>Well, since no better option presents itself as of yet, continue on as we had been.
>No wait. Check water supply first. If it is low, smell or scan about for a potential source of fresh water.
>If we're good, then continue on as we had been.
>Your water supply is fine for the moment. You're attentive to refill when you get the opportunity and drink conservatively otherwise.
>After a few more minutes idling beneath the tree, you shoulder your pack and set off westward once more. The sun is reticent today, masked by a wall of dark clouds, and the damp air clings to your skin like fine mist. A thin fog hangs at the very edge of your vision, the outlines of trees and rocks fading subtly into grey. Still, it is several hours before the first real drops of rain start to fall - though once they do, it is very abrupt. You have only just enough time after the first ominous droplets to contemplate retrieving your cloak before the sky opens up and drenches you. The forest around you comes alive with the sound of the rain crashing through curtains of foliage. Leaves tremble and raindrops strike heavily against the soil; patches of bare ground soon turn slick and muddy beneath them. If you'd been even five seconds slower deciding to don that cloak, you'd have gotten absolutely soaked to the skin; you find yourself immensely grateful you decided to purchase it in the first place - even if it
is the wrong size and none too fresh smelling.
>The weather continues on like this for half the day, lessening slightly, but not enough to stop calling it a downpour. You manage to find just enough shelter in time for lunch to keep the crackers from turning to mush in your hand, but it isn't until after supper that the rain eases enough to finally pull your hood back. It feels like it's gained several pounds of water since you first put it on, and it couldn't completely shield you from growing damp beneath it after so many hours of rain, but things could have been much worse. The rain-slick ground did force you to tackle some sections slower than you would otherwise, but you managed to remain upright the whole time, despite the mud and the puddles and the slippery rocks. Though even as the rain fades, the clouds do not disperse. It is a drab and dark sunset.
>The final leg of the day takes you through a large field of nearly neck-high grasses, still laden with the afternoon's downpour like heavy dew. You feel almost swallowed by them, engulfed on all sides by a sea of green and yellow that rustles loudly with your every motion, occasionally flicking water into your face when a tall stalk rebounds. For a time, they fill your entire field of vision unless you stop to crane your neck up at the starless sky; a faint pale glow in one corner of it is the only sign of the moon's presence tonight, beneath that smothering curtain of cloud. You find yourself wondering if Kagerou's made it home by now. She could have. But that would also mean she didn't take shelter from the rain. She wasn't dressed for it as well as you; you find yourself hoping she wasn't too miserable.
>Finding a suitable campsite proves more difficult than it was yesterday. Though the grass has given way to forest once more by the time you considering stopping, between the underbrush and the mud and the increasingly uneven ground, there's few places you'd relish lying down. You have enough energy to press on just a little further, but if that doesn't turn up a better location, you don't know you'll have it in you to improvise something better than flopping down on the nearest patch of mud.
