“Come.” Raynash is waiting for me to follow, then leads me over to the collection of the look-alike swords.

A few elves are there picking up and testing the enchantments on them.

Raynash motioning to the swords, I sort through and test each one. They all react the same and are not usable by me. There are more than a dozen swords, but I don’t think twenty. I don’t care enough to count them right now. The elves have already finished checking and are watching me.

Hearing some jingling, Raynash is shaking and holding out a pouch for me to take. It’s a bag full of look-alike rings, like the one I’m wearing. After looking at some of them, I pick one and put it on. Sorting through the swords again, I don’t find anything any different. Neither did the elves.

On a whim, I put a ring on every finger, then go through the swords again. Still nothing. Each one, the sword tip falls into the dirt as soon as I face someone with it.

Taking off the rings, I put them back into the bag. Handing the bag back to Raynash, he says, “Take off your ring.” Shrugging my shoulders and keeping the bag. I put my ring in my pocket, replacing it with one out of the bag.

The effect is obvious and immediate, as the sharp intake of my breath accompanies the rush of added strength I feel. Raynash’s eyes light up, along with the other elves. I wasn’t ready for it and there was no hiding that something happened.

Picking up one of the look-alike swords, it still doesn’t let me use it. Again with the shrug of a shoulder, I think that we all expect at least one of the swords to work. Sorting through the pile, there are seventeen swords. I find the one sword that the ring lets me use. Checking all of the other swords, there is only one match.

Giving the sword and ring to one of the elves, I take another ring that Raynash is handing me. Finding its mate, we repeat the process for all seventeen swords. There are three extra rings left in the bag that didn’t match with any sword.

An elf has come back through the oversized doors that The Officer and the Raiding party had charged through. I overhear him tell Rayash, “He says no.”

With a sigh, Rayash collects a sword-ring set, “Gather the others, guard these, have two continue to search for more.” He commands the elf. As he’s heading through the door, he gives me a command, “Stay with the swords, I am going to need you when I return.”

With a shoulder shrug, I turn to look at the elves. After standing there for a couple of minutes, I just sit where I’m at. There are no trees close by, and I try to relax my mind a bit.

One of the elves starts testing the sword sets. After the third set and a puzzled face, he approaches and offers one of the sets to me. I feel the rush of strength from the ring, but giving it back to the elf, nothing happens for him when he puts it on.

Experimenting, I pull Grut’s ring out of my pocket and put it on. I knew it stopped working and found that the ring that I just had on is now also not working. Taking Grut’s ring on and off does nothing. Only when I put the new ring on, without wearing Grut’s ring, does anything happen.

We are all now trying on the rings, interesting, the rings only work for me, but only one at a time. “Maybe because he’s not an Elf, one theorizes.” After another five or ten minutes, we quickly bore. They each find themselves something else to do while I go back to sitting by the stack of swords.

An Elf comes back through the large door with a younger man following. The elf handed him one of the rings to try on. His eyes went wide and we could all tell the ring was working for him. The matching sword also seemed to operate just fine. The elves gathered and with a show of unspoken united strength, the man gave the ring back without a word. Heading back through the door, he didn’t look too concerned about it either way. I did note that he was not an elf.

Sitting here, staring at the ground, the reality of this world is starting to overwhelm me. I’ve been acting and treating this whole experience like it wasn’t real and my actions didn’t have any consequences for me.

My thoughts turn to think about online games. Books I’ve read. Some anime I’ve seen. Too many of them are too similar to this world, and each other, for it to be by chance. Similar to each other? Sure. Similar to this place? No. Something else is going on and I don’t want to be here anymore. I don’t want to be an adventurer. I don’t want to be hunting or killing things.

I become aware of Reyansh in a heated discussion with The Officer, in a language I don’t understand. Maybe another twenty or so more people have also come back through the doors. The Dwarf is trying to put the ring on, but cannot because it is too small for any of his fingers.

