As a troll, Saskia had eaten a lot of strange things. Things that wriggled. Things that oozed. Things that tried to eat her.

But this was the first time she’d seen her food rise up and start dragging itself across the floor—after she’d already eaten most of it.

The food in question was what remained of the mountain goat analogue she’d slaughtered on the day Ruhildi showed up. She’d been keeping it in a little nook, far from the fire, where the air temperature was close to that of a refrigerator. The meat from around the beast’s shoulders, flanks, midsection and upper limbs had gone into the soups, stews and steaks they’d enjoyed over the past few days, leaving many of its bones exposed, and its guts hanging out. Saskia had been saving those for later, when she could eat in private. She didn’t know how Ruhildi might react to the sight of her gorging on entrails.

Except there was no way she was putting those entrails anywhere near her mouth. Not any more. Not after…whatever the hell had just happened, happened.

Ruhildi blinked down at the carcass that moments earlier had been cosying up to her legs. She looked at Saskia and muttered something that sounded a lot like, “Och bollocks.”

Then she limped back to bed and went straight to sleep.

Saskia stared at her, flabbergasted. “You don’t just go back to sleep after something like that!” she snapped. But the only reply she received was a snore.

Grumbling about crazy dwarves, Saskia hauled the carcass out into the snow—holding it at arm’s length, in case it once again started moving of its own accord—and buried it. Saskia had no intention of sharing this cave with the undead. If she left that thing inside, next thing she knew it’d be biting her face off. And that might take days to grow back.

Even after the remains were safely buried, Saskia slept fitfully. The crawling dead invaded her dreams, creaking and clattering and scraping their way down the tunnels of her mind. She awoke feeling dull and bleary, with the echoes of her nightmare still ringing in her ears.

Ruhildi was already up, and no longer in the cavern. For a moment, Saskia wondered if the dwarf had slipped away in the night, but a quick glance at her map showed a familiar blue marker at the cave entrance. She found Ruhildi sitting on the ledge, looking up at a clear pre-dawn sky. Or as clear as a sky shrouded in giant branches could be. The dwarf wasn’t doing her partially-healed extremities any favours by sitting out here in the cold.

Saskia resisted the impulse to grab Ruhildi by the shoulders and shake her until she coughed up some answers. It wasn’t like the dwarf could give her those answers even if she wanted to. They couldn’t speak more than a few words of each other’s language. And the last thing she wanted to do was antagonise the dwarf. Ruhildi was the first person she’d met on this world who hadn’t run away screaming or tried to murder her.

So she bottled up her frustration, and just sat down quietly beside the dwarf, watching the first rays of sunlight peek over the nearby mountainside…

…then watching the sun wobble back down behind the slope again.

Saskia sighed.

Ruhildi gave a disgusted snort and said, “Och what a tease.”

Saskia almost fell off the ledge. “What did you just say?” she gasped. Of course, the surprising thing wasn’t what the dwarf had said, but the fact that Saskia had understood her at all.

Ruhildi looked blankly up at her.

It was then that Saskia realised the dwarf hadn’t suddenly learned how to speak English overnight. Saskia had suddenly learned Dwarvish. But what had come out of her own mouth was plain old English, which to Ruhildi still sounded like gibberish.

She tried again. “Am I speaking your…? Nope, still English. Dogramit!”

Ruhildi grunted and tilted her head to the side. “I don’t ken what you’re trying to say, Sashki.”

Saskia was no linguist. She’d never spoken anything other than English and the odd bit of Japanese she’d picked up from watching too much subtitled anime as a teen. Well that and a few scattered Dwarvish words she’d exchanged with Ruhildi yesterday. But now, as if a switch had flipped in her brain, she understood this dwarf completely.

It was the strangest feeling. Like she had a magical translation app in her head. But unlike her old phone app, this one didn’t suck!

And for some reason, Ruhildi seemed to speak almost like a Scottish person. This made no sense, because she wasn’t speaking any dialect of English, and Saskia was pretty sure it wasn’t Gaelic either. How could a language she’d never heard before sound Scottish?

Or maybe it didn’t. Maybe it was all in her head. All those movies and games with Scottish dwarves must have left their mark in her subconscious. So now that a real dwarf was speaking a language unlike any on Earth, wouldn’t her expectations colour what she heard?

The effect was made even more incongruous by the fact that Ruhildi didn’t look the least bit Scottish—or much like a typical fantasy dwarf, for that matter. This thing worked in mysterious ways.

Anyhow, the important thing was that it did work. Kinda. Now she could understand Dwarvish, but only while it was being spoken to her. She couldn’t just say the Dwarvish word for, say, rhubarb (if rhubarb even existed on this world), because she didn’t actually know Dwarvish. There was just this thing in her head that gave meaning to what she heard.

