It almost felt odd, to put my feet back on the ground after five days of constant flight. After we had destroyed the dryad and the forest around her burrow, the three of us had decided that landing might allow the elves to trace us, something we wanted to avoid. Lenore agreed with me that the trees most likely used vibrations in the ground and direct touch to detect anomalies and thus, staying away from the ground became paramount.

That led to a slightly amusing shift system, where I was gliding through the night, often with Ylva in her puppy-form resting on my back, trying to get as much sleep as possible, while Lenore slept in her Hallow. Then, during the day when my ability to shadow-step upwards to gain altitude, was greatly inhibited, I was sleeping in my Hallow, or logging out, letting Ylva and Lenore fly together.

During my time outside of Mundus, I continued to communicate with Pantheon Entertainment. As so often, the communication with their team was quite tedious, the representatives not authorized to make far-reaching decisions but only collected and collated feedback and reports for the actual developers. That, in turn, meant that it took multiple exchanges to go from the rote ‘Thank you for your feedback’ to an actual answer and even longer until I got something that might have been written by a human.

Sadly, those replies had very little concrete information and certainly no confirmation to collaborate. Instead, I was told that outstanding performance in the Beta would be rewarded while the reply to my idea for a quest to venture into some sort of Underworld was that they couldn’t comment on potential features, merely on things Travellers had encountered in the Beta itself. It could mean anything and nothing, leaving me a little annoyed.

But for now, I decided to play along with their scheme, for what could be considered more outstanding than to act as the final Boss of the Beta, featured in multiple Trailers as a leading role?

With our dense schedule and the quite incredible pace we managed to achieve that way, we had crossed the distance far quicker than anticipated, arriving above the foothills the day before and now, after soaring across them, we had reached the furthest reaches of the elven forest. The day before, I had watched in fascination as the trees beneath us became progressively smaller the closer we came to the impressive mountains ahead, morphing from the towering giants of the forest into normal-sized trees before being replaced by shrubs and grass, the land too sparse to sustain the larger trees.

Further up ahead, we could see the foreboding mountains stretching into the sky, snow-covered peaks, some vanishing in the clouds, rocky passes and even a couple of meadows and shrubland. It was gorgeous and after the time spent in the verdant ocean controlled by elves and dryads, the scraggy and deadly mountains were a welcome change.

No more trees the elves could use to teleport through, no more bonded vegetation that would give us away, nothing but deadly cliffs, ancient glaciers and freezing winds. It was almost as if we were returning home.

Touching the ground, I let my mind relax and focused on the flow of magic. Compared to further north, in the forest, the Astral River was vastly different, lacking many of the streams of power but containing some others. There was an overwhelming amount of Earth Astral Power, alongside Wind, Ice and some Fire. Water was sparse and Life, there was almost none. It was remarkably similar to the Windswept Steppes in that regard, the arid tundra we had crossed after leaving Kolyug, only that there had been some outside influence that I had never been able to investigate.

Waxing my hand, I set up my throne, looking down across the verdant ocean, until it disappeared in the distance.

“All these lands will be your memorial,” I softly told Sigmir. For a moment, I was certain that I could hear a hum of approval and touched the gem set in my forehead, closing my eyes as I did.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

“And I will live forever, in their memories…” I heard her voice whisper and had to smile. Yes, my beloved would live forever, her name engraved into the hearts and souls of the elven people, carved into the very land they called home.

Forever, they would rue the day they killed her, forever mourn her passing.

Shaking off the bout of melancholy, I focused on the Astral River, letting my mind fully delve into it. The streams of magic were complex and the more I immersed myself, the more I could feel and learn. The Nexus, our ultimate goal, was somewhere in these mountains and now, I needed to find it.

Finding the flow of Ice was almost trivial, as was detecting which direction it was flowing from. Following that stream was a little more difficult but I had some experience with Astral Meditation and travel.

Finally, after letting my presence flow through dozens of conduits, I felt the pulsing heart of the area, the Nexus of Ice, the conflux of the strands of power. I didn’t dare approach too closely, caution and vigilance keeping me from encroaching as an Astral Presence, and focused outwards, into the physical plane beyond the Astral River.

Weaving tougher a magical scrying construct, I peeked into the physical plane, letting my gaze sweep around, only to see very little.

The entire area around the strand I had been following was white, with some grey mixed in, an endless expanse of Ice and clouds. What I could see told me that the Nexus was in or on a glacier, one that was high in the mountain but just that wasn’t truly useful. There were countless glaciers and a lot of them were high up and occasionally covered in clouds.

To get an accurate direction, I focused on the feeling of the nearby Nexus while also focusing on the sensations my Avatar, still sitting on my Throne, was receiving and compared and contrasted until I managed to nail down the pulse of the Nexus, the slow and steady thrum of power.

Nodding to myself, I dispersed the scrying construct, keeping a mental lock on the direction and sharing it with Lenore.

“Looks cosy up there,” Lenore snarked, watching through my mind as I had been studying the area.

“Well, I think it does,” I refuted her, the idea to live on a field of eternal Ice, far from any others who might disturb me, was quite attractive to me. Having a source of near-endless power nearby was merely Ice-ing on the cake.

“You know that there’ll be something living there?” she reminded me, her snark not yet defeated. “What do you think it’s going to be?”

“No idea,” I admitted, “And I don’t care. It’s either going to accept us moving in and using the Nexus for a time or we’re going to have a fight to the death,” I shrugged, now a lot more confident in my power, compared to my original meeting with the Grandmother. But then, even now I couldn’t even begin to guess Her power.

“But before we follow the track, I want to build a memorial for Sigmir. One that only we know about, where she can rest,” I told Lenore, rising from my throne to look at the mountains. One of these would be my beloved’s place to rest and I had to pick the right one.

Thinking of the various dreams I had of her these last few days, the sweet, the bitter and the bitter-sweet, I studied what I was seeing. I wanted the mountain to be covered in Ice but somewhat standing alone. Not just one of many, but an outstanding mountain.

In my dreams, I had been resting on the slopes of a mountain quite often, with Sigmir embracing me from behind, unseen but felt and missed. I wanted her resting place to be on such a mountain, where the mountain would eternally embrace her.

But at the same time, I wanted there to be a glacier, the Ice embracing her and keeping her comfortable, regardless if it was the winter of our home or the blazing heat of summer.

Looking at the various mountains, I finally decided on one, one that gave me a good feeling. It wasn’t the biggest of them, nor the most outstanding but looking at it, I felt a calm steadiness. It reminded me of Sigmir and of home, which were the two things I wanted it to encapsulate.

“This, this is going to be her resting place,” I pointed, getting nods from Lenore and Ylva.

“It looks good. Wolves would be at home at its feet,” Ylva agreed, her impression similar to mine but not quite.

With a thought, I disappeared into my Hallow, letting the Throne turn into Diamond Dust that was carried away in the wind, as Lenore jumped into the air, taking us back into the sky.

Towards the final resting place of my heart.