Inquisitor Lightbringer, Bishop Ramos, Doctor Lightbringer, and a few others are grinning, each wearing one of the look-alike rings and holding a look-alike sword. There are just as many others with a ring and sword that just look confused. Even though I do not understand the language, I understand Reyansh pointing out that the rings and swords do not operate for non-humans.

Collecting the rings back into the bag, I’m a little surprised to see that it is Inquisitor Lightbringer who is putting up the most amount of resistance to Reyansh about the ring. He gave the sword back but really wants to keep the ring.

The Officer has already headed back through the doors before Reyansh has collected all the rings back. I see Gretta give me a head nod with a slight smile before she turns, heading back in with everyone else.

Doctor Lightbringer stays behind, making sure that I’m doing okay, which I am not and he sees it. Taking a knee so that he is at eye level with me sitting on the ground he asks. “May I?” Extending his hand, slightly palm up.

It takes a second, but then I understand he wants me to grasp his hand. When I do, he lightly places his hand over mine, closes his eyes, then begins to talk to me.

“When you first came here, we didn’t know quite what to think. I had thought your recovery quite remarkable after I had you stabilized, but I know now that we have Jenn to thank for that.”

Changing hands, he repeats his actions and continues. “Normally, I prefer to heal most of the damage, disease, toxicity, then let you finish recovering naturally. It helps the body to grow more resilient.”

Letting my hand go and motioning to my wrist for the ID band, he taps his stone tablet to it.

Seeing that he is waiting on me, “I’m ok, go on.”

“Before I do, with your permission, I would like to restore some of your balance.”

“Balance?” I ask.

“Chemical balance. You’re overly stressed at the moment. I’d like to bring that back into acceptable levels.” He answers.

Giving him permission with a nod of my head, he takes my hand again and closes his eyes. A few moments later he releases my hand, takes out his stone tablet, does something, then puts it back into his pocket.

“And?” I ask him.

“That was it.” He answers.

“What didn’t you want to tell me?” I ask.

With a sigh, “Not exactly the optimum setting for a doctor-patient consultation. I feel more like a field medic. I’ve been unofficially recruited as the healer of this raiding party. Even if it was more of an afterthought for them to come and get me.” Holding an Identification stone, pulsating with the ‘nil’ reading that I have come to recognize.

After another pause, “When we’re back at Awaking Farms, we can talk more in-depth. Overall, you are doing very well. You’re physically stronger and more resilient than when I first examined you. Your mana channels are now opening up and are clear. I would expect that your thoughts are now also clearer and more resolute. I am concerned that you are here, but I also understand wanting to grow stronger.”

“What I don’t know is why the Identification process doesn’t work for you. It’s not a bad thing. I just don’t understand why or what might be different about you. Or maybe affecting you. So I’m cautious with any treatment.”

“I do request that when you follow, stay back. You don’t need to be on the front line. I heard that you are able to ‘Bless’. That can be very helpful to party members. Let them come back to you. As long as you are near, you will progress. How are you feeling?”

I hadn’t thought about it. But I’m doing better. Not feeling so overwhelmed now. Not dismissing what I just went through either. I stand up, dusting myself off a bit. “Better. Thank you.”

“I need to be heading back. The way has been cleared and I should be there.” Doctor Lightbringer tells me. “You can walk with me if you want.”

“I’ll go back with you,” I reply quick-stepping to match his pace and walk beside him.

I feel the weight of wrongness press down on me as I realize that we’re not going back to Community Farms. I hardly pause as I wince, stepping through the giant doorway. Rowan glancing over at me is saying something to be careful about. Some combination of pride and not wanting to look stupid directs my steps to stay alongside him.

The passageway slopes downward after about twenty feet. The doorway and everything else outside is just a giant facade to cover this mined entrance. The walls and floor are fairly smooth and it is laid out, decorated, and squared off as if it was constructed with lumber, but it is definitely dug or mined out of the earth.

