Becky and Hans made the hike to where the Polzas grew at the base of the Dead End Mountains. With several feet of snow on the ground, walking down what Becky said was the trail–Hans couldn’t tell whatsoever–was like trying to walk in waist-high water. The powder resisted every step, tiring him far quicker than he anticipated.

The Becks, however, had no such trouble. Becky and Becki could both walk on snow. On as in on top of. They didn’t even leave footprints. Hans asked if he could ride Becki for a bit of a break, but Becky insisted the Druid magic that made snow-walking possible would be nullified if he tried.

A small part of Hans believed Becky wasn’t telling the truth. She got too much enjoyment out of his struggling.

The merchant hadn’t stiffed him on quality at least. His winter apparel had him sweating despite the snow, so he opened his cloak wide to try to balance his own temperature. Becky said he looked like some kind of fanciful hero with his cape dragging behind him on top of the snow. Hans had to admit it did look kind of funny, like it was permanently billowing behind him in a dramatic breeze. Every hour or so Becky would forget about the joke, look over, and begin giggling to herself again.

When the Polzas came into view, Hans understood what Becky meant about winter not coming for the flower patch. Winter surrounded it the same way snow surrounded his boots, yet the perimeter of the patch was as stark as an ink drawing. Inside of that perimeter, lush green grass poked up through the rocky terrain. No flowers were blooming, but he had no problem believing that they could grow inside of the anomaly.

“Is it warm?”

Becky scoffed. “Like I’d know. You think I’m touching any part of that? No way. Not me. I don’t need to be disintegrated.”

Arguing against someone’s right to not want to be disintegrated was hard to do, so Hans walked around the area lacking snow. He kicked a boot-toe full of powder into the rocks and knelt to watch.

“It’s melting…” He leaned forward and carefully set his hand on one of the rocks surrounded by grass.

“Oh!” Becky yelled.

Hans jumped backward. “What?! What is it?!”

“I was surprised you touched it.”

“You mean nothing… You didn’t see anything bad happen?”

She shook her head. “You’re the one being jumpy.”

With a deep sigh, Hans got back to his feet and knelt again. The rock felt warm. The sensation was faint enough that he wouldn’t–and hadn’t–noticed it in the summer. However, he didn’t feel a pocket of permanent spring, a possibility he half-entertained because of his planar overlap theory. The rock was just not as cold as the ground around it, having enough warmth to be above freezing, but barely. He checked a few more, reaching into the patch while his feet stayed planted in snow outside the perimeter. Those rocks were the same as the others.

A vision of Gomi rooftops sprang to mind. Some spots had bare patches from heat rising up from inside. When he was a child, a carpenter told him that melted snow on a roof meant the insulation was done poorly, especially if it was an isolated square. If snow melted on a roof, they knew that part needed work. This wasn’t a rooftop, though.

“I think we should dig,” he announced.

“We aren’t digging. You can dig, but I aint.”

Hans sighed. “I suppose I can’t make you.”

“Of course you can’t.”

I don’t have a shovel.

“I don’t have a shovel,” he said to Becky.

“Let me check my butt. Nope, I don’t have a shovel either.”

Raising two hands to beg for peace, Hans said, “I promise not to make you shovel or give you a hard time about not wanting to shovel.”

“Thank you. Still don’t got a shovel.”

Nodding, Hans scraped at the dirt under the rocks with just his hands. The soil was thick with gravel, but the stones were small enough that a shovel could still get through. The top layer, at least. A slab of solid rock could be a few inches below the surface and he wouldn’t know until he was stomping around cursing about there being a slab of solid rock a few inches below the surface.

Could a planar overlap warm the ground like this? He had no idea. His instinct said that no, they could not, but that might not be based on anything other than his wanting an easier mystery to solve. He couldn’t recall any specific reading that made him feel that way, however. A simple method could reveal if a source of the heat was beneath the ground, so in a way, he didn’t have a choice. He hated digging, but he loved chasing a mystery.

