In a few minutes, though, most of the crowd had dispersed, either going into other buildings, off out of sight, or congregating in small groups. None had actually bothered us, I guess her "glare like you'd just as soon rip arms off as talk to people" look had worked. Which was kinda annoying, I would have liked to talk to some of those people, I mean, I didn't even know that you could GET those in that color!

I think I enjoyed the walk a lot more than she did, every time something appeared out of thin air, or the flowers started talking, or a path lead to a different world or something like that, Julia seemed to jump a bit. I wish I could have explored it all, but, then I had to keep an eye on her, make sure she didn't get in trouble. Maybe later.

"Hey, there it is!" I called, pointing at the building, "I think that's the one we want."

She compared it to a small map she pulled out (I hadn't realized they even had portable maps)(and where'd she carry it, anyway?), then nodded. I went to cut across the grass toward it, but spotted a "Keep off the Grass" sign, which I was going to ignore, until I noticed the overgrown skeleton on the grass, with daisies growing out of its eyes. "Right," I said, stepping back carefully, "there's paths for a reason. That way, to the building!"

Right at that moment, another crowd of assorted people came running around the corner of the building in the distance, yelling "Das Boot! Das Boot!"

"Huh?" she asked.

"Don't look at me. Must be foreign."

That was when we noticed the ground was shaking rhythmically, and around the same corner hopped a giant green boot, at least two stories tall, with what looked like a windup key in the back. It seemed to be chasing the group of people, who unfortunately seemed to be heading right for us.

The grass on the opposite side of the path, without the bones in it, didn't have any warning signs or anything, but would probably turn us into radishes or something. Better a live radish than a dead greasy stain on a giant boot. "What are your opinions on radishes?" I asked Julia.

She stared down at me. "Is this at all relevant to us not getting squished?"

"Well, the grass over there would eat us, and we'd be just as dead, that thing's faster than us, so, this grass over here would probably turn us into radishes or something, if we step on it. I bet there's plenty of job openings for radishes."

The stampede and giant boot were getting uncomfortably close, so I didn't bother waiting for her response, I jumped off the path and started running. Well, that was the plan, anyway. Only I literally jumped OFF the path. Turns out that that grass was a lot taller than it looked, and there was a steep slope there. So I more fell than ran. The grass slowed me and provided a cushion,but also made it impossible to get myself straightened out. Beside me, I heard at least two voices raised in complaint, sounded like somebody else was falling too.

Eventually, I hit bottom, with long lengths of grass tangled around me. Fun. I chewed through the stalk wrapped around my face, and spat it out. Luckily I always have sharp pointy things close at hand, so I was able to get loose fairly easily, between cutting and wriggling. Turns out I wasn't quite on the ground, as I slipped down a couple feet, but landed on my feet. Someone or something was thrashing about off to one side, so I headed as best I could that way.

It's very surreal trying to work through grass of normal width that's at least ten feet high. I think it shouldn't even stand up, but can't really call a magic college normal. The thrashing turned out to be Julia, who'd managed to get rather tangled, and was surrounded by a bunch of ripped and or broken bits of grass. "You know, there's quite a few people who'd probably pay good money for pictures of this," I commented.

"Oh, shut up and help me loose."

Several minutes later, after much cursing, cutting, threats, and complaints along the line of "That's my ARM, you idiot!", Julia was loose too. "So, which way's out?" she asked.

"Well, that way's down, I'm pretty sure," I said, pointing, "but dunno which way is the path. Can't see which way we fell."

"Can't you just climb up, and see?"

"I dunno, maybe. Let me try."

Moments later, upside down and hanging onto clumps of long grass, I answered her. "No."

"Fine, we'll cut our way out," she said, pulling out the sword and hacking one of the grasses off at the base.

The top of the grass fell straight down, embedding itself a foot into the ground, inches from her toes. "Cool! But let's not try that again, it's lots easier to walk without that pinning your foot to the ground," I advised.

She glared at me. That's the problem with barbarians, their best tool is a big honkin' sword, and so they try to solve every problem by chopping it in half. "So how do we get out of here?" she asked.

"Walk?"