Brian awoke rather sore the next morning. He wasn't aware of how sore he was until sleeping in a proper bed reminded him of all the kinks he'd managed to acquire during their last little endeavor. His right arm—not helped by the fact that he'd slept on it—barely wanted to move at all, both feet throbbed with every movement, and his spine felt bent in at least five different places. How he longed for some Advil, or a nice chair to recline in. Anything, really, to relieve the pain.

Wait a minute, he was a cleric! He had something way better than Advil literally right at his fingertips. Brian grabbed his aching right shoulder and cast a little Cure Wounds on it. Warm radiance flooded through his entire body. With it came relief. The pain melted away, replaced by a comfort he hadn't felt in ages. He'd never healed himself outside of battle before. It never even crossed his mind. It was something he could get used to, most assuredly.

Around noon time, Brian found himself sitting alone in the boys' room. Calvin had gone into town, and Hector was doing whatever it was wizards did when they disappeared for hours on end. So, he had the room to himself. Fat lot of good it did, though, as he still had no idea what to do with his free time. He wasn't the least bit artistic, so writing and drawing were both no goes. He didn't like exercise, or sports, or drinking, which knocked off several activities. He could go shopping, except he didn't need anything and shopping cost gold.

At a lack of other options, Brian sat at the desk in the boys' room reading a book. He'd never been much of a reader, either, but what choices were there? At least the guild hall had a decently stocked library. Currently, his fingers turned pages about halfway through a slim tome. On its cover, a shirtless and red bearded beefcake of a man, wielding a big double axe, astride a white dragon. The name of this tale? Ragnar the Dragon Rider. Not the most inventive title, but at least it gave the perspective reader an idea of what to expect. It wasn't very good.

Brian read his book with a less than halfhearted interest. It was something to do, no more and no less. A simple time sink. Not a very good one, of course, but it worked well enough for the ends he wanted it to. That was what he told himself anyway.

He was about to get up and maybe go find something else—something better—to read, when a knock came at the door. Part of him felt the dread he always felt whenever he had to answer a door. Company usually meant someone was about to interrupt whatever he had been doing, and he was always doing something. On the other hand, company meant he didn't have to read anything about Ragnar and his stupid Dragon anymore. He stood to answer.

It was probably Ylva. She was literally the only one who ever bothered knocking on this door. The boys, of course, never knocked since the room belonged to them. That meant Ylva was almost a certainty. So, imagine his surprise when he found not brunette beyond the door, but blonde.

"Tiffany?" Brian wondered aloud. She wore the pink v-neck and blue jeans as when they'd first met, but notably fixed, likely the doing of Hector.

"Hey, Brian," she returned, not quite meeting his eyes. "Do... do you think you could help me with something real quick?"

"Sure!" Brian said, a bit too enthusiastically. In a more modest tone, he continued. "I'm not doing anything else. Please, come in."

He stood aside to allow her entrance. Tiffany walked past him, and he closed the door. It was then that he noticed the book clutched to her chest. It was a thick tan volume, with some blue scroll work Brian couldn't quite see beneath her crossed arms.

"What did you need?" He asked.

"Remember how I told you I was reading a book about how to be an adventurer?" Tiffany began. Brian nodded. "Well, this book has a bunch of illustrations in the back, and I was wondering if I could ask you about a few of them."

"And you're asking me for help?" Brian said.

"Yeah," confirmed Tiffany. "I wanted to ask Hector, but I couldn't find him, so you're my next best choice."

"Oh." Brian had meant why him instead of all the other veteran adventurers in the guild. He took the ego hit in stride, though. Best as he could, at any rate.

"But, you seem to know almost as much as him. And, you have experience with these monsters," continued Tiffany.

"No, I don't." Brian shook his head. "I've only fought them in the game. I don't have real life experience."

"But you have practical experience," Tiffany argued. "If this world is supposed to be just like a game world, then the way I see it, these monsters should perform pretty much the same here as they did back on Earth. The rest of you are probably better off than you think, but I'm not, which is why I need a little help."

Brian pondered this for a moment. He remembered his blonde friend having mentioned similar thoughts along those lines before, though she never extrapolated upon them to this extent up until now. Maybe she was right. Brian wasn't entirely sure if he agreed with her, but he understood her train of thought. Maybe it was worth a shot. Besides, could he really turn down a friend in need?

"Alright, I'll give you a hand. Come on, let's sit down."

The cleric went to have a seat on the bunk beneath his, Hector's bed. Tiffany hesitated before lighting to his left. She placed the book face up on her lap. Brian stole a glance at the cover before she opened it. To his surprise, it was not the tale Taryon had been working on during his time with Vox Machina. Instead, the fancy blue letters spelled out Darrington's Guide to Adventure, in a script so swirly it was almost illegible.

The blonde rogue flipped to the rear third of the book. On its pages lay a veritable Monster Manual. Each sheet contained at least one color picture of a creature found in Exandria, along with a brief description of it. Brian's eyes nearly bulged out of his head. He'd expected to be underwhelmed by something Taryon wrote, but it seems he was wrong. Brian could tell this would be an invaluable resource for anyone looking to take up the sword. He was suddenly quite interested.

