(Braden)

"Welcome back," I tell Zack as he reenters the room, and he gives me a curious look. "I don't do well being contained. I'm like Max."

Max has been driving everyone crazy with his energy, and it took Gavin three days to give in and start wrestling and arm-wrestling with him, the only way to really burn off Max's energy. Gavin's stronger than Max, but is able to restrain himself enough to not hurt our friend. I'm far weaker than Max, who wouldn't be able to control his strength when wrestling with me.

Watching them put each other into headlocks was fun, and Luca was making bets with himself over who would win each round. We've also had to make Max do pushups and situps and stuff to help burn off that excess energy, and Gavin and Max also sparred in one of the other rooms, though it made both of them sweaty and stinky. We barely managed to get the bath running after the blizzard ended, which had taken two days.

Otherwise, being contained in here with everyone would be unbearable to all five of us. But the workout between the two warriors was the only way we could really keep Max's energy manageable.

The reason Zack gave me the curious look was because he walked into the room to find the three of them sleeping and me sitting, stitching. It's… pretty bad, if I'm being honest with myself, but it was giving my fingers something to do.

Right now, he's wearing his usual type of outfit, armor on, as per the norm. I'm wearing my most recent style of attire, my Druid costume which unlocked the necessary Skill and the Class.

"How far out did you have to clear a path?" I ask.

"Not far," Zack answers. "Just a little ways out of the City in the direction we're heading. A group of goblins had come near the City, it seems, so my own path met up with theirs rather fast. It connects all the way to the next City on the main path. After everyone's awake, fed, and gone through a warmup, we'll be heading out."

I nod, then return to my stitching. Zack sits and pulls out food, so I put my stitching away. Bacon, eggs, and biscuits and gravy for the hot foods. The smell wakes up Max and Luca, and the former steps on Gavin by accident, waking him up.

It's amusing to see, because Max starts apologizing profusely over it. He's genuinely sorry, as it was a genuine accident, which has resulted in his extremely broken speech coming out. But he's also hyper because he's awake and nothing bad is happening, and there's good food here.

So as that happens, I accept my food from Zack and start eating. They eventually get their own food and sit back down, then start eating. Luca's sitting by Zack, eating his food. In addition to the hot foods I listed, we were all given some fruit as well.

Even though I know that Zack has that special Inventory because of his ancestry, its ability to preserve things always marvels me at this point, with how long it's been since he actually put the food into his Inventory.

Though the food doesn't seem like his cooking…

I frown as I start paying attention to the taste of the gravy. There's an ingredient in this Zack doesn't put in his. I fix my gaze on him, and he pretends to not notice. Since it's Zack, I know he did, there's no way he hasn't noticed my gaze.

We finish eating, then the rest of the team gets dressed and starts doing stretches to warm up. I perform a few stretches as well, Zack watching all of us.

"Zack," I say once we're warmed up. "Did you have Gold help you prepare food for the trip?"

"No," he answers, a mischievous glint in his eyes. One far stronger than normal. "I made it all at home, Max and Kit helping for some of it."

That confirms it.

"So when you left earlier," I say. "You went back to Maelnor and had Gold make breakfast, didn't you?"

"That be why it smelled liked Gold!" Max exclaims, eyes wide. "Me was wondering why it did!"

"What?" Gavin asks, then looks at Zack. "You returned to Maelnor? When?"

"Earlier," Zack laughs. "After I cleared out the path and wiped out a few goblins, I popped back over to Maelnor just to say 'hey' and give Nik an update on our trip is going."

We stare at him, realizing now that we were idiots. We set off on this thinking we were never going to see anyone from the rest of the Boundary ever again. But Zack has restored the Dark Temple in every single City we've visited.

And as Dark Knights, he and Max are able to use the Flame Sigil out front to travel between any active Dark Temples. If we really wanted to head back, all we had to do was ask Zack. And he really made it seem like this was a permanent thing.

"If you guys really want to return to Maelnor," Zack says. "You're free to. I'm willing to take us back. I just never mentioned it because we're on an adventure, having fun and new experiences. Or reliving old ones, but changed. None of you guys had even thought about actually returning, so I hadn't brought it up."

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I've already said my goodbyes. If I returned to Maelnor, I doubt I'd want to return to this adventure, knowing that the end is coming soon. Brandon is too much like a father to me, and it took me a lot of effort to say my goodbye. I don't think I'd be able to do it again. If I returned, I'd want to live just as a boy with his father. Well, grandfather.

Looking at the rest of the team, I can tell they're going through similar things. We all know it's ending, and that we'll be going to the heavens, and possibly reincarnating, once it does. Despite that, we can't detach ourselves from our attachments now.

Luca will go wherever Zack does, because that's who he's really attached to. Zack's the big brother of us all, even if he's not actually bigger than four of us, nor the eldest of us. To Luca, though, he's a life-link, the person who has been his rock and foundation. The reason he has to live and survive. The person who helped him when he was depressed over his brother. The only real family he has here, his big brother.

For Gavin, he'd probably try to become better friends with Kylie, and possibly move in with Peter and Mama Bear. Even if he hasn't admitted it, I know that he sees them as family, that he sees Peter the same way I see Brandon, and that he views Mama Bear as a grandmother.

