“See, Kaa’Raa’Taak is probably the most important estate in Forestdeep.” Mini clarified as soon as they retreated from the field in a hurry “It was built on top or out of ancient ruins. It is said, the old keep even predate Elves and the Great Kaa’Raa, the ruler of the estate was a member of the species that have built it. He is now a Greater Lich, though.”

“Yes, the species is called Dragonkin in the scientific community.” Foxy added “They fought a long war against us when we came to Fenria.”

“So, the ruins belong to a long-extinct species. I don’t see where the problem is.”

“The problem is, that they are not fully extinct, there are some remnants in Forestdeep, and probably further East and North. For some reason not even the Forestians encroach those places. Not counting the remnants, all the ruins I heard of are haunted. Against ghosts, phantoms, specters, wights, and all those other ethereal things you need magical weapons. We don’t have any of those.”

“Actually, my sabre is magical. Every noble in my estate has a magical weapon.”

“Although my family dagger isn’t magical in itself, it is made of magical metal.”

“Fine, we have two magical weapons. Still not enough, if we were to be jumped. Better safe than sorry. Shinead, could you please check the compass? Which direction we need to go?”

“That way. Looks like South-West, no?”

It was closer to West, not that it mattered.

The direct route the compass indicated was along a small stream, right through the dense forest. Having no trail to follow, just the narrow strip of tree-less bank made the progress slower than in the morning. The leading ropes for the animals continuously got stuck on some branches, and there were even a few rocky places, where they had to detour through the stream, or, in case of rapids, through the forest.

When night-time fell, Prof realised, they forgot to buy something this time too: tents. The party found a small clearing for their camp, and under Foxy’s direction roped it off. She told them in no uncertain terms that they should under no circumstances leave the roped off area; however, it was probably unnecessary, since everyone noticed the inconsistent spatial properties of the Valley already. Going to take a piss and finding themselves probably hundreds of kilometres away wasn’t something anyone wanted.

Prof volunteered for the first shift guarding their camp, followed by Shinead and Mini. It was agreed to give Foxy a shift next day, and the two Elves didn’t think it was a good idea to let Sharpclaw take a shift on her own. Since she didn’t need so much sleep as the others, she nonetheless stayed with Prof.

The night went away in strange peace. There were constant rusting outside of the roped-off camp, both small critters and a few larger things. The larger things probably hunted the smaller critters – or each other – there were a few instances were predator and prey had a meeting to discuss the viability of the food chain. Strangely no animal tried to invade the camp ground.

Prof was curious. Space and distance were quite random in the Valley, as they learned themselves, how could animals have fixed territories when rounding a tree in the wrong direction would land it probably hundreds of kilometres away? Or could the local animals navigate the strange space? A few thousand of year would be enough to let evolution kick in, after all.

The next day the compass indicated Guillermo to be in the North, and not in the West anymore. Also, the stream they were following the previous day was gone, although they camped only a few meters away.

The way North was at first through untamed forest, but an hour in the hike they found a trail that went almost in the right direction. Their speed picked up after that somewhat, but they still weren’t as fast as on the road in the Domain. Strangely, they still haven’t met or seen any animals or monsters, only heard the noise of something running away.

A few hours before night fell they found another abandoned camp ground, this time it was littered with discarded, surplus equipment, another cairn and another grave. The Elves went to investigate the cairn, while Sharpclaw started to dig up the grave. Prof and Mini poked around the discarded trash.

Not much was learned. The camp was one of the very first Guillermo’s band had stopped by after leaving the Domain, the accompanying letter was brief in the description, about what happened. Foxy filled in some comments on the accompanying letter and pocketed the journal itself.

The grave was occupied by another Human, this time heavily shredded by (probably) an animal or monster and had again no grave goods to speak of. The assorted clutter that was abandoned was just that: assorted clutter one would lug around even with the best-prepared expedition. No valuables, they cared to save and encumber themselves with.

They decided the stay for the night, nightfall wasn’t that far away anyways.

Next morning, after another night of critters doing critter-stuff, they embarked on continuing the chase. Checking the compass before leaving the campsite it still pointed to the North, but when they left it – the previous trail vanished and they were greeted by a different, broader one – it swung back to the South. The trail conveniently led almost in the right direction again so they followed.

After only a few hours of southward travel, they entered a grassy field with some withered ruins in the middle.

“Definitely not Elvish” Foxy concluded “Too much stone for that.”

“Yes, we know” Prof butted in “They are the same ruins we visited two days ago.”

“Strange, we keep losing the trail we follow, but found the very same ruin twice already.”

“Yeah, the trail is gone again, by the way. What direction is Guillermo this time?”

“East. That is that way, across the field.”

“We should make haste. Don’t approach the ruins!”

On the other side of the field they had to traverse a patch of wood with a width of a few kilometres. Behind the patch, they were greeted by a wide river.

“That should be the Rolling Water, the main river of the Valley” Foxy informed them. “Probably. No other such large river should exist here.”

“Actually, I wanted to ask about that.” Prof turned to Foxy, who was the most knowledgeable of the whole party “You said, the Valley was a few times larger on the inside, and the pieces of territory constantly shift around, we have already learned that. I would assume, the last mapping was done before the Valley came into existence. How could we be sure what is where and what the geography of the Valley really looks like?”

“You are partially correct. However, I suspect the terrain not shifting around but only us. Look it this way: the Valley is this scarf, now I crumple it and stretch it just like so. There are places where the scarf is taunt, and places where it is slack or folded. On the taunt places you go straight, but when you arrive at a slack or folded place, you can deviate from one fold to another. At least someone explained it to me like this a few years ago.”

“So, if we could find only the taunt places or stabilise the slack ones, we could traverse the Valley without problems?”

“Yes and no. You would need a way to measure the tauntness of space and as far as I understand, the folding of space here is not static, but dynamic. What today is taunt, could be slack tomorrow.”

“Right. Shinead, where is our mark? Do we need to cross the river? That should be hard.”

Yeah, as the old joke went, there was neither a bridge, a boat, or a convenient fairy to grant three wishes...

“No need to cross the river. That cur is currently… To the West! Seriously?!?”

Prof suspected, there was no need – or sense – following the compass. If they set out in a random direction, they would probably have the same chance to happen on Guillermo and his band. Telling that to Shinead with her magic compass would probably not make any difference to what they already did. Following the compass was almost as good, as setting out in a random direction.

As it was expected, the forest they entered continued on, not leading them back to the field with the Dragonkin ruins. Following the compass meant they wandered here and there, one time to the West, than back up North, making a detour to the East, going South a bit, or any combination of the above. Every other day, they arrived back at the ruins.

Prof started to suspect that the ruins had some significance and not just for historical and archeological reasons. Inspecting or even starting to excavate them was out of question, only Prof and Sharpclaw had a minimal inclining to get even close to them, the others refused categorically. They weren’t going to risk to awake some ghost or like with only two magical weapons at their disposal. Mini even added another dimension to the threat, by informing them that to wound or defeat an ethereal enemy, magical weapons were only the very first pre-requisite, they needed to land Critical Hits.

Of course, only Prof was focused on dealing those, and he lacked a magical weapon. He realised, that since his [One-Handed Swords] being too low, he would be left with only one choice, Shinead’s prized family dagger.

Prof shut up after that realisation.