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Description
The rain slowly stopped, the sound of the water drops hitting the window vanishing as the sky cleared once again. The little girl was standing on her toes to see outside the window, her warm breath becoming faint fog.
Her eyes gazed through the water-covered fields, her nose becoming colder as it touched the cold glass of the window.

“Kathy, come here, dear…” her mother muttered from her bed.

The little girl ran to her mother’s bed, climbing into it as her mother wrapped her in the thick sheets.

“It’s too cold; you may catch a cold,” her mother said, brushing the girl’s dark hair off her face.

“I’m not cold,” the little girl said.

The two remained in silence as the mother drifted off to sleep, but the girl couldn’t close her eyes. When her mother slept, she silently climbed off the bed and grabbed a book she had placed next to the bed the previous day. She walked to the window, opening the book to a page she had memorized before.

Drawings of the ocean and vast waters filled the page of the book, along with some handwriting that the girl made herself. Once again, she lifted her body to see through the window, her hands clutching the book close to her chest.

“Where is the sea?” Katherine muttered to herself as she kept trying to find the oceans her book spoke about, the ones she had never seen.

“Where is the sea?”

---

“Where are we?”
Daniel sat on a tree log, swiping his red hair off his face and cleaning the sweat off it with his sleeve. Katherine sat beside him, going through her bag and pulling a roll of paper from it. Unrolling it, she stared at it, her frown becoming more apparent by the second.

“I’m not sure,” she said, but before she could say anything else, Daniel took the map out of her hands and stared at it with a puzzled expression.

“Not sure? How can you not be sure? How hard is it to read a map?”

“The problem is, there have been very few people that actually went to these areas.” Katherine grabbed the map back, rolling it up once again and putting it away.

“And even fewer cared to document their travels.”

Daniel gave an exasperated sigh, running his fingers through his hair to stave off frustration.

“How do we even know if we are going the right direction? We could be going the opposite way for all we know.”

“We may not know where exactly we are, but I am positive we are going in the right direction.”

“How do you know that?”

“The mayor told me that the Ancestor told them that the gates aligned way north. We haven’t stopped going north ever since we left the town.”

“Oh,” Daniel replied as Katherine outsmarted him, a small smile appearing on her face which was immediately followed by Daniel’s laughter.

“You think I would get us lost in the middle of the forest? Daniel, I’m hurt.” She smiled as she raised her arms in an overdramatic fashion, standing up in front of Daniel.

“Wounded, even?”

“Wounded, even; I thought we were friends!”

“I don’t know! You tell me!” The young man stood up with his hands up in the air dramatically, over-exaggerating his facial movements and posture.

Katherine chuckled loudly; she felt safe whenever she was with Daniel and the feeling was mutual. They had known each other since they were children and had become closer since, easily knowing each other’s secrets and fears.
Katherine lifted her arms to make a dramatic fake rebuttal to Daniel’s playful offense, but her smile died out as her eyes drifted to the ground, remembering the reason she was there. The young woman sighed and shook her head. “We must go,” she muttered.

Daniel stared at Katherine as she started to walk, his smile vanishing as well as he quickly walked to catch up with her.

“You know we can turn back,” he almost whispered, not looking at Katherine as he said it.

“Don’t start,” Katherine replied, closing her eyes and walking nonstop.
“I have to do this.”

---

There were many things he missed about the ocean: the waves, the breeze, the sound of his footsteps on the creaking wood. But the thing Tomdril missed the most was its smell. The forest had its own smell, completely different from the one he was so fond of, and it wasn’t the only difference.
Tomdril was lost in unfamiliar terrain; he knew the ocean and how to travel it, but the trees and the mountains made it all confusing for him. Having never spent much time away from shore, he could only wander north and pray for the best.

“Wouldn’t mind finding a barrel full of rum or somethin’, you know,” he muttered to himself as he kept walking to the north, pulling an old, small compass from one of his pockets to ensure he was going to the right direction. Or, at least, what he thought was the right direction.

“The lads at the pub did say this gate business was up north.”

