[The alarm went off, it was 6 AM. Jason was ready to get to work around the farm. He had 39 starting actions]

[Tess’s Almanac: 45th day of Winter! 46 days until the Winter Festival. Yet another cold one, but not as cold as it’ll be tomorrow! If you’re planning on getting outside and doing anything, do it today, because when the sun sets, the temperature’s gonna drop for about twenty-four hours straight]

“That’s a pleasant thought.” Jason groaned and rolled out of bed. At least, he tried to. Chance was laying across him, and didn’t seem to have any particular inclination to move. Jason sighed and pushed the dog to the end of the bed, though he did so light-heartedly. “You know, Chance, I let you sleep on my bed once. One time, just because you were new and wanted some comfort. This is not going to continue to be a thing by the time that Tess and I are married.”

Chance simply raced up to him and licked his hand, and Jason sighed. He wasn’t concerned at all about Tess wanting to kick the dog out of the bed… No, he was worried about the prospect of Tess rather enjoying the dog in the bed and never letting him sleep anywhere else ever again, and Jason did not want to share his bed with both Tess and Chance at the same time.

In any event, he slowly walked up to the window and gazed out across the landscape, which had been dusted by a light covering of snow several days earlier that hadn’t yet faded away. He sighed in contentment at the white landscape, marred only by footprints of himself, Chance, and Lady. After a few minutes of contemplating what to do for the day, he changed clothes, went downstairs, and prepared breakfast for both himself and Chance.

“Sit, boy.”

Without a treat in sight, Chance sat down wonderfully. Jason smiled, then held up a hand. “Stay.”

With that, Jason walked into the living room, sat down on the couch, and waited for almost thirty seconds.

“Come!”

Chance bolted into the room and leapt up onto his master’s lap, and Jason began to pet him up and down both sides. They then walked back into the kitchen and finished their breakfast, then made their way outside.

Out in the cold weather, Jason shivered, then looked up at the sky. It was a light grey, with a thin layer of clouds stretching from horizon to horizon. It wasn’t bitter cold, but the air certainly had a bite to it, and it felt as though the temperature could plummet at any moment. And, if Tess’s almanac was to be believed, it soon would be. He let Lady out of her stable and hitched her up to her post, then glanced at Chance with a bit of a mischievous eye.

“Alright, boy.” He clapped his hands softly. “What do you say to having a bit of fun today?”

Chance ran in circles, chasing his tail and sending up a small plume of frosty snow. Jason grinned, then nodded and walked up to Lady. As soon as she finished eating, he saddled her up, then climbed up and started riding off toward the wilderness. Chance came right after him, sniffing the ground, and occasionally darting off into the grass, but otherwise sticking close beside. Jason smiled broadly as he watched his dog’s progress. Chance was doing wonderful, that was for certain. The sores could only be noticed if you knew what to look for, as they were almost fully healed. He was a wonderful hound, though he was still struggling a bit with some of the more complicated commands. Jason wanted to train him how to hunt, and Jeremiah had promised to teach him how, but they hadn’t been able to meet up as of yet. Jeremiah was apparently still in a bit of a war with the Livestock Guild, and was threatening even to start selling his beef directly to consumers. The Livestock Guild had apparently been quite flabbergasted by this threat (though considering that the report came from Jeremiah, Jason wasn’t quite sure how seriously they were actually taking it), and was working on a solution.

In any event, Jason was there, riding out toward the mysterious patch of trees. He hadn’t been there since his visit to the old dungeon with Tess, and had been rather eager to return ever since. As they came over the last hill and into view of the trees, a smile split his face, and he urged Lady onward. They soon came up to the trees, and Jason hitched her to the same tree where he always left her. With that, he and Chance set off into the thick forest.

Truth be told, he wasn’t exactly sure what he hoped to find, but something seemed to have been calling him there ever since the last time he had left. Maybe it was just the fact that it was the only real glimpse he had been given into Tess’s line of work (excepting, of course, the time that the Summer Shandy dungeon had overflowed), and made him feel as though there was some part of the farm that she would be able to connect with.

As he made his way through the trees this time, he found the going to be much easier. There was almost no snow on the ground, as the tree branches overhead seemed to have caught it all. The limbs were all bare, the vines were leafless, and the shrubs seemed to have shrank back into the ground. All things considered, it gave him a lot more visibility, and in no time at all, he came up to the immense monolith. He sighed and tilted his head back, taking it all in, and crossed his arms as he tried to imagine what it might have been light to see it back in its heyday. Hundreds of warriors, marching across the land in an endless trek, camping out in the shadow of the monolith as they prepared to dive into its depths. He whistled softly, then sat down on the ground. Chance looped around him time and time again, sniffing at various animal trails, and once broke into a run as he chased a squirrel up a nearby tree.

When Jason had sat there for the better part of fifteen minutes, he rose and walked to the entrance of the dungeon itself. The floor had sealed itself again, and he briefly considered walking down and trying to enter the dungeon again. It might have been fun to go through it with Chance, just to see if he could find anything that he and Tess had missed. As he stood there, though, Chance started barking at the small tree-root cave, and though it may have been his imagination, he was certain that he heard a grumble from beneath the ground. It made him quite certain that he didn’t want to enter the location without Tess, and he sighed and returned to the monolith.

