We leave the forest as it abruptly gives way to large sections of cleared land between us and town, the road winding and branching off to bunched together homes and small farmsteads. Though, as Crod contines to amble along, the main focus of my attention continues to swap between the huge skyscraper sized tree dominating the landscape in front of us and the triple moons pinned in the night sky.

Within minutes we start to pass other travelers, many pushing similarly styled hand carts. Often with lanterns and other light sources affixed or held aloft to guide them in the twilight of the evening.

One of them, a middle aged man with dirtied work clothes pauses to adjust the wick on his lantern and I can't help but I marvel at the ever increasing clarity in my vision. The fact that I could quite literally feel my sense growing sharper in the fading light was simply another reminder that, although I felt as human as ever, I definitely was not one anymore.

The man passes by and like a handful of the other travelers greets us with a polite nod, though I notice many simply go about their business. Shoulders slumped with long, drawn, tired looking faces.

I easily recognize the look of a disgruntled employee returning home after a long days work. Seeing as I have had the same expression plastered onto my countenance after every shift, at every job that I've ever held, for the entirety of my work history.

As we continue onward the acrid stench of smoke grows thick in the air and I quickly pinpoint the source, or more accurately, sources. Almost every one of the farms has a large bonfire burning in a cleared section of field. Farmhands shoveling piles of trash from wagons to send flurries of quickly burning embers dancing into the night.

Crod moves to the side of the road as a large wagon passes by and I see it is loaded with a huge pile of leaves; held secure by a sheet of tied down burlap. The driver turns onto a farm road offshoot and heads toward a field and one of the bonfires.

I stifle the barest tickle of a cough, and even though the smoke stings my nostrils a tad I thank my lucky stars that I no longer have the wet toilet paper like constitution of my old body. By now I would've be wheezing and rubbing my puffy teary eyes to a redness level that'd make me look like I'd been watching a marathon loop of Hachiko: A Dogs Tale and Old Yeller, while spritzing my eyeballs with pepper spray.

Cinnamon raises a hand and lets out a cute, barely perceptible sneeze and wriggles her nose.

"Bless you." I say.

She shoots me a bizarre look and sits upright in the cart."Why did you do that, Brian? Put a blessing on me."

"Huh? Oh!" I fumble for a moment, a little taken aback by the question. "It's just something that you say where I come from after someone sneezes."

"What kind of weird Drow God do you have that would turn their attention to the mortal plane because of a sneeze?" Kryst pipes in.

"I didn't realize that you were devoted to a faith, Brian." Cinnamon says.

"What? No, I'm not. I mean..." I hold up my hands. "Forget it. I take it back."

"So, you don't want to impart a blessing onto me?" Cinnamons ears droop.

"Hey you might have lucked out anyway. Sounds like some sort of a God of disease if they are attracted by the sniffles." Kryst says, eliciting a squeak of worry from Cinnamon.

"That's not what I meant at all." I plead. "It's simply a thing that you say to be polite. You know? It means something good."

"Then why did you revoke it?" Kryst narrows her eyes.

"Damn-it you little monkey fart! Will you stop that!" I point at the fairy angrily.

"Hey! You're the one who was tossing around blessings and then retracting them." She spits back.

"What's going on back there?" Crod turns his head about and in my mind I can see things escalating in a whole different direction should the tweaked morality of the Troll become involved.

I pause for a moment wracking my brain. I had never really thought about the origin of the phrase or its connotation. The only thing that seemed logical was perhaps it was meant as some form of, pre-modern medicine, protection. A superstitious, dark age security blanket to ward off illness, seeing as a sneeze would be the most likely sign or precursor to a wide variety of infectious diseases.

General Skill: Deduction: Success!

Over the next few minutes I relay that bit of insight to my companions and the growing tension in the cart slowly abates. Crod merely nods and plods onward while Cinnamon goes so far as to thank me with her closed eyed smile and a quick hug.

"Fine. But I'm watching you." Kryst points two teeny fingers at her eyes and then toward me. Seemly unwilling to let the topic drop, without having the last word at least.

I pinch the bridge of my nose with thumb and forefinger and let out a sigh of frustration at how a benign statement could cause such trouble.

"Oh goodness." I feel Cinnamons hand stroke my back in a soothing motion. "I think that he may be suffering some kind of spiritual backlash."

"Well that's what he gets for invoking higher powers without thinking of the consequences."

I decide to simply keep quiet. Thankful that I didn't say 'gesundheit.' With my luck that would have incited some ancient blood curse feud between the four of us.

*************

I had imagined the ramparts of the town to be immense fortifications, topped with crenellations and stoic guards patrolling the parapets. I am therefore rather disappointed in the barely three story stone walls draped in green banners with the large Red oak-like tree in its center. Even the guards look rather lackadaisical. Lounging as the trickle of townsfolk slowly move through the gates. Their feet and wagon wheels churning the now much deeper, thick mud of the road.

