Chapter 7

A Rude Awakening

Torger and Graul were left alone in the small cave with firewood, but no bedding. Torger thought sleeping on wood floors in the cabin was miserable, but this was truly brutal. The borrowed leather armor came with thin wool padding under it, but that was little help on the cold, uneven stone floor. Both men couldn’t get comfortable but knew they had a long walk in the morning. After an hour or so Torger asked “How are we going to find the others?”

“I don’t know, but that’s a top priority. It’s clear that Small Foot will continue to use and mistreat us.”

“My top priority is finding that place on the map with the icon of a bed. I could use a good mattress and soft pillow.”

Graul laughed and agreed. Then they both heard a loud screech and a second later dwarves yelling outside the cave entrance. The men jumped up and ran outside, swords in hand. A dwarf yelled “Cumper dus gratistin, idselai!” He pointed to the sky.

They looked up and saw a huge bird swooping down at them! They ran back into the cave. Torger grabbed the tablet and turned on Translate, while Graul grabbed his bow and arrows. He was about to run back outside when Torger yelled “No! Don’t! We’re no match for that thing, let the dwarves handle it.”

Sure enough, the dwarves took up positions on the rocks and rained a barrage of arrows at the bird. It squawked loudly and flew off, with multiple arrows sticking out of it. The dwarves ran after it. Baybil ran inside the cave and said “Stay here. You’re safer in here.” The brothers couldn’t argue with that overwhelming logic.

A long time later the dwarves came back with loud cheers. In the meantime Torger had built the fire at the cave mouth much larger, not for the heat but for protection. He was embarrassed to admit he was safer behind a fire than he was with a sword in his hand. They skirted around the fire to go greet the dwarves. Three of them were dragging the huge bird up the hill, while two others were happily saying it’s time for second dinner. Torger and Graul found Small Foot and asked “What is that thing?”

“It’s a roc. They’re very territorial and eat medium sized animals like deer, sheep and dwarves.”

“How did you know that?”

“I used analyze. This one is young, only level nine.”

“What’s analyze?”

“Great gods man! You really know absolutely nothing about this land do you? This world is called Nuva. We are all born with natural skills. Some children are good at swinging an axe or sword, others are natural archers, others learn magic early on, and some poor souls are good at cooking. As dwarves, we are all good at mining. It’s different for the elves and goblins. Since you are prey, you’re supposed to grow strong at whatever you’re good at. Ahem. I know it’s rude of me to ask, but what exactly are you good at? I haven’t seen any above average abilities from either of you.”

“Well, in those terms, our race is good at thinking, and Torger and I are good at building stuff.” Graul felt foolish as he was saying it.

“Good at thinking, yet asking the silliest questions. And it seems to me you know nothing about magic. Well not to worry. Once you get some coppers in your pocket I’ll teach you what you need to know.”

Graul sighed and glared at Small Foot. “You dwarves aren’t known for your hospitality are you?”

“Aha! You are learning! I would sell you some of this roc meat and some ale, if you had coins. I would advise you to stay in the cave though, there may be other attacks.”

The brothers didn’t sleep at all because the dwarves got louder as the night went on.

The next morning they came out of the cave as soon as they heard the dwarves stirring. They were told they would be getting breakfast soon, then be on the road, if there was a road to follow. They were given fruit that looked like apples, more rabbit meat, and a loaf of bread. Just as importantly they were given a satchel to hold it in and some more soft leaves to be used for toilet paper. The satchel was surprisingly similar to a murse- man purse. Looking around they saw all the dwarves had them, but they still felt awkward.

After walking a few hours Graul gave a big yawn, having not slept the night before. A dwarf walked up to him and said “Here, take this. It’s a stamina potion.” Graul took the small vial filled with yellow liquid and drank it in one go. Immediately he threw up, then his head hurt and he became dizzy. Another dwarf ran over and began to cast a spell. A yellow light shot out of his wood staff, then a yellow light encompassed Graul. At that point he collapsed to the ground and began convulsing. Torger yelled wanting to know what was happening. The dwarf that had given him the potion reached into his bag and pulled out a vial made from pure gold. He poured it down Graul’s throat. A minute later Graul was sitting up and saying he was fine.