"There's a lot of things in here I don't recognize," Tiffany said. "I was hoping you could explain them to me."

"Okay." Brian resisted the urge to say how obvious it was she wouldn't know most of Exandria's creatures.

"Like, okay, this thing." Tiffany pointed to a detailed sketch of a very recognizable monster. "It looks like... the only way I can describe it is if Medusa had sex with a meatball. But, the description says its one of the deadliest things in the world. How is that even possible?"

"That's a beholder," Brian began. "It does look really stupid, but don't let that fool you. They really are one of the worst things imaginable."

"How?" Tiffany prodded.

"Well, they're hard to kill, for one. Beyond that, each of these tentacles casts a spell. One of them turns you to stone, one of them makes you slow, one outright kills you, et cetera," explained Brian.

"How do you kill it, then?"

"Teamwork and a bit of luck. That's the answer for most things, really." Brian shrugged.

"Hmm." Tiffany considered this for a moment. "I'll have to read about them some more. How about this one?"

She flipped to a page before the current one. Doing so allowed Brian to discover this section was organized loosely by category, not by name. That Tiffany could navigate such an awful system with ease showed just how much time she'd spend in the book.

"Alright, what about this one?" She pointed to another image, the last one on a page of three. "How are any of these not the exact same thing?"

"They're very similar, I'll give you that," Brian admitted. "Sprites and Pixies are neutral fairyfolk. Pixies are mostly magical, whereas sprites are cunning and deceptive. Quicklings are evil and super fast. They like to play pranks on slower creatures, but won't usually kill."

The two of them went on like that for about an hour. Tiffany had a lot of questions about various monsters, and even a few about general adventuring things such as why so many monsters hung out in caves. The answer being, of course, because if they didn't hide then the fairer races would hunt and kill them. That they were hunted and killed anyway wasn't the point.

It was fun to help his friend study up, much more than he expected. But, he'd never studied with anyone in school, either. He always did it alone. Maybe he just didn't know what he was missing? Beyond that, it was also an inspiration. Tiffany was putting more effort than any of them into becoming a good adventurer. Unlike the rest of her party, she had zero experience with fantasy in general, not just Dungeons and Dragons. That put her at a distinct disadvantage. Instead of wallow in it, however, Tiffany made her best effort to improve. Brian couldn't say he would to the same, in her shoes. It made him want to be better.

When they both were just about studied out and Brian could feel things winding down, he gave a big stretch. It surprised him how tired he felt, but it was a good tired, the kind that came from helping someone. And, by aiding Tiffany, he made the entire party better. That he could help everyone improve at their forced craft filled him with an odd sense of pride. That she was very pretty was neither here nor there.

A knock came at the door. Both occupants turned to face it at the exact same time. A voice followed the interruption immediately.

"It's me," called a familiar Norwegian accent.

"It's open, come in," Brian shouted back.

Ylva did just that. She wore a dark red long-sleeve tunic with the neckline ties undone, an orange belt around her waist, and her sword dangling from it. The bottom hem had a wide white band. It came down to about half-thigh, where then tight black trousers and short boots took over.

The Norsewoman hesitated at the sight of both Brian and Tiffany sitting on the bed. Clearly, she'd only expected to find one person, not just two. After all, this was the boys' room, a place where Brian was pretty sure Tiffany had never set foot until that day. Whatever surprise Ylva felt at the sight of them vanished in an instant, and she put on a warm smile.

"Oh, good, you're both in here. That saves me some time," she said.

"You were looking for both of us?" Inquired Tiffany.

"I was," Ylva nodded. "I need to go see Lundgrum about something. Do you guys want to come with me?"

"Is it about your seax?" Brian asked.

"No, no. That's just fine." Ylva quarter-turned to show him the implement in question, sheathed laterally behind her back. "I wanted to ask him about making me something else."

"Who's Lundgrum?" Tiffany intoned.

"He's a smith, the one who made my seax," answered Ylva.

"You mean your little sword thing?"

"Yes, my little sword thing." Ylva gave a little laugh at that. "So, how about it, want to come along?"

"Sure," Brian said. "We were just finishing up anyway. Right, Tiffany?"

"Yeah." The blonde closed the book and placed it on the bed next to her.

"Want to go visit a blacksmith?" Brian continued.

"Sure."

"I was hoping you would say 'yes.' I'm sure it beats hanging around here all day," Ylva said.

"You have no idea," agreed Brian.

"Oh, I think I do." Ylva began to depart. "Come on, I'll lead the way."

Brian and Tiffany shared a glance before making to follow. Brian took up the rear on their way out, closing the door behind them.

Ylva lead the way to Lundgrum's Ironworks, which was good, because Brian doubted he could have found it on his own. He still hadn't bought that map he'd been wanting for a while now. It continually slipped his mind in favor of the thousand other things he had to worry about on a daily basis. With topics like battle, keeping his friends safe, and getting home to ponder, whether or not he had a map in his pocket seemed trivial at best.

