Zeke tugged on the uncomfortable leather armor. After spending the better part of two years with nothing but a few strips of linen cloth for a shirt, the piece felt incredibly restrictive, though it fit almost perfectly. The re-sizing enchantments did their job well, but that didn’t make it any more comfortable. He could ignore that, though; after all, he’d spent hour after hour wearing a chest protector while catching. He could handle some leather armor.

It had actually taken Zeke quite some time to find something he liked. While he didn’t care about fashion, there were certain pieces that just didn’t feel right. So, he’d rummaged through that pile of armor until he found the best options – a segmented leather cuirass with attached pauldrons that made it look like some sort of insectile tee-shirt. Beneath that was a lightly padded gambeson and a long sleeve black shirt that seemed to have been made from cotton.

On his forearms were a pair of matching bracers, and he’d chosen a pair of leather pants that had armored plates on his thighs. He had also picked a pair of leather greaves to protect his shins. And finally, for his feet, he’d chosen a pair of heavy boots. All in all, Zeke felt like a renaissance faire cosplayer, but when he’d tested the armor, he’d found that it was surprisingly durable. And given the danger they faced in the wild, any extra protection would be helpful. He suspected that he wouldn’t always be able to rely on his high endurance and ridiculous vitality; eventually, he’d run up on something that could truly hurt him. And he needed to be prepared for that eventuality.

“Looks good,” Abby said, looking up from where she’d been picking at her fingernails with a sharp dagger. “It even matches. Now, we just need to get you a haircut, and you’ll actually start looking presentable.” She wrinkled her nose. “Well, after a proper bath, maybe.”

Zeke sighed. “Still kind of disappointed that the armor doesn’t add any stats,” he complained.

“Doesn’t work like that,” she said.

“I know, I know. You told me,” he responded, raising his hands in surrender. She had already explained it to him, and the last thing he wanted was another expository lecture. Still, while choosing the armor, Zeke had taken the time to study the runes embedded within them. To his surprise, they were actually somewhat simple – at least compared to the runes associated with skills or curses. In terms of complexity, if the armor enchants were puddles, then the skill runes were vast seas. He still didn’t completely understand them, of course. Instead, he only had a vague sense of what they were supposed to do.

The first enchantment was the one he already knew about – the re-sizing enchant. It was a useful function, and one for which Zeke was incredibly grateful. After all, none of the bandits had really been of a size with him. The closest was Julio himself, from whom Zeke had gotten most of his gear, but even he’d been much narrower across the shoulders. So, the gear possessing the ability to shrink or grow appropriately was an incredible boon for Zeke’s overall comfort.

The second enchant the items uniformly possessed to varying degrees was a strengthening rune. As far as Zeke could tell, it simply injected different amounts of mana into the pieces, fortifying them so that they could withstand more punishment. The truly interesting part was that these enchantments actually drew power from his own pool of mana. It was a miniscule, barely noticeable amount, but it was there all the same. But what made it noteworthy was that the rune consisted of various repeaters that multiplied and reinforced that stream of mana so there was enough energy to fuel the desired result. Without those repeaters – which were a series of symbols that looked like mirror images of one another – the mana drain would eventually become untenable, making the armor effectively worthless.

“What are you looking at?” asked Abby, interrupting Zeke’s thoughts. “You’ve been staring at that thing for over an hour.”

“Oh,” he said, a little embarrassed that he’d zoned out so completely. In his defense, though, he’d spent quite some time alone, and in that time, he’d been forced to make do with nothing but his own company. So, he’d gotten into the habit of filling his downtime, usually while he recovered from various wounds, by studying runes. “Sorry. Just looking at the runes on this armor.”

“You understand them?” she asked. “I’ve never developed the knack, you know? They’ve always just looked like nonsense to me.”

Zeke shrugged. “I wouldn’t say I understand them,” he admitted. “More like I can recognize pieces, here and there. Kind of like how when you first start learning a new language and you hear a native speaker. Every now and then, you can hear a word you recognize, but there’s no way you can really tell what they’re saying.”

Abby glanced toward the door to the hut. It was still quite dark, but a new day would soon dawn. There were still plenty of beast cores to harvest, but it wouldn’t be long before they had to make some decisions about their temporary partnership.

“Do you want to come with me?” Abby asked. “I still intend to do what I set out to do and cull the drachnids. I think I could maybe do it alone. It’ll take me a long time, but…I feel confident in my abilities. But it’d be a lot easier if I had you along.”

Zeke’s initial instinct was to accept the invitation. Ever since he’d conquered the beginning dungeon, he had been a bit listless. Certainly, he hadn’t stopped moving. However, without a concrete goal like he’d had in the troll-infested caverns, he was somewhat aimless. Even though he’d accomplished a good deal, gaining two levels and forging the bond with Pudge, Zeke knew that his good fortune was just that – luck. If he didn’t gain some direction, he’d doubtless wander into a situation he couldn’t handle.

