“Oh for dog’s sake, put some clothes on, you skeevy elf!” muttered Saskia, releasing the staff abruptly. Why the hell was that guy running buck naked through the woods at night with a weapon in hand?

Okay yeah, there was that one time she herself had stripped him down to his underwear and ran off with his clothes, but still, this was getting ridiculous.

It wasn’t the first time she’d spied on him at an inopportune moment. Whoever that beautiful raven-haired elf girl was…wow. Saskia had gotten to know her about fifty shades more intimately than she would have preferred.

The staff was like an addiction for her. No matter how many times she witnessed something she’d rather not have seen and vowed never to touch it again, the staff kept luring her back. She’d reach out and bam! Suddenly she was seeing out of his eyes again. She felt like a creepy voyeur half the time, but this was the closest thing she had to a television in this messed up world. And she was so lonely here in her little mountain cave. Watching what was going on in someone else’s life almost let her forget how alone she really was.

But of all the people of this world she could have spied upon, why’d it have to be him!? She’d had her suspicions from the start, and her hunch had been confirmed on the third day when she saw his reflection in a pool. A pool filled with a bunch of naked, bathing elves, with bodies far more toned and perfect than you’d ever see at a nudist colony back on Earth. Not that Saskia had ever been to a nudist colony. Anyhow, the important thing was that the elf whose life she spied upon was the former owner of this staff, the druid who had tried to kill her!

The druid had changed a lot since she’d seen him last. He looked less…elfy, and more muscular. If she didn’t know any better, she’d think he’d been working out at the gym.

Saskia did know better though. He’d been fighting. Fighting a lot.

When he wasn’t engaged in X-rated activities with that lady friend of his, he was hacking at training dummies and other elves with an assortment of lethal-looking weapons. And by now he was no slouch with those weapons. His prowess seemed to have improved remarkably in just the few weeks she’d been spying on him. Early on, she’d watched him get knocked on his butt by elves much smaller than he was, but in the past few days, the only one who could challenge him was that massive brute with the big sword. On Earth, one couldn’t become a champion fighter in such a short time. It took years to get that good.

So was there something different about this world? Was it closer to a role-playing game, where characters went from midget to demigod over the span of a few days? Where they levelled up?

Given the presence of her game-like spectral interface, she’d be a fool not to at least consider the possibility, and whether such levelling rules might apply to her as well. So far she hadn’t heard any victory music or congratulatory dings or seen any flashing numbers when she killed a horned pig. She could do without that crap, honestly. She’d never been a fan of number-crunching in games, or math in general.

The other question on her mind was…why the change from when she’d fought him? Why the muscle-head routine? Wasn’t this guy supposed to be a druid? Where were his spells? She hadn’t seen him cast a single one.

It was hard to tell what was really going on because this window into his world was visual only. No sounds came from his end of the connection. Saskia couldn’t hear the elves speak, and she wouldn’t have understood their language even if she could.

The visuals weren’t flawless either. There was a surreal quality to what she saw; as if her host had smeared Vaseline over his eyeballs. Whether this was how he really saw the world, or a limitation of the connection, she couldn’t tell.

Sometimes, she saw disjointed scenes and events that were too bizarre to be real—even for this world—and she could only assume she was watching his dreams. Too many of those dreams featured Saskia in them. This guy was obsessed with her, and not in a good way. Was that why he spent so much time training with weapons? So he could use them against her? Had he decided being a scary acid-flinging druid wasn’t enough, so now he’d multi-classed into fighter/druid?

Even when he was awake, she often didn’t understand what it was she was seeing. These elves were weird. Their buildings were weird, their clothes were weird—when they bothered to wear clothes—they ate weird food, and they slept in these weird hammocky beds that looked…actually really comfy, she had to admit.

Saskia yawned and crawled over to her own makeshift bed beside the fire. She could go for a hammock right about now, although it’d have to be made of some super space-age fibre to support her weight.

After a good night’s sleep, she embarked on her latest project, one she’d been working toward for a while.

