veryone's surprise, Shifty seemed to be doing even worse than him. The roguish slave's eyes were muddy and unfocused, aimlessly wandering around. His breath was ragged and shallow

of his chest betraying that he was still alive. Several moments later, he uncorked his flagon with a shaky hand and greedily drank a few large gulps. "Conserve your

o more water?" Hero gave Scholar a complicated look. "There might come a time when we won't be able to make a fire, as to not attract unwanted attention." No one commented, knowing perfectly well whose attention they had to avoid. The memory of Mountain King's horror was still fresh in their minds. Luckily, today Hero

sleep inside a dream was a new experience for him, but, unexpectedly, it turned out to be quite mundane. As soon as his head touched the ground, his consciousness slipped into darkness. After what felt like only a second, someone had gently shaken him awake. Groggy and disoriented, Sunny blinked a few times, finally noticing

ours he was

o Sunny's ears. He flinched, accidentally pushing a small rock off the ledge. It fell, hit the slope and then rolled down, causing a few more to follow. The noise of these falling rocks sounded like thunder in the silent night. Far below, the tyrant suddenly turned its head, looking directly at Sunny. Sunny froze, petrified. He was scared to make even the tiniest sound. For a while, he even forgot to breathe. The tyrant was staring directly at him, not doing anything. A few torturous seconds passed, each feeling like an eternity. Then the tyrant calmly turned away and continued to devour dead slaves, as though he had not seen Sunny at all. 'It's blind, Sunny suddenly understood. He inhaled, watching Mountain King with widened eyes. It was true. The creature could not see. Looking back at everything that had happened earlier, he grew more and more certain of his guess. Those milky, expr

o make out the distant stone platform. After a minute or so, he clenched his jaw, showing signs of uncertainty for the first time. "Then we'll have to move faster. If the creature is finished with all the bodies, it will come for us next. We need to find that old path before nightfall." Frightened and dejected, they set out again and continued to climb. Sunny was slowly dying under the weight of the added load. Thankfully, Shifty and Scholar had already drunk most of the water, lightening it a little. 'This is hell, he thought. They climbed higher, and highe

was t

he rocks. With each second, Shifty looked less like a man and more like a rag doll. A handful of moments later,