I found a healing paste, but it only is useful for minor scratches, so I gave that one to Shankhe, who immediately puts it on some of his worst scratches, healing them instantly.

I then brought out a tiny frog shrine statue that was in the box.

“Worship the froggie!” Dalyva says, giggling as she looks at the cute little frog. “We can’t name it froggie.” Says Shankhe “That's lame. We should call it something like Sir Frogger Bartholomeo.” Dalyva scrunched up her face at that name. “That’s just stupid. It’s a cute godly frog, it shouldn’t be named something like that.” She protested. “Then what do you want to name it?” He asked. They both turn to me. “How about you, Taegan?” Dalyva asks. I think for a moment before saying. “What about Frognii?” I ask, just making up a name that sounds good. Dalyva turns to Shankhe, who nods. “Yeah!” Exclaims Dalyva. “Worship Frognii!” I just look at her with a smile despite her ridiculousness.

I rummage through the chest again. My eyes light up as I see what’s inside. “Pasta!” I cry happily. I then dig in again, hoping to get some mince and dried herbs, as well as canned tomato, and stock, so I can make a pasta bake. Luck is on my side, and I get most of the ingredients, except some extra spices, but I already have them on hand.

I set them aside to make dinner tonight, and then rummage again. This time I got something interesting.

A stat boost item. It was an earring, it had a ball that glowed a sandy yellow as soon as I picked it up, but I presumed if someone else held it, it would have a different glow according to their specialisation. It boosted specialisation power, and I decided to ask the others if they wanted it later when we have everything out of the box. Connected to the other side of the ball that wasn’t the earring part was two feathers. It looked pretty cool.

I put my hand in the box, not feeling much left. I bring out two more things. One was another stat boost, except this time for strength, but it was a thing you clip on somewhere and it just hangs there. A charm. That’s it, a charm, but it was a knuckle of metal, so kind of cool. The other was clearly for everyone to share, a sharpening stone for our weapons. “Guys.” i say. “I’ve finished emptying the reward chest.” I say. They walk over to me after stopping their worship of Frognii. I just chuckle as I see what they were doing. “We have a specialisation booster.” I show the earring. “And we have this buckle charm for strength.” I point towards it . “Then we have a sharpening stone to share and the shrine can be someone’s. Who wants what?”

I let them pick what they want. Shankhe immediately takes the strength boost, clipping it onto his shorts. Dalyva, unsurprisingly as ever, takes the frog shrine, and that leaves one for me, the earring. I didn’t have a hole, but we’d figure that out later.

“So, guys, happy with your choices?” I ask. Dalyva nods. “Yeah!” She says happily, and Shankhe, with his drawn katana, is testing out his new strength boost. “It’s certainly nice.” He answers.

I start by making a fire, using the normal slabs of stone, and I set up a stove. I then take out a pot, and start to cook the mince. I do it in two batches. As I start the first one, Dalyva peeks over my shoulder, wondering what I'm doing. “What are you making?” She asks. “Pasta bake.” I answered. “It’s really easy to make.” She just observes as I finish cooking the first batch of mince, putting it in a bowl, and then cooking the second batch. “Dalyva, can you stir this?” I say, and she nods. “Just cook it until it's brown.” I go to my cutting board, where I cut up a red onion into squares. I then cut up the red capsicum into squares, and the eggplant as well, then a cup of peas I prepared. I take out another pot, fill it with water, and then put in the rigatoni. I plop the pasta pot onto the stove as well, and look at the mince.

Cooked and brown. I dump the first batch of mince into the pan as well, and then put in the red onion. Dalyva cries as the steam gets into her eyes, and I laugh. “Sucker!!!” I say. She looks at me indignantly. “Shankhe!” She says. “Why don’t you help Taegan now?” She asks, and he comes over from his practice, unaware of the fatal mistake he just made. He starts to stir the mince and onion, but cries out as the steam enters his eyes.

“Here.” I say, taking the pan and the utensil. I mix the mince and onion, not leaning over the mixture, but with my head away from the pan just enough that I don’t get steam in my eyes. The eye mask also helps.

