The walk back to the Cloud Clan’s hunting camp gave them time to telepathically talk while they seemed to walk in silence. No one really wanted to talk to Larryt, and he didn’t seem to have anything to say. Somewhere during the walk, he even vanished, though Sophia could feel his aura and knew he was still present. He’d simply allowed his Mistform to take over.

  Sophia got to hear all about the new skills; Dav’s and Amy’s were basically what Larryt had described, while Taika’s were all illusions except for the last one, which was some kind of protective Ability for others’ minds, probably to protect against things like Spirit Shriek.

  Amy shared what she knew about Grand Spells and Grand Abilities, which honestly wasn’t much. What Sophia had gathered from the Wanderer covered most of it; you collected Fragments, which you then put together into a personally-customized Grand Spell or Grand Ability that effectively became an additional category. You could never buy Fragments, but there was some way to learn them that didn’t involve Challenges. She’d heard legends of people with more than one Grand Spell or Grand Ability, but she’d always thought they were simply myths.

  Well, other than the Patron of Magic. She was supposed to know all of the Grand Spells and yet she rarely shared them.

  When Sophia tried to ask more, Amy changed the subject to their negotiations with the Cloud Clan. No one objected to the idea that Amy should be the one to negotiate with them. Her proposal that they should sell the Cord of Spirit Ice, on the other hand, brought a question from Dav.

  “Are you sure it’s worth selling it?” Dav frowned and glanced at Amy. “It seems like it would be a good way to get out of a tight spot.”

  “I’m not so sure. Do you want to try to cut it while you’re in a hurry? I don’t think that’ll be easy.” Amy shook her head.

  Sophia grinned to herself. This had to look off to Larryt, since it was all silent as far as he could tell. She was happy to see it; they hadn’t spent as much time practicing the telepathy as they should. They needed to be used to listening for the messages and responding using silently, even under stress.

  Sophia knew she wasn’t as good at that as she should be.

  “I thought I’d try to cut the ribbon, where it goes flat,” Dav answered. “Surely we can get something made that will do it easily?”

  “The spirit trap part will be worth more here than they would be elsewhere,” Amy countered. The fact that she didn’t answer Dav’s question was an implicit admission that yes, they probably could get something made. “They regularly send people into a spirit-infested city.”

  Sophia decided it was time to pitch in. On Dav’s side, of course. “Where they kill the spirits, not capture them. They can’t use the bit where they get sent to the spirit world as an escape either, not with hostile spirits there. I’m not sure it will sell for more here than elsewhere. Also, do we really need the money?”

  “Not yet,” was Dav’s answer. “We might when we get to Izel, especially if we can’t get access to anywhere to earn more fairly quickly.”

  Amy took longer to think. They were nearly back at the Cloud Clan’s hunting camp when she made her request. “I can look into it and we can decide once we know what they’ll offer, at least if I think it’s any good. How does that sound?”

  Dav and Sophia agreed easily. Taika didn’t seem to care one way or the other. Amy was going to be negotiating the sale of the information they’d gained on the Challenge, after all; there was no reason she shouldn’t see if they could get more out of them. They probably weren’t going to get what the information was worth, between the fact that Larryt already knew some of it and the fact that someone obviously already knew the Challenge could give out Spirit Ice Crystals, not to mention the fact that they didn’t plan to stay for long to negotiate.

  It was still worth trying; they’d surely be interested in the fact that there was more than one Ability available in the Spring pavilion, as well as the variations they’d managed to obtain from the other seasons. Amy was also going to try to get something by talking about the way they climbed the waterfall, but she wasn’t sure it would actually be worth much.

  Sophia tried to stay out of the negotiations, but Dav sat in on them to support Amy. He told her that evening that he didn’t have to do much; his presence and the occasional comment was enough to keep Rhianne and Hinraeth, the two Cloud Clan members negotiating with Amy, from ganging up on her. That was all Amy needed.

  It seemed that the information was worth more than Amy expected, but the Cord of Spirit Ice was worth far less than she hoped. Overall, the deal was good: an escort all the way to Izel who knew the route and wasn’t Larryt. Amy also managed to get them to offer a slot into any of the Cloud Clan’s Stable Challenges, even all of them if they wanted to stick around. That was a huge gift, but she was pretty sure it wasn’t because of her superior negotiating skills; in fact, she was pretty sure that they wanted to see if the group would figure out anything about the other Stable Challenges. They might have to trade for the information afterwards, but that would still be worth it.

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  They weren’t going to stay to try the Challenges. Amy wanted to get home before her brother left. She had no idea when that would be, but it could be any time. It was autumn already and that was a good time to travel into the Wildlands. He might already be gone.

