Twilight’s dark amber hues had begun to fall across the wastes. Each puddle, as it was beginning to dry up, mirrored the pleasant color of the sky across the ground. With the pattern of light gray stone, dotted with reflective orange spots with a darker brownish-gray outline, the ground looked much like the pelt of a wild animal. And the wastes were a sort of animal, a wild and unpredictable beast traversed by only the most daring and misguided of parasites.

It was as dusk was setting and Flip was eagerly awaiting his signal to set up the hatch once again, that Selian stopped the group to inspect a small white flower floating on the edge of a puddle. It had been a common occurrence throughout that day.

“They’re showing up more frequently, so we’re either getting closer or skirting the landmark.” Dovhran made his comment with a tone of eager excitement still energized by the prospect that they had evaded danger and picked up their course of travel in the proper direction.

“The stars should be out soon as well, so we should be able to determine our location. Hopefully there is only one patch of these flowers out here and we aren’t being misled.” Selian was still cautious, but her exhale as she spoke sounded optimistic.

Her eyes had been on the alert for the entire day of travel. Even her long ears seemed to twitch at just the slightest of sounds. Flip would have thought her extremely paranoid if he wasn’t also jumping at the slightest possible indication that they were being followed. But every sound was either a product of the wind or some sturdy insect clambering free of a puddle’s murk. The frequency with which Flip had begun to notice insects moving across the wastes was also increasing, which the wizard also took as a sign that they were growing closer to some food source for the creatures. It was the most alive that any of them had seen the wastes.

If the wastes had not been hostile up to that point, and if there was not the fear of some unfathomable monster close on their heels, these sights of life and the light of the evening would have been beautiful.

As the sun set and the stars began to twinkle in the empty sky, Selian held her hand out once again to stop the march. She retrieved her star mapping equipment from a bag at her hip, and began to make adjustments to notes and take measurements of constellations as they became more apparent. Dovhran, in the meanwhile, was keeping a close eye on the surrounding area. The mercenary was making slow swiveling motions as he swept the entire surrounding area for movement, and Flip was incredibly surprised he wasn’t getting dizzy.

“I know it’s easier to figure out where we’re going at night, but we should probably set up camp and rest. It’s a lot harder to see movement in the water without the sunlight.” Dovhran grimaced as he spoke. “And there’s already a hard glare on the ground that I can’t really see through.”

“I would agree with you, but I think we’ve gotten very close to your landmark.” Selian muttered, her eyes locked on the distant horizon. “We've only wandered a league and change east of our original course... and I think I see a bit of a lump in the distance.”

“A lump?” Flip lifted the brim of his hat and squinted into the horizon, but only managed to strain his eyes. “Is it a creature?”

“It’s a bit large to be a single creature at least.” Selian hummed. “It’s only about a half hour out… maybe less.”

Dovhran was squinting into the distance now too, his eyes a flux of different forms attempting to get the optimal view. “I see something. But what I wouldn’t give to be able to not have to walk to get there…”

“I’m not carrying you.” Flip grumbled.

“Why would you carry me?”

“You seemed like you were about to ask.”

“I was going to ask if you had some kind of spell that could let us fly there instead of walk, or levitate even. I don’t even think you could carry me if you tried.”

Flip narrowed his eyes at the changeling now, halfway considering the lack of faith a challenge—though he knew he couldn’t actually carry the mercenary. “I don’t know any such magic. I haven’t studied such subjects and I have no desire to do so. Flight is for winged things.”

“Well, lets not idly squabble when we could be on the way to our destination. Come on, boys.” Selian beckoned her companions to follow with a lazy gesture as she resumed her march, now somewhat exasperated.

It was, as had been predicted, a short march. There had been worry that with the vastness of the wastes, something small and far off in the distance would actually be much further away than it looked. But it was, as hoped, something small and low to the ground not all that far away. As the three approached the small bushy mound of mass that rose above the surface of the flat stone, there was more there than they had expected.

“Are these the plants?” Selian was quiet as she called over the mercenary to inspect the greenery.

“These are them. I’ve seen drawings. But that…”

“Waste withers?” Flip plucked a stem from the large mass of plant life and crushed a bit to smell the oil. “And blooming, but there aren’t many flowers left.”