The man scratched his head and placed the small compass back in his pocket, continuing onwards through the woods even though everything looked the same to him.

“Ye could at least give me somethin’ warm to eat, yanno’,” he said to the air as he made his way through the bushes and weeds, happily humming to himself as he did so.

“There was a lil’ boy, who got lost in the woods…”

The sounds of the birds chirping became less and less omnipresent as he marched forward, as did the cries of the cicadas in the trees. The air became colder with every step as silence reigned in the woods; the only remaining sounds were those of his footsteps and his breathing. Slowly, the sun began to set, even though it was bright daylight minutes ago.

He didn’t pay attention to any of these changes, his eyes focused on ensuring that he did not trip.

“The lil’ boy cried for his mum,”

He heard what seemed to be the voices of a young woman and man nearby, becoming louder and sounding closer every moment. Tomdril stopped on his tracks as he paid more attention to the approaching voices, smiling as he made sure they were real.

“And I found the lil’ boy.”

---

The darkness of the forest came as a surprise to both Katherine and Daniel, both of them stopping when they realized their surroundings, including the weather, had changed so drastically.

“I-Isn’t it too early for it to be this dark?”

“Yes,” Katherine said as she stared confusedly at the sky. “We still had a couple more hours of sunlight; I don’t understand.”

“It is also cold, don’t you think?” the young man replied, placing himself at Katherine’s side as she kept staring at the sky.

“Colder…” the young woman muttered to herself. She opened her bag, searching its contents and pulling a large book from it. She quickly opened it, going through its pages as fast as she could before stopping on a specific page.

“Katherine…? What’s-“

“The place of Shadows,” she interrupted, quickly observing her surroundings with the book in her hands. “I am almost sure this is the place of Shadows. Did you notice how all the animals went quiet as we kept walking? How everything just seemed to stop in some way as the sky became darker?”

“Yes, I-“

“It’s because it’s the place of Shadows. The people that have been here, all of them say the same things about this place, that the atmosphere just seems darker than the outside area. This…I can’t believe it, we are actually here.”

“Wait, if we are in the place of Shadows, then…” Daniel paused, noticing how enthusiastic Katherine was. She walked around the place with her book opened, staring with wide eyes at every single tree, flower, and bush, not even paying attention to the cold weather or how scary the place was.

“That means the gate-“

“The gate is here.”

“…The gate is here.”

Both fell silent as they came to the realization that their goal was closer than they had thought. Katherine bit her lower lip as she clutched her book to her chest.

“The gate should be in a meadow.” Katherine closed the book in her hands, hiding it away on her bag. “We have to be careful; this place is… treacherous.”

“Treacherous… what do you mean?”

“It, uh, it creates illusions, things that seem to be there but aren’t, and at the same time there are things that are there but that we can’t see. That’s the easy way to explain it.”

Her hand traveled to her sword, touching its hilt with her fingertips as she walked with quick steps towards her goal. Daniel did nothing but follow her, careful of everything on their path and with eyes wide open in case of any surprise.

The minutes that followed were in complete silence, Katherine leading with one arm raised in front of her, cautious of her surroundings. Her other hand sat on the hilt of her sword, prepared for anything she may encounter.

“Don’t you think it’s weird,” Daniel said, as they kept walking through the trees without stopping,
“that we haven’t found any creature or person at all? I thought you said many try to get to the- Oof!”

He softly crashed into an immobile Katherine, who was staring wide-eyed at what seemed to be a dark figure not too far from them. Surrounded by the darkness, the only thing they could make out of the figure was its outline.

“Oh, I jinxed it, didn’t I?” Daniel quietly whispered to himself without taking his eyes off the figure.

The three of them stood in silence for several seconds, the figure not noticing the pair as they tried their hardest to not make a sound. Katherine gently put her hand on Daniel’s stomach, entreating him to retreat silently. He complied, her following just behind
The figure didn’t notice them moving at all, staring instead at a random point in the forest away from them. The moment Katherine accidentally stepped on a branch, however, it seemed to turn towards the loud crack.

