I got my grooming done and climbed down to the main floor. I decided to walk over the floor to check the shutters and peeked out of it.

The fog is still out there, floating.

I wonder if we’re going to lose more time to it while it’s overcast and rainy. We only get sparse rain, but we get the clouds. Will that give the fog more presence? I suppose I need to get rid of it sooner than later.

I walked back over to the kitchen and start making some basic breakfast, we got some eggs yesterday, so I cook them and soak some meal and oats.

Anna came out of her room after I finished breakfast, presumably lured out by the smell of cooked food, and got herself a mug.

I wonder where in the valley I would have to go to get some ale, like down in the merchant’s house. Or wine, gods, I would love some wine. I wonder if it’s still more expensive because humans think they can smell half the stuff they think they can smell. Any alcohol would do, though, I want a drink.

I spoon out a bit of the thick breakfast soup, or cereal, or stew - whatever it counts as, for her and a boiled egg, giving the bowl and egg to Anna.

“Thanks.” She says, still in a haze. She starts digging in, and I finish up and get to eating myself.

“Getting stone today, get done or never get done,” I told the [Sleepy head].

She looks up, “Aw, wanted to do stuff. Had plan. Understand.” She says with her heavy-lidded eyes and a pout.

I could get that, a rather large part of me wanted not to go pick up the stone.

“Go tomorrow? Would enjoy,” I told her, “Buy ‘drinks’?” I asked her.

She smiled at that with her heavy eyes, “Mhmm,” she hummed and gave me a thumbs up.

We spent the time the fog sat around the house like a curtain together. Anna painted, adding highlights to her painting while I read my book on a chair near her.

I would check the windows every time the candle burned down a notch. Walking over to the window, and looking out, watching the fog slowly clear.

It disappeared a little later, showing the slightly overcast sky. No rain today by the feel of it, but it still cost time.

I burnt through my tasks, each one blurring into the next, the grass, always a pest, got a haircut, and I gave the cuttings to the plants. I got all of it done and got to the point where I found myself making up things to do.

No backing out, I need to go before it’s too late in the day. It. Is. Go time. Get to it.

I slapped my cheeks and got to putting together some supplies.

What to bring? Well, there are the ladders, so I need to have a bag or rope or whatever. I can pack a snack in a bag. I’ll need the spade, but I don’t think Anna will mind… Is that it? Can’t bring a lamp it will spill everywhere.

I went and grabbed the shovel out of the shed. It had a little blood on it where I had slammed it over the guy’s head.

Can’t fit this in the bag, need some rope for it.

I went and grabbed a little rope; it wasn’t much less than ten feet and thin, but I could use it. I also grabbed a sack and some stuff I could stick in my face.

I set myself up, tying the shovel to my back and binding up the sack with some rope. Then lopped it around myself, and giving it a few hops to make sure it wouldn't fall off. And with all of it done, I set out to the hole I pulled myself out of all of three or so weeks ago.

I waved to Anna as she sat on the porch with a mug relaxing for a break.

She looks over and waves back, and I walk into the tree line.

I make my way down the path and start retracing my steps, down the road with stones that I could make a few words out on, taking a turn off into the forest, back along through the forest over the stream and past the tree litter. Making my way north along the trail that had seemed to not grow over one little bit.

I forgot how slow plants grow outside of the grove, gosh, that’s wild.

The land started to track up, and the tree line started to thin as I made my way back up the giant mound of land that rested on top of the town. Its hilly surface was a pain in the rear to get up.

I climbed up the mounds, looking for the rock. Squinting up, I couldn’t find it. So, I went further up, trying to look through the lumpy terrain. Up and up, I went, legs straining against gravity.

I kept dipping, then going back up and dipping again.

Where is the rock… It’s possible I’m just missing it… I remember it being clear, but there are a bunch of big rocks. Shoot.

I wandered around looking for the rock, it's not like it will take long, it’s a big ass rock, not like a single needle in a haystack.

Half an hour later, I found myself sweating as I moved through the hills, unable to find the giant rock.

It took me almost an hour to find it after running around the hillside, scanning the rocks for the one I remembered.

I should have marked it.

I walk up to the pillar of stone, the big rock, my destination. It was a rock, but I had found it.

I made my way to the shaft, and something occurred to me then.

Who dug this hole, and why here? There were no other holes. So why here? It’s not a big winch, so it wasn’t a mining operation. Did a random prospector find it?

Putting aside my questions, I sat down on a rock and pondered it a little while I pulled out my snack for a break.

