I woke up in the morning with my right hand swollen. I had two broken bones left in the hand that I hadn’t healed, and so I needed to get that fixed before anything else. I hit myself with a pair of healing spells and saw that my debuffs had gone away. All but the poorly rested one.

Then I fixed some breakfast from the nuts that we had stored in the boat landing. Blink woke up.

“Daddy! Are you feeling better?”

I waved my healed hand at her. “Yup, the hand is all better. Just thinking through what Sam told me last night.”

“Oh?”

“He told me, I had pissed off a god the god of war. Who was fighting against dwarfs who didn’t worship the pantheon that the god of war was part of. I made him so mad that he had a temper tantrum and tried to level me with a storm and lightning.”

“How did you make a god mad?”

“Turns out that the forest was powerful enough to mess everything the plans of a god. I had only wanted to move south to find Lannah and instead I made a god mad at me. Also the god that brought me here now gets to give me a gift because of what happened.”

“Any idea what the gift is?”

“Not a clue, I still don’t know the name of the guy who brought me. The other thing that was kind of odd was how happy Sam was. He was super happy that I pissed off the god of war.”

Blink cocked her head to the side, “Is that a good thing? Isn’t he imprisoned by the gods that you are making mad?”

“Yeah, I think so but what can I do. I didn’t try to piss them off. I just want to find Lannah.”

Blink looked down at the ground. “Do we have to leave again? I like the waterfall!” She said with a pout.

I suppressed my laugh and grin. “I know you like it here but I can’t learn to read here and if we find Lannah she can help get me reading and then I can level.”

Blink didn’t say anything for a while, and then she said, “Okay, just remember, I love this place.”

“I get it for the most part it has been good to us. Now lets go see about getting the loot. I don’t think that I am going to get jumped again today by the orcs so we should be good and the sooner we get there the less chance of it being found.”

Blink and I headed down the river. She was still out front with her stealth as high as she had it. She was a great scout. When gods weren’t shielding the ambush. It was twenty minutes before we got down to the battle site.

I went and started to loot the monsters. This would be a better haul than what I had gotten in the past battles. The equipment on the orcs, while perhaps a bit big for me, was also the best looking that I had seen and was in what appeared to be good condition. I started with the berserker since they were the closest. I was hoping that I could use his sword and shield. They both seemed a bit big for me, but I might be able to do something about that.

I made sure to clean it up as best I could, and then I searched the orc. I pulled off the chest plate, which was the only armor, and found a belt with a small pouch. The pouch contained some coins and food, which looked like just a dead animal. There was also a small glass bottle with some thin green liquid in it. The orc also had a boot knife strapped to its leg as it had no boots.

Then I moved on to the hammer guy. He was quick loot. He only had a chest plate and a belt with more vials, and a bag that had gold and silver coins. I put the armor next to the hammer and moved on to the other orcs.

The caster had a bag that had several health and mana potions. I was happy about them because I would core them. The sack also had several coins as well as a wand. The caster had a staff as well, and I had to cut off a finger but was able to pull a large ring from the orc’s pinkie.

The archers had a total of 10 arrows and two well-made quivers. They both were wearing leather jerkins which were savaged by Blink, so they were staying where they were. I found a bag on one that had a health potion in it and some thin metal cord along with several small vials that were wrapped in an additional cloth and leather bag. The other one had a skinning knife in a belt sheath. One of the bows was in good repair, and the other appeared that if I could get a new string, I could restring it, so I took both.

The gremlins, as always, lacked anything of importance. What I did find on the goblins that pleased me were more of the short bow arrows though the bows they had were worse than the one that I had been using. The other thing that I was happy to find, if not more than the arrows, was one of them had been using a cast iron frying pan as a chest piece. It had taken no damage as he was killed by the smoke.

I had way more than I could carry, so I took the most important things with me. First, I loaded my quiver with the short bow arrows, then I tied the new bags to my belt, snatched up the wizard’s staff, and lashed it to my pack along with the chest plate from the berserker and the cast iron from the goblin. I then grabbed the massive hammer and realized that I wasn’t Thor, so it wasn’t going anywhere.

I was already loaded down, and it was taking both of my hands to pick it up just a little. If I would move it, then it would need to be tied to my back just so that I could take more than a few steps. I could drag it, but then I wouldn’t make it very far at all. It was just too heavy. The knives I had in my belt, and the two long bows went in my left hand and my Standard into my right. Blink and I took one last look and headed out.

When we got back to the boat house, I loaded up what I had into the boat and then went to get everything else. It was hard, but I got all the bodies moved under a pair of trees which I planted in tree growth stakes. The staked trees would take care of the bodies. Then it was time to finally go home and make right with the Sisters.

