The dream felt as lucid as ever, and Jay lost the ability to distinguish between reality and the dream.

A heavy torrent of rain bucketed down on Jay’s head while a jet of mud assaulted him, flowing from somewhere up the hill he found himself lying by.

“Wh- what the fuck…”

Looking up the hill, he saw a familiar sight. It was the adventurer association.

“Oh please.. no…” he said hopelessly, as he thought he had escaped this place.

Immediately anger churned in his heart when he laid eyes on the edge of the muddy road above. He remembered this day vividly.

“Fuck you…” he grit his teeth in anger, remembering the rage he felt as he stood up.

*KAW!~*

Jay jumped in fright, the cry seemed to send a shockwave through his body.

A silver-white raven was perched above him on a nearby rock.

It both seemed familiar and unfamiliar, as a thought flashed through his mind.

“Wasn’t it smaller… before… before?” he raised a brow.

Jay started shivering as it was like his body just remembered the coldness of that day, the chill seeping into his bones.

*KAW!~*

Suddenly he was shocked awake with a heavy, deep breath as he sat up straight in his bed.

He ignored a notification as he quickly looked at his surroundings, scanning for threats.

No movement in the forest.

The morning sunlight greeted him.

Nearby, Asra was wrapped inside the noon-leather blanket, motionless.

Blue was still standing guard over him.

Despite the feeling of danger, he was safe.

For now.

“What a strange dream…” he thought.

“That damn… white bird…”

Having an odd sense of repeating the past, or as if having a premonition, he pulled out one of the white-silvery feathers he had and gazed at it.

He had zero doubts it was from the same bird, and it was almost like he knew. Somehow.

Today, something about the feather was different as he looked at it in the sunlight.

The silvery flecks he once saw in it disappeared under the sunlight. Pulling out the second feather he found the same to be true.

They now just seemed like white feathers – though still pristine and majestic in their own right.

Jay decided to analyze them as he lay there, twirling it in the morning light.

<[Ritual Companion Feather]>

[Waking Wrath]

– (Hidden through sacrifice)

– Created by (Hidden through sacrifice)

Jay sat there for a moment, feeling quite foolish for not analyzing these sooner as these were no ordinary feathers.

“Someone made these feathers… or at least modified them.” he thought, but he realized that when he found them, it was far too much of a coincidence.

“Then they used a feather… and guided me to Asra? By why?”

Immediately, he grew suspicious. Paranoid.

Looking around in the forest again, he suddenly felt like he was being watched.

Was someone trying to guide him? To Jay, it seemed like another form of control.

Perhaps it was merely an elaborate trap. Some awful convoluted ruse, perhaps to get them both killed.

Maybe this was Asra’s doing, or at least someone who wanted her back at Luna. Someone powerful.

Then there was the part about sacrifice, and the details being hidden.

Jay had never even heard of sacrifice magic, much less hearing of someone able to alter an item’s description.

The only comparison he could draw was either the disguise stone he had from a dungeon, and the enchanted boots he received from Sullivan which were in another language – though neither of them were hidden.

The only clues were that it came from a ‘ritual companion’ – whatever that was, and the other clue was the name of an effect: waking wrath.

“Waking wrath… could it have to do with dreams?” he pursed his lips.

For a moment he wondered if they were simply meant to give him nightmares, but he guessed that it would have happened more regularly by now.

Both of the feathers had the same traits, practically identical.

Jay considered if he should throw the feathers away. They seemed almost like cursed objects, and his paranoia was telling him to.

Though he couldn’t shake off a strange feeling of familiarity.

So far, however, they had led him to Asra which opened up an opportunity, as well as given him a strange dream.

“Maybe there are some answers in the dream?” he wondered.

Finally, he made a decision.

“If they try to mess with my dreams again, I will burn them…” he stashed them away.

Next, he gazed around the dense forest, then tried to peer through the tree tops into the skies.

The one dropping these feathers around would have to show up at some point anyway.

Handy was then sent to scout around Jay in a perimeter, dashing through the forest with the speed of the dead.

This would be its duty while Jay spent the next thirty minutes waking up, drinking and eating, thinking about the dream, and preparing for the journey ahead. Meanwhile Sweeper was already made to pull out all the bone spikes and gather them; Jay’s defensive spike wall was soon being pulled up.

Jay idly added the spikes to his gauntlet as necrotic blueprints while he sat by the fire, warming up in the crisp morning air.

