That morning, the five of us woke back up, packed up our belongings, and headed out through the door.

Our destination was the town of Riverdale, which lay at the end of about a three days travel to the East.

The first day, we would cross over through the Rolling Plains, and set up camp outside of a small town along the way, where we would also pick up our supplies for the road ahead.

Then, we would make our way right up to the border of the Great Lake, and spend the final day of our journey sailing across the waters, before finally arriving at the town just a few hours before evening.

That was the plan at least, and it seemed to be pretty doable, according to Roger. So, the five of us started to march out ahead, as the children pointed towards all of the exotic sites and creatures they saw along the way.

At first, honestly, it was a little nostalgic to walk back through those hills again.

I felt myself starting to remember what it had been like when I had first arrived in this world, and how scared I had been, and how alone.

Then, I remembered meeting with Torver in the middle of the valley. And I remembered how I had met with Aaron and Lily a little whiles later, and then with Praxa for the very first time just the next day.

Right then, all of that felt like a long, long time ago.

I found myself thinking again of being out in that grassy meadow, and of how unsure of myself I had been – and how nervous – as I had first begun to swing my sword through the air, and to teach myself how to survive.

Even though I knew that I still had a long ways to go, I really felt like the first part of my journey was right about at its end, and that these next few days were just going to be a kind of capstone on my travels so far.

I didn’t expect that much more to happen right then, if I’m being honest.

But then again, I’ve always been pretty bad at seeing what was just ahead.

At any rate, our little band made it for quite a few kilometers after that, hiking along through the hills and valleys, and then through the plains beyond, as we continued to make our way towards the lake.

I had half-expected that each of the children would grow tired from the journey. But I guess that each of them were pretty sturdy, from their labors before.

For his own part, Roger was more than fine, and Praxa and I had gotten pretty sturdy, too. So, we were each able to continue to march forward, only taking a few short breaks here and there as we continued out towards the edge of the Great Lake.

It took us about ten hours to get there. But once we arrived, it was clear that the place really was as amazing as we had heard.

The lake was massive, and truly beautiful. Clear, blue waters stretched out into the distance, and huge, tall hills and mountains straddled the lake on either side. The lake was so big that I couldn’t even make out its shape, but it seemed to be kind of like a circle, but a bit more squished in and egg-like around the sides. At any rate, it was easily one of the most amazing things that I had ever seen in my life, and it reminded me once again of what Torver had told me so long ago… that he had spent the whole time that he was in slavery just wanting to see this ancient lake again before he died, and to be able to appreciate the sight of it once more.

I hoped that he had been able to do so. And I hoped that we would be able to talk about it sometime soon, once I had at last made my way into the town of Riverdale.

After a while marveling at the sight before us, the five of us set up camp a little ways from the shore. Then, Aaron and Lily rushed off towards the lake, as they ran through the waters, laughing and smiling; but soon, the sun began to set, and it grew quite dark… so, I called the two of them back over, as we all settled down in camp for the night, and talked to one another.

I still hadn’t spoken yet with Roger about the vaults since that conversation that we’d had a week before. He had seemed so busy with taking care of the affairs of Westfall that I hadn’t wanted to disturb him at first, and I’d hardly even seen him for the last few days. But now that we were at leisure, I wanted to raise that subject once again, and to see if we might make any more progress. I’d been a little surprised that he hadn’t mentioned it to me along the way, actually. But as we sat down together, I realized that he probably didn’t know that I had told each of the others about the dream that I’d had, which meant that the two of us could talk about those things quite freely. And so, I brought up that subject on my own, and asked Roger once again about my dream, and about where he thought that vault might be located.

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I had already mentioned to Aaron, and Praxa and Lily that Roger was interested in helping us to find the vault. And so the moment that I mentioned it, the three of them turned towards Roger, quite attentive and alert.

Roger told me that he had been thinking about those questions quite a bit these last few days, too. And his first question for me was whether I had been able to think of any place that the canyon from my dream might be.

But unfortunately, neither I nor any of the others had been able to think up much of anything at all. And I could only repeat that what he had said before had seemed right – that if the canyon really had been filled up with something, then it could be just about anywhere; and that any field or forest might well be that same canyon, after thousands of years of change.