The one sight that does gain my full immediate and undivided attention however, is the towering, humanoid shaped, mass of iron and steel standing just inside the gate. Bulky, red painted armor plates, studded with oversized screws; layered protectively over steampunk styled pistons and heat-blued exhaust port pipes, cover its thirteen foot tall tank-like frame.

Character knowledge comes to me in a rush and I immediately realise that I'm getting a look at my very first Wargear.

Locked onto its shoulder with bolts the size of a fist sits a single short barreled cannon. An open view gravity feed magazine, filled with a half dozen one liter soda bottle sized cannon shells juts from the top of the deadly looking weapon.

If the gun and the machines powerful, oversized four fingered metal fists weren't enough of a deterrent, a single bladed axe also sits within arm's reach. A sharpened coffee table sized slab of what I image is battleship plate steel hooked up to magitech engine block; a series of pipes and exhaust ports trail from the back, all connected atop a traffic sign sized metal haft.

The author's content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

While I continue to admire the mechanical marvel Crod pulls us to the side road and one of the guards standing next to the Wargear motions toward us with a wave. The machine twists in place and the knight helm head swivels about to regard us for a moment. It nods to the guard, who, after waiting for a wagon to pass by, crosses the road with a hurried step.

“Allo there, Croddie.” The guard says with a double finger tap to his forehead and a smile.

“Evening, Arve.” Crod unhooks himself from the shoulder strap harness and tosses it into the wagon.

Clearly in his early twenties with brown, curly hair and a cheerful face, Arve is clad in the same stylized armor as the other guards posted at the gate. A heavy dyed red leather, the buckles of which are designed to look like polished silver leaves. A sword and a couple of pouches sit on his belt with ivy scrollwork stitched into it. Even the halberd that he and one other guard wield have a matching decorative ivy embossing down the haft, just below a blade with a leaf-like tang on its back edge.

“Wasn’t expecting you tonight. Everything alright at the Twinwater?” Arve asks. Crod only gives a grunt and nod while turning to poke in the cart. Glancing toward us the guard makes a thumbing motion in our direction as he continues his conversation with our Troll guide. “Whose this now?”

“Some friends from out of town. They were headed through so figured I’d give them a lift.” Crod says lifting a iron lockbox out of the back of the cart. “Beside had to drop off the bridge take soon anyway. Figured I’d go tie on a few the Drunken Wizard.”

“You will end up putting them out of business with that tolerance of yours.” Arve says with a smirk.

He gives us another once over and I have to wonder if perhaps I had been a bit hasty in my initial assessment of the guards apparently idle attitudes. The look lingers a bit longer than required on Cinnamon, though, judging by the friendly grin on his face, most likely for a different reason then when he had cast his observant stare over me. Finally his eyes rest on Kryst.

“Good evening, m'am,” He says with a smile toward the fairy. “I don’t know if Croddie here has told you but we have had some issues here in town with fairy’s of late.”

“Yeah, some back-assward crap was mentioned.” Kryst snorts.

“Ahh, okay, good.” Arve clears his throat and leans his halberd against the side of the wagon. “Well, just so that you don’t get hassled I need to give you one of these.” He reaches down into a pouch at his waist and pulls free a small strip of green cloth with a tiny metal buckle that reminds me of a zip tie. “Policy here in Redtree is that any owned fairy’s or, ahhh, Gleams like yourself need to be tagged.”

Kryst practically growls but marches forward and hops onto the edge of the cart with an agitated buzz of her gossamer wings.

“This is why I hate coming into human towns.”

Sorry m’am. I don’t make the rules.” Arve shrugs.

She snatches the sash away from the guard, angrily looping it about her waist and feeding it through the buckle so it sits about her hips like a belt. “Never have to deal with this sort of pithgalt in elf or beastkin villages.”

Whatever Kryst said makes Arve respond with a short throat clearing cough while Cinnamons cheeks redden and her ears lower. Crods grin, however, stretches even wider and a chuckle like he is gargling wet marbles rumbles from his throat.

****************

With the gates behind us we make our way through the city, and once more I am underwhelmed. The streets stink of earth and moldy rot, the cause no surprise.

There are leaves everywhere.

In the streets they have been crushed underfoot into a thick spongy bed of loam while the roof tops, that I thought were all painted in a matching shade of brown, actual have gained their coloration due to their crust of tree dandruff.

Dozens of men and women continue to work into the evening hours. Shovels, and hoes scraping the ground to push and gather leaves into massive piles. Tucking them into alleys or on the corners of street intersections in preparation of the wagon and cart journey to their waiting foliage funeral pyres.

