“Alright. Let’s get moving.” Hruk sighed, sitting up. Much to my relief, the noxious water whip had left a groove in the gauntleted stone arm, but not reached the flesh below. Smoke rose from it as the material sizzled and bubbled. He picked up a fistful of dirt and rubbed it in to neutralise the corrosive liquid. “The wall won’t hurt for long. Them skink water whips have a nasty bite.”

“We’re not going anywhere until I fix up Booger,” I said, pointing at the brorc’s behind. Dark brown blood leaked down the beast’s legs, matting the fur on his hind legs.

“Life Mana doesn’t purge poisons,” Hruk replied. “I don’t know whether it’ll do any good.”

“Perhaps. However, Vitality is one of his primary aspects, isn’t it? Which means, he’s got high natural regeneration. If I can boost it, perhaps he’ll fight the infection better until we get somewhere—”

“There is no help around here, Perry!” Hruk exclaimed. “We’re lucky we survived at all. Let’s just keep going as far as we can, find somewhere secure and rest. If Booger’s vitality is that high, he’ll survive.” He paused, brows furrowing. Then a loud sigh escaped his lips. “I’m sorry,” he said, almost in a whisper. “It’s the mana drain, and I barely got a wink of sleep.” Hruk got up and stroked Booger’s snout. The big porcine beast leaned into his stone hand, enjoying the pets. “He did good. We shouldn’t give up on him yet. I just don’t know how far the next settlement is.”

“It’s close actually.” Liv floated through the conjured wall, making us both jump. She smiled at us sweetly, but her visage didn’t fail to make me squirm on the insider. “Have you met any other hill folk, Perry?”

“I’m afraid I haven’t,” I replied.

“Well, I used to be one. Well, half of one anyway. My mam was human.” She sighed, looking down the path thoughtfully. She reached out at the air and an invisible wall appeared to stop her. “I don’t know what the Eldar’s Hills are like now, but when I was still among the living, it housed a cluster of hill folk villagers. Eldar’s Port heavily relied on them for trade. So, I think they still might be around.”

“That’s excellent! I’ve been looking forward to meeting more hill folk. You should’ve said you used to be one of them, Liv!”

“Well, I wouldn’t have welcomed you into the fort otherwise. I haven’t seen another halfling in over a century.”

“We get flesh bags coming to the fort often,” the shadows behind me spoke. Hruk and Booger both jumped on hearing Edgar’s voice. They had gotten used to Liv, but the shade still appeared to terrify them. “Some come by looking for shelter. Others want to claim it for themselves. You’re just the first someone in a long time that we’ve welcomed.”

“Thank you,” I said, and Hruk nodded along, bowing his head before the two spectres. “If not for you, we wouldn’t have escaped the skinks.”

“They would’ve killed me and likely cooked Perry over a campfire.”

I didn’t know whether there was any truth to what Hruk said, but I found it amusing goblins took offense to people thinking the same about them. When I first arrived in the goblin prisons, my cell neighbour, Ozman, had cracked a similar joke. Gor, the jailor, appeared to have found the statement offensive. It made sense. Grog’s tribe were working hard to change the disk’s perception of goblinkind. Such sentiments were detrimental to their progress and the people’s morale.

“It was no trouble at all,” Liv told me, floating uncomfortably close. “It gave the poltergeists and me something to do. We get bored playing the same card games and just scaring folks away. Helping people out once in a while is a delightful change of pace.”

“We managed to cull the ghoul population a fair bit too,” Edgar added. “If it gets too big, and a swarm gets out, they’ll alarm someone powerful and the next thing you know, we have mages coming around to torch the fort and exorcize us.”

“I suppose it was a win for all of us, then,” Hruk beamed. I couldn’t tell whether his projected courage was genuine or for my benefit. The wall separating the pass from the skinks shook and dust rained down on us. “We should get moving.”

“Fine.” I sighed. “I’ll just heal Booger while we’re moving.”

