The storm stalled our progress for most of our second day of travel. We spent hours hunkering down in our tents and the evening was spent recovering from the harrowing sensation. But from then on our journey through the Borderlands was straightforward.

  On the third day we ran into a small group of vagabonds roaming the area, skirting along the outskirts of civilization between Wystole and Beornia. They wanted no trouble from us, and we weren't inclined to cause any with them. We weren't exactly innocent ourselves.

  That afternoon, as we waded through a field of waist-high grasses, Olivia finally decided to ask where we were headed. It mattered little to her, since she was expecting the imminent collapse of her livelihood and home anyways, but hours trekking through the wilderness stir questions and concerns in people that would otherwise never pierce into the realm of conscious thought.

  Drifter, to my surprise, was the one who answered: "Mount Bromid."

  For many people, that destination would prompt numerous questions about the Contest, about goals, about suitability, about what it all means. Olivia, on the other hand, clarified, "I mean on the other side of the wastelands. Bromid is... pretty far south."

  "We're tentatively aiming for Galverton," Orwyn chimed in, "Although depending on how well we can stay on track we have a few other options. I know people in the villages of Percy and Flower Hills who would let us rest for a spell, to say nothing of the other towns in the area."

  "And from Galverton on to Howitzer, I'm guessing?"

  "Probably. Who knows whether we'll become persona non grata in all of Fionne before then." A couple of eyes certainly passed over Drifter and I just then, I felt it, though I did not catch them in the act.

  The wind picked up in the evening, clearing the skiff of clouds away just as the sun was setting. Borin assured me it was normal weather, not magical, and to stop being such a worrywart.

  Our fourth day was marked by a feast of sorts. As we passed through a stand of trees, not wanting to veer too far north or south to avoid them, a coubear leapt from a tree and pinned Borin to the ground, reaching for his neck with its teeth as it did so. Borin was a bad target, though, as he not only held the strength to brace himself against the coubear's neck to hold it away from him, but he was also walking beside Drifter at the time, who quickly dispatched the beast.

  Coubear is lean and gamey meat, but Borin butchered it on the spot and Damien wrapped it with herbs in his pack to cover the gamey flavour with a variety of other tastes. We stopped early that evening - early enough that some would call it the afternoon - to allow Damien and Orwyn to stew the meat for a few hours, giving the proteins time to fall apart and the vegetables time to mellow the strength of the herbs. It was the best meal I'd had in days.

  The following evening was marked by a lecture from Orwyn and Borin on the dangers we would likely encounter in the Black Desert. The terrain was one thing, glass that could be jagged or slick depending on its age, and it wasn't always easy to tell in the light or dark; difficult to identify reflective terrain that focused the sun to burn a person in minutes, though few of those dangers remained; and, of course, humans, which were rare but also taking the only reasonable path open to life.

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  "Normally the path through the Black Desert is only taken by the roughest sorts, dangerous mercenary and assassin groups with the strength to survive the dangers and the notoriety to bar them from normal routes. They aren't inherently interested in others, but there is little a normal group can do to stop them if they decide to cause trouble.

  "Then there are the storms, of course. We all experienced a mild magical storm a couple of days ago, ("Mild?" Olivia called out to no response) but they can get much worse in the desert. We also can't always stake down our tents effectively, so there may be times where we have to run for a while as the storm picks up in order to find a place to hunker down. Like before, no one leaves until I say so. Sometimes the storms come in waves, so it's not unheard of to open your tent and immediately have a hunk of glass carving through your face." At that, Damien and I paled.

  Borin took over, adding "There are serious non-magical storms coming from the Blasting Mountains to the east as well, of course. The volcanoes cause all sorts of crazy weather systems to pop up out of nowhere, and they tend to pick of steam coming down the mountain until there's practically a hurricane bearing down on us. We treat them similarly to magical storms for simplicity, although the risk is being choked out by ash, smoke, and sheer air pressure rather than cut apart by debris."

  "Oh, and of course," Orwyn cheerfully continued, "If Durin is awake and stumbles into us, either Drifter saves us or we die." We all looked to the stoic man whose only response was to shrug.

  I think that was his idea of humour, because I was fairly certain he would do his best to save us. Fairly certain.

  The lecture continued with strange dangerous beasts, odd geographical anomalies we would probably encounter, and even the odd temperature shifts as the magic and ash fought to amplify and hide the sun. There was no way to keep it all in mind at all times, but as Orwyn said, "Just listen to me and Borin and you'll probably survive."

  It ended with Orwyn's note on the most undesirable event: veering off course. "We need to stay in the Black Desert as well as we can. The Blasting Mountains are almost literally impassable. It has all the dangers of the Black Desert to differing extents, but with the addition of lava flowing like water and thick smoke choking the air, among others. If we need to leave for some gods-forsaken reason, we go west into the Plains of Shattered Glass, where we pray to the old gods and the new that the storms are mild. As they leave the plains they lose steam quickly, but within the plains we simply pray that we aren't lifted off our feet by the wind."

  Now properly terrified, we went to sleep, none of us excited to enter the wastelands the next day. As we went to our tents I heard Olivia muttering her regrets, debating the dangers of a city in revolt against the worst abuses of mother nature. I had no advice to give her.