I had avoided asking Sam questions for several weeks because of what he did when I asked where skills came from. Living through the lives of the evil still woke me up some at night seeing the faces of those the Necromancer killed. The children were what got me the most. Yet, I went back to him because I had questions and I wanted answers. Not that I needed to, as I could have waited to ask Lannah, but rather because I wanted to know at that moment.

My time in Sam’s office was like every other time I was stuck, not moving. I guess it had been a while, so the little things that I had stopped thinking about while being in the dreams came rushing back. The itch that I couldn’t scratch, and the clock was ticking that I couldn’t tune out. From where I was standing, I guessed I was looking out from the clock as every tick I could hear and every toll I could feel.

I couldn’t see Sam, but I just knew that he was there doing paperwork. I almost pitied him with the amount of writing that he had to do. However, I was still blaming him for my inability to read and for being stuck in this world. Though overall, I liked this place better than earth.

Sam’s antics had ratcheted up over the times that I had been here, so I was expecting something awful. However, it was just the persistent itch on my right leg and the clicking. As I couldn’t move, I couldn’t even see what he was doing. The hours drew long, just waiting for him to speak. All my willpower with that clock had left me now that I hadn’t been here in a while.

Then he spoke. “I guess that some how asking how wild cores occur falls under the requirements that I answer. Oddly enough this is one of your better questions. Wild cores occur when the beast gathers enough power to create a core.”

With that, the sound of the clock got louder, and I felt a weight from behind me. It wanted to push me down and drive me into the ground, but I couldn’t move. Then I heard the tolling in my ear as I felt myself getting yanked backward. Finally, I saw the inner working of the hand-cranked clock as I flew threw them.

I shuddered when I woke up. It wasn’t the worst of the nights that I had asked Sam something, but my leg still itched, and I could still hear the clock. It was like he wanted me to have mental reminders of my time with him. Ways that he could still mess with me even if I wasn’t there. Yet, honestly, there seemed to be less fire in him than before.

Blink and I were up and moving quickly; we exited out of the top door and headed downriver. With how tired I was from asking Sam a question and with all the work that I put in on the room last night, I knew that I needed to move quickly so that we would have time at the next stop. So, I was heading back to that same bush that I slept in the first night.

After that, I wanted to check to see if I could find that spot that I showed up in. I would love to know what that wolf wanted that was in my gear. Then beyond that, I wasn’t sure how long it would take as it should be somewhere between another 3 and 5 days of travel to get to Lannah’s home.

The day was uneventful as we hiked downriver. It was an easy-going pace that I knew I needed to keep up to get to the spot. I was only going back to the bush because I knew it. It wasn’t like it was any more special than anywhere else; it was just a place I had in my mind. So after hiking most of the day. I made sure that I didn’t go too close to the river where the brook met it as that was the territory of the yellow jackets I wanted them for the next day.

I smiled as I moved into the bush. “I spent my first night in here thinking this was a safe place. I got bit in the face by a snake because of it.”

I felt joy across the bond as I heard Blink do her odd lizard laugh.

“Laugh it up! I didn’t know better, but I killed and ate the snake. It was a mess to work with too! I had to find a rock sharp enough to skin the thing it was a mess,” I said as I got to work.

I used my wands to turn the dirt under the bush’s branches into the water, which with where I was caused me to fall in. Then I pulled myself out and backed up. The whole time Blink was laughing at me. Then I turned the water to steam and did a second blast down. After that, I angled my wands over so that I would be creating a room that was more under the boulder than the bush itself.

This room taught me a lot and made me rethink what I was doing. I didn’t have a cliff face here to work with as the river gorge had turned into a shallow valley, so that meant that I was working with just dirt. It also meant that I had to deal with roots.

The roots were what were giving me the most challenging time. I had to hack them away because I couldn’t just turn them into the dirt as they weren’t stone. If I made stone around them, then I would have live roots hanging through the stone that I was trying to use as my roof, and they would grow.