The first two levels are uneventful and of a normal appearance as we continue our descent. The third level opens to echoing conversations overlooking a cavernous expanse that gives me the impression that it was once a ballroom, easily as large as any college gymnasium. I stop, letting Rowan continue down to the main floor. The Raiding party has gathered here and is milling about.

The most notable feature of this expanse is the cavelike opening in the left side back wall. The right half looks to be lab equipment, like the crafting stations The Officer had. The near left side has livestock pens and pigs running around in them. It all looks so out of place to me.

The Paladin, the Bishop, along with The Officer and Lilly’s dad Reyansh stick out from everyone else and they are the first group I recognize as I scan the hall. They are over in the lab section. None of them are subtle in their searching of the area, yet they are keeping it organized and not destroying anything. Jaxx I pick out next as he is not moving, staring into that cave. Most everyone else just looks to be waiting for something to happen.

I finish descending to the main floor and walk along the back wall until I come to the animal pen. About a twenty-foot square section of this hall has been fenced off for these, pigs? Hogs? It is just so out of place. I just lean on the fence top as if I was standing at a bar and stare into the muddy mess these pigs are making.

There is a strong smell of fresh earth from all the digging and trampling of the ground that they have done, even digging into the back walls. You can see large bones and food just thrown against the back wall to feed them. I reason to myself that they must be using them as a sort of organic garbage disposal. The sight of this pen, here in this hall is absurd. If I were to cut a section out of my floor at home or heap dirt into the corner of my living room, start a garden, or my own little farm, it wouldn’t be any worse than this.

I don’t smell any rotting food or excrement, which is also odd. Looking down, I pick up a small handful of the dirt that is just on this side of the fence and smell it. It smells of fresh premium earth and has grass and things growing in it because it is on this side of the fence, where it isn’t being trampled.

Looking at the grass and dirt in my hand, ‘Bless’ I say to it and watch the little plants there in my hand twitch and grow a bit.

With a smile starting to form, I speak to it again, “Bless. Life and health. I Bless you and command you to grow and prosper.” The plants are twitching now. New sprouts are forming and it’s looking like one of those Chia Pets turning into a solid green ball of plants, a little bigger than a baseball.

“Humf,” I let out a little laugh as I toss the plant ball on the ground. “There was no effort in that,” I say to myself. Why is that? I just spoke to it. What am I doing differently here, then if I was at home? Is it the mana? Causing it to grow? I don’t know what Reyansh was talking about either, ‘The wood does not respond’, or when he was talking to his daughter Lilly, ‘The wood resists!’.

A slow epiphany spreads across my mind. Reyansh’s words are burning brightly in my thoughts. ‘The wood resists!’. There is an excitement, but no realization of what it is. ‘The wood resists!’. The cognizance, my understanding, expanding. ‘The wood resists!’.

‘There are no Great Trees where you are from’, I remember those words. ‘The wood resists!’ I ask myself, ‘Why does the wood resist?’.

Remembering a conversation with my son, he was commenting on a college Art course and his teachers’ comments. “If you want to expand your awareness of art, look at everything and have the mindset that what you see was done on purpose”. “What if that crack in the wall was done on purpose? What if the dirt on his shoes or shirt, is there on purpose? Etc, etc…”

‘Why did the wood resist and this Chia Pet grass ball doesn’t? Is it the mana here?’ With another slight epiphany, ‘No! The mana is being used as fuel. Another food source that the plants and everything else here can use to grow faster!’ ‘…Then that means that the same thing would happen on Earth, if I spoke to the dirt, only slower, because there is no mana!’ But it doesn’t? ‘The wood resists!’. Why? Because it is cursed?

With a final flash of understanding, The ground is cursed! ‘Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat food from it all the days of your life.’ OMG That is the curse! The ground, the earth itself, resists! It no longer obeys commands, that is why you have to physically work it!

I pick up another hand full of dirt, ‘Grow!’ I command it. Another handful of Chia Pet plants grows in my hand. “HA!” I blurt out, a few turn to look at me and I toss the plant ball down by the other. That is the difference! There is no curse here! A King commands and has authority!