By the time it stopped raining, Fin still had a noticeable amount of mud covering his body. He put on his pants and walked barefoot, shirt in hand, with Brando to the front of the loop.

When they arrived, they stood at the back of the line for water and a sog-square.

Noticing them approaching, the woman at the back of the line touched her forehead and heart before stepping aside and bowing.

"It's okay, we'll stand back here," Brando said, waving at the woman to stop making a spectacle. He wasn't in a hurry for whatever was in the front of the line.

Upon hearing the woman's voice, the rest of the line looked behind them with a similar response and moved to let the two pass.

"This is all your fault," Brando muttered to Fin before moving to the front of the line, telling each person to stop as he passed through. Fin, acting as if he didn't hear Brando, gave Frome's blessing to each of their fellow miners as he trailed after him.

Arriving at the front, Sophia offered them each two squares of the sour bread with a smile. "It is an honor serving a true follower of Frome."

After seeing her reject Brando's attempt to return one of the two squares, Fin took it and held a hand up. "We are honored by your gift, but the less attention we get, the better."

"As Frome wills," Sophia responded, then set Fin's two squares back.

"Uh, thanks," Brando muttered before moving towards Leonard's cave.

Leonard smiled brightly at them and handed them each a fully functional pickax. "These are the best we have, brothers."

"Frome be upon you," Brando said before speed-walking in the direction they came from.

"It's Frome be with you-"Fin corrected when he finally caught up.

"I don't care if it's Frome's flaming crack," Brando cut in. "With all this special treatment, it'll be the back of Frome's hand when the goblins catch wind of us and send us to bloody Frome himself. Then I'll have to explain what I was doing impersonating a priest farmer. It makes me uneasy."

"It sounds like you need a girlfriend." Fin pulled out his rock, kissed it, and tucked it away. "Can't have mine, though."

Brando's face creased with anger. He wanted to take that rock and throw it as far as possible. He wanted to take his pickax, throw it against the wall, and break it like the other mining tools. He realized that was probably why all the pickaxes were broken in the first place. People like Fin and his girlfriend rock. Then the absurdity of the situation dawned on him, and he started laughing.

Fin eyed him wearily. "Are you okay? Look, Frome isn't just for farmers. Some people would say that if you're lucky, you must have impressed Frome somehow. So, you aren't technically impersonating anyone. All things considered, you're better off than you could be."

Brando's hysteria subsided. "I've been in here a total of two minutes, and I'm already losing it. Just a few more days to go, right?"

"Just a few more days to go," Fin agreed.

The rest of the day was spent in silence and the constant clink of metal on stone. Brando chiseled away at the spot the dwarf had shown him, and Fin cleared away loose dirt from an area several paces away.

Their progress was interrupted a few times as the group they had met the day prior dropped off a crude cloth sack. Another time when the old lady they had rescued came to thank them. She offered a gem, but both declined the offering. They told her to use it to stay alive while they planned to escape and get help. When the woman finally left, they both continued their individual efforts.

Fin's efforts weren't completely worthless. As he reached into his tiny cave to remove a rock, he pulled out two small gems. His exclamation brought Brando over.

"What is it?" Brando asked excitedly.

"I just found these two little guys," Fin held up two clear gems as big as the tips of his index fingers.

"That's not bad, not as good as what I found," Brando smiled dumbly as he waited for Fin to ask what he meant.

"Let me see them," Fin relented, excitement growing on his face.

"There's only one," Brando corrected and then pulled out a Topaz, nearly as large as Fin's rock, and turned it so the light would catch.

Fin was about to exclaim at the size of it when he noticed movement coming from the wall behind Brando. "They're watching us," Fin whispered, taking the massive gemstone and trading it with the rock in his pocket.

"That's not a gem," Fin said loudly, showing Brando the rock he had spoken such sweet things to earlier. "You really had me going there." Fin casually discarded the rock.

This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

"I'm going to get back to work then," Brando said softly, taking back his prized gemstone. "We'll talk later."

As Brando walked away, Fin completely ignored the goblin staring directly at him. He didn't want it to notice that he noticed the attention. When the goblin's attention finally drifted away, he walked over and picked up the rock he had discarded. Nearly convinced that the smooth, flat rock had nothing to do with unlocking his Earth quests, he tucked it away just in case.

Hours later, Fin's cave was complete. He crawled inside to test the comfort level. It was just wide enough for him to sprawl out and long enough that his feet could touch one wall without his head touching the other. Despite it being out of the sunlight, the earth seemed unusually warm. Still cooler than the summer heat, he closed his eyes and drifted off into a pleasant nap.

"The bell rang. We have to go!" Brando called into the opening of Fin's cave.

Fin opened his eyes to see a notification blinking in his peripherals. After crawling out of his cave, he brought his notifications into view as he started walking. Instead of looking at a normal window, a circular one surrounded his vision. Simply wanting to see what was beyond his scope, the circular window began rotating from right to left, displaying the windows he was familiar with and ones he had yet to see. There was his status page, abilities page, a blank page with two boxes he hadn't seen before, and his quest page. Stunned at how many quest notifications he had, he stopped and read through them.

* Affinity Quest Complete: Earth (3 of 5): Earthen hovel. +1 Active Ability.

* Active Ability: Stone Vizard - Locked until Earth Affinity is realized.

* Hoard Quest Complete: Path of many treasures. +1 Active Ability. Forfeit all Bone Quests.

* Active Ability: Lesser Stow.

* Treasure Quest Complete: Sleep with your treasures. +1 Passive Ability.

* Passive Ability: Treasured Sleep.

* Shroud Quest Complete: Gain all parts to a complete halo set. +1 Passive Ability.

* Passive Ability: Shroud Control.

Realizing he was walking alone, Brando turned to find Fin a reasonable distance away, just standing and staring off into space. “Fin! We have to go. I don’t want to have another incident like last time. If you have to pull another stunt, I’m going to tell them who the real chosen one is.”

Not wanting to close his notifications before memorizing his completed quests, the circular halo lifted out of sight and hung in the air above his head. Noticing it was safe, he ran to catch up.

“I just got a bunch of cool stuff by sleeping in the cave!” Fin announced as his bare feet pulled him closer to Brando. As soon as he drew close, he pointed up. “Hey, can you see this?”

“Yeah, it’s getting dark,” Brando said blandly.

“No, this thing floating around my head,” Fin drew the halo in front of his eyes and backed up, pointing directly at it.

“Did you find mushrooms growing in your cave?” Brando had an incredible idea. “We might be able to use them to escape! You didn’t eat them all, did you? How many more do you have?”

Fin assured him that there were no mushrooms and decided that if Brando couldn’t see the circle around his head, no one would be able to see it either. Making a mental note to gauge everyone’s reactions when he reached the rest of the crowd, he read his new quests to Brando.