Thomas took one last look behind him, at the cavern ceiling covered in beautiful glowing spots. According to Norris, they were some kind of worm-like insect, but they weren't dangerous, and they were pretty, besides. He let himself enjoy the sight, before turning, and running the short distance to assume his position at the trailing end of their small caravan, which was waiting at the entrance to the cavern. Norris had summoned his spirit mule, and Anne and Norris were re-loading it with supplies. They were now going to be eating out of the provision tokens, because Norris was conserving his mana in case they ran into trouble.

Each member of their much larger group had been organized into a specific task; Thomas had been assigned with Amanda and Nathan, all nominally in charge of protecting the children, although in practice Thomas doubted either of the other two could do much. Anne was leading their expedition, and Arias was scouting. Norris and Madelaine were flanking. Evan and Faith took the left side, John and Carson the right. Allison was supposed to be moving around, and if it came down to a fight, to try to keep anyone from being overwhelmed. Which left Amanda and Nathan shepherding the eight children in the middle of their loose formation, Thomas taking the inner flank, trailing them. Anne had talked to each of them about their roles and expectations.

His mind kept drifting back to the dream of the night before. Nightmare, maybe? Except it didn't feel like a nightmare, but then, he'd had a lot of dreams that were terrifying in retrospect but which didn't feel nightmarish in the moment. Particularly since coming here. The dream had certainly had some strangeness to it, more detailed and vivid than most of his dreams, more easily recalled. It had felt right in the moment, as dream logic often felt right in the moment; he'd barely noticed as the entity had shifted between different shapes and bodies, seemingly without rhyme or reason.

Their feet splashed across the small stream – the lake had slowly swollen over the last two weeks, and the tiny pebble paths were no longer dry, and all the more slippery for it. The cavern brightened, although the line of people ahead of him obscured the entrance itself, a sliver of blinding silver light still shone at him. He found himself squinting, then raising a hand to shield against the harsh sunlight. It approached, and then engulfed him, and he had to close his eyes, then, when the red light still burned at him, cover them with a hand. His flesh prickled, and warmth hit his skin.

He forced his hand away, forced himself to endure the bright and the heat; his eyes watered, tears blurring vision that already felt seared, and mostly he got a sense of green. Somebody tapped his shoulder; he realized he had stopped in place, and started walking again, trying to follow the blurry darker figures. Putting a hand to his brow, to shade his eyes from the sky itself, helped considerably. Slowly, ever so slowly, he began to adjust, and as he started to see – it was with a shock that he suddenly realized how long it had been since he'd seen such vivid colors. He noticed the grass under his feet; soft, not hard. The breeze across his skin, the smell of plants. But mostly the vivid green, and then he lifted his hand, to see the blue of the sky, and though it pained him, the blue was just so … blue. Colors. Not just the colors, the green hills meeting the blue sky in a rough horizon – the distance. It had been so long since he'd seen further than a torch could light.

He just … drank the sight in, for a time, letting the colors, the smells, the cool breeze, just kind of flow into him. His mouth hurt; he realized he was smiling. He didn't stop. His gaze swept across everything. His gaze swept across their party for – well, he had looked at them several times, but he blinked as he saw them again, properly. Looked around. Looked down at himself. Everybody was … kind of gray. He brushed at his arm, and blinked as fine gray powder rolled off. Oh. They hadn't really been able to clean themselves properly, and now that he paid attention to smells that had long since faded from his attention, their group … didn't smell too good. Ighck. He let his attention move on, but … they did look pretty ragged. The children all wore adult's shirts, basically tunics on them. And the adults wore, where they had clothes at all, clothing that was stained with ichor and blood, and thoroughly torn; Anne was the only one left with a complete set of clothing, and it was in no better shape than anyone else's; Madelaine perhaps had the nicest clothing left, as there were several spots on her pants that weren't stained, but she had lost one of her boots somehow, now that he looked.

“Hey Thomas.” Allison appeared beside him, slightly after he had heard her voice, making him jump a little; he turned his head to her, offering a nod in return.

“Allison.” She hesitated for a second when their eyes met, her eyes widening in surprise, then averted hers. Right. Some people didn't like that. He deliberately turned his head to face slightly forward, while trying to convey that he was still listening.

“Uh, Anne said she's able to start a hunt, so we're good for now. Said to keep an eye out for people?” He nodded again, trying not to look back at her. It felt weird to talk to someone while avoiding eye contact. He did it anyways.

“Thank you.” She hesitated a moment more, opened her mouth as if to start to say something, then blushed and … didn't disappear, exactly, but he couldn't see her anymore. That was … damned strange. Thomas shook his head, and, looking around to see where everybody was, and then started making his way over to where Norris was; Madelaine had beaten him there, and was … he blinked as the scene came into focus. She was being carried by her two skeletons. It looked awkward and uncomfortable.

“Okay, so what about thaumaturgy?” Madelaine' face was level with Norris in her elevated perch, and she was looking at him with an amused little smile.

“Thaumaturgy is, basically, the magic of magic itself. A powerful thaumaturge can use any form of magic at all, albeit less efficiently.” Norris paused, considering. “After Forgecraft, it's – oh, hey Thomas.” Thomas nodded to both of them with a wince.

“Sorry, didn't mean to interrupt.” Madelaine looked over at him, her frown fading with the apology; she nodded to him, stretching theatrically and leaning back into her skeletons.

“S'cool, meatwall. Whatcha need?”

“Actually ...” Thomas stopped himself, trying to think. It felt rude to change the conversation like this. But she'd asked? He continued. “Actually, I was wondering about gods. Specifically, something that might be called The Arbiter?”