“What happened there?” Torger demanded to know.

“It seems you guys are allergic to magic. I guess we can only give you completely organic potions. That second one countered the first one, but cost five gold, about a years’ pay for most dwarves. I’ll have to put that on your tab. He was supposed to carry the potion with him and drink it when he got tired of walking in a couple hours.”

“What! No one told you to give him the endurance potion in the first place! This was your fault. We’re not paying for your mistake.”

The dwarves surrounded them and took an aggressive stance. Baybil stepped in and said “Hold up lads. I think I can make an arrangement here that would make everyone happy. Graul, Torger, would you come with me please?”

They walked away from the angry dwarves and Baybil made his sales pitch. “My village is in a much better location than Small Foots’. However, we lack protection. I will loan you the five gold if you grant my village access to your house, so they can run there inside your shield in case of an emergency. Your house has a weak shield and is in an unprotectable location but it’s better than what we have. I’m making a very generous offer here. What do you say?”

“I say how will your people get inside the shield?”

“Ahh. There’s the difficult part. You will have to make them villagers.”

Torger looked at his kindle and saw he needed four more villagers and five ability points for it to expand, whatever that meant. “Baybil, how can your villagers be a villager in yours and mine both? And why don’t you have a shield for your village?”

“Being a resident of two or more places is no problem, and Small Hammer does have a shield. But my people have to leave the village to hunt. With all these monsters around I want the hunters to have a safe place to run in case things go sideways.”

Torger knew the cabin was nearly useless as it was, and it wouldn’t hurt to meet the population criteria. “You can allow four hunters to take residence there, but they cannot go into the house itself, just into the shield.”

“Make it five. Five hunters for five gold coins.”

“OK deal.”

They walked back to the other dwarves and Baybil paid Graul’s debt. Everyone was appeased and they continued on their way through the seemingly endless sand. It was clear their lack of sleep was slowing them down. Around one in the afternoon they stopped for lunch. They found a large rock to get behind and out of the constant cold wind. The dwarves barely touched their lunches, still being full from the roc, but Torger and Graul devoured theirs. They then found some soft sand and quickly fell asleep.

A short while later they heard shouts and opened their eyes to see dwarves scrambling to their feet. Torger got up as fast as he could and saw huge green lizards with rows of sharp teeth. They were about three feet high and there were seven of them. Small Foot yelled “Battle positions!”

With an unquestioning and efficient speed Baybil, Small Foot, and two other dwarves ran to the front, forming a line. At the same time the two archers ran ten feet behind the line, and the white mage and potion master came in close just behind the axe wielding warriors. The white mage immediately began chanting and wiggling his fingers and wood staff in a peculiar fashion. Two dwarves shot arrows as fast as they could, each arrow forming a small patch of blue ice where it struck, while the others held a line, axes drawn. Torger and Graul each released one arrow, but without arrowheads they only annoyed the lizards. One of the lizards rushed at Baybil. With a mighty overhand swing he split the skull of the reptile before it reached him. The other six lizards fanned out, then all charged at once. The white mage finished casting a spell and the lizards hit an invisible barrier that flashed gold and crackled with energy. They staggered back. The four axe wielding dwarves rushed around the magic shield that got severely cracked when the lizards ran into it, and began swinging their axes, splattering copious amounts of blood all over the sands and themselves. One dwarf cried out as a lizard bit his greaves, puncturing the iron. The others were impressive in their agility. Torger had no idea those big barrel chested short men could move so quickly and were limber as they ducked, lunged, swung, and blocked. At the end four dwarves were unharmed, but the four with axes got bit or clawed.

The white mage cast a spell that surrounded Small Foot with gold light, and his arm stopped bleeding, and the potion master quickly handed out a potion to each of them.

