You continue downriver, and ask Pearl whether the river is always like this.
"It's usually a fast-flowing river, but navigable by rafts and canoes here. Upriver it's white-water and perilous, and travel upwards is done by animals pulling the boat from the bank. Downriver the falls were a portage where you would have to carry your goods and boat down and around to the base, then continue. The river is much wider and calmer from that point on."
"The river usually goes shallow in the Summer up here, but farther down there are more tributaries and the lower river is more stable year-round. Last Summer was very hot and the upper river went almost completely dry. It never recovered, and rumor was the trolls dammed or diverted it somehow."
"The only times I've used the river were the long trek around north to meet up with the lower river, where you make, buy, or hire a boat at a goblin camp called Nowhen."
The riverbed twists and turns. Sometimes sheer cliffs dozens of feet high rise up on both sides for a few hundred feet, then the banks return to alternating man-height soil cliffs and shallow gravel beaches. Where the river cuts through the stone, the road to the left (south side) is also cut in next to it, like a tunnel with one side open to the river. The sky brightens, though the sun has not yet risen above the eastern mountains.
You continue walking along the dry middle of the river until you spot a place where the river cuts right into a tunnel in a cliff face. There's light beyond. Another upright boulder with writing on it next to the road on your left. Looks like the road goes into the river tunnel too.
There's an upright boulder here.
Claire, Charlotte, and Pearl are here.
Equipment
Clothes: Fur Cloak, Trousers, Belt with Dagger Sheath and Pouch, Floppy Boot Hat, Cloth-Wrapped Sandals
Armor: None
In Hand: Flimsy Goblin Spear
Satchel [10/10]:a Big Heavy Book [Unlocked] (10 ENC), Densely-Written Love Letter (0 ENC)
Ceramic Ocarina (On cord around neck) (0 ENC)
Dagger
Bottle
Rocks x3
Torch
Lame Torch
Sausages x2 (1 ENC)
Bread Loaf
Jug (2 pints hard cider)
Small Items (No Weight) In Belt Pouch
Compass
Pocketknife
Engraved Lighter
Pack of Cards
Handful of Bugs
Engraved Gold Engagement Ring
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