A few hours and one painful headache later, George felt good enough to hold a proper conversation.

Kr'thra and he were sitting back in her tent. George assumed this was her tent, although what she exactly was he had yet to learn. He seemed to be giving away more than what they did, but what little they told him would be pivotal to his understanding of where he was and how to survive it.

Kr'thra seemed to be contemplating something, but George didn’t know what. He didn’t want to ask, though. He had asked her to tell him about Gods, and she just walked him into her tent.

“The Goddess that sustains us is called Korotha,” Kr'thra started speaking gently, slowly. “She is the All-Mother of all the Grolari. She protects us from the uncertainties of this world, guides us as we struggle against the elements.

“She led us towards the Guardian,” Kr'thra continued. George had realised this sounded more preachy than the regular gaming infodump at the start. He was more used to God X does this, God Y does that, choose one.

He was, of course, used to religion back home. He didn’t partake in it much, and his family wasn’t really particularly religious, but he understood the gist of it.

“Does your Goddess speak to you?” He interrupted Kr'thra.

“The Goddess does not speak to us directly,” she answered, “but she guides us through the world. She leaves signs for us to find, visions of our past and future. She protects our children and cares for the lost.”

It was difficult for George to truly understand what she was talking about. A lot of these could be a coincidence. He thought for a time that a god exists because people believe in it. That kinda metaphysical crap you look up on the Internet every once in a while.

But if people think that someone created them, then they make the creator, it could be possible that the creator existed in the first place. Some sort of paradoxical situation that something exists because it had to have existed. Or something like that.

George decided to lay off the philosophy of God’s existence. A very real magical book was telling him to choose a God, so they must exist in one form or the other.

Supposedly, if the Goddess of lizardmen existed, according to them, that must mean there are more Gods to choose from. George didn’t feel like choosing this particular Goddess. He was sceptical that the book, or the Goddess maybe, would let him choose another one if he made a choice there and then.

Kr'thra didn’t say a lot about their Goddess. It seemed a bit generic even, a Goddess protector of a single race. It was starting to sound like a convoluted game to him.

“Well, do you know about any other Gods?” George asked. While he could probably sit here listening to what Korotha did or did not do, she didn’t sound like a solid choice for the book.

“Your kind speaks of many Gods and Goddesses, George,” she answered briefly, “but we do not partake in their affairs. Korotha protects us against them, and Korotha is the only Goddess we know.”

Well, this was useless. George wondered if it was possible that there was only one God and different people called it different names, but then it would be counterintuitive based on what the book said.

George didn’t know why he went with the book so much. Sure, it apparently allowed him to access spells and provided questions and answers about what he was doing here, but books could be wrong too.

He opened the book on its first page.

The same three lines stood there, black ink that wouldn’t be smudged. He kept wondering how the book work, but it just stood there, mocking him for all he knew.

The only apparent way he knew of getting more information was to choose a Deity. He currently knew of one Deity and had no idea if there were any more Deities.

George sighed. Was a rash choice that gave more options better than a calculated one you weren’t sure when to expect?

He hated this game.

He turned to Kr’thra again and found her drinking something out of a bowl. He didn’t even notice the bowl there or anyone bringing it in. Even if she couldn’t tell him about the Gods, she could probably teach him about a lot more.

“Teach me. Teach me about your people, the world, this place,” George waved at the air.

Kr’thra emptied the bowl, stood up, and beckoned him towards the outside. Time for lesson one.

“We came here dozens of moons ago when the Guardian was but small and weak,” Kr’thra started talking as they made their way around the little camp. George wondered just how many lizardmen were in here.

“The Guardian showed us kindness, and provided us with shelter from the overworld and the people that chased us into here…”

There was a lot to the story George would probably forget and have to ask again, but it was intriguing nonetheless. Apparently, the Guardian, or as George would understand it, the cave itself, is like a living creature, and they were similar to the immune system. It was a weird analogy, but it made sense.

Of course, George remembered what he saw in the fight he had. It was so darn stereotypical. Four people, each one with a different weapon, fighting against something that wasn’t human, and George apparently, inside a large cave.

He was in a dungeon. Not the castle-y kind from history, but the ‘filled with things that want to kill you’ kind you encounter in games. It was that simple really.

And George was a dungeon mob.

With a book.

What brought him to this place, he didn’t know. But he was unsure if he wanted to stay here. After all, he knew what happened to dungeons. They get cleared.

He already saw a part of that earlier today. Or yesterday. He had realised he lost track of time. It was evening back home when he appeared here.

Kr’thra told him about the camp they were in. Apparently, Gaz’Ruk was leading this particular camp, but that was obvious at a glance. It seemed that there were a few camps like these throughout the dungeon, and George wondered how big it actually was.

At his question, Kr’thra just said: “the Guardian is constantly growing, expanding, and so we grow with him.” George wasn’t sure what part of that was figurative and what wasn’t. It was weird how people that guide other people liked speaking in vague sentences.

“Now, I answered some of your questions,” Kr’thra stopped next to a tent. “It’s time for you to answer ours.”

There was no such thing as a free lunch, George chuckled.

“I’m not certain I’ll be of much use, to be honest. All I know is that I got here, somehow, and with this book,” George waved the newly ragged book in front of the lizardwoman’s face.

“But you can cast spells,” Kr’thra said, almost accusingly.

“I can cast two spells, yes,” George ceded. “And I’m not even sure how I can cast those spells. I mean, they’re in the book, but that’s it.”

“Books of spells are a strange thing, George. We’ve seen some, as your kind frequently uses them. They are always shrouded in mystery, and what is written in them we never understood.

“But,” she pointed at the book, “none of them look like that.”

George thought about what she said, then realised that one of the people in the group that attacked them threw fire out of a staff. It would be safe to assume he cast a spell. So maybe he had a book he could learn from.

“Wait, did you keep any of the books from the people that come here?” George asked, hoping that lizardmen appreciated literature. Or had it in the first place.

“I do not think you will find much in the book if Ru’rok couldn’t do it himself,” she answered plainly, “and we don’t trust you yet to show you our birthing grounds, even with the mark of the Guardian on you.”

George couldn’t shake the feeling that there was an odd line he would have to cross between trust and familiarity he was skirting. Sure, he was technically together in a battle with these people already, but even he was still cautious of them.

“I will have someone bring you a book we have salvaged later,” Kr’thra said plainly.

“But for now, you’ll be staying with us,” as she said that, George realised they were near Gaz’Ruk. “And you will have to train to fight.”