“That…!”

Gerhart spoke while gasping for air as he lay on his back, clutching his chest.

“...was too fucking close.”

“No kidding.”

Ritzy sighed in agreement, also gasping for air.

“Good work, guys. But… you might want to move a little before you have to do that all over again.”

Mognog’s words got Ritzy and Gerhart to raise their heads and glance at the ground between them and the river. It wasn’t as much as there should be.

The raging river didn’t care about RItzy and Gerhart needing to take a breather after what had just happened, and it continued wearing away at the ground, just like it had done when it swept the tree off its feet.

“Fuck, man. Can’t we get one break?”

Gerhart cursed and struggled to get up and move further away from the river, dragging the bags behind him.

“Now you can. With the river like this, the pursuers will struggle to catch up to us. You guys can take a good break and recuperate during the night before we continue.”

“Oh, thank the gods!”

Gerhart tilted his head back and looked at the sky with closed eyes. He let the rain cool his face.

“The gods? What about me?”

Ritzy stood up and placed his hands on his hips with an indignant expression on his face.

“What about you? I didn’t even notice you doing anything.”

Gerhart opened one of his eyes a slit and glanced at Ritzy with a grin tugging the corners of his lips.

“But the gods did?”

Ritzy glared at Gerhart with a disgruntled face. Gerhart raised an eyebrow.

“I didn’t know you had a grudge against the gods, Ritzy.”

Ritzy’s disgruntlement faded, and he looked away from Gerhart.

“I don’t. But I know the Storage of Darkness can’t be trusted.”

Gerhart grinned again as he realized what Ritzy was thinking about.

“Ah, because he is the patron god of necromancy, that means he must be the reason behind your magic being a little unique?”

Ritzy sensed Gerhart’s faintly mocking tone. He ignored it.

“What else could it be? When I ask them for help or chant using their names, things go sideways. It must be their fault. In fact, the two times I didn’t do a proper chant using their name, I had the most success. With Hotes and Fotes, and then before that, I added my own personal flavor to the chant, and I got this.”

Ritzy ran his hand through his hair to show off the whiteness.

“Oh, wow, that’s soft. Hey, Gerhart, feel this.”

Ritzy used both hands to brush his hair and stepped closer to Gerhart while showing off his head.

“So, what are you saying? The Storage of Darkness, a supreme god, has some kind of grudge against you? Oh, wow, that really is soft. Did you summon some kind of hair product or what?”

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Gerhart tentatively reached out a hand and touched Ritzy’s hair.

“Yeah? Don’t you think it’s possible? And no, I summoned a hairball. It was white, some stuff happened, and it fused with my hair, turning it white.”

Ritzy and Gerhart both had their hands grabbing Ritzy’s hair.

“I don’t know, RItyz. Why would a being like the Storage of Darkness, someone who has existed since before the beginning of time, bother with you? And if your hair is like this because of something you summoned, can you control it?”

“That old fogey probably realized he wouldn’t be a match for me if I were to be left alone. This stuff with my magic is their way of hindering my progress. But what they don’t know is that the higher the hurdle, the higher I jump. Gerhart, you’re my witness now. I will smash their face in. When I’m strong enough, of course. And I tried, but nothing happened.”

Gerhart sighed hopelessly. It didn’t seem like Ritzy would listen to him if he tried to tell him that the Storage of Darkness probably wasn’t involved in Ritzy’s unconventional necromancy.

“And what happens if it turns out that the Storage of Darkness isn’t responsible? Do you think they will accept your apology after you try and smack a god’s face? Or are you going to go back on your word now that you have an established witness? That’s a shame. By the way, what happened to the other thing you summoned? That bone club?”

“Things will work out in the end. You will just have to believe in me. And even if they don’t, I’ll make it so. And the club’s over there.”

Ritzy pointed at the Deathbed, where Talia’s dead body lay next to the bone club.

“Hey, how come that works, but I couldn’t hitch a ride on Maya’s Deathbed?”

Mognog spoke with envy as he pointed out something that didn’t make sense. When Ritzy had first cast Deathbed on Maya, and when they had experimented with it, they had tried putting Mognog on it next to Maya’s skeleton. But he bounced off of an invisible barrier that didn’t affect anything else.

But now, Talia’s dead body and the dead piece of bone were sharing a Deathbed. And it wasn’t that the Deathbed didn’t pick up on the bone. It wasn’t like with Gerhart or the rest of the world of the living. Otherwise, it wouldn’t have been able to carry the bone club.

When Mognog looked at Ritzy for an explanation, Ritzy just shrugged.

“I don’t know. Bad luck, maybe. Anyway, I want to sleep, so let’s get a move on.”

Mognog and Gerhart couldn’t argue with that, so they packed up their stuff and left the river behind them.

They wanted to grab the first, best place that offered some kind of cover from the rain. But with how it looked like the river was progressing and the uncertainty and lack of stability as a whole when it came to the ground, they didn’t want to take any chances. The only thing worse than sleeping in the middle of a rainstorm would be waking up in the middle of a landslide or a newly formed river.

But since they didn’t know the lay of the land beyond what they could see, there was only so much they could guarantee. And eventually, Ritzy and Gerhart couldn’t proceed any further. They simply had to assume that they were in a part of the forest that was more stable than the fragile ground next to the river.

So, once they found a large rock that blocked some of the rain from hitting them directly, Ritzy and Gerhart gorged on the loaves they had found inside the dungeon. They had saved them for emergency food when they couldn’t rely on the things they could pick up on their way inside the forest.

But since they were in a constant state of emergency, it didn’t really matter when they ate them. And now that neither of them had any energy to move after saving Gerhart’s life from being consumed by the tree and river combination. None of them felt like going to look for even a single berry, much less enough to give them the energy they needed to continue on their mission of survival.

So, although the mysterious loaves of what could be old bread or an extreme treatment of meat of some kind were far from appetizing, it was Ritzy and Gerhart’s only source of sustenance and energy.

They hesitantly bit down on the loaves, now soaked through by the non-stop rain. Since they didn’t know what the loaves tasted like without the water, they couldn’t comment on if it was worse or how much worse it was. But the soaked loaves were softer and easier to force down than what they were when dry.

However, they still didn’t know what it was they had just put inside their mouths, even after tasting and eating it. It didn’t taste like bread, and it didn’t taste or feel like any kind of meat they were familiar with.

But it wasn’t as bad as it could have been. And since it was the only thing that looked like food within the entire dungeon, it had to be the food meant for the dungeon delvers. At least if the Red-Toe Goblin dungeon worked like Ritzy and Gerhart thought dungeons should work.

After eating enough to last them the night, Ritzy and Gerhart were so tired they fell asleep without noticing it. Thankfully, they had put Mognog in a spot where he could watch over them before they started feasting on the loaves they decided to call goblin bread.

Ritzy and Gerhart both started snoring before their heads hit their makeshift pillows made from the leather bags they used to carry things. They didn’t even care that the contents made the bags less than comfortable to sleep on.

Mognog watched the two exhausted youngsters sleep with a warm gaze.

The two were doing an excellent job with what they needed to do to survive. They were both pushing themselves to and beyond their limits, especially with what had happened with Gerhart and the river.