Finally the onion is cooked, and I put in the diced tomato, as well as the stock powder, some water and not to forget the dried herbs. Mixing it all in, I add the red capsicum. I then put on the lid, and let it cook, putting a mental timer in my head. I look at the pasta, and taste test one. It’s cooked. I put it into a colander, or sif as some people call it, and mix in with it the peas and eggplant.

I look around, wondering where I placed the glass dish I use to put the pasta bake inside. I found it near where I placed it, and put the pasta peas and eggplant in the bottom. Then I look at the other mixture of meat and whatever, that’s also cooked, and slather it on top of the pasta, before using my specialisation to hover it over the fie, making sure the earring is in hand so i get. boost and don’t waste as much mana as I would normally. Now for those who complain sand isn’t glass, it is, since glass is just melted sand, so it fits in my category of sand, and I'm able to manipulate it.

Dalyva looks at it hungrily. “Is it ready yet?” She whines, just as her stomach growls. Shankhe also looks at me. “Almost.” I say with a grin at Dalyva. “You won’t starve, I promise.”

Soon it's finally cooked, and as I take it from the fire with ease, Dalyva and Shankhe instantly turn to me. Grabbing their plates, they crowded around where I placed the food. I get the utensils, and start to dish up, giving each of us a bit of the food. Once we all have our food, I put the rest away, so we can have it later.

As I grab my spoon, I eat up happily by waiting for the others, although I know they've already started. Once we finish, we wash our dishes out with water, and then put them away.

I look at them both. “So,” I say. “What are we going to do? Tell stories or just sleep?” Dalyva yawns tiredly. “I expended a lot of mana in that fight healing my arm, so I’m going to sleep.” She says as she gets up and starts to walk to her tent. I nod. “Well, Shankhe?” I ask. He as well is exhausted, and lets out a yawn, as he had seen Dalyva yawn just before. He gets up and walks over to his tent. “Too tired.” I hear him reply before I listen to his body collapsing into his bed. Along with an oohhff that follows due to him landing on rock solid ground. I chuckle, and head to my bed as well. Entering my tent, I lay on my bed. I’m tired enough that I want to go to sleep, but not tired enough to actually follow through with it.

And so I lay there, wanting to sleep, but feeling like it’s impossible. Finally I manage to settle down, drifting off as the nice tingly calm feeling washes over my body.

The next day, I get up to Dalyva cooking some congee, while fending off a hungry man. I, testing his reflexes, throw one of my daggers his way. He expertly dodges, and, as it lands, grabs the handle and then throws it right back. I catch it from the air deftly with my right hand, crossing it over my chest as I catch it. I pull it back and sheathe it again. “Good job.” I say with a smirk. He looks at me with mock offense. “Trying to kill me!?” He puts a hand to his chest with disbelief.

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“Yeah, that’s exactly what I’m trying to do.” I sarcastically say. “How dare you try to kill the great Shankhe.” He exclaims with an air of shock and haughtiness. I laugh. “C’mon, let’s sharpen our weapons with the stone while Dalyva cooks.” We head over to my tent, where inside is the sharpening stone that we got. Unsheathing one of my daggers, I start to push it on the stone.

Shankhe looks at me as I repeat the motion again and again. “How long until you’re done?” He asks. “Generally it takes a while, though occasionally it may be quick if you have sharp weapons already.” He just sighs, and watches me. The whack of stone on steel soon becomes something we get used to, and we start to talk about other things. “Taegan.” Says Shankhe hesitantly. I look up at him curiously. “Yeah?” I ask. “Well, I'd like to thank you for saving me, and I'm sorry about your neck.” He says nervously, putting his hand behind his neck and looking down.

I smile. “It’s fine.” I say reassuringly. “It’s better than you dying instead.” I then finish the one dagger I was working on and give Shankhe the sharpening block, my arms and back tired from pushing.

He unsheathed his katana, and put it on the sharpening block. He started to push it on the thing, but did it wrong. I instantly stop him, not wanting his blade to be ruined. “No, you do it like this.” I show, and he does it correctly. I nod in approval. “Yeah.” I approve, and he starts to do that.

