[Desmodus]

With a final nod to Mila, Bork rose and quickly gathered his things. These consisted of a small but bulky canvas pack with a blackened pot and pan attached to the outside, a crossbow and quiver, the inevitable battle axe, some throwing axes/hatchets in the dwarf's belt, a knife or two, and a few other metal implements of uncertain purpose. "I packed light," he explained, "as I don't expect to be gone more than a brightening or two. I hope you did as well."

As soon as he was certain Dego was ready as well, Bork strode out the door, with a gait surprisingly long and smooth for one of his race, though it was nothing Dego would have much difficulty keeping up with. Given that there seemed to be something metal hanging from anyplace on his person or pack where one could attach something, it looked like thd dwarf ranger ought to clang like a rack of cowbells whenever he moved; however, he had secured his gear with a cunning and experienced hand, and thus made hardly a sound as he walked with Dego out ouf the Sooty Cavern and into the early brightening.

Bork grinned when Dego asked about the barrier. "Stick close to me, and you'll see that it won't take so long as you think." They continued on for a few more strides down to the bottom of the small rise on which the tavern stood, and then Dego asked his second, more pointed question. The dwarf stopped and turned to give his companion a serious, slightly surprised you-mean-nobody-told-you look. "First things first," he said after a moment. "Let's get you out of that barrier, then I'll bring you up to speed about the attacks while we walk. Not everybody around here appreciates reliving the past, so I'd rather not talk about it on the streets."

Their shadows -one noticeably longer than the other- stretched out in front of the two as they headed towards the Western edge of town, along the road that led towards Natura. As they came to the pinkish barrier shimmering athwart their road, Bork stepped closer to Dego. "I can get right through," he said, "and if you hang on tight, you can come with me." The dwarf grasped the half-elf firmly by the forearm and walked into the barrier. Dego would find that his passage was much, much easier, almost effortless, in fact, compared to what it had been when he had passed through alone. Once they were on the other side, the dwarf released Dego and looked back across the barrier at the town whose boundaries they had now officially left.

"There, see?" he said brightly, turning with a grin towards Dego. "Wasn't so bad." He began to walk along the road again. "We'll head this way another couple miles, then turn right off an old bridle-path we rangers know that'll take us north most of the way to the mill." He looked meaningfully up at the half-elf. "We could go north and then cut west, but that takes us right under the nose of Dar Havark, and I'd rather avoid that place."

The bridal path was easy enough to spot once they got to it, although it had not been used in a while, and it seemed to disappear into the forest just a few dozen paces away. The dwarf paused just a moment to look up and down the road, then stepped off onto the path. Although the way was fairly clear of undergrowth and easy going on foot, Dego would have been hard-put to identify the track they were on as a bridle-path once they were more than about sixty paces from the highway. Fallen leaves from the past couple autumns had fallen across that path and lain pretty much undisturbed by foot or hoof. Branches from nearby trees reached out over it, occasionally compelling Dego to brush them aside or duck as he went along. A horse would not have been happy going this way, and an unwary rider might easily lose the way.

Finally, once they had finally lost sight of the highway, the dwarf stopped. "Alright, young man," he said, "you asked me about the attacks. How long have they been going on, you asked. Well, the vysstichi nearly wiped out Acumin about three eras ago. Remember the Pox? Well, it was right at the end of the time of the Pox. The disease killed more than half of the population, then a great fire killed about half of *that* population. Then the vysstichi attacked. We were only saved by Carmelya, and by that treant. That's when the barrier went up, see. To save the ones of us that were left from the darkies. So yeah, this has been going on for a bit longer than just the past season."

Bork paused to make sure that Dego had all of this, voice took on a somewhat less earnest, more "once-upon-a-time" tone. "An...informant told me about a legend says the vysstichi used to live there, you know. In Acumin, in their own city above ground. Not sure how, not sure if I believe it, but that's the story. And if that's the case, or even if the vyssies simply believe that that's the case, then they will *never* give up attacking Acumin. Not until they're destroyed or we are." The dwarf returned to the present with a shrug. "'course, being vyssies, they don't really need an excuse to be evil, do they? They keep attacking us 'cause they can. We're soft targets these days, being all decimated and such."

Bork resumed heading north along the path. The terrain was mostly level, perhaps ever so slightly on the rise as one went north, though there were one or two steeper washes they had to ascend. The two went for perhaps another candlemark or so, and then began to hear the gurgling of water. There were also noticeably more bugs in the air. "That'll be the creek," the dwarf said at last. "The path will take us to it not quite a mile upstream from where the mill is."

The creek, when they came to it, looked clear enough. It was about twenty feet across, apparently at least a few feet deep, and had a good current. "Fortunately, the mill's buildings are on this side," said Bork.

There was a foot path along the creek, and they turned on it back eastwards. They went along the creek for just under a mile before they started to hear a louder rushing noise. The terrain ahead of them dropped, and the creek picked up speed somewhat. Then the water widened to stretch accross their path. However, the water directly athwart their path didn't flow like the rest of the creek, and its surface was green with algae. Gnats and midges buzzed about in the air, and after not too long some of these began to take an interest in the new, blood-filled arrivals. "Mill pond," explained Bork laconically, as he swatted at a midge that had tried to land on his neck. Just ahead and off to their left the creek proper flowed past and dropped out of sight, and Bork stopped and pointed for Dego to see something. Across the mill pond at about eye level from where he stood the half-elf could make out the top of a chimney. It had obviously not been used in a while, and birds had nested in it. "Here we are," the dwarf announced. "We're above the mill's ground level, as you can see. There ought to be stairs or a ladder leading down once we get around the pond."

The footpath continued to the right around the edge of the mill pond until it came to the brink of what was probably about a thirty-foot drop. The mill had been cut back into the natural slope so that the water from the mill-pond could fall straight down from a sluice onto the waterwheel below. A deep wheel pit had been dug to make room for the large wheel, so that somebody who fell from next to the sluice would actually fall nearly sixty feet (assuming said body missed the wheel itself) before landing in the shallow pool of stagnant water at the bottom of the pit. Hopefully, Dego was not nervous about heights.

The chimney Dego had seen rose from a stone and brick wheelhouse that was still largely intact, and the waterwheel, now hovering dry in the mostly-drained wheel-pit, was also pretty much in one piece, though it was questionable whether it was actually in any sort of working order. The wheelhouse rose out of a gaunt, charred carcass of wood, brick, and stone that had once been the bulk of the mill, its working, living, and storage areas. It was not, from here, a particularly likely-looking place for hidden riches.

"Backshot wheel," announced Bork, with a hint of admiration as he peered down into the pit. The air here was foul with mosquitos and the stink of swampy, stagnant water, but the dwarf hardly seemed to notice. "Tricky to make, but efficient. They can keep running even when the wheel-pit's half-full of water." He looked up from the wheel pit to flash an appreciative grin at Dego before looking around. "Now where's the -ah! There it is!" Bork stepped away from the brink above the wheel pit and picked his way to another spot along the ledge above the mill's head. He beckoned for Dego to again stand next to him and look down.

A bit to the right of the wheel pit there was a long pair of rusty iron rails that ran parallel a couple feet apart down the steep face of the hill. If Dego looked carefully straight down between those rails, he could just make out that the rocks in the hillside were cut in a way that vaguely resembled foot-holds, some of them worn rather smooth and covered with slippery moss.

"So, would you like to go down first?" said Bork brightly, "or shall I?"