Lucas and Bart didn’t waste any time before climbing out of the cave. They didn’t want to have to deal with anymore goblins now that the leader had been killed and the ritual ended. The caves they had entered were now free of moss, but the walls and floor were all stained a dark red. Now and then a sizeable chunk of clotted blood would fall from the ceiling and the duo would have to dodge or get slapped by a chunk of solid blood, leaving stains. After a short but uncomfortable journey, they returned to the surface and surveyed their surroundings.

When Lucas was last here it was around midday, but it was now sunset. Lucas could see the blur of purple and orange that showed it was sunset above the endless rows of trees that sat before him. Lucas turned to Bart to see him already walking down into the jungle. Lucas jogged over to him and followed him into the jungle before he disappeared into the dense canopy.

Lucas quickly learnt that when his Rainbow Cloak said that “Small animals are naturally drawn to you” it wasn't joking. Within ten minutes of walking through the jungle, an army of rodents had swarmed him. At any given time there were half a dozen animals using him as a perch or a rest spot. Lucas could feel his shirt getting slowly torn apart by the endless cascade of tiny claws digging into it to get to a better spot on him. Even though Lucas was annoyed by the harassment from the animals, it wasn’t without its benefit. Not a single insect got to Lucas before getting picked off by a hungry bird or squirrel that had been using him as a taxi. Bart wasn’t so lucky, as he constantly had to swat at the air and his own skin to avoid getting plagued by insect bites. After an hour of walking through the jungle, they found a grassy clearing which shows the remains of a camp.

Bart stepped forward and pulled a cloth tent out of his inventory. He looked down at the goblin sized tent and then back up at the tall figure. “You’re going to have to sleep under the stars tonight, my tent is barely big enough to fit me in, there's no way in hell it could fit you.”

“Do you at least have a sheet I can sleep on? I don’t want to know what could slither up in the night.” Lucas looked out into the dark and swore he could see a pair of eyes stare back at him. Lucas quickly looked away and moved towards the centre of the clearing. “What should I do if something tries coming for me at night?”

“Eh, most creatures in the forest are cowards, just make a really loud noise and you will scare away 99% of the animals in the forest. If you use the pan, you could just hit that and that should do the trick.”

“What if that doesn’t work?”

Bart looked darkly at Lucas, “Hope that it’s just deaf, because if it isn’t then it's probably about to kill us both.”

Lucas laid his sheet out on the ground, not feeling reassured in the slightest. At least if something tried attacking him, there would be at least five other smaller, easier to kill targets around him. As the sun sank down past the horizon and the moon began to rise, Lucas saw just how different his world was from this new one. Whereas on earth most places you couldn’t even see a single star in the sky due to light pollution, here Lucas could see millions of stars in the sky. Some seemed to be so close they could’ve been planets where others were so tiny Lucas could’ve been imagining them. The moon seemed similar to the one of his own world at first, but Lucas soon saw a second moon rise up into the sky, smaller and moving faster than the first moon. Lucas soon found himself sucked into the sky, mesmerised by the beautiful display of lights hanging above him.

Lucas felt himself get roughly shaken before feeling a sharp sting on his cheek. He opened his eyes groggily as Bart poured ice cold water on his face. Lucas shot up instantly. The freezing cold water splashed all over his face and down into his shirt, which was now mildly damp. Lucas sputtered before half yelling, half growling at Bart “What the hell was that for? Why would you pour water on me if I was already waking up? Actually, how the hell do you even have ice cold water, we're in the middle of a tropical jungle?”

“Good morning to you as well, to answer your questions, I splashed water on you to wake you up. I poured water on you because I didn’t want to wait for you to get up slowly and waste time, and I have a magical waterskin that makes any liquid in it nice and cold.” Bart shook a waterskin that had a slightly blue tint to it in Lucas’s face. “Now get up, we have half a day's journey ahead of us until we can get to the nearest village, and I would like to get there before the town hall closes for the day so I can alert the adventuring guild that the goblin ritual has been taken care of.”

