There was no immediate reaction to Flip’s awakening. The wizard was sure his sharp intake of breath would have been noticed if his companions were awake. As Flip looked around the room, however, he noticed that he was the only one with his eyes open. Rather than wake them, as he was initially compelled to do, Flip retrieved an empty book from the desk in the flat and began to record his dream. There was no knowing if it was of any significance, but Flip would not be caught unprepared if it was.

But, once he had written everything he could, Flip found himself painstakingly awake and alert. And alone. Or so he saw. He couldn’t help but wonder, the longer he sat in silence in the flat, if vampires needed sleep. Flip wondered if, should he travel out of the safety of the flat alone and while his more trusted companions slept, if Theihdow would be awake and comfortable with light conversation. After minutes of thought and over-complicating the issue to an extreme, Flip found himself walking quietly over to the hatch and crawling out back into the real world.

“Trouble sleeping, Faengil?” Theihdow’s voice was immediately present once the hatch had been closed. “Hellish dreams keeping you awake?”

Despite the questions being fired at him immediately, the first thing Flip took note of was the world around him. He still found himself in the wastes, flat and barren, but the sky was illuminated by the sun at mid day. Everything seemed to glow orange, as though the sun had been filtered through a desert lens. And there was a landmark. A small one, constructed of old brick and mortal and then patched with building timbers. The hox’s grotto barely stood out against the orange-tinted gray of the waste with a red and brown construction, which Flip expected was intentional.

The grotto itself was small, barely four feet wide and barely more than two long. The original roof had likely collapsed at some point and been replace with wood and mud. What was likely an element of the original top of the structure, however, was carefully placed at the top above the small circular opening that the hox had disappeared into when they had all arrived. That original topper was an ornamental spike of shining golden metal.

When Flip’s eyes alighted on the spike, his mind went back immediately to his dream. The quick digestion of the scene around him was undermined by his shock at seeing something so familiar, and it took him much longer than he wished to recover.

“You look as though you’ve seen a ghost.”

“I awoke from a vision that thrust my body through this very spike.” Flip carefully touched the point of the spike as he spoke, alarmed that he might be unexpectedly thrust upon it just by coming into contact.

“That would be alarming.” Theihdow nodded knowingly.

After a moment of consideration, Flip realized that there was likely no one better that he could have brought his story to. The vampire seemed expert at affairs of the mind.

“You don’t… do you think my dream might have some bearing on our journey?”

“So it was a dream? Not a vision.” The vampire motioned for Flip to take a seat around a small smoldering campfire where he was relaxing himself.

Flip sat down, opposite from the vampire and immediately felt the calming effects of his presence. “I’m not sure what it was. I have never dreamed with such direct relation to reality before.”

“I may be to blame for that.” Theihdow sighed, almost visibly embarrassed. “Sometimes being in proximity with me can amplify psychic signals. Messages get sent clearer and more powerfully, visions carry more weight, and very rarely that effect can stick to others as well.”

“I don’t think it was anything too new… the demon’s voice was there. But there was another voice as well. And the dream itself was very vivid. I was… somewhere… and then I was pulled back sharply to this point… I suppose I came from that direction if I passed through the spike on the hox’s abode.”

Flip pointed out in the distance in the direction opposite of the hatch in relation to the little constructed dwelling. The direction caused Theihdow to raise an eyebrow in what was likely surprise, but the vampire did not comment on the bearing further.

“If it was truly as vivid and clear as you say, I would consider that a vision. And, moreover, I would be careful how you apply the knowledge you have been given. Some of it may be true, some false, and you may be led to trust it until the worst possible moment. So I advise, you, Faengil, do not trust it.”

Theihdow, despite his severe word choice, was the picture of calm. The hox, venturing out of its home for the first time Flip had seen yet, even joined the vampire and made itself comfortable by his side. The hox seemed quite content, as though it too had just completed a refreshing nap. And, strangely, the hox also seemed to bring genuine visible comfort to Theihdow.

“What time is it, by the way?”

Theihdow looked up to the sky, staring peculiarly directly at the sun, before answering with a hum. “Just before noon, I’d say. You slept for probably… eight hours… Give or take.”

“It felt like moments.”

“Sleep, I believe, tends to when you don’t wake feeling rested. The mind does not dream for the whole duration of sleep, so it can feel like blinking.”

“You believe?”

“I don’t sleep.” Theihdow sighed. “I get close sometimes. Meditation is close… being brought closer to death is close. But being in the constant state of dying, in such a way that makes sure you never do, doesn’t leave much room for intentional unconsciousness.”

“I envy you. If I could remain in complete control of my faculties all the time, I would.”

“You would become a raw nerve, in constant tension of body and mind. Several of the few live as such. I strikes me as a miserable existence. One more reason I live out here, and why I spend so much time drawing closer to real rest. Rest like I imagine your companions are enjoying now.”

