Shadow Slave

Eventually, Sunny reached the far side of the island. Diving out of the shadows, he staggered a little and sighed.

His reserves of essence were mostly empty. Luckily, the speed with which he was losing essence was not that great, by now... which meant that many of the risen corpses had already been destroyed by the prisoners of Aletheia's Island.

His journey across the misty forest had been much more swift and uneventful than it would have been otherwise, though, so it was well worth it. Come dusk, his essence would be replenished...

That said, he was going to have to be very careful after reaching the blood lake.

Sunny shook his head and headed forward, with Nightmare following him in the shadows. His steps were fast and silent. He crested a tall hill and jumped over a rock outcropping, then raised a hand without ever slowing down.

Catching a lightning-fast spear, Sunny grunted and slid back a few steps. Then, he walked over to Effie and nonchalantly put the spear into her hand.

"Here. You dropped this."

The huntress stared at him in bewilderment.

"...Doofus?"

He let out a mental sigh.

'Here we go again...'

Sunny patted her on the shoulder and smiled.

"Who else would it be? Yes, it's me. Before you ask... this is not the first time we're having this conversation. Actually, time moves in a circle on this island..."

He gave her a short explanation, going over the strange nature of Aletheia's Island and their plan.

utterly flabbergasted and thoroughly teased by you

her for a moment, and then

was going to give him a proper beating at first. But then I remembered

Nightmare, and welcomed him back to the waking world

He sighed dejectedly.

his head for him to get with a gluttonous brute like you... so, the

her protruding

If you want something to break

Sunny chuckled.

with the nameless father of Effie's child. He just said those things to distract her from the fact that her lover was, most

again... the guy had devil's luck. If anyone could pull through the winter solstice

Nightmare rose from the shadows. At the same

should already be approaching the shrine I mentioned. So, we must hurry to

at the dark destrier

sure that I can

eyes quivered. Sunny was pretty sure he had never seen his loyal Terror with such a

'A... a pony?!'

swallowed an indignant retort and

you're going to ride my

the side, he pointed to the big alloy chest

That's your ride

then awkwardly climbed on its

it about riding

could finish, though, countless alloy legs appeared from beneath the large chest, rising it above

Sunny grinned.

The smoothest ride on Aletheia's

Nightmare into a medium trot. The alloy chest scurried to follow them,