Suddenly, something caught his eye. It was on the far side of the monolith, between the enormous stone structure and the river. He pushed past the monolith and made his way to the strange object, which stood just about as high as himself. There were many words he could think of to describe it, but the best one he could imagine was a pillar. It was made from black stone and covered in vines, vines that were now withered just enough that he could tell that something was there. He tore the vines away, finding the small column of stone just… Standing there. It was plain and straight… No. No, it wasn’t quite plain. There, at the top, was a small metal ring that had been hooked into the stone. It was so rusty now that it certainly no longer served its intended purpose, but there it was. Jason slowly reached up and fiddled with the ring, then glanced at a second ring nearby. For that matter, all around the top of the pillar were half a dozen of the metal rings. It was a hitching post! It must have been for very large horses, but it must have been a hitching post nonetheless. He frowned, then glanced around the area. Another pillar caught his eye just a few feet away, and he quickly moved to tear the withered vines away from it as well. As he did so, exposing the black stone, he whistled softly. It was another hitching post, and at its base was a stone trough, though it was hard to know if it was for water or for feed.

“Would you look at this, Chance?” Jason whispered and knelt down. Chance came running up, and Jason flashed a small smile. “I’d recognize one of these anywhere. The only question is why it’s here.”

Chance gave no answer, but went running off after a mouse. On a whim, Jason grabbed a nearby stick and started to dig, and within just a few inches, struck a black cobblestone. He scraped away enough dirt to find a second cobble just next to it, and stood up and stretched with a grin.

A thought struck his mind, and he started to turn. If there were cobbles, there likely wouldn’t be trees. Indeed, there were no trees terribly close to the area, though they started to grow about twenty feet away. He walked over and dug next to the tree, finding, as he expected, nothing. Moving about five feet closer, though, he struck cobbles again. Wonderful. Without testing, he was fairly certain that the clearing just in front of the monolith would be covered in cobblestone as well. The only question was why. Cobblestone meant that there was some sort of infrastructure that needed protecting. He slowly stood and looked around the area, and his eyes lit upon a gap in the trees that stretched out toward the riverbank. It wasn’t much of a gap; truth be told, he had noticed it before, but simply hadn’t thought anything about it. Now, though, he set off down the small gap, walking down what was presumably an ancient road. He could have stopped to check, but by that point, he was confident enough that he didn’t really feel the need.

Only a few minutes later, he came up to the edge of the riverbank. Gazing across, he noticed that the gap continued on the far side, though it didn’t seem to penetrate much further. The river was frozen over, but he knew better than to try and attempt a crossing in such a manner. Instead, he turned and started walking along the bank, looking for anything that might help him get across. In the end, he had to walk for nearly half a mile before he found a fallen log, and in truth, it was so slippery with ice that by the time he got across, he rather wondered if just walking across the frozen stream below would have been easier. That was the method that Chance wound up using, though admittedly, Jason hadn’t noticed that his faithful companion had done so until after he showed up on the far bank waiting for Jason to hurry up and get there.

From that point, they walked back to the old road, turned, and kept following it into the trees. Soon enough, they came to a second clearing, perhaps fifty feet across, that stood there amidst the forest. Jason let out a long breath as he took it all in, wondering what it might be. A large mound of vines stood in the exact center, while all around appeared to just be… Trees. Nothing extraordinary, nothing that leapt out at him. After a moment, though, he strode up to the pile of vines, grabbed hold of the withered ropes, and gave a tug. They took a moment to dislodge, and then, with a crackle, all came loose.

As the vines fell to the side, Jason’s eyes popped open wide. A small ring of cobblestone rose up out of the ground just a couple of feet, with a few rotten bits of wood poking up from the ring here and there. As he leaned over the edge of the ring and looked down, he found himself staring into a pit that seemed to fall for hundred of feet. He gave a yelp and jumped backward, then forced himself to laugh and put a hand over his heart.

“Wow! Okay, so that’s… That’s the town well.” He shook his head and took more than a few steps back. “Which means that we’re looking at a town. What do you think, Chance?”

Chance didn’t answer, largely because he was no longer standing next to Jason. Jason’t blood froze for a moment, and he had the irrational fear that Chance had somehow leapt into the well when he wasn’t looking. Instead, something rustled from the side, and he turned just in time to see Chance vanishing into the underbrush. Jason let out a sigh of relief, then jogged after his dog. He pushed through the brush and into the trees, and his eyes once more opened wide in wonder.

Sitting there amidst the trees was a large hole in the ground, lined with thick black stones that looked nearly identical, only larger, to the cobblestones that seemed to make up everything else. A set of stairs led down into the pit, which, presumably, had been a basement at some point. Chance stood at the top of the stairs, sniffing and pointing his nose down inside. Jason chuckled and stepped up to the top of the stairs, and with a rustle, two rabbits burst through the brush and went racing off into the woods. Chance moved to chase after them, but Jason held up his hand.

“Stay!”

Chance froze, and Jason turned and walked down into the basement. It wasn’t large, maybe thirty feet on each side, and had a few rather rotten shelves scattered around the outer walls of it. The floor was covered in a layer of dirt, though a few tools poked up through this layer of soil. Jason bent down and pulled up a rusty iron spade, then the remains of a pitchfork. Something caught his eye, and he walked over to the ruins of one of the sets of shelves. Lying just underneath the shelves, having long ago fallen through, was a small pile of glass jars. Most of them had broken open and had long since been emptied, but one of the jars had been sealed with a metal lid. Jason picked it up and peered inside, noticing some sort of fruit floating in a cloudy syrup.

“If you’re still edible, you’ll be the most fermented fruit this side of Illumitir.” Jason chuckled softly. “I bet that’s illegal, too.”

He put the jar and the tools into his inventory, then shivered as a gust of wind cut through the area. He had been gone for quite awhile by this point, and knew that he needed to get back home before the really cold weather hit. As he climbed back up out of the basement, Chance licked his face, and he smiled.

The mystery of the monolith was growing ever-more. It still wasn’t a terribly important mystery, but it was quite fun to think about. Now, he would have yet another place to take Tess, and more to explore with her and Chance.

He couldn’t wait for the next chance he had to get out and about yet again.