Amber was looking glum now. She turned her face away uncomfortably. Cleared her throat again, but didn’t say anything. Meanwhile the Chilli had woken from her sleep. She remained puffed and seemingly comfortable on the barrel, but now had her head askew, slightly cocked. Listening.

Jack continued, ‘Over the following few years the handful of survivors did what they could to rebuild a new society. And they succeeded to a point. But it was obviously a lot different to what it used to be.’ He thought for a moment, scratching his cheek as if casually recalling the result of a football game, then added, ‘Three main groups of people rose; Those that attempted to establish a new world order, Those that sought to destroy any effort made by the new world order, and then there were those who wanted little to nothing to do with either. But I cant really call the third group an actual organisation. They consisted of all different types of people. Basically those who lived free of any authority influence. Adventurers. Wonders. Bandits. Hunters. A lot of smaller subcultures formed as well. In the shadows. The world became a dark place.’

‘And what about you, Jack?’ said Amber, her voice notably breaking with feeling for his plot, ‘Which group do you belong to?’

‘None of those I mentioned, actually.’ he told her, sitting back in his seat, dropping his hands to his lap, and turning his look to the Chilli that was gazing back at him, ‘I became part of a different organisation. A small covert group who have…. Uh, how do I put this?’ He thought for a moment, turning his eyes back to Amber. He said, ‘We’ve been looking for… something.’

‘Something,’ Amber repeated the word like it may have had meaning for Jack that it didn’t have for her.

There was a moment of silence, during which Jack and Amber gazed at each other and the Chilli just remained still, head cocked, something like a statue while she waited for more.

‘I do have a question,’ said Amber, as though she needed permission.

Jack nodded, ‘Go ahead.’

‘On my world. Here,’ She placed one hand firmly on the table to make sure he knew what here meant - as apparently Jack’s story was a lot for her mind to deal with, ‘There are different provinces and lands, where people speak different ways. They are languages. Each language is different.’

Jack smiled, knowing where she was going with this.

‘And it looks to me like you would – ‘

Jack cut her off by saying, ‘I know, it is odd that I speak your language when I come from so far away.’

‘Yes,’ said Amber, seemingly pleased that he knew what she meant.

He told her, ‘Where I come from, technology is more advance, and that goes even more so with the, uh, organisation I work for. The organization has discovered breakthroughs in many things, with a little outside help, and one of those things was overcoming language barriers. I won’t get into details, though. No offense, but I doubt you would understand.’

Amber appeared to accept this, quietly. And again they had a moment of silence.

‘So I guess it’s your turn,’ said Jack, ‘tell me what you can about this place.’ He glanced at the Chilli, still staring back at him. ‘And don’t leave out the part about the dragons,’ he added.

‘You are here now, and experience is the best way to learn,’ said Amber, as she leaned back in her chair and started working on Jack’s holster again, as if nothing out of the ordinary was taking place.

‘Well, that is true,’ Jack glanced around at the grotto, ‘but we are kinda stuck here at the moment.’

‘Not for long. The Preeminent of the Kings Legion will have received word of the guard’s death already. A deployment of Sleuth Soldiers will arrive in Greenfalls soon enough. Then it will only be a matter of time before they convince one of the residence to tell them where we are hiding. I say we have a day, probably less, before we need to move on.’

Jack considered this, brow furrowing with thought as he watched Amber cut the leather.

‘Just… hold up.’ He shook his head as if attempting to ward off a delusional thought. ‘How far is the King and his Preeminent from here?’

‘Five to seven days by foot,’ said Amber, glancing up from her work, ‘one or two days by horse or carriage, under best conditions.’

Jack was very confused by this. His brow furrowed sharply. ‘You just told me they would be here in town within a day. How? And how does one in this day and age manage to send word to someone so far away so quickly? You got a phone hiding around here or something? An airfield nearby?’

‘I don’t know what a phone or an airfield is,’ said Amber with a small smirk, picking up on his sarcastic tone, ‘but we are talking about the King and his Workers. They have means beyond common folk.’ She paused, and added, ‘Royal Magic. And one should not forget, the other guard posted in town has a direct channel to the Preeminent.’

‘Of course he does….’ Jack sighed. He didn’t bother to pursue the matter.

Amber placed the next leather cut-out on the stack of other pieces she had cut. She pushed the stack neatly aside, looking at Jack from the tops of her eyes as she did so. His mind seemed a million miles away, maybe even a little scared.