New Quest: Identify the source of the heat melting the Polza snow.

New Quest: Dig beneath the surface of the Polzas.

I may have to dig a while.

“Becky, how are you with building shelters? Like a small cabin?”

She returned the question with one of her own, wanting to know why he was asking.

“I’m thinking about digging. If there’s something to find, might take a few days at least.” Hans looked at the stretch of the flower patch. “Or a lot longer,” he added.

“You know it’s winter, right? I don’t know how I feel about leaving a city boy out here by himself.”

“I’m not a– Okay. What if we got me a sparrow? That way if I’m in trouble I can let you know.”

“I don’t know.”

“I’ll pay two gold.”

“Done.”

***

Hans returned to the guild hall and began planning for the dig. He’d pack a few extra waterskins. Having seen adventurers unknowingly suffer dehydration in subzero temperatures, he knew basic supplies were critical. No convenient river flowed near the Polzas, but he could melt snow throughout the day to refill the skins and cast Create Water if he needed.

Rations were a must, which made him think that he could, perhaps, take the beer.

One of the waterskins maybe…

No, that was not a practical idea. Lugging a keg through the woods was off the table, and waterskins were for water. He’d never get the taste of beer out of it even if it only held beer the one time.

New Quest: Procure a bottle of fool’s root vodka from Olza.

He would need a shovel and a pick. The guild shovel would probably be fine, but he wanted a backup. A broken shovel two days from town would be infuriating if another wasn’t on hand. He would need to talk to the blacksmith about a pickaxe also. Hans was almost certain he saw one for sale there when last he visited. If he was wrong, one should be easy enough to have made.

When he reached the point of his planning where he considered potential risks and how to address them, his pencil stopped moving. Without knowing the source of the area’s strange power, his only options for reducing risk were high-level spells and high-level items capable of guarding against a wide range of effects and threats. Neither of which he had, and neither of which he could procure anywhere near Gomi. Magic strong enough to resist or reflect a disintegration spell would be hard to find in Hoseki, where the world’s best mages tended to live, and hiring one to cast the protection would be outrageously expensive.

Nullifying specific spells was cheaper, but that required knowing what he was facing. He had been thinking about that since they found the gnoll dust near the flowers and hadn’t made progress. If any knowledge of Polzas existed, it was likely lost in a major city at a research institution of some sort. Anything more well known would have made its knowledge into the Adventurers’ Guild. He certainly had never heard of a plant capable of casting such a powerful spell.

This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

Disintegration risks aside, if the planar overlap hypothesis still played out, he could wake up one morning to a world-ending demon looking in through his cabin window. That seemed unlikely, given that the monsters they found “coming through” could barely breathe on their own, but he was nonetheless happy that Becky had convinced him to build the cabin a distance from the patch.

At one point, Hans had suggested building on the warmth to make his stay more pleasant. The Druid told him he was dumber than the dirt he wanted to dig and insisted it be farther away. She had been right, he admitted after thinking more about it, but she didn’t need to know that.

New Quest: Alarm the perimeter of the Polza patch.

Now that was something Becky hadn’t thought of. The Druid had slept through all of the previous monster arrivals, so at best an alarm system made him more likely to witness the portal opening. At worst it gave him a few extra seconds to button his fly and get his sword.

Hans laughed to himself. A moment ago he lamented not having access to legendary enchanted artifacts to protect himself and the next he was proud of realizing he could tie cans and bottles to string for an alarm. For several minutes, he challenged himself to think of what else he might do to better prepare himself. As cool as alarm cans were, they wouldn’t keep him from getting eaten.

What might come through the portal?

The number of planes was potentially infinite, each with wildly varying qualities. A demon could come through, but a spirit or an elemental were just as likely. And the varieties went on from there, spanning every element and school of magic. A silver sword would be the most reasonable backup plan, giving him an edge over undead and other abominations known to cross planes, but he couldn’t afford one for himself and doubted Gomi had the silver to forge one.

