Following the team inside, I saw that someone had cleared an area for us to sit and talk without disturbing anyone. We sat down and before I even got started, Sslaras blurted out:

  ”By the dead gods Mike! What happened! How did you escape? I told Jack that he shouldn’t count you out yet! Didn’t I Jack? Tell him what I said Jack! We are so happy to see you again!”

  All the while slapping my back like he was trying to make sure I was real.

  Jack looked exasperated at Sslaras, then smiled at me and said, “true enough, he wouldn’t shut up about you” . We all shared a little chuckle at that and I could almost feel the tension drain out of us.

  I smiled and started a retelling of the night of the raid, and what had happened after I got captured and woke up in the archive. Here Nelly interjected that Sslaras had been miserable with guilt over just going to bed after the shift, instead of waiting for me to come in. That made me feel good, knowing that someone had been worried about me!

  I told Sslaras not to be silly, he had nothing to be sorry for! Then I continued the story with how I had explored the tunnels with the periodic lights, and how I had eventually found Frino and how my adventure almost ended there by his ambush.

  They had a hard time seeing Frino, as someone that could pull off an ambush. But that was nothing to their reaction, when I told them how he had literally crushed a woodwraiths head!

  Barlo hooted and Jack had to clamp a hand over his mouth, so as not to wake the sleeping lumberjacks… Although truth be told, I don’t think anyone was really sleeping, they were all trying to hear the story.

  Then we came to the guardian of the archive. Here I told a heavily curated story, nothing false as such. The guardian was failing due to age and looking for a replacement. That is why the attacks were increasing on the camp, he was getting desperate, but I did not tell them about the memories or the nature of the facility and I embellished Frino’s contributions to make him shine even more than he already did. After all I had to be sure he cast a large shadow I could hide in.

  When I told them about Frino’s sacrifice they all had tears in their eyes, even Moll who had managed to trade his guard duty just in time to hear about Frino’s fate. After that I took Nelly and Barlo aside, saying that Frino’s last words were for them only.

  The tears flowed freely, and then Barlo got angry, lashing out at me, asking why Frino would sacrifice himself for me? I had to tell them that Frino had been infected by the woods when I found him and this was his way of seeing something good come from something bad, a last way to help his friends…

  I was so tired, I nearly snapped at Barlo, but he was entitled to his grief and I could understand his anger. Nelly took him outside, I hoped knowing that Frino had been infected and had chosen his own way to go out made sense for him and would give him some closure.

  Finally it was time to get some sleep, Stalker, always being the smarter one of us two, had already found my old bunk and curled up under it. As I lay down all the little aches hit me as my muscles relaxed, and I idly wondered as I fell asleep if I could raise my vitality to a degree where exhaustion was nonexistent.

  … I was back in the room where I found the mural and the necklaces. The room had been restored, murals adorning the walls, telling a story, but there was no time to see what they depicted. Deggan, Torle and Jack were also here and I was jumping around trying to prevent them from seeing the murals.

  They stopped at a mural, Deggan angrily, “What is this? a painting of the gate? are you a gatelover Mike?” I quickly jumped in front of the mural and without looking, and lying, “You are seeing that wrong Deggan, that is not a gate, it is an arch, they are building the future! No gatelovers here! Not at all!”

  ... WAKE UP …

  Deggan and Jack looked doubtful, but Torle nodded and started braying loudly, looking confused and offended at the noise coming from his mouth. I tried to get them into the middle of the room, where there was a sofa group and a little table with food, including one of those covered trays.

  The little pins in the fingerfood were fashioned like the gate necklaces, they hadn't seen it yet, so to divert attention I removed the cover from the tray with a grand flourish and revealed Stalker!

  … DANGER WAKE UP …

  Deggan and Jack started to attack me with the gate pins, piercing skin when they struck…

  The pain finally woke me up!

  The pain jolted me wide awake, and the first thing I noticed was the blade in my stomach, the next was a guard, snarling, pulling the blade out to strike again!

  “Shit” I thought, “They have found out about the murals and everything!”

  I heard Stalker emoting defend, bait and prepare to me and a calm fell over me, removing the last of the cobwebs of sleep from my mind. I was aware that Stalker was using some sort of ability on me, and also that he was actively fighting the guard.

  You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

  I managed to catch the hand on the way down for another strike with the dagger and now I could see that the guard was Kwanlo, he was hissing, spittle hitting my face, “You killed her! She came back to me… and you you you butchered HER!” The hiss ended in a shout and I could hear confused shouting, at first shouting “Go back to sleep” and then increasingly others shouting for help and raising the alarm.

