“You and Kane are in charge while I’m gone,” Hans said to the two boys. “Here are the keys to the storage room and the front door.”

He set a key ring on the desk.

“You both know how much responsibility this is, so I won’t give you the ‘take it seriously’ lecture. You’re both capable, and I trust you.”

The boys stood a little straighter.

“I mean it. I’m proud of you both. I made some monster flashcards for a game you can play with the kids, and feel free to review the herbs we’ve covered. If there’s an emergency, there are potions and weapons in the back. Last thing: I need you two to make me a promise.”

They each raised an eyebrow.

“Promise me you won’t be reckless. Adventurers need to be alive to help people, so a big part of the job is understanding when a risk is pointless. You’re welcome to pitch in when you’re needed, but no running off into the woods by yourselves or anything like that. Get a sparrow, and let Charlie or Galad make the calls. You promise?”

“We promise.”

“Good. Those are powerful words. Never forget that.”

The children beamed with pride.

With guild duties accounted for, Hans stopped at the blacksmith to collect his new pickaxe. When he was there, he realized he should pick up a woodsman’s axe as well, thankful to find the smith had one to sell. The head just needed to be mounted to a handle, a brief and simple process for a craftsman. Hans might need lumber to reinforce the sides of his dig site to avoid cave-ins, so he was relieved that he was able to get the axe despite his initial oversight. Hans hoped he wouldn’t actually need it, because if he did, he would have to move a lot of dirt without finding anything.

The tools were well made, but he wasn’t looking forward to carrying them to the Polza patch. The blacksmith told him he was looney for trying to dig in this weather but accepted the coppers all the same.

Becki helped carry some of the supplies. Apparently carrying baggage didn’t nullify the ability that allowed her to walk on snow. He thought he saw Becky smirking when he mentioned that observation.

The cabin she built for Hans was surprisingly cozy, and he wondered if the Druid lived in something similar. He didn’t bother to ask because he knew she wouldn’t say. No one knew where she lived, if she had a permanent residence at all. Hans did know, however, that he could trust the cabin to keep him warm. Bushcraft had its own kind of elegance. A trained eye could see the craftsmanship and creativity that went into building a shelter. Becky was good. Very good.

With some axe work, she had modified a series of 6 to 8 inch wide logs, linking them together at strong perpendicular angles, and then she packed the walls with mud and grass, inside and outside. The interior was compact with barely enough room for Hans to lie down. If he stood, he had to hunch to avoid bumping into his thatched ceiling. That was by design, though. The larger the shelter, the more heat it needed and the more surface area that could bleed that heat. A good shelter was big enough and no larger.

A small fireplace made from rocks connected to a clay chimney, directing smoke through the wall and out of the cabin. For the bed, Becky built a small raised platform from wrist-thick branches, bound together with twine. Keeping Hans off the cold ground and away from water that might leak in was critical. A wet bedroll or wet clothes were a death sentence in the winter. The platform was a simple way to guard against the danger.

The shelter was small, but Hans didn’t doubt that it would be warm. Compared to some of the camping he had done, this cabin was decadently luxurious.

After she helped Hans string the alarm cans around the perimeter of the Polza patch, Becky and Becki set off to take care of ‘pressing business,’ but they promised to stick closer to Gomi in case they were needed. The dwarf was usually vocal when she wanted something known, so the fact that she was intentionally vague about everything else was enough of a hint for Hans. He didn’t ask. He thanked her for her help and wished her luck.

***

“Digging is so…” Hans chewed a few curses. “...stupid.”

The good news was he hadn’t disintegrated yet. The bad news was he had moved four Becky’s worth of dirt without finding anything interesting. The task was simple, but it was slow, dull, and tiring. Every bit of progress made the project more difficult, forcing him to lift his shovel higher and higher to toss dirt clear of the dig.

He had planned to need seven days at most to complete his investigation, convincing himself that anything warming that much soil would not be far from the surface, but he also knew he was capable of rationalizing anything if it meant an adventure. Realistically, he could dig for weeks and not find anything. He hated every shovel of dirt but was excited to be chasing a mystery, so he resolved to keep pushing.

Having taken part in a few digs, Hans knew this project would take effort. He underestimated, however, how much help a small army of Apprentices with shovels really was, which the guild often recruited for such projects. He could probably figure out a way to disguise shoveling as some kind of practice drill to get the kids’ class out here…

And his mind meandered onward from thought to thought to pass the time, keeping his attention on his inner monologue instead of the burning in his muscles and the ache in his knees. He wrote much of his book on training adventurers like this, mentally drafting pages many times over before putting them to paper, taking advantage of long hikes or quiet hours on watch. Currently, he debated how much dungeon theory to incorporate into his manuscript as much of it wasn’t supported by drills.

