Jack had no idea what in the Sam Hill she was talking about.

“Your blood?” he said. “Why would I want that? I ain’t a vampire.”

Novus looked like she was going to attack him. “You would joke about such an honour? After all we have done for you?”

It wasn’t just Novus who reacted adversely. All of the Chian’dir spat and swore in varying levels of outrage—all except Sextus.

“Friend Jack is new to this world!” he admonished. “We are his only source of knowledge. His ignorance is our offence, not his. Yet you chatter like scouts who have never left the village?” The old warrior’s words cut through his fellow Chian’dir’s indignation, their offence muted through shame if not through wisdom.

Sextus turned to Jack. “As a human, you possess a Trait that lets you take in some of the essence of other species, so long as it is freely given. Our people call this essence the Blood of the Chian’dir. This is not uncommon—for most species, blood is the medium through which essence is transferred, though there are some exceptions. It is also through this essence that a human may Evolve into a different species, should they acquire enough of a given species’ essence.”

Jack nodded in understanding. “Ah, yeah. I kinda remember the lizard mentioning something about that. No thanks, I’m good with being human.”

Novus shook her head. “Do not fear, friend Jack. We have no intentions of adding you to our tribe. We make this offer because there are benefits to accepting even a fraction of another species’ essence. Accepting the Blood of the Chian’dir might aid you in returning to your family.”

That gave Jack pause. As much as he found the idea distasteful, any veteran knew that the line between survival and death was razor-thin.

“And you say I’ll still be human if I do this?” he asked.

“You will,” Sextus promised. “A human’s expressed species is determined by their dominant essence, even if that changes over time. Right now, your essence is entirely human. If you accept our gift, one-tenth of that essence will become Chian’dir. This will not affect your species, as your predominant essence will remain human. Over time you may choose to take on essence from other species, but you will continue to be a human so long as you retain more human essence than that of any other species.

“And then what? I start growin’ hair, or scales, or whatever and turn into somethin’ else?”

“No,” Sextus said. “Even then, you would have to undertake a quest to complete the change. However, if you did not accept the quest, you would suffer ill effects until you brought your essence back into balance.”

Jack planted his hands on his hips and frowned. Then he thought about it some more and shook his head, chuckling to himself.

“Look at me. Getting my knickers all twisted over something I didn’t even know existed five minutes ago. Yes, I’d be honoured to accept your gift. But first, I want to offer an apology. I offended you folk with my reaction when you first brought this up. It wasn’t my intention, and I’m sorry ’bout that.”

“Thank you, Jack,” Novus said. She withdrew an ornamental bone knife from a sheath at her belt and held it out to Kaeso. “Are you able to perform the ceremony? I am old. I haven’t the strength.”

“You honour me,” Kaeso said, taking the knife.

“There’s a ceremony?” Jack asked, picturing the long masses his Catholic wife had forced him to sit through. “Aw hell. Do we really have to—”

Kaeso abruptly slashed her palm and grabbed his forehead, her still-powerful hand nearly encompassing his entire cranium. Immediately, Jack's mind was assaulted with a flash of images as the moments of greatest import to Kaeso’s Chian’dir identity roiled through him, their order dictated by importance, not chronology. Her birth, her first hunt. Wielding a weapon. The birth of her first child. On and on they went. When they got to the most climactic moments of her life—her transitory moments from scout to warrior and warrior to elder—Jack’s stomach dropped like he was going over the edge on a roller coaster, only to jerk back to consciousness as the ritual came to a close.

Jack opened his eyes and blinked. His body was humming, but Kaeso was unconscious and halfway to the ground, the back of her coat tight in Canus’ grip to keep her from falling the rest of the way. The large warleader inspected Jack’s state, and once he was satisfied that the essence transfer had concluded, he hefted Kaeso off the ground and tossed her over his shoulder like a sack of grain.

A paper appeared. Jack tried to bat it aside, but this time it dodged out of the way, refusing to be dismissed.

He sighed. The damn thing was magic, so it would probably keep dodging until the cows came home.

