Over the next few hours following waking up again, Bereth came to find more issues with his body: first of all, his fingers did not obey him well enough to type, forcing him to use text-to-speech systems to write on the tablet he had been given. Second of all, his sense of smell was gone. Third of all, so was his sense of taste.

Bereth awoke on a bed. A legitimate bed. Despite his body's protests at moving, he sat up and checked the ring. It was still there, untouched. Good.

Bereth was… not dead. Probably.

He was flicking in and out of unconsciousness. Bereth was quite sure of that. He was pretty sure that Merlina was asking him at some point if he could hear her — he did not remember responding — and chatter around him. There was something under his arm at some point.

Thanks to magic, Bereth made it through the daytime heat. They were… about halfway there, was what Nedyom said a little while ago? Bereth was not sure; he was just focused on keeping himself going forward.