We walked for the next hour or so through an increasingly dense forest. Occasionally, I went hiking with Jason and some friends, but I could make it up the trails marked Beginner - and that was when I was in a lot better shape than I was now.

Fortunately, the trail, such as it was, was well-traveled. I looked down on the dirt path, marveling at the footprints left indented in the brown earth at my feet. I spotted mostly human footprints, but some were large enough to give Sasquatch a run for his money. Others were hove-print I judged to belong to centaurs, or, well, regular horses. There were even large triangular three-toed imprints which might have belonged to dragons, or something else entirely...

A few minutes later, we reached a clearing. Teagra, who had been silent up until this moment, glanced over her bare shoulder at me.

“We rest,” she said.

“Oh Thank God,” I said, leaning against a tree. My knee felt stiff. I wasn’t accustomed to walking such a long distance. I briefly took out my phone, anxious to see how many steps I had, but I decided against it. It was best to conserve power for the device. Besides, I had a feeling I was well out of range for Bluetooth.

“How far away is this place?” I asked.

“A day’s journey north,” Teagra said with an ever-solemn expression.

“Waitaminute a whole day?” my voice raised.

I scrambled to run through the logistics of traveling that far. Of course, I couldn't exactly call up an Uber in these settings. Still, my feet already throbbed in the hard sandals Teagra had found for me - apparently the first thing that would give me away as an Outsider would be my footwear.

But beyond that, where we sleep? What would we eat? And where would I go the bathroom?

My stomach growled loudly in accordance with those last two points.

“Yes,” Teagra said as she knelt down to examine several berries along the path. “It will be night soon. We will travel for an hour or two and then make camp.”

“Make…camp?” I said. mouthing the words as if they were completely foreign to me.

“We had best search for provisions,” she said, plucking several berries from a nearby vine.

My mind was still left reeling from her earlier words. When she said this place was a short distance away, I figured it was just that…a short distance. I didn’t realize it was a whole freaking day away.

I had no idea how to make camp. I hadn’t made camp since I was eight years old and thought camping in the backyard was cool. And even that lasted only three hours, once I’d devoured all the smores. I’d been a Cub Scout for all of five minutes, and any survival skills outside of knitting badges to my uniform was practically nil.

Still, I tried to make a good show that I knew what I was doing. I spotted some green berries. I made my way towards them. I started to pick them when Teagra spotted me.

“Those are poisonous!” she exclaimed. “Eat those and you will enter a daze you may never escape!”

“Right,” I said. I absent-mindedly stuffed the berries into my pocket, not really knowing what to do with them after I’d picked them.

“We should get moving,” Teagra thankfully said a moment later. “We don’t want to be in the woods when night falls.”

I nodded. I thought about questioning why we don’t want to be in the forest at night, but I decided not to question her wisdom. After all, I’d already seen dragons, ogres and centaurs. My imagination could fill in the gaps on what prowled the forest at night . . . and I really didn’t like what I was thinking.

So I kept moving without question.

I wanted to talk to Teagra, but I had no idea what to say.

What did she remember?

Clearly not me, by the looks of it.

Maybe Jason. She seemed to have some fondness for the man she just met a few days again, and she seemed to take news of his death somewhat hard.

So maybe she was still in there somewhere.

But all of that begged the question, what had Merit done to her?

What about all the centaurs and ogres and fairies? Had Simon Merit made those as well.

No, that’s crazy talk. Roy Fritz made this world not Simon Merit.

Because walking around in a fantasy world made by a fantasy writer not a venture capitalist was a much more rational statement.

Maybe I was the one who was losing it.

“Have you lived here long?” I asked as we walked through the forest. The thick treeline cut the sunlight into a spectacle of shapes.

“I do not live in the woods,” Teagra said with a hint of annoyance. “I live in Meritown.”

“Where in Meritown?” I asked, not that I was all that familiar with settlement all that well. After all, I’d only known the town by the one street I’d walked down.

“Know that when our business is concluded outside,” Teagra said. “You will not see my bed.”

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I turned beet red when I realized the implication of her words.

“That’s not…not what I meant,” I stammered.

“Then what were your intentions?” her green eyes pierced me like a sharp piece of jade.

“Just making conversation,” I shrugged.

“You Outsiders and your petty need to fill the air with words,” Teagra said. “I will never understand.”

Teagra quickened her pace, and I quickly concluded the conversation was effectively over.

For those keeping score, Teagra One, My All-Consuming Social Anxiety Zero.

I watched as she walked two or so yards ahead of me. Her red hair slowly began to merge against the crimson sky as the sun began to set. Little by little, the forest began to melt away, revealing a familiar clearing of rolling fields once more. It all came not a minute too soon, as I was in no hurry to find out what dwelt in the forest.

When we arrived at a flat piece of land, I watched as Teagra hunched over and began feeling the land. She turned to me, her solemn expression replacing the icy fury I had experienced in the forest.