‘We’ll be fine,’ she said, ‘the labyrinth of tombs can take us quite some distance before we need to surface. I am very proficient in illusion. Stick with me and they won’t catch us.’ She looked at the Chilli. ‘And don’t forget, we have a dragon as our friend now, any attack on us will need to be carefully reconsidered.’

Jack looked at the Chilli as well, she was nestling down to sleep again.

‘I’m not really worried about that,’ he said, giving Amber a slight smile, ‘I’m sure we’ll be fine. I’m just a little unclear about the situation. And a little concerned about other things.’

‘What other things?’

‘I haven’t heard from my people yet.’

‘But they are far from here?’ She questioned him, showing the same confusion he had displayed for her a few minutes beforehand.

‘We have our ways,’ he said with a wink, before his expression became sober, ‘but they are taking far too long. Something’s wrong. They would have contacted me by now if they could. The fact that they haven’t is… bothering me.’

With a lot of careful guidance from Jack, Amber finished crafting his holster. She was happy with her work, and it gave her ideas for further product lines in her shop. This excited her a little, knowing that her new idea would have been inspired from an entirely different world. The idea, however, didn’t excite her nearly as much as Jack himself did. There were so many things about him that captured her intrigue and caused her primal urges to exert themselves. She did what she could to keep those urges concealed because, after all, it just wasn’t ladylike to be forthcoming about these matters. Still, After Jack redressed in his now dry clothes, she took maybe a little too long fitting the holster to his torso, letting her fingers linger in places that they really didn’t need to in an attempt to familiarise herself with his form.

It wasn’t just physical appeal, though. The whole exotic outlander thing was also super intriguing. She didn’t necessarily believe his story, but somehow the sense of adventure the story brought with it was exhilarating and welcome in her mundane life. So she chose to go along with things for the time being. Besides, he and she were in fact fugitives now, leaving not many other options but to get along.

There was also the Chilli’s interest in Jack. The interest the dragon had was likely a different type of enthusiasm than Amber had for the man, but it somehow served to validate her own sense of attraction for him. Despite all those self assuring reasoning’s, it really was extremely odd to witness the Chilli’s interaction with Jack, and it just kept getting more odd by the minute.

Before leaving Amber's basement to commence their Journey, the Chilli left her roost on the barrel in favour of Jack’s shoulder. Perched like a pet bird.

Having the Chilly perched on Jack’s shoulder caused the first part of the journey to be made mostly in uncomfortable silence. Seemed like both Amber and Jack were too cautious to speak for fear of possibly upsetting the creature. On top of that, Jack didn’t appear to be very comfortable about walking through ancient tombs. In fact he was acting a little skittish, a type of behaviour that really didn’t suit him at all.

From the basement room of Amber’s shop, she led the way through a secret door into the catacombs and down several dark passages, a flaming torch in Amber hand being their only source of light. They had been traversing the ancient labyrinth of corridors for close to half an hour before entering a rather large chamber. The light from Amber’s torch didn’t reach far enough to disclose anything else in the chamber, but the cavernous darkness that surrounded them was chilling enough to provoke Jack into finally breaking the silence.

‘There wasn’t a less… spooky path to take?’ he said, voice broken with obvious anxiety.

Jack had barely finished speaking the words when a stone tile beneath his foot pressed down into the floor with a dull clunk, which apparently served as a type of On Switch for the lighting in the chamber. Just one second after hearing the startling clunk and feeling the tile give beneath his tread, the chamber suddenly lit up by way of flames on the ancient chandeliers that hung from the stone cathedral-like sealing, the blazing light from which exposed the hundreds of sarcophagus that lined the tiered platforms on either side of their path.

Jack froze in position, while holding his breath and expecting the undead to start exploding from their places of rest, while the words be calm swept through his mind, and Amber stopped to turn around and smile at Jack. The dead didn’t burst from their coffins.

‘This is the crypt of Davious’s Armsmen’ said Amber, as if it was meant to men anything to Jack at all. And it didn’t, he of course had never heard the name before, and he was far too busy feeling weird about the recent voice he heard in his head to worry about who was buried in the Crypt, or even the previous sense of apprehension he was feeling for the place.

‘That’s fascinating,’ he replied sarcastically and looked down at his right foot, still keeping pressure on the tile that had turned on the lights, ‘But can you tell me if it’s safe to lift my foot off this without some booby trap killing us all?’