Over the past couple of weeks, Saskia had been rediscovering the ancient art of pottery-making. This wasn’t just a hobby. Aside from a small water bladder and a couple of little vials of unidentified fluids she was hesitant to discard (in case they were valuable potions), she had nothing in which to keep liquids. And the only cooking implements she had were sticks and stones. She hadn’t realised how essential containers were until she didn’t have them. Pottery was, in theory, the easiest solution to that problem.

Back on Earth, she’d once watched a YouTube video on the process, but it was another thing entirely to attempt it herself with no kiln or potter’s wheel, and just the low-grade clay she could collect from around the valley. She’d had to dig an outside firepit she could use specifically for this purpose. Her little cookfire inside the cave didn’t burn hot enough, and if it did, it’d smoke out the place. Then there were all the different clays, additives and glazes she’d had to try out before she’d found a combination that was strong and didn’t leak. Without access to the Internet or books or tutors, her early attempts had been a string of failures, some of which literally exploded in her face.

But she’d soon discovered she wasn’t entirely on her own in this. The mysterious game-like interface had once again come to her rescue, revealing new indicators to guide her. Nothing with words or numbers, of course. What she got were subtle highlights that showed her what materials to harvest, markers on her map that showed her where to find them, more highlights that hinted what she should do with them, and floating thermometers and hourglasses that showed her how hot and for how long she needed to fire the pottery.

It was just like a crafting minigame, except this minigame had walked her through the same process a potter on Earth might have used before the advent of modern tools and techniques.

So far, her on-again, off-again efforts had yielded just a few lumpy bowls and jugs. Hardly an impressive feat of craftsmanship, but far more than she’d have achieved on her own without any guidance whatsoever.

Today, she was making something much more ambitious; a large cook pot, almost worthy of the name cauldron. A cooking vessel fit for a troll. This work would require a lot of clay, and the stuff gathered straight from the ground wouldn’t do. Fortunately, she’d already prepared what she needed the day before, and now had an ample supply of dried, powdered clay picked clean of stones and other detritus. She just needed to add water, mix it up, and then mould it into shape.

This was trickier than it sounded. Her claws would make a mess of things if she wasn’t careful. Today, her solution was to press the clay onto a large, round stone and let it do most of the work for her. She could smooth it out with the palms of her hand, without her claws getting in the way.

After the clay had hardened a little, she prised it off the stone, and smoothed over the inside as best she could with her fist. On a whim, she scratched her name onto its outer surface with her claws, and, unable to stop there, sketched out a design based on a city skyline from Earth. What would the people of this world make of that?

Satisfied with the design, she poured on a glaze made from wood-ash and feldspar. After waiting a while for that to dry, she brought the resulting glazed pot down to the smouldering firepit she’d prepared in a sheltered little nook outside her cave. She carefully lowered the pot onto the burning embers, placed stacks of logs around it, and then piled in the fuel – branches, twigs, dried pig dung; whatever she could use to get it burning at the ridiculously high temperature needed to turn brittle, crumbly clay into a viable cauldron. Within the seething flames, the vessel began to glow. Finally, her spectral thermometer told her it was hot enough, and she breathed a sigh of relief. She kept adding fuel throughout the afternoon, then left it to cool overnight.

Returning to the cave, her eyes were immediately dawn toward the druid’s staff. After she’d eaten, she gave in to temptation and clasped her fingers around his thick pole…oh frock, why was her mind going there? This guy was rubbing off on…nope. Just nope.

The moment she touched the staff, she was whisked away to…wait, what the hell was this!? The scene that greeted her was so far from the usual sexploits that it gave her emotional whiplash.

In the staffovision, her host was standing before a large bonfire, surrounded by solemn-faced elves. Some of them were openly weeping.

Then Saskia realised what was on the fire. Bodies; too many to count, charred and billowing smoke.

What in the world happened here!? thought Saskia, shocked. What did I miss?

She didn’t sleep very well after that. The sight of so many burning bodies was hardly a relaxing prelude to a good night’s rest. If only she were more like Raji, who could drift off to sleep during horror movie scenes that left her wanting to huddle behind the sofa.

