Goran was huge.

He towered more than a foot over me, and I was over 6 feet myself. His frame, though, was lanky and skinny, almost to the point that I could see his ribs. His muscles and arms were built with lean yet powerful muscle and he was clothed with nothing more than a white loincloth, clearly made from the pelt of some animal. An Ice Light, perhaps? This state of dress exposed wide swaths of night black scales that coated his body, scales so small and fine that they almost looked like skin from a distance. His face and limbs, however, were mostly human, except for the claws on his five toed feet, and his slightly unnatural eyes. His pupils were larger than they should have been, and they were ringed by a vivid red iris that glowed against the black backdrop of his sclera. These eyes were especially scary when they were on the face of a severe looking old man. It was well worn by age but still tough enough to intimidate, with well-trimmed white facial hair and a razor-sharp short beard that finished in a point right under his chin. He had slightly pointed black ears and a sheet of long white hair that drifted down to the middle his back before being tied off in a single bun at the end. On his back, he carried a long, slightly curved sword wrapped in white bandages with an obsidian handle. He carried himself like someone who could use it.

We had all nearly attacked the man when he suddenly appeared amongst us, though I suspected that that would have gone poorly for us. Judging by how confidently he moved, even amid potential adversaries, he was clearly a dangerous man. When he bent down to speak to Hope, though, I saw a slight grandfatherly glint in his eyes, the beginnings of a smile on the edge of his lips when he assented to her friendship. He spoke in a deep basso rumble that was formal, but almost warm despite that, especially when he called her ‘little one’. I relaxed just a touch more now. Maybe he really could help us.

Victor was the first to comment, in the wake of the silence after Goran’s answer:

“We are honored by the opportunity to visit the Maegar homeland for a season, if that is what you offer, kind Goran. But we ought to discuss this opportunity as a group before we take you up on it. Would that be permissible?”

He nodded, and stepped back, allowing us to come together in a group huddle to discuss our options:

“I say we take our chances going east.” Ann said, “No telling what this guy has in store for us. We have lots of food and can get more.”

“I disagree.” I responded, “Goran is offering us a chance for a temporary rest and the opportunity to move when the seasons change. If he wanted us dead, he could have attacked us when were distracted and I doubt we would have been able to fight him off. I say we take him up on his generous offer.”

“This is a big risk.” She hissed back, “If we made it through that Mist, we could manage a bit of a long hike at the edge of these mountains.”

“If you’re that paranoid, then why would we even trust his guidance about where we could or couldn’t go? By your logic, he could be leading us into a trap when he tells us our best bet is east.”

Victor looked between us, and at the rest of the group, before saying:

“We should put this to a vote. All those willing to take our chances going with the tall and scary man, raise your hands.”

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

I obviously voted yes, along with Al, Julia, Victor, and, funnily enough, Hope. Ann obviously just folded her arms in disapproval while Lynn just looked concerned, saying:

“Can we really trust him?”

We all looked back at the tall fellow waiting for us and back at her, some uneasiness creeping in again. Victor was the one to answer her:

“It’s hard to say, sweetheart, but we are going to have to trust someone eventually. This guy looks tough, so Steve is probably right about him not needing to scheme to beat us. If he is offering us something, it is likely for altruistic reasons or because he wants something else out of us besides our heads on a platter. I can work with either. Probably.”

We all turned to Ann, who let out a bit of a huff before speaking:

“Fine. If you say so. We will trust the guy who looks like he can turn us into jerky with a stiff glare. We can always back out if we don’t like what we see. Or try to, anyways.”

We turned to look at the large man who stood in the snow with his arms folded, waiting with the patience of a sentinel to find out what we had decided. Though I was sure that he could guess our decision by our body language, assuming he didn’t just hear all of that anyways. I was the one to step forward regardless and say:

“Your kind offer is accepted, mighty Goran. If you are willing to shelter us for a spell, we would be deeply grateful. Just give us some time to prepare and we will be on our way.”

He nodded and sat down in the snow in a cross-legged position. I was surprised that he wasn’t bothered by the cold, even in such limited clothing, but that was a question for later. For now, we continued to take as much of the Neidyr meat as we could in a reasonable period of time. Southern Neidyr meat was poisonous, but that wasn’t necessarily the case with their northern brethren. I hadn’t had the chance to test, yet, so we could be wasting our time here, but we couldn’t pass up opportunities to gather more food. Especially when that food could potentially give us some great benefits, assuming it didn’t kill us.

I also took some time to take stock of inventory as the others were wrapping up harvesting. We were fortunate to have not taken too many injuries over the last few encounters. The only serious damage we took was our final struggle with that strange Neidyr and his crew, as well as that nighttime wrestling match with the Arthus. We were down to 52 berries left, which I was pretty happy with. We just needed to trade some of the goods we had brought with us for some more if we needed to. I silently thanked past me for his foresight in making sure that we carried the Arthus spikes and Neidyr glands. I was almost certain that those would fetch a handsome price at whatever markets existed in Goran’s home.

I debated internally as to whether we should leave the Glasrock behind. We still had about 6 days’ worth of travel through the Mist left, and it was a pretty heavy. We had enough room in our packs for it, for now, but why carry more than you had to? Eventually, I decided to keep it. You never knew what would come in handy. My only serious concern at this point was firewood. We hadn’t used a lot of it, thanks to our newfound defenses against the cold, but we hadn’t gotten any more of it either. We still needed it to cook food, at the very least, so it was a need that I would look to handle soon.

Once we had prepared, we looked to the friendly stranger expectantly. He stood up and beckoned at us to follow him. We moved east for a few hours, tracing the border of the mountain range, before eventually following a new trail that led deeper into the range. This path stayed mostly level this time as it wound between the stern cliffs on either side of us. It was a wide path, too, making this a much more pleasant stroll than the brutal hike that Al and I had gone on for our scouting mission.

The day quickly came to a close as we jogged along our new course, and I was reminded quickly of just how tired I was. A lot had happened, and my new Technique had taken a lot out of me. Victor had told me that practice and skill would significantly decrease the burden that a Technique use would place on my body. Apparently, it was easy to waste a lot of energy if you didn’t know what you were doing.

As the sun set behind the mountains, we found a place that was well sheltered by the wind to make camp. I was eager to start asking Goran about what the Maegar’s home was like and about whether what we had on our hands was valuable or otherwise. I was sure that he was also curious about who we were and where we came from as well. But we decided to make a campfire to cook up the Ice Light and Neidyr meat first.

Just after we had stacked the wood and prepared to light the kindling, though, Goran did something strange. He pointed at the wood, almost as though he were trying to lecture it, then sat down right beside the campfire. When we looked back, we saw that the kindling had begun to burn, embryonic flames licking the logs above it. We looked back at him and stared in surprise for a few moments, but he just raised an eyebrow at us and motioned for us to continue.

I could barely hold myself back from interrogating him as I busied myself preparing to cook the food. How had he done that? A Technique? Were those common amongst his people?

The world was proving itself much bigger and much stranger than I had ever imagined.