The exit we slipped out of was one hidden by a small stream some good distance from the walls. The hatch had gone unnoticed purely by the fact that it was tucked behind some large rocks and covered in dirt. Apparently, as best as Misana could find, the theory a lot of people held for the place was it once was a dwarven city that eventually got converted to be used as a sewer then abandoned when monsters started taking over the lower levels. Luckily, those monsters stayed far below most of the time.

Still, even with the darkness of the night providing us cover, there were still patrols on the main road. It was no shock, given what had happened in Garnalt. Any death might be taken as a sign of that night happening again. The two of us moved carefully along the embankment of the stream till we got to one of the stone walls of the farm fields.

Once safe, we lept over and quietly made our way from field to field, saying low and along those walls. We had to hide for a good thirty or so minutes as a pair of watchmen stopped on the road and began to chat. It was a cold, miserable wait as the two prattled on about their lives. I had to, at one point, stop Veline from just leaping over the wall and attacking them.

Even with the cover of the walls, it still took us a good chunk of the night to get out of the area being patrolled. There were a few farmhouses that had turned into small fortified garrisons. People had fled, some before even that year's harvest. The threat of the demons and the war had driven many away. After the final field, we struck out away from the road for a good few miles. By sunrise, we were clear of the entire place.

Once I set back on the road, Veline moved off in the distance to keep distance. She did her best to keep her cloak covering up what she was, but the horns and tail proved too much to hide in general. The link between us would keep us aware of each other to the point of knowing if something went wrong anyways.

It would take us around two days of travel to reach the village near the forest. From there we would need to head north along that ancient woodland. Then from there we'd reach a fork in the road and follow the one that led around the mountains. There was apparently only one village along that road from there to the city, so we'd hopefully not run into too many people.

Clouds were gathering overhead. Glancing up, I wondered if it was going to snow. The day passed without much of anything occurring outside of Veline's various swings in mood and interest that I felt from wherever she was nearby. We didn't pass anyone or see much of anything.

Merchants had apparently been hiring adventurers from the guilds to protect their caravans. At most, I suspect they would be the few that I'd run into. I couldn't help but wonder if I had been like them if it wasn't for the cursed gift the Sorrow Penitent put on me. What sort of friends I'd have found in such works.

I remember that night I had caught Su'Galo carefully polishing a blacksmithing hammer. She never noticed me but no one needed to tell me. Of the four guards who had helped me at the start of my time, the fact that only three had been on that cart fleeing the city had been far too obvious. If I hadn't been the hound, would someone else have been mantled with such a title?

My jaw tightened and cut from my mind the very idea of what might have been. It didn't matter, for I was the undying. Any life I may have had was and would always be a draw to forgo my path. It didn't escape me how I had somewhat taken up the very persona that Lady Lura'mi had been trying to groom me into being. The ghostly elven woman couldn't have planned it, but it's funny how it worked out.

I vaguely consider that I might even use the title "Lord Champion Contritioner" somehow to further my goal. Such a title had to still hold weight to the people. The world expected the undying who would call for the world to repent, but I had to become the undying hound who hunted the evils of the world ruthlessly.

That night, I pitched a very small lean to style tent. Luckily, magicians had learned long ago to make a circle that was basically just a campfire. I carefully drew the lines and runes into the dirt, checking a small book. Even if I didn't know how to read the language of this world, the circle had become familiar enough to recognize. Vaguely, it occured to me that it might be weird that I could read the magic runes more than I could the common words. I met up with Veline off the road as the sun sat, noting that she had somehow cut off our emotions from each other as I was approaching.

Making a circle physically or with something like ink made it far more stable, even if it was somewhat more difficult to write them that way. I had been warned to never draw a circle mid air for anything that wasn't just a single effect. They would most of the time do nothing, the other times they'd just explode horrifically. A trick I remembered just in case.

As I sat in front of the fire, Veline plopped herself in my lap suddenly. I stiffened as she leaned back into me and said, "Food."

I stared down at her as her void like eyes stared up at me with those little red circles glowing with pleading want. I pulled two little things in a thick wax paper wrapper. She went to swipe one, but I held them away, saying, "Get off my lap first."

She narrowed her eyes at me and pouted her lip. Yet, when it was clear I wasn't going to stop, she floated up lightly and dropped herself next to me. Handing her the travel ration, she huffed and said, "You let that half elf be all personal. Touching and holding each other. Close. Yet am I not the one most so?"

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Veline began to lean in far too close. For the first time in a long time, I felt my face red for reasons other than the cold. I growled out, "Stop."

Her eyes fell off to the side as she whispered into my ear, "You don't love her. I can feel it. I know."

With that statement I slowly turned an angered gaze on her. Veline was far too close as she stared directly into my eyes, still blocking the emotions. She simply held the ration and frowned, continuing in an oddly soft voice, "I can feel. Every time you see her. Guilt. Shame. Never love. Why? It doesn't feel good."