‘HAHA!’ Amber laughed, swinging her head with amusement at the thought. ‘You’re such a frightened child right now.’

‘I’m really not,’ said Jack, ‘I just don’t want to die.’

‘You can lift your foot,’ she told him with a playful slap to his arm.

Jack lifted his foot and took a wide step to the side to avoid the tile. The chandeliers remained lit. He then turned his eyes to the Chilli on his shoulder, giving the creature a narrow glare, and said, ‘I guess that was you then, Nip?’

Amber gave Jack a quizzical look, then looked at the Chilli, then back at Jack again. Meanwhile the Chilly remained still on Jack’s shoulder, eyes lids heavy as if it were bored.

‘Nip?’ She inquired, though rhetorically realising he had named the creature, but she added, ‘What did she do?’

‘She spoke to me.’

‘No.,’ Amber replied objectively, ‘that can’t be true.’

‘I’m telling ya, the thing spoke to me.’

The Chilli shifted uneasily. Amber gave her a suspicious glance, and said, ‘I didn’t hear it.’

‘That’s because it was in my head.’ Jack said, and turned his eyes to his little friend. ‘Isn’t that right, Nip?’

Amber had to think about this, her mind flipping through all the knowledge she had about Chilli’s. ‘There was an old fable,’ she said, ‘about some dragons having the ability to use the power of their mind to communicate. But it was only a story. No one believes it.’ She gazed at the creature, wondering, ‘Did you really talk to Jack?’ She then looked at Jack for a response.

‘I got nothing,’ he told her.

‘What did she say before?’ asked Amber. She was clearly mocking him with a sardonic expression.

‘“Be calm.”’ He told her in a tone that begrudged her derision.

Amber considered this. ‘Well, it is good advice.’ She then looked around at the burial chamber, and added, ‘It is always best to stay calm, especially while in a crypt.’

‘You say that like they actually care.’ said Jack, and pointed out in a firm tone, ‘They are dead.’

Amber puckered her lips to one side as she looked at him in a way that seemed like doubt to Jack.

‘What?’ He glared at her.

Again, she glanced around at the many tiers of sarcophagus, and replied softly, ‘Well, I mean sure they are dead. Physically. For now. But it’s best we don’t get too excited. We don’t want to wake them.’

'No, of course we don’t want to wake the dead,’ said Jack with a roll of his eyes. He sighed. ‘Can we just keep going? This place gives me the creeps.’

It didn’t smell too bad for a place of death, though, Jack thought while Amber continued walking ahead between the walls of sarcophagus and, despite his own words of wanting to move on, Jack delayed following her for the time being. Something had caught his eye. It was the twinkling like that of a bright star sparkling with various colours. The small spectrum of light was coming from atop a stone shelf protruding out from the wall next to one of the floor-level sarcophagus to his right. He turned towards it, tilting his head to try and make out what it was.

It was then that Jack noticed that the majority of the sarcophagus in the chamber had stone shelves next to them, displaying what were mostly small items - obviously Grave Goods or Votive Offerings – that were likely connection and holding personal or religious value to the deceased, and were placed there by relatives during or after the burial service. This particular item, however, was much more eye-catching than anything else he had noticed in the chamber. Jack figured it was a gemstone of some variety and, as he stepped up closer to it, he saw that he was right. It was a magnificent jewel, similar to a parti sapphire, maybe some variety of extremely rare diamond. It was roughly the size of a golf ball, glorified in a fusion of dazzling blue, purple, pink, yellow and traces of green.

As Jack stopped and stood next to the stone coffin, gazing down with hungry eyes at the beautiful sight before him, the Chilli on his shoulder turned her head to him. Her eye lids were no longer laden with boredom, rather widened with suspense, or possibly shock mixed with disbelief, perhaps even disgust at what she though Jack was about to do.

‘Don’t touch….’ said Nip, her voice cascading through Jack’s mind for the second time. But Jack didn’t appear to care this time, his attention was instead dedicated to the gem.

‘It’s okay…’ he replied in a low, automatic tone, ‘I just want a closer look.’

Amber, meanwhile, stopped when she heard Jack say something and she realised he wasn’t following her. Curious, she turned around to see him reaching for the gem. Her heart skipped a beat. Her breath lodged in her throat for a moment. She dropped the torch and started running towards him.