The paranoid mood he was in after the dream was wearing off, and seeing his skeleton streak around between the ancient trees like a nightmare creature itself gave him some comfort; a sense of security.

Jay had Blue and Red prepare the throne, glad that Asra didn’t ask to be carried on the throne.

Out of the both of them, he would definitely have the more comfortable journey – though to prevent her from asking for the throne treatment he decided to modify the sleeping spot he had created.

It was the rectangular slab of bone. He decided he would have her carried on top.

There wasn’t much to be done to make it different – he simply added some bones around the edges to stop Asra from rolling or sliding off.

It became sort of like a bone crib, albeit human sized.

The only problem would be if Heavy and Handy would be strong enough to carry it. Asra by herself had been almost too much to carry for Handy by itself, so Jay had some doubts.

If it wasn’t possible, they would just have to carry her normally – but if she asked for the throne then Jay could simply stash the chair in his inventory before she would awaken, saying he lost it or some other lie.

Asra would have no choice but to believe it too, as he was supposedly compelled to tell the truth.

One always needed a backup plan to keep their throne sacred.

A part of Jay was looking forward to messing with her in ways like this.

After sufficiently waking up and packing up camp, Jay left nothing behind but some charred bits of burnt wood, which would soon wash away into the gaps of the roots.

The bone spikes, crucible, and platform had all been pulled back into the necrotic ring.

Around the same time Jay was ready, Lamp had returned, though it came back empty handed as it didn’t have enough time to hunt, though Jay wasn’t too bothered.

He had enough food to last for a few days and only had one mouth to feed. Technically.

Jay ascended to his throne again, while Asra was carried by Handy and Heavy. Thankfully they were strong enough to carry both Asra and the rectangle bone carrier.

The party of eight began their march over the veil of roots again, though Jay’s mind drifted to the strange dream.

“That bird… I’m sure it was smaller before, and it woke me up back then too…” he wondered.

“How could I remember it bigger unless it grew bigger and somehow entered my dream… or at least influenced it?”

“Oh yeah… I received a notification after waking up.”

[Your skeleton has been slain]

“Fuck.”

Every skeleton was accounted for but one.

Dark was dead.

“March faster.” he immediately commanded his skeletons.

Jay had ignored the notification as he thought he was in danger, looking for threats in the morning forest, and got caught up with the dream and the feather.

He had completely forgotten to check this notification.

It turned out that there was a threat, lurking somewhere far away in the hollow forest.

Though they were still quite far away, the mage hunters would always be a cause for concern as they were simply relentless.

Despite having inhuman endurance and travel speed, it felt like they were still as close as ever.

Jay wondered if they would continue to chase him through the wilderness or give up at some point.

For some reason, he doubted the latter, though wondered just how much his death was worth to them.

Unbeknownst to Jay, the pursuit by the mage hunters was unrelenting due to one thing: the prophecy. The prophecy of a new king, death, skeletons, and a necromancer.

For now though, Jay just thought that the mage hunters were quite dutiful, perhaps even as duty-bound as his skeletons.

He had no idea that entire divisions of these unstoppable warriors had been dispatched to claim his head.

With Dark dead, it was time to summon it again.

Jay paused the march for a moment and checked Asra’s blanket, making sure it was sealed shut – then sent Heavy and Handy forward, carrying her away.

Next, he created a bone pile and re-summoned Dark.

Gazing at the skeleton for a moment, he wondered how he would get information out of it.

“I’m going to need a debriefing…” he sent a thought, gazing at his little assassin.

He then re-crafted it some bone daggers, but the skeleton continued to give Jay a strange look, one of longing… and hunger.

“Oh, right. You levelled up.” Jay smiled.

It would take a while so Jay decided to continue travelling on his throne.

Jay began feeding Dark the bones it required, handing them to it one by one.

The sounds of crunching bone were mostly covered up by the clinking of the skeletons, and Asra was carried further ahead, so there was little chance she would hear anything suspicious.

In all this, Jay was making sure that he would be underestimated – she currently thought he only had six skeletons after all.

After Dark was finished eating, he then looked at the nimble skeleton thoughtfully.

He wanted a debriefing, yet the skeleton could not talk.

“Hmm… I guess you’ll just have to act it out?” he thought.

Jay had his throne stop again while Asra kept moving. He would catch up later.

“Now, time for a play…” he thought, “but first, some actors.”

The skeleton he would choose was obvious.

“Alright… Sweeper. You’re going to be part of my little play.”

“Dark, you’re in charge. Show us what happened.”