“So, what do you think about here?” He asks. It was a time for us to calm down, so we were finally letting the emotions catch up to us, so everyone was very on edge. “It…” I trail off, unsure how I should describe it. “It’s interesting to say the least.” I said quietly. “Definitely..” I try to find the right words. “Unnerving.” I found the word I was looking for. “It’s strange.” Says Shankhe. “It only took us two days to clear the first two challenges, and I feel….” He can’t continue. “Scared of what’s going to happen next?” I said, trying my best to continue his sentence. He nods as he leans down while sharpening, stretching his back.

We just sit there in silence, awkwardly waiting for the other to speak. Suddenly Shankhe starts to sniffle, wiping his nose. “I-it” he can’t get it out as he starts to cry. “It’s too hard!” He whispers in sobs. He has stopped sharpening his weapon as he pushes the stone away. He tries to wipe his tears away, but they just keep flowing.

“All the challenges are hard, and sometimes I feel just an inch from death, seeing it flash in front of me, how close I'm courting death Even when I don’t want to, and just want to have fun.” He wipes his nose as it starts to run. “Th-the hag too, and her scare tactic. E-even if I knew it was an illusion, I just couldn’t convince myself.” He cries. I shuffle closer, and let him rest his head on my shoulder, hugging him gently. “Yeah.” I say softly. “Yeah, I get it.” He just hugs me tight and continues, wanting and needing to get it out. “That swordsman was basically a nightmare.” He continued, slowly calming down as he spoke his troubles out loud.

“A-and when I found it was a skeleton..” He trailed off quietly, unable to finish his explanation of how he felt. “Why?” He whispers as he stares at me. It wasn’t a question as such, more just a statement. His eyes are puffy and red, but his sandy gold eyes shone in the light. I looked back at his beautiful orbs with seriousness. “I don’t know why, but, Shankhe, at least we are lucky enough to have each other.” I say softly as he sighs. He just leans his head against me, clearly tired. I rub his back comfortingly, and then take the sharpening stone from where he had pushed it away to and pull it towards myself and begin to finish sharpening his katana that he started before.

The gentle down and up puts Shankhe to sleep and he begins to slide off my shoulder. Gently stopping, I picked him up, he’s quite light, and put him in his sleeping bag. His head flops to the side as I tuck him in, and he breathes in and out in a constant rhythm. He was out cold. I looked down at him, tempted to draw on his face, but we only have limited water, so I couldn’t without many consequences. I then turn back to the sharpening stone. I also knew he’d then be more self conscious then he already was, so i decided it was a bad idea.

Suddenly Dalyva enters, wearing her chef's outfit- a mere apron over her clothes- and a spatula in hand. “Breakfast’s ready.” She says, and I look up, then glance over to where Shankhe is sleeping. “Sorry, but I think it’ll just be you and me.” I say, and she nods. We head out of the tent, and she stares at me with curiosity. “Is he good?” She asks, having understood what happened. “Yeah, just the build up of emotions.” I say, and she nods understandingly as we serve up our porridge. “What do we do with his congee?” She asks. “Just leave it, he may wake up soon.” I reply as I gulp down my porridge. “Thanks for cooking, Dalyva.” I say appreciatively. She nods happily and we start to eat happily.

Well, as happy as we could get with eating congee, which is just grains boiled in water.

Soon a sleepy Shankhe emerges from his tent, his hair sticking up and messy like it had been in a competition for the most bed head hair and won. He yawns as he walks out. “Finally the sleepy one has woken.” Teased Dalyva. As Shankhe spoons up his congee and walks over to us, he runs into the log we’re sitting on. “Oooowwwwwww…” He exclaims as he hops on one foot, one hand holding his congee and the other his shin. “Running into things, are we Shankhe?” I ask, smirking. He pouts and replies, “The log moved in front of me to hurt me…” He complained.

“Sure it did.” I say in a tone of disbelief as he sits next to me. “Taegan, Shankhe?” Asks Dalyva as we quieten down. “Yeah?” Asks Shankhe. “Well, do you two have…” She seems to struggle to continue, but manages to. “A relationship back home?” I wonder why she asked, but I shake my head. “Nope.” And turn to Shankhe, who also shakes his head. “No, why do you ask?” She looks down nervously. “Well, there’s this girl I really like back home.” She says quickly. “B-but my dad doesn’t approve of us together, and.. he wants me to go with someone more privileged.” I look at her, not believing what she said. “Why not?” I say in disbelief. “She’s an orphan, and doesn’t have much money.” Dalyva says as she looks up at me. Shankhe just stares in disbelief.

