Griffondale spread out before us and I smiled, as it looked exactly like it did in the game. Four main buildings, the inn, stable, blacksmith, and the market. The town wasn’t as interesting as it sounded all nestled in the crook of a river that flowed north to south around the town. Two moderate sized bridges led over the east paths. The main city for the area, in the game was twenty minutes away, but based on how long it took me to get here from the Haunted Halls, I guessed it was more like five days to the next biggest city, and then another ten from there to the Shining Sea where the capital was.

The four buildings were positioned haphazardly in the heart of the tiny village. There were four roads that met and this was what sprang up from the crossroads. The road to the northwest led to the capital, Brightstar and the Shining Sea. To the southwest was more forest and the path to the Haunted Halls, past that, eventually the desert Lexi spoke of when I first arrived. To the east were the Ridgeback Mountains, home of one of the Dwarven clans. Beyond them was the great Scar.

Other than those four buildings, there were a dozen vendor stalls for merchants, and then beyond the heart of the village were farmhouses, mostly to the north where the forest was cleared to make room for the farms.

I heard the rush of water as we entered the village and spotted the river that the town was built next to.

As we walked through, Alissa close behind me, I noticed the eyes of the green armored militia men on us. I tried to ignore their obvious stares, but it wasn’t easy. Of course, I had no money, and the only thing we had worth selling was the wolfs hide.

I stopped and turned to address Alissa. I wanted to ask her advice about what to do, but she was looking down at the ground, trying to hide her bulk under the noon sun.

“Uh, Alissa,” I said. “Are you okay?”

She shook her head. “This was a mistake. I shouldn’t have come here. I just thought...”

I stepped closer to her, reaching out to touch her shoulder when she flinched away. I let my hand drop and just moved a little closer instead. “I won’t let anyone here hurt you. It’s okay. Come on, just follow me. We’ll sell this wolf hide, get me some bandages, and we’ll be out of here in no time, okay?”

She nodded sharply, her eyes forming slits as she darted a quick glance at the militia. Clearly, she was worried they would harass her, which was weird because I thought orcs were welcome in this land? In the game they were, anyway. I shrugged; it didn’t change what I needed to do. “Come on,” I said, turning to go.

The only merchant I could find who might have wanted the wolf hide was the armorer, a rough looking human with a bald head and enough lines on his face he could have been a grid map.

“What?” he said not taking his beady eyes off of Alissa.

“Hi, good sir, my name is Nick and—”

“I don’t care what your name is. What do you want?”

Right. No pleasantries, I guess.

“Be careful, Nick, these people don’t like orcs,” Lexi whispered in my ear. She was hiding as best she could in my tunic. Maybe I should have had Alissa wait for me outside town, but I didn’t want to risk her leaving until I got to know her better. With how her title was hidden behind a quest, it made me think she was important.

“I have this dire wolf hide and I was hoping—” He shot his hands out and grabbed the hide before I even finished pulling out of the bag, rubbing it between his fingers, then sniffing it.

“It’s a good, clean strip. I wouldn’t expect a city boy like you to know how to do this. I’ll give you...” he held the pelt up, examining it in the light. “Two silver, not a copper more,” he said flatly, not taking his eyes off the pelt. I had no idea if that was a good amount or not.

“Ask for five,” Alissa said in a hushed town behind me, pitching her voice so only I would hear.

I rubbed my jaw, pretending to think it over. “Five silver,” I said.

His beady eyes went wide, and he looked at me with a little more respect, though he didn’t acknowledge Alissa’s presence at all. “Three,” he said.

“Four,” I countered.

“Three, and I will make the head into a pauldron for you, really put the fear into your enemies, he said. “Adora knows you won’t put your sword in them,” he whispered thinking I couldn’t hear him.

“Done,” I said, holding out my hand.

He took it in a firm grip and shook it. “Let me grab my measuring tape and I’ll have this—”

“Not for me,” I said with a shake of my head. “For her.” I pointed at Alissa with my thumb. “After all, she killed and skinned it.”

He paused, eyes going to Alissa, then back to me. He grumbled, took the hide and stormed into the back of the stall hidden by curtains. I heard him crashing around back there for a few minutes before he came back with a string and a sheet of parchment.

“Have your orc stand here,” he said.

