Time: 4 days 23 hours 40 minutes 3 seconds

Despite the preceding violence, the horse stood stoically in the road, its blinkers shielding its eyes from the carcasses. Joren came to its side, stroked its russet back. A good, strong horse. Obedient. Now in need of a new master.

Joren checked the chests at the back of the carriage and found them unlocked. There were two. The first was filled with clothes. The tattered general’s uniform he wore between worlds was bloodstained and sopping wet, clung uncomfortably to him. The old man, whose body now lay still beside the carriage, had thankfully been tall like Joren, the measurements of his clothing agreeable to Joren’s frame.

He stripped out of his old uniform, but before he could slip into the old man’s clothes, a voice behind him called out, “You there!”

Joren’s back stiffened. The voice was authoritative, confrontational, feminine. It was this last trait that saw him cup his genitals before turning to face her. She stood at a distance of thirty paces with a glowing hand outstretched, fingertips teasing blue magic from the air. Engaging the same mental lever that revealed the bandit’s various figures, he surveyed the woman’s.

Level: 0

Blood max: 3 cups

Muscle max: 1 sinews

Soul max: 3 motes

Spirit: 49

Body: 11

Mind: 30

“Level?” he wondered aloud.

The woman lowered her hand and her digits cooled, releasing their magic into the air. “It means we’re both Morriim.” As she approached, Joren felt acutely the disparity of exposure. The woman wore tan leather pants, its material taut across her muscular thighs. A loose-fitting white blouse tucked into the leather pants and a forest-green hooded cape billowed around her. Beneath the hood, Joren spied flaxen locks, for a moment recalling the golden hair of his beloved. “I’ve seen more penises than a prostitute in an occupied village,” she said, flinging open the second trunk. “Your modesty is not on my account.”

The vision of his wife vanished like wisps of smoke swatted into the ether. As Joren slipped into the dead man’s clothes, he asked, “What sort of life did you lead before Morrii brought you to Eldaviir?”

She flashed a grin. “Wondering about the penises?”

“It’s a curious introduction.”

“I led my father’s army after his passing. It was already difficult gaining their respect, despite having been blessed by magic. Easier making up for that deficit when you embed yourself among the troops. Months on a campaign, the men get very comfortable with each other. At the first sight of a freshwater pool, they’d tear their clothes off and run naked for its respite. So don’t worry about propriety. What’s your name?”

“Joren.”

She offered her hand. “Nahlia.” They shook.

She drew back her hood as she rifled in the trunk, exposing two long, pointed ears. After Joren stared at these peculiarities for several moments, Nahlia spoke up. “You don’t see me staring at your squat, round ears, do you?” She looked up at him. “I’m what’s known to most humans as an elf.”

Joren didn’t know this word, nor the species it described. But another question pestered him now. “How is it we understand one another?”

“Vectimos.”

“Pardon?”

Nahlia turned to face him. “Did you ask Morrii nothing as you traversed the in-between?”

Joren thought back to his conversation with Eldaviir’s God of Death, in which he would not have characterized himself as incurious, but was beginning to doubt that assessment. “What is Vectimos?”

“Who,” she corrected. “The Eldaviiri God of Erudition. Equipped the Morriim with the common tongue.” She lifted a luminescent vial of blue liquid from the trunk. “Curious item for a family of farmers to be carrying.”

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“What is it?”

“Potion of soul regeneration. Something I was in desperate need of not twenty minutes ago. I didn’t realize magic—motes depleted so easily here. The system here is slightly more punishing than what I’m used to.”

Joren gripped the side of the chest, a gesture to assert himself in her field of vision. She paused her rummaging. “You lived with these numbers before?”

“Not these numbers, but yes. Didn’t your world have them?”

Joren shook his head.

“How did you know when you were close to death? How to strategize for a battle? When you would exhaust your mana and require replenishment?”

“Intuition,” Joren answered simply.

Nahlia scoffed. “How’d that work out for your world?”

His face darkened. “It ended.”

The same shadow swept Nahlia’s features. “Sorry.”

“A mage tried to make himself a god. Instead, he destroyed the world.”

