When we got out of the room, it was dark and still. Still, like, I remembered the lands of the undead being. Like everything was holding their breath, and no one knew when they could breathe. The moons and stars were all hidden. The night was dark, but if it were the undead chasing us, then that might not matter.

Blink headed north, and so did I. There was the game trail that ran by the river, and so once I was on that, I ran. It wasn’t the best idea running at night, but it was what we had and so what I could do.

We didn’t say anything as we moved north. It reminded me of the time that we ran with Lannah and how long that took. That night we had the moonlight. I tried not to stumble, but it wasn’t the easiest of things.

For the next hour or so, we ran. Blink stayed where I could see her, and she could see at night better than me. So we moved as fast as we could see. I still had the feeling that we were in danger and being hunted. I no longer felt that they had found us, only that they were hunting.

I whispered, “Thank you Order. Thank you Chaos.”

Another hour passed before the sun started to climb when it did. I felt from the goddesses that we needed to hurry because we were being boxed in from the other direction, and we needed to go to ground.

“Blink we need to hide and soon.”

She thought back to me. “Tree.”

Off to one side was a large tree. It wasn’t near the size of The Tree of Peaceful Rest, but it was significant nonetheless. So up the tree, we went. This tree had a big area in the middle, about thirty feet off the ground in the middle where all the branches seemed to break off from. When we got there, I found a depression in the middle where the middle had broken off in the past.

I snuggled down in as deep as I could get, and Blink laid over me. Then she turned to match the tree. The hope was that it looked normal from below. After we were there for a few minutes, I heard fighting.

Orcs were shouting, but I wasn’t sure what they were fighting. There were explosions that were clearly magical. It was odd hiding like I was, but the fight was bigger than I had thought it would be. For over an hour, we hid, listening to a battle rage around it.

I heard orcs and goblins fighting, but I didn’t hear anything else, which made me think they were fighting the undead. If they were just fighting each other, then there would have been more yelling or a shorter battle. There just weren’t enough voices for a fight this long.

When the battle stopped, the moaning started. Then I heard the heavy footfalls of the orcs moving on. To me, it sounded like they were still heading downriver, but I wasn’t sure at this point and worried that I was turned around.

Blink shared her vision with me. Below were zombies and skeletons broken and strewn all over. They had intermingled with their undead bodies the bodies of gremlins and goblins and just a handful of orcs. With the numbers laid out below, it looked like the orcs tore through the undead. It took a while, sure, but they were the victors.

She panned her eyes across the area until we saw the forms of the orcs moving away. They were heading downriver.

I heard her in my head, “Both hunts us.”

“Yup,” I whispered.

“Goes”

“Sounds good, don’t know how long before they turn around.” I said.

Soon Blink and I were heading back home. We had been hiking for several hours the night before, so we soon came to the ledge room. I ducked in and grabbed the sword and shield. Then we headed home. We were running worried the whole way back. It wasn’t until we passed where we slaughtered the orcs on the way down that we slowed up.

“Just a couple more hours and we should be safe.” I said toward where I thought Blink was.

“Bad,” was the only reply I got.

I wasn’t sure why she said “bad” to me. Perhaps it was that we were slowing down, or maybe she felt it was bad luck to say we were almost home free. A few minutes later and I was siding with the it was bad luck.

We came around a bend on the path and found out in the middle of a group of 6 orcs. They weren’t the ones in leather with swords and shields, but we caught them by as much surprise as they us, perhaps more so.

I fired off my stone sphere as soon as I saw them. It took the lead guy right in the face. Then I back peddled as fast as I could to make some room to open up my stone air. As soon as I was back the three steps, I slammed it down. It wasn’t a moment too soon.

The five orcs that were still standing had all charged forward. Only the closest was in the dome with me. I dropped the extra shield and sword and fired off another blast from my ring. The orc in the dome just stepped aside and laughed at me. The one behind him didn’t even see the bowling ball as it took his shin out of play for the day.

The guy in with me drew a short axe off his belt and charged at me. I was once again hating that I didn’t have a katana as I stepped to the side of the guy’s charge. I kicked him as he passed, which sped him up and through the dome. He spun, roared, and charged back at me. I fired off two more stone spheres right at him.

Mr. Stupid, with the axe, tried to tank both of them. The first one took him on the left shoulder, and the second found his left knee. He wasn’t dead, but like the guy without a shin, he wasn’t in this fight anymore.

At the range we were at, I drew and launched two of my throwing spikes at a new orc. The first hit paused him, and the second went into this open mouth. It wasn’t going to be fun getting it back.

The far right one developed acute sciatica as Blink came out of stealth to remove half of his calf. Then she ran up his body as he collapsed and transformed. There was no need to show up, and that was just her.

She was mid-air when she turned into her lizard girl and then fired both her crossbows at the same time. One took the middle guy in his right eye, and the other took the left guy in his left eye. She then kicked off the falling orc on the left to send herself up and onto the dome. She ran over in just a couple of steps and slid down.

She landed on top of the one that I wounded and slid her clawed fingers across his throat. She turned and vanished. Only to appear again just a few feet away from where she had been and fired at the wounded orcs on the front side of the dome.

“Show off.” I said to her with a smile.

“Dids I do goods Daddy?”

“Yes, but now we have to hurry. You tend to be faster in your other form so we need to get out of here before more show up.”