Skills like fighting in tight spaces had a direct tie-in to combat skills, and as he found with the wooden corridor in his training yard, could be incorporated into lessons fairly easily. Searching for traps was another life-saving skill, but he didn’t have a good way to train that beyond escorting adventurers through a dungeon while pointing out what to look for. That worked okay, but he disliked that the next step was those adventurers practicing those skills in a live dungeon. With so much of his philosophy on learning reliant on safely forcing mistakes, he felt there should be at least one middle step–A way to train trap awareness safely but under mostly realistic conditions.

The best idea he had for that drill was to booby trap the neighborhood with safe-er traps for the kids to discover. If they missed one, they wouldn’t die, and Hans would have a teachable moment. The adult townspeople were unlikely to share his enthusiasm for that style of teachable moment, especially when they were the ones faceplanting from a tripwire or rubbing their heads after stumbling under a “safe” deadfall.

New Quest: Design a system for training dungeon awareness.

Excellent. Another quest I’ll never complete.

***

Hans awoke to the sound of scratching. Faint, distant, and soft like the rustling of paper. He lay still, listening. The sound was coming from the direction of the dig site, yet none of the alarm cans had made noise, which meant nothing had gone in or out of the Polza patch.

That’s an interpretation, not a fact, he reminded himself. Maybe it avoided the alarms somehow. Best not to assume without laying eyes on the source.

He quietly grabbed his sword and crept from the cabin to the dig site, the scratching growing as he drew closer.

Crouching behind a boulder, he tried to relax his eyes as he took in the darkness of the patch, letting his gaze linger so that he might discern the smallest shift of movement in the black. He could see the cans hanging still on their strings, but he couldn’t see any creatures nearby. The longer he sat, the more certain he was that the noise was coming from inside of the Polza patch, though he couldn’t see where.

This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.

Sword drawn, he stepped over the alarm strings without disturbing them. Movement came from the pit he had dug, and the sound he followed was distinct and clear. Whatever was making those noises, was in the pit.

Before he braved looking over the edge with a lit torch, he sat in the darkness for a moment longer, scanning his surroundings for threats. Gnolls usually wouldn’t attack a human, but this was winter when food was harder to come by. As he saw with Gunther, gnolls were more willing to risk hunting people this time of year. He didn’t want to get caught in an ambush.

He saw no threats or heard any other noises beyond the scratching in the hole. His hole.

Kneeling at the edge, still not poking his head over, he counted to three and cast Create Fire on his torch. At the same time, he looked over the side with his sword ready to strike. The flash of fire coming into existence startled the beast at the bottom of the pit, but all it could manage was a faint whine and the barest hints of panicked scurrying.

It could hardly move at all, actually. This chimera had five legs, three sticking out its round back at odd angles as if they were meant to be arms or wings instead. Of the two legs that looked functional, only one moved. It pawed at the side of the pit over and over, not making any real progress toward escaping, its movements little more than muscle spasms.

It didn’t have a neck, and its head sat sunken between what should be its shoulders, its black eyes and mouth–narrower than the spout on a water jug–twitching slightly. If he looked closely enough, he could convince himself that some pieces were from gnoll anatomy and others from squonk, but more than anything it looked like a potato with misplaced legs.

He needed to kill the chimera as soon as possible. Having no way of knowing what threat the creature posed, he wouldn’t feel safe investigating the area otherwise. Hans was fairly certain that this wasn’t a monster that relied on trickery, like a siren luring sailors to rocks with its song and its beauty, but better safe than dead.

But it’s down there…

Climbing down into the pit with the monster was a bad idea. His sword was just out of reach, even if he lay on his stomach and tried stabbing at it that way. Maybe he could spear it with a shovel or use the pickaxe like a giant throwing axe.

Oh gross. Then he’d need to get the dead thing out of the pit. Lifting the monster over his head and tossing it up and out was out of the question. With a sigh, he admitted to himself he would need to tie a rope around it and get it out that way. He would have to kill it where it was. That was the only option.

For now, it just needed to be dead.

Settling on the shovel approach, since he had two, he approximated where the creature’s neck or spine might be, and drove the shovel down into the pit with both hands. The tip of the tool pierced flesh and the creature went limp.

Retrieving the body could wait until morning. He had more immediate questions to answer.

Inspecting the area around the dig site under torchlight, the soft, loose dirt made tracks easy for Hans to spot. His own boot prints were all around, but other than what he thought might be possum tracks, he didn’t see any sign of the monster having moved around the pit or falling in. Checking two more times, he was certain. He could find no evidence of the creature traveling into or out of the Polza patch, or traveling anywhere but in the pit itself for that matter.

Is the planar overlap underground somehow? I’ve never heard of that. Did I start digging in the perfect spot to trap it when it came through, by pure dumb luck?

The answer was definitely “no” to dumb luck. Finding the chimera in his freshly dug hole meant something. It had to, yet he had no idea what that meaning might be. Any other time, he would be satisfied with simple coincidence as an explanation. A monster fell in a hole, big deal. But this… This whole Polza investigation made his head hurt.