“We will camp here for the night,” Teagra said. “I will gather wood and food. You will see to the fire,” she instructed.

I looked down to see Teagra had left several stones before me in a circle on the flat ground. I had no idea what to do.

“Ummm, about that-” I started, only to realize I was talking to myself.

Teagra had vanished, apparently in search of timber and food beyond the meager berries she had collected.

I scanned the area for her only to discover night was quickly falling. I briefly thought about looking for her but decided against it.

Like it or not, she’s your best hope for survival.

Besides how hard can it be to start a fire?

I started to bang two of the rocks together, eager to make a spark. Nothing happened.

Maybe I had to scrape the two stones together…that’s what they always did in the movies at least.

I held one rock still, running the large rock over it. The only thing I succeeded in doing was jamming the large stone over my fingers. I cursed loudly.

My thoughts turned to an actual story called To Build a Fire that I read in high school. Jack London wrote it. I tried to remember any helpful bits of information, but the only thing I could recall was the main character freezing to death at the end…which really didn’t help me much.

Even if it did feel ominously relevant.

I continued to crash the rocks together, but I only succeeded in producing bits of stone which fell between my fingers. I heard a stirring behind me. I twisted around, the two stones clutched in hand. I figured I could throw them at whatever lurked behind me, though my knees weren’t what they once were and getting up was going to be hell on my joints.

Instead, I saw Teagra beside me, a narrow expression lining her face.

“I told you to start a fire,” she said.

“I…attempted,” I said, tossing the rocks to my feet.

“Attempts do not matter. Results do,” she said. She pulled out two sharp flints from her bag. With one smooth movement, she cast a veil of sparks onto the dry glass, which produced fire from the ground in a few moments.

“I found food,” she said, laying the battered corpse of a particularly rodent at my feet.

“Great,” I said, before looking up to her. She rolled her eyes.

“Do I have to do everything?” she said.

Over the course of the next five minutes, I watched in half-horror, half-amazement as Teagra, formerly known as Teagan Mills, stripped the rodent of fur and flesh before impaling it on a stick and warming it by the fire. After several more minutes of cooking, she began digging into the roasted flesh of the creature, hungrily gnawing at the meat.

“You need to eat to maintain your strength. If you fall in battle, I will not carry,” Teagra said, giving me a wry once over. “Not that I could.”

I sheepishly grabbed a chunk of meat off the fire, plopped it in my mouth and began to chew. It tasted a bit like venison, if far more a bit gritty and chewier than I had anticipated.

I could feel Teagra’s eyes on me with every bite I took as I picked at the meat as if it was a piece of chicken.

“Your friend, the one known as the son of Jay, had impressed me with his valor,” Teagra said. “He at least knew how to survive.”

Her eyes proceeded to cut into me like a sharp knife. “You, on the other hand, appear to have all the instincts of a well-fed house cat, and the general appearance as well.”

“Ouch. That’s harsh,” I replied, though I had little grounds to argue.

“The truth is often harsh. Mayor Merit teaches us to accept nothing else,” she said. The mention of Merit drew hot coals down my back, but I knew I needed to let it go if I wanted to make any leeway here.

“So…where exactly are we going?” I said, trying to change the subject. Teagra’s impassive expression did not change.

“Apparently, you are as soft-headed as you are soft-bodied,” Teagra said.

Okay, that one did hurt.

“We’re going to the place of your friend’s last stand,” Teagra said. “It should only be a short walk from here.”

I hesitated to ask Teagra what constituted a short walk, but I figured I was in enough hot water with her.

“You will take these answers to your people, and you will tell them to end their foolish war with our people,” Teagra said in a matter-of-fact tone.

“Okay, when you say ‘war’, what exactly do you mean?” I said.

“You Outsiders have been infiltrating Meritown for yours, trying to poison our minds against our leaders, trying to divide us,” Teagra said passionately.

“Is that what Jason did?” I asked. Teagra’s face softened for a moment as I saw a hint of sadness.

“No,” she said. “Your friend was very brave…and honest. It’s only because of your association with him that I haven’t delivered you to Mayor Merit.”

Okay, okay, this could work.

I could go to this place and find answers. Maybe there would be something there to connect what happened to Jason back to Simon Merit. If that was the case, it was only a matter of getting back to my world to make sure the charges stick and bringing down Merit … and this whole cult thing he had going on.

Granted, there were still a lot of holes in this plan, the biggest being finding a way of home.

And I sure as hell wasn’t going to tell Teagra this whole thing revolved around plotting against Merit. She made clear where her loyalties lied.

I spent the rest of the night thinking and planning. Teagra roused me in the morning. I don’t think I got more than an hour of sleep.

Thankfully, Teagra was right - it was a short walk.

Our destination came into sight at the top of a hill. Jagged ruins cut into the sky like the bottom of a jawline. Teagra gestured to them with an outstretched hand.

“The Dungeon of Moran lies ahead!”