If you haven't already, check out the chapter 0 after reading this, it has the runes and some explanations that might make things a little clearer.
***
Caster woke up in the middle of the night suddenly. He had totally forgotten about the crushing!
It was about to hit Reckoning in maybe a few minutes at the most.
'If I use my aspect I can escape fairly easily but... what about Tracker? I will have to pull her weight.'
Caster activated his hourglass charm, which was almost out of time, and used his aspect immediately, rushing over to where Tracker was sleeping. She wasn't too far away, just laying bare on the ground in a different section of the cave, likely letting her armor heal up.
Reaching her, he slapped her awake, maybe using a little too much strength in the process. Following that, he picked her up and put her on his shoulder. She couldn't even say anything apart from gasp in shock.
Caster paid her no mind and simply rushed. It as unfortunate that Caster and Tracker rested at basically the dead center of the island, making them far from both the exits it had.
Though, one exit was undubitably much better than the other, because one of the islands connected to Reckoning was already high up, experiencing the crushing. Luckily, that island was also the opposite way Caster had to go. Night Temple was not connected through that path.
Water from the water fall splashed onto the two as they escaped the cave and Caster rushed towards the chains to escape.
They passed through the destroyed part of the island, but were still a decent bit away from the chains.
"Damn it."
Not only did they have to traverse through the island, they also had to climb down the chains for multiple kilometers to escape the crushing.
"W-what? You're scaring me."
Tracker, who was now wearing her armor, had finally regained enough senses to speak up and ask about the situation. She had to abruptly wake up in the middle of the night, butt naked, so it was a bit disorienting for her.
But this also showed her character. She was likely coddled growing up.
"Crushing. It is at best a couple minutes away. It won't kill us, but I'm tired of the crushing. I'm not going through that again. Hell no."
Caster could hear Tracker mumble something, but he wasn't paying attention to her. He was fully focused on escaping the place. If crushing hits him, his plans will have to be delayed further. He's already spent too long here.
He rushed further, which imminently caused him to trip.
Tracker fell head first, letting out a soft groan. It hurt her a bit, but nothing her physique as a master couldn't handle.
Caster fell on top of her, but immediately got up, picking her up again. Tracker resisted getting picked up again, it seems she felt humiliated.
"I can run on my own!"
"Shut it. This is not the time. I'm faster."
Caster paid attention to his speed this time, refusing to make the ameture mistake he made earlier again and thankfully, reached the chains in less than thirty seconds.
But it was still not over yet.
The chains had already raised pretty high, so it would be easier to go down as long as they were careful with it. Jumping from one link to other, with Tracker now on his back, they successfully avoided the crushing range in time.
They were still, only about half way down the chain, so they had a lot of distance to cover.
It was only now that Caster stopped his aspect and put Tracker down.
Tracker cautiously got down and gave Caster a weird, unreadable look.
'She's not thinking of pushing me down into the sky below, is she?'
Caster got on guard. He'd be in deep trouble if she catches him off guard with this, because he has absolutely nothing to survive the skies below.
"You... you look older."
To Tracker, Caster went from looking like a young kid from late teenages, or early twenties, to looking around thirty in just a few hours. It perplexed her.
'What?'
That was when he realised, Caster had forgotten to keep track of his charm.
It had run out of time causing him to age about five years in that short interval.
'This damned flaw... I really need to find a way to combat this flaw as soon as possible.'
One mistake, and he suddenly lost about five years from his life. A really brutal flaw.
"This... happens sometimes, to me."
Caster tried to mislead her by giving her a vague answer.
"Your flaw?"
'She's right on the money...'
"You don't need to worry about that. Let's keep moving and at least reach an island that won't crush us immediately."
***
Kieron and Tracker had to cross a total of five islands after reckoning to finally reach one that wasn't ascending in height.
Only now could they rest.
Tracker plopped down on a boulder, almost as if she was fully carefree.
'How could she act like that around me, after her entire cohort got killed by me?'
"What are you doing?"
Kieron spoke in a sharp tone. He couldn't believe how audacious Tracker was being with him suddenly. She was extremely timid just a few hours ago.
'It seems she believes that my need of her is enough to not kill her.'
"Resting... Aren't we going to rest now?"
"No we are not. We need to leave for the Night Temple. Immediately. I'm already behind schedule because of the ambush by your cohort."
Tracker, looked down in shame, almost as if she remembered her cohort again... that she was possibly trying to forget.
'Is she traumatized? I wouldn't be surprised if so.'
Kieron flicked his hand, motioning her to get up and keep moving.
Kieron maintained his pace, moving a few meters ahead of Tracker. He wasn't worried about her retaliation at all, she had no chance apart from on the chains. And he paid extra attention on the chains.
And like that, their journey to the Night Temple began. Currently it is mid march.
When they started their expedition, the last vestiges of winter cold were leaving the Chained Isles. Not every region of the Dream Realm had seasons that were the same as those of the waking world, but this one was somewhat similar. By the time they were supposed to reach Night Temple, Summer would be in full swing.
If everything went well, the journey was going to take two or three weeks. He wanted to reach the mysterious Citadel to get rid of Mordret and retrieve the ivory knife by the end of april, because he was pretty certain the battle at the night temple would take a while.
Following that he plans to rendezvous with Sunny, Nephis, Cassie and a few of the Gold Reapers for the following plans for the second nightmare, mainly regarding the fixing of chain breaker. If all went well, the cohort would be ready by late may or early june for the second nightmare.
That may be a little early for it, given that they all don't have a lot of experience with essence manipulation, and it is the same with him. However, for his future plans regarding antarctica and the tomb of ariel, he needs much more time and can't help but rush for it.
