I pulled myself off the ground from where I had passed out from mana overdraw. It was one of the things I hated about dealing with Sam. This time when my body fell, my head hit first. Which meant when I came to, I still was dealing with a debuff. I had a headache, and it wasn’t looking like it was going to improve anytime soon.

I headed back into my dungeon. I needed to wait till I slept outside of the safe room. I could get to that time faster by staying out myself, but I wasn’t sure that would be smart. If I did, then I would be leaving Kasidy in there for days on end. Which I wasn’t sure was a good thing.

I headed into the safe room. I needed Kasidy back out of the safe room so that she didn’t have as much time to think. I had already been gone about four hours which meant that Kasidy had four days with just Blink and Dave.

When I got in, I saw that Blink shooting bolts into the wall from the second floor. Kasidy was standing next to her, trying to pull back the short bow. It was kind of funny that she wasn’t pulling the string back at all.

I chuckled. “Kasidy you should be able to pull that back. I am sure you are strong enough.”

Kasidy shook her head. “I don’t think I am.”

“Kasidy what’s your strength?”

She paused for a few moments and then answered. “It’s only 16.”

“Well, that should be enough to pull it back.”

She sighed. “I don’t think I’ll be any good with it. Do you know how many times I’ll have to hit the target just to get to level 0?”

“Nope but I can imagine. Would it be better for you to level some of your other skills?”

Kasidy slumped her shoulders a little. “I don’t want to work on my class skills until I get cooking up a bit. It’s hard enough as it is to raise it now.”

I nodded. “Well let’s grab some food and go sit in the tree house and talk.”

After we ate, we headed out into the tree house. Night had come in the little bit of time we had been in the safe room. I grabbed a chair and moved it over to the fire. Kasidy’s was already there from earlier. Blink chose to not care about this talk and climbed out the window and headed to the roof.

The way the dungeon worked was odd to me. We were inside the dungeon right now, but we could see out of it. From the outside, it looked like any normal thicket. But on the inside, there was already an elevated boardwalk moving on to other trees. It truly was magic folding the world to do what it wanted.

We sat for a few moments before I said anything. “So Kasidy you have had longer to think on this than I have. Do you have any suggestions?”

Kasidy thought for a few moments. “Blink suggested something to me that I hadn’t thought of. Where I’m from it isn’t done but I have heard about it.”

I let a long breath out. I thought I knew where this was going. Blink didn’t know much about the world, but she knew about bonds because of Lannah. Since she wasn’t a fan of Lannah, I could see her trying to get the same deal for Kasidy.

Kasidy kept talking, not knowing what I was thinking. “So you could trust me, and I could finish what I needed to for Bartholomew if we created a Familial Contract.”

Kasidy had been looking down when she said that last part, and she sighed. I could tell she thought this was her only way forward, and until I talked with the other shamans, I thought so too. Even if it was, I didn’t think we would be doing that.

I shook my head. “No. I don’t like how they tie people to each other. They seem too much like marriage for me to do with you.”

Kasidy snapped her head up. “They they aren’t really marriage. I mean some might think that but they are how nobles in other places build their households. It’s why they aren’t done where I’m from.”

I shook my head. I know my dream showed it to me like what she was talking about, but it still felt different in the case with Lannah, so I was sure it would be close to the same with Kasidy.

I muttered. “I’m looking into something that might work that is different. I think.”

Kasidy nodded. “Look I get it. I know too much and you don’t know me. We had a bad start but I won’t betray you.”

I sighed and stood up. “Look Kasidy for me it has been a long day. I am going to go to sleep and see what I can come up with in the morning. Hopefully sleeping on the problem will give me an answer.”

With that, I got my sleeping fur out and settled in. I heard Kasidy messing around in the room until she got into the hammock and started to settle in. Just when I started to drift, Kasidy chose to speak.

Kasidy asked. “Arn, why don’t you trust me?”

I sighed and rolled to my back. “I tend to trust people too much. But there are things that if I trust people with it could be bad for me. This is one of those things.”

A few moments later. “But if you don’t trust people with them how will you know if you can trust them?”