“Land, can you ask Anna if she’s doing ok?” I thought about it.

“Yes,” It told me.

I waited a bit, eating some bread in the middle of nowhere and admiring the view when I got a, “is good,” back.

That’s nice to know, at least her day isn’t a drag. “What’s she doing?”

The land sounded happy when it told me, “Magic in many human place, moving me, enjoy.”

Moving the land? Ohh. Anna’s fixing the square. It’s been a few days, I suppose, can’t let the destruction last long I suppose, the world goes on.

The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

“Can you tell her I’m where I was going and I’ll be back before dark,” I ask, “Also, thank you for passing a message.”

I waited, I had finished stuffing my face, but the view really was quite nice.

I would love to bring Anna here for a picnic or something. Just show her the church and stuff. She seems like she might like that.

The valley got back to me after a minute, “she is unconcerned about the light.”

That was probably too complex for the land to get at least in the way it was phrased.

I can’t help but chuckle a little, I wonder what Anna was told. I can imagine her, casting spells and then just staring off into the distance confused.

I was done waiting, so I moved over to the ladder, spade on my back and sack tied down, I made my way down. It was quite the long climb for a ladder. I could feel the slightly moist rungs of the ladder, still wet from the rain.

The deeper I went, the more the air changed, the rain had soaked the inside of the shaft, the ash sucking it up like a sponge. It made the air feel humid with water.

Then I could spot the lichens, swollen with the water to several times larger. Lichens were oh so odd, I don’t think Skipseo ever told me about what they are.

I reached the bottom of the ladder and looked out into the room, staring out at the magical looking lichens and got an idea about the ladder. I felt at the ladder, checking for any signs of rot, any sign that the ladder was losing to old age. I found no sign, not one. I decided to check something else, and I felt at it with one of my skills, [Magi] found that the ladder had mana, far more mana than it should.

Something about the mana is off, though. It feels wrong somehow. It feels like it does not belong here. More questions that I don’t know the answers to, I suppose I should ask Anna.

I left the mystery ladder behind, and entered the cavern, and it was the same as I left it. Lichen and ash grey striated rock, a tiny reflective pond and the church. I took a deep breath of stuffy air. I felt a little claustrophobic with how it felt.

Deep breath, I’m already here, can’t go running off now. Just move to the church, go in, and get the stone.

I moved my leg, putting one foot in front of the other. Purposefully striding towards the back door. Breathing the stale wet air in as I ate up the ground. I reached for the handle and my hand curled into a fist, it shook as I rested my fist on it.

Just open the door… Just stop shaking, hand. Damn you stop it.

I tried not to remember why I had really needed to bring a shovel.

I pulled my fist back. And stepped away from the door.

I can’t do it yet, I’ll get rid of the undead first, then I can make a mess of myself.

I started to walk towards the tomb.

If I want to get help bringing Skipseo’s collection out, I need to get rid of the screaming undead monsters down below, so I’ll do that.

I walked over towards the hatch, treading through the cavern and its Lichens, past the pool that reflected the ceiling.

I bet Anna would love the lichens, so that’s another reason to get rid of the remaining piles of bone.

My eyes fell on the entrance as I came to it, the only spot that had been cleared of the rock that coated the floor.

Why is it the only place that was cleared? There is no way it just didn’t get covered, curiouser and curiouser. Who did it, the same person who spelled the ladder and dug the hole? Was it a [Necromancer] or an adventurer? Why is this whole bloody hole so off now that I look at it again.

I reached the hatch and stared down at it. The hatch that leads to a pitch-black oubliette full of monsters.

“Gods, I want answers to this place and its secrets,” I said it aloud like that would make it spontaneously come into existence at my feet, perfectly explaining all the wrong things hidden by the passage of time.

I reached down and opened the lid. Laying it wide, and looked down.

The entrance was lit by the diffuse light, but just barely. Beyond the immediate ring of light, it was pitch.

I could go look for a lamp, the building is right behind me.

I started going down the ladder, despite the dark, I had already done this before.

I should have brought string, I forgot string.

When I got to the bottom of the shorter ladder, I took the spade off my back and took in the entrance. The spade rested right where I had left it, my thousand year sleeping aid lay against the wall. I spotted the skeleton laying where it fell, exactly where it was expected.

Not so scary, I can feel my way by the stone, and break the other skeletons, then I can go.

I walked forwards towards the passageway down. A hand grabbed my leg. I jerked away but I was caught in the grip of something that cared little for my automatic actions.

I started screaming.

The skeleton started screaming.

