Blink and I ran back to where we had left Kasidy. She was still hidden in the bushes. She was terrified. At her feet was a dead gremlin. Her knife was in her hand, and blood was slowly dripping off the point.

I pointed at the gremlin. “Good job. Wipe the blade and lets go.”

Kasidy nodded and wiped the blade on her dress, and then slid it into her sheath. I shook my head. I never wiped a blade on my clothing if I could help it. Blood was hard enough to get out with a washing machine.

I grabbed her hand and pulled her out of the bushes. “We need to get moving. I am sure there are more of those little guys around. The cave shouldn’t be much of a problem for a while at least.”

Kasidy looked at me with a slightly dazed expression as she nodded. Then she placed her hand on the dagger and nodded a second time. Then we were off. It was about twenty minutes later that she started to shake. I knew it was because of the gremlin, but I kept us moving.

I looked over at her as we were going through the woods. She had tears down her cheeks, running lines through the dirt her jaw was set. She was clinging to my hand like she wanted to break all the bones in it. As we walked, she was trying to cry but also holding it in to be quiet.

It was rough going for a few miles, but slowly she stopped crying and started to breath normal, and looked around. She let go of my hand, and my health creped back up from the damage she had done to it. The odd thing was that I didn’t get any debuffs even though my hand was cramped from her squeezing it.

We were able to pick up speed and move through the forest. The goblins had made lots of trails that we were following which made hiking faster. Blink was out in front, taking out the gremlins or goblins as she found them.

Unlike closer to the waterfall, the gremlins and goblins were just spread out all over the place. If I didn’t know they tended to group up and form loose tribes, I would think they were aggressive wildlife. They were primarily unarmed and showed up about as often as a rabbit would.

As we pushed closer to evening, my standard flashed to life. A little spear bounced off the stone air. That first spear was followed closely by another twenty. Then a swarm of gremlins came tearing out from the underbrush at us. Just behind them were about a half dozen goblins.

As I planted my standard, Kasidy shrieked. She started to back up when I reached out and snatched her hand. Her eyes got big, and she tried to pull away.

I yelled. “Kasidy! Stop! You’re in my shield. Right now you’re okay just stay here and don’t move. Don’t leave the dome!”

She squatted down and was hyperventilating as she slowly pulled out the knife. She looked at the blade and clammed down a bit. She was still shaking each time a gremlin threw itself onto the shield.

I wasn’t about to waste my stone sphere shots on these guys. I didn’t know if there were orcs around, but I wanted to save my heavy hitting for them. So I unslung my bow and started to shoot. As I was taking out the gremlins at the front, Blink had moved around to the back row.

There was one goblin shaman that didn’t even get a chance to start to dance before he died. The fight was mostly over by then. Blink went through the low-level goblins like a hot knife through butter, and my bow let me finish off most of the gremlins before she was done. I hadn’t even needed to use my magical arrows on them.

As we finished up, I slung my bow and looked down at Kasidy. She was just looking at the blade. She wasn’t crying but was very focused on the runes. She noticed that the fighting was over and looked up at me. Then she stood up and put the knife back in her sheath.

Kasidy whispered. “I know you are a champion. Thank you for this knife it is more powerful than I could ever hope to have. You saved me again with this and I am sure that it will save me again and again.”

I nodded slowly. “Let’s go I think we need to get even more distance between us and that cave. This whole area seems overrun.”

This time we moved with me jogging. Kasidy wanted to break into a run, so we did. I knew that the fight scared her and that we just needed to make the distance. As we ran, I kept an eye out for someplace that would make a good thicket. While the magic could work in most places, it was helpful if there were enough large trees around. The bigger, the better.

Blink thought. “Rests?”

I was huffing and puffing. “Yeah Blink let’s rest. Find us a place for a thicket.”

About half an hour later, Blink pulled us into a glen. There were three giant oaks and a few other large trees. I looked for just a moment before pulling out the thicket and placing it. As it started, I pulled out the other three cube tree stakes I had brought with me. I headed to trees that weren’t going to be part of the thicket and attached them to the growth stakes. I had made a triangle around where we would be sleeping.

Then I headed back over to where Kasidy was. She hadn’t been doing good since she killed the gremlin. She hadn’t said much, and I could tell that her body was run down from emotion. As the steps showed up, I pointed up, and she headed up into the tree house.

I knelt down next to Blink. “I need you to scout around tonight for a while. The thicket isn’t going to be fully powered for about another 6 hours so I am worried about an attack.”

Blink nodded and vanished. Then I headed up the steps. Kasidy was sitting at the table with her head down. She looked completely wiped. I dropped my pack and started to pull out things for dinner. I filled my mug with water and passed it over to her.

As Kasidy drank from it, she paused. Then she moved her hands over the mug and traced the runes that were on it. She looked at me and then back at the mug and ran her finger over the slightly visible button of the core. She pulled the knife from her belt and looked at the runes, and then examined the handle till she found the core.

She looked up at me. “Arn is this mug enchanted?”

I kind of smiled and then pressed it down. “I mean its not truly enchanted.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well there aren’t any enchantments on it.”

Kasidy pointed at the runes. “What are these?”

“Oh those? They are just runes of my people.”

“And what do they do?”

“Not much.”

“This is a core. I know them when I see them. This wooden mug has a core which makes no sense. I understand the dagger having one since weapon cores while not super common aren’t rare. But this doesn’t make sense.”

I laughed and turned to cooking. I was still trying to hide what I had, but it seemed like just trying to take care of this girl until we got back to a town was going to give everything away. I hadn’t thought much about it when I was coring everything and how other people would react once they saw the items.

She sighed, and I heard the mug get set on the table. “I am drinking out of a cored wooden mug that looks like a kid carved it. ARN, who are you?”

“I am just a guy trying to get to Cloudia.”

“You and I both know that’s not true. You are more than just a guy. That dagger you gave me as soon as it touched the gremlin made it freeze. Which was the only way I was able to kill it. My dagger skill is only at level 1. Then these trees houses you grow like they are tents isn’t something common. The mug just doesn’t make sense at all.”

With that, she stood up and walked over to my bowl, and picked it up. After a moment of looking, she set it down and picked up my spoon, then she started going through everything else I had set out.

She looked at me with wide eyes. “All of your stuff has a core in it! How do you have so many? I bet all your armor does too. That staff you carry with the shield. I have never even heard of an item that could do that!”

I looked down at dinner and sighed. Then I picked up the bowl and scooped some out. I reached over and grabbed my plate, and dumped the rest on it. I turned toward her and held out the bowl.

I smiled and asked. “Dinner?”

She took the bowl and looked at me. “Thank you. I still want to know what’s going on. I know that my god didn’t just send me to some random person. Where did you come from? Tell me your story I want to know who it is that has all of this.”

I thought for a few moments and nodded. “I can tell you what I remember of who I am and where I came from. I’m not sure how I got to where you found me but I can tell you how I grew up. Is that what you want?”

She nodded, and so I started to tell her what I could remember of my dreams of growing up with the wild humans.

* * *