“What were those things?” asked Torger.

Small Foot answered “Razorlings. They hunt in packs. Without Marvec’s shield spell, that would have been a tough battle. And to think a tyter will try to fight all seven razorlings all by himself.”

That was when Torger realized the futility of trying to defeat the tyters.

The dwarves all went cross-eyed for a few seconds then cheered. Torger asked why they did that.

“You have that bewitched device in your hand that shows you your experience points, property, weapons, and things like that. We all have a similar version that is in the corner of our vision. We just checked how much experience we got for those kills. Seven razorlings against eight dwarves, we each got three hundred twelve experience.”

Torger checked his Kindle. It showed his quest for Baybil was changed then completed- the new quest was to tell Baybil about the message from the tyters, which he did, and had received his 300 exp. He saw that taking Small Foot to the silver at Calico was another quest worth 300 exp, and he also received experience from killing the razorlings. He now had 768/1000 exp. with 0 ability points available. He realized as soon as they made it to the silver he would have one point. He wondered if Graul was accumulating exp without a Kindle.

After the battle the dwarves were exhausted and sat down for a break. Torger and Graul tried to catch a little more sleep, but were too amped up from the battle they didn’t participate in, much. They walked over to the bodies and cut off the sharp claws and teeth, not knowing if they might one day come in useful. Small Foot said “You leave the treasures for us!” They dropped the claws and teeth on the ground.

After the break they walked until sunset then camped for the night. The men slept deeply on the soft sand despite the cold wind, and the dwarves set up a night watch. When they woke up the wind was howling and dark clouds were coming in quickly. They ate breakfast of dried fruit and bread then set out again. The cold made the men shiver, but the dwarves all had winter jackets on. When Torger asked where the coats came from he was told the dwarves’ satchels had magical space and weight reducers, the better the satchel the more volume it could hold with just a little extra weight added. Theirs were poor quality and could double the space and halve the weight. Once again Torger realized these dwarves were not allies and didn’t put much effort into acclimating him to Nuva.

As it turned out Torger only thought he was miserably cold before. Once the snow started falling his leather armor and boots did little to keep him dry. Small Foot asked “How much further to the silver? Should we stop for lunch or are we almost there?”

The idea of lunch and fire greatly appealed to Torger, but he honestly had no idea how far. Endless hills and sage brush all began to look the same now that it was covered in an inch of snow. “I’m not sure. I need to get to the top of that hill and look ahead.” He pointed to a large hill to their right a mile away.

“OK. We’ll take Graul and Baybil.”

Small Foot told the other dwarves to wait there and be alert in case they needed help. Torger and Graul were out of breath half way up the hill. Since Torger was an experienced hiker, this new low stamina frustrated him just as much as the cold.

“Small Foot we need to take a break. I don’t know why Graul and I move so slowly and are so tired and weak.”

“That’s because you’re at level one and haven’t invested any ability points into stamina. This long walk will probably raise your stamina even without investing an ability point into it. When we get there and make camp tonight check your stats again. But for now let’s keep moving or you’ll risk frostbite, which wouldn’t matter if you were able to be healed with magic, but since you can’t we need to use more caution.”

Torger and Graul forced themselves to the top of the hill. What they saw was white snow on top of other hills for miles in every direction. “I’m sorry Small Foot, with this snow I don’t know where we’re at.”

“Well, check your map.” Under his breath he added idiot.

Torger touched the prompt for maps. It again showed California, Nevada, and Arizona with topographical detail, but he was zoomed way too far out. He noticed a little mark on the bottom right corner and touched it. The map zoomed in, and he found that touching the bottom left corner made the map zoom out. It even showed their present location. Graul looked over his shoulder and said to Small Foot, “I think it’s about thirty miles from the pass where we met you.”

Torger added “Calico is mostly due north, and a little east. So according to this it’s about five miles northeast of us.”

Small Foot got very excited and said “That’s it! That’s all we need! We’ll meet you there!”

