It had been two days since meeting the first supply-team and since then, we had met one patrol and another supply-team. It seemed that my first instinct, that they heavily used the ancient road, had been correct but it also highlighted something vastly different. Part of me had held ideas of getting revenge, paying the centaurs back for driving the wolves to turn their den into a dungeon and bind themselves to it, but now that I was actually able to see more of the problem, those ideas rapidly diminished.

It had taken me a bit of time to start thinking in terms of numbers and extrapolate from there, but just the about seven-hundred warriors we had seen so far meant that we, as a group, would have to kill two or three each day, every day, from now to the end of the beta. And that hinged on the rather ridiculous assumption that there were only the camps we had seen so far, with no organisation behind them, no support, no reinforcements, nothing. Which was so unlikely, I couldn’t even bring myself to laugh about it, no, if I wanted to get a more realistic number, I’d have to increase that number, for the total centaur-army, by an order of magnitude or two. One order for what would most likely be available to the push north, two orders for their complete army, but even a single order of magnitude meant that we’d have to kill twenty to thirty, each day.

And that idea, even if I thought we would be able to do so without inviting an overwhelmingly lethal response, was not how I wanted to spend my time in Mundus, going after silly ponies in the woods of Aretia.

Sure, there was also the fact that the centaurs seemed to be allied with the black wolves of Freki, something rather surprising given that normally centaurs were associated with Greek-mythology and Freki was a creature of norse myths but again, at the end of the day, I didn’t care enough to hunt them. Ylva might have had a desire to rip their throats out whenever possible, I hadn’t asked her since she had devoured the blood of Freki I had extracted from that black alpha-wolf but somehow I had a feeling that she was realistic about it. As depressing as the feeling was, we just couldn’t win, not in a meaningful way.

“You look pensive.” Rai remarked, pulling my mind back from the swirling mess that were my thoughts.

“Trying to come up with the best way to go forward.” I admitted, looking at the others. We had made camp near the road and eaten some of our rations. Thanks to the donation made by the centaurs we had killed further north, we didn’t need to worry about hunting and could simply use up the stuff they had left for us.

“Move as fast as we can, out of the area the centaurs are interested in, right?” Sigmir asked, possibly having picked up on my feelings.

“Sadly, yes. As much as it annoys me, there is just no point in trying to bleed them.” I admitted, hanging my head, not wanting to meet their eyes. I felt as if I had failed them, failed to give them a chance at revenge, just like I had failed to defend the wolves. Intellectually, I knew that I wasn’t responsible for either and that I was far from omnipotent, but it didn’t change the feelings I was having. Those feelings of guilt, they were something I could easily do without but I had to take the good with the bad.

“Thank the trees…” Adra muttered, making me chuckle before I continued speaking.

“The best case scenario, if I’m as optimistic as I could ever be, is that we manage to force them to abandon their plans for the region. Which wouldn’t bring the wolves back, they are part of the dungeon and no longer the beings we knew. I don’t even want to think what happened to the young ones.” I admitted and felt Sigmir’s arms wrap around me as she pulled me to her lap.

“Sadly, I doubt we could manage, not even against the forces we have already seen, to say nothing of the rest of their herd. The most likely case is that we would die. We would die and while I would come back, all of you wouldn’t. That’s just not a risk I’m willing to take.” I explained, feeling Sigmir’s lips press to my temple.

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“You know that any of us might die at any point? Especially if we want to continue to get stronger, continue to challenge ourselves?” Adra asked and, from the corner of my eye, I noticed that Rai tensed a little.

“I know. That’s why we try to estimate the risks, at least most of the time.” I admitted, grinning as I remembered some of the insanities we had committed.

“Some of the time.” Sigmir corrected me, giggling as she did.

“To reach true power, you have to stand on a mountain of skulls.” Adra stated, her voice measured as if quoting someone.

“Who said that?” I asked, curious.

“The Eldest Dryad of the grove I grew up in. And before you ask, I have no idea how powerful she actually is, not even an educated guess.” she said, preempting me from the obvious question.

“Can we meet them?” I cocked my head, trying to remember where exactly she had originated.

“Maybe. In all honesty, I’m not sure if I want to return just yet. I don’t feel I have achieved enough, I don’t have seen enough. But if I return, there will be a part of me that’d loathe to leave again.” Adra admitted, her eyes growing distant for a moment, making me curious just what, or maybe who, she was thinking off.

“Anyway, we were talking about our plans, right?” she asked, after that moment passed, obviously changing the topic.

“Right.” I accepted the change, but other than the plan to pass through the centaur’s new territory as fast as possible, there was nothing more to say. Once again, we were massively lacking in information to actually make plans.

As I thought about that part, I remembered that one of the frequent posters on the forum had invited me to visit his Orc-tribe and I made a mental note to drop a message on him, maybe that would give me some much-needed insight. But it was for later, when I logged out. It was a good idea to check the forums in any way, by now, I had some hope that someone might have compiled a reliable map from ingame-resources, something to allow me better planning.

Leaning back, into Sigmir’s embrace, I quietly asked her if she’d mind me reading while she held me, to which she simply squeezed me a little and kissed the top of my head before whispering into my ear that I was welcome to do so. Smiling, I pulled the Grandmother’s grimoire from my bag, reading through the newly revealed pages, trying to comprehend the complicated and, frankly, confusing paragraphs that seemed to describe the universe in terms of a river flowing through the endless dark, with specks of light causing rapids in the river. Only that the river wasn’t flowing through reality but through a dream, only echoing into reality. It reminded me of a lecture on quantum mechanics I had once heard, hard to understand, confusing and yet weirdly fascinating.

The idea of the river was something I had experienced myself, at least if the Astral River that I conceptualised during my meditation was the same river the Grandmother’s writing spoke about. And I was partially aware of the endless dark, from the experience I had when I let myself sink deeply into my Astral Meditation, my link with the moon allowing me to gain a glimpse of the void around it. I also knew that Lenore and the spirits bound to the golem-horses we had used on our journey had told me that they were from another realm, similar to how the Nethersprites were from another realm, something parallel to Mundus. But just how all that connected was still a mystery to me. Looking at the neat script of the Grandmother, I continued reading, trying to familiarise myself with the occult concepts described in her writing.

However, when I realised that I had read the same sentence ten times in a row and the only thing I had managed to accomplish was give myself a headache, I decided that I had gotten as much out of it as I could hope. Instead, I decided on more pleasurable pursuits, shifting my position in an attempt to nibble Sigmir’s ear, making her giggle and retaliate in a most pleasurable fashion. When I didn’t relent and instead pressed the attack, she simply picked me up and headed into the forest, away from Adra and Rai, as neither of us wanted to give them a floor show. In addition, Lenore who had read the book with me, trying to understand it alongside me, fled her Hallow, flying over to Ylva, my thoughts having given away my plans before I even started them.