Time passed. (Patreon)

I got pretty good at controlling the time slip around the Gate.

I became an expert on the decay rate of dandelions.

I named butterflies and raced them around the stone circle.

I bathed periodically.

I ate stew made from acorns, insects, and various weeds that grew nearby in the forest.

Occasionally the trees would relay messages from Lana, but they were usually badly garbled.  I gathered that some of my Ixies were still alive, but were unable to penetrate the barrier that the rabbits had set up.  They conveyed information about Zandar and about the activities of The Sisterhood, which the trees then repeated to me.  Little of it made sense.

Mostly I waited.

I was counting clovers in the clearing, and looking for a four-leafed one, when I heard something large crashing through the underbrush.  The trees confirmed that it was neither bear nor deer nor horse nor hobgoblin.

It was headed this way.

I ducked into the shadow of the dolmen and listened as voices began to cut through the racket the creature was making as it stumbled through the bushes.

"Mister Barkingthwaite!" the voice exclaimed.  "How can one expect to achieve enlightenment without faith?"

"How can one achieve it by being gullible and chasing after every shadow?" another voice answered.

"It is not gullibility to take each claim seriously and investigate it on its own merits," the first voice protested.  "That is the only way to establish truth."

"I thought it was enlightenment we sought," the second voice countered.  "Now you're talking of truth?"

"Oh you infuriating man," the first voice groaned.  "Truth is but a step toward enlightenment.  If you don't believe any of this, then why ever did you come along?"

"What, and leave a lady to face the perils of these woods alone?"

"MISTER Barkingthwaite!" the first voice snapped.  "Those outmoded attitudes are certainly one of the things our Society seeks to eradicate.  I am perfectly capable of fending for myself."

"By Jove," the second voice declared as they reached the edge of the clearing.  "There actually IS a ring of ancient stones here!"

"Precisely as le Gobelet described it," the first voice answered haughtily.

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