With that he ran down the hill, slipped, got up again, and kept running. As Torger, Graul and Baybil walked down the hill they saw Small Foot talking to the other dwarves then point north east. They all walked away at a brisk pace. “Baybil, what just happened?”

“You need to understand, we dwarves love money. They want to get to the silver as fast as they can.”

“But at the pass they didn’t seem interested in silver. They thought it was a lot of work for a small profit.”

“We love money, but we also love mining. It gives us purpose. That mountain where you met me was hard granite and we got nothing out of it. That is immensely frustrating for a dwarf. Small Foot loves money more than most dwarves, even more than compassion for strangers. He’s not a bad dwarf really, just wildly greedy. It’s a consuming thought to him.”

“What does he spend money on?”

“We dwarves have a pretty good trade system. Some make ale, others run taverns and inns, others make weapons, others make armor, others hunt or farm, some make potions and a few are mercenaries. There is plenty to spend money on in a dwarven community.”

“Mercenaries? Are you often at war?” asked Graul nervously.

“Not war between nations, but there is always treasure that’s guarded. A good mercenary could make a pound of gold on a good routing.”

“What’s a routing?”

“It’s when we kill the monsters that are protecting the treasure.”

“What kind of monsters? Is there a lot of treasure here?” asked Torger.

“That depends on the treasure they’re guarding. Strong monsters will protect a lot of treasure, and stay in a cave for a long time. You’ll see once we get there.”

“Baybil, there are no monsters at Calico. Just dig into the hills and find the silver ore.”

“That must be nice on your planet, mining without monsters. Here on Nuva things don’t work like that. Why did you think Small Foot brought six extra dwarves on this trip? Between himself, me, the potion master, and white mage, we could have beat those razorlings with proper battle tactics. The two archers and two axe wielders are here to clear out whatever is in the cave near the silver.”

“I still don’t understand how you know there’s something there,” Graul continued to press.

“There is always a guard. It will be something indigenous to Nuva. Since it’s only silver, and only silver ore, it should be something easy, but with all the prey that just came to Nuva, who knows what they’ll find in a cave? Like I said, the strength of the guard is always indicative of the quality of loot. They didn’t need you to show them exactly where the silver is, just close enough that they could see tracks or evidence of hostile life nearby. That will lead them to the cave. The prey and native monsters are drawn to treasure, and the stronger ones drive out the weaker ones. It’s not a perfect gauge, but it’s right often enough to get a good read. For example a level seven cave will usually have a hundred level seven monsters, or fifty level fourteen monsters, and will have low end treasure like silver ore or coal or salt. A level eighteen cave will have a lot of gold ore or three rubies. Something like that.”

“A ton of gold is worth three rubies here?” asked Torger.

“I don’t know what it’s like on your planet, but gems are very rare and extremely valuable here. They enhance magic spells.”

It was a little confusing to Graul, and Torger was beyond nervous about the other dwarves potentially flushing out some alien monster that would run straight at him in fright. He knew they were in no position to fight anything beyond a coyote.

Chapter 8

Friends

As Torger, Graul, and Baybil came near the cave they could hear dwarves shouting and axes swishing through the air, occasionally meeting flesh. Despite Graul’s curiosity to go look inside, Torger insisted they wait outside until it was over.

A few minutes later the sounds stopped, and flashes of golden light could be seen inside. Baybil told them it was safe to go in. They saw a pack of huge razorlings maimed and bloody lying on the floor. Each one was nearly a hundred pounds, and they counted fourteen of them. Further in they saw the alpha male, also dead, at well over a hundred pounds. Small Foot came up and said “This silver mine must be bigger than we thought. I thought you were leading us to a small vein, but this must be a medium sized vein. There has to be more razorlings in the area, a lot more.”

He pulled out a torch from his satchel and light it with magic fire, then led them to the back of the cave and showed them a dark grey rock half way up the wall. “This is silver ore. It could take us a year to extract it all. Well done men!”