“Just because she’s an orphan doesn’t mean you should love someone else! Heck, I'm an orphan, but do you see me only designating myself to loving other orphans?” He says in an outburst. She smiles, happy that we supported her. “What's her name? And what does she look like?” I ask, looking at her intently. She gets a dreamy lovey look on her face. “Her name is Reika Myst, and she has adorable pink eyes, as well as beautiful bluey purple hair, and some darker purple stripes of hair, an adorable smile, and she just always seems to radiate happiness.” She stares off into the distance, as if imagining her right here.

I just chuckle at her whipped face. She’s so in love that she’s completely forgotten about the bowl in her hands. Shankhe looks at me. “At least we know she’s not lying.” I nod with a laugh. “Yeah.” We wash our dishes, I do Dalyva’s, and then we head into his tent as I go to finish sharpening my second dagger. As I do it, Shankhe asks. “Have you ever been in a relationship, Taegan?” He asks curiously as I do the sharpening. I shake my head. “No, I’ve never been interested in it, I guess.” I say. “Have you?” He nods. “Yeah, once, but they soon moved on to another town, and I didn’t really have feelings for them. It was a sort of teen crush.” I nod my head as if I understand, even though I have no clue what a crush feels like, but knowing from others descriptions of it, soooo.

After finishing up with sharpening my blade and sliding it back into its sheath, I went out of the tent to look for Dalyva. “Dalyva!” I say, as I find her still sitting there, and shake her out of it. She snaps back to reality and stares at me. “What?” She asks. “Your turn to sharpen your weapon.” She looks at me. “Five more minutes?” She asks, and I shake my head with a smile. “C’mon, me and Shankhe will be there to entertain you as well.” Sighing, Dalyva gets up and walks into the tent with me following. Shankhe is sitting on his bed, carving something out of wood with one of the extra cooking knives we have.

Dalyva sits in front of the stone, with her halberd on her lap. She then starts to sharpen it after I show her how to do it, and gets into a rhythm. We all sit there in silence, until Shankhe speaks. “What were you all doing when you got taken here?” He asks. Dalyva speaks first. “Heading into the desert to go to Tekoto, but we were to stop at Esoa for supplies as we traversed into Tingari.” Shankhe looked confused for a moment. “Sorry Dalyva, I seem to have forgotten what they were?” He says nervously and guiltily.

Dalyva shakes her head in disbelief. “Esoa is the kingdom in the south of the desert and called the Kingdom of the Oasis for their oasis which is the basis of their kingdom made primarily of traders and farmers of desert plants and specialties, and Tekoto is in the north of the desert, and called the Kingdom of the Temples for their scholars of the ancient runic language and their temples of the gods.” She says, showing off her resounding knowledge as a scholar.

I chuckle. “I was in Mara-Ni, the Kingdom of the North Valley, farmers and brewers. They’re the ones who made the cherry blossom ale. I was going to head to the Wandé area, the swamp west of Jesva if you’ve forgotten. Primarily Paktu, the Kingdom of Orcs and Draconians. If you’ve forgotten what that is, I will kill you myself.” I say, as Paktu is a famous land for all warriors and adventurers, a place all wish to go to one day.

Shankhe puts his hands up in surrender. “Don’t worry, I haven’t forgotten.” He says hurriedly. “I was heading to Daruden, the southernmost kingdom, the Kingdom of Woodworkers and going to head up through Dajenu, or the forest to Paktu.” He says eagerly. Dalyva’s eyes light up as he says this. “Daruden? That’s where I come from.” She says. Shankhe looks confused. “I thought Daruden was primarily woodworkers?” She nods. “Yeah, it's famous for that, but it's also a scholarly area, since a lot of elves live there, and they can remember lots.” She confirms as she finishes up sharpening her halberd.