Davin and Cadence ordered themselves some drinks and snacks, settling into the seats next to Hugh.

"Did you guys see the market that popped up at the other end of town?" Davin asked his friends as they sat and went over their plans for what was next.

"Yes, unfortunately, I feel that it is all well outside of our means for the time being," Cadence stated matter-of-factly.

"Only a glance. I'd heard about them before, and with this area and its multiple dungeons, I figured that we'd catch it at some point." Hugh said as he took a deep swig from his drink.

"How many dungeons are close by?" Davin asked as he snacked on some small pastry.

"That depends on what you consider to be close. Our dungeon is about half a day away, but there are a few that are less than an hour away." Hugh said as he flipped to the back of Leaf where he had made a copy of their map to make editing easier.

"Less than an hour?" Davin sounded surprised, "Anything that we think that we could tackle today?" A hopeful smile on his face.

"Did you see the size of the spider's legs? Do you think that there is any part of me that wants to be anywhere within a mile of 'nightmare fuel' that large?" Hugh let out a groan of disgust as he shivered using a term that Davin had said.

"I have to agree, I do not wish to be put in that situation if I can avoid it." Cadences said just above a whisper before rolling their shoulders and shaking out their arms.

"Hahaha." Davin laughed with his whole body. "I meant for one of the not spider-themed dungeons."

"Oh? Hmmm." Hugh checked his notes. "They call for much larger parties than what we could pull together."

"Larger party? Oh, right, the guild raids." Davin said the term absentmindedly.

"Raids?" Hugh asked as cadence just slightly tipped their head.

"Group assaults on a specific place, but for me… it was a videogame term for when a group of people basically would do really big dungeon runs." Shrugging, his memory flooded his mind, thoughts of late-night gaming sessions.

Hugh and Cadence shrugged in sync with one another.

"We are also under-leveled for them, we would have to go to the other side of the world for a dungeon that is our level," Hugh stated casually.

"Why so far?" Davin asked.

"I am also curious about that one." Cadence chimed in.

Hugh sat up, straightened his back, and cleared his throat. "Over the course of the winter, most of the dungeons seal themselves closed." Hugh clapped his hands together once to accent the point. "And during this time the dungeons refill their energy…" Hugh rocked his head back and forth as he seemed to settle on that word. "And in the spring, they open, refilled to their peak, and are thus the most dangerous. So if we want to visit a dungeon, we would either need to go into one that is just about to hibernate or one that is new." Hugh rocked his head in the general direction of their dungeon.

"So they just get stronger and stronger?" Davin asked slightly confused

"Hmm?" Hugh looked at him confused. "Oh! Right, each week, on average, the dungeons go through a miniature refresh, which puts most of the monsters back in place, fixes any damage, and then some of the treasures are replaced."

Davin nodded. "And I'm guessing that the longer that they are open, the more they are depleted so towards the end of the year there is less treasure, fewer monsters, and are usually in a generally worse condition than a fresh one." Following the logic that he pieced together.

Hugh nodded. "Exactly, so if we wanted a chance at a dungeon, the loot would be tapped."

"Acquiring Funds is the main reason to attack a dungeon," Cadence added.

"Good to know, weird, but that’s pretty cool," Davin stated. "We have bigger fish to fry in the meantime."

"Fish?" Cadence asked as they looked at Davin in confusion.

"We have other things that need to come first, Compass said something about a reward."

"A reward?" Hugh asked in excitement.

"Yeah, not sure what it is though, but he seemed rather excited about the prospect," Davin said with a shrug.

"Oh? So we will be getting these 'Experience Points' that we use to get stronger." Cadence said as they nodded.

"XP? How do you figure?" Hugh asked as his head tilted towards Cadence.

"I have been awarded by my patron once before," Cadence said casually as they began to sip from their beverage.

"Oh? Cool!" Davin responded, leaning towards Cadence. "What do we do?"

Cadence jumped back slightly as Davin came close. "Huh? Well…." Cadence took on a much more timid demeanor than their normal. "When I gathered mine, it was at the house of my patron, but from what I understand, it can also be done from any acceptable altar."

"Altar? Big Green has an Altar to Compass."

"That does not surprise me, there are many stories that I have told that have the leader of The Hall as the focus of them, his adventures are well known." A smile spread over their face.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

"Yeah, Big Green is who Compass sent me to in order to do the binding for my logbook," Davin said as he patted the place on his hip where he normally kept the logbook.

They spent the remainder of the day discussing the potential rewards for their efforts, when the evening ended sleep took Davin quickly. The dream theater presented itself to him like it had before, but he didn’t have the overwhelming desire to go, feeling more at peace than he had in comparison to the last few days. When he woke up he felt more rested than he had in days. Opening his status to check, he saw what was different about today.

Davin O'wild

Human Rogue (1)

Ranger (1)

Patron: Compass

AC: 15

HP: 18/18

Experience

835/900

Condition: normal

Unarmored AC: 13

Temporary HP: 6

Currently: Unarmored

Bonus: Well Rested

Well rested: Grants a small temporary health bonus for a time.

Davin looked over the buff, it was a big boost for him, not the most exciting since they were headed back to town, but the last time that he had the buff he didn't remember to look at what the buff did, he had only seen that he had a few temporary hit points. He needed to remember to be more active about looking at his status. Buffs were now on his mind, he knew that classes had spells that could grant some bonuses, Cadence said that they could grant some buffs, but there hadn't been many reasons for them to make use of them. He made a mental note to look into other buffs that he could get, especially for when they started exploring more dungeons. Davin heard Cadence start to stir, the groan as they let out as they stretched ended in a squeak.

