Walking over the great chain they had been speaking, Avere trying to talk with Ohrren who had a high-pitched voice and was a bit weird with the latex but actually a rather amicable guy when one ignored both of these things, something that was nevertheless very hard, Leyk conversing with Kehit about how it was being a vampire, commenting about his increase in strength with her saying she was interested in experimenting a bit as well, him even hissing at one point, exuding air as she asked him to rip open his mouth to expose rather long and powerful teeth ready to drink blood at any given moment, though he wasn't entirely sure how the curse of motion would befall him in that situation.
After about half an hour of this everyone felt a bit tired, the conversation between Ohrren and Avere dulling as the conversation between Kehit and Leyk continued on full drive, now riddled with a few jokes in-between some lines, making even Avere feel a bit annoyed and unsure on how to act between the two, making it awkward as he tried to continue his conversation with the big guy, sporadically staring at the golden sun dial to make sure they were following the needle despite that act being rather pointless as they didn't have a choice other than following the chain right now.
Another hour later Avere felt tired to the core, still hearing Leyk and Kehit conversing, now about complexities of lingual magic and this demonic magic she had spoken about, her asking him to teach her how it worked, her answering excitedly that she had been dying to do that during the previous conversation of the two, as if she had forgotten that she had wanted something in return, the conversation between Ohrren and Avere having faded to sporadic questions without any real substance, all of them agreeing to hurry it up and start running a bit.
The chain didn't really shake as they ran atop it, so that was no problem, neither was the question on if they would eventually get tired of running, all of them being able to run for a few days without break from what Avere and Leyk were both able to tell, Leyk being confident he could run for a whole week now that he was a vampire, perhaps also caused by a momentary rush over overconfidence caused by his change.
Only one problem was still there, the fact that the aloof boy, Akrisen, had not cared enough to run and was being carried by Ohrren, the biggest of the group, carrying him atop his shoulder like a father would rarely be caring a toddler he had, well, helped create.
With that they just about doubled the speed they were moving at, not that it meant much on this chain, with Leyk and Kehit finally remaining silent for the next seven hours, all of them concentrating on the way, Leyk staring into empty space, his mana sense warning him of the countless beings that were writhing under the false veil of darkness around them, seeing beings too grotesque to explain, seeing a few dragons, a few wyrm, wyverns, normal people, be it most of the time just corpses or ones put in chains that were eternally screaming, all only colourless, Kehit looking at him with a slightly worried gaze as he no longer easily responded.
She asked him about that when they finally stopped running after the seven hours because Akrisen had accidentally fallen off of Ohrren, causing the burly man to slightly giggle as he tried to pick the tiredly laying boy up and once more put him on his shoulders, Kehit asking Leyk what he had been looking at who quickly explained it, letting out a few details but still causing her to stare all around themselves and worry more than before, cracking a small joke about mould that spread through the entire loaf despite only being on one side.
They ran another four hours, Kehit and Leyk talking with each other once more, Kehit questioning Leyk about some information he knew about because, well, she had told him enough during the first hour and ehetrians had always been known as being a spring of fresh ideas, her being especially interested in artificing, something that had made both Leyk and Avere feel a bit elated and hyperactive as she had first asked them to teach her the basic techniques.
It had however been a bit terrifying for Avere to realize he didn't remember as much as he was wishing to be able to remember, and for Leyk to realize he was better than before, having figured out ways to let off the runes and engravings, infusing intent in the carved circuits themselves, something he longed to try out with something like an armour, or a bag of holding like he had made once before, an item that had felt ridiculously heavy but somehow not really affected much around it, not pressuring the earth it was laid on all that much, not even pulling down his pants as he had affixed it there.
To be honest, Leyk had even asked Kehit about that who had turned out to actually know a little bit about bags of holding, telling him that they were made concealing magical weight, that this weight was reduced by the set circuits and engravings enhancing it for biological beings because the mana was pulling their mana downwards, like a kind of miniature black hole he had simply not noticed because a lord was constantly leaking mana and he had far too much of it, over seventeen times the norm, and even more now, to care about small quantities.
Like this they continued conversing until they arrived at another island, once covered with a single mountain, huge and besmirched with endless little green dots that were most likely trees, and as such, as they begrudgingly realized, another goddamn forest, just like most islands they had met in this place, be it that the big mountain, the single one, about two thousand foot high, was a welcome distraction to the sheer repetitiveness.