Just as I was about to mount Doctor Whoo again, Liv’s right hand solidified and she placed it on my shoulder. “I’d love it if you visited the next time, you’re in the region.”

“If you’re ever dying, it isn’t a terrible place to move on either,” Edgar added. “I think you’d have a lot of fun with life after death.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” I said, smiling before egging Doctor Whoo onwards. She bowed her head at Liv, chuffing before heading into the narrow passage. Booger grunted, following close behind us.

Doctor Whoo started off much too fast at once. Since Booger wasn’t in top form, I forced her to slow down before channelling Life Mana into Sasha’s strings and playing the soothing strings of Louis Armstrong.

To make most of the first respite we had in days, I opened up my attributes.

Brawn: 7

—STR 4| VIT 10

Control: 18

—DEX 21| ARC 15

Wit: 22

—INT 15| CHA 29

Traits:

Coward’s Brand | Facts Begin With Fiction | Arcane Strings | Acknowledged By Mana | Sharing Traits | Druidic Inclinations | Spirit Sense

Masteries:

Musician: Journeyman Rank 5

Mana Wielding: Journeyman Rank 0

—Mana Sense: Journeyman Rank 0

—Mana Control: Journeyman Rank 0

Cooking: Apprentice Rank 8

Sneaking: Apprentice Rank 3

Loreseeker: Novice Rank 5

—Analyse: Apprentice Rank 0

Sleight of Hand: Novice Rank 8

Riding: Apprentice Rank 0

Beast Taming: Apprentice Rank 5

—Satchel Monster: Novice Rank 5

—Primordial Magic: Novice Rank 0

I owed Spirit Sense for the ability to get Liv and Edgar open up to us. After picking the trait, I had second guessed my decision, but following our recent experiences, I no longer had any doubts. Now, to continue my stellar growth, I needed to get Cooking and Sleight of Hand to the Journeyman and Apprentice, respectively. They’d both give me a nice stat boost while the latter would likely come with a new trait.

Meanwhile, Loreseeker and Beast Taming were proving a challenge to rank up. Every two ranks of Analyse only gave me one rank in Loreseeker. I needed to find more abilities for the mastery to speed up its growth. As for Beast Taming, Satchel Monster was growing at an annoyingly slow rate. Hopefully, Primordial Magic wouldn’t suffer from the same issue and give me the necessary experience to get the mastery to Journeyman. Otherwise, I’d have to tame another beast. According to Hruk, magical beasts were incredibly rare and expensive. Unless I was willing to invest all of my winnings from defeating Kraine in a new beast, I needed to give up on the idea.

As we ventured further downhill, the path widened and forked. Liv had told us to only take left turns, and we hoped the information hadn’t become outdated over the centuries. I stopped playing Sasha around dawn, as her Life Mana stores dwindled. Booger looked fit, but the wound hadn’t yet closed. The brorc needed urgent attention, but I kept my mouth shut. The look on Hruk’s face suggested that he already knew it to be true.

Eventually, the ground levelled, and the winding paths opened up. The crags turned into rounded boulders with large expanses of foliage in between, and we heard running water in the distance. Hruk’s recent creation had kept us hydrated, but I wanted nothing more than to take a dip.

It was around morning before we truly entered Eldar’s Hills. Rolling green hills topped with thickets of trees and boulders spread out in front of us. We spotted roads running through them and the ground flattened further away.

“It’s beautiful,” I commented.

“And the skinks won’t follow us out here—I hope,” Hruk said. “It’s too far from their home.”

“Have you been here before?”

He shook his head and pointed at the flat plains in the distance. “My mother’s workshop was somewhere out there. We never explored these regions. Apparently, there is nothing of interest here. Just farmland and country bums.” He smiled sheepishly. “My parents were scholars, you see. They preferred grand libraries and workshops to exploration and nature’s beauty.”

“Well, I’m glad you’re different, Hruk. Let’s head to the roads.” I nudged Doctor Whoo towards the closest one. “Perhaps one of them will lead us to a village.”