“Not to mention… that…” Dovhran pointed to the unexpected object jutting from the large patch of low growing plants.

The sight of some form of tent was a surprise to all three. Not that it was much of a tent. It was a jumble of tarpline and wooden poles, mostly toppled from the strong wind, but it still harbored all the signs of recent use. An opening fastened tightly closed with a tied off string, a small cask of collected rainwater stored inside the tent, sharpened charcoal pencils and well kept pens and paper on a small travel desk, a neatly put away bedroll, and well maintained tools for repairing shoes and clothing. While there was no sign of food, it was clear that someone or something had been living in the tent recently.

“Do you think… do you think these are his?”

Dovhran had been the first to enter the tent, and he himself had propped it back up into its proper place. He had avoided touching as much as possible, as was his natural process when entering a space he wasn’t supposed to be in. Though, his eyes also instinctively scanned the entire space and picked out anything of value; or at least, they would have, but there was nothing of significant value to be found. The most valuable thing in sight was the travel desk , which would sell at a general goods store for perhaps twenty silver shackles. Hardly a prize worth pilfering.

“It seems to be a comfortable living space, despite the location.” Flip hummed. “And, the more I think on it, the more I struggle to call him a monster. It would make sense that he would need a place to find shelter.”

“Don’t think I haven’t noticed that neither of you are using his name anymore. Like he might just appear if you say the name Thiehdow.” As Selian enunciated the beings name, a chill ran down the spine of both the wizard and the mercenary.

“Fine. But what should we do now?” Dovhran growled as he stormed out of the tent. “We need to rest, and our spot to rest is exactly where the thing we’re trying to get away from is going to come back to eventually. And we can’t rest somewhere else or we’ll just be losing time.”

Flip’s brow creased in suspicion as he took in the suggestion that they would have to stay in the wither patch. “Why can’t we rest somewhere else? It wasn’t that long to get here from where we spotted the withers, so we should be able to walk a short distance away… enough that we can’t see the landmark anymore, and set the hatch down. And Theihdow will have no idea where we are.”

“We need to rest here though. The trail deeper into the wastes isn’t… it isn’t exactly a direction you can pick up by following the stars. We need to be here first thing in the morning, or we’ll have to wait another day.”

“If you can’t follow the stars past the first waypoint, why did you hire me?” There was a hint of silent rage in the elf’s voice as she spoke. “You could have just learned how to spot north without me. And now I might die because I've taken this job.”

“The waypoints that the builders who constructed the tomb recorded were never straightforward, and they were set in place so that you couldn’t follow them unless you knew exactly what you were doing. Only someone hired to build the tomb could have found it again without an unfathomable amount of luck or magic. And some of those waypoints are specific bearings you have to follow, but others are less obvious.” Dovhran was racing through his explanation, desperate to avoid conflict with his navigator at the worst possible location. “After the second section of path, we need to follow two very specific bearings that only an extremely skilled navigator could lead us down.”

“How do you know the way the builders used?” Selian narrowed her eyes at the changeling, not missing the important question that he was carefully avoiding.

“That is less urgent than our immediate safety. I can tell you later. We need to decide where we’re going to rest for the night.”

“Right here.” Flip tapped the ground with his foot, his boot making a gentle tapping noise against the stone. “There’s a flat space right behind the tent where the waste wither doesn’t grow. And if Theihdow comes back, I doubt he’ll look around the back of his tent. You only do that when you forget what side the tent opens. And that’s if he comes back. We don’t know what direction he went in or if he’s even able to move… though something tells me he wasn’t immobilized for very long by my spell.”

“Fine. I suppose if he catches back up to us, we can just… punch another crater into the wastes.” Dovhran sighed.

“I don’t think that would work a second time. But I do know other spells.” Flip grumbled quietly as he set down the hatch in the spot he had indicated. “I could bind him to a rock if I could hit him in the face with one.”

With a quick wave of his fingers through the arcane motions, Flip pulled the hatch door open once again and crawled in. The wizard wasted no time in starting tea and making himself comfortable. If they were going to be on alert later, he would rather have all his comforts prepared ahead of time. Dovhran crawled into the hatch close behind the wizard, and Selian paused for a moment at the opening to shout a lie into the open air as a test. Confident that she was lying about her taste in berry preserves, the elf also knelt down and crawled into the hatch.

