Chapter 229: A Home Is What You Make ItThe reality was settling in that I was alone. It felt odd, as there should have been no other human within thirty miles of me. My new home was about a thousand feet up a rocky slope from the water. Only a few bare bushes dotted the path down the slope. Lines of white foamy waves crashed below, and a hint of cold, salty air reached me.Behind me was the dense forest from which we had come. I walked into the cave, pulsing earth speak to map the barely lit space. My new home was a tiny cave carved out of rock, about ten feet wide and fifteen feet deep. The entrance had an overhang, protecting it from wind and weather but, more importantly, preventing it from being spotted from the sea. A heavy door, painted the same texture and color as the rock, provided the only security.The small room was orderly and packed with furniture: a bed, desk, shelf, six casks, and four large chests. On the desk were heavy goggles and a long brass spyglass covered with fine runic writing. These were the devices I would need for my watch. The shelf held a dozen worn books, and checking the titles, I found they were mostly stories, probably brought here by Hounds to relieve boredom. One book was a log book for sightings, which I paged through.The index had the silhouettes of various ships from numerous kingdoms. The logbook extended back five years, and it appeared that only one entry a week was common. Most of the entries noted ships, but every few months, a monster sighting, such as a kraken, was noted. It seemed the bay was named Kraken Bay because it was a breeding ground for ocean beasts. Fortunately, the records indicated that spawning time was in late fall—half a year away.Clodius’s clear and neat handwriting noted all the orcish fishing vessels by the time of day, size, and direction they were headed. Even though I had been given (...)