My sleep was uneasy, with nightmares, bittersweet dreams of Sigmir and the situation all around me all conspiring to keep me from getting rest. Distant screams ripped me from a light slumber more than once, while images of a forest burning down around Adra and Rai, with both of them screaming in pain didn’t help matters. But the worst for my rest were the dreams of Sigmir, dreams in which I was lying down on my mountain, my body curling up so I could rest my head on my claws as I watched the mist passing by. They were so wonderfully peaceful, so comforting, that waking up hurt physically, a stabbing pain in my chest.

Not even the fuzzy presence of roughly sixty kilograms of canine could stop the tears running down my face when I came out of those. Trying to return to my dreams, only seemed to throw me into another nightmare, the stark contrast driving the pain and longing only deeper, to the point that I thought I heard Sigmir outside, calling my name. She couldn’t be here, not until I pulled her into this world, but I thought I heard her. And a few times, I walked to the windows, peeking outside to check. Only to be disappointed.

Finally, when the afternoon was rolling around, I had enough. Lying there, drifting in and out of sleep, didn’t help me any, it only made me more irritable and worsened my mood, so there was no reason to torture myself.

Knowing that there was no way to move out of the abandoned, still empty, building, I focused inwards, on things I could do inside. I needed to regain my Darkness Rune Mastery, my Blood Runes and my Astral Meditation skills, all of which I could do here. In addition, my skills were so rudimentary that I could simply train them, without needing an enemy to push me, just the act of using and meditating on them would allow me to increase my proficiency.

All it took was time, and while I was trapped in the empty building, I had quite a bit of that particular resource.

“Well, fuzzy, I’ll be experimenting with my magic, maybe make myself a few weapons. Nothing will hurt you, so you can simply watch, or do whatever you like. Sleep some more, or something, maybe head over to the sun?” I suggested, before remembering that I still needed to find her name.

Deciding that my training could wait a little longer, I walked back over to the other campsite, going through their stuff with the light of day helping. Sure, I could see in the darkness but the trait was still emerging, leaving me with good, but not excellent, night-vision.

Sadly, I came up empty. There was a lot of stuff but nothing that told me what Ms Fuzzball was called and when I tried calling her that, the look of canine disdain was completely obvious. She did not like that name.

So, given that she seemed to be quite capable to communicate and understand me, at least in a rudimentary fashion, I decided to give her a few names to choose from, otherwise, I might have to learn to bark or growl if I simply asked her to introduce herself. It was, amusingly, a problem Sigmir and I had faced with the beings we later named Lenore and Ylva, their names were designed to be used with their language and their method of communication, not for the languages designed by humanoids.

When fuzzball finally agreed to a name, I had to mentally track back for a second, trying to remember what I had just said. I had been simply rambling on, giving out one name after the other, until she let out a happy rumble, obviously agreeing with the name. When I realised what it was, I was stunned for a moment, not sure what to say or think.

Silva.

That was the name she had chosen. A combination of Sigmir’s and Ylva’s names,

Destiny, coincidence or some odd trick of my mind, that the longing I felt had been infused into the name that was a combination of Sigmir’s and Ylva’s names, something fuzzy might have picked up on? Even if I hadn’t really been paying attention myself?

“Really, that’s the name you want to go with?” I asked, looking at the fuzzball who looked back with a canine grin on her face. Not the kind that showed her teeth in a gesture of intimidation, but one that made her eyes light up in delight, her tongue lolling from her snout a little.

After trying to suggest a few more names, just to have fuzzy respond with unhappy growls, I decided to simply run with it. Maybe Sigmir and Ylva would get a kick out of the fact that I was running around with a dog named in their honour, I would certainly ask Sigmir once I managed to get her into this world, and into the world of the living.

“Okay, okay, Silva it is,” I accepted, to which my newly named companion gave a soft wuff of agreement. By now, I was quite confident that she wasn’t just acting on instinct or anything like that, but that she was truly understanding me, even if I had some trouble understanding her. Having Lenore’s Universal Translation ability would be incredibly handy, but my avian friend was far, far away.

Silva decided to celebrate her new name by pushing her head into my belly, insisting on getting scritches. It took quite a bit of time until she was satisfied but her actions definitely lightened my mood, to the point that I realised just how famished I actually was. I had been running around all night, with nothing but a few survival bars to sustain myself and now, hunger was definitely a concern.

Given that I wasn’t about to use fire, for a wide variety of reasons, I took some oatmeal, some nuts, dried berries and a bit of water, turning it into a bland, boring porridge, with nothing to show for but nutritional value.

Silva had her own food and focused on that, after a brief glance at the sludge I was slowly eating. It didn’t taste great, but when taking stuff at the supermarket, I focused on things that would last for a long time, so I didn’t have to consider what to eat first. I had a few, fresh fruits, some of which became dessert but I made a mental note to look for some things to enhance the taste if I stumbled across a source of food sometime later.

Once I was sated, I sat down, focusing inwards. My first goal was to regain my Rune Magics, both Blood and Darkness. I could remember the runes, but their shape was a little fuzzy in my mind, blurring as if they weren’t quite fixed, either in reality or just within the confines of my mind. What that might mean, I had no idea but I was quite certain I couldn’t just start drawing high-level runes and get a result. No, I needed to sift through the Astral River once more, looking for meaning and understanding.

Closing my eyes, I focused on what I had been doing with my Darkness-Magic the whole time, concealing myself. It had been one of my main tricks on Mundus, the rune part of countless spells I had used. Things hiding in the Darkness, the unknown, all those concepts were connected to the Concealment aspect of Darkness. There were details to be filled in later, things to be expanded upon, but Concealment was one of the foundational concepts of my Darkness-Element.

It only took a few moments for the rune I remembered to become sharp again, gaining clear contours and even branching out a little. Connected to it, I could feel the other foundational runes of the element. One of the interesting parts of the element was that it started with broad concepts that could apply in a wide variety of situations, before adding focus and strength with later runes.

Thus, the second rune I was able to grasp, named for the element itself, was the Darkness-Rune. It could apply in so many ways, from a blurry shadow to the depths of space, where no light was ever reflected. There were so many ideas contained within, so many tiny pieces of a puzzle that I could try to dissect but for now, it was only the broad concept, vague and a little intimidating, just like Darkness itself.

Lastly, the third foundational pillar of the element was the idea that Darkness devoured. It wasn’t just the absence of light, or the absence of matter so no light was reflected, there was an active part to it. It sought to Devour all light, so only Darkness would remain. Memories of the Nidhögg and their black flames were vivid in my mind, bringing both a smile to my face but also a twinge of guilt into my gut.

Shaking my head, I opened my eyes, noticing a blue box that told me I had gained the Rune Mastery: Darkness skill and was currently understanding the Runes Devour, Darkness and Concealment.