What could be underground?

A story about ancient dragons burying themselves in river beds to hibernate sprang to mind. He scolded his overactive imagination and tried to think of real alternatives. Plenty of monsters burrowed, but none of their habits matched the Polza patch. They were far too small or were unlikely to have ever set foot in this part of the world. Several species of desert monster might grow large enough to account for the size of the Polza patch, but none of them could survive winter temperatures.

Asking a mage who specializes in earth magic would be the safest and fastest way to do the dig.

Oh, would it now? What earth wizard lives near Gomi? What earth wizard would take a job digging holes? His best idea was to write Mazo, and he wouldn’t do that. That was far too much to ask of a friend who had already been appallingly generous. The length of the trip alone was reason enough not to bother the halfling.

Other than packing potions, the only other option he had was to not dig at all. He was too curious to entertain that, though, so that path had never been under consideration.

The sun wasn’t exactly out, on account of the snow, but daylight was strong enough that he figured Olza would be open.

Quest Complete: Procure a bottle of fool’s root vodka from Olza.

Olza was slightly skeptical of Hans’ plan.

“You’re out of your mind,” she said. “If you don’t freeze to death a grizzly will eat you.”

He hadn’t thought about bears. “I’m sure Becky could just… ask them not to? We did make friends with that one bear, you know.”

“What if we need you here?”

“I’ll be a sparrow away.”

She narrowed her eyes. “That’s a long ways away.”

“I’m here to help, yes, but I can’t put the rest of my work on hold. Especially not when we think the flower patch is sending monsters into our woods, or trying to. This is me being proactive.”

“Then why do you look so excited?”

Hans shrugged. “I love my work. So what?”

Knowing the argument was lost, she asked him when he intended to leave.

“It will be several days at least. Becky is getting the site setup. I’ll head up when she comes and gets me. I’d get lost in those woods pretty easy otherwise, I think.”

“That’s not making me feel better.”

“It’ll be fine. Well, I’ll leave you to your work. If you need anything, come give me a knock.”

“Actually… You read a lot right?”

Hans said that was true.

“Are you reading tonight? Mind if I sit with you for an hour or so?” Olza tried to ask it casually, but her eyes betrayed that she was upset. They shifted nervously as the last word left her mouth.

“Not at all. I probably won’t hear the knock so just come up.”

She seemed relieved. “Thank you.”

***

Hans leaned back in his desk chair, his feet up, reading a copy of Vereth’s Vanity, a biography of a Platinum-ranked adventurer who mixed the stealth of a Rogue with the precision of an Archer, downing powerful beasts with one draw. From stealth, he would line up the perfect shot, which could take hours at times, and loose a single arrow. Sometimes it slipped between scales at the perfect angle, or through a crease in armor, or at the exact moment the creature twisted in just the right way that the arrow could slip through layers of bones without touching any of them, the arrow not stopping until it reached the heart.

Every story followed more or less the same formula, but Hans found it entertaining. The author was a former party member of Vereth’s, and sometimes it seemed like he wrote the book as an excuse to rag on the Archer’s obsession with fashion. Vereth would make impossible kills and then blow the reward money on high-end clothes and gear, hence the vanity.

Olza lay on the couch in front of the fire, her head on an armrest. The Philosophical Alchemist was in her hands, and she turned each page like she hungered for the next. She tried to explain to Hans what it was about, some theory of magical reagents driving the morality of the universe, but it was beyond him.

They exchanged a few words when she first arrived, but soon they sat in silence, each reading their book. The night passed with the steady sounds of crackling fire and turning pages. Occasionally the winter wind howled against a window, or Hans’ chair would creak when his legs started falling asleep.

