The man eyed Hector. "Go to Toll Burgh. Mayor prevents fighting there."

Toll Burgh. He remembered that name from the map. When he pulled it out of its carrying case, Hector quickly found the named city. It sat in a narrow ravine between a mountain and a foothill that looked like it had been carved off. The city was about the same distance from Bach as he'd had to travel from Rags to reach Baden. That would be two days of travel on foot.

Or less than an hour in flight. Hector didn't have the cosmic energy to make that trip at the moment. His reserves sat at just five percent. He needed to preserve what he had in case of a fight. Which meant he needed to find a place to lay low for a few hours and cultivate. Where could he cultivate without anyone noticing his supernatural speed?

Hector walked through streets cautiously, watching every direction for blue robes. He slipped through the busy streets and wandered until he caught sight of one of the watermills promised by the artist behind the map. It looked a lot less impressive than what he'd expected. And he finally understood what those mills were doing when he saw the trunks of trees stacked and waiting for processing. This was a hydro-powered lumber mill.

He slipped closer to a pile of tree branches stripped from the central trunks and dug himself a hiding spot deep inside while no one was watching. Then he reached out to chaos through his externality and began to cultivate.

Hours passed. He switched to using aural cultivation when he needed a break. Though it was slower than his primary method, he might as well take advantage of the plentiful energy of Tian. A few hours of that and he returned to chaos. The remaining three sandwiches went into his stomach. He snuck to the river to refill his canteen, paranoid the entire time.

In the end, night arrived before anyone discovered him. Hector pondered the spirit pills briefly. They would help him restore faster, it was true, but he suspected they would be more useful if he saved them for an urgent need. Right now he could hang out in this town. Maybe he would escape back to Baden after a while. Or go onto Toll Burgh. Or maybe even use his transit sphere to return to Union Central for a safe place to recover – though that would require him to restore his energy reserves a little more first.

He got a few hours of sleep, then woke up around midnight and began to cultivate some more.

When daylight dawned, Hector snuck back towards downtown Bach and queued at the same sandwich shop as the previous day. He was the fourth person inside and bought five sandwiches this time. The man from the previous day noticed him and stared.

"Hello," Hector said, hoping that stop the attention.

"The maidens surround city. You need escape."

Hector chewed and swallowed quickly to free up his mouth. "Do they know where I am?"

"They drove off others yesterday. Will search city soon."

Drove off others. That would justify why he hadn't seen Darius yet. He'd been worried that, after causing Riley to lose her freedom, Darius wouldn't come to assist Hector. As concerning as it was to imagine the spear maidens were able to drive off Darius with his chaos bolt, Hector felt a wave of relief. His friendship might be hanging by a thread, but that lingering connection hadn't torn free yet.

Hector studied the man. "Why do you care if I escape?"

The man returned an answer equally blunt as the question itself. "Avoid fight in city. You go Toll Burgh. Burgermeister there stop all fights."

"Assuming Toll Burgh is safe, I don't know that I can make it there."

The man wrestled with himself for a few moments before coming to some internal conclusion. "I show you tunnel. Escape underneath." He pointed down to their feet.

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The possibility of some sort of tunnel network intrigued Hector. He didn't discount the possibility that this man might be tricking him into a dead end. That risk bothered him less than it would someone else. Hector could cultivate for a couple of days and travel anywhere he wanted. So long as the tunnel was large enough for him to hide from pursuers, he'd be fine. He had a canteen full of water and four sandwiches packed to go, so he wouldn't even be uncomfortable.

His reluctant helper took Hector to the edge of town closest to the nearby cliff wall, part of the mountain chain that Hector could not escape since entering the nation of Stein. There was a wide entrance carved into the bare stone. Inside the cavernous space revealed there, Hector saw stored equipment.

"Old mine. Go straight. Find path under light. Go down. It come back up later. Take you other side mountain. Escape Bach. No fighting."

Hector nodded. If nothing else, the cavern looked quite deep. He'd risk it.

What he did not account for was how dark it became in just ten steps. Hector was forced to rely on his extended touch sense, using the feedback from his domain in a quiescent state to detect masses around him. It was the little trained sister to mental sense. Volithur had been good with both senses. Hector knew he was lacking with his mental sense, but he'd never made much of an effort to use the extended touch sense. It seemed like he was about to get some dedicated practice time.

He wasn't quite blind in the darkness of that cavern. His eyes slowly adapted to the dimming light conditions. Enough to provide a backup to his untrained touch sense and prevent him from running into any of the wagons or plows or logging gear stored everywhere. After a while, he spotted a dim glow in the distance. It was a shaft of light descending from a gap above.

Hector slowly went towards the light, being careful of his steps on the uneven ground.

The glowing pillar connected to a flat patch of wall at its lowest point. Hector saw no obvious path forward in the immediate vicinity. A stab of concern. Had he been tricked? Would the spear maidens be on their way already?

With an effort of will, Hector forced down the panic. The pervasive darkness had been much easier to face in his imagination than in person. He felt lost and exposed at the moment. Hector closed his eyes and began relying on his touch sense. If there was a tunnel nearby, he would find it. If not… then he would need to find a place to hide. Either way, he needed to get a sense of the environment.

The experience of his extended touch sense was the vague grok that the mass of a dense rock wall squatted before him and a vast open space behind him. Anything smaller than a boulder, less dense than rock, or further away than a body length registered only as vague static. He sat there and tried to focus on his sense.

What he felt instead was a chill breeze with his mundane senses.

Hector opened his eyes and hopped up to investigate. There was a hole in the wall that he could pass through if he turned sideways. The mountain seemed to breathe, slow frosty exhalations raising goose flesh along his arms and neck. He'd found the passage.

Knowing the path existed brought more concern than relief. He'd been in the dark for less than a half hour and already hated it. Hector took a deep breath to marshal his bravery. He deserved some discomfort after dragging Riley into her present circumstances. Earning her freedom would only go so far towards making things right. He could suffer a bit.

He had to shuffle sideways in pitch black for about a hundred meters. The experience made him wonder why the hell he spent so much time building his shoulders into the thick boulders they were. It must have been ego. At the moment, he would much rather have an easy fit through the tunnels than an impressive physique.

The passage opened up after that first stretch, replacing his complaint of the tight space with one of wet feet as he splashed through a small stream in absolute darkness. Hector felt at the boundaries of the area with his hands, finding the walls close enough to touch. He stepped forward, following the growing sound of splashing.

There was a fork in the path, with the water flowing gently down to the left and a hole to the right that Hector could vaguely tell by his touch sense went upwards. He recalled the words of advice from his benefactor. After finding the path under the light he was supposed to go down. This seemed like the 'down' spoken of.

Rather than throw himself into the task, Hector sat on a dry spot he identified with his hands and pulled out a sandwich. He'd eaten breakfast recently, but a quick meal would do wonders for his morale. Also, he worried his food might become spoiled if he fell in the water he couldn't even see. Who knew how dirty it was.

Hector cultivated after his meal, calming himself with the familiar activity. Even if he proved incapable of navigating in the dark, he had the means of escaping with his transit sphere – providing he was willing to spend that much energy. The thought brought him a degree of comfort. Then he judged it was time to continue his journey.

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