‘Jack, don’t touch that - No!’

Many miles away, stood an old dead tree upon a ghastly ashen hill where the sun did not shine. Within the hill, beneath the tree, stirred a thing from a very long sleep.

Amber was too late. She had barely run two steps before Jack had straightened, turning to her, jewel held up between his finger and thumb, a mischievous smile on his face.

‘Look,’ he said to her, as he glanced around at the otherwise quiet catacomb, ‘it’s fine. Nothing happen. Nobody woke from the dead. We’re safe.’

Nip sunk low on Jack’s shoulder, hanging her head as if embarrassed and let out a long, deep moan.

‘You have no idea what you’ve done, do you?’ said Amber, giving Jack an incredulous glare, ‘Why would you steal from someone’s grave?’

Jack returned a look of an equal incredulous nature. He said, ‘I mean, I’m not stealing it, I’m just taking a closer look.’ He let the gem drop from his finger-and-thumb grip into his hand, where he turned his eyes back down to it as it rolled back and forth, settling in the warm pulp of his palm. ‘I’ve never seen a jewel like this one before. Like, I’ve seen some expensive shit in my time, but nothing like thing.’ He looked at amber again from the tops of his eyes. ‘So what the fuck is it, then?’

‘The fuck?’ Amber confused over the words Jack had used. ‘What is this fuck you speak of?’

Jack sighed, and said, ‘Never mind that, it’s just a word of slang, you know, a cuss. I just wanna know what this gem is.’

Amber considered this, remaining quiet for a time while she too stared at the gem. It looked like she was about to say nothing and maybe even walk away when she suddenly blurted out the answer –

‘It’s not a gem! I mean it is, but it is not in the typical sense of the word. It is called an Escion. It belongs to a….’ she paused, as if afraid to speak the word, ‘…it belongs to a… beast. A thing. An ancient… thing. And it is going to be wanting it back. This escion was placed here at this man’s grave for a reason.’ The more she spoke, the more she thought about the situation, and the angrier she seemed to be getting. Her face was red with rage before she finished her speech and then turned and walked away. ‘You don’t have any clue of what you have just unleashed upon the world!’

‘I feel like you might be exaggerating,’ Jack called after Amber. ‘You make it sound like I just killed everyone.’

‘You very well may have,’ said Amber as she took the torch back up off the floor and marched towards the exit of the chamber. ‘And you might as well keep escion now, since you want it so bad, the Thing will be hunting down you and your stupid scent now anyway! And for Arikites sake, keep your voice down before you wake the dead as well!’

‘You’re the one yelling…’ he mumbled, then turned his vague expression to Nip, who had her eyes closed as if sleeping, but not looking as content as she usually did.

‘Are you actually pretending to sleep?’ he asked her.

One eye slivered open to peek at him, then quickly closed again. No other response.

‘Right….’ said Jack, deciding to pocket the gem in his jeans, and then walked after Amber who had already left the chamber.

Mikeal had been traveling for near two days from the town where he lived, and was only half a day from arriving at the home of his family when he saw the wolf. The wolf seemed to be alone, its pack gone, which would have been odd had it not been severely injured.

It lay by the road, body hidden in the grass beside the tree line, its head lay revealed on the edge of the road, eyes heavy, hurt, frightened, yet displaying a glimmer of hope when it saw Mikeal. He had compassion on the animal immediately.

After quickly thinking the situation over, and being sure the rest of pack was not nearby, and since his compassion for the animal grew stronger, Mikeal rushed to its aid.

It seemed that the wolf was in no condition to attack, too weak to even snap like a wounded animal often would. It simply whimpered softly, twitching some, eyes falling closed while Mikeal caressed its head, its neck, slowly searching its body for a wound that may have been the cause of the animals suffering. But there was none. No blood, no sign of broken bones. Nothing. In fact, the animal, aside from behaving as if it were injured, appeared to be in perfectly fine health.

‘What is it, boy?’ said Mikeal, in a low, soothing tone.

It was then that the wolf lifted its head from the road, slowly bending its neck to regard Mikeal. Its eyes were no longer heavy, frightened or hurt. They were wide, glaring, and glowing a hot and furious red as it pulled back its lips to reveal its teeth with a sharp reverberating growl.

Mikeal, filled instantly with fear, attempted to back away, scuttling and slipping on the dirt and grass in his effort to escape. But it was far too late.