Saskia retrieved her cauldron from the firepit the next morning. Inspecting the large pot, she was satisfied by the result. Sure, it was a bit lumpy and misshapen (just like its creator), but it had come through the firing process with a nice glossy finish.

She’d come to a decision sometime in the sleepless night. She needed to get away for a day or two. Away from the staff. Away from the comforts of her cave. She needed to go adventuring. To get strong enough that the elves could no longer threaten her, if such a thing were possible.

The best place to go to level-up quickly in a typical role-playing game was usually a dungeon. A dungeon in a game could be any indoor or underground or even outdoor environment filled with monsters or traps. This had always struck Saskia as kinda funny, because a dungeon in the real world was just a room or cell in which prisoners were kept; a pretty lousy place to gain experience, unless one wanted to experience sitting around eating rats.

What she sought was not a cell, but a mountain cave. One like hers, but with actual monsters inside, and not a girl who looked like a monster.

She knew that other caves existed in these mountains; she’d seen them on her map and visited some of them. So far, she hadn’t found anything worthy of the name dungeon.

Saskia’s map had evolved considerably since she first roamed the mountains. She could now change its scale, zooming out until it covered an area about fifteen kilometres across, wide enough to see beyond the edge of the valley. Underground, the range remained much smaller than on the surface: just under one and a half kilometres. Both of these limits were expanding a bit further every day. With a mere thought, she could make the minimap rotate, or remain locked in a direction of her choosing. Over time, seemingly responding to her wishes, it had adopted a new visual design that better represented the three-dimensional nature of the terrain and the interior of her cave. And where in the beginning she’d struggled to keep the map up at the same time as her other interface layers, she could now simultaneously maintain two or three of them.

She hoped these changes would make today’s search easier than her earlier explorations.

Today, she headed for a cluster of dungeon candidates to the north. There was much more snow up here than the last time she’d come this way. It was just as well her skin was thick and her trollish regeneration made her virtually immune to frostbite, because she still had no shoes. They just weren’t practical with these massive clawed toes of hers.

Stepping gingerly into one of the caves, she immediately turned away. Just beyond the entrance, it ended in a pool of water that had completely iced over. If there was anything down there, she’d have to wait for warmer months to find out.

The next cave, in a gully between two steep cliffs, was much more promising. There were small footprints in the snow at the entrance, and lots of them. Even more enticing were the clusters of lime-coloured markers on her map in the tunnels beyond. Okay, so creatures marked green or even yellow weren’t normally much of a threat, but the sheer number might present a challenge.

She stepped around the corner, arms wide, claws splayed, teeth bared; ready for a fight.

Five tiny white fuzzballs stared up at Saskia with wide eyes and hissed, lips curling back on their adorable little faces to reveal needle-sharp fangs.

She stood there gawping for a long moment. Then she dropped to a crouch and cried out, “Oh my god, you’re so cute!”

She wanted so much to boop those little pug noses, but she didn’t think that’d go down well. Also…she had claws.

The fuzzballs backed away, chittering softly, before turning their fluffy tails and scampered off down the tunnel.

No way was she going to murder something that adorable. Especially if they didn’t even try to fight back.

Well…maybe there was something more menacing further in. She pressed on, around a bend and into a larger cavern, where at least twenty of the little critters stood atop rocks and stalagmites, eyeing her timidly.

Who’s the monster now, huh? she thought to herself.

Slowly, she sidled past them, trying to ignore the multitude of beady eyes watching her every step.

The chamber narrowed into a steep tunnel that wound its way deep into the mountain. Surrounded by icy rock, a thought occurred to her. These mountains appeared to be made of roughly the same stuff as mountains on Earth. So what was the world tree itself made of? She’d already discounted the possibility that it was made of actual wood. That would just be absurd. Was there a plain old nickel-iron core somewhere down there? No, surely it wouldn’t be that boring. There had to be something exotic. Something magic. If she went deep enough, maybe she’d get to see it.