“Doesn't sound familiar.” Norris tilted his head, scratching at his face. Thomas imitated the gesture as it reminded him of his own beard. He needed a shave. “The gods I'm familiar with are Artra, Halei, Mystery, Gray, Tenash, and Elder; there are many others, of course, but those six are the most popular.”

“They each provide an afterlife?”

“Uh. Yes.” Madelaine sat up; Faith looked over as well, having overheard. “Well, sort of. Elder doesn't, but that's kind of a special case.”

“Hang on, there's an afterlife? Like … ” Faith's expression clouded, then she shook her head, pressing on. “Like, good people are rewarded, and bad people are punished?”

“What?” Norris turned, giving Faith a confused look. “You go to the afterlife that you choose, or Artra's domain if you didn't choose anything. Or, if you choose Elder's, you just sort of … stop existing. What would good or bad have to do with anything?”

“You pick your own afterlife?” Madelaine, now, staring at Norris. “How do you know?”

“Well, you're a necromancer; you can learn a spell to talk to dead people, if they agree to it.” Madelaine slipped out of the grasp of the skeletons, landing haphazardly; it took her a long moment to get back to her feet, eyes narrowing at Norris.

“Nuh uh. No way.” Her eyes unfocused, and her fingers moved, like she was moving … well, she probably was looking through a spell list. Her eyes widened. “Woah. Way.”

“What?” Norris was looking around at the increasingly agitated audience he was attracting; Carson had joined them, and the group as a whole was slowing down. “It's not that interesting.”

“Norris, imagine that Elder's option was the only option available.” Thomas spoke quietly; he was trying to decide what this meant for the dream; a creeping sense of dread was settling over him.

“That … huh.” Norris looked around at them, then shook his head. “Look, it's not like … look, it really isn't that interesting, even so. You don't want to die; what's left is more like the concept of you, than you.”

“What do you mean?” Carson spoke up; it was the first time Thomas had heard his voice, and it was a mix of nasal and bass that yanked Thomas right out of his introspection, to stare at the magus. Norris frowned, looking up at the sky for several long moments before finally answering.

“Look, the afterlives exist in the substrate. It's not like here, it's all metaphor, and concept. It's not even meaningfully a location; you can't really 'go' there, so much as you're already there; the concept of 'you' already exists. So it's not like, when you die, you stop being here, and you start being there instead.”

“That doesn't sound like an afterlife.” Faith replied, her voice cracking a little bit. Norris paused again, looking up; it took him longer to respond.

“It varies a little bit, between the gods. They offer different … kinds of things. Different ways the concept of you can be expressed, different rules. Tenash's afterlife doesn't allow resurrection, for example, even if the person would have agreed to it.” That was met with silence, then everybody started talking at once. Thomas, for his part, moved a little bit apart from the others; he didn't know what he thought about an afterlife, and Norris was clearly struggling to actually explain what it actually implied, except that it apparently wasn't the same as just continuing to live somewhere else. Thomas was more disturbed by the way the conversation had confirmed at least a few details from the dream.

He was startled when Anne fell in beside him, and he turned to blink at her.

“Hey Thomas.” She glanced over at the increasingly loud group around Norris, who didn't seem to be able to get a word in edgewise to actually answer their questions. “There were more of them before we got there. They watched people die. It was all they talked about, the first day, and then they didn't want to talk about it anymore.” Thomas looked at her – she looked … guilty? Sad?

“The idea that your loved ones and friends persist after death isn't something you think about, is it?” Anne looked at him, then back at the group. After some time, she nodded.

“It's kind of fundamental, so it's not something I think about, no. I didn't think to mention it”

“I … you didn't resurrect your family. Why?” A flash of anger, that quickly subsided, as Anne took a deep breath, and then another.

“That's not something you ask people, Thomas.”

“Sorry.” He was. It had taken him all of the word 'why' to immediately regret having asked.

“I know.” She looked out to the horizon, raising a hand to tilt her hat up a hair. “It requires … agreement. You have to want to be resurrected, to continue living, in the core of yourself; few people feel that way. And not all of you … comes back. Memories, in particular; you lose everything that isn't a core part of who you are.” Anne bit her lip. “I knew, I know, my husband wouldn't want it. He … brought somebody back who had been dear to him. Lived through trying to talk about things, discovering how many of his treasured memories with them weren't important enough to remember. It broke his heart. He wouldn't want that for himself, he wouldn't want that for us, he wouldn't want that for our children.” Anne swallowed, then continued. “I treasure my memories with them. I remember them every day, so that when I join them, I will remember, because they will be a part of me.” Thomas was surprised to find himself hugging Anne. She resisted for an instant, and then softened, somewhat awkwardly returned the gesture.

They moved apart, and Anne wiped her eyes, then offered him a smile that had a depth of warmth to it, even a little bit of her usual good humor. “Thank you, Thomas.”

“Thank you.” Thomas looked around, searching for a change of topic. Arias was atop a nearby hill, scanning the area, which gave him a bit of inspiration. “So what are we fighting this evening?” Anne seemed to think about it, then grimaced.

“Rot elementals. Limited options.”

“Rot … elementals.” He wasn't sure he could imagine what that implied. “Are they … going to be a problem?” She snorted out a snot, then grimaced, even as the laughter bubbled out in spite of herself. Thomas watched, bemused.

“No, no … ” That was the first blush he'd seen on the woman, ha, so she could be embarrassed! She cleaned her face up between snorting laughs with a scrap of stained bandage retrieved from a nearly empty pouch, and tossed it on the ground. “They smell bad, though.” Her eyes drifted to his hands, and her grimace returned, though she still tittered. “You're going to have to stand downwind afterwards.”

“Uh.” Thomas was aware again, for a moment, of how bad their own group smelled. “How bad?”

“You are in for a treat.”