“You know… I’ve wondered for a while now, Faengil… what would happen if you closed the hatch and picked it back up with someone inside it?”

The mercenary posed his question to Flip as soon as he was comfortable, and the wizard had to take a minute to think over how to respond. It was not the sort of question he received often, most people were generally content just to have the assistance of magic and rarely wondered how it worked.

“It wouldn’t.” Flip grunted. “I haven’t tried, but it wouldn’t do anything. The spell is designed with an understanding that the space cannot be moved while something with the will to move resides inside. Spacially, it would create a small paradox… which while allowed in the edicts that bind the world together, would likely result in a tear to another plane. But the spell itself, the one I have imbued into the hatch, won’t let me pick it up while a creature is inside. And if I could, which I can’t, I’d rather not. The wood was quite expensive.”

“Did you understand any of that?” Dovhran turned to Selian, both seemed at a loss.

“I understood paradox, planar tear, and expensive.” Selian looked mildly concerned as she began to question the integrity of the flat, but didn’t run for her life. Flip considered that a fair minded response. “Also, it makes traveling extremely convenient. So if you were thinking of doing something stupid to weaponize it, I’d throw you in that planar tear myself and pay to replace the hatch with your money.”

“Well, I was hoping to maybe… as a last resort… trap Theihdow in the flat. But it probably wouldn’t work.”

“Oh, we could trap him inside. Indefinitely even. But we would need to be able to let him in from the inside and then alter the spell on the hatch quickly from the outside before he could kill us. The same magic that prevents unwelcome guests can simply be turned around.” Flip nodded his head calmly as he explained the premise.

He had thought about using the hatch in a similar manner before, but the odds of success had never made it an appealing strategy. It would take a minute to alter the spell, and he would have to both be in the hatch to allow a new guest in as well as go outside to change the spell. And he would have to trick Theihdow into staying inside the whole time, which seemed particularly unlikely after having wrought a pillar of pure destruction upon him.

“What about the waste wither flowers? Could you amplify the spell with them to lock him in place while he’s outside the hatch?” Selian held out a small handful of white flowers as she posed her question. It appeared as though she had painstakingly saved all the windblown white petals they had come across during the day’s march.

“Waste withers are used in potions. I’ve never heard of them amplifying spells. You’re better off holding on to those and selling them to an alchemist. Tolemere, the alchemist in Builend… if he survived the demon attack… he’d pay you well for those flowers.”

“Are they that rare?” Selian pulled the flowers back closer to her and inspected them carefully. "I mean, I can mix a potion and I know what these do... but I've never heard of them being a rare reagent."

“They only grow in incredibly harsh locations. I’ve only heard of them growing reliably… where was it… Desola? Or was it Vestan?” Flip twirled his beard around his finger as he thought.

Dovhran’s face seemed to wrinkle in on itself more the more that Flip and Selian talked. “Doesn’t matter. We should keep talking to a minimum tonight though. I don’t want to be heard if we can avoid it. Anything to keep our odds of detection down. Because I know for a fact that you can hear inside here from outside with the hatch closed.”

“You can?” Flip seemed genuinely surprised by this information, and couldn’t seem to recall when Dovhran would have learned it.

“You snored that whole first night we met.”

Flip thought back to the night they’d met. On the road out of Westcross. He’d huddled up in the flat to avoid unwanted company, not that that had stopped Dovhran. But the wizard had not anticipated that the mercenary would camp directly outside the hatch. It was the first he was hearing about it.

“Faengil doesn’t snore…” Selian lowered her head in a mix of confusion and annoyance. It wasn’t so much that she felt the need to correct Dovhran, but more so the need to question why it mattered.

“I snore when I sleep on my stomach. Which I prefer. But there isn’t space for me to sleep comfortably now… because we need all this junk.” Flip kicked a barrel of water and the sloshing sound made him worry for a moment that he’d damaged it.

There was a moment of silence as all three travelers settled into their resting space. And it seemed that silence might prevail for the remainder of the evening, when a sound from outside of the hatch caught the attention of Dovhran. As soon as the mercenary heard it, he raised his hand to preemptively silence his companions. And slowly, Flip and Selian leaned towards the hatch and heard the same thing Dovhran had. Footsteps.