I went to the guy I lost a throwing knife in and dug it back out. I was right; it wasn’t any fun. It reminded me of trying to get a fishing hook out of a bass that swallowed the whole thing without pliers. After some fighting, I managed to get my knife back out. Then I scanned the orcs real quick to see if there was anything I wanted.

“If I could I would take everything they have here. The armor looks better than anything I have seen them wear and their weapons are better too.”

I dropped the shield I had looted before and got one that looked better, and snagged the short axe. Each of them had some rations of some type that I left, and after a quick look over, we were heading home. I was worried, and Blink was skipping.

She would skip down the path and then vanish and come out of stealth another twenty feet away, still skipping. I was kind of worried about her. She was crazy lethal and a great hunter, but at times like this, I felt like she was just a little out of touch with danger. That being said, even though the orcs had been better armed, we dropped them faster than before.

We got back to the boat house about mid-afternoon. We had made it! We got into the room, and I changed out of my equipment. I wasn’t really concerned about falling in, but I still wasn’t liking the idea of wearing metal when paddling. We loaded up on the kayak and went home. I was ready to learn where Lannah was and set out to get her.

I didn’t even bother unloading the kayak; I just pulled it up and grabbed the map. Then I all but ran to the Shrine. When I pulled open the door and stepped in, I was once again treated to Chaos and her sense of style. Her side now had a black and white pinwheel at the wall. She would be one of those girls that just couldn’t figure out where she wanted the couch to go.

I pulled everything I needed out for the ritual prayer and started up the skill. Soon the smoke was filling the room, but I wasn’t being patient enough. I started to try to force my will to meet with the Sisters. I didn’t want to wait for them to get to me. It wasn’t long before I heard their collective voice.

“Shaman, you have gotten the map! Good job, now open it and I will show you what should have learned already.”

I opened the scroll tube and slid out the scroll. In my dream of Ash, I had seen him open this type before and knew just how to. As the scroll slid out, I saw shifting words on it. I was worried that it wouldn’t work since I couldn’t read.

“I can’t read the words on it will this work?”

The Sisters laughed. It was almost like a giggle or perhaps wind chimes. “Yes, dear Shaman, it will work. Follow along with what I tell you. Open your visual interface. Now, grab the map so that you can see the whole thing. Say activate visual mapper. Look at the map and say implant map.”

I followed along with each step. When I got to the last step, the map vanished. But I could see there was a slight edge of the map in my vision down and to the left. If I looked at the edge, the whole map would pop up and fill my vision. In the middle of the map was a red dot.

The organ voice spoke again, “You can pull it up and see it but it will take up your whole vision. Say decrease opacity to 12 percent. Now you can see around and see the map in front of you. It will map everywhere you have been pulling it right from your memory.”

The map was in place in front of me now, and I could see around. It was kind of in the way but not entirely. It showed the room that I was in and where the door was, but that was it. Not everything that I had seen.

“It is only showing the shrine.” I said.

“Yes our Shaman. It will show you a map of where you are. The easy way to see the outside would be to go there. But you can draw back your perception of the map. Just say Visual Mapper Birds eye. When you do that you will be taken to a traveling map and not a map of the building you are in.”

I tried what the goddesses. “I can see how this will help as I travel more but how does it help now?”

They did their tinkling laugh. “We are almost there. Say, Visual Mapper display Familial Contracts and bonded companions. There are other things that you can display but only those who you have a mana link with will show up as moving. If you asked for it to display your enemies it would show dots where last you saw them.”

I saw on the birds-eye view far to the northeast a blue dot and a green one in the room with me. I spun and saw Blink staring at the pinwheel. I wasn’t sure what she was doing, but I wasn’t worried but more surprised that she was in here with me.

I spoke as solemnly as I could. “Thank you Chaos and Thank you Order for helping me get this map. It will let me find Lannah and I am sure will serve me in many other ways.”

They spoke again, “We can’t be here much longer as the faith here in us is weak and the seal is heavy. Build the path for others to come to the Shrine. Tell others about us and grow your faith.”

Then Chaos spoke by herself, “Shaman thank you for bringing me a new follower. One who wishes to walk in my priesthood.”

The smoke cleared, and the voices left. This time I was still standing. I looked around, and Blink was standing on her right hand, looking at the pinwheel. I was worried I wasn’t sure why I was concerned, but I was.

Blink hopped down from her handstand and looked at me. “Daddy! Chaos is such a nice lady! She said that I could be her High Priestess!”

“Oh and what do you have to do?”

“She said to start with I need to keep raising my faith and to keep you safe. She thinks you are important but not smart.”

I nodded. For some reason, it didn’t surprise me much. “So, what’s your faith at now?”

“Ohs its onlys at 300 for Chaos and 75 for Order. There’s another ones ins that too that says Redacted but that level is alsos Redacted.”

“Well I got to finish pulling in everything from the boat and then we have to make some plans. We went the wrong direction. She’s that way not that way.” I said as I pointed.

I pulled the rest of our gear from the kayak and then headed in. I had lots that I needed to do before it was time to go. We needed traveling food other than lamb jerky, and I needed to see if I wanted to use the bigger shield. I also needed to see about the arming sword. Then I stopped dead in my tracks.

I whined a bit to myself, “I got to see if the dungeon has a katana I can buy. No need to learn how to use this bulky thing if I can get the sword I want.”

* * *