She came to discover that the central area of this massive tent was a library and within it were the trappings of a classic museum;more ceiling paintings, white marble statues and display boxes filled with miniature jewelries.

Following U'tu, she found him in another fire-hazard campfire. Inside a freaking library. The grouchy Bla'keh was sitting on a log bench next to the fire, a large book sprawled on top of his thigh.

U'tu crept up behind him without making a sound.

Bla'keh made no move to look up from his ancient book, "We are to be left alone."

"I hear you need help." U'tu said plainly, waving a greeting to the giant wolf who emerged between bookshelves.

Bla'keh grunted, scribbling a note in his smaller book that sat on his other thigh, "How much help does it look like I need?"

"I offer a second opinion and as it turns out it is a behagthi's specialty."

The shaman poring over his book curled his upper lip at the wolf's direction, "As you desire, my sun prince."

Without saying a word, he moved to River in a single flash of a second and pushed his book against her chest with the boy nodding to her with encouragement.

She peered down to see the book was browning on the edges. It had looked smaller in his hands but its weight was equal to a bag of bricks. She smiled, trying to seem nonchalant at the sudden massive weight of burden on her arms. Raising her chin with as much dignity as possible, she slowly shifted to the nearest log bench and placed the book on it.

It was filled with notes and translation written in English.

U'tu took a peek and whistled, "You do a lot of this by yourself?"

"Scarcely any stone left unturned. I've checked every possible interpretation. There is no denying the accuracy for my work."

"How about linguistic homonyms?" she asked, noticing the prophecies were structured like free-form poetry. "Double meanings?"

Bla'keh crossed his arms, "Explain yourself."

"Back in my world, a single word can have double meanings to it."

He snorted, "Impudence. Why aren't words themselves sufficient to convey meaning? Have you ran out of words in your universe? Words are made up, why even settle for double meanings? Foolish."

She shrugged, "It might have to do because our language is constantly evolving and there isn't a language we use that is set in stone. It changes, the word changes, and sometimes the meaning changes as it evolves through the exchange of dialects and colloquialism. That way we humans evolve our language on a constant and ever-expanding basis, but, some experts might be in the opinion of saying that we're devolving into our pictographic language roots. This from our archaic use of memes, gifs, and emojis to convey meaning." she mumbled.

Squinting his eyes, he asked. "You call yourselves 'humans' as a species?"

"Yes. What do you call yourself?"

"As a species, we call ourselves 'tribe'. Simple as that. Nothing as foolish-sounding as humans."

She shrugged off his comment. One good takeaway about being a professional internet blogger was developing a thicker skin for criticism and even more so, for food bloggers. Tons of food critics used to swarm over her work like salivating hyenas with mocking vendettas. Bla'keh's snippy attitude was nothing compared to the most ruthless, vindictive critics of the internet. Instead, she pointed out a line in the book, "This says, 'Champion of the Age' what does it mean?"

"It translates to 'War Hero'." said the shaman elder.

River read the whole passage on the sun prince prophecy, "How would you define War Hero?"

"Someone who has made most of the kills in wars."

U'tu helpfully said, "You were watching championships yesterday, teh? Remember the warrior wearing silver steel as armor? Every tribe across the lands has officially dubbed him Champion of the Age because of his two trips to Fire Gulf Sea." he said, awe in his tone, "An estimate of 200 kills. Next to the black poisoning of last year, his kills are superior to none. He is a hero."

"Black poisoning?" she said, wondering about the familiarity to Europe's history.

Bla'keh sneered, fury darkening his eyes when it landed on her.

U'tu looked away when a blanket of quiet fell over the museum library. The wolf gave a mournful howl, his tail flicking.

The boy gulped and turned back to her. "The behagthi who came before you arrived 5 years ago. It was the snow tribe who welcomed him."

Bla'keh growled, "Snow tribe. Of all the tribes he could have landed. It had to be them."

Wrinkling his nose, the boy added "They are not known for their hospitality."

"Understatement, U'tu. Poison, all of them are poison. Soon as they got their claws on a behagthi, they poisoned him too."

"We can hardly blame them." he said, wryly.

"What happened?" she asked.

"What did you think happened?" the shaman's brows lowered, "They took advantage of the Great World's gift of behagthi and twisted him into a scourge upon this land. He himself created poisons, a rare god-given ability in our millennium, and wasted it away to sell it to the highest bidders."

"Behagthi's Poisons. That is what they are calling them. He took control of the snow mountain's poison and poisoned us all in return." the boy nodded.

"He is easily responsible for the deaths of thousands."

"Where is he?" River asked.

Bla'keh paced near the fire with his arms crossed, "At the snow tribe, right in their tower stronghold. It's where they imprison tribespeople for rehabilitation or death. Guess which sentence he falls into?" he scoffed "Serves him right to die in that tower to pay for his crimes. "

U'tu added, "In the snow tribe, no one who comes in ever comes out. It's why no one was able to rescue him when he arrived. Their mountains have some kind of poison in it that pollutes the air. It's way too dangerous for anyone."

"Isn't that where you're sending your sun prince?"

"He is Brumcia's Beloved." Bla'keh said with confidence. "Defeater of the Champion of Age. No harm will befall him."

"I don't understand. If he is the best out of everyone, then what does he need protection for?"

Bla'keh made a mocking sneer, "I figured you were here to help, not pester me with questions like a jangly student. Get out of my sight."

The wolf barked in succession, leaving the shaman pale-stricken.

U'tu grabbed for her hand and wrenched her aside, flinging worried glances back at the campfire. "He's protective of you. Best to get you out of harm's way."

"U'tu, I'm gonna go with him to the snow tribe."

"What part of 'getting you out of harm's way' don't you get? You can't. You won't be able to leave. You can't even run like normal, you walk in a glacial speed and—" he leaned in to whisper under his breath, "We can smell your stinking mortality"

She bent on her knees as she shrugged off his barbed words, leveling her gaze to his, "I think this War Hero the prophecy must be talking about is the behagthi from five years ago."

"He is no Hero. He is a stone-cold murderer, through and through. He has got no honor and no virtue. There's nothing heroic about him. He couldn't be."

"Look. I know that what I'm saying is different but where I come from, 'Champions' are conquerors who murder and pillage no matter what reason they do it for. 'Champions' are bullies who capitalize and take advantage of the weak. This guy is it, U'tu. I think he must be the reason why I'm here. To set right the wrong he has done to this world. To lead your sun prince into defeating him."

He grew quiet, a muscle under his jaw straining in pressure.

She continued "The sun prince is the wolf, am I right? If he is destined to defeat the champion, then I must be there to help him."

"The wolf says it is too dangerous for you." he said, his eyes growing unfocused.

She laughed nervously, "Hate to break it to you, but I was sent here to fix some unknown chaos of a problem. If what you said about the Red Spider story is true then I have a strong feeling that fixing something would bring me back home. So, tell that wolf, it doesn't matter what he thinks. Once I set my mind on something, I do it. And wherever trouble is, I'll be there. Because I'm gonna fix it."

U'tu grinned showing his fanged teeth, "Now who is the troublemaker?"

Her mouth curling up at the side, she teased his words back at him, "Trouble has a way of finding me."