Traversing Corynth like with Glasrock was outright eerie. We could still hear the crashes of the lost battle above us, and we immediately veered away from that and towards the east, hugging the wall of the Mesa before eventually going straight north. Navigating was going to prove difficult, as the dome of visibility directly around us was so limited. We would have to rely on our compass and our knowledge of the region to find our way around.
The Mist seemed to be very active with life. I heard the calls of Wingen and Falwyr all around us, the former attempting to find food while evading the latter, their natural predators. I saw the grass waving around as the churning Mist shook their strands slowly from side to side and heard the skittering of small mammals scurrying within that grass. It felt as though every unknown sound, every unidentified twitch, was a threat brewing outside our bubble of safety.
Something occurred to me at the last moment, and I moved to stand beside Victor, whispering under my breath:
“How are we supposed to find the mine in these conditions? We can’t see beyond 30 feet.”
Victor whispered back:
“I am more familiar with this area than you would expect since I memorized all those maps. When we get close, I should be able to find what we need.”
Suddenly, I heard a loud barking noise and a lot of scrabbling off to our right. We three Fighters readied our weapons and peered off into the Mist, where we saw numerous pairs of bright blue eyes slowly approaching us. Growling could be heard from the edges of out dome of safety, as the pack of Paeric closed in towards its’ edges. Eithan began to cry again as they started to circle us, and we held our breath as we waited for an attack.
But the attack never came. The beasts kept circling us, growling all the while, but they never made a move. Eventually, we kept moving in our original direction, and they continued to make threatening noises at us. In time, the light of the stone began to dim, and the stone Victor was holding began to crack. The dome shrunk and the Paeric drew closer as Victor fumbled for another rock. The second he drew it out produced quite a few yelps from the circling predators, and I saw the beasts retreat as the circle expanded.
“That’s three for three on correct theories.” Victor smiled proudly, his eyes glinting with the slightly smug satisfaction of a man who likes to be proven right.
We kept moving forward for several hours, occasionally resting when the non-combatants got tired. I was extremely tired myself, having fought a difficult battle just that morning. Now that the adrenaline was wearing off, I was trudging slowly near the back of the group. My legs were starting to cramp, and I was greedily drinking water to try to avoid that. When we got closer to the snow, I asked Lynn to refill my flagging water supplies. She could draw water from the Mist, of course, but the Mist was always more difficult for Purifiers to manipulate, for some reason. Otherwise, we wouldn’t need Glasrock.
The Paeric had apparently gotten bored of tracking us, apparently leaving us behind several hours ago. But I wasn’t convinced that they weren’t still following us. Nevertheless, the day had grown later as we picked out way through the beginnings of the northern wastes. We weren’t making great time, as we hadn’t even reached the hills yet, but we were all tired from a long and difficult day. We decided to set up camp and divvy up watch responsibilities. I clearly looked dead on my feet because they all agreed that I should have last watch.
I was too tired to disagree, and after I wolfed down some Domilope jerky and homegrown vegetables, I rushed straight into my tent and wrapped myself up in one of the animal skins. I was asleep the next moment.
…
I suspected that they let me sleep for far too long, because the next morning I was woken up by Lynn during the early minutes of the pre-dawn. I let everyone sleep and took stock of our Glasrock. We had mined roughly two packs of the stuff, but they weren’t exactly full. We had only one day to seriously mine, after all. But even in the evening hours, we hadn’t dug seriously into the stash, with only around 8 of the rocks used up. The packs could hold around 100, and they currently held around 70 each. Since each rock lasted around 2 hours, I was cautiously optimistic about our plan.
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I checked our berry supply and grimaced a bit this time. We only had 70 remaining, since all of us had needed some medical attention after the attack, especially Ann and me. I wondered when we would have the opportunity to get more.
Those thoughts reminded me of my lost home and family, and I shed some quiet tears as dawn came into full bloom beyond the gray miasma that surrounded our encampment. After a few long and lonely hours, I pulled my composure back together and decided to wake the others. Eithan had slept with Lynn, while Hope had apparently shared a tent with Ann. It took some nudging from the both of us to gently prod the bleary-eyed girl into moving.