Getting back to the journey, Kieron felt reasonably confident in his ability to travel across Chained Isles, but he knew not to get arrogant. This was a wild and deadly land, one full of fearsome creatures and insidious threats.
He had explored a few islands and hunted down a few abominations here and there, but he's just spent about a couple weeks worth of fighting and traveling across the region. Kieron was only acquainted with the southeastern part of it, where the Sanctuary of Noctis was located. He had never ventured west or north of the Tear. But now he'd have to. Luckily he was already near the edge of the Tear, so it cut down a decent chunk of the travel time compared to his original plan of going back to the citadel to rest.
The situation was only made worse by the fact that the closer one got to the vast emptiness at the heart of the Chained Isles, the more dire dangers they would face. To reach Night Temple quickly, Caster and Tracker had to reach the Tear, which wasn't too far as mentioned, and skirt around its edge, which meant that they would be moving through the most perilous area of the entire region.
Not all was bad, though. After all, Kieron has read Shadow Slave and he also has the Book of Books, it works well as an almanac too. What was even more convenient was that Tracker, unexpectedly, had tracking abilities. It made it hard to lose the sense of direction, and also help in avoiding most abominations.
Caster was strong enough to face the dangers that awaited them there, and Tracker was not weak either. She was one of the top Valor masters, for tracking reasons, yes, but still a strong fighter. Which was why Caster was noticably confident at traversing the place with her.
The following days proved that he had been right in his decision. Their journey was surprisingly smooth. The traversal itself provided no problems either.
Of course, traversal was the least of their problems. As they traveled further into the heart of the Chained Isles, more and more Nightmare Creatures picked up their scent. Avoiding everything was not very realistic. In fact, it became almost impossible to avoid most of these creatures. That was where Caster came in.
With the help of Evermelt, his trusty liquid echo, he was able to deal with anything that dared to attack them. Tracker helped, too, but there was rarely anything for her to do — Caster and his echo were just too swift, cunning, and deadly. Their combined power was terrifying.
This was also giving him an opportunity to regain a decent chunk of his fragments back, allowing him to get to his 6th core back. He had used up two entire cores on grazing Laylah and trying to evolve her.
[Soul Fragments: 5054/6000]
That was not to say that the other girl was useless in fights. The two worked together well, but Caster was just too dominating. Not purely physically, their physical abilities were not that far away now that Caster was a terro and not a titan, but his speed... it worked wonders.
Though, most of the journey was spent in silence, with both of them preferring not to speak to another unless absolutely necessary. There was no small talk, no irrelevant conversations, and no friendly banter.
After all, they weren't friends. Rather, one was a hostage.
Along the way Caster would take out the mirror shard occasionally, some times pretending to inspect it, other times just letting it rest out in the open.
Sometime later, Mordret finally spoke.
"Where is this place?"
The voice only rang in his ears. Tracker seemed to not be able to listen.
"What? Who was that?"
He was pretending to be startled. Tracker was luckily a little far away, bathing with Aquifer's Gift.
"Ah, my apologies. I seem to have startled you."
The pleasant voice seemed to belong to a young man, but no matter how hard he looked into the darkness, he couldn't see anyone… or anything… nearby.
'Well of course, it's coming from the mirror.'
Caster lowered his tone.
"Who are you? And why can't I see you? Where are you?"
"I am sorry. I haven't spoken to anyone in a long, long time and... well, that is a lot of questions. Ahem. I am a lost. My body in the waking world was destroyed, but my soul continues to exist here, in the Dream Realm."
"That's not what I am asking. I know what a lost is. How is it that I am able to hear your voice, but can't see you?"
"Good question. I am not really sure either. This has never happened to me before, either."
After a while, it added hesitantly:
"Have you… have you perhaps found a piece of a broken mirror somewhere?"
"Now that you mention it, I did, indeed, recently find a piece of a broken mirror. With the word "Beastie" written on it in a child's handwriting."
The voice remained silent for a while, then asked quietly:
"Oh? How exactly did you find it?"
Caster did not answer for a bit, then pretending to be reluctant about it, he spoke:
"That mirror shard was left behind by a powerful creature I killed. I took it with me, thinking that it might turn out to be important."
This time, the voice was quiet for an especially long amount of time. When it finally spoke, there was a hint of anguish in it. The owner of the voice tried very hard to suppress it, but his pain seemed to be too deep to not seep into his words even slightly.
"...So it's dead. I see."
Then, it fell silent once again.
Caster tensed. After a while, he asked carefully:
"You, uh… you're not going to be angry with me for killing your pet, are you?"
A masterful act by him.
A deep sigh resounded from the void.
"Angry… with you? Why would I be angry with you? You are not to blame for what happened to us."
"Well… I am sorry for your loss. If it makes you feel any better, the creature tried to say something before it died. Uh… we never stopped searching. Something like that."
"Thank you for consoling me... uhh?"
"Caster. You?"
The void lingered for a while, then answered with amusement:
"...Mordret. Or, rather... Prince Mordret, I guess."
"Prince? What are you the prince of?"
Mordret laughed.
"Nothing! I am a Prince of Nothing. Nothing at all…"
"I see... Pleasure to meet you?"
"So, what are you doing here, Caster?"
"Uhh, well. I'm just going to the Night Temple for now. I have to retrieve a knif- a little something from there."
The voice chuckled.
"You know I heard that."
"Tch."
Suddenly the voice disappeared.
"Is he gone? How perplexing..."
He continued to pretend for a bit before putting the mirror back into his storage ring.
From here on, Caster decided to contine following this persona of his that he created right now.
He can not afford to be caught faking it by Mordret.