I sighed and thought. She was right, but I didn’t know if I could have the luxury of finding out. My access to dungeons was something kind of big. But the problem was that I was too weak. If I was stronger, then it wouldn’t matter as much. I didn’t get my answer out before I drifted to sleep.

I was in Sam’s office. The clock was beside me, clicking away. It had to be close with how loud it was. However, I was facing the wall again. The only thing that I could see was the wood grain. As I stared at the wall, I heard coming from behind me or around me that voice that was low. It was my voice, or at least what I thought of as my voice.

It was hard to make out what was being said, but it sounded like it was saying my plans for the future. Learning to read. Meeting up with Lannah. Growing strong. Building a Castle. Not having to listen to others tell me what to do.

Then what the voice was saying changed. They were my plans I had before. Hiking the Appalachian Trail. Building a house in the mountains. Buying a motorcycle. Starting my own business. Finding someone who cared.

Plans I had that failed because I came here. Failed because I couldn’t complete them as I ran out of time. Soon my voice filled my mind with plan after plan that failed. Things that I wanted to do but didn’t. Something that I wanted to own but couldn’t or wouldn’t.

Then my body spun around, and I was facing Sam. He looked up from his desk and took a moment to think. He pulled out a sheet of paper from one of his drawers and scanned it.

Sam nodded to me. “Arn, your questions are getting better, and this one is complex. The steps needed to get Kasidy you retinue… First, you need to claim land up to level 5. Once you have done that, you need to build a fortification and man it with no less than 10 combat class. Once you have done that, you can change your landholder title to a noble title. The other option is to get someone who has a high enough title to grant you a noble title.

Once you have the title, you offer her a spot in your retinue. This is done verbally, but once it is accepted, then you will be given a prompt that will let you fill out the stipulations. It is much weaker than a Familial contract and can be broken at any time. Both parties will know when that happens.”

With that, I was back to listening to my doubts and my failed plans. Each one went into detail about how my future plans would fail because I wasn’t strong enough because I wasn’t fast enough. Because I was betrayed by people, I trusted and got killed.

When I woke up, I wasn’t happy. Somehow Sam had landed right on the problem that I was having. I didn’t like my plans getting messed with, and other people were messing with them. I wanted to sit on that waterfall until I understood the system enough that I could leave. Then Lannah came around, and the goblins came. So that plan was ruined.

It wasn’t Lannah that really messed with my plan, though. It was because of her, true. However, it was the Sisters that totally messed my dreams up. They made me sit there doing for them. Then when I left, I couldn’t just paddle down the river. I had to go by foot, building places for others to sleep.

Yet that didn’t work because I went the wrong way and ended up with all the undead. Then when I thought that I was fine heading back, the god of war got mad at me. Which made everything worse. Then more work for the Sisters.

Now I was dealing with someone else that had enough info that they could mess up all my plans. I wanted to go find Lannah, find out what was going on in this world, and learn to read. But now I have Kasidy, who could blow it all for me.

If she sang a song or told a story about me and the way that I could move between dungeons, then I might get hunted down. I was too weak. The plans I had in this world would all fall apart. I needed more power before any more people came after me. Or at least more allies.

I got up and went down to the glen in the thicket. When I got down there, I started to go through my forms. I needed to let my brain work out the problems that I was facing without me thinking about them. I needed a chance to turn off the extra info coming in and work with what I had.

After about an hour of working, I sat down. I was breathing hard, but I knew what the heart of the issue was. I was holding Kasidy at arm’s length because Lannah told me not to trust anyone. I would have to trust people at some point to some extent. I didn’t know if someone could cast a spell to view my level.

Even if I wasn’t going to truly trust Kasidy right now, I should at least trust Bartholomew. Not that he had done a lot for me, but rather I was sure there was a cost to bringing me here. So if there was a cost, I had value and people, and I assumed gods were selfish. This meant that as long as Kasidy was with me because of her god, I could trust her to look out for what he wanted.

I stood up and brushed myself off. “Great now I have to trust her to some extent.”

* * *