They were going to have to climb.

  Zilara, holy child and token thirteen-year-old of the group held Enkidu’s neck in a death grip as he skillfully, steadily climbed from minuscule foothold to minuscule foothold. A mote of light floated not far from Zilara’s pointer finger, illuminating the high handholds of this subterranean hollow.

  The camp far below had long since died down to embers. Only a narrow trickle of smoke remained, but it was wafting north and through some narrower passageways. There was a ventilation pipe somewhere in this cavernous hollow. And if it were wide enough to squeeze through they’d have a path to the surface. They weren’t in the mountains and hadn’t ventured downwards since running into that basement. It should not require much of a vertical climb to reach the surface.

  Enkidu and his cargo advanced far ahead of Jelena and Calaf. They were left slowly moving up and to their left using more stable handholds.

  “Hey, Calaf. There’s a pretty wide gap between here and the next handhold.”

  With both hands in use, Calaf could not cast or maintain an illumination spell. They were dependent on Zilara’s light far ahead and the dim glow of the dying fire below to see the path. Jelena looked down. She had her eyepatch off, the better to spot light sources even with her cloudy left eye.

  “Doing okay?” she asked.

  Calaf nodded.

  Looking back at her target, Jelena closed her bad eye and, with her questionable depth perception, made the leap of faith to the next handhold. She stuck the landing! Calaf found himself holding his breath even after she continued the climb. Calaf followed suit, his slightly larger frame allowing him to reach over and grab more favorable handholds.

  Onward they climbed. The path narrowed. A smell like charcoal filled the chimney while an acrid blackened soot clung to the walls.

  “Feel a faint breeze up here,” Zilara said. “Oh, it’s getting lighter…”

  “Yeah, I sense it too.” Jelena said. “Dead eye’s still good for that much.”

  Before long they were sliding through a passage so narrow that they could brace themselves against the walls and ‘climbing’ was unnecessary. Even from the back of the line, Calaf could see the faint light up ahead.

  Enkidu and Zilara disappeared through an even narrower sheer vertical chute. Jelena was directly ahead of Calaf until she, too, climbed up into places unknown. Was it the surface, or some new room of the cavernous hollow?

  A lithe hand reached down into the chute. Calaf grabbed it and let Jelena help pull him up.

  It was a bit past midnight when the group reached the surface. An overlarge moon hung in the sky. It had not been the sun they’d seen high above.

  With night fallen their impromptu chimney had not alerted the arbital auxiliaries to the south. Otherwise, Jelena and company would have emerged into a waiting army. With the path clear they could slip out further north with their pursuers none the wiser.

  I hope Vault is okay, Calaf thought. The hope was that a stealthy retreat would spare the town. With the two brigades camping out in greater Vault, the Squire now had a faint kernel of doubt.

  “C’mon. Heading north,” Jelena said, snapping Calaf out of his stupor.

  The group walked past sunrise. They stayed away from the main dirt path through this region, which in practice left them skirting a tall cliff beside a river canyon.

  This was a trail Calaf had tread once before. Sewer grate guards Gorman and Calaf had traveled this route to circumvent much of the Deepwood forest and make right for the plains. In time the canyons tapered off into a small stream easily forded on foot.

  “Those poor dire-horses,” Zilara said, somewhat amused.

  “They’re out in a field. Having the time of their lives.” Jelena chuckled. “Besides, the people of Vault would

  The Arbitral Auxiliaries would spread out from Vault, traveling north. The posse would be easily run down if they stayed on this route to the wide-open plains. To say nothing of the fact they were still wanted for grand relic theft and dire-horse thievery in Plains Junction. No, their next destination was just past Deepwood on the road. A minor detour, but one not readily accessible from the plains.

  Drastic measures would be required to cross the canyon.

  Before midday the canyon narrowed enough to try something.

  Zilara and Calaf summoned forth every spare bit of rope they happened to have in their Inventory. Each rope appeared in a neat circular coil on the ground.

  “Hmmm. Fifty arm spans,” Zilara declared, knee-deep in metadata. “How wide do you think this canyon is?”