I wasn’t used to this level of open hostility against another person. If this were Chicago, I’d slap the guy in the face. I must’ve telegraphed my feelings because Alissa put a hand on my shoulder and stepped past me to stand where the merchant asked.

I grumbled on her behalf, but she looked unaffected by the attitude the older man showed.

“Listen, she’s not ‘my orc’ and she has a name,” I said to him as he took measurements with the string then wrote them down with charcoal on the parchment.

“I don’t care,” he said as he finished his work. He wrote one last figure on the paper and rolled it up. “Three days. I’ll have it for you in three days, assuming you come back to claim it. If you’re not here on the fourth day, I’m selling it. I can’t have my labor go to waist,” he said with a sneer.

“Fine. Money?” I demanded, holding out my hand.

He looked offended as he reached under the wooden counter of the stall and produced three dull silver pieces, each about the size of a quarter.

I scooped them up, turned, and marched away not wanting to speak to that idiot one second longer.

One thing was for sure, this wasn’t how the game was. In the game, the orcs and humans coexisted peacefully. They came together to face the lizard king threat and then the undead horde, and that was the lore, long before the game even started. I didn’t get why everyone in this Podunk village was looking at her as if she were going to murder them all at any second.

I was so distracted by my anger that I marched right past a healer’s stall.

“Nick, your shoulder,” Lexi reminded me.

“Right, you’re right. This place has got me hot,” I said as I turned around.

“Maybe it would be better if I left,” Alissa said as we walked back to the wagon with the stall and table.

“No,” I said, casting my gaze about. “I think if you tried to leave on your own, those militia guards with the green hauberks would try to stop you.”

She glanced at the two men fifty feet away, standing in the shadow of one of the many trees in the village proper. They leaned up against the enormous oak tree’s trunk.

“Damn,” she muttered.

Alissa went quiet as we stopped at the healer's stall. While the other merchant's stalls could be considered spartan, this one was not. Flowers grew up around the walls, mostly daisies... no, all of them were daisies, just a variety of color I wasn’t used to. The walls were seven feet apart and framed at the top with several long support beams.

The front of the stall was decorated with a light pink, semitransparent curtain that was pulled to either side and tied off with white string in a fancy bow. Instead of a counter, like the other stalls, this one had a table I guessed was an examination bed. Behind that was another curtain, but this one had two layers, the light pink and a darker velvet. They met in the middle and were held shut by a gold tassel looped together.

If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

The roof of the place was a mix of animal hide and fabric, enough to keep the rain out, not that there was any rain. It was noon, and I was already too warm.

“Hello?” I called out.

“One second,” a woman with a singsong voice replied from behind the curtain.

“Do you know what kind of healer this is?” I asked Lexi and Alissa, as I glanced around the stall for some kind of religious markings.

“T’suni, I think,” Lexi said. “Ooh, they are renowned healers and artists. If she’s one of them,” she added.

The curtain parted, and my jaw dropped. A slender woman with long, fiery red hair tied in an elaborate braid parted the curtain. Her hour-glass figure was wrapped by a layered robe made of the same pink silk as her curtains. They moved like water, hugging her curves as she scooted around the table to come stand before me. Her head came up to my chest, and I guessed she was probably five-four. I looked down and leaned to the side to see her bare feet with her cute toes gripping the grass while she waited for me to speak.

She put her hands on her hips and cocked her head to the side. “Can I help you?” she asked, raising one delicate red eyebrow and turning her head slightly.

“Yes,” Lexi answered for me when I had trouble finding my tongue. In the game world, all avatars were beautiful. The men were muscular mountains, and the women were busty and gorgeous. Looking around town, then looking back at her, I realized that was pretty much true. Even the militia guards, with their low rent armor and weapons, had shoulders like NFL linebackers. In fact, the only other person I’d met that I could call normal was the tanner. But he was old, in his seventies at least.

No wonder he’d called me a city boy. Despite my decent shape and height, I was nowhere near the mass of muscle that every other man was.

“We were attacked by Fade at the Haunted Halls. One scraped his shoulder,” Lexi said for me as she zoomed around the affected area.

“Oh no,” the healer replied. A shadow of worry passed over her face. “Quick, off with your tunic and on the table,” she said, pointing at the table.

I shook myself back to normal, kicking myself for the over-the-top reaction. I just... I hadn’t ever seen women so gorgeous in real life more than a handful of times, and it made my thoughts a little slow.

