatever, and they all coexist there, or so I'm given to understand."