Even the tree that looked so majestic from a distance I now see is riddled with white veins of ash white scale and flaking bark. A sickness that twists along the building sized roots that wind throughout the city. Writhing like varicose veins they continue up the massive trunk and into the mighty boughs high overhead. Where, in stark contrast to the still vibrant red tree top, the dark brown leaves on the underside continue to fall like steady, umber hued snow.

The mood in the cart has grown steadily more somber. Especially from Kryst who looks about, lost her own private thoughts. More than once I attempt to start up a conversation but she answers with curt statements and replies that leave little to no room for continued banter.

"This is good, Icky." Cinnamon finally points down a road and reaches over to give a small tug on Crod's cow-like tail. "We can walk from here."

Crod pauses at the side of the road and we all pile out of his cart. After Cinnamon has a few parting words I pass on my own thanks for the lift and I turn to retrieve my bags. A clawed hand on my shoulder stops me.

"Not so fast there, Trigger." Crod reaches into the back of his cart to lift his still busted fishing rod. "What happened? You need to make good on our deal. As it is I let you all slide on the bridge toll."

"Oh yeah, Sorry about that, Crod. I'm not going back on my word. I just got distracted is all." I accept the fishing rod from the troll and roll it over in my hands, accessing the damage I had caused. Sure enough I can see a knot of line clumped on the spool and a dangling lose spring hidden just under the covering.

Magitech: Success!

Taking out my tinkering kit I use the tiny set of tools within to remove the housing and reset the spring. It's still a little out of shape but it connects well enough. Pulling the knot free I snip the line on either side with my dagger and simply flick the mess of tight wire away.

"What the hells are you doing? You gone and cut my line."

"Silence!" I flash up my hand in a zipping gesture. "This next part requires the utmost in concentration. For the powers I now call on are not ones to be trifled with. Even one such as I who has studied for many hours, nay days! Rolling the dice of twenty and tens. Consulting the rules and charts in the guiding books, to uncover and learn the secrets to become a master of dungeons. Yes! Even I do not dally with such magical forces without showing the proper respect to such powerful primal invocations."

Unlocked: General Skill: Performance: Success!

General Skill: Performance vs Crodrick: Success!

General Skill: Performance vs Cinnamon Butter: Critical Success!

General Skill: Performance vs Kryst Thunderfist: Fail!

From my peripheral vision I see Kryst roll her eyes, but Crod leans forward watching intently while Cinnamons eyes dart nervously between me and the fishing rod.

Pulling a little extra line free I replace the housing and hold the ends of the line together between my thumb and forefinger.

Mend cast on Quicksteel Fishing Pole: Mana cost 2.

The line knits together under my fingers and a I feel the spring twist back into its proper shape.

"And now I say the magic words." I pause once more for dramatic effect, "Ala peanut butter sandwiches!" I make a flourish with my hand over the spool and then rubbing my fingers together release the repaired line with a flourish, wishing that I could add in a puff of smoke and a burst of flash paper to the act.

Cinnamon lets out a gasp and covers her mouth with a hand while Crod whistles and takes his rod back. Winding and inspecting the line.

"Say, that was pretty sharp." He whistles through his jutting teeth then slaps me on the back with a blow that nearly knocks me into the side of the cart. "Ya know? Around the docks they're always looking for people with skills in Magitech and the like. I'm pretty tight with some of the higher ups in the G.U. too. I could probably put in a good word, if you are looking for work. "

"Maybe. What is the G.U.?" I ask.

"The Goblin Union, of course." Crod says.

I stare at Crod for a long moment unsure whether he is screwing with me.

Insight vs Crodrick: Fail!

Then again I am looking up at a bridge caretaker troll so an organization comprised of goblin stevedore's really doesn't seem that unlikely given the circumstances.

"I'll give it some thought and let you know." I nod my head, "Thanks, Crod."

"Don't mention it." He glances over toward Cinnamon who is hauling the last of the bags from the back of the cart. I'm about to go assist her but with his hand on the back of my neck and over my shoulder Crod pulls me close.

"Little word of advice?" He lowers his voice to a bare whisper. His breath curling my nose hairs with stank I prepare for the inevitable 'If you hurt her they will never find the body,' or some other thinly veiled, colorful threat. Instead his beady eyes soften.

"We trolls aren't connected as strongly as fairy's and the like but it's a little know fact that we share a link to the 'Wylde too." He whispers, "Your Gleam friend had it right, something is definitely up with her Gramps." Crod nods toward Cinnamon and then to the gargantuan tree. "This ain't natural, so if you, Butter Bunny and that little hard headed speck start poking around looking for answers? Which I can guarantee they are going to do. Well, you just watch your back, eh?"

I nod unsure what to say.

"Right then. Night all, see you around Butter Bunny." Crod says with a wave.

"Bye, Icky." Cinnamon returns the gesture.

And with that the troll gives me a final stinging smack on my shoulder, turns and walks away into the night.