The trip on the freighter felt like it was longer than the other times that he'd ridden, feeling as though the large guided ship was moving slower, but Davin wasn't sure how much of that was him getting worked up for what they were doing and the anticipation was just compounding things for him.

"Would you stop that?" Hugh stated more than asked. "This isn't your first time outside the city, hell, you were even out more recently than I was."

"Sorry, but this time is different, we're going to be out there for a bit, and I'm just excited," Davin said as he kept looking around himself as if he was looking for something.

"We aren't even setting out till tomorrow morning, so don’t go winding yourself up so much that you can't sleep, last thing I want to do is have to drag you through the wilds on my floating disk when you could have just as easily walked."

"Wait? I can't just ride the chest like I was a princess?" Davin asked sarcastically.

"The only reason I'll let you ride that chest is if you're bleeding out and we are rushing to get you fixed up, plus we're already close to the max weight on that thing, most of the gear the scribes sent me with is not light."

"Why are nerd things always the heaviest?" Davin asked while he remembered all of the times that he'd have to carry a pile of books or boardgames for game night and with just how heavy they were.

"They are precision instruments for measuring the energies of the wilds and we will need them for what I am working on, so don't boil them down to 'nerd things'. Hugh said in a huff.

"Hey, nerd things was my idea of a fun time back home, it was more just all my stuff was also super heavy, a box of games would be heavy as hell." Davin smiled at Hugh as he held out his arms as if he was carrying a heavy box.

Hugh just glared at him. "You're lucky I like you, I don't think you would enjoy falling from the ship."

"Falling? How would I fall…." Davin's face paled a bit as the implied threat settled on him. "Ah, yeah, fair point."

As the freighter pulled up to edges rest the anticipation that Davin had been struggling with broke, a little panic set in, the nervousness that he'd not let get to him finally bubbling up. Hugh lead the way as they stepped from the ship, leading them to the Inn that they were going to stay at tonight to get their stuff stashed till the morning. Davin wanted to check in with the Rangers before he set out, cause from what Hugh's stated, the hardest part is picking up your base class. He was hoping that he could work on his ranger training while they were on the road. The parts of Edges Rest that he'd been into were mostly along the outer edge of the town, as they walked deeper into it, he saw what he felt was far more what he would expect from a medieval setting than what he'd seen from either Long Dock or the Bastion itself. The contrast between what he'd seen makes the bits and pieces that he'd picked up make a bit more sense, since this was one of the oldest still standing settlements, it made sense that most of it would still be the more simple architecture rather than the much more advanced city that was powered by belief.

"Okay, here is the Inn, I have some measurements to take and some supplies to grab, just don’t get lost, see you for dinner?"

"Yeah, I didn't have too much planned, and I don't want to get too much underway and miss my chance to sleep."

"Agreed, any last-minute supplies you can think that we need?"

"No? But at the same time, I have absolutely no idea, I'm still new at all of this, I figured we'd just wing it and see how it goes?" Davin said with a smile.

"That’s a fair enough plan, so off to get your ten-foot pole and a large tarp."

"Aw, you remembered."

"Well after the fact that they can be used to trigger traps and such, it makes sense to have, and I'm not gonna argue against sense," Hugh stated matter of factly.

The Inn on the outside looked far worse than it did on the inside, seeming to cater to this quite often they had what equated to storage lockers that they could use while they stayed in town, so that way they wouldn’t have to take all of their items into their rooms for the night. Stepping into the inn proper felt like everything that he hoped it would, the busy room had several patrons drinking and chatting loudly, which he thought seemed weird for early afternoon, but at the same time, they didn't have the same stigmas about drinking that they did back in his world. The easily identifiable smell of stew filled the air, mixed with a tang of beer and sweat, none of the smells overwhelming the other making a shifting inconsistent smell as he walked through. Hugh went over to set up the rooms, leaving Davin to wander the common room, and seeing people in armor was strange, as a rogue he wore leather, and it didn't look like much more than clothing, but seeing plate and chainmail was a sight. The battle-scarred metal worn by large bulky individuals and some that wore pelts, Davin found himself just watching and listening to the adventurers as they spoke.

