They stood in shocked silence, watching as Kullisates continued forward, its colossal form shrinking to nothing as it faded into the distance. Millie hugged close to Trenton, seeking comfort from him in this moment of uncertainty. He held her, turning over what just happened in his head, trying to come to some semblance of a conclusion.

“I…couldn’t even see what was happening,” Leo said, his face torn with some sort of agony

“What even happened? What was that? Where are we?” Garrote said, whipping his head from side to side.

“It was just so quick,” Kiva muttered, seemingly aghast.

Trenton himself felt rather lost, a whirlwind of emotions raging through him, but the longer they stood atop the hill, the more danger they’d be in. As every person struggled with their individual greifs, they slowly started looking towards him. Without Walibled they had no leadership, no sense of safety–comfort–which meant that group safety fell to him.

Trenton took a deep breath, steeling himself to carry their burdens, “Walibeld’s aspect is that of shaping reality. If I were to take a guess, he used some ability to teleport us out of harm's way–displace I think it’s called.”

“But then where is he? Why isn’t he with us?” Garrote sputtered.

“I…don’t know for certain. But I’m confident he isn’t dead. Walibeld used this spell before, I think, to teleport all 3 of us,” Trenton pointed to himself and Leo, “out of Terraphage’s path. We-”

“You ran into Terraphage!?” Kiva shouted, suddenly taken aback.

“Yes,” Trenton shook his head, trying to finish his thought, a little exasperated now, “we can talk about that more tonight. My point is, he has the ability to teleport himself with the ability he just used. That he’s not with us now was a choice he willingly made.”

“So then,” Garrote looked off into the distance. “Right now, if he’s not with us, then that must mean he’s still with Kullisates…do you think he can win? Wouldn’t it be safer to just let the Conqueror deal with it once it got to Dasellium?”

Leo shook his head, “The Conqueror isn’t in Dasellium right now. He’s on some mission somewhere. If it made it to Dasellium, there’d be no one able to stop it,” Millie, Kiva, and Garrote stood slack jawed, their faces suddenly pale. Trenton hadn’t thought about it, but they’d never been told about that, what with them joining so recently.

“But if he’s not…that’s why Aria fell. He wasn’t there,” Kiva suddenly realized, her eyes wide.

Trenton nodded, “So if Walibeld can’t stop it, it’ll rampage through the city uncontested.”

“No, not quite. I met Zalis back before we were captured, Trenton. I had meant to tell you, but there’s been a lot going on recently. Both him and Aylin are currently in Dasellium. It’s not completely defenseless,” Leo said.

“Wait, were Aylin and Zalis gone, too?” Garrote butted in.

“They were, but it seems like they're back now. All we can do now is have faith in Walibeld’s ability. Back at Rema’s, he mentioned running into Kullisates before, so I think he’ll be fine. If he can’t stop it, there’s still Aylin and Zalis as a last line of defense. Nothing’s over yet,” Trenton finished, assuaging the group's fears, more or less.

“Right, of course. We have to have faith in Walibeld. There’s nothing else we can do,” Kiva remarked resolutely.

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“Exactly. Right now, what we need most is to focus on our path forward. Sailing to Dasellium is no longer possible, which means we’ll have to forge a new route forward,” Trenton said, looking around at anyone for ideas.

But all he was met with was blank stares. It seemed that no one knew what to do next, which meant it was down to him. Trenton pulled out the simple map he’d been studying for some time now, its face marked with various symbols indicating points of interest. Luckily, they were right next to a major landmark, the southern pass, or what remained of the southern pass, anyway. Assuming they were maybe 4 miles from the bank, he could roughly place their location on the map, just a little shy of the southern pass to the northeast of Wyrm’s Perch. Now, from there, what was their next move?

“The end goal has always been at the academy,” Trenton pointed to the Academy just east of the Thalian, “so I’m going to keep that heading. Walibeld seemed quite set that Era would have some unique insights on me, for whatever reason.”

“I assume it’s just because of his eyes,” Kiva said, crouching down next to Trenton to look at the map.

