Welt gasped awake, pulling his eyes wide before immediately squinting in the glare of the sun above. His arm shot up to shield his vision from the daylight, noticing the same black streak from his dream running along its length to the tip of his fingernail.
It took him a while to adjust to the brightness of his surroundings - having just been surrounded by blackness, and a twighlight mountaintop before that. A he adjusted, and the long-missed sensation of fresh, Fogless air filling his lungs came back, Welt gathered his thoughts.
The Fog had almost killed him, but the creatures he fought seemed to have been the only ones to bother him. The black wolf creature, and the...
'...What exactly was that thing?'
Welt had some familiarity with mind-based attacks from different types of Monsters, all labelled as "Dreamhosts". But, he hadn't come across any personally. Whenever there was an inkling of mind-based danger in a hunt, Drun had immediately sent Welt back. He'd deemed it too uncertain or dangerous for Welt to take on.
This always frustrated Welt: What was the point of training him in hunting if he couldn't hunt all types of Monster? But, having finally faced a Dreamhost, Welt now realized how dangerous an attack on his thoughts could be. To have your thought processes change felt akin to becoming someone else. The overwhelming urge to sleep, and the constant and forced ignorance of the monster's prescence had made Welt act like a completely different person. While being able to spot a mind-affecting creature was definitely beneficial, what could one really do to stop themself being changed by it, once caught?
If the creature's mind hex had instead made Welt want to snap his own neck, or see monsters as harmless, it wouldn't even be a close fight. No amount of swordsmanship training, unarmed combat prep, firestarting lessons, or wilderness tracking, would give him the ability to not think in the way the Dreamhost wanted him to.
He especially understood Drun's decision to send him away after recalling the mind attacks he'd learned about. There were minor attacks, such as causing dizzyness or minor hallucinations, that could be fought against with a little bit of awareness and battle acumen. But, Welt also studied insidious and frightful maniuplators - creatures who could make one's understanding of the world fundamentally shift, turning friend to foe, insides to outsides, and even turn emotions on their heads: making love and kinship pivot into hatred and opposition.
If Drun, or Welt, had been subjected to such things while with the other, what might've happened? Welt didn't want to think about it.
Resolving to never willingly fight a Dreamhost in the future, Welt sat up, pulling his torso from within the long stalks of golden grass around him. The weight that pressed down upon him still remained, causing the act of sitting up to still be somewhat challenging.
An unfamiliar sensatoin rested on his neck, moving and fluttering as he went from laying to sitting.
Welt flinched, instinctively grabbing his neck from the fear of being ensnared in the Dreamhost's grasp again. But, there was no tentacle. Instead, a light and flowing scarf was haging loosely around his neck.
The scarf was eerily black, unnaturally so. It was as if the light of day didn't reach its black surface, which waved gently as if touched by a breeze that Welt couldn't feel. Its squared ends danced effortlessly and loosely, the twin tails of a body of silky fabric resting lazily in folds around Welt's shoulders and neck.
The scarf wasn't alive, but moved in a way that seemed... close.
Welt watched its ends as they fluttered around him for a moment, before an idea inserted itself in his mind.
'The Helm of The North.'
This scarf, it seemed, was the helmet that Welt had recieved on the mountaintop in his dream. Welt wasn't sure why he knew this to be true, but he knew it regardless. It might've been caused by the same magic that made him learn the helmet's name when he first recieved it. There was a connection between him and the armour now, its name and nature were as certain to him as his arms and legs.
He also knew how to change the scarf into the helmet. But, he couldn't do that yet.
Welt slowly stood up, putting the unnatural weight of his body onto his legs. Standing up was the equivalent of his muscle training with Drun, having heavy bags of flour on his shoulders or in his arms as he squatted, did sit ups, press ups, and more. Welt had done these exercises begrudgingly, always feeling exhausted but understanding their purpose. Sometimes, he'd skipped them secretly so that he could rest more.
He regretted that now, and wished he'd done a hundred more of each exercise every day.
Managing to stand after some difficulty, Welt studied his surroundings more closely.
It seemed he was on the other side of the Fog. There was a small path between hill that circled around behind him and the mist behind him. The grass under his feet was still coloured shades of green and gold, and a handful of trees that stood apart from the shrouded wood, barely escaping the Fog, dotted the small clearing Welt found himself in.
It was about mid-morning, with a sun that stood uncovered by the spotted clouds in the sky. Everything glowed brightly, with a gentle breeze that made the fallen Harvest leaves skate along the ground in whipsy patterns.
Welt could head up the immediate hill, to try and get a better vantage, but figured he might as well head North on the path that lay before him for now. His destination hadn't changed, he had just been moved closer to it.
Going without his supplies would be tough, but Welt wasn't planning on circling around the Fog just to retrieve supplies for another two days. Not having good clothing for the night was his biggest problem: he was topless, with only some of the torn remains wrapped around the Chapmion's Mark, The Burden, on his arm. But, lacking clothes was not life-threatening.
Getting to Endsham was his best bet.
***
Welt walked along the path, between the hills, for half a day, as it then circled around and up a more Northward hill that reached higher in the sky. As the path pulled around to the Northern face of the hill, a good way towards its peak, he caught a familiar, but unfamiliarly reassuring view.
A colourful spot in the already colourful fields rested besides a great flowing river of gem blue, that flowed from far in the Northwest, from some distant hills and hard to identify mountains, rushing all the way East and slightly South, closer and closer to Welt, appearing on his right, roughly a day's walk away at its closest in the East.
The colourful spot was more North, and made of a new slew of colours: speckles of burning reds, bright greens, hues of violet and powerful oranges dotted the higher slopes to the North behind and around the main collection of buildings: which stood in a similalrly colourful fashion - all more white and brown, wooden, than their Western counterparts.
An impressive wall surrounded the large town, and Welt could barely recognise some scattered gray dots as the stone watchtowers he'd once admired when first approaching - likely filled with guards that scouted the roads for arriving convoys and caravans.
The roads pulled out of the town like bursting ribbons, leavings trails of pale dirt, scattered cobbles, and trampled grass in their wake. They pumped with the blood of merchants and travellers going to and from the outskirts of the town. One such ribbon stretched and scattered in different directions, one of which led right to Welt's feet.
Endsham was only a day away.