Frigglene nodded and allowed herself to be hugged by her husband. Soon they decided to go inside and finish the bearskin blankets.

The following days passed quickly, Frigglene managed to hunt two birds with the appearance of a dodo that neither of them could recognize what species it was, their beaks and claws were of glass like material while their plumage during the day was like the rainbow and at night it turned ocher, even when lifeless.

Darthañan barely recovered enough energy to begin exploring the surroundings to determine where they were, taking different routes every day. Elizabeth learned to gain the attention of her parents by calling them mom or dad, her childish voice and the lack of intonation always melted them; while Theodor was dedicated to observing them all, babbling sounds similar to those of his sister and exploiting in laughter suddenly when the spider decided to move through his body.

It was on the twelfth night in the middle of this unknown forest that Darthañan sat down with his wife to determine the next course of action.

“My love, according to what I could identify from the environment, we are among some of the lower islands…”

At that moment his lip was grabbed by the restless Theodor who, unlike his sister, still did not fall asleep, letting go of the grip that made him look funny he continued the conversation while cooing at the baby.

“If my deductions are correct and on this island the predominant organisms are crystalline and plants, we must find ourselves in Lhimkio”

He paused for a moment and began to draw on the floor with charcoal, that he took from the leftovers of the fires that they had been lighting to warm up the last few nights.

“This would be a simplified map of this island. If we really are in Lhimkio”

In the middle of Darthañan and Frigglene the map of an island appeared, the shape of which resembled two large united circles, where the bottom was filled and the top was with a small hole that shaped a huge lagoon; in addition, on the upper left was a bulge the size of a quarter of the two largest.

Frigglene seeing the peculiar and unnatural shape of the mountain range on the island could not help but comment.

“The mountains resemble the body of a snake”

Darthañan smiled, the subject had also intrigued him when he was taught about it as a child.

“According to the natives, those are the remains of a colossal snake”

The mountain range began with the shape of the snake's head in the protuberance at the north of the island, it moved across the top, it descended in a wavy way starting from the right side at the top, going through the center and reaching down the left side, and then around the bottom of the island until joining almost in the center.

"I think we are here"

Darthañan pointed a place near the center of the two circular shapes with his finger.

“We must travel from here to this point. Here should be the only city of this island: Vorpiax”” he said drawing a line to the left side, ending at the further left side of protrusion of the circle above.

“If we really were lucky enough to end up in Lhimkio, we will be safe in Vorpiax. The Baron in charge of this island is also part of the guardians”

At the mention of the guardians the atmosphere became tense, the painful memories of a few days ago appeared in their minds. Theodor, taking advantage of his father's carelessness, grabbed the piece of coal, beginning to scratch on the improvised map of Darthañan, while he babbled as if the conversation was also his concern.

“¡Pfft!” both tried to contain their laughter while dealing with an important topic, but the spontaneity of their son won them over, and the cavern was filled with laughter that night.

The next morning, both Darthañan and Frigglene were outside the cavern, each carrying one of their children on their backs with makeshift rucksacks with bearskin blankets and feathers of dodo-like birds.

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“Artificial sunlight in Almawarth does not move like natural sunlight that begins in the west and ends in the east. We have to make a compass to guide us” saying this Darthañan gave his wife a small piece of moissanite.

“Cut it as thin and small as a needle”

While Frigglene cut the piece of metal with one of her nails, Darthañan stooped to fill the concave piece of the bear's skull with water, and then placed a leaf so that it floated on the water.

“Here”

Frigglene offered the moissanite needle to her husband. Who took it and placed it gently on the floating leaf.

"Now we only have to wait a moment"

And just like he said, the little needle on the blade started to turn counterclockwise. To finally point north. Darthañan turned his body to look north. In front, the mountains were flooded with giant crystals, to his left he could see the hills through which they had reached the cavern, to the right was the small stream that descended until it met several more to begin forming a river and extended deep into the forest, which also occupied everything to the south.

“We have to pass the mountains and then head west”

The couple began to climb the mountain through the areas where the large glass pillars made it easier for them to pass. During the several hours it took them to reach the peak of the mountain, the little ones got a little out of control at first and even cried as they were practically tied and restrained on the backs of their parents; However, soon after, both fell exhausted and slept for the rest of the journey.

At the top, Darthañan recreated the compass using some water that had been stored inside the bear's bladder.

"We should get to the peak of the mountain over there" Darthañan pointed toward the north-west "No later than tomorrow morning"

Frigglene smiled at him and started walking, as her husband collected the materials he had used. Throughout the day she was in the front, as she was in charge of protecting them all. Thanks to the natural characteristics of her body as a vampire she was not very far from her normal condition, it was only difficult for her to regenerate energy to use magic.

In the small valley that formed in the middle of the two mountains they were crossing, they decided to camp under a tree whose peculiar roots gave them a modest refuge that would protect them from the water if it rained. In other conditions they could have continued the tour, even at night, since both Darthañan and Frigglene had been trained as warriors from a very young age. But the conditions in which Darthañan was, and as he had the body of a human, limited them to the rhythm that what his organism allowed, and in these circumstances of survival it was better to travel safely than to take any unnecessary risk that could put their lives at risk. Plus, the infants could start making noise at any time and attract predators.

The next morning, they got up with the dawn and in a few minutes they resumed their journey. As they moved away from the first mountain and up the next, the huge crystals began to be replaced by great vegetation. Everything around them began to look like a tropical forest, quite humid and surprisingly not very warm.

It was in the middle of a light drizzle that they reached the top of the second mountain. Both of their eyes widened and even Darthañan couldn't help but open his mouth. In the distance they could see a gigantic crater that sank in the middle of the island. From where they stood they could see how the chain of mountains they were walking thru turned around the crater and how a thick tropical forest covered everything else.

Darthañan double-checked directions by assembling the makeshift compass and then they began the descent for the rest of the day. The trip was much calmer than they expected as no dangerous creatures crossed their path. At the base of the mountain they decided to rest for a day, in which Frigglene went hunting, while they allowed the little ones to move freely under the supervision of Darthañan.

It was in this way that they began traveling two days in a row to rest the third, and without realizing suddenly fourteen days had passed. During the trip there were times when they had to go up and down big hills, and there was even a day when they hardly got any drinking water, an event that caused them an internal crisis. Both their physical and mental energies were very worn out and the little children on their backs became increasingly less energetic. If it wasn’t for Frigglene's ability to dry their clothes with a little fire magic, they would have already succumbed to hypothermia by now.

On the morning of the fifteenth day little Elizabeth noticed something in the distance from her mother's back and suddenly began to speak in her immature voice.

“Mom, mom, mom…”

"Yes, yes, my love, the birds are very beautiful," Frigglene replied when she saw a litter of multicolored birds in the tops of the trees around them.

But Elizabeth kept calling her and calling her until Frigglene's temper came out. And when she was about to raise her voice she could see as over her shoulder the little arm of her daughter pointed towards a place. Her eyes followed where the girl was pointing and she could see in the distance several humanoid figures, barely discernible, in the middle of the forest.

"Ready, Theodor's little accident has been cleaned up," Darthañan said, emerging from a bush with their son on his back.

“¡Shhh!”

Frigglene shut him up immediately and with a small sign showed him the figures in the distance that in the midst of so much undergrowth were barely visible.

"Let's check if it's safe to contact them" Frigglene said quietly.

In a few movements she untied Elisabeth from her back and handed her to Darthañan.

“I'll be right back”

Saying that, her body vanished in smoke. No matter how desperate they were, the main thing was to determine if the creatures in front of them were friendly or not. Because in the worst case scenario, they could be from the faction that attacked their home weeks ago.