---
number: 39
title: Far Hop and the Tumbling Cairn — and Esmeralda answers questions about her spell
date: 2026-10-24
summary: Esmeralda's familiar spell now follows the quest she gives you, and while it is open you can ask her where to find each ingredient. Far Away is renamed Far Hop, and a Tumbling Cairn there sheds Smooth Pebbles beside the old tree that drops Sharp Sticks, so both ingredients have one answer.
epic: mini-games
status: delivered
artifacts: ["docs/handoff/far-hop.md","game/content/dialogue/witch.conv","game/shell/kinds.js","game/world/client/objects/tumbling_cairn.tscn","game/content/areas/new-area-3.placed.json"]
cta: [object Object]
---

<div class="embed-grid" style="display:grid;grid-template-columns:1fr 1fr;gap:12px;margin:1.2em 0">
<figure style="margin:0"><img src="/images/game/land-of-lor/2026-10-24-far-hop-cairn.jpg" alt="The Tumbling Cairn: five flat stones piled off true, the top one tipped, two Smooth Pebbles it has shed lying on the grass beside it" loading="lazy"><figcaption>The Tumbling Cairn, two pebbles it has let fall</figcaption></figure>
<figure style="margin:0"><img src="/images/game/land-of-lor/2026-10-24-far-hop.jpg" alt="Far Hop from above: grass ringed by a lava edge, rock outcrops, the cairn and the old tree" loading="lazy"><figcaption>Far Hop, north-west through the Village's corner door</figcaption></figure>
</div>

Kris, the evening the chest quest went live: Esmeralda's familiar talk should follow the quest
she gives you, not her memory of what she once said; and with only three replies on a line, her
answers about it should sit behind one — *"I have a question about the familiar spell."* Asking
those questions showed the world was not laid out the way he wanted: the giant stone that shed
Smooth Pebbles stood alone in the Village, and he wanted it to be something else, in Far Away
with the sticks, so that *"Where do I find the stick and the smooth pebble?"* has one answer.

**What a player meets.** While the familiar quest is open, Esmeralda answers: the stick and the
pebble are both in **Far Hop** (Far Away, renamed — Kris's choice); a Life Seed comes from the
Grove Tree in Golem Hollow, with where the Hollow is and how to stop the golems; and Kris's own
words for the mud — *"In a mud puddle, of course,"* and once she has said that, *"Where do I find
a mud puddle?"* — *"In various places. I know there is a big one in the Badlands."* In Far Hop
the **Tumbling Cairn** — five flat stones piled off true, the top one tipped — lets a Smooth
Pebble fall beside it every minute or two, three at most lying there, as the old tree beside it
drops Sharp Sticks.

**On Kris's phone.** The cairn was good; a small pebble modelled at its foot went (*"looks like
you can pick it up but you can't"*). He saw nothing fall: forty-four pebbles and forty-four
sticks laid out across Far Hop held the Area's limit of ten of an element, so neither the cairn
nor the tree ever shed. He had them cleared away; the limit stays. Checked on both servers — a
probe walked in to an empty Far Hop and the first pebble and stick fell fourteen seconds later.

Live on spellgrove.com and in the Android build v57. Frogs and slime mould in Far Hop are on the
ideas shelf; dying and dropping what you carry is next.