Thiehdow’s words brought the gaze of all three creatures around their small campfire towards the hatch which lay just to the side. There was no movement from the hatch, or sound coming from it, but Theihdow seemed intent and the hox’s ears pricked up shortly after. After a few seconds the hatch flipped open rather loudly and Selian peered out cautiously.

“Ah, he’s not dead.” She called back into the flat.

“No, not dead. Just talking.” Flip called out to the elf. “And he didn’t even try and take my blood from me either.”

“Not that I need to.” Theihdow added his statement to the end of Flip’s with haste, as if to clear up the issue.

There was a noticeable but silent response to the statement. No one was quite comfortable asking the obvious followup question, but it lingered in their minds. Instead, Dovhran emerged grumpily from the flat and made his way over to the fire.

“So, when should we move on to the tomb?”

Dovhran’s question startled Selian, but she seemed to be the only one with any noteworthy reaction. Theihdow merely shrugged and Flip didn’t offer up any gesture at all. The hox bared its teeth at Dovhran, but that was probably not because of his question.

“I thought we were still a ways out from actually getting to the tomb. Is it really a straight shot from here?”

Thiehdow nodded in answer to Selian’s question, but Dovhran actually answered it. “It should be, if my sources are accurate and the hox hasn’t moved since the tomb was completed. We just need the right bearing to get from here to there.”

“Which I do not know precisely.” Theihdow offered.

“But I do. I just don’t know how to find it without a compass.” Dovhran sighed. “One hundred and fifty degrees, to the dot. Based off the transit of the serpent’s eye during the harvest month of the year the tomb was built. Which… really, is a very complicated bearing to figure out and I have no idea why they chose it.”

“Because you’re wrong. That’s why.” Selian groaned as she turned her head up to the mid day sky. “The Serpent’s Eye doesn’t have a fixed path. It wanders. The transit of the eye is sporadic, it was recorded because it coincided with the travel, the actual bearing is probably ambiguous. I’d need some kind of star log from the year to figure out where we actually need to go.”

“I don’t know the exact path, but I’d wager it’s in that general direction.” Theihdow pointed in the same direction Flip had earlier when recalling his vision. “I have been there, but never directly. And I’ve traveled the wastes for hundreds of years… since they were created. If we don’t get where we’re going, I can get us back to here.”

“Okay, that’s a big discrepancy.” Selian looked back at the ground to let her eyes readjust and double check the directions she had been given. “One fifty is that way. And you’re saying its in nearly the opposite direction… Dovhran, how did you come up with one-fifty?”

“I checked the star charts for the transit of the eye, and, from the perspective of the journal that mentions it, it would be a one hundred and fifty degrees heading, south-southeast.”

“What star charts?” Selian practically growled.

“The ones stored with the journal. I presume the same ones the writer used to navigate back and forth from the outskirts to the tomb.”

“I don’t suppose you have those charts or that journal with you?”

Flip and Theihdow each took a tentative step back from the elf. Conversely, the hox seemed to be reassured by her tone and began to wind around her legs.

“I’m not going to steal from a library, Farwysher. You may think I’m the scum of the land, but I’m not that low.”

“Do you at least remember the year of the journal?” Selian had started to tap her foot in distress, but the hox seemed to get curious about the underside of her boot and its interruption made the elf stay still.

“Yes.” Dovhran seemed to be increasingly exasperated rather than offended, which struck Flip as odd. “It was dated twenty-four o’ one of the second age. That would make it the year thirty-one of the third age as we now call it. But the star chart wasn’t dated. It was tucked into the cover, but it wasn’t dated.”

“Then it probably wasn’t for that year… but if it was thirty-one… I was a child but I could probably…” Selian put her palm to her forehead and closed her eyes in an effort to recall her distant past. “I can’t… remember very well. But a far north-west transit sounds right. But if it’s a precise heading then I don’t think we have a good chance.”

Theihdow gave Flip an inconspicuous look, as if asking him how much credence they were willing to put on his vision and the luck of a hox. Flip had no way of answering his look, and only managed a shrug.

“I will take the lead then.” Theihdow interrupted. “I can get us on an accurate path and you can attempt to correct our course when the stars fill the sky.”

“If you think you can get us going the right way… I don’t have a problem with that…” Dovhran, who seemed to be deep in thought at the offer, hummed out his approval. “But the hox stays here.”

“I don’t control that.” Theihdow responded blandly, though there was a slight smile on his face. “The creature has a mind of its own… and it seems to be taking a liking to our navigator.”

Selian finally looked down to investigate the creature that was still entertaining itself by crawling around her ankles. As she looked down, it looked up and there was an interesting moment of mutual understanding. As if the hox could speak to her, and it was saying I can’t believe you’re stuck with these morons.