I was a healthy man, after all.

I handed my sword to Alissa, reminding myself that I needed a scabbard soon, and then pulled my tunic over my head. Hopping onto the table, I swiveled my feet up and laid back.

She appeared next to me, strands of her red hair falling over her face as she leaned over close to my shoulder, examining the wound. I breathed in her soft, flowery scent. I couldn’t stop the goosebumps spreading over my arms and legs.

“Are you cold? I could get you a blanket?” she asked without looking at me.

“Uh, no, I’m fine.”

Lexi flittered around the wound as the healer poked and prodded. “Is he dying?” she asked.

The redhead glanced up, green eyes going wide as she came nose-to-body with my faerie-dragon.

“You’re a faerie-dragon!” she exclaimed.

Lexi crossed her arms in front of her chest and tilted her head to the side. “You figure that out all on your own?” she retorted.

“I... uh, sorry it’s just I’ve only ever read about you. Where are you from? What breed are you? No — that’s an insensitive question, uh what color? There we go.”

“Listen, doc,” I said. “I’m sure Lexi would happily answer your questions, but...” I nodded as best I could from my supine position.

“Right, sorry, and uh, who’s Doc?” she asked. “My name is Daisy, Daisy Valiant. I’m a priestess of T’suni,” she said absently while she poked at my wound. For some reason, I expected a magical healer to just throw a heal spell at me and be done with it.

Her scent was reminiscent of lavender and with her closeness was really hard to ignore, but I did my very best. “Can’t you just cast a spell?” I asked.

“Oh, I can, lots of them. But... the more I know about the wound, the more likely it is the spell will work. After all, you don’t want me closing up the skin but leaving the damage. Then, the next time I saw you, it would be to chop off your arm,” she said with a grin.

“Oh, by all means, take your time—” I flinched as she pulled semi-healed skin apart. She tsked while she worked, stopping to mutter to herself. She ducked down under the table for a moment. I heard the rustling leather as she looked for her ingredients.

“Will he be okay?” Lexi asked.

Daisy took two different pouches from the rack on the wall and sprinkled the contents on my shoulder. “He should be. Whoever you had clean the wound did a passable job preventing infection.”

“That was me,” I said, raising my other hand.

“Oh.” Her eye went wide. “You know about the healing arts?” she asked.

“A little. I was a soldier. We were all trained in first aid.”

She looked puzzled, and I realized she didn’t know what first aid meant. “Well, good job,” she said with a shrug. “You saved your arm for sure. But... are you sure you were a soldier? You look a little... emaciated to be one.”

I knocked my head against the table and groaned. Of course. I’m in a land full of incredibly hot women, and they won’t even give me a second look because I must be starving to be so tiny. It was the first time in my life that my tall frame and broad shoulders were considered below average. Dumb effing luck.

When I didn’t answer her, she shrugged and went back to work. After a few minutes of silence while she prepared the wound, she spoke. “Hold still, this will hurt,” Daisy said.

I nodded, gripping the table with my free hand.

Her fingers danced in the air over my wound. The grace and nimbleness was a show unto itself. She closed her eyes and started singing softly. I didn’t understand the words, but they were beautiful. Then the glowing started. At first it was a soft, green glow that matched the color of her eyes, but then it grew brighter, and brighter, until I was forced to close mine. The brightness was unbearable. She pressed her hands on the wound—

Pain, as if my flesh was clawed all over again, ripped through me. I gurgled, holding my jaw shut and clenched the table with all my strength.

Then it was over. The light was gone. Daisy yawned, pushing an errant ginger strand from her face. She held her hands out, closed her eyes, and whispered something inaudible. Her lips moved, but no sounds came out. Light enveloped her fingers for a moment, then vanished.

She smiled at me. “All better, now. Five silver please?”

I sat up and reached for my tunic and froze when she said the price. “Uh, I... uh I don’t have five silver.”

Her whole being deflated, and she smacked herself in the forehead. “Daisy, you know better than this,” she muttered. The healer walked in circles around her little stall, muttering to herself about having an excess of chickens and carrots because the farmers couldn’t afford to pay her.

Despite her agitation, I couldn’t help but smile. The silk outfit showed her shape, and it was a good shape. I hadn’t realized how much pain I actually was in, otherwise I would have been a little more clearheaded in mentioning my financial situation.

