I was standing in Sam’s study. The room now had a fireplace behind the desk, which Sam set. I could smell the wood burning and could feel the warm air from that side of the room. Behind me, I felt cold, almost damp. Sam looked up at me from his desk like a principal about to give you three days of in-school suspension for shooting a spit wad at the class bully who took your lunch money the day before.

Then the jerk looked down at his desk and started to write. He used a quill and jar of ink along with sand to finish his work. I went to move to the chair to wait for him to speak, only to find that I couldn’t move. I felt peaceful in waiting, and so I just stood there. I don’t know how long he scratched at the documents, but to me, it seemed like forever.

When he spoke to me, it was in his nasally rude, better than you voice. It reminded me of Ben Stine with a stuffy nose. “Arn, Arn. Your necklace makes cores, after all it is the Necklace of Cores.”

I went to ask how it worked, but nothing came out of my mouth.

I woke up at dawn when the birds started singing as always.

“That man is a jerk! He knew I was asking what cores were and how it makes cores but he just answered the word for word question that I asked! I don’t know what I did to make him like this but I’m sure he is one of the most petty people I have every talked to!” I yelled as I woke up.

I kept ranting, not even in full thoughts, just anger, “and I couldn’t move or speak. Sure it felt peaceful! I hated that!”

I activated my spell again. I felt my body force me to stand. My arms reached up above my head, and I yelled as loud as I could, “Oh great and mighty greeter Sam, I the lowly Arn beseech you to answer my question.” “How do I use the Necklace of Cores,” I asked. I then felt my knees start to buckle again, and my face made contact with the ash in my fire pit.

When I came to, I went to the river even before eating and washed my face off and my mouth out. I hated that the spell took me over so much and that it would drop me to the ground after it used me. I looked up and right and saw that the blue bar was once again empty and now filling. I needed to make that pool bigger so that I didn’t bottom out every time…

I was tired. As I checked my leg, the hole was gone, and my health was full. It looked like sleeping was just enough to put me over what I needed to heal up. This was all something that was kind of odd for me. To go from having a deep wound that was bleeding to being fully healed with only a light scar that looked like it was years old was amazing. I could just imagine that most of the people here looked great. No major scarring from something like this would mean that if acne was something here, it didn’t leave a big impact. I’d expect that sicknesses didn’t mess with people as much, either.

I started my day again, using the same routine as yesterday’s combat training, moving rocks, eating, then other projects. Once again, I would try to find out what was around me. This time I would be more careful. I knew that there were things out there that wanted to eat me, and so it meant that I needed to watch. I had heard the dogs again this morning, but they sounded further away.

I quickly made it downstream to my assent location and started to go back up. I was being careful to watch for new tracks and was happy that I didn’t find any as I got close to where I’d been attacked. I saw small tracks near the dried blood, but nothing that kicked my skills up to worry about.

It was a few minutes later that my game trail ended. I was looking at a washout. I could see the tracks of the geson that went up and around, but that path was all of two inches wide. Mountain goats were great at climbing, and these were smaller so they could fit on an even smaller ledge. Which reminded me that I needed to figure out a way to keep them from getting to my ledge if I could. I didn’t want to wake up to getting gored by a little brute.

It was just like any other run-off crevasse that I’d run into when hiking in North Carolina as a young man. The ground was loose, and I could see where the path had been. Unlike when I used hit a crevasse, there was no going up and around; to my right, there was a steep rock face. I worked my way down, holding onto dirt and roots. I also used my spear to find places I could put my feet. I wanted to go slow and safe since this was the type of place I’d want rope or a friend or both to get through.

When I was most of the way down, I noticed that a large bird had made a nest here as there was an egg that was at least as big as an ostrich’s. As any sane and slightly hungry man would do when they saw such a prize, I reached out and snagged breakfast right then and there. After so many issues that I’d been having waking up in this crazy place, it was like something worked out just for me. I slipped that giant chicken egg right into my sack and kept a move on it so that whatever laid it wouldn’t find me close by!

It took me another fifteen minutes or so to climb up and out of the hole, but I was happy. I made it across, found food, and was now only about another mile from the ridgeline. Finally, I got to the top of the ridge and started to head back to the falls.

I was happy to see another trail that went both ways down the ridge. It looked like game came through here often with how beat down the grass was. It almost looked like a hiking trail as there was even a little rut in the middle. As I hiked, I was still looking for tracks. I knew being on a trail that was wide enough for me and used enough to show the dirt meant I was likely to find something else. What I wasn’t counting on, however, was finding a little spear.

It was all of three feet long. I almost passed it by, thinking it was just a stick, until I saw a fixed stone tip at the end. It was crude even for me, but still, it was a spear. I’d have called it an arrow if it had feathers; it was so thin. The shaft was also broken, which was likely why it was here.

I looked for prints of something other than game but couldn’t find any. However, I did find three more tiny broken spears. Then, one of my skills kicked in, which I figured was my survivalist and made me a little warier.

I pressed on. My main goal was to see what was around me and my second was to see what was over me. If I found a better place over me, I’d move since I only had about a day invested into my home. That being said, I wasn’t sure what could be better than where I was. I now also had a goal which was to figure out who or what was using tiny spears. There were no fresh tracks, so they weren’t here recently, but they might lead me to more people.

It only took me another twenty minutes or so before I got around to the top of the falls. When I came out of the woods, I saw that the river was wide in this place. It was about 60 feet across, and then it narrowed in because of some big boulders to the 30 feet that I was used to seeing. So while it was fast-moving, it was also about half as deep.

The other side of the falls had a nice sand bed, and then it went into trees. I didn’t know how that side would get to the top, so I wasn’t sure if I needed to be worried about dogs right now. But, on the other hand, I knew they could swim, and so they might try the crossing here.

I looked around from the edge of some trees, and I saw a large unnt herd. It had to be at least forty strong, and then I also saw other game. I could see a good mile of the river from where I stood, and I saw lots of trees and animals. I saw what looked like a bear fishing and birds flying. I even saw from my spot what looked like a field that you could put a town in.

I stood there in the peaceful scene taking in the wonder of the world. The crashing of the waterfall just a hundred yards away drowned out the stress of my thoughts as the light breeze on my back brought a slight spring chill. This place was beautiful. As I scanned the landscape in front of me again, motion to my right caught my attention.

There, on the other side of the river, were six dogs, all barking and running out of the tree line.

“Crap,” I said as I looked for a good place to make a stand.