"And Jerone comes out of nowhere and stabs the thing in the throat, I thought it almost had me, but that’s why I don't go it alone."

Davin listen to the story for a bit more, but it seemed to boil down to the group bragging about how big a monster they took down was. By then Hugh had returned, handing him a room tag, so he could get in later.

"Okay, Meet you back here by dinner?" Davin asked Hugh.

"That is the plan, going to grab our last-minute supplies, and you were going to talk with the rangers?"

"Yep, should be able to get the primer and work on it on my way."

"Primer?" Hugh looked confused. "Why would they just give you a book?"

Davin laughed. "No, I meant more in the basic rundown than anything else."

"Ah, okay, well good luck."

"You too."

The two would-be adventurers parted ways, and Davin backtracked his way toward the landing dock since he'd only known how to get to the Rangers from there. As he passed the dock he stopped at the distillery that was located close by, picking up a few pints for later, hoping to save them for a special occasion seemed silly to him, but it felt right. As he got closer to the training grounds he could hear the rhythmic thunk of an arrow striking the target. Thinking about his practice with the small weapon, wondering if he could grab a bow while he was here, thinking he might like it more in the long run. Looking for the ranger master Chand was a little more difficult than he was expecting, since the last time he'd been here, he was right in the center of the small outpost.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

"Looking for Chand? He's out hunting and should be back soon, if you're willing to wait, I could get you a chair, otherwise, we could go find him." The gruff older man that seemed like a wider shorter version of Clint Eastwood had said. "By the way, You can call my Mayberry, I don’t mind helping you look for him, aiming to get some training done?"

"Yeah, was aiming to multiclass into Ranger," Davin stated as he struggled to process the dwarf in front of him. "I'm Davin." He stated while holding out his hand to shake.

The dwarf quickly taking it. "If you're looking to train, I can help with that, what skills do you have?" He asked pleasantly.

"Acrobatics, Insight, Investigation, Perception, Persuasion, Sleight of hand, and Survival."

"Leaving Animal Handling, Athletics, Nature, and Stealth as available skills you could learn, can only pick up one though," Mayberry stated as he tapped his chin. "And some real weapons would be helpful, those knives are handy, but sometimes you need something with a little more reach, and I mean more than your little crossbow too."

"I have a whip…" Davin sounded a little hurt as he responded, feeling inadequate by comparison.

"Oh, that’s a good one for a rogue, that'll do, Did you bring it with you?"

"It's in my bag, I'm not all that good with it yet."

"Don't need to be yet, and I can train you in it, so that works well. Go ahead and set your gear down, we can get you cracking while we wait for Chand."

"Oh! Awesome! Thank you so much." Davin said excitedly.

"Don't thank me yet, won't be much good till you can level and use the level to pick ranger, after that, then you can thank me."

"Level? Is it locked till I can level?"

"Not specifically, more that the bonuses that you can get don’t unlock till you level, but if you want to use it be my guest." Mayberry shrugged indifferently.

The dwarf pulled out his own whip, well-worn from use, moving slowly showing the proper form for using the whip as a weapon rather than just to make a loud cracking sound. The technique seemed simple enough, but Davin could only get the occasional crack with it let alone where there would be enough force behind it to do any damage. They had set up several sticks that Davin could aim at, hitting the sticks wasn’t the hard part, it was getting the whip to 'crack' at the right point that it would slash through the sticks rather than just let them flex under the swing.

"You'll get it, but we should look at some of the other skills that will be handy when you're out there, you’ve already got survival, and that is one of our bread and butter skills, I suggest aiming for working on Nature or Stealth since you'll get one of those when you unlock the ranger class," Mayberry stated as Davin kept swinging his whip.

"I'll just get the skill?" Davin sounded confused.

"No, you need to have invested some effort into learning it, but you get a lot better at it once you unlock the class."

"Oh, okay, so I can't just get free knowledge without learning, gotcha."

"Exactly, another one of the big things we practice is hunting, some will pick specific things that they are skilled at hunting, me, I like picking my quarry as the need arises."

"Well that sounds handy, I doubt I'll ever need to be good at hunting one specific group of creatures. I doubt we plan on staying too long in any one area to where that would be handy either."