He had a huge grin on his face. Baybil cleared his throat. “Small Foot, maybe you want to be nice for a change?” He pointed at the ore.

Small Foot reluctantly reached into his satchel and pulled out a pick. With a few well placed swings, he handed the fist sized rock to Torger.

“Small Foot, that is nice of you, really, but Graul and I don’t have much use for silver ore just yet. I would gladly accept a reward, but in the form of two better magic satchels filled with food and water.”

Graul looked at him. “Are you crazy? That’s a lot of silver! If even half of that turns into pure silver once smelted it will be a week’s pay back home. Let’s just accept it and leave.”

“Where are we going to spend it? And how are we going to purify it? I would rather carry more stuff with less weight, wherever we’re going. Food and water is still our top priority.”

Graul agreed that it’s no use carrying silver around then dying of hunger. Before they bid the dwarves farewell, Torger, Graul, and Baybil sat down and ate again. They built a fire with wet wood in the cave and left early due to the smoke. They had no desire to go back out in the cold, but Small Foot and his dwarves were busy dragging out the razorlings and making plans for moving their tribe from Cajon Pass to Calico.

Eventually they set out again, heading back towards the pass and ultimately to their house to allow Baybil’s hunters access. Along the way Torger checked his stats to see what his experience got him. Sure enough his exp now showed Exp 68/1000. Available ability points 1.

The 1 was blue so he touched it.

The kindle displayed a message.

Pick which category to use your ability point.

Stats Spells Village Weapons

Torger touched Stats.

+50 health 1 Ability

+5 stamina 1 Ability

+ 1 strength 1 Ability

+ 10 Mana not available

Torger backed up the screen then pressed Spells

Fire 1 Not available

Ice 1 Not available

Lightning 1 Ability points 2

Slow 1 Ability points 3

Cure 1 Ability points 3

Heal 1 Ability points 3

Sheild 1 Ability points 4

Analyze 1 Ability points 4

Haste 1 Ability points 5

Beserk 1 Ability points 5

Poison 1 Ability points 5

Teleport 1 Ability points 6

Baybil told him he would probably never be allowed to use magic, much to all their dismay. Next Torger pressed Village

Fertile Ground 1, Ability points 1

Shield strength + 50, Ability points 1

Well Water, Ability points 1

Expansion, Ability points 5

Baybil explained fertile ground as crops getting ten percent bigger each level, and well

water will determine if there is water underground and if so how far down and where to dig.

Finally Torger pressed Weapons

Knives Ability points 1

Swords 1 handed Ability points 1

Swords 2 handed Ability points 1

Bows Ability points 1

Clubs Ability points 1

Staffs Ability points 1

Guns Ability points 1

“Baybil it looks like it costs me one ability points to get to the next level. What does that mean?”

“As you use weapons, you gain experience from using that type of weapon. Once you get to a thousand experience, that type of weapon becomes more natural for you, that is it gets faster and deadlier. For example right now your use of one handed swords is a danger to us all. You’re just as likely to cut off your own balls in a fight as you are to parry a single lunge. If you use your one ability point there you will be able to pull it from the scabbard, and swing it more quickly, accurately, and powerfully, a one percent increase to each of those four actions. Does that make sense? I hope so because I can’t explain it any better.”

“That kind of makes sense. But wouldn’t I get better just by practicing?”

“Of course you would, and it levels up just with use. You don’t have to use ability points to gain a level with a weapon, just use it. Spend your ability points on more interesting things like well water.”

“It does look like I gained a level in bows, one handed swords, and clubs since we arrived here. I have killed a few rabbits and coyotes with them. Why don’t you dwarves just keep killing small animals over and over to gain experience and become top notch mma fighters?”

“I don’t know what mma is, but you only gain experience from your first twenty-five kills of a certain monster or animal. Each of my hunters have killed hundreds of rabbits, coyotes, and deer. Once they have killed twenty-five it is no longer a challenge for them and they no longer get experience from it. In a group setting the experience is divided to the members of the group. Go to experience, and you’ll find beasts.”