Lucas and Bart quickly packed up camp and started on their journey. The two quickly made conversations about the events that transpired in the cave after Bart was taken out. Bart gave some insight into the goblin tribes and what had happened to the cave goblins. At one point in time there were five main goblin tribes, the tribe of the hills, the tribe of the forests, the tribe of the seas, the tribe of the plains and the nomadic tribe. Around five hundred years ago the hill goblins were forced out of their homes by a great monster, so dangerous any who saw it died. The monster took the hills for itself, and the tribe of the hills broke down into many smaller tribes. Some went to seek refuge with the other tribes, some raided and pillaged settlements, and others joined the civilisations formed around the guilds. The goblin raiders were tracked down, and forced underground after having all of their warriors apart from the chief slaughtered. Hill goblins were the weakest physically and mentally but had by far the longest lifespans, with the eldest living hill goblin being recorded at living for 1050 years. Hill goblins were renowned for their ability to hold grudges for thousands of years and always plan on the long term, so the nomadic tribe had to send out members to stop the plans of the hill goblins. After spending hundreds of years underground, the bodies of the hill goblins had weakened and shrunk, and eventually they became what are known as the cave goblins.

“So the cave goblins we fought used to be a group of raiders who had their warriors killed and were forced underground?”

“That's the gist of it. After the downfall of the nomadic tribe, it became the responsibility of the adventurers’ guild to ensure that any rogue cave goblin plots were eliminated to prevent some sort of disaster.” Bart idly swatted at a bug before looking enviously at Lucas, “You do a lot of complaining about how you're covered in animals, but I don't see any mosquito bites on you.”

Lucas laughed for a second before a troubled look crossed his face. “Wait. This world also has mosquitoes? I was hoping I would’ve escaped their menace by going to another world.”

“Mosquitoes are the least of your worries. In some of the higher tier zones there are insects the size of me. I’ve heard some of them have poisons that can paralyse a sandcrawler if they manage to get through the skin.”

“Do I even want to ask what a sandcrawler is?”

“Probably not, but that won’t stop me. You guys have worms where you're from, right? Well, imagine if that was a quarter of a kilometre long and fifty metres tall and wide.”

Lucas stared at Bart. “So it's just a sandworm?”

“You’ve heard of it before?”

“Well, kind of. In my home world there is a story which includes giant worms that swim through the sand and eat people and machines. The story isn’t real though, it's just a made-up piece of writing designed to entertain people.”

“You come from a weird place.”

Lucas smiled faintly. “I suppose I do. But back to the previous topic of discussion. You mentioned the downfall of the nomadic tribe? What happened?”

Bart's previously cordial attitude and tone instantly turned to stone. “It’s a long story, and one I don’t particularly want to tell.”

Lucas realised he hit a nerve and decided to not disturb Bart for a while. He made use of his time by identifying all the small animals that were bothering him.

White Squirrel (Tier 0)

Sharp-beaked Pigeon (Tier 0)

Forest Mouse (Tier 0)

Lucas noted that whilst they were animals that were familiar to him, there were different subspecies compared to the ones he had known. He wondered if the variants that had lived on his world had also lived here. The only way to find out would be to go out there and find them. Back on Earth Lucas had never done much travelling. Some of his old friends from school had gone out and travelled into different parts of the world, but he had always just stayed at home, letting the world pass him by. He had a chance to rectify his previous mistakes now, and go out and see everything there was to be seen. Except for maybe the giant insects capable of paralyzing sandcrawlers. He could miss out on that place.