  As I was struggling to hold the dagger away from me, I could see his eyes, filled with tears, rage and pain, his face contorted almost to a caricature of the guard I had seen a few days ago. Stalker was attacking Kwanlos back and legs, I was holding his hand back for now, but he was stronger and the dagger was slowly but surely being pushed down…

  Suddenly he disappeared from the top of me, as a scaled shadow flew over my bed, the struggle changed as more and more came to help Sslaras with subduing Kwanlo. During it all he was shouting curses at me, blaming me for his wife's death and threatening to kill me.

  As he was being dragged out of the barracks, Nelly came over to me and tended to my wound, luckily the dagger had missed anything vital, but had it not been for Stalker and Sslaras things might have looked a lot grimmer! I was struck again by how violent this world was, even here in the sleeping barracks of a friendly camp, on the eve of celebration danger was present.

  Afterwards as I was lying on my bunk again, nursing my wound, thanks to my pain resistance the pain was manageable. I briefly wondered what would happen to Kwanlo. I could understand his grief and it must have been absolute terror to see his wife like that and then see me brutally chop her down… But frankly, I couldn't really drum up much sympathy this night, I was too tired, but still too pumped with adrenalin to fall asleep.

  I was almost certain that the memories of his wife would have been preserved in the Ghostwood facility. Maybe it would bring him some measure of peace, if I told him that some part of her would stay in the world? Then again maybe not and he did not strike me as the most stable guy, so odds were he would tell others about it… No, I couldn’t take that chance right now… I felt a little shitty about it, but finally exhaustion hit and I fell asleep.

  The next morning came all too fast, a sentiment shared with most of the other workers in the barrack, judging from the groans, yawns and general sluggishness. After breakfast in the mess hall, it was time to go with my lumber crew. We were still behind schedule, so even though I had just been stabbed in the stomach, the wound was healing fine, so I had no excuse to stay behind.

  At least I got to experience the rare sight of Deggan and his lieutenants suiting up for work as well, not gonna lie, it made my day a bit brighter thinking about Deggan sweating away chopping wood!

  The trip out was spent talking and joking, it was as if I had both been away a hundred years and not even an hour. effortless, companionable and an illusion… I could feel their eyes on me, when they thought I wasn’t looking, I could almost see how they wanted to ask what really happened, surely I had not told everything, had there been riches of some kind? After all there almost always were, when someone successfully conquered an archive.

  It was a bit annoying and hurtful, but to be fair I was holding stuff back from them. Had I been in their shoes I probably also would have tried to get some juicy tidbit from the adventure. After all the camp was like a tiny tiny village, filled with gossip and talk and time.

  The day was not over before I learned that Kwanlo had been kicked out of the camp, fighting among the workers was not uncommon, but trying to murder people was frowned upon. So I might not ever get a chance to talk to him and clear the air.

  There had also not been any attack during the night, too early to celebrate as everyone, literally everyone, told me. Yet, there was a newfound hope, I saw it in the smiles, in the way they carried themselves, it was as if a siege had been lifted.

  An unexpected thing happened later that night after dinner, when Torle pulled me aside and gave me a leather backpack. It wasn’t new, but wellmade, and it looked like it would serve me well on trips out of the camp. He did it in the mess hall and said he had packed some good stuff just for me and Stalker, as a welcome back gift.

  Opening it I saw a few choice pieces of jerky for Stalker, some fruit! for me and the real price… My old waterlogged journal from the underground study and my two skull bowls! In all that had happened I had totally forgotten about my first book from Limbo!

  Surprised, I hugged Torle and said, “Thank you!” the old goatman leaned into the hug, and whispered, “Old Torle kept those safe, when you went missing.” He patted my back a few times and continued, “There have been questions about you, not everyone is buying Frino as the hero.”

  Making a show out of taking some jerky out for Stalker and an apple for me, I nodded and said, “thank you Torle” holding up the backpack “this means alot to me” and looking down to Stalker I smiled and added, “and to my friend here as well”

  As I left the mess hall and went back to the barrack I could feel eyes following me, some with hope and admiration and some with jealousy and calculation.

  I shifted my Echo skill to politics and felt the surprising aura of an elderly woman, holding a village in an iron grip of influence settle upon me. It would seem that I had underestimated the potential danger from the regular workers. They were happy enough that the danger from the forest stopped, but that feeling of security could encourage some of the more ambitious types to look at me as a juicy target…

  I needed either a decisive show of force that discouraged any idea of an attack on me or I needed to ally myself with a power here in camp, like Deggan. My power was not really flashy, so this was another reason I would have to put up with Deggan.

  I was not totally naive, even without the politics skill I knew that Deggan would be using me for his own agenda. I was sure that if he ever thought that I was worth more dead than alive and he was certain it could be done with little to no risk… Well then we would find out how fast I could run.

  Tired from the night and the day's hard work I decided to go to bed early, who knew if something interrupted my sleep again. When I came to my bunk, I saw something had changed, Sslaras was still my neighbour I recognized his messy stuff, but I did not recognize the stuff on the beds around us, they had changed owners…