When I got to my home, it was a mess. There were fallen branches and rocks all over the place. It looked like several big storms came through and threw things all over the place. Once again, my resting spot looked like it had been the target as there was more small debris over my yurt and fire pit area than anywhere else. After a few minutes of looking around, though, I saw that there were no monsters, and other than the lack of upkeep, everything looked fine. Blink also seemed to show that our home was safe because she went right into the yurt and laid down on my bed to sleep.

I dropped my war gear inside and headed back to get the rest of my stuff. It was about an hour later that I was home with my boat fully unloaded and resting in its slip. I spent the rest of the day cleaning up my home, getting the small rocks and branches off the yurt and out of my fire pit area.

Before the sunset, I knew that I had some questions that I should’ve asked before but, for whatever reason, had either slipped my mind or I was kept from even thinking about it. With the power of those in play, I wouldn’t be surprised if there was a rule someplace that said that I could not think to ask these questions. I needed to ask Sam who brought me here, why I was brought here, and how I was brought here. While I might be a squishy, I wouldn’t want to go back, but if I knew how I got yanked around, then it might help. The other two were kind of directional since I had no quests. I figured that it could not be that important for why I came.

Oh great and mighty greeter Sam, I the lowly Arn beseech you to answer my question. Who brought me to this world.

Once I came too, it was time to go in and see Dave.

Dave called out as soon as I stepped in the door, “Arn! Welcome back to the safe room what can I get for you?”

I smiled and walked up to the bar, and Blink changed and hopped onto the stool next to me. “Well, Dave, I would love to get a beer and a plate of food. We haven’t had much good since we left, and I figured you were the best food around.”

“Well that’s true you can’t find food better than the best!” He said with a smile as he pulled two steaming plates of food out from under his counter.

Mine had a stake, potato, and a pile of veggies. It was the thing I was most looking forward to. The one he dropped in front of Blink made her giggle. It was pancakes with syrup and sprinkles. Then he slid me a beer.

Dave picked up a glass and started to clean it. “So tell me about your trip. Did you find Lannah?”

I moaned and then answered, “No we didn’t find her. We hiked right down into the middle of an Undead infested forest where we ground our movement to a stop and I some how ticked off the god of war while doing it.”

“Ouch that doesn’t sound like fun. So if you didn’t find her what are you doing back?”

“Getting food from you for one.” I said as I held up a bit of the stake. “Also, and more importantly I need to pray in the shrine to the Sisters and then they will guide me to her.”

Dave smiled with a practiced I am not laughing at this idiot look, “might have been good to do that before you went the first time.”

I nodded and was about to answer when Blink did. “Daddy, just wanted to believe the dumb lady knew where she was and what she was talking about.”

I yanked my head over toward Blink, “Don’t call her dumb. But your right I was going off of what Lannah said and didn’t even think to ask the Sisters.”

We stayed in the Safe Room, answering Dave’s questions about the trip and what we saw. I filled him in on the story of how the Wretched Woods first got made. We ate, and I drank, and we were feeling good when it was time to leave. I wanted to sleep in the Yurt as it had bonuses to my rest.

Right, when I was heading to the door, I turned back to ask Dave one last question. “Dave! What do you call an undead that you kill? Is it a redead?”

Dave shook his head. “You call it Dead. It is just dead if it is dead. Now get your drunk butt off my Lawn.”

With that, I headed out. I watched the sunset from my tree chair over my lake. This was one of the best parts about being here. Gazing over the peaceful lake. It would be better with beer or hot tea. The tea I could do, and the beer was something that I had no clue how to do. I couldn’t take it out of the dungeon as it was one of the items that would disappear. Food and drink just wouldn’t last. It would all turn to mush. Weapons and equipment were great for taking out or looted food. I wouldn’t mind learning how to brew as it seemed that learning here was far easier, but tonight I had neither. So as the sun set, I headed to my bed for the best night’s sleep I would have had since leaving.

I dreamed that night.

Sam had me facing the fire. Not in it but standing close enough that it was overly hot, and he had that great clock ticking again. I watched the flame dance, and after a while, I could start to see where it would move next. The wood in the fire never burned down, but it was an actual fire and not a gas fire which meant that it was a fire like my magical one at my home. What was weird was that the fire made me hot, very hot, but not magical fires. At least the ones I tested were always just right warm and not too hot. No matter how close to the one I cooked on, I wouldn’t burn, but my food would cook nicely. This wasn’t the same. I was hot, which meant that somehow the fire was able to heat up more, or perhaps it was only looking at Sam. Then again, this place played by its own rules, so it might just be nothing. Sam left me for his regular few hours, listening to the clock and watching the fire before he spoke.

“In the past I could not tell you who brought you here because that would have been breaking rules but because the god of war acted directly against you he can give you a gift. All gifts from gods have their name on them so I can tell you now. You were brought here by the god of Bards and Summer beer.”

* * *