“Kathy, what do we do…?” Daniel whispered as silently as possible into Katherine’s ear, her chest rising up and down in indecision. She turned her head to see Daniel’s eyes, which were transfixed on her. He was terrified.

She turned her head back to where the figure should have been, seeing nothing. She gasped loudly, trying not to lose control of her feelings as she reached for her gun. Her breathing became loud and fast as she desperately tried to find the figure again.

“’ello.”

The strange raspy voice took Katherine by surprise, prompting her to fire wildly and fall on her back, knocking Daniel down with her.

“Whoa! Calm down, lil’ lass!” the voice said in a louder and more nervous tone. Katherine opened her eyes to see a tall man standing in front of her, his hands raised to show he wasn’t armed. She couldn’t recognize some of his features due to the darkness, but he seemed like a sailor, down to his worn out clothes and hair full of dreads. His green eyes stood out from his skin and surprised Katherine; she had expected something inhuman.

“Careful with that gun o’ yers, ye can hurt somebody if ye ain’t payin’ attention!”

The man extended one hand to Katherine, offering to help her stand, but she only stared at it as she eyed the man suspiciously

“Not gonna talk to strangers eh?” he said with a smile on his face. “Teenagers, scared to talk to strangers.”

“We are not teen-“

“The name is Tomdril Batynos: sailor, bard, whatever you need,” he interrupted before Daniel could finish his correction. The boy did not how to feel about the man standing in front of them that moment; it was obvious that Katherine did not trust him and was waiting for an opening to attack.

Katherine slowly stood up, grabbing her gun as she rose. Daniel took the cue to stand up himself, positioning himself behind Katherine.

“My name is Katherine Padilla,” she said, without letting go of her gun. Daniel stepped up to introduce himself as well.

“I’m Daniel Stripe.”

“Well, nice to meet ye, Katherine Padilla and Daniel Stripe,” he said, making what seemed to be a greeting gesture to both of them. “What are ye teenagers wanderin’ through the forest for at this hour?”

“We aren’t teenagers!” Daniel answered, somewhat offended by the suggestion. The man squinted his eyes at them, legitimately confused that his predictions might be wrong.

“Really? How old are ye?”

“I’m twenty two- Oof!”

Daniel reeled from Katherine’s elbow strike to his stomach; it took him several seconds to realize he was sharing way too much information to the strange man, causing him to bite his lip and look to the floor.

“Twenty two? Yer still kids in me book,” the man said with a hearty laugh, but stopped when he realized the two youngsters didn’t laugh with him, instead simply staring at him nervously and suspiciously.

“So, what are ye doing here?”

“We are traveling,” Katherine said with no hesitation, observing the man’s body language. “That’s all.”

“Why are you here?” Daniel asked immediately after. The man scratched his chin, trying to find an answer that didn’t sound too crazy.

“Well, the gates are aligned!”

Katherine’s eyes opened slightly in surprise, but Tomdril interpreted this as confusion.

“I am on a quest to become a new god by crossing the gates!”

No matter how hard he tried not to, he ended up sounding pretty insane.
Katherine’s eyes went wide as Daniel crooked his mouth, unsure of what to do next.

“You are… going to cross the gates?” Katherine said with a puzzled expression on her face, trying to hide her surprise at finding someone else with the same goal as her. She covered her mouth with her hand, shaking her head in bewilderment.

“No, no, this won’t do…” she whispered to herself, but before Daniel or Tomdril could ask her what she was talking about, Katherine spoke once again.

“Which way are you going?”

“North,” replied Tomdril. With this answer, Katherine shook her head faster, muttering “no” a couple of times in a soft voice.

“You are going the wrong way!” she almost yelled at the man, pointing to the direction both she and Daniel had come from. “The gates are way south! You are traveling the wrong direction.”

Tomdril looked at her with a confused expression, turning to the direction Katherine pointed at. He turned back and stared north, pulling his compass out of his pocket to make sure it was indeed north, and then went back to stare south. All the while, Katherine was holding her breath, hoping the man would believe her lie; Daniel could only stare at him with the same fear as Katherine. The moment the man turned to face the young woman again, their heartbeats increased.