How do I do this? Think, brain, think! She rapped her knuckle against her forehead. Then she realised Ruhildi was now looking at her with an expression of pity. Way to appear sane, stupidiot.

“Methinks she’s a wee bit touched in the head,” muttered Ruhildi.

“I’m not crazy!” blurted Saskia in English. She looked at the dwarf woman. Then she glanced at the ghostly map hovering in the air before her, and up at the impossibly large branches in the sky, and added hesitantly, “…I think?”

Saskia thought back to what Ruhildi had said. The actual words, not just what her magical translator had told her they meant. She spun the Dwarvish phrases around in her mind, pulling them apart. Yes, the individual words had meanings too. She could use those…

“I…don’t…touched in the head,” said Saskia, haltingly…in Dwarvish! She was speaking Dwarvish!

Ruhildi’s eyes grew wide. “Och you’re full of surprises, you are!”

“I trying…” Saskia trailed off. Right now, her vocabulary was too small to say anything meaningful.

The dwarf fell silent, looking down at her hands, which were now back to their normal size, albeit still an unhealthy shade of crimson.

“You…say,” said Saskia. She frowned. What she wanted to say was, “Keep speaking,” but she didn’t know the right words. She mimed speaking, using her hands to exaggerate the action.

Throwing Saskia a funny look, Ruhildi edged away from her. “Don’t take this the wrong way, Sashki. You’re a—och I didn’t think I’d ever be saying this—you seem like a fair nice trow. I’d be laying in the Halls Beyond, ’tweren’t for you. I’m fair grateful for that. But I amn’t going anywhere near that mouth of yours.”

“No!” said Saskia, waving her hands in denial. “That not what I… You…say!”

The dwarf’s eyes filled with dawning comprehension. “You’re just wanting me to speak to you.”

“Speak to me,” echoed Saskia, nodding.

“Och if you insist,” said Ruhildi. Then she fell silent again, before admitting finally, “I ken not what to talk about.”

Saskia rolled her eyes. This would have been a lot easier if Ruhildi was one of those chatterbox non-player characters who told their life stories to anyone who walked by.

“Just talk about you,” prompted Saskia.

“But I’m after meeting you just a pinch of days ago,” said Ruhildi, sounding a bit defensive.

“Just…speak!” said Saskia, exasperated. Recite the Dwarvish dictionary for all I care! Actually, that’d be perfect, because I just need to form the vocabulary to ask proper questions.

“Och alright,” said the dwarf. “There once were a wee lassie with fire in her heart and nectar in her veins…”

Ruhildi launched into a tale of youthful hijinks that may or may not have been autobiographical. Saskia couldn’t tell, but she did pick up some interesting titbits of information. Like the fact that the dwarves of this world—or at least the ones in Ruhildi’s story—lived in a place called the Underneath, an extensive warren of tunnels and caverns far beneath the surface of this branch. It was such a cliché, she almost laughed at the descriptions. From the Mines of Moria to the Underdark and the Deep Roads, dwarves in stories always loved their underground tunnels.

As Ruhildi spoke, Saskia listened and learned. Absorbing this language felt almost too easy. Had she still been a normal human back on Earth, there was no way she would’ve remembered all these words and how they all fitted together. This translator thing wasn’t just a cheat that allowed her to speak any language with no effort, but it was doing something that may be even more useful in the long run: allowing her to think in a new language.

The protagonist of the tale returned home to a severe scolding from her mother, and Ruhildi fell silent. The story was over.

“Thank you,” said Saskia. “Was that little scamp…you, in the tale?”

Ruhildi gave a sad smile. “No. That were my daughter, Nadi.”

“Oh,” said Saskia. “She sounds very cute.”

“Aye, she were,” said Ruhildi. “And she were a handful, at times. Most of the time.” She laughed. Then the smile froze on her face, and for a moment transformed to a look of undiluted horror, before returning to a more neutral expression.

Saskia knew better than to pry. She was pretty sure if she probed further, this story wouldn’t have a happy ending.

“I think you should come back inside, where it’s warmer,” said Saskia, worriedly eyeing Ruhildi’s hands, which were looking a little bluer than they were the day before.

“Aye,” said Ruhildi, rising to her feet with a groan. “You ken…the way you’re taking to the stone tongue…it’s uncanny,” said Ruhildi.

“I’m a little surprised myself,” admitted Saskia. “Though there are still gaps in my…uh…”

“Vocabulary?”

“Yeah, vocabulary,” said Saskia. “As soon as you’ve spoken a word, I can grasp its meaning and use it myself. Most words, at least. Names of people and places and such, not so much.”

“I don’t ken how you’re doing it, but I see now why you’re wanting me to keep yapping,” said Ruhildi. “I shall endeavour to insert new words from my forefathers’ lexicon into our discourse, so you can larn them too. Even if it’s making me sound exceedingly pompous.”