"Ah, I can help with picking your quarry, but Chand will be the one to help you with being more skilled out in the wilds. I claim this area as my personal hunting grounds, so I do well in this terrain."

"Good to know, I was planning to go everywhere, so skills that would support that would be a bit more helpful for me I think." Davin thought about the places that he'd heard about from Jes and Gale's adventuring days.

"I heard my name, did someone need something? Oh hey Davin, here to start your ranger training?" Chand greeted as he walked up.

"Your hearing is too good for no real reason, welcome back, did you get that hog?" Mayberry asked.

"My hearing is one of my best traits, so I might as well make use of it. The hog as you so casually put it was a giant boar, and yes, they're starting the dismantling now, going to need some salt, I'm thinking that should have some fantastic bacon."

"Bacon? I think we have a few pounds in the smokehouse."

"Mayberry, I think that you are not understanding what I mean when I said 'giant boar' we are talking about a beast that makes my horse look small. We are going to need more than a few pounds, so we might as well try and get a run out to Long Dock." Holding his hand up above his head suggesting that the boar was more than seven feet tall.

"Oh? I think we can get a crew out to catch the last freighter if we hurry." With that, Mayberry jogged off towards the main camp.

"Hope you weren't waiting long, wasn't expecting to be out as long as I was," Chand said apologetically.

"No, Mayberry was a good host, was showing me how to use my whip as a weapon," Davin said as he held up his coiled whip.

"Nice, they can be pretty versatile once you get a good feel for them. Do you know what skills you're aiming to pick up? I'm guessing that he covered that?"

"Stealth, I think that will do me better in the long run than most other things since I already have Survival," Davin said confidently.

"Good choice, but if you want to make survival stronger we can include that in as part of your training if you want."

"We can? That would be great since we plan on going all over the wilds."

"Yeah, and if you're planning to go all over there is some focus on that that would come in handy, I have an entire world to explore, so any edge that I can have on that I'll take it."

"Follow me, we can work on some of your training just out of the enclave." Waving for Davin to join him as he started towards the wilds at a jog.

Davin followed, keeping a few paces behind as they made their way out of the ranger's enclave and into the woods. Davin had very few reasons to jog in his previous life, so as they went deeper into the woods he started to enjoy himself, letting his mind wander as they went. So when Chand came to a sudden stop in the middle of a clearing, Davin almost slammed into him, instead throwing himself to the side so he ended up crashing into a short shrub.

"Oh, Sorry, didn't think you were that close behind me." Offering him his hand to help him up.

"Yeah, neither did I, kind of spaced out there for a bit." Taking Chand's hand and the two of them pulling him up to his feet.

"Spaced out?" Chand asked in confusion.

"Huh? Oh, I let my mind wander."

"Oh, So you have no idea where we are?"

"Other than about a ten-minute jog through the woods?"

"You did let your mind wander because it was twenty minutes."

"Wow." Dusting himself off as he looked back in the direction that he thought the enclave was.

"So this should be a simple exercise. It will be in a few phases, part one is that you need to make it back to the enclave, and just so you know, we didn't take a straight path here, so just so you know." Pointing off the way Davin looked. "Are you sure that’s the way back?"

"Okay, so make it back to the enclave, what's the second part?"

"And that is where it gets to be fun for me." Opening up his bag, pulling out a collection of what looked like padded arrows. "I'll be hunting you, I'll give you a head start of about ten minutes, and from there I start hunting, you're allowed to do anything you can think of to keep me from hitting you with these." Holding up a few of the arrows.

"How will you know if you hit me?" Eying the arrows dubiously.

Nocking an arrow and quickly launching it to one of the large trees at the edge of the clearing, the head of the arrow exploded, leaving a cloud that lingered for a bit, once the dust settled, there was a large circle of what looked like chalk on the back of the tree. "Like that, and don't worry, I can offer a prize if you can make it back with as few hits as possible."

"What kind of prize?" Davin asked intrigued.

"You'll just have to find out, won't you? And since I still want to be in bed at a reasonable hour, you only have two hours to make it back to camp.

"And I guess that time starts now? Also, How does everyone seem to know what time it is?"

"Oh, you can get a patch for it, just shows up on your status screen. As to your time, it starts in… Three…. Two… One… Go!"