The next morning I woke up happy. It had been a few days since I had had such a great night's sleep. While seeing Kasidy sleeping on the sleeping roll was a little hard, the bonuses from my bed were nice. However, it didn't bug me enough that I cared. I needed every advantage that I could get in this world.

I had worried that the items I put in the yurt would need to be removed when I collapsed it, but it turned out that anything in there would just come with it when I moved. I wanted to figure out how that worked as it seemed like something nice for a bag or ring.

Kasidy should have been much easier to wake up since the fur gave her the well-rested buff. However, as normal, both she and Blink seemed allergic.

Both were up and ready to go by the time I had breakfast ready. We made a quick meal from the biscuits we brought and got moving. Being on the move again felt great. I liked part of the town and meeting people, but I was glad to be done with them. After almost nine months of being mostly alone, I was done with people after three short days. It didn't help that in those three days, I was reminded just how bad people could be overall.

I knew where I was going for the first time since I had gotten to the world as well, which in its own way, made the trip so much better. The map we had purchased filled into the one in my mind. Whereas the places I had been showed very fine detail, down to me being able to see the flowers as they had been, the areas of the new map showed were just the bird's eye view level. The other major difference was how the maps showed on the bird's eye view. My personal journey showed up in color, but the purchased map just showed a parchment background.

As we got the wagon moving, I said. "I think that we should be able to make the next town by nightfall. At least with how fast it seems we are moving now."

Kasidy nodded from inside the blankets. "I think that's about right but it's not much of one if I remember what Iris told me about it."

I raised an eyebrow. "You talked with her about the trip?"

Kasidy nodded. "Yeah, I wanted to know what she could tell me about the areas we are going to move through. Halfway is what this town is called. At least, that's what she told me. They're little more than just a roadhouse."

"Well, we can check it out and see if they are a place we want to stay. If nothing else, they will give us a night where we don't have to care for the horses."

The morning went by quickly, with the road building our speed. I was pretty sure we were moving faster on the road even though we weren't going directly towards Cloudia. It felt like we were following the interstates as we moved and not using surface roads. Not as fast, but going around things and not just over.

When we broke for lunch, I sent the tailing undead horseman off to patrol around us. I needed to keep him far enough away that Kasidy didn't see him. She could deal with me raising the wyverns; however, I was sure that she wouldn't be happy with people. I even had a slightly hard time keeping the people around. In combat, I needed them, but long term, they weren't something I thought I would use.

Worse yet, the zombies that I raised never seemed to be even half as strong as the living forms were. I wasn't sure what the conversion was for the undead's levels, and Dave couldn't tell me. I couldn't ask Kasidy because I didn't want to give away more than I already had.

As we were packing up from eating, Kasidy pointed into the air. "Those don't look good."

I shook my head. "Yeah, looks like rain today."

Kasidy scrunched up her face at me. "More like snow with how cold it has been."

"Not sure it's cold enough for snow as of yet. We are still just in fall."

"I know but we are further north now and we travel fast on the road."

I took a moment to look around. Then I reached out with plant empathy to the grass. I had only ever used it on trees in the past, but I felt like giving it a try. As I did, I confirmed that I was right, and it would be some time before snow. I just smiled at Kasidy and mounted up on my horse.

I did a slight circle around the wagon, just giving it a quick look to check its wheels. "Let's go before it gets colder. We are wanting to get to that roadhouse tonight."

With that, we headed off again. With the road providing a magical bonus to our movement, the miles seemed to crank by. Just a couple more hours passed before we reached a single large building.

Kasidy slowed down the wagon to a walk, so I slowed down as well. The roadhouse wasn't what I was expecting. It looked more like a mini castle than a hotel. Like Last Port, it was all stone. Though I had seen some trees around as we moved, most of the landscape was flat, stony, and full of tall grass. There was a low stone fence around the left side of the building. The wall was what I always saw pictured in New England with minutemen shooting from behind.

The building itself was kind of amazing to me. A square stone tower rose about forty feet into the air. It had archer slits after about ten feet up, and on the top of the roof were battlements. How someone could call this a house, I didn't understand. It wasn't inviting, but it spoke of safety.

I pulled up beside the wagon and asked. "You think this is the place?"

She looked over at me and shrugged. "Iris didn't tell me that there was a fort out this way so I guess this is the place."

With that, she set the brake on the wagon, climbed down, and started for the main door. I swung off my horse, threw the leads around the hook on the wagon, and followed. When I caught up to Kasidy, she was trying to go through the door, even though she was putting her shoulder into it, nothing happened.

The door was about six feet wide and twelve feet tall. I could tell just by looking at it that it was thick. The planks used to make it were bound with thick strips of iron. Since there was no latch on our side, I knocked. The sound of the knocking was light, almost like I wasn't strong enough to make any sound through the door.

We waited for a few minutes, but no sounds came from inside. I shrugged and walked back to my horse. As I was swinging back up, the door let out a deep creaking. Followed quickly by a loud thunk, and then the door began to slowly open.

I dismounted again, shaking my head. If they had been just a little slower, we would have been back on the road. Didn't seem like great customer service. That assumed that this place was even the roadhouse.

As I moved around to look in, Kasidy walked through the door, calling out, "Hey! Anyone home?"

Her words scared me enough that I shot Blink a message through the bond. "Blink let's move I am not liking this at all!"

I broke into a run as I rushed forward. The door had started to close, so I turned my body sideways and slipped through right as it slammed. I had placed my hand on the door as I passed through it, trying to shield myself from its massive size. I held my breath and crouched low, trying to let my eyes adjust to the pitch black of the room.

I started to run through in my mind what I might be dealing with. I couldn't hear anything, not Kasidy, not monster, nothing. I took my hand off the door as I shifted to be able to draw my shortsword if needed.

When my hand left the door, the room lit up, and I got a pop-up.

You have entered the lair of the forsaken guard

Cleanse the lair to claim this outpost

* * *