Realising that we were about to reach the area Lia had mentioned, I shook myself out of my thoughts. It was incredibly difficult to ascertain anything about the connection between Luna and myself, to say nothing about the strand that connected us to the Grandmother. For now, I could only say that there was a distinct connection, that it wasn’t one-sided and that I’d be able to follow it in the physical plane if I ever needed to find Luna, but otherwise, I had no idea. Not what it might do, not how it might be used and certainly not how it had been created, though I suspected divine shenanigans having a hand in that, though whether the divine shenanigans had spun it from whole cloth or if they had merely expanded what had already been there, I had no idea. Either way, I had a strong impression that the question would keep me mentally occupied for many more hours if I ever managed to figure it out.

But for now, I had something else to explore, both physically and mentally. The area before us was interesting because it was an impossibility, at least it had been before the Astral River was introduced to Earth. Looking around, I could see what used to be a major road, only that it was now broken and leading into the lake ahead, before emerging again to form the ruins of a bridge covering what used to be a river. I could faintly remember the area from before the change and the river that used to be here hadn’t been anything special. Just a small, maybe ten metres in width, river with a bit of earthwork on the sides to make sure it didn’t flood the road. There used to be a few trees in the fields around it, alongside some hedges to dampen the noise from the road, but again, nothing outlandish.

Now, what used to be a small river was a fairly sizable lake, stretching as wide as my eyes could see in the dark along the course of the river and maybe two-, three hundred metres across. Near the banks of the river, I could see the actual impossibility, trees that were far too large to have grown since the change, in addition to looking far too odd to be wholly natural. The entire area looked almost tropical, making me think of some images I had seen of the mangroves in Florida, only that such flora wasn’t native to this region. And they most certainly weren’t supposed to glow with an odd, eerie light that made me think of flickering torches.

“Those look like I’d expect will-o-wisps to look like, trying to lure travellers into their doom,” I remarked, looking at the flickering light in the area ahead. The entire area faintly reminded me of the swamp near Ashenforge Keep, where we had fought hundreds of Undead for the dwarves. Somehow, I wasn’t sure if I was supposed to hope that this area here was similar, or if I would prefer it to have something other than Undead. There had been far too many of those for my tastes, maybe we’d get something less gross.

“Look over there,” Lia directed my attention towards one specific tree and after a second of observing, I realised what she was pointing out. There, lounging on one of the higher branches, was a fairly large cat, not quite the size of Silva but big enough that it would consider any of us, especially Luna, a welcome midnight snack if we were careless.

“Mhm, I see the cat,” I nodded, my eyes scanning the area ahead again, curious about what such a large critter would feed on. “But we shouldn’t get too invested in exploring, at least not tonight. We should make sure we have shelter, we only have about two hours before the Sun makes things uncomfortable for you, Lia,” I added, turning my attention to the area behind us.

There were no houses anywhere nearby, nor could I see any sheds or similar buildings, nothing that could provide shelter. The area was filled with what used to be fields and was now rapidly turning into a mixture of shrubs, grass and swamp before things became really wet near the river. I had no idea where the water came from, but it was something we might want to investigate, it hadn’t rained this much lately. But whatever the case may be, there was no shelter to be found, unless we wanted to try making a nest under a few shrubs, like some animal. But no, I wanted to make things a little more impressive and, maybe more importantly, defensible. I had no idea what might lurk in this area, other than weird glowing things and large cats, both of which were enough to warrant some caution.

Without any real plan, I started to walk around and try to stretch my Earth Magic into the soil all around me. It was a fairly crude method, and one that could easily exhaust me if I kept doing it for too long but by pushing out an exceedingly thin layer of Astral Power I could get a good idea what sort of conditions I was working with. Earth Magic had a much easier time penetrating dry soil, while wet soil and rock each produced a different feedback. Thanks to that feedback, I could feel that the entire area below was fairly marshy, to the point that digging a hole would create something akin to a well, no matter what I did with the soil. The only way to dig anything here would be to completely reinforce the structure while making it waterproof. Unless I wanted to sleep in a completely frozen tunnel that would likely melt due to the amount of warm water in the area, we needed to move somewhere else.

Looking around, I tried to see if there was anything standing out to me above ground, anything that made me confident I could dig into the area. I considered the road for a moment, there should still be some drainage installed below the asphalt, but I doubted it went deep enough. Still, I slowly made my way over, occasionally extending my Astral Power, but getting there confirmed my initial idea. While the asphalt up top was still completely intact if anything heavier than a cow were to move across the road, the entire thing would most likely crumble and collapse into pothole hell. The lower layer was completely drenched in water, to the point that I could feel some plants growing in the gravel bed.

Noticing a small hill, I changed direction once more, hoping that it might be enough, that I could get some digging done there. It was just a light increase in elevation, a metre or two, nothing more, but it was my best bet.

With the others in tow, I made my way over, quite happy at what I could feel below. There was still water, but it was mainly deeper, meaning I wouldn’t have to completely insulate us. Just setting up a solid flooring, maybe with a sub-layer, should work, though it would need some effort.

After deciding on a spot, I started to draw runes into the Soil, using pure Earth Runes for once, a combination of Earth and Compress runes before slowly channelling power into the formation. It was hard work, especially because my affinity was so much lower when it came to working with soil than it was when working with Ice, but I could push the soil around, allowing me to open up a shallow cave by pushing the soil to the sides and down, compressing it into dense walls and a solid floor and ceiling. It wasn’t as hard as I would normally like, just heavily packed dirt, but it was strong enough to hold its form and I hadn’t dug deep enough to get into the water below. Some water would likely press up, but I was hoping that I could get enough work done before going to sleep to keep us comfortable.

The hole I’d dug wasn’t really large, just a two-by-two opening, stretching about eight metres into the ground. It didn’t lead straight down, first going sideways for a few metres before straightening so I wouldn’t hit the groundwater. It wasn’t anything to write home about, but installing the thick canvas we had with us made it good enough to keep us out of the sun and somewhat protected.

Ducking down, I went into the hole, pushing even more magic around to stabilise things. I had no desire to have this collapse on me, nor was I completely confident in my work. But for now, it held. Lia and Luna had already taken the canvas out, spanning it over the hole before joining me, looking around the fairly crude accommodations before trying to make it as comfortable as possible. Silva, on the other hand, merely took a glance at it before making herself comfortable outside, acting as a guard dog, or maybe she simply wasn’t about to play groundhog. Either way, we had our shelter for the day and given that the Sun was about to rise, it had to do.