The anger drained as I looked into those black eyes with the small red circles. I took a deep breath and I asked, slowly turning my eyes to the sky, "What is the meaning of this?"

She sighed, placed her head on my shoulder, and cooed, "Yes. It doesn't feel good. Why keep her around? Why hurt yourself? Why hold me away. Keeping her close."

Slowly I pulled a bit of bread out and eyed the stars. There was no answer for a moment as I ripped a bit off it. How could I make it clear to my pact partner? It was far too complicated to merely explain in a way Veline would understand. Then, after chewing it for a bit, I said, "Because I promised her that I'd stay by her side. Like our little promise."

I heard her begin gnawing on what must have been a bit of preserved meat. She didn't ask anything else, but she held a certain grimace that didn't fade for a bit when I glanced at her. I looked down to the fire and asked, figuring it was as good as time as any, "This is why you are acting jealous then?"

The sound stopped and I turned my attention on her. She sat there with two or three pieces of jerky sticking out of her mouth and looking particularly shocked. I sighed and said, "Yes, it was obvious."

Veline leaned her back upright, opened her mouth, and I watched as the strips just slid back. It was hard to stay particularly mad at her when she did weird stuff like that. She looked around, almost like she was trying to confirm we were alone. Carefully, she leaned over to me in the way one would if they had a secret. Quietly, she whispered, "You won't form a pact with her will you?"

I sat there for a good three or four seconds trying to figure out what that statement was supposed to mean. She then began to rip into the hard tack in her ration. I shook my head slowly and said, "I don't know what you mean by pact, but I'm not about to go forming any more magic life sharing rituals."

She stopped her rabid attacks on the piece of brick like food and asked, "Isn't that marriage thing? Looked it up in a word book. Sounds like one. How isn't it?"

Chewing on a piece of my jerky, I began to despise being in the spot I was. I wish I could blame god for putting me there, but I knew that wasn't going to work. I said, trying to think of how I was going to explain to her what it was, "Marriage isn't a magical binding pact."

One glance told me she was staring directly at me with a completely unblinking gaze. I wanted to curse Cathurnalt for not making her with the knowledge of such things, but he might have very well been watching. Ruefully, I realized he probably made her like this on purpose. I awkwardly said, "It's this thing where two people agree to share their lives together but in a non-magical way. It's a sort of special declaration that the two are deeply in love and will always be together."

There was a blank stare on her face as she slowly bent her hard tack till it came apart. I considered for a second if this type of food in my own world was that way. She asked, in a deadpan, "It's about sex isn't it? It's a fancy way of saying you do that together. That you like each other a lot and do that."

I slowly turned my attention to my own food, refusing to answer that question. While I couldn't claim I didn't know she was aware of that sort of thing, the fact she just said it was a bit hard to process. For a heartbeat, the air was thick in it's uncomfortable feeling. Then I looked at her and said, calmly, "I don't intend to be with her like that."

Veline, still without any sort of emotion in her tone, "I hope not. That'd be unhealthy. Bad for you and her."

She then suddenly turned her unblinking eyes directly on me. She was still blocking the emotions, but she softened and had this wantant look. I felt my face burning again as she moved in extremely close, barely not touching me and her face far too close. She asked, her voice falling into an odd soft and deep tone, "And me. Should be me. With me. Only me."

Then suddenly Veline moved away and returned to looking completely like nothing had happened. She giggled as she returned to eating. I was left sitting there staring at her with a racing heart. She had teased me before, but never like that. It took me a moment to recompose myself from that.

With a roll of her eyes, she said, "I saw a lot today. Many rocks and trees. The snow is pretty. Glitters in the light of the sun."

"That's good," I muttered and returned to my food. I watched as Veline happily bit and ripped apart what little she had left. I couldn't help but keep noticing how she blocked the emotions even still. Was she deflecting or merely teasing me? How was it I couldn't even tell?

I grumbled out a curse and Veline looked at me. I shook my head and said, "We're going to have to be careful for a while. Once we get to Falstshore, we're going to have to figure out how exactly to best spread the rumors."

Veline grinned, showing all her sharp teeth, and said, "Big magic. Set fire to something. Blow something up. Big magic."

With a shake of my head, I said, "Rumors, not destruction. Graffiti is one thing, but we have to send the right ones."

Veline giggled some more before laying back across the ground. She gleefully said, "Making a secret group. Heroic shadow dewlers. Beware the evils of the world."

I let her roll about on the ground amusing herself, but the statement rang more true than anything. It was entirely possible we wouldn't find Lady Lura'mi. Yet that would have to be the goal. While I might never truly die, I need more than just me and the group back in Shalecutte. I'd have to take up that title.