Then there's Max. He had just been reunited with his brothers. No one can honestly tell me that he probably hasn't thought about returning for them. No, Max has definitely thought about using the sigils to return back to Maelnor, back to his brothers.

I know that if I were in his situation, I probably would have wanted to. I probably would have. What would it be like, to reunite with brothers I'd lost contact with for a long time, brothers who I had been close with, only to leave not long after on a trip where I'd never see them again? Yeah, I'd have definitely turned back by now.

Max's willpower is incredible, to resist that. Now that I think about it, he's talked about Nit and Nin a lot on this trip. That must be his way of dealing with it, but still.

So maybe he has thought about actually returning, but Zack considers it to not be truly having thought about it since Max is still here. Our friend had the means to leave us, yet he didn't.

Gavin sighs, and I know that he's realized the same thing as me.

"We're in this together," he tells Zack. "We chose to leave everyone behind for this, we chose to start a journey where we wouldn't get to see them again. We gave them our goodbyes. If we constantly returned back to Maelnor, we'd eventually just stop this adventure, knowing what we know about the end."

Zack nods, accepting the answer.

"What I have a problem with, though," Gavin frowns. "Is you leaving to return to Maelnor, Zack. Why did you do that?"

"To give Nik an update on our trip," Zack answers, and Gavin stares him down, his old rebellious nature coming back. "I saw something with my sight I thought he should know, and that's all I'm going to say on it. I hadn't intended on being seen, but Gold somehow figured out I was there and insisted on making breakfast, so I asked him to make it for the team."

You're a good liar, Zack, but I know it wasn't something you saw with your sight. I overheard you talking with the Shadow of Life when you thought we were all asleep a few nights ago. I know he's been trying to convert you, and you were probably telling Nik about it. Whenever something confuses you, you always go to Nik and ask him for advice on it.

And you would definitely be confused over the Shadow of Life constantly attempting to convert you, especially since you apparently keep killing the avatars he manifests. I didn't actually see the avatar, but I got the feeling it's different than the ones that Zack slays after we arrive in the Fallen Cities.

"Alright," Zack decides to change conversations. "Now that everyone's warmed up, it's time to head out. Before we go, I want to mention that there is four feet of snow, so people like Luca are going to be shorter than it. The paths are cleared out, and we'll be able to make it to the next City by nightfall. As a reminder, monsters like Snow Wolves thrive in such environments, so be on your guard. One could attack at any time, and they heal when they reenter the snow."

"That just means," Max punches his right fist into his left palm. "We no let them enter the snow! We try, and Max will blast them with fire! Again and again, they will die!"

"Erm, yeah," Zack nods. "That's the plan. Let's go with that."

Max is just too hyper right now, so no one's going to tell him otherwise. He'll calm down once he can run around a bit.

We collect our blankets and other things used to block the blizzard from attacking us within the building and Luca turns off and puts away his Heat Lantern, then Zack runs us down the reminder of the Snow Wolves once more.

Only then do we leave the house, walking between the two short walls of snow. It's a little cold out, but it's tolerable with our current gear.

It's so strange, seeing so much snow here. The issue I'm having is with my eyes, because of the sun reflecting off the snow. That's the only real issue, though, and I can use my other senses to overcome the blindness.

What worries me is Max. His Perception is even higher than mine, which means he's going to be a lot more sensitive to the light than I am. He's still bouncing around as we walk, and I know that once we leave the City, Zack's probably going to guide us to some monsters, but still. How blind is he right now? Is he using his other senses to deal with what he can't see?

Gavin and Luca are probably affected as well, but with their lower Perceptions, I'm sure they're managing much better.

Zack's cheating. His eyes are closed. While he could be using his ears and the feel of the air to navigate, I am one hundred percent certain he is using his sight to make up for it. His psychic sight.

"I am," Zack speaks up, and I look at him as best I can with the blinding light of the sun reflecting off the snow and ice. "You were all thinking it at the same time. Also, piece of advice, but it'll be a lot easier to manage if you partially close your eyes. You won't have as much visual range from that, but you'll also reduce how much light is going into your eyes. Don't squint like you're doing, but partially close them. You'll adjust after a few minutes, and then the urge to squint will go away."

"Experience?" Gavin asks.

"From in reality," Zack nods. "We had an ice storm a few years ago… well, a few years before I died there. Ice storm and a blizzard, and it had a similar effect, even if not as bad as here. It was a trick I'd heard someone tell another to use. My magical sight wasn't near as good then as it is now. Anyway, let's get moving. Not far out of the City, there's a group of monsters we can release our pent-up energy against."

Wait, really? Did the Shadow of Life actually listen to that sarcastic comment of yours?

Right before Zack killed the avatar, he sarcastically told the Shadow of Life to make himself useful and supply some monsters on our trip so that we could release the energy we haven't been able to while cooped-up in the house.

Huh. He must really be afraid of Bryce's victory if he's actually putting in effort to try to convince Zack to join him. Does he really fear Bryce's ability to kill him that much?