We kept walking, trying to improve our pace as best as we could. Eventually, we made it to the foot of the northern hills. Much to my surprise, we started up the first hill that we got to. Our well-worn boots trudged through snow that had gotten even thicker since last time, all of us following Victor to the zenith of the earthen mound.
When we got to the top, Victor seemed to look intently at the wall of fog that obscured our vision of the surrounding hillside, before shaking his head slightly and moving down the other side of the hill. This odd behavior puzzled the rest of us, but we followed him right back down the hill, only to follow him further up the slope of a second hill. I thought this was madness, but I chose to trust the man whose work had helped us get this far. When we got to the top of the second hill, he did the same thing, glaring out and looking around, almost as if he expected some sort of signal.
Then, suddenly, his eyes lit up as he seemed to spot what he was looking for, northwest of our location. We went back down the second hill and followed him, moving northwest now. After a while, we ascended a third hill, though the non-combatants were starting to get tired. Hope was putting on a brave face, but she wasn’t used to this. Eithan had been wrapped in one of the animal skins to keep him warm, but I could tell that both he and Lynn was suffering from the cold. Victor himself was shaking, but he didn’t really seem to notice.
I finally spoke up:
“Victor, what are you doing?”
“Confirming if my suspicions are correct.” He said, continuing to march up the hill, “I’ll be able to show you once we get to the top.”
With that, we followed him to the top and I watched a grin spread across his face as he looked further northwest:
“Look!” He exclaimed, pointing in that direction, “Can you see it? The glow in the distance? That’s our destination.”
I squinted in the direction he was pointing, and I thought I could make it out. There did seem to be a faint blue glow within the Mist, far in that direction. We descended once again and began weaving between the hills towards the area that Victor had indicated.
We climbed yet another hill to get our bearings, and this time I could clearly see the blue glow that Victor had been talking about beforehand. A vertical pillar of sapphire light could be seen penetrating the Mist in the distance. But we had been walking for nearly a full day at this point and, even with frequent breaks, the civilians were reaching their limits. We went back to the bottom of the hill and made camp again. This time, we planned to have only the Fighters and Al stand watch and let the weaker members of our party get some much-needed rest.
I had volunteered for watch in the middle of the night, but at this point, the watch was more of a formality. The Paeric were scared away by our magic rocks, and the Neidyr were either underground or further south. It was possible that they dwelt somewhere aboveground, but Victor doubted it, saying that the underground was likely more hospitable for our firebreathing friends. That meant that, so long as we didn’t run into a wandering Arthus, we would be okay. And if we did, we were probably dead anyways, either awake or asleep. Especially at night and without Isaiah. Involuntary memories of the loss of my friend sent another twinge of grief through me as I stared into the coals of our campfire.
As I stared into the fire, alone with my thoughts, I heard some rustling coming from Julia’s tent. I saw her emerge from the tent and walk sleepily towards me before sitting by my side.
“Can’t sleep?” I murmured as quietly as I could.
She nodded, “Hope is sleeping with me tonight, and she wrestles like an Arthus in her sleep. I swear she put me in a headlock.”
We both chuckled at that, but I went serious again soon afterwards.
“Is that really why you can’t sleep, Julia?”
She shook her head and went quiet for a while, the only break to the silence being the steady crackle of the fire.
“We abandoned them, Steve. We abandoned all of them. Mom and Dad and Grandma. Everyone in the village that we were supposed to protect.” I could hear the tears welling up in her voice as she continued, “I keep thinking back and hating myself for not arguing more. Arguing that we needed to stay and fight. But I was so scared. I…”
Her sentence was cut off by a choked off sob, burying her face into her hands. I didn’t hesitate to wrap her in my arms and comfort her as best as I could.
“I know how you feel. I really do. But we made the right decision, no matter how heartbreaking. We made the decision to protect what parts of the village we could. The remnants of the family that we were able to save. And our job isn’t over yet.”
She had her arms around me now, as well, sobbing into my shoulder. She whispered softly against my chest:
“I know. I know.”