Saskia laughed. “Thank you, but I think normal words will do for now.”

Back in the cavern, Ruhildi sat by the fire while Saskia prepared a new batch of the blood-booster, as she’d come to call it—the concoction that supercharged her blood.

“This blood of yours is like nothing I ever tasted,” said Ruhildi chugged down another jug of the stuff as if it were the finest dwarven ale. The dwarf sagged in relief as the bruises and marks on her hands and face and body began to fade. “Never would I have believed ’twere real, if I hadn’t felt its effects.”

“There’s something about this concoction I brew that changes my blood,” explained Saskia. “It took me a while to figure out how to make it. I’m still learning.”

“Aye, that much were plain,” said Ruhildi. “You were fair entertaining, mind. All that dancing and shouting and hopping about. You’d make a fine ale hall fool.”

“Thanks,” said Saskia dryly. “So this blood healing thing. You’ve truly never seen it before? Aren’t there other trolls who can do it?”

“You’re the trow, not me,” said Ruhildi. “You tell me.”

“I don’t know any other trolls,” admitted Saskia.

“I see,” said Ruhildi. “Well I’m no scholar of trow anatomy. I never heard of blood that can heal another person.” She paused, thinking. “Although there are those elixirs the mer alchemists are so proud of. And the stories tell of their menageries in the Tower of Strife. So methinks you shouldn’t let yourself be caught by the mer…”

Saskia’s imagination took over, conjuring up a scene of dystopian horror: trolls strapped to benches with tubes sticking out of them, syphoning off their blood into giant glass bottles. She shuddered.

“Wait…mer?” said Saskia, raising her eyebrows. “Like…fish people?”

Ruhildi laughed. “I wouldn’t say that within earshot of one of them, Sashki. They’re just alvari who live by—or on—the sea.”

Yeah, I’d better hold my tongue if I ever find myself contributing to their blood bank, thought Saskia wryly.

As the effect of her blood began to wear off, Saskia inspected Ruhildi’s hands and feet. Now they only looked a little bit red and sore. “Another day or two and you’ll be good as young,” she said, in another slightly botched translation of an English expression.

The next day, Ruhildi insisted on going for a walk outside, “lest my legs shrivel up from lack of use.”

Saskia was only too happy to oblige her. It wasn’t like she was cooped up inside the cave all day, but she’d been feeling a bit guilty whenever she left the dwarf alone in there. So they headed out to the cave entrance, where Saskia helped the short woman down the several-metre-high drop from the ledge.

“How we could’ve used you back in the ’Neath,” said Ruhildi. “Who needs ladders when you have a trow?”

They walked along the river, past a series of collapsed stone arches.

“Dwarrow construction, these,” said Ruhildi.

“Are there many dwarrows in these parts?” asked Saskia.

Ruhildi snorted. “Not on this side of Ciendil. At one time we shared these lands with the leaf-ears. But Abellion’s March pushed my kin back to the ’Neath a greatspan ago. Now, these mountains are so far up the alvari’s butts the only dwarrows you’re like to find are slaves.”

“Is that what you are—were? A slave?”

Ruhildi looked at her sharply. “I amn’t after wandering into a frightful blizzard for the jollies, you ken. I’m after choosing freedom, no matter the cost.”

“I figured as much,” said Saskia. “So you decided you’d rather die up here than live as a slave.”

“Well, not quite,” said Ruhildi. “The weather weren’t so abominable when I were leaving. But aye, I’m after kenning the danger and rolling the dice freely.”

“Well you came to the right place, Ruhildi,” said Saskia. “I also came up here to get away from those frockers.”

Ruhildi’s lips curled up at the sound of the unfamiliar word. “Sometime you have to larn me some of your trow curse words.”

Saskia’s lips twitched. How could she explain to the dwarf that she didn’t actually swear? Well okay, the thought behind the word was the same, but her mouth was as clean as the soap her mother had often threatened to wash it out with.

“So you think the elves—alvari—will come after us, even up in the mountains?” asked Saskia.

“Och aye,” said Ruhildi. “Though if luck be with us, they’ll wait until highspring.”

“When is that?”

“The thawing begins just a pinch of fivedays hence,” said Ruhildi.

A few weeks, translated Saskia. “That doesn’t give us much time. Is there somewhere safer we could go? Only once you’ve recovered enough to travel, of course.”

Ruhildi frowned. “I’m seeking a way down to the Underneath. The alvari now hold the mouth of the prime passage in the north, but there are other paths, if you ken where to look. When I dwelt below, I heard whispers of a hidden tunnel deep in these mountains. I mean to find it.

“You…you could come with me, I suppose, though like as not you’d be safer staying up here. My kin have no love for yours, and our tunnels weren’t built for ones of your size. I fear you’re not like to find safe haven anywhere on Ciendil.”