After half an hour of awkward silence, Bart finally struck up a conversation. He told Lucas about the rating systems used to describe things used by the system. The importance of a rating varied based off of the type of thing being rated. For skills, a rating is only an estimation of your ability in a talent as determined by the system. It could be inaccurate depending on how much information the system had. This held true up until the master rank, at which point your abilities and tier also played a major part in determining your rank. Getting through the master ranks took practical and theoretical knowledge and compatible abilities in combination to use the skill as optimally as possible. At the absolute peak is the Champion, which there can only be one of at a time. Being the champion of a skill means you are the best user of it currently alive, and champions are treated with extreme respect. For a nation to produce even a single champion can completely change its place in the global ladder of power. The full ranking list goes:

Untrained

Novice

Student

Journeyman

Adept

Expert

Master

Grandmaster

Maestro

Champion

“I understand the rankings, but what exactly is this system you keep referencing? I know it's what gives me the ability to see all of this information but how exactly did it come about and what does it signify?” Lucas scratched his head as he struggled to process all the information being thrown at him.

“The System is The System. It’s been around for longer than any species can remember. Every creature is considered part of the system except for travellers, seeing as they get pulled here from different parts of the great expanse.” Bart pulled a small obsidian cube out of his inventory. Lucas recognised it as the same one that had been thrown into his head. “During the gathering, when the new travellers appear every member of the adventuring guild is given one of these. It both creates a full profile of the traveller and gives them access to the system. That information is also automatically passed onto the adventuring society if they choose to become a member.”

“Is it that common for travellers to be adventurers?”

“Think about it logically. Travellers arrive here by themselves, with no family, friends or ties to land. They also normally appear in the wilderness, so chances are they either die or are found by adventurers. If they do end up being found by adventurers, they normally end up spending a decent amount of time with them, and by the time they make it back to civilisation most have chosen to become one themselves. The majority of intelligent creatures that arrive here used to live nomadically, so they are used to the constant travelling associated with being an adventurer. It would be stupid not to forward the information directly to the adventuring society. The amount of paperwork it saves is unbelievable, when I tried joining I spent over a month just going through identity checks to make sure I wasn’t a political spy.”

“I never thought about it from that angle. What about the travellers who decide not to become adventurers?”

Bart shrugged. “No clue. I don’t have a deep wealth of knowledge about Travellers. We should be arriving at the village soon. When we get there, I will have to report back to the town hall so I will have to leave you on your own. Try to avoid getting into trouble whilst I’m gone. I understand it will probably be hard to avoid keeping attention off of yourself due to your outfit but try not to get either of us thrown out of town.”

Lucas and Bart arrived at the village by midday. The small village was at the edge of the forest, nestled in between large rolling fields and a giant jungle. Lucas was glad to finally be out of the jungle as it meant there would be fewer animals and insects to deal with. Large wooden fortifications and a moat surrounded the village. There was a single bridge crossing the moat, manned by 4 guards.

Bart and Lucas walked up, trailed by a small army of forest animals that had followed along the way. The guards noticed them before they had even stepped out of the treeline. Bart put his hand up and approached ahead of Lucas, exchanging some words with the guard up front and gesturing back to Lucas. The guard stared at Lucas, before nodding reluctantly.

Bart approached and told Lucas to go inside and get a room for them at the local tavern. He gave him a handful of coins and walked him into town, pointing him in the tavern's direction before heading towards the town hall. Bart walked towards the town hall, getting a few disgusted looks from villagers on his path up towards the town hall. Goblins had never been particularly well accepted by ashfolk and were looked down upon for some of their more animalistic traits. Lucas ignored the stares as he approached the main town hall. It would be a long evening of writing reports.

Bart gnawed on his pencil as he thought about how to phrase his report. He was worried about how Lucas was doing. He felt bad after dumping him in the middle of a village of a people he hadn’t even heard of, leaving him to buy them a room and food for the evening. He knew he would be incredibly nervous in such a situation, large groups of people had always made him feel uncomfortable. He just hoped that Lucas wouldn’t be doing too badly all alone in this new environment.

Bart eventually left the town hall after night had hit. The amount of paperwork he had to complete disgusted him. If he was the one who had completed the entire mission, it would be one thing, but the fact Lucas was the one who ended up having to fulfil his task meant he had to write his perspective, the perspective Lucas had told him and the evidence he had found. Lucas had seen the broken and splintered remains of his knife in the ritual chamber and knew that the whirlpool would’ve been strong enough to kill any poor soul who fell in it who wasn’t at least tier 1.