“How do ye know that?” he said, clutching the compass in his hands and staring down at the couple.

“She is very smart!” Daniel interfered before Katherine could answer, and Tomdril’s eyes focused on the boy as Daniel tried to think of something that could convince him to go south.

“She knows many things; she can heal people and knows a lot about history and lore. If there is anybody in the world that knows what direction to go, it is her!”

Tomdril’s gaze turned to Katherine, both of them staring into each other eyes. The man found her eyes to be haunting and intimidating, breaking eye contact with her.

“Are ye sure I should go south?” he finally asked once again. Katherine slowly nodded in affirmation.

“Alright, south it is, lass. Nice meetin’ y’all; I hope yer travels are merry and peaceful!”

With this, Tomdril bent his body in a quick bow and hastily started to walk south.

Daniel and Katherine exchanged confused yet relaxed looks. Daniel brought a finger to the side of his ear and twirled it around while crossing his eyes. Katherine softly smiled as she turned around and started to walk north, Daniel following quietly behind.

Walking south, Tomdril turned around to check if the young pair was still present. He spotted them walking north beside each other, but his attention was captured by something dark on the ground where the three of them had stood moments before.
He walked towards the spot, kneeling down to find a thick black book on the ground. It had fallen from the woman’s bag the moment she fell on her back.

Tomdril’s eyes looked at the book, then rose to make sure the young woman didn’t notice it was missing. Grabbing the book, he stood up and turned around quickly, clutching it into his chest as he walked rapidly towards the south, the guilt of stealing from the young woman drowned by his excitement of finally finding a book after so long.
When he made sure he was far enough away, he opened the book and started reading it, his eyes gazing on the pages covered with words of the gates, tales of them, and even more importantly, what seemed to be their locations.

Tomdril sat down on the ground with his legs crossed as he read the book with the utmost attention.

Description
The rain slowly stopped, the sound of the water drops hitting the window vanishing as the sky cleared once again. The little girl was standing on her toes to see outside the window, her warm breath becoming faint fog.
Her eyes gazed through the water-covered fields, her nose becoming colder as it touched the cold glass of the window.

“Kathy, come here, dear…” her mother muttered from her bed.

The little girl ran to her mother’s bed, climbing into it as her mother wrapped her in the thick sheets.

“It’s too cold; you may catch a cold,” her mother said, brushing the girl’s dark hair off her face.

“I’m not cold,” the little girl said.

The two remained in silence as the mother drifted off to sleep, but the girl couldn’t close her eyes. When her mother slept, she silently climbed off the bed and grabbed a book she had placed next to the bed the previous day. She walked to the window, opening the book to a page she had memorized before.

Drawings of the ocean and vast waters filled the page of the book, along with some handwriting that the girl made herself. Once again, she lifted her body to see through the window, her hands clutching the book close to her chest.

“Where is the sea?” Katherine muttered to herself as she kept trying to find the oceans her book spoke about, the ones she had never seen.

“Where is the sea?”

---

“Where are we?”
Daniel sat on a tree log, swiping his red hair off his face and cleaning the sweat off it with his sleeve. Katherine sat beside him, going through her bag and pulling a roll of paper from it. Unrolling it, she stared at it, her frown becoming more apparent by the second.

“I’m not sure,” she said, but before she could say anything else, Daniel took the map out of her hands and stared at it with a puzzled expression.

“Not sure? How can you not be sure? How hard is it to read a map?”

“The problem is, there have been very few people that actually went to these areas.” Katherine grabbed the map back, rolling it up once again and putting it away.

“And even fewer cared to document their travels.”

Daniel gave an exasperated sigh, running his fingers through his hair to stave off frustration.

“How do we even know if we are going the right direction? We could be going the opposite way for all we know.”

“We may not know where exactly we are, but I am positive we are going in the right direction.”

“How do you know that?”