Trostenwald looked more or less the same as it always did. It always kind of amazed Brian how consistent the town was. Back in New York, there was always something going on. There were roads to fix, structures to build, movies to film, crashes to go around, and any number of other things. Here? Not so much. The people seemed to live cozy lifestyles, free from the ever-changing day to day of a modern world. It was neat, and just a little bit boring.

The telltale sounds of hammer on metal betrayed the coming of a smithy long before the trio of humans reached it. Trostenwald tended to be a somewhat quiet town, so something to sharp and loud traveled for quite a distance, even despite the myriad of buildings around it.

Stepping inside revealed the source of the noise. Lundgrum—with his bald head and grey-flecked black beard—stood at the same huge basin forge pounding on what looked like it was most of the way to becoming an axe head, though Brian couldn't tell what kind just yet.

Ylva stopped them several feet away. She waited patiently for Lundgrum to finish what he was doing. The dwarf set the piece back into the fire, and Ylva took that as her cue to approach.

"Lundgrum!" She called into the shop, her voice bouncing ever-so-slightly off of the stone walls. The smith looked up and regarded her with a smile.

"Ylva, my girl! It's been a while." He abandoned the forge to approach them.

"It certainly has." They clasped forearms, much in the way Ylva and Therdin did, though Lundgrum had a noticeably tighter grip.

"How's the seax treatin' you?" Lundgrum asked as they released.

"It's great, exactly what I wanted. Already killed a few goblins with it," Ylva said.

"Ah, the most noble use of a weapon," Lungrum said with reverence. He then regarded the other two arrivals. "And I see you brought a new friend!'

"I did." Ylva gestured toward her blonde companion. "This is Tiffany, another one of my party members. Tiffany, this is the smith I was telling you about."

"Hi," Tiffany said.

"Nice to meet ya, lass," returned the smith. "So, what can I do for yeh?"

"I'm in the market for some javelins," Ylva said. "They don't need to be anything fancy, just pointy and throwable. Is that something you could make for me?"

"I could, but I don't need to make them. I have some on hand," Lundgrum said. "Come on, I'll show you."

Lundgrum led the three of them through a door on the other side of the forge. Inside was a small armory, much like the one in the Adventurer's Guild, but on a minuscule scale. It had weapons handing from pegs on the walls, a box full of swords shoved in point down, various polearms, a pike that stretched all the way to the ceiling, some proper dwarven axes, and even a thresher flail. Brian didn't see any armor, though.

The dwarf them over to the corner left from the door. There, they found a box similar to the one of swords, but this one contained javelins. There were about twenty in total.

"I like to keep some basic weapons on hand, for people who just want an axe but don't care about making a custom order," explained Lundgrum.

"That's a good idea," Brian agreed.

"Unless you're looking for something really specific, any of these will serve you just fine." Lundgrum indicated the box.

"No, I'm sure these will be fine," Ylva said.

She took one from the box and inspected it. Brian and Tiffany both stood back from her as she did. Ylva first tested the weight, hefting it in her right hand a few times. Seemingly satisfied, she held it perpendicular up to her face to peer down the shaft with one eye closed.

"Perfectly straight," she said, lowering the implement to stare it up and down, "a great balance, and is this ash?"

"You've got a keen eye on you," commended Lundgrum. "Aye, it is indeed ash, the finest wood for bows and javelins."

"And there's plenty of it around here. It even has a leaf-shaped blade, which is exactly what I was looking for. I think this will do just fine," Ylva said.

"Excellent! I figured you would like them."

"I think three should be enough for now. Do you have anything to carry them in?" Ylva asked. Lundgrum didn't say anything, just pointed to the wall behind her. All three humans followed his indication to see a long canvas tote handing behind Ylva. "Oh. Okay, perfect. I'll take that, too."

"Very well. That's one gold for each of the javelins, and six silver for the bag," Lundgrum said.

"Here, take four gold." Ylva fished the coins from a tiny pocket in her tunic's hem. "The extra silver is a tip for being such a fine craftsman."

"Thank you very kindly, lass." Lundgrum accepted the gold form Ylva. From the disbelief thick in his accent, Brian guessed he probably didn't get many tips.

"No, really, thank you. These should help us out immensely," Ylva said while she picked out two more throwing spears.

"Of course. Wouldn't want you gettin' skewered out there," Lundgrum said.

"Neither would I." Ylva placed the javelins in the bag.

"Anything else I can do for yeh?"

"Not unless these two want anything." Ylva indicated her friends.

"I'm good. Thanks, though," Brian said. Tiffany just shook her head.

"Alright, then. Well, if you need anything else, you know where to find me," Lundgrum said.

"We do," said Ylva with a sweet smile. "Have a good day, Lundgrum."

"You too, lass." Lundgrum gave her a wave. Ylva returned it, and they were off.

As they departed the store, the Norsewoman slung the bag of javelins over her left shoulder. Something about it just looked right on her back, like they always should've been there in the first place. Having made a successful purchase, the trio walked back to the guild hall. It was still a pretty boring day, all things considered, but Brian counted it among his good ones. Studying with Tiffany, and then shopping with both her and Ylva? He could think of much worse ways to spend his time.