Bart hurried towards the tavern, praying that Lucas hadn’t caused too much of a commotion of a scene within the village whilst he was gone. Bart heard shouting coming from the tavern, and ran the final stretch of the way. Bart pushed open the door to the tavern, only to find Lucas dancing in the middle of the room along with the seven other patrons from the tavern. All the chairs and tables had been pushed to one side of the room, and on the other side a small band was playing. Bart watched as Lucas pulled the owner of the tavern out from behind the bar and started dancing with him, teaching him how to move his hips properly. Bart considered for a second just closing the door to the tavern and finding somewhere else to sleep, but the second Lucas spotted him he waved and shouted at him to get in here.

Lucas had been nervous as he walked to the tavern. Every villager he seemed to walk by stated at him and his bright rainbow covered shirt and shorts. To be fair, if he had seen someone wearing an outfit like this back on Earth he would’ve thought they were absolutely insane. Lucas shuffled into the tavern, immediately drawing the attention of everyone inside. It was early enough in the evening for there to not be too many people inside the tavern and Lucas was thankful for it. He bought a room and two meals for this evening along with a cup of the local alcohol. He had never drunk much on earth but figured a single cup of whatever they had here couldn’t do much except for help boost his confidence.

He had found out some interesting things about the local area from the barkeep. The island he was currently on was called Sharprock, named after the volcano that occupied half of the island. The last eruption was around two thousand years ago and had provided the soil with the nutrients that had helped grow a magnificent forest. The people indigenous to this island were called ashfolk due to their unique ashy skin that they had gained from so many of their ancestors gaining the aspect of the volcano. It apparently gave them extreme resistance to the heat and they could breathe in the fumes and dust let off in the firestone mines without having their lungs be set on fire, leading to the island having a booming firestone trade. The local liquor was called Ash Birch Wine, produced by fermenting the sap from the Ash Birch trees native to the island and Lucas had kept on knocking them back.

“You’re alright, old man. I’m surprised you’re so willing to tell me the local history. If a man walked up looking like me where I’m from and started asking questions they would think I’m a madman and would try locking me up.” Lucas had started slurring his words slightly as the alcohol’s effect made itself apparent.

The portly barkeep laughed deeply, before speaking in a slight Caribbean accent. “I can tell a traveller when I see one. My wife’s nephew’s cousin’s uncle’s brother’s daughter is married to a traveller who runs a tavern over in Deepoak, the capital. If you travel to Deepoak, look for a tavern called Big Sil’s and tell him Uncle Mo sent you. He will give you a discount. I will happily help any paying customer, and by the end of tonight will be paying.” The man let out another deep laugh and gave him a squeeze on the shoulder that was slightly too tight.

Lucas was oblivious to the threat made by Mo and laughed along with him. “When I arrive in the capital,I might just do that.”

Lucas looked over to the band that was playing a funky tune in the corner of the room. Lucas slowly swaggered over to the open area near the band and started to tap his foot to the beat of the drum. Before long, his entire body was moving as he danced along to the beat of the tune. The tavern had filled up a substantial amount by this point, and the guests were having a good time. Some cheered, some groaned as he danced around them. Before long, Lucas had pulled up another three patrons, and was dancing around them, his rainbow shirt creating an effect similar to a disco ball, as the light it let off shone around the room, the colours swirling.

Lucas had been dancing for hours at this point and had pulled up another six patrons onto the makeshift dance floor. Lucas noticed Bart standing in the doorway with an unreadable expression, and went over to pull him onto the dance floor. Bart protested heavily as Lucas pulled him into the middle of the room and started swirling him about. Lucas danced deep into the night, until he passed out unceremoniously in the middle of the dance floor from exhaustion. Mo, the barkeep made sure to take his pay before Bart dragged his body up into their room.