“Excuse me?"

“—Of course, farmer Owens brought me Bessy the Ox, his only ox, and I felt so guilty about taking her I ended up giving her back. But these ingredients are expensive, and they don’t grow on trees—”

“Excuse me,” I said again, waving a hand at her. She stopped, turned her big green eyes on me. I noticed she had a splattering of freckles across her nose which I found adorable. I pushed that aside. Even though I was in a different world with different rules, I needed to rain myself in. But damn if she wasn’t hot.

“Hi, my name is Nick. I don’t have five silvers, but I could pay you one, and then maybe we could come to some sort of mutually beneficial agreement?” I reached into the little pouch I had and pulled out half of the money I had, one silver, and held it out to her.

She bit her bottom lip for a moment, as if trying to decide on something.

“We’re going to the Haunted Halls,” Lexi added. “Maybe you need some Fade root? With all the undead around here, you would need it to fight Fade rot?” My little Faerie-dragon zipped around the room, hovered over the rack of pouches the healer had, stopping in front of each one for a half second before moving on. I swear, when the sun hit her wings just right, it was like she was moving so fast she left a trail of light.

Daisy eyed me, then leaned a bit to the right to look Alissa up and down. “Well, if she’s going with you, then you might actually return, so yes. I accept. Let me get you a bag that will hold the root stable until I can properly store it,” she said excitedly. Daisy spun around and practically ran out the back. I heard her feet hit the wooden steps of her wagon.

“What is with everyone and the way they talk about me as if I’m a child?” I asked Lexi.

“I didn’t want to say anything,” my cute little dragon said. “But you are on the small side...”

I looked over my shoulder to Alissa for confirmation. The big half-orc gave me a tight smile and nodded. “However,” Alissa said. “You’re very nice.”

Oh god, a half-orc just said I had a good personality. I slapped my face and dragged my hand down my jaw. First, I don’t get to be the big, sword waving, shield carrying fighter I was in the game. Now I have all these gorgeous women looking at me as if I need pity because I’m so under muscled.

Just great. I leaned my head back and looked up at the sky and silently cursed Adora. I know I chose to come here, but a little alteration on her part seemed like it was possible.

“Here you go,” Daisy said as she ran back through the curtain. Halfway through, she tangled up with it and ended up spinning around and falling backward. I leaped off the table and caught her as she stumbled, holding her around the waist and keeping her from falling. The silk of her robes was incredibly smooth and with her hair pressed up against me I could smell that sweet lavender soap she used and feel her softness as she pushed against me to stand.

“Sorry,” she mumbled, her cheeks turning pink as she held the bag out to me. Daisy glanced at Lexi. “Do you know what to look for?” she asked.

“Mhmm. Pink flower with six petals, and a yellow center,” she said, beaming.

“You know your flowers?” Daisy pushed the bag at my chest and walked past me to stand in front of Lexi.

“Yes, I do,” Lexi said proudly. “I’m a faerie-dragon, after all. Is the bag enchanted to keep them fresh?”

“Yes, it is! Oh, how exciting. I haven’t gotten to talk to anyone about herbalism in forever! Please tell me you can stay for a few minutes?”

Lexi looked at me with her eyes wide and mouth open in anticipation. I pulled the tunic over my head and tied my belt around it, securing it and my pouch. “Sure,” I said with a shrug. “Alissa and I will go see about what provisions we need and can afford. Meet us at the inn. And Daisy?”

She turned with a look that said she was only half paying attention to me. “Thank you for the excellent healing.”

“Oh,” she said. Her eyes focused on me as if I were a real person. She smiled, blushed a little more, then turned back to Lexi. As I walked past I heard them launch into an excited volley about which plants were best at fighting infection.

As we walked toward the inn, Alissa spoke. “Nick, they won’t like me in the inn. In fact, this whole town would rather I left.”

“Nonsense,” I said with a wave of my hand. “I don’t know what’s going on, but you’re my friend. You saved my life. If I’m staying, you’re staying,” I said.

The two militiamen who had spent their day under the tree watching us, walked out of the inn and stopped right in front of us.

“The orc is coming with us,” the one on the left said. “By order of the Baron.” He punctuated this by pointing his finger right at my chest.