I sat up and had a huge smile on my face as I looked at my companions.

"I'm alive," I said. I paused briefly after the words left my mouth and added and said to Mae, "Well, actually I'm dead, but I didn't die again is what I meant."

Mae looked at me in renewed surprise, "Teddy, you finally believe me!"

"Yeah, Mae, but I've been dying to check out this dragon's stash of goodies behind his big chair in there," I said pointing towards his lair.

She gave me a look because of my choice of words but motioned for me to go loot.

"We're going to have to talk about it some more though, Teddy, I want to see where you are at emotionally," she said as she flew behind me into the darkness. She didn't push anything though and I could tell she wanted me to enjoy the spoils of my victory. I used a pickax to tear the large metal door out of its place and went into the treasure room.

I fixated on the pile of spellbooks and scrolls there were three spellbooks and about a dozen scrolls. The scrolls were of the same varieties I had already found. Healing, fireball, waterball, and lightning bolt seemed to be the most common scrolls at least in this area. The spellbooks were what I was most excited about. I took the time to learn each spell after excitedly seeing new runes on each cover.

I looked at my magic menu and read the spell descriptions.

Spell of Unfastening

The target area is unfastened. Spell works on all types of materials.

5 MP per cast.

Spell of Frost

The target area is frozen.

Size is determined by the amount of MP used during casting.

Spell of Pulling

Target object is forcefully pulled towards the caster. Doesn't work on living beings.

Amount of force is determined by the amount of MP used during casting.

"I need to set my expectations lower when I see spellbooks. I have the bar so high that I keep getting disappointed when I unlock weird spells," I said looking at Mae with a little smile. I couldn't be too upset because I still just learned three new spells.

"Are you kidding me?" she said looking back at me after checking out the spells, "Those are awesome. You could unlock doors, make a patch of ice under an enemy, and pull a dropped weapon back into your hand."

My brain started thinking up ways to utilize the spells and I changed my tune.

"I guess they are pretty good," I said, "I won't complain again."

I picked up crates of ore and ingots of different metals, some common quality weapons and armor, and the remaining junk quality items in the room. My assumption was that this room was where Tekosh stored all the items that he had collected from the neighboring settlements and towns as a tribute.

I went back out and down into the mining and prisoner areas and cleared them out as well. I had probably a literal ton of metals to trade with a smithy. I just needed to find a smithy first. I also picked up as much rock as I could. I was able to get some pretty good sized chunks with my brawn where it was. You never know when you might need a couple thousand pounds of stone.

I walked back up and looked at the map on the table. He had filled in some more details since last time, but that makes sense since it took me a while longer to get here this time with the caves quest. I took all the map pieces and exited back into the encampment.

"Did anyone happen to see where that dead dragon landed?" I asked all my animal buddies.

I had tried touching the bottom half of the dragon that was laying there in the camp, but it had no loot so I'd hoped there would be loot in the top half. Luckily the wolves were on it and knew where the top had landed. The leader of the pack jogged off into the trees and I followed. His wings must've given his upper half just enough glide to land a couple hundred yards away. I looted the partial dragon and was excited even though he only had two items on him.

Tekosh's Magic Ring

+4 to All Attributes

Immunity to Fire Damage

Mayor of Bettyford's Ring

Traditionally worn by the mayor of the town of Bettyford.

Engraved with the town's seal for wax impressions on official documents.

I placed Tekosh's ring on and felt the rush of power flow through my body. I didn't place the other ring on since it didn't seem to give any benefits. I may want to think about returning it and seeing what shape they are in. Was this the tribute payment that the town paid to not be destroyed? I was really curious about this other town and needed to start planning my next move after returning to Roseglen with the good news.

I still had the five attribute points from the level up I had earned from killing the dragon and I decided to place them all in precision to help improve my archery and vision.

Thinking back to the rings I asked, "Mae, how many rings can I wear?"

"How many fingers do you have, Teddy?" she said getting back to her sassy self. The way she said things like that didn't come across as rude at all. I think it was because of how sweetly she had said it and it helped that she sounded like a sweet old lady.

"Ten then?" I asked just to be sure the thumbs counted.

"Yes, Teddy," she said with a tiny eye roll.

"How am I supposed to know how magic rings work? For all I know, they could explode if you put them on your thumbs, or maybe you could wear rings on your toes as well," I said bluntly.

"Toe rings?" she said, "That's gross, Teddy."

I smiled that I was able to gross her out just by talking about toe rings and addressed all my animal friends, "Do any of you want to continue traveling with me even though the dragon is dead? There's still plenty of fun to be had."

They all gave the affirmative sign except for the wolves that hadn't learned that yet. The packer leader gave a little yip and the pack stood up and were ready to move out. I just figured they would follow if they wanted to.

As we hiked back to Roseglen I was ready to talk with Mae about where I stood.

"I understand that I died when I saved the child at the Grand Canyon. I know that this is really happening, although I still don't quite understand the what, why, and how," I said to Mae as she once again sat on my shoulder.

"You did an amazingly selfless thing, Teddy. It is difficult to explain what is happening here because many of the answers will become clear only as your adventure unfolds. What I can tell you is that you are in an intermediate state of being. You are here to complete your adventure and upon completion, you will be ready to move to the next phase of your afterlife. The 'how' is a little more difficult to try and explain. I'd really just leave that part up to the man upstairs."

"So to rephrase what you just said, God wanted me to have an adventure in order to get ready for Heaven," I stated plainly.

"That is an oversimplification, but not too far off," she responded. "More answers will come in time, Teddy, you can't rush this process. You literally can't. Time doesn't really work the same here as you witnessed with the reset."

It took us a few hours to get back to the outskirts of Roseglen. I was so excited to tell the story of the fall of Tekosh to the townsfolk and to see their faces when they heard that the monster that had killed some of their friends and family was defeated. I was also pretty excited to relax a bit and do some fishing with Shamus.

"Let's party," I said looking at the small town. Then I remembered that the wolves hadn't had the 'don't attack anyone in town' pep talk. They seemed to agree and we walked towards a now-waving Shamus and Nina to share the good news.