Torger touched Experience and saw a sub menu called Beasts. He touched it.

Rabbit Level ??? Health ??? Mana ??? Kills for exp. 3.0/25

Coyote Level ??? Health ??? Mana ??? Kills for exp. 2.0/25

Razorling Level ??? Health ??? Mana ??? Kills for exp. 0.7/25

Baybil said “There were ten of us, and we killed seven razorlings, so we each got zero point one kills for each razorling. The dwarves that came here with Small Foot killed seven razorlings, and there were seven dwarves that won the fight, so they each got another one point zero kills for experience. If they ever get that total number up to twenty-five, they will never again get experience from killing a razorling.”

Torger and Graul thought they had a basic understanding of how ability points worked now, but were not able to understand what changes physiologically by investing an ability point. After checking again Torger saw that he had indeed gained stamina. When he arrived in Nuva his stamina was 30/30. Now it was 32/43. All that walking for the last week had at least a little benefit. Gaining an easy five more was tempting, but so was doubling his strength from 1/1 to 2/2. He wondered what it would be like to suddenly grow muscles, and how close that would get him to his normal sized arms and height he had on Earth. Ultimately he decided to save his ability point until he got back to the cabin. Graul was sullen knowing his destroyed tablet didn’t give him these options. He would have to gain levels for weapons, strength, and stamina through hard work. When he mentioned it to Baybil, he was told most of the tyter prey are dumb beasts and experience they gain is automatically distributed. Without being able to check Graul didn’t know if his ability was spent on stamina or a weapon. He swung his sword a few times and shot his bow, but didn’t notice any changes.

They walked until dark and slept near a fire. Graul found that he could walk further and faster than Torger, so they assumed his ability point was automatically put into stamina. But it was still nowhere near what he had on earth. Instead of always feeling like he was having an asthma attack, he now felt like he just finished a bunch of sprints and wasn’t getting a second wind.

Seeing Baybil start fires so easily made them wish they could use magic too. They would have to work on inventing a cigarette lighter. That night they took turns keeping watch, (Torger and Graul each fell asleep on their shifts), and the next day ate dried fruit and bread again. Part of the food Small Foot had given them at Calico was pepper venison jerky, and they munched on that along the way. They killed a couple more rabbits with their bows and it really was starting to feel more natural to them. Skinning the rabbits gave them a little experience with knives as well.

Once they made it to the top of the pass they saw that it had nearly a foot of snow. The travel was slow and bitter, but they pushed on to make it to the other side so they wouldn’t be quite as cold that night.

They spent that night near the bottom of the pass because walking became too dangerous on the slick stones at night. The weather was getting closer to mild, but sleeping under the stars on a snow dusted ground was no one’s idea of a good time. Early in the morning Torger heard his name being called from a distance. He was still asleep and Graul had apparently dozed off on his watch. Torger stood up and looked out. He saw all his hiking friends! Arden, Jex, Brun, Rome and Antic were all walking towards him. He woke up Graul and Baybil and then ran to meet his friends.

“Hey guys! How did you find each other? Oh and Arden, this is for touching that green sphere.” Torger slugged him in the arm.

“Oww! I didn’t know what that green light was. How was I supposed to know it would bring us here?”

“Not knowing what it would do is WHY. YOU. SHOULD. NOT. TOUCH. IT.”

Graul looked at his friends and realized he and Torger had been lucky compared to them. They were dressed in poorly sewn rabbit furs and were shivering uncontrollably. They looked like they had very little to eat in the last week, but their weapons were guns. They also had nothing but rabbit furs to cover their feet. Graul asked “Have you guys managed to build a fire?”

They looked down and scowled, clearly that had been a point of contention between them, and nobody wanted to talk about it. Next he asked “How did you find us?”

