Try harder.

The Trygal Root wasn't completely out of reach—Vivia just needed to put a little more effort in. Then, she could call her job done and get paid.

Lying prone once again, she inched a bit further over the edge of the bluff, knocking pebbles and clumps of dirt free in the process. She watched the debris tumble down the slope slowly at first, but with a gradually increasing speed, before disappearing in the shadowed shrubbery below. She thought that slow start would be easy to recover from if she were to slip, as long as she didn't slip too quickly past it.

When she finally managed to reach a root, she found it difficult to pry from the soil at the angle she lowered herself at. With her feet hooked on a blessedly sturdy rock, gripping it with both hands found her some success, but her triumphant gasp waned upon seeing how small the root she'd plucked was.

Her chest pressed into the hard dirt, calves straining from holding her secure as possible, Vivia tucked the pathetic root away with the rest, sighting a nice big one just a bit further down. She decided to risk it, letting go of her anchor to worm her way to that prize.

She was able to keep herself steady, using the hole from the small bulb as a handhold while she slid another pace down the bluff. The big one was right at the point where it steepened the most, but she found she could keep her weight low and balanced so as to avoid any precipitous movements. Pushing another inch forward on her belly, she got a hand on the root she sought, finding it firmly wedged in the dry earth.

Vivia gripped its stem with iron determination, biting her lip and furrowing her brow as she wiggled it from her flat position. Careful not to move too much, she gave it a series of stiff tugs until she felt it loosen up, and then, with one resolute effort, she ripped it free in a shower of dirt.

As she held her prize—a bulb large enough to count as three!--Vivia panted against the hard ground, triumphant at last. After carefully pocketing the thick root, she tried pushing herself back up the slope, only to find the neckline of her tunic caught on the twisted stem of one solid root.

She paused, feet searching behind her for a hold as she gently lifted her chest off the ground. The root held fast, and positioned as she was now, moving a hand to try and work it free proved treacherous. Sweat dripped along the side of her head and down her neck as she slowly, ever so slowly, pulled herself back up the cliff, and subsequently pulled her tunic's neck further from herself. She withdrew enough that she felt her boot's toe graze the rock, but gravity still daunted her from hasty action, and the crumbling of the ground beneath her sounded scarier and scarier as her situation tensed.

She felt able to raise her right hand to try and do something, but the only thing she saw that might help was stripping her tunic off on the way up. She might be able to reach out and pull it free, but she didn't trust the motion not to send her slipping down the slope.