  They left the following morning. Their guide was an older, weathered man who introduced himself as Irrik. He was clearly Called; the blue pendant he wore revealed his connection to the Registry. He didn’t talk about himself and no one asked. He seemed completely unlike Larryt, serious and calm.

  It probably helped that he never disappeared from sight. As far as he was concerned, he was their guide; that meant they needed to be able to find him. The other way he differed from Larryt was far less obvious to everyone but Sophia: he had some limited control of his aura. She could tell roughly how powerful he was, and she suspected he’d be able to hold his own against the four of them fairly easily.

  Sophia was pretty sure that meant he was past his second upgrade, not just his first the way Larryt was. Larryt didn’t really feel much stronger than Dav did.

  Two days later, they could see the Olhan ruins, the place where the Challenge Seed for the Spirits of the Woods dungeon came from. They never got close enough to do more than see the partially collapsed walls and spires in the distance, but it still gave a different feeling from seeing a mountain. It was smaller and somehow sadder.

  By then, they were out of the woods and into strange mountainous territory, following the old path that had to have once been train tracks even though nothing was left other than a pair of rails and a dirt trail. It wound around the mountain near Olhan before it vanished, buried under a decades-old landslide. Irrik told them that it was still there, but there was no point in trying to get to it. More of the mountain fell every few years.

  He also said that it was safe at the moment; the slides happened when there was bad weather, and the weather had been clear near the mountain for a tenday. They would have gone a different route if the weather were worse.

  Sophia felt like she spent the entire time they were on the mountain staring at it, watching for an avalanche. Every time she looked down, she thought she heard something move higher on the slope and her attention flipped back up there until she forced it back down to watch where her horse was going.

  It was exhausting, even though crossing the area prone to landslides didn’t actually take that long. It was a huge relief when they reached an area that still had the pair of tracks that indicated it was the old road. Sophia didn’t know how reassuring that was until they were there. It didn’t matter to her that it wasn’t the same old road as they’d followed towards the mountain; the two routes met in Olhan, but Irrik wanted to avoid the ruins and kept them closer to the mountain.

  With Irrik’s guidance, they rarely saw anything more hostile than a creature hunting for its dinner. Sophia wanted to think the land was peaceful, like back home, but Irrik’s tales around the evening campfires said that peaceful was not the right word. Autumn was the best time to travel; food was plentiful and nothing was desperate enough to attack them when they were in a group, seemed large, and had Irrik displaying his status.

  Well, nothing other than some mice that scattered when they were found. It was almost funny; the mice were normal animals that clearly survived by being opportunistic and breeding quickly, even though they were surrounded by far stronger predators. They couldn’t feel the aura so it didn’t bother them.

  Days passed after they left the Cloud Clan’s hunting camp. Every fourth day, they stopped to hunt for food; they carried rations, but Irrik wanted to use as little of that as possible. He didn’t think they’d get snowed in on the road, but that was apparently possible any time after the leaves changed color.

  Irrik turned out to be a surprisingly good cook with only what they were able to forage in the local area. His duck with local greens was particularly good; it didn’t have the oily texture Sophia had run into with some fowl, and it also was deliciously crispy and not dry at all. She had no idea how he managed that over a campfire and suspected he might be using some sort of Ability. If he was, she wasn’t about to complain.

  It was a long time to spend on the road. Sophia had spent longer, but she couldn’t recall any time where that travel was in near-wilderness like this, especially if it was along an ancient route. Most places she’d traveled had at least some villages along trade routes, and that was what she’d traveled along in the past.

  Apparently there was no real regular trade route from the Cloud Clan lands to Izel. People obviously traveled it since Irrik knew the route, but it was obviously uncommon. They hadn’t seen anyone else making the long trek either way. There might be another route, but Sophia suspected the real answer was that the Cloud Clan simply didn’t go to Izel very often.

  After all, why would they?

  The lack of roads meant that the Skylands weren’t well integrated and probably didn’t have a central authority that could control them, but that was consistent with everything she’d heard about them.

  Twelve days after they left the Olhan ruins behind, fourteen days after leaving the Cloud Clan campsite, it began to snow as the sun grew lower in the sky. The road stretched ahead of them towards a solitary mountain that rose into the sky. Most of the trees still held their leaves, but Sophia wasn’t sure how long that would last.

  Please don’t ask about all of the belts on Irrik’s clothing. AI generators really like weird belts that don’t connect properly. If I have time at some point, I’ll go in and edit the image to clean it up, but …. For now we have extraneous straps.