I felt the pinpricking sensation nip away at me, and it flooded me with adrenaline.

I spun my spade around from my right side to my left, moving my one leg back I slammed it down on the skeleton’s skull.

It stopped screaming and let go. But I kept slamming the skeleton until it was white rubble in a robe.

My ears swiveled, listening for anything. I didn’t even breathe as I stood still as a rock. I breathed a sigh of relief as nothing happened half a minute later.

How did it do that? I had already broken it once. I felt at it, sensing the pile with everything I had, which was kind of a lot. [Natural Senses], [Sense composition], [Sense stones], [Magi] and [Marked by the Long Road] flared. I picked up stone, mana and a soul.

I couldn’t see it however, it was… In the floor?

That’s annoying, how to I get you out.

I knelt down on the stone and sifted through until I touched the stone below it. I could feel the soul straining as far from me as it could.

“Shh, its ok, I’m here to help, come here it’s ok.” I spoke to it, trying to reassure the little soul. I don’t know if it worked because of how I spoke or it felt something, but it bobbed up out of the ground.

I reached to cup it like the other soul but there was something interfering with it, it couldn’t come to me. I reached towards it and it bend away from my hand, flowing around my fingertips. I felt towards the tiny sliver of stone, the same place the wrong feeling mana congregated. I sifted through the power and remains and felt my finger connect with a tiny stone.

Gotcha. Now what is going on here?

I looked at the stone. It was a sliver of what looked like jade, the size of a human fingernail and a little thicker than one. On the sliver were oh so tiny designs, itty bity lines carved into the stone, crossing one another forming a pattern over the surface of the sliver, over its smooth edges and connecting the two flat sides. As I lifted the stone the tiny soul lifted up in the air, like it was floating in a glass container.

This is hideous, what is this? Do I break it? If this is some kind of spell and I break it, the spell will fall apart, or at least I think it will.

I applied pressure to the stone, and it snapped. The stone gave off a tiny spark when it broke, and than the soul started drifting down to the stone floor.

I reached down, and it flowed towards my hand like before, the second it fell into the area around me the spirit spoke, it sounded very small, far too small for the skeleton it had been attached to. “So tired, help the others… Please…” and just like that it was gone.

It disappeared into me; I could feel that stretching feeling and the cold of its passage, but it wasn’t as bad as last time. I stood up, just a little tired and walked into the passageway of the dark oubliette again. There were more undead to smash, and I had a plan.

***

I sprinted down the corridor, my sandaled feet slamming as loud as I could. Pounding down the corridor as obnoxiously as I could. And I screeched as I ran, it hurt my throat to screech endlessly, but I had to get it right. I ran until I could see the light of the entrance room. I suddenly stopped screaming and clanged my spade on the ground before turning into the room and pressing behind the corner out of sigh of the hall.

I waited in the now empty room; I had moved the body as well as I could. The broken chip of jade was in my bag. It was empty of almost everything.

I sat and listened. In the distance I could hear a little bit of a slap.

One pair of slapping sandals, just a tap, but it is coming over here.

I waited, and as it got close, I stilled. It came past the doorway, and I stepped out and smashed its head. It caved in, candle flame lights winking out. I dove into the hallway seeking the tiny sliver that waited in the frame. I found it, and using a claw, popped it out of the skeleton, pocketing it for a while.

Taking in a soul was tiring, and in order to make sure I had enough energy to fight one or two directly. I would snap them all at the end, and free them, but as long as I pulled out the little jade slips, they wouldn’t get back up, they had no source of energy without the bound souls.

This is definitely the work of a [Necromancer], it’s not natural, each was made, constructed one by one.

I got to work and moved the body over to the others. I had managed to get four more in the same way I got this one, luring them over, and they would go to meet the other bodies. Although I had no idea why assumably, they followed the screeching each made and came to one another’s defence. Only the bodies were empty, and they would be ripe for a smashing.

This is almost too easy, there’s no way I can keep getting away with it, right?

I walked back down the corridor after I was finished setting the trap. I went deeper, I was walking through the dark and passed a side passage when my hubris bit me in the ass. An arm slammed into my side, it was strong enough to send me reeling into the wall and cut into my side.

I hit my head and fell into a sprawl. I blinked, confused by being blind-sighted and looked over and saw a skeleton, its eye sockets lit up, and its jaws opened as it started to screech.

I looked over at the barely lit figure, and it stared back, the pins and needles stinging me.

A hulking set of fused skeletons stared back at me, seven flames to my two, and I realized that I was cooked.