Robin was so incredibly conscious of the cold, sharp line of the knife at his throat that when Lantha ordered him to sing, he did. The first thing that popped into his head. And because Lantha so clearly want to have a pointed conversation, that song was…

🎶Let’s have a kiki🎶

🎶I wanna have a kiki🎶

Lantha recoiled. She hadn’t expected him to actually sing. Well, “sing”.

‘What?’ she stared at him, all tension gone out of her knifework.

🎶A kiki is a party🎶for calming all your nerves🎶We’re spilling tea and dishing just desserts one may deserve!🎶

‘What,’ Lantha repeated. ‘No. What? I didn’t mean actually sing. What even is that? It’s barely singing.’ She sighed. ‘Bards.’

‘I’m not a bard,’ Robin said, scraping together a scrap of presence of mind.

They looked at him. He looked back. He almost started to explain but then a notification popped up in his field of vision.

Congratulations! You have unlocked Advanced Profession (Bard). Advance your Heritage to Paragon level to enable profession options.

‘Or at least not yet,’ he amended.

‘I want you to talk,’ Lantha said, pressing her knife against Robin’s throat when he opened up his mouth to do so immediately. ‘And not just ramble. I want specific answers to specific questions. Can you do that? Blink twice if you understand me.’

Robin carefully blinked twice.

‘Good. I want to know who you are, what you are doing here, in this cave system, specifically, and what allegiances you have. Fiamah, do you think you can manage a truth spell?’

‘No,’ the cleric shook her head, ‘not until I’ve had a chance to rest. We’re all exhausted, and I spent most of my energies on the fight that got us captured. After food and some sleep, sure. But not right now.’

‘That’s fine.’ Lantha turned back to Robin. ‘I’m sure our apprentice bard here understands that if he lies to me today and I suspect any of his answers are lies, I’ll question him tomorrow under truth spell, and if it turns out he lied to me, he’ll wish that I’d’ve cut his throat.’

‘Understood! Understood!’ Robin’s voice cracked.

He’d been attacked by flying cuisinarts, gained mystical powers and the attention of two—no, three—beings of deific power, been exposed to a pitched battle he’d orchestrated, shot with a crossbow—all of it naked by the way—and now he was being threatened by the people he’d risked his life to help? Too much. Too frelling much.

Tears started streaming down his face, and Robin began to shudder. He suppressed the sobs as much as he could, because he still had a knife to his throat, but this was it. He was at the limit. He was done.

‘Here. You need to eat something.’ Grathilde pressed a flat ration bar of some sort into his hand. ‘What?’ She matched Lantha’s glare with one of her own. ‘He’s clearly starving and having a breakdown. You’re not going to get any answers out of him like that. Maybe rein in the whole spectre-of-blood-and-vengeance act for ten minutes and see if he’ll just answer your questions without the threat of imminent death? We’ve all had more than enough of that today, I would think.’ The dwarf huffed. And turned away.

The unexpected kindness, combined with the relief of Lantha sheathing her knife and stepping away, was too much for Robin. He let go and just sobbed it all out, biting his lip to keep as quiet as possible. The kobolds were still out there, and gods knew what else. So he cried and ate and cried and ate and eventually, he felt better.

‘There was some sort of magical mishap,’ he said, when he’d regained a bit of composure. ‘It was an experimental translocation spell. Magic herbs were involved. The guy orchestrating the ritual…I guess he lost control? Maybe the gods intervened. I don’t know. All I know is I woke up here, in the dark, naked. I don’t know where here is. I have no idea which way my home is—’ He swallowed.

Lantha and Fiamah were watching him closely. Grathilde was studiously not looking at him, but Robin could see her adjust her posture to hear him better. What else has Lantha asked for?

‘My name is Robin. Allegiances? I’m not entirely sure what you mean by that, but I suppose the university? None of the people I’d think of as friends or allies are here.’ He measured his words as he spoke them. He made sure they were all heavy with truth, though he was careful not to let slip the whole truth. He didn’t want to tell someone who’d put a knife to his throat that he was from another world. He had no way of knowing if that was a common occurrence here or what the implications might be. ‘I woke up in a shrine. I don’t know if that means I’m considered to have an allegiance with the god. It was old. There was nothing in it that told me which god it had been dedicated to. So, yeah, I just don’t know.

‘I am not your enemy. I’m just scared, alone, and far from home. Please. Please believe me.’ Robin slumped, feeling the cold rock beneath him in every bone in his body.

Proficiencies Unlocked: Persuasion; Expression.

Lantha looked at him, calculation in her ageless eyes. Fiamah was clearly more sympathetic. Robin sat in the silence and rubbed his fingertips on the rough burlap of his makeshift sandals.

‘That will do for now,’ Lantha said abruptly. ‘We can’t trust him, not without further verification, but he seems safe enough.’

‘He’s certainly proven himself to be useful,’ Fiamah said.

‘He’s not getting a share of the loot, though,’ Grathilde said. ‘If he’s coming along, he gets paid in food.’ She paused. ‘I suppose he can have some scavenge rights if we find some more clothing. He still looks ridiculous.’

‘Fine.’ Lantha turned and began to rummage through the packs. ‘Rations and rest, in that order. We’re going with a double watch tonight, so sort yourselves accordingly.’

