The day was hard, and we didn’t get a chance to do much looting. It wasn’t like the day before when we picked our battles. The whole day was just one long small battle as we pushed toward the town. When we passed The Tree of Peaceful Rest, we saw piles of bones up to its first set of branches, and the undead were trying to crawl up that pile.

I didn’t fully understand what was going on other than, for some reason, they didn’t view the tree as a threat and wanted to be next to it while it killed them. That was something that I still needed to ask someone. If I saw Dave again, he would know the answer to what you call the undead once you kill them again. Perhaps Sam would know, but I wasn’t going to deal with him to ask.

We made it to the other side of the town, where the undead first showed up, just a little after dark, and slipped into our room there. But unfortunately, we hadn’t had time to hunt, and without a way to keep food cold, we didn’t bring anything from the wolf from the night before. So we were both tired and hungry when we got in.

I was glad that I had asked Sam about the history of the place and even more pleased that he told me. I had been thinking about pushing down and trying to cut through the whole area, but if it was the size of a kingdom, that meant that I was in the wrong place. I needed to know where Cloudia was.

I would pull back another day’s travel from the undead and then ask for help from the old men. I would want to word my question to Sam right so that I could get a good answer from him, and they would be able to help me figure out what to ask. They might not have the answers that I was after, but they had several lifetimes of wisdom to help me. They would have an angle that I hadn’t thought of.

I still needed to move toward Cloudia, and now I knew that this wasn’t the way I needed to know the right direction to go. This whole trip south just seemed like a mess for me. I was hoping that I could cut either east or west and get to where I wanted, but I wasn’t going to guess again.

The next day we were able to pull back without any problems. All of my mana was full up when we left in the morning, and we made the run to the wet room with good speed. I wasn’t happy that we went all day without food, but it was becoming normal to miss meals on this trip.

About noon, the feelings around the forest changed, and the light gloom that had been hanging about lifted. Another hour as we were up to the wet room. I set up the small game trap and opened up the room to see how bad it was. When I got the door opened, it smelled dank with a heavy feeling of dampness.

So I moved away from the river by about three hundred yards and tried again. I knew that it would take mana, but for the first time in about a week, I hadn’t emptied myself by noon. When I got the stone turned to dirt, it didn’t leave mud behind this time, so when I then turned the soil to water and burned it out, the walls were dry and not looking like they were about to spring a leak.

I was sure that there were runes that I could use on the inside of the other one to repel the water, but I wasn’t in the mood to figure it out. I was going to have a good meal and then a long night chanting.

When I was about half done with the work, Blink showed back up munching on a rabbit. I wasn’t sure if she hunted it or just took it from the small game stake that I put out. Either way, it was mean because I hadn’t eaten and was working on getting us something to eat.

I looked over at her as I was switching out wands to my water to fire. “Why don’t you go find us some dinner? I can cook once I get finished here. She looked up from the snack she had, gave me a long slow blink, and then went back to eating.

I just shook my head and got back to work. With the mana potion and the wands decreasing the amount of mana I needed to use, it only took about two hours to set up a room entirely. If I rushed, I could get the space and door done in thirty minutes, but then I would have to deal with making everything on the inside without light which was much harder.

When I got done, Blink was out cold, sleeping near the entrance just as another lump of dirt. The only reason that I knew it was her and not the ground was because of the bond. Her stealth had significantly improved over the past week fighting with the undead.

I checked over at the small game stakes and found that two of them had game. A large rabbit at one and a small pig at the other. I took the pig and went back to the camp to cook dinner and get started. When food was done cooking Blink scratched at the door. She could have talked over the bond to tell me to let her in but she wanted me to read her mind.

I opened up the door and let her in, “eat up I am going to need to chant to night I want to check with the shamans to see if they have any ideas on how to ask Sam a question.”

As always, the chanting took me deeper and deeper into a different realm until, at some point, my world and that one met and merged and then became the cave of the shaman. It was never jarring when all of a sudden, the world wasn’t my little cave, but it was always a surprise when the Shaman started to talk.

The old one greeted me, “Arn, you have returned and more quickly this time than last. Have your problems with the spells been resolved?”

I stood and moved over to my rock. “I for now they have. I am okay with having them and with using and dealing with the undead. I am still mostly putting them down. They are a plague where I am. I have been told that the place is called the Wretched Wood and that it is where the kingdom of Skyreach once was.”

The Shaman around me just looked at me with blank stares. The words I was using didn’t seem to tell them anything. “I am trying to get to Cloudia where the Lady that I am bonded with is. Do any of you know where I should go to get there? I had thought that Cloudia was south of where I was but it doesn’t seem to be.”

The one who always spoke with me smiled and shook his head. “The names are places don’t matter much to us as they change every few hundred years. The caves I once knew are long since renamed or perhaps don’t even have people anymore. The kingdoms we fought against have all left. These places we don’t know. However, there are two we know who can help you.”

I perked up at him, saying there was someone who could help. My plan had been if they couldn’t tell me directly to ask him how to ask Sam. I wanted to force him to give me a good answer. But if they knew someone who could give me answers, that would be even better. “Who and how do I get in touch with them?”

A few of the shamans vanished, and the Battle Priest stood up, walked over to me, and pushed me before he vanished. I sat back up and looked at the old one, “What did I say?”

“Arn, the two we speak of are the Sisters. They might not be as powerful here as they use to be but that could and would help their only Shaman find his bonded.”

I took a deep breath. The sisters seemed far more distant than the Shaman thought they were. The only communication I got outside when I was mostly dead was when they were forcing me to do things. “The only time they have told me anything was by forcing me to do what they wanted. They don’t seem to be very talkative.”

“When was the last time you prayed to them?”

I thought for a second, “Back when I was setting up the shrine and it was required to make the space work.”

The Shaman that had vanished did at that point. All but the old one who looked aggrieved. “How is it that a Shaman of the sisters, doesn’t pray to them? You have a skill for it and yet you don’t use it? You don’t even really need the skill you just need faith and direction. Let me give you direction this time in your prayer so that the Sisters might answer you.”

My chanting stopped, and my voice, as always, was sore. Finally, I had an answer, but it wasn’t the one I wanted. The sisters refused to answer me until I returned to the Shrine and prayed to them there. Then they would answer my question and guide me from the Shrine to my bonded. I wasn’t happy about it, but it was better than going the wrong way or pissing off a pair of goddesses anymore than I already had.

As soon as I ate some bacon, Blink and I headed out. We would be going away from the river today to cut out where the scary water spiders lived. Then we would hopefully have smooth going until we got home. I had already cleared this path once but knew that nature abhors a vacuum.

* * *