“Sounds like the power of a god to me,” said Nahlia flippantly as she went back to looting the chest. “Here,” she said, tossing out a red vial.

Joren snatched it from the air, a slender glass ampoule storing a bright red liquid. “What is this?”

“Potion of muscle regeneration. Better you keep it than I, you’re the brute of the two of us.”

“How do you know what these are? It could be poison for all you know.”

“Check your inventory.”

Joren’s brow furrowed, but then the information appeared in his vision.

Inventory:

1 light potion of muscle regeneration

1 farmer’s outfit - equipped

“Most things explain themselves when you acquire them, I’ve found,” Nahlia explained. “Did you already check their bodies?” She nodded insouciantly at the dead.

“I didn’t slay the family,” Joren defended himself.

Nahlia paused her search once again to inspect him. She stepped up to him, tilted her head to gaze into his dark eyes. A curtain of greasy black hair draped his forehead. A matching scraggly beard hung from the bottom half of his angular face. She could see the strength in his stare, complemented by the wiry physique, but it was a war-worn patina, a callous protecting raw flesh underneath. She wondered how difficult it would be to reach it, what special sort of blade might pierce his scars to graze his bleeding heart. “No, but you avenged them, eh? I suppose that justifies our stealing their things.”

Joren felt queasy at the thought, but before he could defend himself, Nahlia spoke again, “Listen, Joren, the bargain we’ve struck with Morrii is a vicious one. If you have to stop every ten seconds to defend your actions, you’re going to run out of time.”

Joren eyed the petite woman—elf with wariness. She was slight, lean, fit, with powerful thighs and a slender upper body. Shimmering, yellow hair dusted her shoulders and big, sky-blue eyes took in the whole of the world around her. Her size belied formidable skill on the field of battle. He read this in the way she carried herself, confidently, but not with arrogance. She had no fear in his presence. “Are you proposing we band together?” he asked.

“Our skills complement one another. It makes sense.” She dropped the lid on the trunk with a heavy thud. Joren retracted his hand fast enough to avoid injury. “Mostly pewter plates and other kitchenware, some cheap jewelry we might hawk for a little coin. How’s the beast?” She flicked her eyes at the horse, statuesque at the head of the carriage.

“Fine.”

“I say we ride into the next village, offload the chests, then regroup. Figure out which way we ought to aim our path of destruction.”

The elf exhibited no compunctions about their morbid deal. But Joren also knew her lack of sentiment would prove an asset in the days to come. She was cold and calculative, traits valuable in the business of killing. Joren knew from his experience as a general in Isandros.

So he found himself hip to hip with Nahlia in the driver’s bench of the carriage, pulling away from three freshly dug graves, one each for daughter, mother, and father. The bandits they dragged into the woods for the scavengers to eat. There was not a coin among the five of them, but Joren took one of the swords, and when he wrapped the belt around his waist and slipped the blade into its sheath, he read the update to his inventory.

Inventory:

1 light potion of muscle regeneration

1 farmer’s outfit - equipped

1 weak iron sword

When he focused on this addition, more information scrolled past his vision.

Regular Attack uses 1 sinew to spill 1 Cup of Blood, Strong Attack uses 2 sinews to spill 2 Cups of Blood.

It would do for now, he thought.

The two of them remained silent for the ensuing hours, which Joren was grateful for. It permitted him to enjoy the splendor of Virii forest while digesting all that had happened to him. The second chance he’d been gifted was a blessing, he decided, rather than a curse. If he could rid Eldaviir of its scoundrels, that would not be such a bad use of his talents. In exchange, sunlight shafting through lush foliage, mellifluous chatter of birds, a beatific harmony among living things.

One maintained by foreign wolves stalking the land.

They emerged from the forest into a sprawling landscape of rolling hills shortly before dusk. At Virii’s doorstep resided a little village surrounded by farmland. As the horse drew the carriage towards this outpost of civilization, its name appeared at the bottom of Joren’s sight.

Wenderton

And out from Wenderton, charging up the road to meet them, came an angry mob, two dozen in total, brandishing farmer’s tools for weapons.

“Not so warm welcome,” muttered Nahlia.