But Abby had been in the new world – which she referred to as The Radiant Isles – for years. Maybe as much as a decade, from what he could tell. So, she knew the ins and outs of the world. Already, she’d proved an invaluable source of information, and Zeke knew they’d only scratched the surface. He was suddenly very aware of just how much he didn’t know about his new home. And though he was strong – incredibly so, judging by Abby’s reactions – he held no illusions about being the strongest thing out there. The simple fact was that he needed help.

However, he barely knew Abby. And in a world fraught with danger, what he didn’t know could certainly kill him. It wasn’t difficult to imagine a situation where she stabbed him in the back at the worst possible moment. And given the covetous way she’d looked at his mace and the veritable mound of beast cores they’d already harvested, she had plenty of reasons to turn on him.

Pudge let out a loud snort from where he was curled in the corner. He didn’t say anything via their mental connection, but his intentions were plain. After all, he’d already made his stance clear. He wanted to trust the archer. And though Zeke didn’t want to get into the habit of taking advice from a bear cub, he found himself in agreement. For one, very simple but incredibly powerful reason: he was lonely.

Not in a romantic sense. Though Abby was quite pretty, he refused to let that color his opinions. Much. But more than simple attraction between opposite sexes, there was a need for human companionship. So, regardless of the pros or cons of trusting Abby, he decided his course because he didn’t want to be alone again.

“I think that would be for the best,” he said, his throat raw. Was he really getting choked up just at the prospect of being alone? “How far is it?”

“A few weeks,” Abby answered. “Maybe a month. We weren’t that far from Nightweb Ravine before Julio…did what he did, but I went in the opposite direction, hoping that they’d get tired of chasing me and turn back to the mission.”

“You okay?” Zeke asked.

She shook her head, but for a few seconds, she didn’t respond. In that time, Pudge decided to waddle over to her and put his head in her lap. Immediately, her hand found a spot just behind his ear. A feeling of contentment radiated from the soul bond, telling Zeke just how much Pudge enjoyed the contact. More, Abby visibly relaxed.

“I had a dog back in the old world,” she said, scratching Pudge’s ear. “A jack russell terrier named Jack, of all things. Yeah – I know. Not the most imaginative name in the world, but I loved that little dog. Never shut up. Sometimes, I wonder what happened to him…you know, after I died.”

“How did it happen?” Zeke asked. Only a second later, he realized that he’d made a serious faux pas. Abby looked at him like he’d just asked the most personal question in the world, and given that they barely knew one another, it had obviously taken her by surprise. “Sorry. I guess it’s not polite to ask?”

“No,” Abby said. “I mean, it’s fine, I guess. I’m not ashamed or anything. I was in a car accident.”

“Oh,” Zeke said, somewhat disappointed. He’d expected something a little more interesting.

“Well, I told you mine,” she said. “Your turn to tell me yours.”

Zeke took a deep breath, then looked away. “I died while having surgery,” he said. “My brother needed a kidney…and…well, I guess something went wrong. Oberon told me Tommy survived and lived a long life, though, so I guess that’s good.”

Abby stared at him like he’d just said the sky was green. After a few moments, she said, “What? Who’s Oberon?”

Zeke narrowed his eyes. “Little guy, looked a bit like the Peter Dinklage,” Zeke explained. “He told me all about what was going on? You might have gotten a different guy, but you know what I mean, right?”

Abby shook her head, saying, “I have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about. Nobody told me anything about what was going on. I just got dropped in that bugbear valley. I wasn’t even sure it was real until I went into Beacon.”

“R-really?” he said. “That doesn’t make –”

“You’re one of the chosen,” Abby stated.

“What?”

“The chosen,” she repeated. “It makes sense. It doesn’t happen often, from what I understand. Like, almost never, honestly. I thought it was a myth to make Lady Constance seem more important. But now…it’s the only thing that makes sense. You met with one of the gods.”

“O-oberon is a god?” Zeke said, his voice barely more than a whisper. “But…he didn’t seem like…you know…what the hell am I supposed to do with that information?”

Abby shrugged. “That’s kind of up to you,” she answered. “But don’t tell too many people in Beacon about it. If it gets back to Lady Constance, she might have you killed. The Sun Goddess doesn’t tolerate anyone encroaching on her territory.”

Zeke let that statement hang in the air for a while. In fact, neither he nor Abby said a thing until the sun had already risen. Instead, Zeke thought about the implications of the conversation. Sure, Oberon could’ve been a god, but something told Zeke that that wasn’t the case. The dwarf was obviously powerful, but Zeke wasn’t quite ready to deify him yet. And besides, it didn’t make much difference, did it? Maybe one day it would, but for now, he needed to focus on survival.

So, when the sun rose, Zeke and Abby set about harvesting the remaining beast cores. It took them most of the day, but by the time they were done, there was a significant pile of the marble-sized chunks of condensed mana. Idly, Zeke wondered if his own core resembled something like that, but despite not having any real evidence either way, his intuition told him that people were different.

The pair spent that next night either playing with Pudge, who acted more like a dog than he had any right to or sleeping in their respective corners. Neither needed much rest, given their enhanced constitutions, but some sleep was necessary, if only to reset their bodies. So, when they set out for Nightweb Ravine, they were in as good a shape as they possibly could be.