This problem would only get worse as I moved deeper into the forest that the river followed. I would end up having to cut through the roots of the tree, and as it stood, I didn’t have enough mana with the wands that I had to finish this room because of how far down I had to go.

Then I spent half the next day finishing the room so that it could be considered a safe spot. Next, I had to deal with shoring up all the walls since I had moved from stony outcropping to forest floor. So once I turned the dirt into water and the water into steam, I had to go into the hole and turn the edges into stone to create the bunker.

Once the room was done, it was time to take on the bugs that kept me from heading south before. I was still following the river, so I knew that we would get near the bugs soon, and then it would be time to fight. I hadn’t brought the spear with me because I didn’t want to be overburdened. However, the longer I hiked, the more I thought I should have left the armor and brought the spear. Then again, the armor would be helpful if it could keep the stinger out.

I unslung my bow and took the time to knock an arrow. I didn’t remember how mobile the yellow jackets were, but I figured that I could try to knock out one or two in the air this way. I had defeated them before with just a fire-hardened spear, so they shouldn’t be too hard.

I whistled sharply and waved Blink over, then I knelt down beside her. I rested my hand on her scales and said softly, “okay, up ahead is a nest of huge yellow jackets. Each is almost as long as your tail. They are going to be a bit harder to fight since they fly. Are you ready for this?”

Blink twitched one of her giant eyes at me and then slowly blinked just that one. “Hunts funs!”

With that, she walked off; when she was about ten feet away, she vanished and thought to me. “Bait!”

“Blink! That’s not my name.” I muttered as I started forward.

After about thirty feet, the sound of a weed eater started up. I scanned around, trying to find where it was coming from. It took a moment, and then I saw coming out of a huge fallen tree a yellow jacket. There were already a few climbing on the roots. I couldn’t tell where I was, if the nest was in the tree or if it was under it, but either way, this was a fight that I thought that I was looking for.

I took aim at the one coming out of the tree as it wasn’t moving as fast as the others on the roots, and it was constrained as to where it could dodge. So I let my first arrow go. I watched as it impacted and killed the bug in the tree. It was both a letdown and satisfying that the thing died so quickly. My arrow went right through the exoskeleton and pierced the brain.

Its death went unnoticed by the others, so I got to try again at being bait. First, I dropped my pack so that I could move better if needed. The next arrow took one of the climbing bugs in the side and didn’t kill it. It didn’t make a noise, but the next moment both of the others looked at it. Then their little antennas started to twitch, and both went into the air.

I landed a second shot into the injured one as Blink took one of the flying ones to the ground. Her pounce created enough force that the stinger section popped right off. Then the third one saw me and started buzzing at me. It was every bit as fast as I remembered; there was no way for me to dodge the stinger as it went right for my chest.

I had been thinking how heavy the armor was, but at that moment, I was glad I was wearing it as the stinger bounced off. I dropped my bow and grabbed onto the bug as it tried to bite me. Its stinger kept going up and down like my armor would crack as its mandibles were snipping at my face.

I wrenched the wings off it and then yanked its whole body off and slammed it into the ground, breaking it in two. These things had given me nightmares for a while but seemed to be dying easy enough. I stepped back and scooped my bow up from the ground, and looked around.

I couldn’t believe it, just four of them? It almost seemed too easy. Then the one dead in the opening got pushed out of the way, and another one took its place. Finally, as its head passed the edge of the opening, Blink swiped down from above with one claw breaking the head open. Then it got pushed out of the way by the next one.

I had a hatred of these things that seemed like it was built out of the instinctual reactions to stinging insects. I also wanted to make sure that I was able to beat them since they are what turned me north before. So Blink and I stayed put, killing them as they came out. Fortunately, the insects aren’t the best builders, and if there wasn’t already a second opening, they would just use the one.

Blink and I spent about twenty minutes killing them as they came out one by one. As the bodies piled up, I started to notice the sound of clicking behind us. I turned to see that we messed up.