“The mayor told me that the Ancestor told them that the gates aligned way north. We haven’t stopped going north ever since we left the town.”

“Oh,” Daniel replied as Katherine outsmarted him, a small smile appearing on her face which was immediately followed by Daniel’s laughter.

“You think I would get us lost in the middle of the forest? Daniel, I’m hurt.” She smiled as she raised her arms in an overdramatic fashion, standing up in front of Daniel.

“Wounded, even?”

“Wounded, even; I thought we were friends!”

“I don’t know! You tell me!” The young man stood up with his hands up in the air dramatically, over-exaggerating his facial movements and posture.

Katherine chuckled loudly; she felt safe whenever she was with Daniel and the feeling was mutual. They had known each other since they were children and had become closer since, easily knowing each other’s secrets and fears.
Katherine lifted her arms to make a dramatic fake rebuttal to Daniel’s playful offense, but her smile died out as her eyes drifted to the ground, remembering the reason she was there. The young woman sighed and shook her head. “We must go,” she muttered.

Daniel stared at Katherine as she started to walk, his smile vanishing as well as he quickly walked to catch up with her.

“You know we can turn back,” he almost whispered, not looking at Katherine as he said it.

“Don’t start,” Katherine replied, closing her eyes and walking nonstop.
“I have to do this.”

---

There were many things he missed about the ocean: the waves, the breeze, the sound of his footsteps on the creaking wood. But the thing Tomdril missed the most was its smell. The forest had its own smell, completely different from the one he was so fond of, and it wasn’t the only difference.
Tomdril was lost in unfamiliar terrain; he knew the ocean and how to travel it, but the trees and the mountains made it all confusing for him. Having never spent much time away from shore, he could only wander north and pray for the best.

“Wouldn’t mind finding a barrel full of rum or somethin’, you know,” he muttered to himself as he kept walking to the north, pulling an old, small compass from one of his pockets to ensure he was going to the right direction. Or, at least, what he thought was the right direction.

“The lads at the pub did say this gate business was up north.”

The man scratched his head and placed the small compass back in his pocket, continuing onwards through the woods even though everything looked the same to him.

“Ye could at least give me somethin’ warm to eat, yanno’,” he said to the air as he made his way through the bushes and weeds, happily humming to himself as he did so.

“There was a lil’ boy, who got lost in the woods…”

The sounds of the birds chirping became less and less omnipresent as he marched forward, as did the cries of the cicadas in the trees. The air became colder with every step as silence reigned in the woods; the only remaining sounds were those of his footsteps and his breathing. Slowly, the sun began to set, even though it was bright daylight minutes ago.

He didn’t pay attention to any of these changes, his eyes focused on ensuring that he did not trip.

“The lil’ boy cried for his mum,”

He heard what seemed to be the voices of a young woman and man nearby, becoming louder and sounding closer every moment. Tomdril stopped on his tracks as he paid more attention to the approaching voices, smiling as he made sure they were real.

“And I found the lil’ boy.”

---

The darkness of the forest came as a surprise to both Katherine and Daniel, both of them stopping when they realized their surroundings, including the weather, had changed so drastically.

“I-Isn’t it too early for it to be this dark?”

“Yes,” Katherine said as she stared confusedly at the sky. “We still had a couple more hours of sunlight; I don’t understand.”

“It is also cold, don’t you think?” the young man replied, placing himself at Katherine’s side as she kept staring at the sky.

“Colder…” the young woman muttered to herself. She opened her bag, searching its contents and pulling a large book from it. She quickly opened it, going through its pages as fast as she could before stopping on a specific page.

“Katherine…? What’s-“

“The place of Shadows,” she interrupted, quickly observing her surroundings with the book in her hands. “I am almost sure this is the place of Shadows. Did you notice how all the animals went quiet as we kept walking? How everything just seemed to stop in some way as the sky became darker?”

“Yes, I-“

“It’s because it’s the place of Shadows. The people that have been here, all of them say the same things about this place, that the atmosphere just seems darker than the outside area. This…I can’t believe it, we are actually here.”