She didn’t look at Robin, but he knew the double watch was at least partially because of his presence. And while he hadn’t known Lantha long, he knew her well enough to realise that she’d made a specific point of saying what she said when she said it so he could hear it. He was in for a world of hurt if things continued in this vein.

New Quest: [Laughter is the Best Medicine]

Elicit a smile from each of your new companions and move yourself firmly from threat to tolerated ally.

Reward: +1 rank in either Insight, Expression, or Socialise.

Note: Rewards tripled if you can get a laugh out of each of your companions as well as a smile.

Proficiency Unlocked: Socialise.

Robin wasn’t quite sure the quest system he was interacting with was completely sane. The rewards were wildly inconsistent, and it occasionally exhibited odd bursts of personality. This one didn’t seem too bad though. Not easy, of course, but relatively straightforward.

It’d be nice if he could just ask any of these women about any of these things, but with the way he’d been treated so far, yeah, no. Not now. Maybe after he’d gotten a few smiles.

For now, he’d take the time he’d been given and sleep. He sighed and curled up on the chill stone, pillowing his head on his arms. In moments, he was out.

***

Robin awoke to darkness. He did not awake naked on the quad, hungover from experimental mead. He did not wake from this world as if from a dream. He hadn’t really expected to at this point, but it had been a nice thought while it lasted.

Seeing he was awake, Grathilde presented him with several mushrooms. Fiamah and Lantha were talking quietly on the other side of the niche. Ora-Jean was nowhere to been seen.

She was probably off scouting again. With her spirit badger, whatever that looked like when it was at home. Could anyone see spirits or just the one bound to them? Was it a cultural phenomenon or a class that anyone could take? Questions Robin would likely not get an answer to any time soon.

Since he had some free, not-about-to-be-murdered time, Robin busied himself exploring what he could of his system interface. Such as it was.

None of the others seemed able to see what he saw when he activated any of the prompts. That was both comforting and frustrating. Comforting as it meant his secrets would stay his. Frustrating because it meant he likely wouldn’t be able to see theirs either, if they even had interfaces.

It could all be a hallucination. Whatever. Doesn’t change anything substantial. Oh hello!

Robin had finally managed to find his [Spellbook] interface. There wasn’t much there, but more information on the two options he did have was very welcome.

[Lesser Phantasm]

Tier: Cantrip

Circle: Illusion, Shadow

Range: Short

Duration: 9 seconds + 3 seconds/level

Effect(s): Create a simple illusion that can fool a single sense at a time.

Constraints: Sound generated by this cantrip is equivalent in volume to that made by three shadelings, plus an additional three shadelings per level. Images generated cannot exceed a space greater than that occupied by three average shadelings and must be simple objects or forces.

So [Lesser Phantasm] was a bit better at producing sound than images. Makes sense. Visuals are a lot more complicated. Multiple dimensions and angles to consider, colour, texture, shape size…or maybe it was just magic and magic is weird like that.

Multiple voices though, and extreme volume control. He’d have to experiment with that. At the very least if he practiced he should be able to sing in harmony with himself.

Rhyth, he was going to end up as a bard, wasn’t he?

[Cutting Words]

Tier: Cantrip

Circle: Enchantment, Curse

Range: Audible (Special)

Duration: Instantaneous

Effect(s): Your insults or other cutting observations are infused with harmful psychic energy. This has two effects. The first: your target suffers a minor amount of psychic damage. The second: your target’s next action suffers a moderate disadvantage.

Constraints: Each utterance can only affect a single target. Repeated uses of the same insult on the same target produces diminishing returns. Conversely, particularly creative or effective insults have a small chance of intensifying the effect. Targets must be capable of hearing, but do not need to understand the language of the insult in order to suffer the effects of [Cutting Words].

Interesting. Nice to have a damage option, at least. With a minor debuff attached, too. Robin wondered how much impact the target not speaking the same language would have on the boost provided by particularly good insults. He instincts told him something was going on there.

Good thing he had [Tongue of the Fallen Tower]. The synergy there was pleasing. He’d have to try and get each of his companions to speak in their native tongues so he could add their languages to his mental file.

So far, both food and fashion in this new world left a lot to be desired, but the magic? That wasn’t bad. Robin’s mind wandered to the other two peculiarities he’d unlocked but hadn’t yet taken. Shapeshifting and more illusions. That was not going to be an easy choice.

Robin’s musings on his future ‘build’ were interrupted by the return of Ora-Jean. The diminutive fighter dropped a rough sack to the ground. It smelled strongly of mushrooms.

‘I’ve got some additional provisions, good news, and bad news. Which do you want first?’

‘Good news,’ Grathilde insisted.

Fiamah had picked up the bag and was inspecting the contents. Lantha just nodded in agreement with the dwarf. Robin didn’t say anything. He didn’t feel like his opinion would be welcome just now.

‘Well,’ Ora-Jean said, ‘the good news is that Taterpicker and I managed to find a path that should lead us out of these tunnels.’

The look on Grathilde’s face was like the sun rising after a dark and stormy night. Then she blinked and that same sun vanished behind a cloud.

‘And the bad news?’ she asked.

‘We found goblin sign on the path.’