No point tilting at windmills, he thought, plucking it out of the air:

ESSENCE OF THE CHIAN’DIR ACQUIRED!

For the first time in Arenia’s history, the Chian’dir people have bestowed a Legend with the Blood of the Chian’dir. As a result, you have received a Trait that any soldier would sell a testicle for.

Reward: Unlocks the Trial of the Chian’dir Trait

New Trait Acquired: TRIAL OF THE CHIAN’DIR

Upon death, you will have the option of undergoing a trial. Should you succeed, you will return to life but be changed by the experience.

NOTE: This trial is voluntary—if death is your wish, you may have it.

Requirements: Minimum 10% Chian’dir essence. If you successfully complete your trial, you will lose this essence and suffer undetermined penalties until you bring your total Essence back to 100%.

Current Essence Status

Human: 90%

Chian’dir: 10%

Jack’s voluminous eyebrows rose. “That’s a helluva gift,” he said. Even without knowing the bonuses and penalties, alive was usually preferable to dead. “Thank you kindly. I get that this ain’t a little thing you’re doin’ for me.”

“It is our pleasure, Jack. Truly,” Novus said.

“If we are finished?” Sextus said to Novus, his hand coming down on Jack’s shoulder. The Chian’dir elder nodded, and Sextus gestured for Jack to follow him, walking on his hands until he was some distance away from the other Chian’dir. Jack fell in behind him, noting when they came to a halt that the old warrior had not just taken them out of earshot but also positioned himself so that his broad back obscured their conversation from the rest of the Chian’dir.

Jack tilted his head. “What’s goin’ on?” he asked, lowering his voice.

“I have something to give you, but also something to tell you,” Sextus said. “Look down with your eyes, but don’t move your head.”

Jack did so, despite not understanding why.

“Do you see those plants with the three leaves?” the old Chian’dir said, glancing at the ground between them. Jack followed his gaze and saw a distinctive plant with a thick shoot and broad, almond-shaped leaves.

“Sure,” he said, not certain where the conversation was going.

“There are three types of this plant, all with edible roots. From my understanding, two of those taste like a wyvern’s bile sac, but the one with a white underside to the leaves is reasonably palatable.”

Jack gave a tiny nod. This was invaluable information, but he was surprised Sextus would know about it, given the Chian’dir’s isolationism and zealotry for a carnivorous diet.

“You will also find a number of trees with cones,” Sextus continued. “All of them have seeds which can be eaten. Most grasses can be eaten in small amounts, but that is for roughage, not nourishment. Don’t eat any red berries. Some are edible, but most are poisonous, and I don’t know which are which. If you find flecked stones with a purple vein running through them, you can scrape off some of that purple vein and use it to purify water. It can also be used on wounds to keep them from festering. I hope this information is helpful. It is all I know, but I would not have you die in the forest when I carry this knowledge.”

“Thank you,” Jack said sincerely. “Though I’ll admit that I’m curious where you learned this stuff.

Sextus shrugged. “Every year, a small number of scouts are selected to leave the tribe and never return. Instead, they must search far and wide to find another tribe who will take them in. If they manage to do this, they are welcomed with great fanfare, for the addition of one who can survive such a journey means strengthening the tribe overall.”

“And the scouts are okay with getting tossed out on their ass like that?” Jack asked.

“Indeed. It is a singular honour reserved for the scouts with the greatest potential, for the farther the scout travels to find a new tribe, the greater the honour to both their birth-tribe and the tribe who takes them in.”

“I’m guessin’ you were one of those scouts,” Jack noted.

“Yes. I was also a fool. My pride was great, and I sought to travel farther than any Chian’dir before me. For a long time I was successful, but eventually, the rigours of the journey set in. I was attacked by a pack of egghounds, and though I managed to kill them, I was gravely wounded. Fortune came to my aid, though. It so happened that the pack had been scourging a small tribe of goblins—by the time I killed the egghounds, more than half the tribe had been killed and eaten. They took me in and healed me as a show of respect.” He shook his head. “I would never have thought such a thing possible from a plant-eater.”

