I let out a low groan as I lowered myself into the capsule, ready to return to Mundus. Training with Mrs. Wu was a curious kind of torture, the forms and movements she was showing me were never obviously violent but, when taken in the context of the book she had given me, they all had a common purpose, the death or incapacitation of another human. In addition, what she was showing me was stretching my capabilities but the true soreness took time to accumulate, sneaking up on me as I trained. While I was in the building, and even on the way home, everything seemed fine but after some time, I felt as old as she was.

The curious part of it was that, despite all my misgivings, I was looking forward to the lessons, despite the pain, I was feeling myself get stronger and more agile, a feeling that made me continue.

Luckily, lying in the capsule seemed to be the perfect remedy for the sore muscles, so I didn’t have to suffer for long. Once my consciousness was shunted into the reception-area of my personal space, I felt fine, looking at the temple above the clouds I had made for myself. After a short glance into the forum, smiling at the various shenanigans other players were getting up to, I logged into Road to Purgatory, opening my eyes after a moment of delay.

A moment later, I shot up from the place I had slept and logged out during the night, my mind going a mile a minute, due to the sound of clashing weapons intruding into the moment of relaxation I had let myself indulge in. Before I was fully aware of my surroundings, I had used my Ice Magic to rip out the shuttles from my cloak, letting the fan out behind me while I drew my frozen blades, ready to strike down our foes.

At least until I realised that the foes, fighting on the clearing we had camped on, were Sigmir and Rai, with Sigmir once again showing Rai how to handle a foe using a shield. Nearby, Adra looked at me with an amused expression on her face, clearly understanding what I had assumed and thinking it funny. With a growl, I decided to test the situational awareness of the two combatants, if they wanted to give me a heart-attack, I would pay them back in kind. A quick casting of Ice-Runes created a set of icicles, carefully made blunt, that shot out, two aiming at Rai, two aiming at Sigmir.

Their reaction was quite satisfying, even if only from the perspective that my teammates were good fighters, looking at it as retaliation, it was quite weak. Sigmir, without taking more notice than needed, smacked the blunt icicles out of the air with her shield, even using the same movement to drive Rai back with her axe, never losing the rhythm of her footwork. Rai, on the other hand, used more resources but also a more fancy way to evade, the icicles reached him a moment later, forcing him to choose between responding to Sigmir’s attack and the icicles or do something else entirely. Which was what he did, with a speed that hinted at great familiarity, he cloaked himself in shadow, vanishing for just long enough to dodge the attacks, and reappeared a bit further back but already moving forward again with a swift strike, trying to catch Sigmir off-guard. It didn’t work, but it showed good instincts.

“If you want to play, love, just say so.” Sigmir grinned, as the two of them took a few steps back and ended their bout.

“Just wanted to make sure that neither of you is so focused on the enemy in front of you that you lose track of your surroundings. That’s a good way to get yourself killed after all.” I replied with a similar grin, part of me itching to have a bout myself. But now was not the time, we had wasted quite a bit of daylight with me, not being on Mundus and I wanted to find out what was leaking the Death Astral Power.

The others had already packed up our camp so within a few minutes of my arrival, we were on our way, heading further south along the stream.

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“If we keep a good pace, we might reach the mountains today.” Lenore said, landing on my shoulder to retreat into her Hallow.

“What mountains?” I asked the obvious question, not sure what she meant.

“While you were gone, I decided I’d take a look from above.” she began, only to instantly stop herself to add, “I didn’t go too far, don’t worry. If there had been trouble, I would have been able to find the others, of that I’m sure. Not that I have any doubt when it comes to your ability to find Sigmir, but anyway.”

Her assurance made me feel a little better, even if not by much. I didn’t like idea that the others might be forced to move by an attack while I was logged out, splitting our group. But if Lenore was with the others, I’d be able to easily find them, maybe even help them from afar. If not, I’d have to try, tracking down Sigmir using our connection or one of the others with the blood that I had drawn from them as insurance.

“Anyway, there’s a small mountain-range south of us, I think the stream comes from there. If we keep a good pace throughout the day, we should get there easily, unless something unexpected happens.” Lenore reiterated, causing me to nod in agreement. Normally, the idea to get to a potentially dangerous area late in the day was a bad idea, nightfall forcing people to stop their investigations before they could ascertain if they even wanted to stay in an area and darkness providing a cover to potentially nefarious beings. For our party, it was quite the opposite. Sure, Adra was hampered if she wanted to use her bow in the darkness and my own dark-vision limited my ability to operate at high ranges, but at the same time, both Rai and I excelled when it came to using the cover of darkness and my magic was stronger at night, depending on the phase of the moon.

“We wouldn’t know the terrain but I see what you mean.” I agreed, before telling the others what Lenore had suggested.

They saw the point and we changed our pace from comfortable walking to a quick, long stride ate a lot of ground. There would be some exhaustion but not to the point to keep us from being combat-effective.

Over the course of the day, we kept our pace, with a few stops on the way to gather some of the fresh plants that would enhance what I could serve as food and to allow me to get a better read on the amount of Death Astral Power in the water. Curiously, the power seemed to be carried quite easily, not seeping into the surrounding area but staying with the water. It went against what I felt should happen, demonstrating that my instincts weren’t always correct when it came to magic. In any way, the amount of power seemed quite stable, making me wonder even more just what we would find at its source.

Late in the afternoon, Lenore took another flight, to scout out the terrain ahead of us. The images she sent back made me realise that we had come further than I had thought and the foothills were already rising to our east and west. The distance between those hills was quite vast, easily some thirty kilometers and the terrain in front of us wasn’t significantly rising for an even longer distance, maybe some fifty kilometers, proving Lenore’s earlier estimation to be a little false.

A few minutes later, I felt Lenore’s mind reach out to me, not with words but with a feeling of urgency.

“We better hurry, I think Lenore found something.” I told the others and our walk turned into a swift jog, ready to engage anything that might attack us.

We didn’t have to move far and even before we got to the area Lenore had found, we were close enough for our connection to allow the exchange of information and I could see through her eyes. What I saw almost made me stumble, due to the unexpected sight. Beneath her, forming a rough line, was a group of dwarves, standing their ground against a group of humanoids coming out of the forest in front of them.

Curiously, the dwarves were not what caught my attention, it were the humanoids pressing into them. Their whole existence reminded me of the draugr Sigmir and I had fought in the Grandmother’s Barrow Den, a few months ago. But here, they seemed to be a lot more earthy and decomposed, making me realise that what I had thought was a forest was some sort of swampy, boggy march.

“There’s undead ahead, trying to kill some dwarves. Let’s help the dwarves.” I told the others, readying myself to unleash an icy kind of hell on those zombies.