  “Maybe thirty,” Enkidu said.

  “Good eyes, Big Guy.” Jelena patted him on the back, eliciting a scowl.

  With some minor knot-making, the ropes were joined. Calaf took the compiled rope into his Inventory, then brought it back out. Six or so ropes were now a Large Climbing Rope (x1), a singular Item. Truly, the Interface worked in mysterious ways.

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  In the end, Enkidu formed a lasso and roped around a far tree with his uncanny strength. They had a functional rope bridge.

  Dust rose from the south. Junior arbiters were on the march.

  One by one, the group shimmied over the canyon on this rope. Calaf went last once more. But within thirty minutes they had cut down on what would have been a multi-day journey.

  In one last feat, Calaf took the entire rope back into his Inventory. It was sucked in neatly, disturbing neither the tree on this side of the canyon or the rock it had been tethered too on the far side. If the arbiters had any scouts among their numbers, they would find the crew’s trail ending abruptly at a random span of cliff as if Jelena and company had grew wings.

  The dire-horses proved an unfortunate loss. The group walked through the hinterlands, skirting the Deepwood forest on a more direct path for the Battletower.

  True to their name, the hinterlands were barren and devoid of settlements. Resupply could be useful, and Enkidu’s clothing was still damaged from their run-in with Walter. So official map-wielders Zilara and Calaf pointed out a familiar spot just a day and three-quarters walk through unforgiving terrain.

  Twice Calaf had been through the hinterlands. The first was on the warpath, in an anti-heretic action that had left many hundred dead between Plains Junction and the Battletower. The second had been in more favorable terms, where he inadvertently became the savior of a small town out in the shrublands.

  Along the way, the group stopped for a break at a natural spring.

  “Hmmm. This is bubbling up from another cave,” Ziilara said as they refilled some off-Interface canteens. “Bet this whole region is full of them.”

  That depleted mithril vein was mercifully self-contained. Previously charted by the residents of Vault in the ancient past. It could easily have been part of a more sprawling cavern complex. If they’d gotten turned around or gone too deep they could have never gotten out. The caverns were cool and sheltered from the elements. Corpses down there in the dark would surely be preserved for some time.

  A chill ran down Calaf’s spine. It was a strangely familiar feeling, one Calaf had not felt since Port Town. He shuddered, and stayed clear of the deep mountain spring from then on out.

  “Hey, where’s Jelena?” Calaf asked.

  “Behind the hill,” Enkidu said, nonchalant.

  Quickly, Calaf made his way around the hill. Jelena was there, foraging through some bushes with long stalks and wide leaf clusters. Just laying eyes on Jelena brought calm to Calaf’s frayed nerves.

  “Everything okay?” she asked.

  “Yes.” Calaf sighed. “What are you looking for?”

  “Ah, silphium.” Jelena held out an example seedling with a unique twin-oval type shape. “Cultivated around Firefield but there are still some wild sources up in the hills here that haven’t been foraged to extinction yet. Thankfully. I was running low.”

  The one-eyed relic thief pocketed the seed and then shook down a few more bushes.

  “I’ll keep these on my person. Throwing them into Inventory can dilute their effects. Remind me to tell Zilara that when it comes time for a very important talk here in, what, four years or so?” Jelena let out an uncouth snort, self-satisfied by her joke.

  “This sylph… whatever. What does it do?” Calaf asked, head tilted.

  Her foraging done, Jelena turned.

  “It prevents us from receiving a surprise party member, dear.”

  It took a beat before Calaf got it.

  “Oh.”

  Jelena’s lips angled upward. “Oh, yes.”

  “Fair enough. Happy forging.” Calaf stifled a chuckle.

  “It’s a trick I learned at… well, at the bordello.” Jelena exhaled. “The Japella traditional method involves, ah, pulling away.”

  Calaf blushed, still somewhat shy despite the active love life with his onetime rival.

  “We don’t have to worry about that,” Jelena winked. “You’re free to come help me look for more if you’d like.”

