Compared to the way Olivia had entered our companionship, the way she departed was quiet, almost causal and with little fanfare. Two groups, one solely composed of humans, one composed of the four of us, plus our new guide Jenn, met up in front of the rebel village early in the morning.

There was a moment of hesitation and Olivia walked up to Rai, giving him a hug and quietly saying something into his ears, quiet enough so only he could hear. Then, she moved on to Adra and Sigmir, repeating the process, until she reached me.

“May you always roam free, my friend,” she quietly whispered, “But don’t forget that the destination is not the important part, it is the one you are travelling with,” she added and I could see her glance towards Sigmir.

“I will keep your words in mind,” I replied, “May you find what you seek,” I added, speaking equally quiet. She pulled back, taking a few steps back so she could easily see all five of us.

“Farewell, my friends,” she told us. We all bid her farewell, too, and she turned, walking out of our lives on her own path.

“We should start as well, we have some distance to cover,” Adra sighed after Olivia was no longer in sight.

There was nothing more to be said or done and so, without delay, we started on our way as well. I could feel a subtle sensation lingering in the magic around us, the faint smell of pine needles teasing my nose, making me think that a certain Dryad was quite attentive to our departure. Or, more likely, was quite interested in Adra and her departure. Curious what would happen, I softly pushed back, feeling a brief sensation of contact and connection, before it faded away, leaving me rather amused.

Travelling with Jenn was both amusing and disappointing at the same time. Amusing, because nothing really changed. Given her lower level, a part of me had expected that she’d become a burden, dragging our speed down but thanks to her martial leanings and training, she could keep up, if barely. Disappointing, because nothing really changed…

When it came to hunting, Adra was still the primary, with Sigmir and Rai occasionally assisting her, when it came to navigation, we all could easily plot the direction and keep it, using a wide variety of methods. For me, I could constantly feel the Moon’s presence, giving me a guiding beacon, augmented by Lenore’s innate abilities to navigate and find her path.

When it came to training, Jenn was purely in the student role, none of her abilities significant enough to give any of us lessons.

Her role was, disappointingly, that of a mascot and not a particularly cute one at that.

But at least she tried.

We travelled through the forest for a few days, slowly getting to know and understand each other, or rather, we got to know and got used to Jenn. It turned out, her story in life was tragic in its mundanity. Her parents used to be farmers, one year their harvest was bad, the family was starving and the father decided to do something about it - and got caught.

He went into the mines to work off his sentence, the mother had to try and make ends meet, overworking herself and falling sick, dying within a few years, leaving Jenn and her older brother on the streets where they got recruited by the thieves that doubled as an arm of the Free People. Amusingly, the gang that recruited them was called Robin’s Hood, the name making me laugh despite myself. She looked rather insulted by my laughter but a brief explanation about the amazing coincidence was enough to assuage her irritation.

But it made me wonder once more, how had Pantheon created this world? Small tidbits, such as that name, made me think it was deliberately crafted by hands, by people who had the humour to include such easter eggs. But the sheer scope made that nigh impossible, the world of Mundus was simply far too large for that. It would be akin to trying to write the complete history of the World, using just a few writers. Every person was the main character of their own story in life, but to write those stories, past, present and future? The scope was incredible. Impossibly so.

But an algorithm couldn’t have humour, could it? The question brought a headache to the front of my mind that I had stridently and forcibly ignored since meeting Sigmir, how intelligent were the Natives? If there was a controlling intelligence behind the curtain, a Deus in Machina, so to speak, what did that mean for Sigmir? Was she merely a sock-puppet of that being?

One evening, after Lenore had taken off to stretch her wings, I decided to experiment a little. If there was a mind behind the curtain, could I contact said mind?

And if I could, would I be able to find out anything in regards to Sigmir?

Just mentally asking the question made me a little uncomfortable for a variety of reasons, one of which was the fear of the unknown. While I had taken a few computing classes in University, I had forgotten quite a bit of it, but even if I remembered all of it, I couldn’t even begin to fathom the technical miracle that Pantheon Entertainment had wrought with Road to Purgatory and Mundus. I had, quite literally, no idea what limitations or motivations the intelligence behind the curtain might have. I could project my own mind and mindset onto it but that was likely a foolish endeavour, for many reasons.

But my best bet. If such a being had the capacity for humour, it had to have some capacity for empathy, unless it was simply using a large database of content and creating new jokes based on the patterns involved. If such a creature had empathy, it might also have curiosity.

It was a vague hope, but I wanted to try it anyway.

A part of me was apprehensive when I closed my eyes, letting my mind drift downwards, into the Astral River. It was the closest I could get to the other side of the curtain, so to speak, with the hope that the Intelligence on the other side could hear me. In addition, there might be fewer people in the Astral River, so I assumed that events there would rate higher interest in a controlling intelligence, adding yet another assumption to the stack.

But what to say? And how to say it?

Following the idea that the simplest solution should be tried first, I decided to simply call out a greeting. Nothing more, nothing less.

With the idea that the Astral River, that ghostly mirror of Mundus, was the key, I decided to follow the rules of the place, using Astral Power to communicate. Focusing on a few, simple concepts in my mind, I pushed out Astral Power, trying to let my magic speak for me, as it returned to the Astral River.

At the same time, I drew in fresh power, trying to channel it through me and create a signal, a call, to that controlling intelligence I hoped for.

Seconds passed and slowly crawled on, the sheer amount of Astral Power I was channelling, straight from the Astral River and back into it, weighing me down. My body became a mere conduit for the reality around me, nothing more than a vessel through which power was flooding.

As seconds turned to minutes, I felt my mind slowly fading, the connection only kept with sheer willpower and focus, the desire to keep going and find that hope.

But sometimes, even the strongest will and the sharpest focus weren’t enough. My mind was fading but as it was fading, I thought there was something. A scent, one that I had detected before, impossibly distant and faint, but oh-so-familiar.

With one last push, I forced my mind to keep going, to send out one last pulse of greeting.

One last shout into the void.

The shout echoed, but whether there was someone to hear me, I had no idea. My mind was exhausted and my will spent. The Astral River around me was fading away, the streams and streamers of power disappearing from my perception. I couldn’t hold on any longer and Darkness, the comfortable Darkness, embraced me, as I fell unconscious.

But why did I feel that the Darkness was somewhat gentler, more comfortable, than ever before? Almost like a motherly caress?