After one more lap around the perimeter, making certain no potential threats lingered nearby, Hans went back to bed.

***

The next morning, the chimera corpse was where he’d left it. Poking it once more to be sure it was dead, he climbed into the hole and wrestled a rope around its body. Moving dead weight, especially 250 pounds of it or so, was awkward and tiring, but eventually he cinched a sturdy knot and got to work dragging it up and out of the hole.

Longing for a pulley, Hans was grateful his dig had sloped walls, even if they were steep. That made hauling the corpse up one handful of rope at a time a little bit easier. Regardless, the Guild Master cursed repeatedly, collapsing on to his butt in a sweaty heap as soon as the chimera rested on the surface. If another strange monster decided to appear in his dig site, he was tempted to bury it and head back to Gomi instead of repeating this process over again.

After a few more minutes of self-loathing, Hans dragged the chimera away from the Polza patch and far from his cabin, intending to bury it later that day. For now, he didn’t want to attract scavengers or predators to his location. The more he thought about it, though, he really didn’t want to add more digging to his task list. Perhaps he would burn the body instead.

Back in the pit, Hans loosened hard, rocky soil with his pickaxe. Once he had dug through a layer of clay, every shovelful of dirt after that was a hard earned victory. As he neared a depth of ten feet, he began to debate where his cutoff point should be. The charm of chasing a mystery could only last so long, and he was far enough below the ground to make getting dirt out of the hole a whole new, tiring challenge.

With his inner voice arguing against itself, exploring the pros and cons of swinging the pickaxe one more time, the tool pinged off of another rock, as it had done countless times that day. In this case, however, the rock he struck fell away, into the ground, leaving behind a small dark crack in the earth. More bits of dirt and gravel trickled away, expanding the gap.

Recognizing he had made a potentially fatal error in judgment, Hans scrambled to get out of the pit, scolding himself for not accounting for cave-ins from below. Had he been standing in a slightly different place just then, he might have fallen into the crack, which could be three feet deep or thirty feet deep. Finding out on the way down was not his preferred method.

After climbing out to collect his climbing gear, Hans roped himself off to a tree and returned to the pit.

Stepping cautiously, he knelt down and brushed at the corner of the crack, which was now four feet long and six inches across. More dirt and stone fell away, and the pieces grew in size. Wiggling at a bit of rock at the lip of the expanding hole, he pulled away a rock far different from the others he had seen during his dig.

The size of a loaf of bread, this rock had flat sides and the dark gray shade of cement mixed with cinders. As he turned it over in his hands and brushed it off, he began to doubt that this was a rock.

It was a brick.

On its own, finding a brick buried somewhere wasn’t that remarkable. All sorts of beings were capable of fashioning materials like this, and those beings had walked the land for millenia. A cabin or a home could have existed in this area at one point, and the march of time slowly buried the object Hans now held.

And then he pulled up another brick.

His heart beginning to race, Hans double checked his tie-off and cast Create Fire near the crack. The flash of light reflected off of a smooth wall before going dark again. His excitement overriding his judgment, he worked furiously to expand the crack. A few pickaxe swings later, half of the pit floor collapsed. Hans pressed himself against the pit wall to keep from falling in.

Now wide enough for him to fit through, Hans again tugged on his rope–couldn’t be too sure–and leaned close to the opening. Lighting a torch this time, he waved it around the immediate interior of the crack before dropping it. The flame fell several feet and hit a cavern floor. Though Hans had found clear signs of intentional construction in the bricks, at least part of the area below was a narrow, naturally occurring cave. And the floor of the cave was closer to him than he expected.

Thankful that none of his students were around to accuse him of being reckless, he pulled out enough slack to lower himself down, releasing one handful of rope at a time.

The descent lasting less than a minute, Hans crouched in a narrow passageway that was part cavern, part stone brick wall. The juxtaposition reminded him of the meddybemps howler lair Theneesa’s party had found so long ago. In that job, an unfinished sewer wall blended with a creature-dug burrow.

The passage dead-ended at the downhill end of the Polza patch, if his approximations of where he was relative to the surface were correct. In the other direction, it continued, but Hans wasn’t sure how far. The walls were close enough that he couldn’t fully extend his arms, and the ceiling low enough that he couldn’t stand upright, making him feel like he was walking while trying to tie his shoe at the same time. With the tight space, even a subtle turn in the passage obscured most of what might lie deeper.

The youthful excitement of discovering something new heightened his senses and sent his heart racing. For a moment, he felt like he was Iron again, about to head into a dungeon for his first crawl as an official adventurer.

But you’re not Iron. You’re Gold and a Guild Master. You’re no good to Gomi if you die alone in a cave.

Quest Complete: Dig beneath the surface of the Polzas.

New Quest: Plan an expedition into the Polza caves.

***

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.

Design a system for training dungeon awareness.

Plan an expedition into the Polza caves.