“Wait, if we are in the place of Shadows, then…” Daniel paused, noticing how enthusiastic Katherine was. She walked around the place with her book opened, staring with wide eyes at every single tree, flower, and bush, not even paying attention to the cold weather or how scary the place was.

“That means the gate-“

“The gate is here.”

“…The gate is here.”

Both fell silent as they came to the realization that their goal was closer than they had thought. Katherine bit her lower lip as she clutched her book to her chest.

“The gate should be in a meadow.” Katherine closed the book in her hands, hiding it away on her bag. “We have to be careful; this place is… treacherous.”

“Treacherous… what do you mean?”

“It, uh, it creates illusions, things that seem to be there but aren’t, and at the same time there are things that are there but that we can’t see. That’s the easy way to explain it.”

Her hand traveled to her sword, touching its hilt with her fingertips as she walked with quick steps towards her goal. Daniel did nothing but follow her, careful of everything on their path and with eyes wide open in case of any surprise.

The minutes that followed were in complete silence, Katherine leading with one arm raised in front of her, cautious of her surroundings. Her other hand sat on the hilt of her sword, prepared for anything she may encounter.

“Don’t you think it’s weird,” Daniel said, as they kept walking through the trees without stopping,
“that we haven’t found any creature or person at all? I thought you said many try to get to the- Oof!”

He softly crashed into an immobile Katherine, who was staring wide-eyed at what seemed to be a dark figure not too far from them. Surrounded by the darkness, the only thing they could make out of the figure was its outline.

“Oh, I jinxed it, didn’t I?” Daniel quietly whispered to himself without taking his eyes off the figure.

The three of them stood in silence for several seconds, the figure not noticing the pair as they tried their hardest to not make a sound. Katherine gently put her hand on Daniel’s stomach, entreating him to retreat silently. He complied, her following just behind
The figure didn’t notice them moving at all, staring instead at a random point in the forest away from them. The moment Katherine accidentally stepped on a branch, however, it seemed to turn towards the loud crack.

“Kathy, what do we do…?” Daniel whispered as silently as possible into Katherine’s ear, her chest rising up and down in indecision. She turned her head to see Daniel’s eyes, which were transfixed on her. He was terrified.

She turned her head back to where the figure should have been, seeing nothing. She gasped loudly, trying not to lose control of her feelings as she reached for her gun. Her breathing became loud and fast as she desperately tried to find the figure again.

“’ello.”

The strange raspy voice took Katherine by surprise, prompting her to fire wildly and fall on her back, knocking Daniel down with her.

“Whoa! Calm down, lil’ lass!” the voice said in a louder and more nervous tone. Katherine opened her eyes to see a tall man standing in front of her, his hands raised to show he wasn’t armed. She couldn’t recognize some of his features due to the darkness, but he seemed like a sailor, down to his worn out clothes and hair full of dreads. His green eyes stood out from his skin and surprised Katherine; she had expected something inhuman.

“Careful with that gun o’ yers, ye can hurt somebody if ye ain’t payin’ attention!”

The man extended one hand to Katherine, offering to help her stand, but she only stared at it as she eyed the man suspiciously

“Not gonna talk to strangers eh?” he said with a smile on his face. “Teenagers, scared to talk to strangers.”

“We are not teen-“

“The name is Tomdril Batynos: sailor, bard, whatever you need,” he interrupted before Daniel could finish his correction. The boy did not how to feel about the man standing in front of them that moment; it was obvious that Katherine did not trust him and was waiting for an opening to attack.

Katherine slowly stood up, grabbing her gun as she rose. Daniel took the cue to stand up himself, positioning himself behind Katherine.

“My name is Katherine Padilla,” she said, without letting go of her gun. Daniel stepped up to introduce himself as well.

“I’m Daniel Stripe.”

“Well, nice to meet ye, Katherine Padilla and Daniel Stripe,” he said, making what seemed to be a greeting gesture to both of them. “What are ye teenagers wanderin’ through the forest for at this hour?”