For a moment, Sextus stared off into the distance. Then he seemed to jerk free of his memory and gestured to the plants. “I was not there long and did not consume their plants, but I did learn some of their ways. That is the source of my knowledge.”

“What do the others think about all that?” Jack asked, though he suspected he knew the answer.

“I have never told my story to another Chian’dir,” Sextus said, confirming Jack’s suspicions, “although I am sure some have noticed that I do not partake in goblin flesh when they encroach upon our borders. Still, I am glad that my knowledge may be of use to you. It is an opportunity to pass along the kindness shown to me so many years ago.”

Jack nodded. He was hardly a goblin expert, but he knew they were pretty much universally regarded as evil in fiction. That said, no matter how much crossover there was between the world of Arenia and the fantasy settings of Earth literature, it was important to remember that the two weren’t the same. If Jack wanted to survive, he’d have to approach each new species without preconceived prejudices.

“Thanks for sharing,” he said. “I mean it. It’ll help a lot. I could probably survive solely on meat for a little while, but I gotta be honest: I haven’t crapped since I got to Arenia. Pretty sure that ain’t healthy.”

Sextus somehow managed to contort his thick-skulled, sloth-baboon face into a wry grin. “You are probably correct. Now, I have a gift for you.” Sextus took a rucksack off his shoulder and opened it, pulling out some kind of long bone.

At a glance, Jack wasn’t sure what to make of it. Roughly a metre in length, it had a broad, misshapen head at one end, while the other end was wrapped in leather and clearly meant to be a handle. The closest comparable Jack could come up with was some kind of bone hurley stick, but the comparison was ruined by the bulbous growths of thick calcium on the back side of the paddle that could easily focus any force delivered with the weapon to a deadly degree.

“This club is made from the wing bone of the wyvern that nearly killed me,” Sextus said, holding it out to Jack. He took it and was immediately surprised at how light it was.

Sextus smiled. “As with all dragonkin, the bone is light but very strong. An iron sword would dull itself on that weapon before cutting through it.”

“Don’t you lose a lot of power with something this light?” Jack asked as he swung it back and forth. He’d had to use the butt of his rifle in hand-to-hand combat once during the war, and the incident had shown him just how important a weapon’s weight was in melee.

“On the contrary,” Sextus said. “Much of the power comes from the leverage you create when you swing the weapon and the point where you make contact. If you hit here,” he pointed to the edge of the flat face, “or here,” he pointed to the rear of the head, “you will cause significant trauma.”

“What if I hit with the flat part?” Jack asked.

Sextus bared his teeth in a Chian’dir grin but didn’t answer, even after Jack raised an inquisitive eyebrow.

Jack was starting to suspect that there was more to Sextus than the old Chian’dir warrior let on.

“Thanks for this,” Jack said, hefting the club in his hand. “Probably best if I don’t go wandering the woods with just a pocketknife.”

“Certainly not,” Sextus said. “Speaking of your knife, that blade you arrived with is no tool for a warrior. We placed a new one in your bag and gave your old one to the children to play with.”

Jack snorted. On Earth they wouldn’t let a kid play with a bag of grapes—apparently Chian’dir young’uns had a childhood a lot closer to his own.

“Thanks again,” Jack said before turning back to Canus and Novus. “Alright! You folks done comin’ up with ways to keep me from leaving?”

Canus barked out a laugh, his teeth showing in a Chian’dir grin. “That is all, friend Jack! May you hunt well and find your tribe.”

Elder Novus also raised a hand in parting before heading back to the village, Canus accompanying her with the still-unconscious Kaeso slung over his shoulder.

Jack turned to Sextus and slapped him on the shoulder. “Alright, old man. Hope you ain’t dead if I pass through here again.”

“I find that exceedingly unlikely,” Sextus answered.

“You mean me coming through here, or you living to see it?”

Sextus bared his teeth in a Chian’dir grin. “Till we meet again, friend Jack. In this world or the next.”

Jack nodded and gave him a wave, then headed away from the village. He still had a long way to go, but at least he knew there were some good folk on Arenia. And for that, he was thankful.