"Morning." Davin chipperly let out as he sat up.

"Morning…." Cadence's voice was thick with sleep, "Why are you up so early?"

"Just haven't had a good night's sleep in a while, so I think it's more that I hit my maximum that I can sleep in a single go, I didn't realize that I was having such restless nights." Davin stretched, cracking his back.

"I keep forgetting that you are so new to this world. You are much more adjusted than I was when I awoke in the Rainbow bastion." Letting out their own set of cracks and groans.

"Haha!" Davin laughed loudly. "Well adjusted? I am nowhere close to being well adjusted, it's just for me, these are some of the things that I had always wanted in my life, so it's more like this is a dream for me, a terrifying wild dream, but a dream all the same." Lighting the lamp that sat near the beds.

"It is a world of second chances, so I do not blame you for feeling that way." Cadence nodded in solidarity

"That I do have to agree on, although I wish that I didn't have to die to get here," Davin said with a wry smile.

"Yes, that I do have to agree with." Cadence smiled back as they gathered their gear and headed behind the partition in the room to change.

Davin took that as a queue and did the same. Equipping the leather armor felt like second nature by this point his gear fitting on better than anything he had ever owned in his previous life, but he had to admit, it was starting to smell, while he cleaned and oiled it during his downtime, there was a 'must' that was lingering on it, and since he had never owned any leather clothing before he wasn't sure if that was just a part of owning leather. Absently wondering if there was the medieval of Febreze, feeling dumb that the only real point of reference he had for anything leather was shoes… and with those he only ever waterproofed a few times a year and that was about it. Davin was caught up in his thoughts when the door swung open, Hugh carrying a small pile of books under one arm.

"Oh good, you're up, finish getting your gear on, if we head out now, I think that we can miss most of the traffic in and out of town." Hugh chipperly stated.

"Yeah, almost done," Davin said as he sinched down the straps that largely held his armor together.

"Cadence! You're driving, I did the last few days, it's my turn to slack off." Hugh said as he pulled the books from under his arms and shook them towards the partition, assuming that they were there.

Cadence let out a huff. "I understand, I have been getting away with an unfair amount of not having to drive."

Davin looked at the books seeing if there was anything that immediately stood out about them. "What did you find?" he asked.

"Apparently, books can drop from dungeons, and some of the ones that I found, no one else could read." Holding up and passing one of the books to Davin.

"What makes you think that I could read it…." Davin's mind raced, the first thing that he noticed about the book was that it was a paperback, brand new from what he could feel, its spine barely cracked, the iconic imagery of a girl holding a pig with other farm animals on the black and white cover.

Hugh smiled widely. "I have spent enough time with you that I can recognize what that says."

Davin swallowed hard. "This… this is a classic… how much did you pay for it?" And a slight panic edged into his voice, looking back down at the book, he started to flip the pages.

"For a non-magical non-spellbook that looks as though it was meant for children? A handful of Jades." The smile that spread over his face was full of excitement.

"I need to tell Compass…" Davin handed the book back to Hugh, pulling out the log book, and jotted down the note.

Twenty-sixth entry:

Some of the dungeon drops outside of our have started to drop mundane items, Hugh just bought a children's book about a pig and a spider, and it's in English. -D

Davin was still shaking when he finished writing, Hugh stepped over and read the note.

"So I wasn't wrong, good, I figured that this may be a key thing to bring up before we headed out." Hugh patted Davin's shoulder. "Although, the real question is, are they going to be good reads? I didn't get any of the ones that were mostly pictures, but the few that I did grab, all of the ones I did grab seemed to have a unified theme."

Davin looked over the books and all their titles. "They're all talking animal books, or at least books that are written from animals' perspective if they could have human-level intelligence."

Cadence's face went paler than normal. "Your animals could talk?! And you ate them?!" Their voice raised as they asked.

Davin guffawed his once tense mood was instantly shattered and continued to laugh until he was left gasping. "Our animals couldn’t talk Cadence, it was just something that people would do, projecting their ideas on animals as if they were."

The confusion that lingered on Cadence's face as they wandered over to look at the books. "You can read that?" They looked at Hugh as they asked, judgment on their face.

"Some, it isn't as clear as I would like, but his world uses this writing on just about everything, and I have spent enough time with him that I have begun to learn his language." Hugh tilted his head from side to side and shrugged.

"If this one is a classic, what about the others?" Hugh spread the books out in front of him.

"This one is really good. " As he tapped a book with a wolf on the cover, "This one is silly but entertaining, and if you like it, there are a few more of that series to go along with it." Tapping the book with a black and white rabbit on its cover. "This one makes me cry every time, a very good read. "Tapping back on the book with a collection of farm animals on its cover.

"What do you mean by series?" Hugh asked as he picked up the book with the rabbit on the cover.

"Just that there are several books that go along with it to expand on the story," Davin said, to that Hugh's eyes went wide.

"Fantastic!" Hugh smiled wide. "I can't wait. "Come on, let's get going, if we wait any longer I'll start reading these here on the floor."

Davin felt the weight of the threat, tossing the few odds and ends that were left into his bag, and quickly moving to the door. "Ready?"

Hugh smirked. "I am, Cadence?"

Cadence stood nearly stock still, their mouth slightly ajar, blinking slowly. "Huh?! What?"

"You ready?" Hugh asked.

Shaking their head, scooping up their last few items off the floor, hastily packing and moving to the door. "Ready."