“His eyes?” Garrote asked, mimicking Trenton’s confusion.

“Did Walibeld not tell you? Era has really special eyes. I don’t remember what they’re called, but they’re super rare and have some unique powers. He can see things we can’t, for example,” Kiva finished.

“Right, well, in any case, we’re headed to the academy. The route we were going to take was sailing up the Liafer through Zerital, going through Avar, and finally heading south on the eastern side of the Thalian. Realistically, we could still follow this path, walking adjacent to the Liafer towards Dasellium. It’d be the safest bet. We couldn’t get lost, we’d have freshwater, and we could meet up with Walibeld in Dasellium,” Trenton said, looking down for the group's opinion. Everyone was nodding along, well most everybody, anyway. Kiva was subtly shaking her head.

“It sounds good on paper, but it’s extremely risky. The creatures in the ocean are some of the worst on the planet, and many of them swim up the Liafer daily. Even if we traveled north a dozen miles away from the Liafer, it’d be a huge gamble. You saw that adiathan. We couldn’t even scratch it, before you did your thing, Trenton. If something like that was traveling up the Liafer, we wouldn’t be safe in any sort of proximity. Some of those creatures have incredible tracking abilities, both in the water and on land. Now that Kullisates is heading north, I have a feeling that more creatures are going to be chasing after it to pick up on the scraps it leaves behind,” Kiva said.

Trenton delved back into the map, studying its contours for any other paths they might take, “You’re right. We’d be taking a chance that we’d only encounter weak creatures. The only other options, then, would be going through the Desolate Cliffs. There’s no way we could possibly cross the Liafer, so we’re stuck on its eastern side for better or worse.”

Kiva traced her finger along the map, tracing a potential path they could take through the desert, “We could head east and shoot straight for Farlith’s Pass. It’s the straightest route towards the Academy.

“But the mountains are too dangerous. We’d never make it through,” Trenton said, rubbing his chin.

“Right, so instead, we could take a straight path towards Zerital. I’ve traveled the desert before, on my way from the east, actually, so I have a bit of experience that will help us here. If we use a compass to keep our heading, and measure our distance based on the time we spend walking, we should be able to navigate straight through the desert. It’s risky, but I’ve done it before. A mile is about a 24 minute walk, so it shouldn't be too hard to measure. The only thing we’ll need to worry about, then, is supplies and monsters. I’m familiar with the monsters of the cliffs, so we should be able to avoid most of them. It’s still a risk, but the monsters in the cliffs are certainly weaker than those in the ocean. It’s a far safer bet,” Kiva finished.

“Which means that the last real problem is supplies. We’ll need water and rations. We can’t rely on running into enough food or water out there to sustain us,” Garrote said, resolute. “What do we have on hand?”

They all pulled out their kits of rations and supplies, counting and measuring. Leo and Trenton had bought a ton for themselves back in Wyrm’s Perch, but they hadn’t anticipated having two extra people to take care of. In all, they only had about 1 month's worth of rations for the four of them. It was quite a bit, but there was no guarantee it would last them.

“With this route, we’d be traveling about 1,000 miles or so. That’d take us a little over a month if we managed to make a straight shot. The cliffs can be pretty steep, though, so it might be closer to two months depending. We’d be cutting it really close, even if we ate half rations every day,” Kiva said, quickly crunching the numbers in her head.

“So it’s risky, but it’s not impossible, which means it’s our best bet. It’s not any more dangerous than traveling up the Liafer, anyway. Just a different type of dangerous,” Trenton concluded, everyone looking to him for approval. The sun was still high overhead. If they started making some headway, they’d be able to get some good distance today. Trenton nodded, making up his mind. “Alright, we’ll head straight to Zerital. Kiva and I will lead the charge, keeping track of our heading and pace respectively. Any objections?” Leo looked nervous, but nodded his head. Millie didn’t seem to be paying attention. Kiva looked resolute. And Garrote looked actually almost excited.

“Can’t say I’ve ever gone through a desert before. It’s kind of thrilling, in an odd way,” Garrote said, jumping up. It was decided.