“Ciendil? asked Saskia. “Is that like…the name of this world?”

Ruhildi looked at her incredulously. “Now you’re just tweaking my nose.”

“Please, just…funny me,” said Saskia.

“Huh?”

Saskia sighed. She’d meant to say “humour me” but the expression just didn’t translate properly. “I mean…just tell me.”

Ruhildi looked at her curiously. “You’re an odd one. You have more wits about you than most, or we wouldn’t be having this conversation, yet at the same time you’re clueless as a little’un suckling at her mam’s teat.”

“Just answer my question!”

“Well alright,” said Ruhildi. “Don’t get grit up your butt. Ciendil is the name of this branch of Arbor Mundi. Not the world itself.”

Arbor Mundi? Was that…Latin? She was pretty sure arbor meant tree in Latin. So…world tree?

“Okay, so what about the other branches? Could I just go to one of them?”

Ruhildi laughed. “You’re making it sound so easy. Away to another branch, just like stepping over a rock!”

“Well isn’t it?” asked Saskia. “Aren’t there like…portals and such, that I could take to them?”

“Por-tals?” Ruhildi repeated the unfamiliar word.

“Yeah, like magic doors that take you from one place to another instantly.” Come on, thought Saskia. This world must have portals. Every fantasy world has portals!

“You’ve a fair odd imagination, Sashki,” said Ruhildi. “I never heard of such a thing.”

“Oh,” said Saskia, crestfallen. “Well I’ll help you find your way home, at least.”

“That’s fair kind of you,” said Ruhildi. “Only…I mean no disrespect, but I don’t ken how a trow can help me.”

“Oh, you’d be surprised,” said Saskia. “Did you know there’s another tunnel sealed behind the rock wall at the back of my cave?”

“Aye,” said Ruhildi. “I do ken, and I’m a bit surprised you larned of it, without the stone sense.”

“Dwarrows can…sense stone?”

“Some dwarrows,” said Ruhildi. “Myself, I can sense the shape of earth and stone up to thirty paces away.”

“Dwarrow paces?” asked Saskia.

“Aye.”

“That’s not very far.”

Ruhildi glared. “I’d like to see you do better!”

“Okay, well…what if I told you my…uh…sense…” My map, thought Saskia. “…has a range of about, oh, thirty thousand paces? At least on the surface, it does. Less underground, but still more than thirty paces.”

“I’d say you’re mad, or a liar,” said Ruhildi. “Or an oracle. Mayhap all three. Which can’t be, of course, ’cause you’re a trow.”

“What, trolls can’t go mad or tell a lie?”

“No, you dolt! Trows can’t be oracles!”

“Hey, watch what you call me, donkhole!” snapped Saskia. “Wait…oracles? You mean magical…uh…ones with magic sight?”

“Aye, alvari mystics,” said Ruhildi. “I never had the misfortune to meet one, thank the forefathers, but I heard tales. ’Twere said that Jienne the Inscrutable could spy a striped bear shitting in the woods five spurs yonder.”

Thanks for that mental image, thought Saskia.

Something about the dwarf’s words set her mind whirling. Ruhildi left little room for doubt that oracle magic or mysticism was an elf thing. And yet, the word oracle felt…right to her in way she couldn’t explain.

She bent and quickly scratched out drawings of her clock and minimap into a rock at her feet. “Just so we’re clear, it’s not…normal to have things like this in your eyes, is it?”

Ruhildi tapped the circular drawing. “This is a map.”

“Yes!” said Saskia. “That’s exactly what it is! Can you see it too? I mean, not the one I just drew, but your own map…uh, floating in front of you?”

Ruhildi blinked up at her. “Methinks you’ve been too deep in the trow juice today, Sashki.”

“Can you see it or can’t you?”

“No. No I can’t. And no, ’tis not normal!”

Well that settled it. Either Ruhildi was a non-player character who wasn’t in on the world’s game-like nature, or the interface was something unique to her.

Or perhaps…something unique to oracles.

And that was when the idea crystallised in her mind. The spectral interface elements that had been slowly appearing to her since she arrived on this world—the map, combat telegraphing, darksight and so on—they were, to use gaming terminology, her class abilities. And oracle was her class.

Except gaming terminology didn’t really apply here, because this wasn’t a game.

These things didn’t show up because she was stuck in a game, or a world that ran on game logic. They were the abilities of an oracle manifesting in a way that her game developer brain could understand and use. If she were, say, a druid instead of an oracle, she likely wouldn’t have seen any of this crazy-making stuff. This wasn’t some god or gods making fun of her. It all came from within.

I’ve been trolling myself, she thought. Wow. And now I owe myself a sincere apology. No, two apologies. One for nearly convincing myself that this is all just a game, and one for the awful pun.