"I'll say this - coming from the dead teaches you to enjoy a pleasant walk out in the Wilds and a good meal. You don't take as much for granted the second time around. I wasn't really one for personal pleasure. To this day, I don't care much for decadence, especially a particular kind - the kind of people who use others to do their dirty work and can't be bothered to bloody their own hands."

Ben's grown used to a more relaxed lifestyle, but he's still sharp and wary, never exactly at ease.


"There are nature spirits here. It's coming closer to winter, so Reynard or whichever spirit oversees fall might be out and about soon. You can't exactly trust a seasonal spirit. Their season comes first, and I don't think our lives seem as important when you're as old as the world itself. I am only thirty, but I've met people here who are thousands of years old. Some even older." He smiles. "The Spring spirit thought I was undead."