Antic answered “Naturally once I realized where I was, I headed toward Brun and Arden’s parents’ house. Rome and Jex had the same idea, and we all met up there after a couple of days, except of course the house wasn’t there. It’s just an empty field. We found supplies a few yards from where we each entered; a gun or food, clothes, and water for each of us. These fur rags aren’t clothes, really, but they were near where we started. It’s amazing we all started miles apart from each other, but all got our bearings and went to the same house. We all arrived within a day of each other. Near me was a revolver and near Jex was a twenty two rifle, but Arden and Brun found a thirty thirty near them. And Rome had food, water, and furs, but no gun, and we’ve been fighting about that ever since.”

Brun picked up. “The tyter message came on our Kindles the day after we met up. Arden watched the video, and the rest of us pressed translate, so his was destroyed. Then we started arguing about where to go. I wanted to go to Catalina where the picture of the portal appeared on the map, but we have no way of getting there. Eventually we realized you guys own your own home and you might go there to see if it somehow showed up here. With no other direction to go we walked to it. When we got near there we saw dwarves hunting. They took us to their village at San Antonio Falls and gave us food, water, and more furs, and told us you were headed this way.”

Arden interjected “We spent a lot of ammo shooting at rabbits and possums before we met up, each of us wearing small animal skins barely held together. Rome’s furs were better, but we still had a hard time sewing together the new ones the dwarves gave us.”

Torger asked “What good are guns without ammo? We left our shotgun in the cabin near us, but we ran into trouble with some dwarves and would have used it, but everything worked out OK without it. We need to be careful with the little ammo you guys have left. It’s not like we can make more. As for going to the bed in Yuma, Arden you and I are good at hiking, much better than the others, or we were good at it, but we’re a long way from being Lewis and Clark. And why were the Cucamonga Dwarves so nice to you?” Torger knew his thoughts were scattered and he couldn’t talk straight seeing his friends in this strange land. He was happy to see them, but sad they were stuck there too, and had an overwhelming desire to care for their basic survival.

Arden smiled and pulled out a large pouch strapped to his waste. He opened it and inside was an assortment of food, water skins, and knives.

Graul looked in and was shocked. “Explain the food and stuff, and why your furs are better sewn together than everyone else’s.”

Jex answered “Uh, well, we convinced the dwarves to… ah, put it on your tab.”

“Our tab? I didn’t know we had credit. How much did they gouge you for?”

“One gold coin each.”

Graul gasped. “For the five of you? Did you know five gold coins is nearly a year’s wage here? I mean, I’m very glad you’re not all standing here naked, or dead from hunger, but my god did you even try to bargain?” Baybil smiled broadly.

“Graul we had nothing. And we’re cold. Let’s go back to your cabin and light a fire. Please.” Jex gave her best puppy eyes at him.

Graul agreed, but knew they would have to spend another night outside before making it back. They walked all day, talking about the tyter message and Graul and Arden losing their tablets. That night they all huddled around a fire talking about their individual adventures in Nuva. It was no surprise to Torger and Graul that Arden tried to touch the shield surrounding their cabin. Jex was worried that he might have died when she saw him get shocked. Baybil explained that the level 1 shield had 100/100, which was the same in terms of damage needed as their health being 100/100. Basically someone pounding on it with a club for a couple of minutes would destroy it, but it gave off an electrical discharge equivalent to Lightning 1, a weak spell but would keep all monsters under level 9 away from it.

Late the next afternoon they made it back to the cabin. Baybil said he was going to check on his village, and would be back the next morning with five hunters to be added to the village population, as they had agreed. Before he left Torger asked him to light a fire in the fireplace and they could keep it going. After he left, Torger added Arden, Jex, Brun, Antic, and Rome to the village population. That night they stuffed themselves full with all the food they had left and finally slept deeply and warmly on the hard wood floors.

They talked late into the night about how awesome it was that Baybil could mutter a few word and contort his hands, then a fire shot out of his finger. Torger and Graul had seen it too many times and the novelty had started to wear off, but their friends excitement bolstered their appreciation of this new world. Like Torger and Graul, each person insisted on trying to repeat the words and hand gestures, but none of them could make a fire from magic.