“We aren’t teenagers!” Daniel answered, somewhat offended by the suggestion. The man squinted his eyes at them, legitimately confused that his predictions might be wrong.

“Really? How old are ye?”

“I’m twenty two- Oof!”

Daniel reeled from Katherine’s elbow strike to his stomach; it took him several seconds to realize he was sharing way too much information to the strange man, causing him to bite his lip and look to the floor.

“Twenty two? Yer still kids in me book,” the man said with a hearty laugh, but stopped when he realized the two youngsters didn’t laugh with him, instead simply staring at him nervously and suspiciously.

“So, what are ye doing here?”

“We are traveling,” Katherine said with no hesitation, observing the man’s body language. “That’s all.”

“Why are you here?” Daniel asked immediately after. The man scratched his chin, trying to find an answer that didn’t sound too crazy.

“Well, the gates are aligned!”

Katherine’s eyes opened slightly in surprise, but Tomdril interpreted this as confusion.

“I am on a quest to become a new god by crossing the gates!”

No matter how hard he tried not to, he ended up sounding pretty insane.
Katherine’s eyes went wide as Daniel crooked his mouth, unsure of what to do next.

“You are… going to cross the gates?” Katherine said with a puzzled expression on her face, trying to hide her surprise at finding someone else with the same goal as her. She covered her mouth with her hand, shaking her head in bewilderment.

“No, no, this won’t do…” she whispered to herself, but before Daniel or Tomdril could ask her what she was talking about, Katherine spoke once again.

“Which way are you going?”

“North,” replied Tomdril. With this answer, Katherine shook her head faster, muttering “no” a couple of times in a soft voice.

“You are going the wrong way!” she almost yelled at the man, pointing to the direction both she and Daniel had come from. “The gates are way south! You are traveling the wrong direction.”

Tomdril looked at her with a confused expression, turning to the direction Katherine pointed at. He turned back and stared north, pulling his compass out of his pocket to make sure it was indeed north, and then went back to stare south. All the while, Katherine was holding her breath, hoping the man would believe her lie; Daniel could only stare at him with the same fear as Katherine. The moment the man turned to face the young woman again, their heartbeats increased.

“How do ye know that?” he said, clutching the compass in his hands and staring down at the couple.

“She is very smart!” Daniel interfered before Katherine could answer, and Tomdril’s eyes focused on the boy as Daniel tried to think of something that could convince him to go south.

“She knows many things; she can heal people and knows a lot about history and lore. If there is anybody in the world that knows what direction to go, it is her!”

Tomdril’s gaze turned to Katherine, both of them staring into each other eyes. The man found her eyes to be haunting and intimidating, breaking eye contact with her.

“Are ye sure I should go south?” he finally asked once again. Katherine slowly nodded in affirmation.

“Alright, south it is, lass. Nice meetin’ y’all; I hope yer travels are merry and peaceful!”

With this, Tomdril bent his body in a quick bow and hastily started to walk south.

Daniel and Katherine exchanged confused yet relaxed looks. Daniel brought a finger to the side of his ear and twirled it around while crossing his eyes. Katherine softly smiled as she turned around and started to walk north, Daniel following quietly behind.

Walking south, Tomdril turned around to check if the young pair was still present. He spotted them walking north beside each other, but his attention was captured by something dark on the ground where the three of them had stood moments before.
He walked towards the spot, kneeling down to find a thick black book on the ground. It had fallen from the woman’s bag the moment she fell on her back.

Tomdril’s eyes looked at the book, then rose to make sure the young woman didn’t notice it was missing. Grabbing the book, he stood up and turned around quickly, clutching it into his chest as he walked rapidly towards the south, the guilt of stealing from the young woman drowned by his excitement of finally finding a book after so long.
When he made sure he was far enough away, he opened the book and started reading it, his eyes gazing on the pages covered with words of the gates, tales of them, and even more importantly, what seemed to be their locations.

Tomdril sat down on the ground with his legs crossed as he read the book with the utmost attention.