Eventually, the tunnel opened out into a windy, downward-sloping ledge overlooking a frozen lake. Jutting from the ice was a huge column of dark rock, half-obscured by roiling mist.

Behind her, something chittered. She glanced back and saw that several of the creatures were following at a safe distance behind her. On her map, she could see many more trailing behind them, just out of sight. Shivering, she shooed them away. In movies, scenes like this usually didn’t end well. Then again, those movies usually starred fragile little humans with no clue they were about to be eaten, not big genre-savvy trolls.

As she continued down the slope, her map revealed more and more of the ice lake below, and she began to feel increasingly uneasy. There were swarms of green dots out on the ice; too many to count. And in the centre, a large violet marker.

What is that, the dungeon boss? she thought.

If red meant dead, a violet marker indicated something…way out of her league. Even if there hadn’t been that ominous colour to it, going straight up to the boss with all these little critters still scurrying about wouldn’t have seemed like a wise move. They’d probably swarm her, and she didn’t fancy the idea of being devoured by fuzzy little land piranhas, no matter how cute they were.

She should turn back, like five minutes ago.

And yet…

Saskia had to see what was down there, lurking within that veil of fog. If she didn’t at least take a look, the mystery of it would eat away at her.

She stepped out onto the ice, toward a seething mass of furry white creatures that scurried out from underfoot. A nauseating stench filled the air. Some of the tiny fuzzballs had columns of even tinier chittering critters in tow, bringing to mind images of ducklings following their mothers. Others stood in clusters around mounds of dark…oh crap, they were feeding. The crimson stains across the ice told her they weren’t vegetarians, if the pointy teeth weren’t evidence enough.

She lost her nerve, and began to back away, thinking, Why haven’t they swarmed me already? Am I that scary, or are they already sated? Where’d they get all that meat anyhow?

And then the dark column at the centre of the lake flexed, and an ear-splitting screech echoed across the cavern.

That isn’t stone, she realised.

The head of the great worm flailed about, shaking the ice beneath her feet. For a moment, the mist parted, and she saw a writhing mass of tendrils reaching for the high ceiling, before drawing back inside its gaping maw.

The little fuzzballs, which she now dubbed adorribles, didn’t seem at all fazed by the gargantuan monster in their midst. But of course they wouldn’t, because it was trapped in the ice, and they were eating it.

Through the swirling fog, she watched as innumerable specks of white streamed into and out of great, gaping cavities in its thick hide, like ants feeding on a whale.

I guess that explains why they aren’t attacking me, she thought. And why there are so many of them. They’ve got the motherlode of meat here. I’m just not worth their time.

Still, she wasn’t going to stick around and give them a chance to prove her wrong. She high-tailed it up the slope and out of the cave, bounding on all fours to increase her speed.

That was quite enough dungeon-delving for today. She returned to her cave, shivering from more than just cold.

The next morning, she saw that the weather in the mountains had taken a turn for the bleak and miserable, and it was heading her way.

Guess I’ll be hunkering down in my cave for a while, she thought morosely.

Unfortunately, she couldn’t stay inside all day. Later, while out collecting water from the nearby stream, Saskia noticed a blue marker on her minimap heading down the mountainside. She’d never seen a blue marker before.

Warily, Saskia ducked behind a rock, watching the marker draw closer. Its movement seemed too purposeful to be a wandering animal. The unknown entity was taking the same route Saskia herself had walked when she first entered the valley.

Whoever approached was likely taking shelter from the fierce blizzard that howled up in the mountains. But what were they doing up there in the first place, on a day like today? This was not the weather for travelling.

A figure stumbled through the trees. Long raven-black hair flapped in the breeze, atop a grey, round face covered in cuts and bruises and a dusting of unmelted snow. It was a woman of indefinable age. A very short and stout woman in a torn smock, completely inappropriate for these conditions. A dwarf.

Saskia stepped out from behind the rock. The dwarf took one look at her, teetered for a moment, then pitched face-first into the snow.