“What’s a video?” Alloha asked. While studying her own surprised expression.

I clicked the record button. “You don’t really have the vocabulary I would need to explain what video is… think of it as a memory you can watch later.”

“But I already have memories,” Alloha said. “Why would I need to see them on your little box?”

“Because,” I said. “You can show other people. And memories aren’t always perfect. Video is.”

Alloha craned her head around and looked at my screen. “Did it turn transparent?” she asked.

“No. That’s the recording. It’s just showing a moving picture of what’s beneath it.” I ended the recording, then turned the phone around and let her watch the clip I’d made of her asking me questions from start to finish.

“Oh my goodness! That’s really cool!” Alloha exclaimed. “It repeated exactly what I said! Torra. Come here, you have to see this.” She started showing him the clip of me recording her asking questions. He sort of glanced at it while stirring his soup and nodded. Not nearly as impressed.

“Shame my phone isn’t more useful in this world,” I mused. “The most use I got out of it was when I first arrived. The camera distracted a harpy long enough for me to run away. It very well might have saved my life.”

“Harpies don’t mess around,” Alloha said. “We’re not even allowed to take contracts for harpies until we’re certified stone tier. They might not be very big, but it’s really hard to escape a fight without injury unless you have the right equipment.”

“We could totally clear a nest of harpies,” Grant spoke up from the fire pit. He was looking nice and rosy-cheeked after warming up. “Our team composition is perfect for flying threats. Alloha and Vicky both have decent ranged Skills, I can fly, and Jay’s great with a bow. When we clear this contract, we’re all going to make stone and then we’ll tear up some harpy contracts. It’s bull that they restrict our contracts like that. They almost didn’t even let us take on this little spider nest. Spiders! Contract said there were only four and they were medium size. We shouldn’t have even needed to roll for it.”

“Uh, I’m not sure about harpies,” Alloha said. She handed me back my phone while keeping her focus on Grant. “They’re social. If you kill one, they screech and the whole flock comes.”

“And you can’t forget about their acid breath,” Torra added.

“What? No way!” I objected. “Is there more than one species? Because the flock I faced didn’t…” I trailed off when I saw Torra stifling laughter.

“Got’cha!” he said with a wide grin.

Alloha smacked Torra’s arm playfully. “Stop teasing the new kid. He can’t tell when you’re joking.”

“That’s what makes it so fun!” Torra objected.

“You know, if I hadn’t actually seen harpies before, I would have completely believed you,” I said. “It wouldn’t even be the weirdest thing I’d seen since arriving here. Flying birds that spit acid? Sure. Easier to believe than a staircase that falls infinitely.”

“There aren’t that many different monsters around Haemir,” Alloha said. She looked up to the darkening sky as she thought through her next words. “Let’s see… Locally? I think there’s six you might encounter: Goblins, revenants, harpies, ogres, pursuers, and primeval spiders. I guess we fight bandits, too, but they don’t count as monsters.”

“Six doesn’t seem like too many to remember,” I said. “Think you can give me some newbie tips?”

“Sure,” Alloha said. “Goblins are small creatures that hide in caves and hunt in packs. They aren’t very dangerous individually, so if you stay out of their caves, there isn’t much to worry about. They can use tools and Skills, but that’s pretty rare.”

“Wait, they can have Skills?”

“If they’re intelligent enough,” Alloha said. “Goblins and ogres can both have Skills, but like I said, it’s pretty rare. The Brokers will pay for any monsters you can capture alive that have a Skill, so they’re hard to find. I talked to a guy once that said the really big spiders can get Skills too, but I’ve never met anyone that’s actually seen that for themselves, so who knows if that was just a rumor. The general rule for spiders is just that the older they get, the bigger they get, so stay away from the big ones.”

Grant held a hand up to about his shoulder from where he sat on the ground. “The one’s we’re going after are supposed to be about this big,” he said. “Nothing we can’t handle.”

That still sounded like the most enormous and horrifying creations of nightmare I’d ever imagined, but I swallowed my protestations. Maybe they’d move real slow and give me time to throw a Fireball at them. Or better yet, I could manifest one of those WWII-era flamethrowers with the tank on my back. Killing giant spiders with fire from as far away as I could manage seemed the most sensible approach. Even if I had to burn down the forest around them.

“Okay, go on,” I encouraged Alloha. “What else is out there? Assume I know nothing.”

“I already was,” Alloha chuckled. “Okay. Revenants. We already mentioned them a bit before. They’re walking skeletons. They can show up randomly anywhere, but they aren’t as common as they used to be since the church started collecting their remains down South. They can be really aggressive, but they’re fragile. You can usually knock them over with a kick to the chest, then smash them to bits.” She demonstrated bringing down an imaginary hammer. “The only thing to worry about is if too many of them gather in one place, or if they sneak up on you. Most of the time when they kill adventurers, it’s because they forgot to post a watch at night.”

“Which is why we never forget to do that!” Grant interjected.

“You gotta smash revenants good,” Torra explained. “If you miss a hand or even a finger, they can crawl up to you while you’re sleeping and choke you to death. I’ve seen it happen.”

I rolled my eyes. “Yeah… suuure.”

“He’s actually not joking about that,” Alloha said. “The killing you part, not that he’s actually seen it.”

“Wait, really? They can kill you with a finger?”

Torra nodded. “Crawl right down your throat and choke you. They just like killing. It’s all they want to do.”

“Fingers are really rare,” Grant said. “What we do is smash the bones to small pieces then collect them in a bag and take them to the nearest church. They pay by the weight for anything you turn in. Not a ton, but worth the time.”

Torra eyed me up and down. “Don’t worry,” he said. “We won’t make a scrawny kid like you carry anything heavy.”

“Hey, I’m skinny, but I’m stronger than I look!” I pulled up the sleeve of my shirt to show off the cords of muscle running up my arm. I wouldn’t say I was strong per se, but at least I didn’t feel so weak all the time.

Alloha’s eyes went wide. “Oh, wow! You must work your muscles all the time to get like that.”

“Something like that,” I said evasively. As nice as it was to get to brag about my new physique, I didn’t actually want to get ousted as a cheater that used magic instead of hard work. I changed the subject back to monsters. “What can you tell me about harpies that I don’t already know?” I asked Alloha.

She nodded. “Oh, sure. Well, as you probably know, they have long talons and get really territorial about their nests. For the most part, they like to scavenge for meat. They don’t usually attack anything far from their nest unless they think they can get it without a fight. Oh, and you can get good money for the tail feathers. They make the best fletching for arrows.”

“I know all about that,” I said. “Ferrith even made me help him pluck them. He’s kind of miserly with his money. Did you know Oxenraith University paid him to deliver me to them for an interview?”

“You know he works for a living, right?” Alloha asked. “Not everyone has the luxury of rich family members.”

“Right,” I agreed. “Didn’t mean for that to sound judgmental.” I made a mental note not to insult Ferrith in front of Alloha. She clearly idolized him too much for that.

She waved aside my apology. “Anyway, I won’t bother telling you much about ogres, since you are one. The, uh, less intelligent species can sometimes be dangerous, but that’s not common. They’re pretty passive when nothing’s threatening them. Nobody really hunts them since they don’t have any valuable parts to sell unless they develop a Skill.”

“Gee, how lucky for me,” I said dryly.