When Hans got up to put a new log on the fire, Olza asked if he needed help. He waved her back to her seat. As he adjusted the placement with a cast iron poker, Olza said, “Thanks for this. It’s nice to have company.”

“Yeah, it is. Isn’t it?” He hadn’t considered it until her question, but he did find it comforting to have another person near him. The same solitude he treasured may have felt suffocating at times.

Maybe that’s part of Gomi’s charm, being cut off from the rest of the world was better if you liked who you were cut off with.

Geez. Now who is getting philosophical?

A third of a log later, Olza spoke again. “Are you alright?”

“Yeah, this chair is more comfortable than it looks.”

Olza chuckled. “No, that’s not what I meant. You seemed pretty upset when Mazo told you about Devontes. If you don’t want to talk about it, I understand, but I’ve been worrying.”

“Hmm.”

“Sorry. I shouldn’t have said anything.”

Hans looked up from his book. “It’s okay.”

She sat in the quiet, giving him as much time as he might need.

“Devon started taking classes from me when he was twelve. That kid never made the same mistake twice. No exaggeration. I mean ever. As soon as you corrected something, that was it. You never saw it again. By the time he became an Apprentice, Bronze adventurers avoided sparring with him. They were still way stronger than Devon, but he outskilled them.”

Hans leaned farther back, looking up at the ceiling.

“He learned so quickly. I’d like to think it was my teaching, but it was all Devon. He trained and studied relentlessly. I knew when he got Iron he’d pass me up, probably quickly. When he hit Gold, I was at Gold, but we weren’t equals. He was already sprinting to Diamond while I floundered.

“You know he became a Paladin, right?”

Olza nodded.

“Paladins are for fairytales. Before Devon, the last Paladin was a few hundred years ago, and whether or not he was a ‘real’ Paladin is contentious at best. When Devon told me a deity offered him a Paladin pact, I said it was a bad idea.

“‘Gods don’t just hand out boons,’ I told him. I mean, when was the last time a god spoke to mortals? Ages. Most don’t even have names, and that made me even more concerned: the deity wouldn’t tell Devon who or what he was.”

“And he was going to pledge himself to a deity he didn’t know?”

“There’s an argument to be made about hiding names, if you believe the stories about fae. The deity had preemptively explained the absence of a name for just that reason. Devon believed it. A few months later, he swore the oath and was gifted his Paladin abilities. We didn’t talk much after that. There’s more, but it’s a lot of guild politics and such.”

“I’m sorry,” Olza said.

“Yeah, me too.”

“So he wants to remove you over a grudge?”

“It’s complicated.”

The alchemist nodded and quietly returned to reading her book, but her thoughts were elsewhere. Every story she ever heard celebrated Master Devontes as a paragon of virtue, and his deeds seemed to confirm that. What was Hans not telling her?

She looked over the top of the couch to see Hans staring at the floor, his book open and forgotten on his lap.

“I should get home before my fire dies completely. Thank you for having me over, Hans.”

“Don’t mention it.”

“Well, goodnight.”

“Goodnight.”

Hans never looked up. When Olza looked back at the apartment from the street, she thought she saw Hans’ shadow still seated in the same chair, staring at the floor.

***

Open Quests (Ordered from Old to New):

Progress from Gold-ranked to Diamond-ranked.

Mend the rift with Devon.

Complete the manuscript for "The Next Generation: A Teaching Methodology for Training Adventurers."

Identify the unknown purple flower from Olza.

Protect your place in Gomi and maintain control of the Gomi chapter.

Find a practical solution for a planar leak. Bonus Objective: Find a solution that uses only resources available in Gomi.

Expand the Gomi training area to include ramps for footwork drills.

Convince Olza to call the purple flowers “Polzas.”

Find ways to support new tusks in their transition to life in Gomi.

Identify the source of the heat melting the Polza snow.

Prepare to excavate the Polza site.

Dig beneath the surface of the Polzas.

Alarm the perimeter of the Polza patch.