  Calaf took her up on that offer. They used her own physical pouches for storage of course, ever wary of that Inventory dilution effect.

  One night’s rest was spent in the wild. They were running out of Camp items. The Battletower would have traveling merchants, and it was Calaf’s hope that the upcoming settlement would have provisions as well.

  Enkidu remained up through the night, even lighting a second, manual fire to take over once the Camp’s automatic fire died down. What did his preternatural senses spy out beyond the safe light of camp?

  Another terse, tense day’s walk brought the posse of four to an unlisted hamlet just before sunset. Smoke still rose from a collapsed burial mound dating from untold centuries before the demon age.

  Calaf and Jelena had met up here the previous year to crawl through that ersatz dungeon. There was another small inn and the most modest of services. They were all surprised, however, to find simple wooden ramparts and spiked pits surrounding the town on all sides. The forest had been cleared for a quarter-league around the village both to build these walls and to prep a nightly bonfire at the sole gap in the defenses.

  “Hey. You there. See an Interface on two of you. By the Holy Priestess, get in here! Before the sun’s down.”

  On instinct, the party looked to the west. The sun was perilously low.

  Another chill went down Calaf’s spine.

  “We should go in,” he said. “Spend the night.”

  “My legs hurt,” Zilara whined.

  “Wasn’t in a hurry.” Jelena nodded.

  Enkidu let out a huff.

  As they walked into town, Calaf stopped to take another look at the sunset. There wasn’t more than fifteen minutes before dark. That chill didn’t go away.

  Someone from the village peeked over the spiked wall and threw a torch into the bonfire. Bone-dry wood caught alight. The pile was more than large enough to last through the night. But how much longer could sparse hinterlands forests continue to supply such a nightly ritual?

  Chill air persisted in the night, even in the town’s inn.

  “Jelena took Zilara to the town apothecary and haberdashery to buy more supplies,” Enkidu said.

  The two men of the party sat at a bar. Enkidu did not drink. But Calaf helped himself to a Plain Hinterlands Mead (x1).

  “I should try to find that couple who commissioned me to clear the barrow dungeon,” Calaf said after a time.

  “The barrow is on the far end of the wall,” Enkidu said. “I would not recommend investigating.”

  Calaf nodded understandingly. He brought the mead up to his lips and noticed that his hands were shaking.

  “This… do you know what this is?”

  Calaf motioned outside. He strained his ears but heard only deathly silence.

  “Rot.” Enkidu answered. “An ancient problem. There were solutions, once. Now… keep your fire spell ready. There’s still much ground to cover before the Battletower.”

  “Stay close to Zilara.” Calaf downed the mead.

  “Stay close to me,” Enkidu said. “Close enough to imbue my sword with flame. Staying within arm’s length will prevent any of you from being dragged off.”

  “I’m… I’m going to go find Jelena,” Calaf said.

  To everyone's surprise, Enkidu ordered a mead as Calaf left the inn.

  Jelena and Zilara were walking back from the sundry goods store. The street was well-lit with a scone at every building.

  “Hey.” Jelena waved at Calaf. “Kind of a chilly reception this time, yeah? Figured we’d get free rooms for solving their barrow problem.”

  Further conversation was interrupted by a guttural, wailing whine sounded from beyond the gates. It was impossible to tell the number of sources but the roars came together in a symphony.

  As a second, even louder wail sounded over the moors and shrubs of the hinterlands, the town residents filed out into the street. Every resident north of age sixteen and south of sixty, of any level, was keeping watch. Truly, this was a town that dreaded midnight. Enkidu, too, walked out of the inn. The oversized mug of mead had not affected the wild man’s constitution in the slightest.

  From beyond the walls, a sticky noise like rotting flesh flopping about on unsteady legs sounded. Then came a deep, steady rhythm of knocking on a part of the wall where the bonfire light did not quite reach.

  “What is that?” Zilara asked. “Some pack of dire-beasts?”

  Calaf shook his head. “Worse.”

  this plot point since Volume 2 began. Surely you didn't think I'd forgotten :p