Then, Roger asked me if there were any other landmarks that I had seen in my dream that I might be able to use as some sort of a reference point.

But there wasn’t anything like that which I could think of. The walls of the canyon had been too steep for me to see beyond, so I hadn’t been able to make out anything around it. That gave rise to a long, and tense silence, as the five of us thought about how we might be able to discover the vault’s location.

Then, Aaron asked me if I remembered the size, and the shape of the canyon. And when I told him that I did, and very precisely too, he then suggested that we could look at a map, and try to see if there were any places where a canyon of that size and shape might “fit.”

I wasn’t quite sure what he meant at first. But then, I understood what he was thinking. Even if the whole canyon had been filled up, it was still possible that it might be recognizable on the map by its dimensions – if, for instance, the canyon had been filled up with fertile soil, it might have given rise to a forest of precisely the same size and shape, which would then be quite easy to spot. And even if that wasn’t the case, there would still be a limited number of places in the world that the canyon could be. It wasn’t going to be under a mountain, for instance, or under any of the towers, and it probably wouldn’t be in the ocean, either. So, even if we couldn’t figure out where it was, we might at least be able to eliminate a number of places that it couldn’t be – and then to try to rule out additional places from there, or see if any of the remaining possibilities seemed more likely than the rest.

That wasn’t much to go on, of course. But, it was the best idea that any of us had right then. And so, I took out Lily’s drawing pad, and placed it upon the ground. Then, Roger took out a small map, and stretched it out in front of him. After that, I began to sketch out the dimensions of the canyon on a piece of paper, using a familiar part of the map as a reference point. Once I was done, I tore off the sketch of the canyon, and placed it towards the center of the map, to see if anything on the map resembled it.

Of course, I hadn’t really expected to do much more than to start to find a needle by taking out a bit of straw from a haystack.

And yet, as I held up that piece of paper, and placed it over the map… I soon began to notice something.

Each of the others seemed to notice the same thing, too. And in silence, we looked out at the ground together, as I moved the drawing that I had made right next to a certain spot on the map – a spot upon which my drawing seemed to fit just about exactly…

For a while, there was a kind of attentive silence.

And then, Roger looked me in the eyes, and pointed downwards.

“William,” he said, “… was the canyon really the exact same size, and the exact same shape, as the Great Lake…?”

“… yeah,” I said, as I looked out towards the waters nearby, and made sure. “Yeah, it was… the two are really, really similar – if they’re not absolutely identical...”

Again, there was a long silence.

“… Roger,” I said, at last, “… is there any magic that could take you down towards the bottom of a lake?”

“There is,” he said. “But, the magic that lets you breathe underwater is on the list of forbidden spells. Even trying to learn it – much less actually casting it – would place you on the wanted lists of the Guild of Knights, and would earn you a death penalty for certain, if anyone were ever to discover you.”

“However,” he added, with a faint smile, “I always did find it strange that ‘water-breathing’ was forbidden...and, as I believe that I’ve told you before, I’ve met some rather interesting people in my day. So… I may have access to that sort of magic for you to use - though, of course, each you would have to promise to never say a word about it, on penalty of death.” He spoke these last words with a surprisingly friendly smile, as he had the last time he’d threatened my very life.

This prompted quite a bit of good cheer and a flurry of promises from everyone involved.

“Of course, it is nearly an impossible crime to trace, so we should be quite fine in that respect, so long as we are careful,” Roger said. “But… as much as I would love to test out your theory, the lake is too enormous to even hope to be able to explore. So, unless you happen to know from your dream exactly where the vault might be, relative to the rest of the canyon -”

“The center,” I said, at once. “The very center. That’s one thing that I did remember about the dream. The front of the canyon was just as far away from the back, and each of the sides were equally distant. The vault is at the center.”

“The center, then…,” Roger whispered.

“… if that really is the case,” he continued, “then… would you like to head down there tomorrow, as we head across the surface?”

“I would,” I said.

“Well, then,” Roger said. “… in that case - let’s see what we can find.”