A glowing arrow of energy split the early morning air as it rocketed toward its goal. It struck the basketball sized rock that it was destined to meet with incredible force, for an arrow.

Time marches on, and in its inexorable march many things might happen that could irrevocably change a person. Scott Davidson, a man hopeless with a bow, had begun to show relative competence. Due to spending two weeks fully immersed in the art of hitting things with a bow, he had reached a level of competence that allowed him to perfectly strike a stationary basketball sized object at fifty yards three times out of five. Super human coordination and senses, combined with an intense desire not to suck, had played a major part in his rapid development. The fact that he received a few pointers from local hunters in the village when they found out he was dealing with the drudge infestation helped even more.

A moving target would still be difficult to bulls-eye, but he was confident that he could at least hit something the size of a deer with some accuracy even if it was moving. Would it be a clean kill with a single arrow? Probably not, but he would be able to hit more often than miss according to those hunters and his own ability to hit the skeletal drudges.

It was the last day of his mission. Soon the door would open. In all that time he had done his job, and trained. It was his hope that he managed to get enough kills over the course of each night for it to count as a mission success.

How he would get Chaine and Vita home otherwise was uncertain, though he suspected that he could just open a door to the Imperial Garden castle town that he visited earlier and let them deal with moving the celebrity hero and the princess back to Ha' Ruul.

Of course, if he had to go that route it would mean that he was denied access to Ha' Ruul for a while, perhaps even on a permanent basis.

He drew back his bow and prepared to fire another shot while thoughts of the last few weeks filled his mind. It was a time in his life spent, for the most part, in a series of training montages and late night battles with laughing skeletons. He also spent a little time in the village, and even visited the fairies at the pond before he set up shop near the underworld entrance each evening.

The drudges would pour out of the underworld entrance each night, and he killed dozens of them before morning each day. All told he easily earned over four hundred experience points between those battles and the monsters that he slew during the side mission. A garbage amount compared to his recent acquisition, but pretty damn high when he compared it to his old missions taken back when he was only capable of surviving an H-Class mission at the most.

Scott fired his bow. The fairy bolt struck the rock a little left of center and some of the energy skidded off to the side. It was not perfect, but it was still a good hit.

Shot after shot was prepared and fired, all while he thought of his mission results. The wait was the worst part. The door would open sometime soon, but part of him felt as though it might be a lie. He had been on Ha' Ruul too long. Might it also be possible that he had been tossed into that world and locked away to avoid being a problem elsewhere? It could be true. Why he would be punished in such a way, he could not say. Still, paranoia was a hell of a drug.

"Feyah..." muttered Scott. He tore his thoughts away from his paranoia then fired off several rapid fire fairy bolts. Of the seven shots fired, only three hit the target somewhere. Still, the result was considerably better than his efforts only a few weeks prior.

Given all of his coordination and sensory bonuses, he'd gained the capacity to use a bow in two weeks that a normal person might take six months to acquire. He was no master archer, but he could hunt with his bow and have a reasonable chance of success.

No one in the village could use a sword better than he could, however. Few among them owned something as valuable as a sword. Farm implements and hunting bows were their best bet when it came to defending themselves.

Inevitably, his thoughts turned from archery to Etragar, Luau' Ra, and the fairies at the pond. They had parted well, all things considered, but there was something about Luau' Ra's parting words that unsettled him.

On the surface, her words, "If you should come to Kaizo Falls, know that my family is of some importance. We will receive you well, my prince," seemed to be nothing more than a polite way to say that she would not turn him away if he came to visit. However, it was the way she had said it. There was a certain cant of her hips and parting of her lips that made him slightly concerned. If anything, he received the sincere impression that she wanted him to come visit.

Given his current somewhat romantic entanglements that sort of thing could be dangerous. He needed his companions for the bigger missions. If nothing else Waldo taught him that lesson quite well. Of even greater importance, he did not want to hurt anyone. Going off willy-nilly to feed the fish might not go over well with the ladies in his life.

His musings were soon interrupted by a flash of light nearby. Scott turned toward it then blinked. It was time to go.

Quickly, he stored his bow then pulled a stick from his storage. He reached down and grabbed another one that he had placed nearby, then rushed toward the door. It was further away than he had thought it would be, a testament to the fact that he was uncertain of his surroundings when he first arrived. Were it not for the pile of rocks that the squo-bloo had hidden behind, he would have had no landmark to use.

Eighteen seconds to spare, he rushed through the door. The familiar sight of his dark and depressing home space greeted him. "It's good to be back..." he said lightly. The two sticks in his hands immediately burst into dust. Though, he did not care much about that fact in that immediate moment.

"Aha! I can speak right again without the world freezing in place," he said in good humor.

He looked around the room briefly then down to the dissipating pile of dust on the floor. A moment later he pulled another stick from his storage space and waited patiently. Nothing happened.

Scott rotated the stick around, and then stabbed the air with it a few times. "Seems like that's how it works now."

Before his return home, he had decided to test a theory that he'd had prior. His internal storage space was a relatively new thing and he had not really tested out its implications much. He had noticed that a tendency to not explode into dust would be applied to his items if he stored them first. However, he could not be sure of exactly how it worked. Now he knew.

"Not sure if it was always that way. Might be a function of my upgrade out of noob status," he said thoughtfully.

Scott had decided to test a theory while using three different sticks of similar size and shape. One stick was never placed into storage. The other two were stored. Just before he entered the door of light he had chosen to remove a stored stick. Once through the door, he learned that items that were not part of the system exchange or a treasure would be destroyed. This seemed to be the case now whether the item was ever stored previously or not. Such items would not be destroyed if they were smuggled to other worlds, however, by means of storage. Now it seemed that his internal storage space could be used to mark things as system items, provided he carried them into his home point.

A few things had happened earlier that made him suspect it to be the case, but the rules seemed to change on occasion. He also was not exactly bursting with opportunities to study the system rules when he needed to save a princess from a zombie Gundam piloting necromancer. He could never be certain of anything beyond a certain point, but it was good to pin down how things worked at the moment. At least the store it before you go home rule was consistent with his storage closets. May they rest in peace.

Scott tossed his stick aside, having no further use for it. He made a few quick rounds inside the place to make sure everything was working properly and that no one had been there. He did not trust the privacy clause that supposedly kept people out without his permission.

In the Life Werx he noted that his pristinely human meat suit was perfectly fine and all vital signs were nominal since it was in stasis. There were no additional fruit baskets and the like, so he chose to believe that he had no visitors while he was away.

"Guess, that' that..." Scott nodded his head then went to his exchange point. It was time to reap his rewards for a job well done.

He placed his hand to the orb and received a mission debriefing. There was nothing of particular note. He only rated a C for completion purposes, but received entertainment and fan base bonuses that pushed his experience reward to just over two hundred experience points. That meant over six hundred points for his mission.

It was what popped up afterward that made him stop and blink. "I'll get a special reward for being the first player to complete an introductory mission in Ha' Ruul... That's right. The special reward offered in the beginning."